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Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start WWIII to Speed the "Second Coming" ... and Atheist Neocons are Using Religion
MILLIONS OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS WANT TO START WORLD WAR III ... TO SPEED UP THE SECOND COMING
The Founding Fathers weren't particularly anti-Islam.
But millions of Americans believe that Christ will not come again until Israel wipes out its competitors and there is widespread war in the Middle East. Some of these folks want to start a huge fire of war and death and destruction, so that Jesus comes quickly.
According to French President Chirac, Bush told him that the Iraq war was needed to bring on the apocalypse:
In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:
“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”…
There can be little doubt now that President Bush’s reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam’s Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.
And British Prime Minister Tony Blair long-time mentor, advisor and confidante said:
“Tony’s Christian faith is part of him, down to his cotton socks. He believed strongly at the time, that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone – Iraq too – was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil, making lives better.”
Mr Burton, who was often described as Mr Blair’s mentor, says that his religion gave him a “total belief in what’s right and what’s wrong”, leading him to see the so-called War on Terror as “a moral cause”…
Anti-war campaigners criticised remarks Mr Blair made in 2006, suggesting that the decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God.
Bill Moyers reports that the organization Christians United for Israel - led by highly-influential Pastor John C. Hagee - is a universal call to all Christians to help factions in Israel fund the Jewish settlements, throw out all the Palestinians and lobby for a pre-emptive invasion of Iran. All to bring Russia into a war against us causing World War III followed by Armageddon, the Second Coming and The Rapture. See this and this.
This all revolves around what is called Dispensationalism. So popular is Dispensationalism that Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series has sold 65 million copies. Dispensationalists include the following mega-pastors and their churches:
They are supported by politicians such as:
- Texas Senator John Cronyn
- Former House Minority Whip Roy Blunt
- Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
- And others
Dr. Timothy Webber - an evangelical Christian who has served as a teacher of church history and the history of American religion at Denver Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Vice-President at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, IL, and President of Memphis Theological Seminary in Tennessee - notes:
In a recent Time/CNN poll, more than one-third of Americans said that since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, they have been thinking more about how current events might be leading to the end of the world.
While only 36 percent of all Americans believe that the Bible is God's Word and should be taken literally, 59 percent say they believe that events predicted in the Book of Revelation will come to pass. Almost one out of four Americans believes that 9/11 was predicted in the Bible, and nearly one in five believes that he or she will live long enough to see the end of the world. Even more significant for this study, over one-third of those Americans who support Israel report that they do so because they believe the Bible teaches that the Jews must possess their own country in the Holy Land before Jesus can return.
Millions of Americans believe that the Bible predicts the future and that we are living in the last days. Their beliefs are rooted in dispensationalism, a particular way of understanding the Bible's prophetic passages, especially those in Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. They make up about one-third of America's 40 or 50 million evangelical Christians and believe that the nation of Israel will play a central role in the unfolding of end-times events. In the last part of the 20th century, dispensationalist evangelicals become Israel's best friends-an alliance that has made a serious geopolitical difference.
***
Starting in the 1970s, dispensationalists broke into the popular culture with runaway best-sellers, and a well-networked political campaign to promote and protect the interests of Israel. Since the mid-1990s, tens of millions of people who have never seen a prophetic chart or listened to a sermon on the second coming have read one or more novels in the Left Behind series, which has become the most effective disseminator of dispensationalist ideas ever.
***
During the early 1980s the Israeli Ministry of Tourism recruited evangelical religious leaders for free "familiarization" tours. In time, hundreds of evangelical pastors got free trips to the Holy Land. The purpose of such promotional tours was to enable people of even limited influence to experience Israel for themselves and be shown how they might bring their own tour group to Israel. The Ministry of Tourism was interested in more than tourist dollars: here was a way of building a solid corps of non-Jewish supporters for Israel in the United States by bringing large numbers of evangelicals to hear and see Israel's story for themselves. The strategy caught on.
***
Shortly after the Six-Day War, elements within the Israeli government saw the potential power of the evangelical subculture and began to mobilize it as a base of support that could influence American foreign policy. The Israeli government sent Yona Malachy of its Department of Religious Affairs to the United States to study American fundamentalism and its potential as an ally of Israel. Malachy was warmly received by fundamentalists and was able to influence some of them to issue strong pro-Israeli manifestos. By the mid-1980s, there was a discernible shift in the Israeli political strategy. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Jewish state's major lobbying group in Washington, D.C., started re-aligning itself with the American political right-wing, including Christian conservatives. Israel's timing was perfect. It began working seriously with American dispensationalists at the precise moment that American fundamentalists and evangelicals were discovering their political voice.
