The Rachel Maddow Show: Apocalypse Now?
By Heather Sunday Mar 01, 2009 5:00pmRachel Maddow talks to Left Behind authors Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. Bob Cesca makes a good point about Rachel's emphasis in the 65 million copies of Left Behind that have been sold:
Adding... 65 million copies sold. But I don't know if book sales are any indication of popularity. Sure, the Left Behind series is popular among the wackaloons, but it's also well-documented that various wealthy wingnuts like Richard Mellon Scaife literally buy up thousands of copies of books in order to artificially inflate sales figures.
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She was very polite.
I probably would have said something like:
This is what they're going with? Redbaiting?
They're so out of ideas, that they're playing the greatest hits of the 1950's?
Problem with that is, you idiots in the Republican Party just spent the last decade selling this country out from under us to the Communist Chinese!
You better bait that Red in your mirror first, moron! The Commies now OWN US thanks to YOU.
was glad to find out that President Barack Obama is not the anti-christ...
what a relief!
Of course. Rush may disagree...
Rash never lets facts get in the way or the truth.
doesn't seem fair. We here in Canuckistan have been socialist way longer than you guys. How come your leader gets to lead the road to Rapture?
'Cause we're American, you maple leaf smoking Commie! We ALWAYS go first!
LOL.
socialism dammit. Seniority rules mean something don't they? Where's my Rapture steward? I want to file a grievance.
.
OK I'll bite... Where is it written that the anti-christ will be an american president? That sounds like a Morman story or something. According to them Jesus was born in Utah.
I always thought the anti-christ was sopposed to come out of a little village in the middle east...
Saddam Hussein was the anti-christ. So are we in the Rapture now? And if so, why are all the wack-a-loons still walking around breathing MY air?
I realize the LaHayes of the world are dominoinist nuts, but if I hear another garden variety neo-con pop off about how socialism is "the government taking care of everything for everyone" I'm gonna smack 'em! Props to Rachel (doctorate in poli-sci) for maintaining her composure in the face of such ignorance. Socialism is not totalitarianism which is what these whacks want to paint Obama with. Representative democracy IS socialist. The American commonwealth is socialist. The common defense is socialist. That We the People should empower ourselves collectively IS socialism.
Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence nor the US Constitution does it state the the American economy will be Capitalist, or (worse yet) Corporate Capitalist.
In fact, to guarantee our "unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" a socialist economy would do a far better job than any form of Capitalism.
if some of these flag-draped conservatarians read some of the words written and spoken by some of our founders, they'd be stunned to learn that many of those 'fathers' greatly feared corporatism and capitalism run amok.
The Boston Tea Party was a rejection of fascism lite.
In this 'modern' age we've traded one East India Trading Company for dozens.
Of course, much of the blame again lies with 'King' George.
would a global Christian theocracy be?
'Beware the socialist global government. Give all your power to us.'
The hypocracy is jaw dropping.
I bet their lips got tired.
Yes I know you were going for the cheap laugh, but lets be serious for a moment and consider those numbers.
The first thing to note is that 65 million worldwide is not an excessive number for a successful large SF series. Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" has sold 44 million[1], and it only runs to 11 volumes thus far vs. 16 for "Left Behind".
Also consider we are talking about 16 books, so that is really only 4 million sales per book - and while a number of people will have bought only one book, disliked it, and abandoned the series; those who buy more than one are likely to buy *all* 16. So we are really only talking 4 million sales.
Finally consider the marketing benefit of selling a best-seller to the christian youth market. There are few markets better suited to book fads than the evangelical/penticostal churches. Consider the marketing success of "The Purpose Driven Life", which far exceeds any of the Left Behind books in isolation.
In other words, 65 million is completely credible, without needing any bulk-purchasing by conservative warehouses. Although, given the dispensationalist, dominionist, eliminationist focus of the books, it would be better if it wasn't.
[1] http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117990464.h...
He's the anti-christ! The end of the world is coming!
Really now, Looney Tunes? How come this talk never came up when DumbAss was destroying our country and waving the American flag while doing it? Oh yeah, because he said God told him to do it! Makes perfect sense!
Politics + Religion = Chaos
Jesus, please save us from your followers.
perhaps not, how these self-serving dip shits that claim God talks to them always manage to make the conversation about what it is that they want. God never says anything to the effect of give away all of your money, take a job as a grade school teacher, or how about adopting a couple of teenaged foster kids?
...to come back for these wackjobs, though.
that he would see them and do an about-face.
To better understand the global christian empire I recommend Chris Hedges book, "American Fascists, the Christian Right and the War on America".
Beg, borrow or buy a copy. It is a stunning read.
