Abstract
In Revelation 16:16, Armageddon is the name of the place where the kings of the earth are to be gathered together by the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet (Antichrist) to make war upon God at the end of world history. A Greek translation of the Hebrew Har Megiddon, or “Mountain of Megiddo,” refers to a famous battlefield in the Plain of Jezreel in Palestine, where many battles of the past were fought. Megiddo is a city in what is now northeastern Israel, southwest of Nazareth. In Revelation, the city of Megiddo was probably used as a symbol for the Battle of Armageddon because of its strategic importance in the history of Palestine and Israel. By controlling a pass that cut through the Mt. Carmel ridge from the coastal plain of Sharon into Esdraelon, Megiddo commanded the road leading from Egypt and the coastal plain of Palestine to Galilee, Syria, and Mesopotamia.
Then war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels battled with the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they did not prevail and they were expelled from Heaven. So the huge dragon, the serpent of ancient times, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of all the whole world, was hurled down upon the earth, and his angels were hurled down upon him.
Rev. 12:7–9, RSV
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
Rev.16:16, KJV
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Notes
Soldier of Fortune (SOF) magazine subscription advertisement, September 1985,16; Philip Lamy, “Millenialism in the Mass Media: The Case of Soldier of Fortune Magazine.”.
Rex Applegate, “The Evil Empire Eyes the Big Enchilada,” SOF, August 1985, 86.
“Apocalypse in America,” review of film Red Dawn, SOF, September 1984,28.
Advertisement for the Conservative Book Club, SOF, October 1990,9.
SOF, October 1984, 91.
William F. Buckley, “Death Squads and U.S. Policy,” SOF, May 1984, 24.
“Mouthful of Rocks: Modern Adventures in the French Foreign Legion,” book review, SOF March 1990, 16.
Peter Douglas, “No Honor among Mercs,” SOF, October 1990, 60.
“Onward Christian Soldiers,” SOF, June 1990, 34.
SOF, May 1990; SOF, October 1990.
David Mills, “Abandoned Angola: FNLA’s Uncertain Future,” SOF, May 1985.
David Isby, “Harassing the Bear,” SOF, September 1984, 41.
Sterling Seagrave, “Burma’s Golden Triangle,” SOF, May 1984, 38.
Ibid, 39.
James L. Pate, “Waco Hearings: Somebody’s Lying,” SOF, October 1995,92.
Craig B. Hulet, “All the News That’s Fit to Invent.” SOF, August 1995,56.
Craig B. Hulet, “Patriots or Paranoids?,” SOF, August 1995,43.
Ibid, 45.
Ibid, 45.
Robert K. Brown, “Command Guidance: Two Decades of Soldier of Fortune.” SOF, October 1995,3.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Robert K. Brown, “Soldier of Fortune, 1995 Convention/Expo Directory,” p. 1.
Richard Normington, “Wargames,” History Today, October 1986; Jon Freeman, The Complete Book of War Games (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980).
Freeman, The Complete Book of War Games.
Ibid.
Normington, “Wargames.”.
Pamela Tuchscherer, TV Interactive Toys: The New High Tech Threat to Children (South Bend, Indiana: Pinnaroo Publishing, 1988).
Lindsey Gruson, “‘Most Dangerous Game’ Is Gaining as a Sport,” New York Times, August 24, 1987: A12.
Kent Black, “It’s Only a Game: Fighting Corporate Battles with Guns,” M, April 1986,83-88.
Lionel Atwill, The New Official Survival Game Manual (New London, New Hampshire: The National Survival Game, Inc., 1987).
Ibid, 2.
D. Keith Mano, “Skirmishing,” Part II: National Review, October 19,1984,60-61.
Black, “It’s Only a Game.”.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Gruson, “‘Most Dangerous Game.’ ”.
The data for this analysis were gathered from several studies of Survival Game play from 1989 to 1992, with two outings involving Northeastern University (NU) (Boston) college students who volunteered to participate in the project as part of a course on the sociology of sport. Methodology included participant observation, field interviews, questionnaires, and videotaping. While quantitative data were collected, the analysis relies more on the qualitative information provided by players, especially in their comments and written remarks about their experiences of playing the game. In the two Northeastern games, 46 players (out of 52) answered questionnaires, and in the second game, 36 (out of 41) did the same (N = 82). From the sample, 87% (71) of the players were males and 13% (11) were females. More than half of the NU players [52% (43)] were business majors (administration, management, finance, accounting, and marketing), and 29% (24) were engineering majors. The final 19% of the players (15) were liberal arts majors.
