Someone tell me why those "Left Behind" books are so damn popular?

[Reverend_Smitty]

I've never read any but I believe that there are about 30 of them in that series and they sell like hotcakes. If the fundies that buy them are going to be saved in the end of days, why are they so interested in what happens to the rest of "us" that will be "Left Behind"? (and by "us" I mean baby killing sodomite libruls...their words, not mine)

I mean what a morbid creepy thing to read about!

[Mojambo]

1. Because

Fundies LOVE having things that are theirs and theirs alone.
These books are ONLY for them and that, IMO, is the great appeal.

[Hoping4Change]

2. IMHO I think it provides them a sense of superiority that they

alone will be brought up to heaven. Frankly I pity God if he has to put up with the likes of them. There is also just an unbelievabe degree of sadism in the happiness they derive from the belief that as they are swept up into the rapture while the rest of the world will writhe in agony. As for me nothing sounds worse than a horde of everlasting fundies.

[madinmaryland]

3. I've read the first

10 in the series. I wanted to know what the fundies were talking about. They were actually kind of interesting and funny at the same time. They are trying to reinact the end of the world according to the Bible (well one version of it). Though when you have the main characters carrying around satellite cell phones, driving hummers, and able to fly super modified 747's, it becomes more of a sci-fi/alternative history type of book. The thing that annoyed me about the books are the prayers and short spells of pontifications from the Bible.

A good writer could have made a facinating tale based on the stories in the Bible without pontificating to the reader and trying to converting to the author's version of Christianity.

[Plaid Adder]

19. For a far more entertaining and liberal-minded take on the Apocalypse

I can recommend Lyda Morehouse's Archangel Protocol series highly:

http://www.lydamorehouse.com

Lyda's series is set in a near-future America on the brink of the Apocalypse, and it's thought-provoking, fast-moving, and very, very funny. I think the second book in the series is out of print, which is too bad because it's the one that deals most with Muslim cosmology.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Love Bug]

29. I've read the Archangel Protocol books! Excellent!

You're right--these are much better than those stupid fundy-revenge-fantasy "Left Behind" books.

I met Lyda at a scifi convention-- she's pretty cool!

[madinmaryland]

31. Thanks! I'll check that out.

[realisticphish]

4. my grandfather (a Lutheran minister)

goes into a HUGE rant about that every time he sees them mentioned. He says the theology is ridiculus, and that they are distorting a LOT of passages from the bible...sorry, no specifics, he gets pretty in depth, but he HATES them

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. To answer your question,

fundamentalist media (the only media that true fundamentalists will expose themselves to) promote these books endlessly, because they promote the desired political mindset, particularly in having the anti-Christ be the head of the European Union and having an alliance between the U.S. and Israel.

[Reverend_Smitty]

7. The head of the EU is the anti-Christ?

wow thats pretty fucked up!

[Robeson]

11. You pretty much summed it up

[Sabriel]

6. Even creepier are the young adult versions

Yes, now you young, impressionable people out there have your own Left Behind series! Gitcher indoctrination here:

[Reverend_Smitty]

8. Thats almost as bad as those Jack Chick comics

It's one thing for adults to read this drivel, but now they are polluting the minds of children...wonderful.

[peacefreak]

14. I had a woman come into the bookstore

and ask for Left Behind for her early reader! Thank god they don't exsist. What's next, Left Behind board books?

[Southpaw Bookworm]

21. LB graphic novels

To reach all of those wayward manga fans.

:scared:

[solinvictus]

17. Eastern European

Notice the anti-Christ is an Eastern European?

[leftistagitator]

9. They tell gullible fake Christians what they want to hear

That everybody but their fellow right wing anti-Christian brethern are about to be swept up into the everlasting hatred and torment of their wicked god. The man who writes these books is in league with Moon, a man no true Christian would associate with. Remember that when one of these "Christians" tells you Jesus says you're going to hell.

http://www.gorenfeld.net/blog/2004/04/left-behind-authors-fawning-letter-to.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. It heightens their sense of superiority and schadenfreude

The "Left Behind" series heightens their sense of superiority and schadenfreude.