I saw this and Rachel had this guy tied into knots regarding the Antichrist and the
realignmentrupturerapture. In the end it was nice to see he was forced to say that Obama could not be the Antichrist because the Antichrist comes after the Rupture.... or something like that. Also it was nice that he said that since Obama was a Christian (even though it looked like he was sucking on lemons when he said it) he would not be around to be the Antichrist.if these are the kind of worthless turds that will be populating heaven I'll gladly take my chances here. They are so far removed from Christianity and Christ's teachings it's jaw dropping.
Billy Graham invented one of the worlds best wealth transfer schemes.
His ministry buys copies of his various publications from a separate entity (Billy Graham publishing) and the ministry distributes these for free while soliciting for donations (of course). This is how church donations become silk suits. You want to guess how many of those rapture books were "given away" in the same fashion?
Most get donated to jails.
Left Behind books ARE really popular. I know because I own and have read each on in the series. The books have absolutely nothing to do with politics and they were out long before this election season. That doesn't mean that the authors aren't batsh*t crazy because they gave every indication that they are on Rachel's show. But I know a gang of people who read the books and enjoyed them and honestly I would recommmend them to anybody, even people who aren't really religious. Don't get me wrong, Christianity is an overriding them of all the books but they are also full of action and life or death struggles and people who aren't perfect and who make mistakes. They have even made some straight to dvd movies from the books (which sucked in my opinion because they didn't really stick to the plot of the books). What I can tell you though is that I am sure some in the evangelical community used the Left Behind books to their advantage to try to smear President Obama during the campaign. But I mean hell at this point what WON'T they do to smear a Democrat these days?
for taste.
is the issue. I don't doubt the books are a good read. The Left Behind series may very well have a Christian background - nothing wrong with that either.
Problem is how people seem to be reading them and NOT treating them as simple fiction as they would, say, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
Too many people reading Left Behind are allowing it influence their political views & decisions in the real world. If someone used LOTR language in a political campaign they'd be put in a white suite and carried off. Rightly so.
I read two of them, and they were not up to my standards for literature. Very pedestrian writing, at best. I couldn't get any depth out of the actors.
Yes, simple and shallow.
I found them quite difficult to fap to.
End of the world, not.
End of the word, probably.
The books are written for people who are not Christians and therefore do not know any better than to accept the rather bizarre and very badly written propaganda for pre millennial dispensationalism.
Fred at the slacktivist has been reviewing these books forever.
Someone upthread is correct. The books are purchased in large number and given away for a "small" donation by churches who find the word of God unpalatable and prefer the words of L&J.
It's the same scam that Scientology uses to bump up the numbers of Dianetics books sold.
Theologically, it's more likely that LaHaye is a part of "The Beast" than Obama, because Dominionism/Christian Reconstructionism in essence, is testing God. Trying to force his hand into bumping up the rapture by helping to CREATE the apocalypse.
These people are straight up loons. And no way they actually sold 65 million I agree that like most Conservative tomes that make the supposed "bestseller" list, this pile of flotsam also benefited from the kind of think-tank bulk buys that jack the numbers up for books by those like Hannity Napkin and the Coultergeist.
But in case you want to find the wretched minority that still likes Bush - the kind of people that even if you presented them with physical evidence that Bush was sacrificing babies to the Devil on the White House lawn, but would still think he was the greatest "president" on earth? Those are the kind of nitwits that actually DID buy Lahaye's book.
All this "Rapture" nonsense has no corollary in the actual Bible. All this foolishness originates with a woman named Margaret Macdonald hallucinating while in a fever, and an "enterprising" minister in te 1930's named John Darby, playing on people's fears, and blowing her wackjob spewage into well... Biblical proportions.
It's insanity, and Lahaye is the biggest purveyor of this particular heresy.
Are there that many people here who don't knmow people who read the "Left Behind" series? Has everyone missed book and movie thrillers based on the Christian mythos that we've seen for years and years? The "Exorcist" series, the "Omen" series, the "Hellraiser (John Constantine)" graphic novels and movie(s) to name a few?
"Left Behind" is just the next logical step: open up the Book of Revelations and you'll find some *serious" horror - disasters, plagues, deviltry afoot in the world - it's a natural.
People read them like candy, though very few people I know who've been through them take the books seriously. Just a good read.
I doubt that any right-wing sugar daddy bought up the books to distribute them - they're just the christian demographic's equivalent of Stephen King.
My favorite bumper stickers:
"When the Rapture comes, can I have your car?"
"You still here? The rapture was LAST week..."
Milo
The examples you give were actually well written. The Left Behind series had some really bad writing.
I am so happy to hear Rachel say, "The Book of Revelation". Even 90% of the hardcore Christianists pluralize it and say Revelations and it irks me to no end.
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Probably if you are trying to scare people half way to heaven with it you otter know what it is called.
Because Rachel is 1,000 times as smart as the sum of their I.Q.'s divided by the number of buffoons.