***
Probably the largest pro-Israel organization of its kind is the National Unity Coalition for Israel, which was founded by a Jewish woman who learned how to get dispensationalist support. NUCI opposes "the establishment of a Palestinian state within the borders of Israel."
***
In their commitment to keep Israel strong and moving in directions prophesied by the Bible, dispensationalists are supporting some of the most dangerous elements in Israeli society. They do so because such political and religious elements seem to conform to dispensationalist beliefs about what is coming next for Israel. By lending their support-both financial and spiritual-to such groups, dispensationalists are helping the future they envision come to pass.
***
Dispensationalists believe that the Temple is coming too; and their convictions have led them to support the aims and actions of what most Israelis believe are the most dangerous right-wing elements in their society, people whose views make any compromise necessary for lasting peace impossible. Such sentiments do not matter to the believers in Bible prophecy, for whom the outcome of the quarrelsome issue of the Temple Mount has already been determined by God.
Since the end of the Six-Day War, then, dispensationalists have increasingly moved from observers to participant-observers. They have acted consistently with their convictions about the coming Last Days in ways that make their prophecies appear to be self-fulfilling.
***
As Paul Boyer has pointed out, dispensationalism has effectively conditioned millions of Americans to be somewhat passive about the future and provided them with lenses through which to understand world events. Thanks to the sometimes changing perspectives of their Bible teachers, dispensationalists are certain that trouble in the Middle East is inevitable, that nations will war against nations, and that the time is coming when millions of people will die as a result of nuclear war, the persecution of Antichrist, or as a result of divine judgment. Striving for peace in the Middle East is a hopeless pursuit with no chance of success.
***
For the dispensational community, the future is determined. The Bible's prophecies are being fulfilled with amazing accuracy and rapidity. They do not believe that the Road Map will-or should-succeed. According to the prophetic texts, partitioning is not in Israel's future, even if the creation of a Palestinian state is the best chance for peace in the region. Peace is nowhere prophesied for the Middle East, until Jesus comes and brings it himself. The worse thing that the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations can do is force Israel to give up land for a peace that will never materialize this side of the second coming. Anyone who pushes for peace in such a manner is ignoring or defying God's plan for the end of the age.
***
It seems clear that dispensationalism is on a roll, that its followers feel they are riding the wave of history into the shore of God's final plan. Why should they climb back into the stands when being on the field of play is so much more fun and apparently so beneficial to the game's outcome? As [one dispensationalist group's] advertisement read, "Don't just read about prophecy when you can be part of it."
ATHEIST WAR HAWKS MANIPULATE BELIEVERS TO BEAT THE DRUMS OF WAR
Leo Strauss is the father of the Neo-Conservative movement, including many leaders of the current administration.
Indeed, many of the main neocon players - including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Stephen Cambone, Elliot Abrams, and Adam Shulsky - were students of Strauss at the University of Chicago, where he taught for many years.
The people pushing for war against Iran are the same neocons who pushed for war against Iraq. See this and this. (They planned both wars at least 20 years ago.) For example, Shulsky was the director of the Office of Special Plans - the Pentagon unit responsible for selling false intelligence regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass. He is now a member of the equivalent organization targeting Iran: the Iranian Directorate.
Strauss, born in Germany, was an admirer of Nazi philosophers and of Machiavelli. Strauss believed that a stable political order required an external threat and that if an external threat did not exist, one should be manufactured. Specifically, Strauss thought that:
A political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat . . . . Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured
(the quote is by one of Strauss' main biographers).
Indeed, Stauss used the analogy of Gulliver's Travels to show what a Neocon-run society would look like:
"When Lilliput [the town] was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect." (this quote also from the same biographer)
Moreover, Strauss said:
Only a great fool would call the new political science diabolic . . . Nevertheless one may say of it that it fiddles while Rome burns. It is excused by two facts: it does not know that it fiddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.
So Strauss seems to have advocated governments letting terrorizing catastrophes happen on one's own soil to one's own people -- of "pissing" on one's own people, to use his Gulliver's travel analogy. And he advocates that government's should pretend that they did not know about such acts of mayhem: to intentionally "not know" that Rome is burning. He advocates messing with one's own people in order to save them from some "catastophe" (perhaps to justify military efforts to monopolize middle eastern oil to keep it away from our real threat -- an increasingly-powerful China?).
