Who's read the Left Behind Series and what are your thoughts?

[jus_the_facts]

:thumbsup: or :thumbsdown:

I went through a bunch of boxes of my grandparents books yesterday and these were amoung them....thought I'd give 'em a go and thought I'd post here to get some opinions. No spoilers though! :D

[Richard D]

1. If I thought it was real . . .

. . . and if it happens, I'll probably break my wrist waving goodbye so hard.

[TygrBright]

2. I have tried a few times to read various books in the series...

...but found them, literally, unreadable. Turgid, irrational, two-dimensional, and barely coherent. The average "Heckle and Jeckle" comic looks like Proust compared to Lahaye.

Sorry. Maybe I just picked the wrong ones.

But my idea of hell is to be locked in a room with NOTHING to read except these. And L.Ron Hubbard.

shudderingly,
Bright

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. I'd rather read L. Ron Hubbard than the Left Behind books.

[jus_the_facts]

10. LOL...my Mom said they needed to be read in order...

....that they couldn't stand on their own individually. Appreciate your input very much!! :hi:

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I sweat I TRIED getting over chapter one

of the first book... EGADS...

No, not the theology, just the bad writing,

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Yeah, I always suspected the writing would be subpar. Another reason to avoid them.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. I could never bring myself to read them because I disagree so vehemently with

their premise.

[jus_the_facts]

12. I totally understand....

:hi:

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Children's Fairy Tales...and not even good ones

[jus_the_facts]

15. Angels and Demons warfare for kiddies...

:D

[Forkboy]

8. I read the first one and found it mildly amusing and 479 pages too long.

:hi:

[jus_the_facts]

11. I love to read just about anything...

...figured these might amuse me for about a week! :D

:hi: :pals:

[Forkboy]

14. You may reconsider that after reading them.

:)

:loveya:

[Seen the light]

9. They're better than people give them credit for

I read them all back in my fundy days and they're written like a poor man's 24 with an extremely heavy dose of extreme Christian fundamentalism thrown in.

The characters are all terrible, but I found the plot to be incredibly riveting.

Of course, you have to remember that I read all of them when I supported their theology, so I may have been seeing a better plot than what was really there.

[jus_the_facts]

13. I've enjoyed reading a couple of Frank Peretti's books....

....they are like you describe so I thought these would be entertaining enough to read too. :hi:

[maglatinavi]

17. fundamental book

An extremist friend (messiahnic jew) lend me the 1st one and I found it intriguing ... in the sense of fiction ... no more ... of course I know people that believe in the "rapture" and it is an intriguing thought ... but the author is a fanatic writing bad science fiction ...:eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

[Raster]

16. Low-grade religious fiction...just like the Bible.

[Warpy]

18. I've read excerpts of the first one online

and it's like a bible high school project gone bad.

I'm afraid I can't help you. The "Left Behind" movie has been on cable once or twice during the weekend when programming sucks because they know they can't compete with sports and I failed miserably at getting through that, too.

[rd_kent]

19. I read the first five about 8 years ago.

I thought the story was good and at first I could read around the proselytizing. But each book was more and more 'preachy' and they became unreadable to me. I was dissapointed because it had a good story line going.

[Chulanowa]

20. I tried reading the first one

And it was like Ayn Rand at a tent revival or something. The characterization and writing is dull and flat, and of course the premise is hokey - which wouldn't be THAT BAD except it's trying to take itself completely seriously.

[dschis]

21. Just a couple of Pharisees

trying to justify themselves.

[juno jones]

22. I had a friend who was reading those lugubrious things.

Then I turned her on to Terry Pratchett.

She never did finish reading that series...:)

Form your own conclusions of course, but life is too short to read bad fiction, especially bad fiction with such a thinly disguised agenda.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. The Nancy Drew books were better written

For a while, I went around with post-it notes that said, "Tim LaHaye works with the Moonies" and stuck them into random places in various volumes of the Left Behind series when I found it in bookstores. :evilgrin:

[MineralMan]

24. I read the first one, and found it to be execrable.

The writing's awful, and the plot is transparent. The characters are caricatures. Not worth the time.

[onager]

25. I saw the movies

Left Behind and Left Behind II: Tribulation Force. In which Kirk Hameron and a cast of refugees from suppository commercials save the world. Or something.

Couple of weeks ago, one religious cable channel played those two flicks back-to-back all day.

I posted about this scintillating cinematic experience in the Atheists group. Subject: "Giant Servings of Ham, Corn and Cheese."

Even leaving aside the Sub-Ed-Wood moviemaking and incomprehensible plotting, this is horrible stuff. An Anti-christ who is so stupid he hires his worst enemies to fly his plane and do his P.R.? Angels with flame-throwers built into their mouths? The U.N. rules the world?

WTF? I was raised as a Southern Baptist, but somehow missed most of this interesting theology in Sunday School.

As most sane people know, the whole Rapture hooraw was a product of the 19th, not the First, century. Not even the Rapture groupies can agree on exactly what will happen and when, which has split them into Pre-Millenialists, Post-Millenialists, Emo-Millenialists and a bunch of other rancid flavors.

The one weird innovation of the Left Behind series seems to be the idea that even after the Rapture, everybody gets another chance! Wow!

I was taught that either you got sky-hooked up to Jesus during the Rapture, or you went to Hell with the Popes, Jews, Muslims, pagans, uppity Negroes, Yankees, and the other kids who asked smart-ass questions about their Sunday School lessons.

[Solomon]

26. The books are cheap and disgusting. Rivers and rivers of blood

at least 5 ft. deep caused by...

Jesus and God! It's hard for me to wrap my brain around worshipping a God that causes that. The books delight in the mass murder that's going to be committed by God.

[NeedleCast]

27. Rapture-Ficiton

I read the first two thinking that as a sci-fi/fantasy fan, they'd have some value. Instead I got a lot of rapture-fiction (keeping in mind the rapture is not mentioned in the bible...at least not the fundy version of it). The writing was poor and the sterotypes totally over the top.

[jus_the_facts]

29. Thanks...I loved your blog btw.... this inparticular made me lmfao....

"Hey, douche-clown, stop exposing your balls on the fucking subway you shriveled bag of ass." :rofl:

[cynatnite]

28. I read four of the books...

There was some good storytelling, IMO. But after a while it got boring and I quit. If they hadn't stretched it out the way they did, I think it would have been far better. I'm an atheist, too, BTW.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. I've read a large part of the 1st one, and some of the 2nd, via the Slacktivist blog

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html
(or http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/ for the whole blog).

Fred Clark is a liberal evangelical; don't let the word 'evangelical' put you off - he uses it about himself, and it means he definitely believes in Christ, and would like it if everyone did, but in no way is he pushy about it, and he is solidly liberal (eg supports gay marriage, opposes war, etc.), and doesn't think the Bible should be read literally. He's spent enough time among the RW types like LaHaye and Jenkins, and knows his Bible well enough, to be able to take their 'theology' apart completely, and is also a good enough writer (he works for a paper) to demolish their writing style too. And he tells a good joke.

I think this may be the only way to read to books and not throw them away in disgust/frustration/disbelief.

Only thing is, he picks them apart in such detail that at one post a week, it took something like 3 years to finish the first book. Blogs, and PCs, will probably cease to exist before he finishes the series.