Once again the Wingnut extremists use the Bible for fear mongering and since the Bible is confusing, and God is not, I don't like the Bible. If you want a great, no BS book about Jesus the Christ read "The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ. http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/agjc/
Why are the conservatives linking Obama to Socialism and to the Apocalypse? The oldest trick in the book, they want to scare you into voting Republican. FEAR, fear so you will vote Republican. These slimy wingnuts will stop at nothing...
pulled out someone who actually knew the bibble and could enunciate chapter and verse.
books that were bought up---I found them. We have 4 resale shops in our little burg. At least 10 at every store--5 books for a dollar; 1 book for $1.25 (they want to get rid of the books bad!)
OK but only if I get four free copies of Dianetics with my five copies of Left Behind.
I'm still frustrated Kirk Cameron was not even mentioned at the academy awards.
Just type in Kirk Cameron, Bananas on youtube. Our God is an Awesome
god!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4
I saw that years back and absolutely died laughing.
Then Shiva took pity on me and brought me back to life, so I really can't worship Jesus anymore...
/bad joke
From the comments on the youtube page:
"LOL. My friend watched this and said if there really was a God he would have put a pull tab on our penis so we wouldn't have to be cut to be circumcised."
I really, really love when Xtians provide so much fodder for entertainment! :-D
Kirk Cameron and his spiritual leader went on to debate some scientist with their whole nonsense about the banana.
Basically their point is that the banana was designed by god, as it fits perfectly the human's hand, it is easily peeled w/o tools, etc. The response they received by some of the people in the panel was if they could explain the godly "insights" behind the design of the coconut...
Makes good fire starter.
I actually find these shows pretty entertaining. I've been watching Jack and Rexella van Impe for a while. they sell their left Behind-style tapes in between their gleeful predictions of the pending doom for everyone but the chosen believers.
I've been watching them get it wrong for over 25 years. They've been at it for nearly 50 years.
Gawd will F U up.
Give it a few seconds.:)
.
And my wife was laughing at me last night because I was downloading Grampa Jones.
heh!
No ?
LOL. Thanks for the link mud.
Hey? How close are you to Fort Bragg ?
Howz the rain Mud?
Light off and on. Gusty south winds up to 25-30.
I guess this isn't the apocalypse yet. Looks like we're in store for more for the next week. Not cold. Swell dropped to almost flat. Gusty southerly's tho. Which means more is on the way.
Howzit down in yer neck of the beaches
A year ago in December, we had winds up to and over 70. That's cat 1 hurricane status. Never seen that before . Right now the south winds a blasting. Gonna be lots of trees downed by tomorrow.
It sounds like the swell just picked up. Sounds like it's starting to boom out there.
I'm 3 hours north of Fort Bragg in Arcata, Mud. Storm missed us so far up here Captain Kangaroo. Much less rain than expected so far.
Used to live in Humboldt Hills. Right up from the harbor there. She teached grade school there for years and years. Her name was Lil B.
I've been there and it looks like a really nice community. South of the hustle and bustle of Eureka, which is a pretty sleepy town compared to where you live.
I can't tell you how much I love it up here. There is not any other place I would rather be for the rapture.
Lol
That's a keeper.
After a 5 second wikipedia and google search, I can only see releases of Left Behind series for the US and the UK. There are no real obvious other language translations.
So I suppose that suggests the US, UK, Canada, Australia and NZ. Based on that, 1 in 6 people in all of those countries have a copy of a Left Behind.
Shocking. And C&Ler's say Republicans don't have a plan? Sheesh!
You left out Belize.
Aren't there 16 books in the series?
I think if your were partial to their story you'd have more than one.
And how many would follow fundie missionaries into the fields and scare the bejesus out of converts learning English.
1 in 6 of 400 million-odd people has a copy of a Left Behind book. It doesn't matter that there may be 16 in the series.
Your accounting only makes sense if there is only 1 book in the series.
If there are multiple books in the series, chances are that each person bought more than 1 book in the series. It means that less than 1 in 6 people own the book "series."
Multisampling, It is basics statistics.
My husband started reading them and did not finish because he found so many errors in them. The Antichrist will come out of the middle east not the U.S. They need to go back read the bible. Where does it say that all the Christians will be raptured. They will also have to go thru the tribulation.
.
You can say whatever you feel like.
actually had never heard of him or his book before seeing this post, but it seems a marker of himself and other evangelicals that it took less than 100 words out of his mouth before he showed himself to be a liar and a charlatan.
will go to his grave believing this Rapture malarkey.
We humans are so childlike in our perceptions of our spiritual selves...and fear remains the overarching emotional landscape within which we ponder our origins.
One MUST have a sense of humor...
adding... 65 million copies sold. but i don't know if book sales are any indication of popularity. sure, the left behind series is popular among the wackaloons...
moreover, there are 7 books (i believe) in the series, so even disallowing for bulk buying (to jack up sales figures), if we assume that someone who bought book one also bought the other six books, that means that to reach the figure of 65 million copies sold, a little under 10 million people bought the whole series.