What does this have to do with religion?
Strauss taught that religion should be used as a way to manipulate people to achieve the aims of the leaders. But that the leaders themselves need not believe in religion.
As Wikipedia notes:
In the late 1990s Irving Kristol and other writers in neoconservative magazines began touting anti-Darwinist views, in support of intelligent design. Since these neoconservatives were largely of secular backgrounds, a few commentators have speculated that this – along with support for religion generally – may have been a case of a "noble lie", intended to protect public morality, or even tactical politics, to attract religious supporters.
So is it any surprise that the folks who planned war against Iraq and Iran at least 20 years ago are pushing religious disinformation to stir up the evangelical community?
Conservative Christians were the biggest backers of the Iraq war. And the Neocons are catering to them to try to back them into war with Iran, as well.
I've recently seen a swarm of spam claiming that all Muslims are evil, that they want to take over the world and establish a Muslim caliphate, and that they want to nuke Iran. They misquote Muslims and use false statements to try to stir up religious hatred.
They are simply promoting the Straussian playbook: stir up religious sentiment - even if you are personally an atheist - to create and demonize an "enemy", so as to promote war ...
NOT A PROBLEM WITH A PARTICULAR RELIGION ... BUT OF IMMATURITY
Most Americans confuse Zionism and Judaism. But many devout Jews are against Zionism, and Zionists can be Christian.
And as I've repeatedly noted, fundamentalist Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all very much alike, and often willing to use violence to spread their ideology ... while more spiritually mature Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all much more tolerant and peaceful than their evangelical brothers:
As Christian writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explained, there are different stages of spiritual maturity. Fundamentalism – whether it be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu fundamentalism – is an immature stage of development. There are peaceful, contemplative Muslim sects – think the poet Rumi the poet and Sufis – and violent sects, just as there are contemplative Christian orders and violent Christian groups (and peaceful and violent atheists).
While there are certainly some Arab terrorists, Islam cannot be blamed for their barbaric murderous actions, just as Christianity cannot be blamed for the Norwegian Christian terrorist - Anders Behring Breivik's actions. University of Chicago professor Robert A. Pape – who specializes in international security affairs – points out:
Extensive research into the causes of suicide terrorism proves Islam isn’t to blame — the root of the problem is foreign military occupations.
The 9/11 hijackers used cocaine and drank alcohol, slept with prostitutes and attended strip clubs … but they did not worship at any mosque. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. So they were not really Muslims.
And even atheists like Stalin can be terrorists, or at least genocidal maniacs.
Indeed, all religions teach compassion, love and the Golden Rule. Likewise, atheism teaches respect for the individual, the most good for the most people, and helping everyone reach their human potential.
Some within each philosophy follow these teachings, and others want to kill everyone who doesn't agree with them. The issue is not really the label of this religion or that, but of maturity and true spirituality and compassion.
Postscript 1: Neoliberals and Neoconservatives are very similar in many ways. And because Neocons are not conservative, nothing in this post is meant to criticize conservatism.
Postscript 2: Most evangelicals are not dispensationalists, and so do not want to bring on armageddon.
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This article confirms that Geo Wash is a trolling nutter determined to ignore the words and deeds of the religious rulers of the Religion of Peace.
However, it does not deter him from sliming a real religion of peace which has no desire for destruction of any country or the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Who is paying you for this nonsense after the passing of Matt Simmons?
Be nice. Sometimes GW goes off his meds but we love him anyway.
Dominionism, Reconstruction, etc.
The following video from Cornell is pretty good, if you aren't put off by the slightly gender ambiguous narrator:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc8XS-PxFFA
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
She's fine she has discrete tits and a nice voice. The content is awesome; compassionate conservatism and all those thingies about diminishing government make we feel like a man having withdrawal symptoms; awfully depressing, ominously directional and regressive.
Ayatollah Khomeiny would not have disclaimed these teachings in the name of Shia theocracy. I'm sure the Sunnite Ulemas must be suffering from an extreme and persistent rash of Acne that Sunnite law forbids middle-men clergy to interpret God's word to impose the written Quran's interpretation on believer. Saving grace of Sunni civilization, that the Wahhabites have twisted by acting as surrogate Caliphs and thus attaching their political agenda to Ulema rash, thus feeding the world with extreme Al-Qaeda type trash.
