Pynchon as propaganda

[Terrance]

s~Z wrote:
> 
> I just don't get this contradiction that you see, and I keep puzzling over
> it. It's like you think that people who believe in life after death don't
> hate the fuck out of dying and don't mourn and wear black and cry and moan
> and feel incredible pain and even a sense of finality alongside having faith
> that somewhere down the line there'll be a happy eternal nonending. Not to
> go on and on about my personal life, but I was reared in a fundamentalist
> sect, and funerals were incredibly sad and painful events, with an
> incredible sense of finality. Even with the hope of eternal life no one was
> happy about death, and everyone I knew did everything possible to hold onto
> whatever to make it through the night. Even when I was in the midst of
> believing all of that shit, I would not have had any problem with the way
> the chaplain's passage was written, and would not have seen it as
> anti-thetical to my faith. And in the Jesus story, He was God and knew his
> crucifixion was going to result in salvation for whosoever will may come and
> that he would be resurrected to glory sitting at the right hand of the
> Father at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and yet he was begging Big Daddy
> to let him off the hook. The cup of death is a bitter drink regardless of
> what comes next.

Robert's interpretation of Christianity's view of Death and Life after
Death is very unique. I wonder who the Hell was teaching those Sunday
school classes he attended. In any event, I think his point that GR is
critical of the abuse of Religion, of the Christian religion, of other
Religions too, is pretty obvious. Pynchon even introduces Christian and
meekness and all the irony about inheriting the Earth. Pretty important
theme in GR. 

Christians fear death and cry over it. 
Well, the fear it, cry over it, drink and dance over it when they Wake
the Dead. 



Popular at some catholic funerals: 

"He will wipe away every tear.   There will be no more death or mourning
or crying
or pain."  Revelation 21:4

Revelation 21

1   And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2   And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven,
 prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Again,  see Father Rapier's sermon.