Rise from your grave!
Ok, I need help finding a book I read over 20 years ago.
My coworker has become extremely religious over the past few years, but not annoyingly so. We actually have tons of good discussions about it on the clock. Not that it really matters, but my belief is that I think there *hopefully* is something greater out there that gives this all meaning, but I would not be surprised if it is all just one big cosmic fluke. However, I think that even if there is some greater being, the Bible and pretty much everything modern religion espouses is likely bullshit. Same with Islam, Buddhism, whatever. They all pretty much say they are right and everyone else is wrong. Yet at one point if you didn't believe in Zeus you were a heretic. It is all self-serving. My coworkers main concern is always that he doesn't fully agree with something the church says, is he "wrong" for questioning or not agreeing, etc. I tell him absolutely not, but the church of course tells him exactly the opposite.
Our conversations have consistently led me to mention this book I'm trying to find. It is fictional to be clear, and deals with the Second Coming around Y2K if I remember correctly, written during that whole hysteria so probably a late 90s print date. Many of the "miracles" that are performed are very questionable, with people finding all sorts of technological evidence for why they might be faked, sound and light projectors making people see shit, etc. Jesus might even be a chick if I remember right, but that is a little hazy, and might even be hazy in the book. Anyway, the culmination of the book, and the thing that I keep telling my coworker, is that when the reborn Jesus is finally accepted as the real deal, he/she essentially declares all religions as false and condemns and disbands them, saying they have strayed from the true message that was meant to be spread, they are nothing but humans being shitty, etc. He says that it was always intended that people simply get together and talk about their faith and the way they see it, not all these rituals and paying to upkeep massive churches and judging people by obscure standards and shit.
I know that's not a ton to go on, but the end result of the book is by far the most memorable part about it, so I'm hoping someone else might have read it and remember. It wasn't a particularly great book either, but that ending always stood out to me because obviously I feel the same way. If there is a God, I'm pretty sure he didn't tell us to do all the stuff that all these different religions say we are supposed to, and I'm also pretty sure that he doesn't care if we say a certain number of Hail Mary's or whatever, he would just want us to be decent to each other. Hell, maybe he doesn't even care about that. But to think he cares whether or not you eat meat on a certain day, versus another religion saying you can't eat meat AND other shit...yeah, God ain't got time for that.
Sorry. Not intending this to be any sort of religious debate either. It just obviously ties into the whole culmination of the book, and why I'm trying to find it again.
Thanks!