The next series of books is going to be about the torments endured in hell by all those left behind. Full of salacious details. Daring, even.

(added: Writer hoping4change said it better than I did)

[Radical Activist]

12. They have to have something since Harry Potter and LOTR are evil

Its sci-fi and fantasy for evangelicals who think those things are evil. Just another attempt to replace their lost conviction and focus with entertainment.

[JSJ]

13. 'children' love fairy tales n/t

[bleedingheart]

15. They aren't as popular as they are being hyped

they sold about 40 million in total but they have about 10 different books out there so the same audience is reading the entire series.

If each book sold 40 mil...I would really start to think that the world was seriously lacking in literature taste.

It's all about the language and loads of people fall for the way they are promo'ing themselves. They clearly have connections to the media to help them hype this book but technically I know of no one who has read them...however I know loads of people who have read Grisham's books, and the DaVinci Code...for instance...

[solinvictus]

16. Christian Zombie Vampires!!!!!

At least the type that are into these books.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

18. If it's as they say, a hell of a lot of people will be "left behind"

I'm an unsaved heathen (so says Kirk Cameron) :( I wonder what the world will be like without any fundies in it :(

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

20. It's beyond me.

To make my big brother happy, I read and discussed them with him. I found the writing atrocious, the characters one-dimensional cutouts, and the plotting just stupid. Even if you accept the Biblical record as prophetic, it was STILL stupidly plotted. For SEVEN YEARS they ran web sites that the dictators oppose, but they can't find their "safehouse," because they have "untraceable firewalls" and "secure connections" with no further explanation. That's to say nothing of the "secure phones" that no one can tap. :eyes:

[SarahB]

22. Because....

when the rapture comes, all the buyers of Left Behind books will get directly sucked into Heaven. Praise the Lord! :D

[mac56]

23. Have you seen the parody? "Kiss My Left Behind"

nm

[gpandas]

24. because they give hope to...

people who have none. i don't see how this stuff is any more unbelievable than any religious dogma. imagine a thread putting down catholic or other protestant religions as vehemently as this one. i guess you pays your money and makes your choice. it's all bullshit to me.

[yellowcanine]

25. Because they provide easy answers to life's mysteries. People like good

and evil distinctions - they hate nuance. This is why the "Left Behind" crowd is also the Bush crowd. He abhors nuance.

[mrboba1]

26. How can there be 30 books? Isn't only supposed to happen once?

:P

[kitkatrose]

27. My mother reads them.

She says they parallel the Bush administration. I love my mother. :loveya:

[BiggJawn]

28. Read "The Demon-Haunted World" and you will know why...

We're coming into a new "Dark Ages" where the Average Joe rejects a technology that he doesn't understand for a superstition that's OK NOT to understand....

And why, if they're gonna be "Raptured" do the fundies give a shit what happens to us? So they can go around now thinking (and saying) "I'm saved, I'm gonna be in Heaven, and Boy, you won't BELIEVE what's gonna happen to YOU after I'm gone! (chuckle)...."

They need re-assurance that those of us who don't spend our Sundays and Wednesday nights sitting in a hot room listening to some stuff we don't understand are going to be PUNISHED, and punished MOST severely for sleeping in and drinking, and screwing, and giving money to Kerry, etc....

Could be a "Passover" thing, too, where the Angel of Death will pass your household by if you have enough "Left Behind" books in your house, along with all the angel junk and Magic 9-11 Teddy Bears....

[Ducks In A Row]

30. it has something to do with hatred of non-christians

add using the bible to justify that hatred, sprinkle in an bad writer who knows his audience (and knows these people are proud non-readers so as to protect their simple small minds from exposure to history/truth/diversity).

And want are you left with... "Left Behind"