Jay Coakley, Sport and Society, 5th ed. (St. Louis, Missouri: Times Mirror/Mosby, 1995).
Valerie DeBenedette, “Spectator Violence at Sports Events: What Keeps Enthusiastic Fans in Bounds?” The Physician and Sports Medicine 16 (March); 202–211 (1988).
John Hoberman, Sport and Political Ideology (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984).
M. Smith, Violence and Sport (Toronto: Butterworths, 1983).
David Phillips, “The Impact of Mass Media Violence on U.S. Homicides,” American Sociological Review 48 (August): 560–568 (1983); Tuchscherer, TV Interactive Toys.
R. Hughes and Jay Coakley, “Player Violence and the Social Organization of Sport,” Journal of Sport Behavior 1(1): 15–25 (1978).
James Aho, Religious Mythology and the Art of War: Comparative Religious Symbolisms of Military Violence (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1981).
Richard Sipes, “War, Sports and Aggression: An Empirical Test of Two Rival Theories,” American Anthropologist, 75:64–85 (1973).
Lionel Tiger, Men in Groups (New York: Vintage Books, 1970).
Elliot Chappie, Culture and Biological Man: Explorations in Behavioral Anthropology (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970).
Stanislav Andreski, Military Organization and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968).
Elton McNeil, “Personal Hostility and International Aggression.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 5(3): 279–290 (1961).
The research and debate on sports violence has centered on whether the violence in sporting events serves as a cure or cause of aggressive or violent behavior in participators and spectators. The debate has also focused on the nature of warlike sports, and the militaristic culture of a society. Richard Sipes provides a useful framework for this debate by contrasting “Drive Discharge” and “Culture Pattern” models of war, sports, and aggression. The Drive Discharge model proposes that aggression and warfare are basic human drives or instincts. The discharge or cathartic function of sport has also been seen in terms of “militant” energy or “enthusiasm,” ultimately defining sports and war as functional equivalents of, or alternatives to, one another (Coakley, 1990; Tiger, 1969). By contrast, the Culture Pattern model argues that learned, rather than instinctive, behavior explains cultural patterns, i.e., that aggressive behavior is learned and shows up in consistent patterns across the various dimensions of a society’s culture (Sipes, 1976). Where social institutions like the government and the media promote or glorify war, warlike or aggressive qualities will more likely be learned by the members of the society (Andreski, 1968). Other studies have suggested a relationship between the societal acceptance of aggression and the existence of warfare (McNeil, 1961; Chappie, 1970). Sometimes referred to as the “enhancement” or “sport as cause” model, Culture Pattern theories also focus on the ways in which the structural components of sports involvement may induce aggressive or violent behavior in participants, spectators, or the general public (Hughes and Coakley, 1978). Some of these studies have suggested that the greater emphasis on violent roles, such as “hit men” or “enforcers,” in professional sport (Smith, 1983), and “stimulus cues” like equipment can be interpreted as tactical weapons used to provoke violence (Coakley, 1995). Those who have controlled for other factors, including social class, sex, education, and, most importantly, types of aggression, have also found some support for the Culture Pattern model (DeBenedette, 1988). A large body of studies focusing on media violence and its effects on viewers also supports the Culture Pattern argument (Phillips, 1983; Tuchscherer, 1988). The more direct link between sport and military ideology is drawn by theorists who see sport as a type of combat “training grounds.” DeBenedette (1988:205) has noted that “in an extreme cases, rioting at three soccer games between the national teams of Honduras and El Salvador escalated into war in 1969.” Political violence has been induced by athletic contests between China and Hong Kong (Hoberman, 1984). A more interpretive approach to the meaning and nature of war games and sports would be to frame these issues in terms of a cultural reading. Like other social institutions, sport has been viewed by sociologists as an agent for the transmission of important social and cultural values; in American society, for example, participants in team sports are socialized in the instrumental values of competition, motivation, hard work, and achievement. Regular participation in sport is also believed to encourage participants in the development of physical and mental skills and in coping strategies adaptable to everyday life.”.
Black, “It’s Only a Game.”.
Albert Gross, “Armageddon under the Christmas Tree,” Technology Review 89: 73–74 (1986).
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© 1996 Philip Lamy
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Lamy, P. (1996). Armageddon. In: Millennium Rage. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6076-4_8
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