10 million people in a country of over 300 million people...ain't that impressive. really. it's like under 3%.
big frackin' deal.
That doesn't count the people that bought the first one and thought it stank.
1844 - Was the year calculated for the 2nd coming & the end of days. You gotta love the men of God who for the last 2,000 years have put on their Krusty the Klown suits & set a date for the 2nd coming of Christ, the Rature, the End of Days, the Holocaust, Armaggedon.
Some more recent claims:
Edgar C Whisenant (????) Predicted the Rapture would begin sometime between the 11-13th of September 1988. Failing this he had a go at 1989, then 1993, then 1994 right up to 1997.
Benny Hinn (B. 1952) Benny is no slouch either. He claimed, 1989 would see the Anti-Christ return to rule the world. After this no show, the 1990's would see the 1st female US President who would destroy the nation. When this failed he predicted 1995 would see God destroy America's homosexuals.
Hal Lindsay (B. 1929) During the 1980's the USA would no longer be a force & the United States of Europe would forge a "Revived Roman Empire", ruled by the Anti-Christ.
Harold Camping (B. 1920's) The 2nd coming of Christ would be the 6th of September 1994.
Jim Searcy (????) October 2000 would see the return of Jesus to destroy the Anti-Christ, who is actually Prince Charles the Prince of Wales.
Ted Porter (????) I love this one! Ted predicted the Rapture would occur at "6.13pm" on the 23rd of April, 2002.
Shoko Asahara (B. 1955) Predicted the world would be destroyed by nuclear war in 2003.
Shelby Corbitt (????) Claims God personally told her the Rapture would begin in mid-2007.
not the shely corbitt!!
=)
Crazy isn't it? Like a poster further up said, they need to read the Bible, which says they won't know the date or time of the Second Coming, but still they insist on trying to predict it, or still insist that God gave them personal revelation of the date... *sigh*
Does this mean we should ignore the warnings of the Mayan calendar, too? Rapture (or something) on tap for Dec. 21, 2012.
Yes.
I don't know personally whether to ignore to explore the Mayan calender teachings, but I can tell you that there's not a rapture involved with it.
The Mayan calendar, as well as the Aztec calendar base their predictions around the belief in catastrophic points in world history, where the world ends being in one "sun" and enters another one through, well, catastrophic events. The astronomers believed in the Aztec empire, for ex. that the year 1519 AD would be one of those suns, and as it turns out, that was the year the empire fell to Hernan Cortez.
Anyway, like I said, I don't know. :)
Edit - Oh, and yes, 2012 is supposed to be the end of the final sun.
Part of the original dogma of the Catholic church was that Jesus supposedly would come back after the 1st millenium after his death.
In fact, the main focus of the "Romanic" building style, marked by the use of the round arch and which preceded the Gothic "pointy" arch style, was the building of enough churches/cathedrals/temples to hold the faithful in prayer for when Jesus was coming back. For the better part of 5 centuries, that is literally all that went on in Europe: erecting buildings to hold enough people for the 1000AD deadline.
Part of the reason why the "dark ages" lasted as long as they did, was that most people expected judgement day to come "any day now" so what was the point of working on the betterment of society/science/letters/etc.
The funny thing is that there is no reference to the concept of "rapture" anywhere in the original Christian dogma. There are plenty of reference to the "final judgement" which is completely different: i.e. people don't get saved just because they are Christians they have to endure a trial. The funny thing? That part of the Christian dogma seems to be literally lifted from the Egyptian tradition (in particular the Book of the Dead).
With such a low "batting" average when it comes to predictions. I am still astounded by the fact that Christians have been able to maintain their little racket going for as long as they have.
I mean, when was the last time a verifiable "miracle" occurred. It seems as soon as we got mechanisms to study, document, and study/validate all sorts of phenomena... all of the sudden god got all "camera shy" on us.
until it happens. People have been predicting the end of the world and the rapture FOREVER. Remember that nonsense with June 6th, 2006? Good Lord.
And this whole thing with the Mayans, if morons truly believe it you're going to see people make complete asses out of themselves. Be it crime or idiocy. Then they'll answer for it the next day when they realize *gasp* they're still on planet Earth.
I happily laugh at anyone who predict the day the world will end. Because really, why would that person(s) want to be right?
Bravo out.
Bob Cesca notes that "I don't know if books sales are any indication of popularity." Perhaps a good example of this would be Ann Coulter's continual boast of how her books always make the New York Times best seller list. But what she conveniently leaves out is that always next to her book on The Times' best seller list is a little dagger which indicates that a book like hers has been bought in bulk, meaning that in her case a conservative right wing think tank has bought thousands of her books which are now languishing in a warehouse. Eventually her book ends up in the discount rack at most major bookstores.
