Revelation

Revelation, in the simplest form, means "God told/showed me this".

Preach to the choir
Religion
Crux of the matter
Speak of the devil
An act of faith
v - t - e
For the Biblical book of "Revelation", see Book of Revelation.
“”God told me to skin you alive…
—"I Kill Children" by the Dead Kennedys

As a term of art in theological studies, a revelation is what is believed by the followers of certain religions to be a divine message. A revelation can take the form of words spoken by a god, voices which only the prophet can hear, a dream, or divine inspiration. People who claim to have experienced revelations are either called prophets or psychopaths, depending on what they have been told to do, and the perspective of those they tell about the revelations. Abraham might qualify as both, since he was told to kill his son, and was about to do so when the voice told him it was "just kidding".

Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism and Islam are examples of religions based on revelation.

As a code word

Revelation can also be used as a code word, denoting "Stuff made up which is attributed to God in order to claim authority for it."

Using it as an excuse is a very easy way to gain moral high ground, power, money, get laid, etc.

The argument for this usage is that from the point of view of everyone other than the prophet, it is impossible to distinguish between "God told this to the prophet" and "The prophet made this up and he/she is claiming God as the authority behind it."

Authenticity

Even from the prophet's point of view we encounter the problem posed by the following theorem:

  • "It is utterly impossible to validate the authenticity of any divine revelation."

In essence, due to the inability to correctly identify the revealing agent to be God, one cannot prove a claim to any genuine divine revelation. This does not stop people from having the revelations or making such claims, however. A detailed proof of this theorem can be found here.

Revealed religions

A revealed religion is a religion based on what believers accept as divine revelations.

Examples of revelation religions, and some of their major revelators, include:

Some religions do not rely on supernatural revelation, but instead evolve/develop from their early founders working out a religious philosophy from their observations of the world. These include Taoism.

Revelations of convenience

Given the difficulty in authenticating true divine revelation, followers have traditionally had to trust that their prophet is not inventing revelations for their personal gain. This is obviously open to abuse, and some revelations appear conveniently timed to get a prophet out of a tough spot, or useful for lending authority to something a prophet wanted to do. Here are some examples of dubious revelations.

Muhammed

Muhammed, the prophet of Islam, was well known for his convenient revelations — particularly with regard to his sexual exploits.[2]

Muhammed relayed some fairly generous (at least for the men) revelations that permitted men to have up to four wives.[3] It wasn't all fun though, since men were also required to avoid favouring any one wife above the others. Muhammed, having already reached his limit, chanced upon someone else he wished to marry, but rather conveniently received a revelation from God that allowed Muhammed to exceed the limit every other man was held to.[4] As well as this stroke of good fortune, Muhammed was also given permission to treat his wives unequally to allow him to spend more time with those he preferred. God certainly held Muhammed in high esteem — to the point of insisting that Muhammed engage in an incestuous marriage to Zaynab (the wife of his adopted son).[5] Based on the Qur'an and Hadith, it's reasonable to surmise that had Muhammed wished to have sexual relations with a donkey then a revelation would not be too long in coming.

As well as enhancing Muhammed's sexual enjoyment, God seemingly thought it very important to be on hand when Muhammed needed to explain away his military failures and assorted acts of brutality. Whenever Muhammed's revelations went obviously wrong, such incidents were explained away as Satan impersonating God and sending him incorrect revelations ("Satanic Verses"). This reasoning is the basis of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.

Joseph Smith, Jr.

Joseph Smith, Jr., the prophet of Mormonism, received his most convenient revelations while we was engaged in translating the texts engraved on divinely delivered golden plates in to English. To begin with, Smith was told by the Angel Moroni that no-one else was allowed to see these plates — on pain of death.

Smith's translation efforts were assisted by Martin Harris — acting as a scribe and a financial supporter. Lucy Harris, the wife of Martin Harris, was a little more skeptical than her gullible and by then heavily indebted husband, and asked to read the 116 pages that had to date been produced. The manuscript promptly vanished, and Mrs Harris suggested that Smith and Harris should be able to again translate the plates and arrive at the same result — assuming of course that Smith wasn't simply making stuff up. Fortunately Smith received a revelation advising him that the plates should not again be translated, and in their place he received replacement plates.[6]

Conversely though, some of Smith's revelations turned out to be rather poor advice from God. In a more notable case, he was told by God to found a bank. The bank collapsed within a month, leading Smith to flee an arrest warrant for illegal banking — leaving behind many bankrupted followers who'd been told that investing in the bank was a religious duty.[7]

gollark: That... doesn't mean randomly taking over countries is fine?
gollark: Ominous.
gollark: Yes, CEASE this meme.
gollark: (I was reminded of this because IIRC helium is found as a byproduct when extracting natural gas)
gollark: The US apparently messed up management of its helium reserve somehow, so there's a shortage or something.

See also

Notes
  1. Though as with almost anything involving Judaism and religion there is considerable debate about it


References
  1. See the Wikipedia article on John of Patmos.
  2. Muhammad's Just In Time Revelations WikiIslam has a more detailed analysis of Muhammed's handy messages from God.
  3. Qur'an 4:3 Before those revelations, men were actually allowed to take up an unlimited number of wives. Men can have only four wives, so spayketh the Lord!
  4. Qur'an 33:50 The Lord spaketh that Muhammed is special and deserves to have more wives.
  5. Sex Life of the Prophet
  6. Mormonism: A Racket Becomes a Religion
  7. Wikipedia has a detailed write-up of the events surrounding Smith's divinely inspired bank, the Kirtland Safety SocietyFile:Wikipedia's W.svg
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