The Book of Jonah suggests that the prophet was punished by God for originally going against His word to prophesize the destruction of Nineveh, which in the end is not physical prophecy in my eyes if these people ever even existed as people believe they have, but instead an illustrated set of morals upon repentance and one's ''proper'' perception of importance.
Kind of like, Proper Morality for Dummies.
Quote:
"Are you really so very angry about the little plant?...You were upset about this little plant, something for which you have not worked nor did you do anything to make it grow. It grew up overnight and died the next day. Should I not be even more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals!"
Jonah 4:9-11
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Which seems naught but common sense, even if I do not believe that such grand ideas are capable to be put in motion by human hands, but I have come to believe that perhaps religion was a way to establish a sense of morality within people through entertainment, tales and legends...not willingly of course, hence all the death and massacres one may read about in The Bible. A true testament to human nature indeed.
But as I try to look deeper into religious beliefs and attempt to see the good of it, whatever intent these ''read between the lines'' concepts I have come to find may have, I am reminded that I am supposed to believe through this entire deep set of schemes and feasible human desires and even the humble aspect thereof, that Jonah was swallowed by a giant fish, lived in it for three days and got out. I could easily accept that such was the will of God, but if it were not to indoctrinate a certain sense of apparent proper morality, seeing as we are all equals, God could have tried to strive to find another prophet and let this one die for being a disobeying prick. XD So, really, it makes no sense to me.
Also God suggests that animals should know right from wrong. Er...XD
I do not quite understand what most religious prophecies are supposed to hark about; what we have to do, or what we should be?