66 fairy tales written by 40 authors in 3 different languages,
on 3 different continents over approximately 1600 years.
- And the word rapture doesn't appear once in it.
Prince Charles, the Antichrist, working on his organic farm!
Nostradamus also predicted that the war to begin Armageddon would start on July 4, 1999.
Nostradamus was nothing but a charlatan. His "predictions" are so broad and ill written, that basically anyone can use any of his passages and map it into any sort of event they want.
I doubt he even gave anything regarding the actual century of any of his "predictions" much less an exact date...
Yeah, Skippy.. but if they really, Really, believe?
The other thing that bothers my blissfully ignorant Hindu soul is that I thought I remembered some preacher somewhere on the radio saying that there were only 200,000 (220,000? 400,000?.. definitely less than even a million) or so who were pre-ordained to be taken in the Rapture.. In that case, just because Obama may actually be a Christian, that wouldn't gurantee a place in the Rapture.. or do I have that wrong? Tim could actually be Kali spreading mischief and mayhem.. Then Rachel could be Ganesh bringing intellectual rigor.. But so what.. we need Lakshmi! Lakshmi is da One!
A little known fact is Ricardo the Christ (Jesus twin brother) told me in a vision last week that the Rapture has been postponed until one billion copies of Left Behind have been sold:
RC, "We need every human to have a copy of our book so they can't say they weren't ready for Rapture Day and try to wiggle out of it. What about the 'I'm blind or don't know how to read excuse'? Too bad, cry me a river, your still going straight to hell."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/opinion/17K...
"These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. The latest is "Glorious Appearing," which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from the planet. It's disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of piety."
I really, really enjoyed the Mr. Deity web series.
I'd highly reccomend watching them all in order, but number 9 is probably the most relevant in this case :-)
Number ten's my all-time favorite, though. "It's like living in front of the Bellagio!"
And one of them has a great quote, number 4, about how the Republican party always invites Mr. Deity to their gigs, and the Democrats invite "The Higher Power" or something like that...
In essence, Christians take all this stuff WAYYYYY too seriously. I'm all for them getting raptured the frick out of our hair, but till then, we have to deal with all of this doom and gloom end of the world stuff...
of evangelicals over at Huffingpost. If I had tried to post the above there, even though it's all factual and came from the evangelicals own mouths, it would not have been approved.
Rachel:
When the rapture comes I want to hang with you babe.
I damned sure do not want to be stuck for eternity anywhere near those nut jobs!
Who says? It is very uncharacteristic to hear something so uncritically espoused by Rachel. It really grates on me when I hear otherwise good liberals give so much ground to religion fanaticism by trotting out the old canard that for some unexplained reason, all personal religious beliefs are sacrosanct and beyond criticism, no matter how fanatical. The truth of the matter is, and I would think Rachel is well-acquainted with this fact, that religion is the greatest social ill working against the resolution of problems like overpopulation, global warming and a host of underfunded medical research, and stem cell research. To say that religious beliefs are off the table when they are threatening to engulf our national capabilities to solve these problems is an abdication of the highest order.
She'd be taken off the air if she voiced what she really thinks of them.
Can you imagine the outrage?
She's already lucky enough to be on the air when she's: A) female, B) lesbian, C) intelligent, and D) liberal. I don't want to see her go away simply because she's undiplomatic about something that trule is a personal choice.
She can still be polite and conduct a good interview without stating that no one has the right to judge people's religious beliefs. Also, isn't it a personal choice to belive that the holocaust never happened? And yet we are all free the judge that personal belief. Why do you think that religion deserves special treatment? And who benefits the most from this special protection religion has?
lead pipe cinch that these people would be at the front of the line to criticize my or anybody elses religion if it didn't adhere to their "truth". Fundamentalist authoritarians that they are.
I emailed Rachel to state that IMO it is wrong for her to say that we must not judge people's religious beliefs. She can still be polite and cordial, and hold a meaningful discussion without touting obvious bullshit. I mentioned that when people say that we must not judge other people's religious beliefs that she acts as an enabler to the more dangerous beliefs out there, such as hated toward gays and women.
When you are saying that you believe someone's religion is full of shite.
They WILL take offense, and in the case of a public figure, there WILL be outrage.
She was basically saying that we shouldn't judge because it's a personal choice. Just like it's a personal choice to have an abortion, or own a gun.
It stops being a "personal choice" when you try to force your beliefs on other people.
One of the main MOs of Christianity, and of plenty of religions for that matter, is the "forcing" of their beliefs on other people. Thus they can't expect to be protected under the "personal choice" moniker.
Religious claims should be treated like those of any other subject. If the claims are outrageous and/or are not supported by credible scientific evidence, they certainly should be subject to criticism, attack and ridicule. Why should religion get a pass?