Aladin would not be proud of them, and Sinbad would have sunk them all in Dilmun straits like impious singers of the forty thieves rock band of bagdad café. But then they were all sons of the House of Wisdom of Abassid Enlightenment. Where Scherezade danced to seduce the Caliph every night and didn't wear a walking tent to hide her charms. I'd shave every beard in Islam for a scent of those times, to incense Baghdad nights and Ispahani delights.
You crack me up. +1
No. Dispensationalists view dominionists as heretics and vice versa. Different set of folks with very different ideas and agendas.
Right - like Shia vs Sunni.
Shia & Sunni are more like Protestants & Catholics, if a comparison must be made.
In terms of politics, the dominionists want to create an actual theocratic Christian government; whereas the dispensational-premillenarians believe that the Christians will be removed from this Earth around the same time that an antichrist theocratic government is set up. So needless to say they are moving in pretty different directions!
Time must be drawing nigh rather quickly. "Dispensationalists" were shortened to "dispensionalists" by the last line. (I think George must've needed to go put out a Lilliputian fire in the room of porcelain peacefulness.) ;)
mb
Please, tell me more slanted opinions re Christianity, a religion you obviously despise.
How about this: Live to be the best example of your religion. We are given free will by God. Some choose to be Christian, some don't.
When Jesus returns, and He will, all tongues shall confess Him to be "Lord of Lords and King of Kings". No person can control the timing of His return.
BTW, where are the screams for justice for the Christians who are killed in Africa, or sold into bondage in the Middle East?
Every Third Word said:
Thank you.
Both the Gospel and the Quran are in agreement on this.
They exist, like the screams for justice for the innocent killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Gaza. We don't hear them, though, because they're being drowned out by the screams in support of exterminating more innocents, this time in Iran.
I thought Iran was the one pushing for war, you know hasten the return of the Mahdi and all that?
Christian Zionists are almost as disgusting as Jewish Zionists. How anyone that bases their religious beliefs on Jesus can justify preemptive aggression is beyond me..? At least with the Jews it's clearly stated in their Talmud that the best of the Gentiles are to be killed, and they can commit wholesale slaughter as "God's chosen people".
Zionist Jews have been using Christians as useful idiots for the last two millenia. The Jews don't believe in the "grafting of the olive branch", or the "righteous Gentile". They look at ALL Goyim with utter disdain.
I still have idiot family members that support Israel no matter the attrocities they commit in Palestine or elsewhere. I show them the evidence of Israeli involvement in 9/11, Mossad agents arrested exploding a van on King St., two more trying to blow up the GW bridge, Odigo advanced warnings to Israelis at WTC complex....Crickets.
The Illuminati have hijacked several religions in the name of their "god" Lucifer. Any "Christain" pastor who favors starting a middle east war, is just another puppet for Lucifer.
The new age that Illuminist George W Bush (whole family is into it) was talking about is the the Global Lucfierian Dictatorship which rules a world with only 500 million people left in it.
The one true God is the God of Love, our Creator.
All others "gods" including those humans who believe they are gods, are working for evil.
Look at the evil men do when they believe they answer to no one.
The Illuminati believe in the God of love, but since they are working for evil, they want to kill him
Also all this Religion vs Religion baloney is to keep us fighting each other, while they sit behind the curtain and laugh.
"There are more similarities than differences between opposites" "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer @1951. All religious loonies are basically alike in their ravings; and all are equally dangerous. Milestones
What GW points out is that it's a stage of immaturity, a mal-adjustment. Basically, a deep and quite understandable ignorance exists, mixed with deliberately inculcated massive fear, and programmed unawareness and blindness. I don't say that to put anyone down in that situation, not at all, it's just a stage people go through. Some suffer in it some just move on.
The real danger is if people don't develop. And the fundies definitely want to lock-you-in at that level of development, because you're worth 10% off the top every week to them as a scared fundie, and it's tax-free $$$! So their doctrines and emphasis is to stunt you and frustrate you, to lock you in to strict observance of THE WORD, as they present it, and of course, their delivery of it is not to be questioned, or you are apostate and damned, etc.
The pastor 'leader' knows, deep-down, that's what they're really doing to people, but most of them are parasites living off others hard work and tithes, so their incentive is to stunt your internal development.
