LA Times: 'End Times' Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon

[seafan]

Boy, have these televangelists morphed since they were on my grandmother's television screen decades ago... I thought they were all silly then. But, then, what did a kid know?


'End Times' Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon

By Louis Sahagun, Times Staff Writer
June 22, 2006

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.

Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah.

For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon.

With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus' message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.

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Ahmadinejad hopes to welcome the Mahdi to Tehran within two years.

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Conversely, some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam's holiest shrines.

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Then there is Clyde Lott, a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher. He is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah.

So far, only one of his cows has been verified by rabbis as worthy, meaning they failed to turn up even three white or black hairs on the animal's body.

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Generations of Christians have hoped for the Second Coming of Jesus, said UCLA historian Eugen Weber, author of the 1999 book "Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages."

"And it's always been an ultimately bloody hope, a slaughterhouse hope," he added with a sigh. "What we have now in this global age is a vaster and bloodier-than-ever Wagnerian version. But, then, we are a very imaginative race."

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[AX10]

1. "mega churches" are terrorist training facilities.

[Hardrada]

2. This is a dangerous ideology and should be recognized

for the vicious murderous thing it is. And its proponents detoxified or neutralized in re-education camps.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. They're all so very wrong... here's the deal

Sometime in the near/far future, the Aliens who seeded us here will return.
They'll see the mess we've made of things.
They'll wipe the earth clean of humans and start over.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[DarkTirade]

13. But where does that leave the Flying Spagetti Monster?

I believe before the aliens return, he will lead his Chosen People (italians) to the Promised Land, a land where no matter how many carbs you eat, you won't gain a pound and everyone has a sexy foreign accent.

[DarkmoonIkonoklast]

14. I have it on the "highest" authority...

... i.e., that of the Pentad C.D.C. {Five Galaxies}, that Supella longipalpa, the brown banded cockroach, is in line for the next Sapient Quickening after the Cleansing to which you make reference... :tinfoilhat:

[Bozita]

4. Emailed that article to every non-fundy on my list before posting this.

Oh hell, that's everybody.

[undergroundpanther]

5. They're called CELL churches

Fundamentalists in groups like Assemblies of God (AoG)have an extensive cell network like Bush accuses the Muslims of having,hidden away in every town across america..These so called bible study groups meet in peoples houses.It's quite a grassroots level network of "soldiers". And it's all just pure evil in the name of christ.
I was in the AoG for awhile(ass croft is a member of this church) and that church almost,destroyed me with spiritual abuse.I hate Aog. Hate that church.It's evil.It's spiritual poison.And I wish there was a way to keep these assholes away from power and destroy their charismatic influences over desperate scared lonely people wanting a community to belong to that cares for each other,a church should not serve this function,nor should the state..but in our culture there is no sense of relationship of a community with each person as they are..because we have been so convinced we MUST be a bunch of "strong" individuals...pulling ourselves up all alone,or we are failures and this belief and it's attendant competition,denial, insecurity and thirst for control has ruined us all.
The church should not be a substitute for trusted Friends and beloved neighbors and extended kin networks..But it is.That's why it has such power and such self destruction inside it. I was suicidal in that church I could not keep up with the demands,the purity and tests.I could not lie that well not enough to kill who I was totally and be born again as a christian with no soul of my own.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Religious cults always wind up with a death wish

As time goes by they have to keep raising the stakes to keep the followers in the fold. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing mass suicides.

[stevietheman]

7. How about we kill them before they get a chance to ruin everything?

I realize most of us here are nonviolent, but if push comes to shove, certainly, we would have to consider "dealing" with them.

[seafan]

8. The Bush Davidians want to rule the world. Until they leave it.

This is one frightening group.

We are fighting three factions: the religious extremists, the corporatists, and the neocons.

[DarkmoonIkonoklast]

15. the corporatists and the neocons are not intrinsically lethal...

... this nation has survived both Corporatists (i.e., modern feudal Lords) and neocons (simple tyrants), in one form or another, for most of her history...

Nor are the neocons' counterparts, those "New-Age" dems and progs, intrinsically lethal... You know the type: the one who "just knows that you'd be SO much (happier/better off/more attractive/more in tune with the Universe, {__}) if ON-ly you would {__}!"...
A paternalistic busy-body, by any other name, is STILL a meddlesome pest... but we've endured well-meaning Door-To-Door Saviors even longer, and WE'VE survived!

Sad that the same can not be said for the Armageddonite Fundies... of all "faiths"... these are, mostly, the sort that would rather blow up the entire world, rather than allow a single one of "Those GOD-less HEA-then {__} to "LI-YUV a-NOTH-ER MO-ment without ex-SPEAR-i-enc-ing the JOY of JAY-zus!", praying incessently that "God" will forgive these poor misuided souls in the instant of their death, and grant them rest in "Heaven"... and do all they could to foster exactly the sort of dissension and disunion that essentially guarantees escalting sectarian strife through out the worldd... presumably in order to win Brownie Points for Zealotry, at the Last Judgement...

It is indeed true, that there is no more dangerous tyrant than the one who "truly believes" that a thing MUST be done "not for MY sake, but for yours!", for THIS one amasses followers at an alrming rate and soon comes to believe their reflection of his own self-aggrandized image...

[gratuitous]

9. Amos 5:18-24

Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light;
as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear;
or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,
and was bitten by a snake.

Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.

Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

* * *

Now, how does actively trying to bring about the wholesale slaughter of a huge portion of the world's human beings equate to justice and righteousness?

[treestar]

10. The amazing thing is that they condemn the Muslims for their

suicidal attacks when their ideology is for global suicide.

[Initech]

11. It's the American Taliban on a much bigger scale.

Hell, these guys are WORSE than the Taliban. If it's Armageddon they want, fuck them. They're just going to have to wait.

[kestrel91316]

12. Time to declare support for/promotion of the "end of the world" as

an INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIME.

[vssmith]

16. Jesus preached not to return violence with violence but

these guys think God will pay us back for our evil with a fiery end. If that is the case God is a damn poor role model!

[Vinca]

17. These people are so full of shit. Really.

If they truly wanted to meet their maker they'd put on their space suits, climb onto the cots and drink the Kool-Aid (and I wish they would). I'm convinced the entire "fundamentalist" movement was and is choreographed by a gang of rich hucksters who learned how easy it is to con the sheeple out of their worldly goods.

[Totally Committed]

18. The older I get, the more I see... The more I see, the less

I have been able to continue to "believe". I'm no longer sure there is a God. But, on the off-chance there IS a God, I say a silent prayer at least once a day. And, when I pray, I always end my prayer by asking God to give people like these exactly what they desire... The Rapture, and an eternity a LONG LONG LONG way away from where I am to spend MY eternity. I ask God to take these people NOW, body and soul, just as they wish, to a place where they have only themselves and their warped and twisted "faith" forever and ever, Amen.

The thought of a world without religious extremists of any kind... it's worth whatever it takes to summon faith for a minute or two minutes every so often, isn't it?

TC