The GOP is trying to act black. It's beyond absurd. It's all over the news; how "hip-hop" will save the GOP. You be the man. Come on... there is nothing worse than a bunch of white people pretending to be black. This reminds me of the old tv shows were white people would put shoe polish on their face to look black. It's just absurd beyond belief.
and they're out of ideas. I still have no respect for black and gay republicans. They joined a party that hates and ridicules them.
After all, Jesus is quoted in the Bible telling his flock that he will return before the last one of their generation croaks. What a big no-show liar! It's just like when he told his followers that a mustard seed is the "smallest seed of all," when it is NOT. Big fat liar! What a bastard!
At least hold them to their own criteria. They said "when the government controls who's rich and poor"...Haven't they been doing that for years?
I mean, particularly under Bush? Where 1% of the population were allowed to have unimaginable wealth while everybody else became almost instantly poorer? Wasn't that the result of Bush's policies? The federal reserve bank? No-bid contracts?
It's another fear-mongering tactic. Another made-up bugaboo. In other words, the method the Church has always resorted to for controlling people.
Here's where you can go to learn the truth about Judaism and its two sects Christianity and Islam and the Bible:
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com
When you die you shit your pants!!!
Jesus says shitting your pants is a mortal sin, mkay?
Why the fuck are these clowns on television? I hope and I PRAY that the rapture happens and all of these assholes are wisked away to Heaven!
What in the hell were they doing on the Rachel Maddow show?
http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn27/rapture...
Rapture ideology out of sync
Not only is the reasoning of the rapture theory entirely out of context with the verses used to support it, the theory is also out of synchronization with events revealed in the rest of the Scriptures.
I'll give you the basis: PEOPLE ARE STUPID AND WILL COUGH UP MONEY FOR SOMETHING THAT MAKES THEM FEEL LIKE THEY'RE SPECIAL.
I have friends who are quite intelligent who actually BELIEVE this rubbish! It's like saying everything in the TV show "Tin Man" is going to happen because "The Wizard of Oz" predicted it.
The stupidest thing of all is, believing in the Rapture forces you to deny all the positive messages of Christ in favour of a completely cynical view of the world:
That some people are inherently better than others.
That some people deserve to die.
That we should live in perpetual fear.
That we should believe blindly.
That the world is going to end, and boy is that a day I look forward to. Pathetic.
the target audience includes very low-quality minds, few, if any, real readers among them.
It seems to me they have started using the word socialist because they wore out liberal. It lost its punch so they had to come up with something else. Communist is outdated so they took the leftovers. It's all a matter of semantics anyway. If my choice is socialist or a conservative government that thinks the government should do nothing I'll take the socialist. Doing nothing, the cornerstone of conservative thought, is why we are where we are today. Inaction doesn't work.
Good insight.
The "Librul, librul, librul" chant didn't work, so now they're using "Socialist, socialist, socialist." (A few are testing out the "anti-christ" chant or the "Hitler" chant, to see if they get any traction.)
They've lied so many times about so many things, nobody's taking anything they say seriously.
The same thing happened during the Red Scare. They tried to paint anybody they didn't like as a Commie, and it worked for a while, but finally enough people came to their senses.
it takes a good deal of courage to take on wingnuttery. and you're so calm while you're at it.
these lunatics like lahaye have hijacked the faith of my family, and i'm every bit as pissed as i am about my country being hijacked.
i understand how one can find themselves in a place where they lose faith completely -but thank god dr. martin luther king, jr. and gandhi never reached that place.
the truth, as i see it, is that there's plenty of blame for the world's problems to go around for everyone -christians, jews, muslims, atheists, etc.
for every jim jones or david koresh you present, i'll present a pol pot or a friedrich nietzsche.
myself, i've always found dogmatic atheists every bit as ridiculous as rabid fundamentalists. i prefer curious believers and pragmatic agnostics.
peace out, ya'll.
2 more examples of non-believers responsible for a heck of a lot of human misery.
Comparing Pol Pot to F. Nietzsche? That's crazy talk Bullfrog.
Who did Nietzsche kill?.......and don't bring in that Nazi connection.
Was Secularism the motivation behind Stalin, Mao, Hitler?
No is the answer. They were motivated by power, greed, and hate.
Not accepting conventional beliefs of the Abrahamic faiths does not make one an Atheist that wants to wage war against their fellow man.
What kind of nonsense are you trying to pull here Bullfrog?
I consider myself a Christian as dare I speak for others, most people here are.
But I do not buy into this Evangelical meme that everything not related to OUR personal interpretation of God is Atheist/Secular ergo evil.