The truth is, there are no spiritual 'leaders', you and your ignorance are all alone in this life, and only looking at the world as it is and noticing that it is already perfect, and then finding that the same perfection is ALREADY inside, also, is the process, and you can not fake it out -- Eternity knows you, you won't fool it.
It will teach you, if you allow it to, and that's not a religious statement of faith, I just discovered that it already wants to do that, and it especially needs us to pay very careful attention to whatever happens, all the time. Just like a teacher requires us to pay attention, or we will miss the vital connections.
There are people who have already left-the-building so to speak, and do 'help', but they also know that ultimately they can't do anything to make or cause someone develop, to the point where they can stand alone and independent, yet will never be alone or separated.
Looking for a spiritual-guide or pastor or teacher is like saying you could make a baby physically grow by stretching them on a rack. It just doesn't work that way -- internally neither.
It has to be gone through, completely.
Gone through what?
Life.
Life is eternal, it is our own and also only teacher, there is no 'Master' for you but life.
That's what it means when stuff like this is being said; "I am the way the truth and the life, follow me".
i.e. follow life and develop. That is the way, follow the truth, be ruthlessly honest and candid with yourself, make decisions, and you will develop. If you change something boldly and radically now, like throw out all your cloths, books, and music, without any hesitation, when you wake up tomorrow you will start wearing different cloths, and reading different stuff etc. Changes that force us to engage a different situation make us develop in new ways.
Now do that INTERNALLY.
I dare you!
Eternity wants this, it's what we're supposed to do, to radical internal redevelop, to routinely shock ourselves out of a locked-in and under-developed state.
To have the guts and the 'faith' in life and eternity to do it.
All the rest of existence is comparatively irrelevant, compared to that vital process.
You can't develop if you're dead or locked in to a mental edifice, and humans are meant to develop internally. So freedom to develop is a necessity, a prerequisite, and that is the only reason to try and make a real difference in that regard in the world, so that the mental-war, that we are all engaged in, results in conditions that are more suitable for more and more people to fully develop, internally.
And they will stand alone, and they will never fear, and can never be alone.
Exterior development matters, yes, but it is secondary and only essential to the extent that it promotes the growth of the inner, and that is where our perverted society has got it all crashing-backward, in reverse, with our foot planted on the throttle.
And we are still fools enough to call ourselves the, "developed world".
It's a deliberately constructed lie, a terrible 'cultural' perversion, and it's intent and effect has been is to make us ignorant and not pay attention, and thus lock-us-in at an undeveloped state and keep us there.
True freedom is internal, and internal only. The notion that it is outside us is another lie, designed to get us to persist in a fruitless political and social quest, to find it, where it isn't to be found.
--
And nothing I have said in there will help any one. But that's not my responsibility, it's all yours.
Now go and decide to radically change some stuff and never forget pay keen attention to what happens.
This article is absolute poo-poo, and I'm a bit surprised that so many ZH readers are buying into it per their comments below. I am a lifelong Christian, and I've never, EVER heard of any fellow Christian around me actively wanting war or talking about how great it would be to "stir up the pot" to speed things along to the Apocalypse faster. NOT ONE. That's ridiculous, and if the author of the above article had actually READ the Bible (i.e., Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation, etc.), he'd know that it clearly shows how (1) Christians won't even be here (duh...Rapture, anyone?) and (2) the thousand years spoken of is AFTER the Tribulation and Christ's return, not before.
The author has completely screwed up Scripture and revealed himself as an ignoramous. It's not like he was referring to some obscure news article nobody else could look up and see for themselves. Good grief.
If you choose not to believe the Bible, then that's certainly your choice and your right, but COME ON...at least get the facts straight.
In general I agree with what you're saying, but you're wrong that some self-professed Christians aren't trying to speed things along. Look at the lunacy about trying to breed a red heifer, etc. An extreme & heretical minority, but they do exist. But no way, as the article says, that they constitute "millions" of "Evangelicals."
Also, the pre-tribulational rapture is by no means a foregone conclusion from the plain sense of scripture.
I am a lifelong Christian, and I've never, EVER heard of any fellow Christian around me actively wanting war or talking about how great it would be to "stir up the pot" to speed things along to the Apocalypse faster.
Time to get out of your basement then.
I assume this means you pesonally know people who talk about stirring the Apocalypse pot? How many? Not guys on TV or those you heard someone talk about, guys you know. I know a lot of dispy believers who think all this will happen as discribed here but not one would lift a finger to move it along because an intrinsic part of dispensationalism is the belief that such events are already set in the mind of God and nothing they could do will change things, NOTHING. I'm sure they would buy into the war of good against evil thing and could very well make some epic bad choices based on that but only an ignorant idiot would waste his time trying to get a dispensationalist to lift a finger to "hasten the 2nd coming". They would scratch their heads in disbelief that you even think it could work. ???
He and I must be in the same basement because in my 50 years of living I don't ever recall a single Christian wanting this shit to go down. In fact, they're horrified by it. They accept that it will happen but that's very different from WANTING it to happen. I call BS on this article.
Could not agree more...What George is spewing is crazy talk
In fact, they're horrified by it.
Why? They all think they're gonna be "raptured" out of it.
They're not of course.
Maybe deep down they know it. Deep down they know their "rapture" fantasy is just that, a fantasy.
I used to believe the rapture lie, then I read the WORD for myself.
Satan is real and he wants as many suckers to go down with him as possible.
The Devils one tricky mother ___er, brotha
---- Richard Pryor "That Niggas Crazy" 1989
Obadiah said:
You got that right. Just look what he did at the Councils of Carthage and Nicea.
You're talking about the First Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., I presume? In which they sought to come to common agreement on the diety of Christ (as compared to the gnosticism that abounded in that day)?
Whether this or something else you intended, please explain.
lol ... I like your take on that, and the NT, spot on. I read enough of the Coptic stuff (and Mormon farce also) to know all those doctrines and books are 100% rigged.
The best bit of the NT is the Book of Rev where bjezus dude comes back and the smirfs all say, "Here we are Lord!" And he says fuck-off, I don't know you and you've never known me. Talk about bad investment!
Oh, I don't doubt there might be a few somewhere (though I've never met or heard of any myself), but for the author to title his article to include the word "Millions"? That's quite an assumption, and the use of such a huge number is a blatant attempt to throw that blanket over all Christians. Highly misleading, and poor journalism.
(1) Christians won't even be here (duh...Rapture, anyone?)
Man, are ya'll ever in for a shock. :)
2nd coming yes. Rapture no.
Post-mil?
I lean towards pre-mil/post-trib ("Immediately after the great tribulation ..." Mt 24:29) but I'm not so bold as to declare myself definitively on the matter.
At no time will there ever be a Christian "rapture". Pre-mil, intra-mil, post-mil, whatever, it's never gonna happen.
Post Toasties are the way to go.
"Don't let your mind Post Toastee,
like a lot of my friends did."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DBzlLWGHtE
the rapture is a fraud man. didn't even exist until the 1800's... a tweak here, a tweak there, and the bible says whatever they want it to say. which is exactly what taking things at face value makes one a useful idiot.
The pre-trib rapture gained popularity in the 1800s. It shows up sporadically in early writings. The idea of the living and the dead both meeting Christ in the clouds at the end of time is not at all new and very much Biblically grounded.
Kipper und Wipperzeit said:
That may very well be so, and I agree that it may very well be Biblically grounded.
Nevertheless, if it wasn't something said by Christ in any of the books of the Gospel, I consider it bullshit. I apologize if anyone takes offense at this, because it's not my intent. I just don't see the rest of the New Testament as having any religious importance. They're just books written by various people which, in my opinion, were used as a smokescreen to obfuscate the teachings of Christ and establish a political hierarchy.
Yep.
Now here's an article "George Washington" won't be considering in his anti-American/anti-Israeli worldview:
Russia must stay “combat ready” – Orthodox Church
The truth is that George Washington has everything almost perfectly backwards, and the Antichrist is thankful for support from such useful idiots.
the same people that infiltrated and corrupted Christianity (convincing Christians to support the very world control system that Christ opposed), also infiltrated every other religious traditions, including parts of the orthodox Christian church, parts of the Islamic tradition etc. there is no "one correct" group that you can blindly follow, got to use the brain that the Creator gave each of and use some common sense. if religous leaders are beating the war drum, especially the aggressive "pre-emptive" variety, it would be wise to think it through.
Well said. Never blindly follow anyone.
It's inspiring to see that some folk are starting to get it. The truth of the matter is that most "minds" are effectively "possessed" in the modern age and very, very few even suspect something is wrong. "The truth will set you free" was not meant to adorn the walls of the CIA. It was meant for an age of universal deceit when telling the truth would be a revolutionary act. Such is the case now.