Hitler had studied to be a Catholic Priest before he set Europe on fire, but according to B. O'Reilly, "it did'nt take", uh huh. The game is to disavow all connections that Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, had to their faithful upbringing, Christian or not, and it is easier to label them an Atheist. This type of 3 Card Monty is the type of game that Fundies play when they attempt to introduce THEIR interpretation of Creationism/Intelligent Design/Irreducible Complexity, into the Science Curricula in our nations schools. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, the Fundies want everyone to think that the Earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old. However the real motivation of the Fundie interpretation of a young Earth is strict territorial possession and control of God for THEIR own purposes.
Chew on that for a while my friend.
BTW Not one person on this Earth has spoken to God on a personal level, and not one person on Earth controls the absolute truth!
i'm merely trying to point out that no one is immune from corruption. no religion, no branch of any religion, no atheist, no nation, no one.
i probably could have worded that a little better, sorry if you took it the wrong way. and thanks for your comment; i enjoyed reading it.
we are probably in closer agreement than you think.
and with nietzsche, while he was interesting, his writing DID fuel the Nazi imagination. now, you could also convincingly argue that martin luther's later anti-semitic writings had the same effect...
again, all i'm saying is what i think you're saying: there's plenty of blame to go around everywhere for the world's problems.
peace out amigo.
Fair enough for me Bullfrog.
I do enjoy reading your posts that I mostly agree with.
peace back at yah Amigo.
to be honest, i like reading just about everyone who posts here, because i always learn something new, even from those i don't agree with.
about the only ones i don't like are those weight loss spammers who've been showing up (but they're kind of fun to
mess with).
i DO mean martin luther, on this comment, NOT martin luther king -for anyone who may have been confused.
(martin luther, near the end of his life, penned some very unfortunate and anti-semitic writing.)
It boils down to the criminal minded "others automatically owe me" types, who justify usurpation through initiative force, coercion and fraud. Creating problems where there are none, rather than solving them where they do exist.
Look within and know thyself.
yeah, if you're a regular reader you know i'm christian too; i'm on a bit of a crusade (for lack of a better word) to reclaim my family's religion from the wingnuts who hijacked it.
and like you, i'm no enemy of science and reason. i freely admit that i believe the bible was slashed and burned over the years by romans or whoever with their own agendas. hardly controversial, when you consider there are entire gospels most of us have never read. the gospel of thomas comes to mind.
and i'm not offended when atheists or jews come on this site and post links to books that sayjesus never existed at all. that's fine.
what i don't like is when people try to make the shallow argument that religion is solely responsible for all the world's problems; it's categorically false.
you and i both know if dr. king or gandhi didn't have an abiding faith to always come back to, they never would have been able to move mountains.
i just don't have much patience for an over-simplification of human history. dogmatic atheists, to my mind, are every bit as ignorant as rabid fundamentalists.
Oh bullfrog you are setting up a strawman. The problem is dogma. People don't go around slaughtering others becuase they get more reasonable. The problem with Stalinism and Naziism wasn't that they were atheistic or theistic but rather that they were too much like religions.
Beware of DOGMA
exactly. i'd add "superstition" and "self-righteousness" into that recipe for disaster.
..and I don't want to wage war!
That's not to say I don't think WAR is sometimes necessary. Its not necessary when you have a cranky dictator type telling the world he's a tough guy when he isn't but sits on a lot of oil but we do when we are attacked by an enemy that is a cancer to the society of the world at large.
i will tell you, my friends who are agnostics or true believers, all understand that we don't really know jack $#!+ until our "day of reckoning", whenever or whatever that is.
no one, i mean NO ONE really knows until they get there.
i always try to ask my atheist friends to remember that...
anyhow, excellent thread. ya'll -i gotta get to work.
see you in the funny pages..!
(a)gnoticism is a statement about knowledge
(a)theism is a statement about belief
belief does not imply certainty
Anyway I have little issue towards non toxic version of religion so good luck with your efforts to take back Christianity from the Tim Layhays and Pat Robertsons of the world.
1. That Jesus never existed.
2. That there is NO evidence to support ANY religion.
3. That human consciousness after death is an impossibility.
4. That there is no evidence of a spiritual realm and/or the "supernatural."
5. That nothing we know of requires the existence of any "god" to be explained.
Religion and superstition are one and the same and neither should have any place in the 21st century.
All religions can't be right. But they CAN all be wrong.
by definition, religion relies in faith. Thus it can't be right. Correctness relies on proof, which in turn is reliant of facts. Fact is the antithesis of faith...
But even a broken clock is right twice a day. heh....and now for some random thoughts.
Science flies us you to the moon.
Religion flies you into buildings.
They say faith can move mountains. I don't know about that but I've seen what faith can do to skyscrapers.
Keep an open mind but not so open that your brain falls out.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe one less god than you do.
how it's the pragmatic, "enlightened" atheists, like you, bill maher and penn & teller who seem to be the ones having the greatest difficulty wrapping your minds around the possibility that the story our government spoon-fed us regarding that fateful day may be a fairy tale, yet "loony" christians like david ray griffin, ray mcgovern and alex jones are pioneering the way toward an independent investigation.
...does not consider himself a pragmatist.
Atheists can subscribe to unwavering principles.
example:
Initiating force, coercion and fraud is morally wrong.
so you saw an ad for a book that says jesus never existed on huffington post; you read it and concluded this must be the truth.
well, you don't know, because you weren't there.
mr. hooper from sesame street went to his grave convinced mr. snuffleupagus never existed, but that doesn't mean he was right.
(and before you jump on that one -i'm only trying to lighten things up a bit.)
getting back to the book about jesus never existing -you really don't sound much different to me than the fundamentalist who swears "left behind" is gospel -it's what you want to believe, so you cling to it dogmatically, never considering you may be wrong.
i've met folks who've read "the protocols of zion", and swear up and down it proves the jews want to take over the world. i've also met people who swear up and down that book was written by anti-semites with an agenda.
for you to state, categorically, that god does not exist, is just another form of hubris.
you think because there is thus far no definitive proof of god's existence, therefore god must not exist.
well, if i travelled back in time, i could have tried to tell everyone about micro-organisms, or about infra-red, and i would have been thoroughly ridiculed. but i would have been correct.
now, to close out here -i'm not the one claiming to have absolute truth -that's you.
all i ever said i have is faith.
for you to claim religion has no place in the 21st century is so arrogant, it's breathtaking. who are you? i mean, who really are YOU that you can speak for the inner reality of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth?
so you know something deists like thomas jefferson or thomas edison didn't know about their own inner reality?
you know something musicians like johnny cash or stevie wonder didn't or don't know about their inner reality?
again, i find your arrogance breathtaking. it's dogmatic hubris, in my opinion.
Excellent post!
First off, how many people did Nietzsche kill? The only crime he commited was that he wrote some incredibly boring narrative.
Second, Polpot, Mao, Stalin, et al... killed people because they were authoritarian assholes, not because they were atheist.
Besides, the main tenet of Communism ain't atheism.
I prefer intellectual honesty, than logical dissonant agendas trying to mask themselves as pragmatic points of view.
It is silly to mention Pol Pot and Friedrich Nietzsche in the same breath.
By the way, an agnostic is just a cowardly atheist.
You are quite silly.
isn't it quite telling these so called "moderate religious" feel good fellers tend to consider, those who renounce to all religious nonsense, as being in the same league as mass murderers?
I mean, how pious and open minded of them, eh?
Religious moderation is certainly better than religious extremism but religious moderation is no bulwark against religious extremism. In fact religious moderation gives credence to religious extremism because both insist faith is a virtue.
Anyway I highly recommend Sam Harris. Just look on youtube...lots of great stuff.
I always thought that if those "religious moderates" spent 1/10th of the energy they waste debasing us godless types, in taking the extremist in their flock to task. We would be in much better shape...
I am just tired of idiots trying to pass passivity as moderation...
i don't know what sites you spend most of your time on, but i DO spend a great deal of energy tearing down idiot fundamentalists.
what i've been trying to illustrate, tyler, is that it's ridiculous of people like you to try to lay all the world's problems at the doorsteps of people with faith. if you re-read what i wrote carefully, it is that human misery and suffering comes from anywhere, and anyone.
frankly, you're kind of proving my point. that dogmatic atheists are just as intellectually crippled as rabid fundamentalists.
we have truly come full circle, when people of faith like me see the world in shades of grey, and have to remind atheists like you that the world isn't simple black and white.
i've left open the possibility i'm completely wrong; i don't think you're intellectually honest enough to admit you could be.
what you and i have in common is that neither of us have the answers to all the mysteries of the universe; the difference is that i'm self-aware enough to know this, whereas you apparently are not.
you're a lot more afraid of the possibility you could be wrong, than i am.
..that the "haves" who think we're on this socialist path are being a little disingenuous. I mean, if the "have-nots" don't have, they will be in the street; whether its to protest lack of food, unemployment insurance, health care, a place to live, does it matter?
Does to me and most people of conscience.
His book "The Late Great Planet Earth" back in the 70s fueled the modern Apocalypse movement. If I ever saw Hal Lindsey in a crosswalk and I'm driving... I may not slow down.
The books are utter crap (I read the first three - borrowed my mom's copies) that insult any intelligent reader with its dumbed-down language and spending about a third of the book rehashing what whas done in the previous books.
The two knuckleheads that wrote the books are no better than the moneychangers that Jesus chased out of the church (synagogue). Not to mention that they completely misinterpret Revelations. Simply said: They're wrong.
Isn't Christianity just lovely? LOL! Insane cultists.
"Left Behind"? "Half Assed" is more like it.
The "Left Buttock" books are to christianity what emo music is to goth: depressed morons threatening and wishing for suicide and death.
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