And no where has Christ's message and truth been more infiltrated and turned upside down than the Russian Orthodox Church where what is emerging is literally Antichristian in its most dangerous, apocalyptic form:
http://thespiritoftruth.blogspot.com/2011/01/historical-epiphany-russias...
http://thespiritoftruth.blogspot.com/search?q=antichrist
But alas I can point the truth out until my fingers bleed and I know almost no one will understand. I hope there's fertile soil somewhere in this world for the seeds I've sought to sow, but it all seems hopeless and futile at this point.
WHO HAS THE COURAGE TO TRULY THINK FREELY ANYMORE?
Ma gavte la nata
Jacopo Belbo & Diotalevi thought freely .
____________________________________________________
" freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose "...
- ergo, 90% of the wold's population thinks freely .
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FYI - "Antichrist" was Rousas John Rashdoony, demons pretty straight forward - Ronald Reagan and James Dobson ( logistic ). Ultimative weapon was a guy named Woytila, with lot of friendly consulting from Bill Casey .
The rest of the story is kinda linear . 92000 verious creations of the Mighty Inventor dissapeared from the face of earth since then . 30yrs of shit ... soon to be over, with some collateral damages .... Boring.
Antichristian is a good thing. Christianity is the most fraudulent religion on the planet.
No intelligent rational clear-thinking person would ever claim to be a Christian.
How ironic. Have you always been that funny?
... because clearly there is a dearth of serious Christian intellectuals. /sarc Do you actually believe this?
Paul Krugman is an intellectual, and he's full of shit.
No, your "christian intellectual" argument ain't gonna fly either.
Notice I said "clear-thinking". Nobody claiming to be a christian is thinking clearly.
Remember when Savage said liberalism is a mental disorder?
Ditto for christians. Christianity is a mental disorder.
Every one who has ever lived?
Now, about this, I'm actually curious: you seem to be hostile to religion in general, but what particular part of Christianity makes you single it out so? Since we're talking about intellectual systems here. On an intellectual basis, what do you object to so much? And don't just say "the miracles," and so forth, that would fly with any religion, you've specifically singled out Christianity as the worst of them all. Or is it simply because it is the one that you are most exposed to on the basis of where you've grown up, lived, etc.?
It's very simple (you simpleton). Christianity claims to be the religion of Christ yet ignores everything he taught. In fact christianity teaches nearly the exact opposite of what Christ taught.
No other religion on the planet does that. Every other religion on the planet claiming the name of a deity, prophet, teacher, etc follows the teaching of that deity, prophet, teacher, etc rather closely.
That's why christianity is the most fraudulent religion on the planet.
Christ said every person who practices a fraud is lost. Therefore all christians are lost.
And no, they can't claim deception as a defense. It won't fly.
What sort of things does Christianity (which is by no means a monolithic hole as you seem to paint it) teach which is in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ? Surely there are plenty of hypocrites and false teachers out there. But you seem to be implying something more systemic. What is it?
What sort of things does Christianity (which is by no means a monolithic hole as you seem to paint it) teach which is in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ?
Public prayer comes to mind.
I'm all for people believing what they like, but I do think I'd say Christianity is a monolithic hole.
Jesus certainly did criticize the Pharisees of his day for ostentation in their prayer in public, and encouraged his disciples to pray in their closets and not to be seen by others. Some of today's Pharisees are guilty of the same thing, no doubt. I don't know that Jesus was adamantly against public prayer, for instance he spoke of people "gathering in [His] name" (Mt 18:20), performing the Lord's supper in His remembrance, etc. in groups. Now, praying loudly and ostentatiously so as to give the appearance of piety ... that is what he was criticizing in the Pharisees, and on this subject there is much to criticize in the TV evangelists, the megachurches, the Romanists, etc. etc. As I said hypocrites & false teachers abound just as Jesus said they would.
And Christianity is certainly not a monolithic hole. The theological diversity is rather extreme ranging from social Gospel/liberal/mainline types to serious Calvinists to "easy believerists" to Catholics (within which there is a whole spectrum from sedevanctist/traditionalist to nonconforming liberal) to traditionalist Lutherans to Primitive Baptists to Pentecostals to, well, you get the idea ... there are so many different perspectives & orientations within Christianity. Some are legitimate differences of opinion, some are deceptions in blatant contradiction to the letter & spirit of Scripture.