The Apocalyptic Beheaders

The idea that believers in prophecy would do anything to bring it about amounts to slander. Comparing mainstream Christian believers in an imminent fulfillment of the end times to such completely nonBiblical groups as Heaven's Gate is absurd and appears to be a reaching for any old thing to tar fundies with.

I am not totally convinced that human wisdom and education are in all ways superior to Biblical thought for thought literalism.I am, as you know, one who questions my beliefs and everything that I have been taught.I also know that you are an opponent of the Original Sin doctorine.It is wrong to focus on an apocolyptic scenario for the world.
People should be taught to know and love Jesus and to live each day on its own terms alone, in a non-religious non-cultic mentality.Having said that, however, I think that you are allowing your beliefs to represent the only rational thinking position that makes sense.I am for debate and discussion on these issues and propose that alternative views be discussed.

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

You are joking again aren't you?You do know that Christians worked very hard to get Israel back into Palestine becasue they thought they could help prophecy along a little?The only reason that Israel is in Palestine is because Christians think that the land belongs to Israel because God promised it to them. The fact that the events surrounding God's promise have been shown to be unhistorical didn't make any difference to the Christians who worked for Israel's return.It did make a hug difference to countless thousands of Palestines though.Faith, if you thought you could hurry Jesus' return along by cutting out your own heart you would do it in a second.Brian.

Not that I am actively defending Faith, she can do that on her own. But if she cuts out her own heart to further Jesus's coming that is tantamont to suicide. And then she'll spend eternity with the "Beast".That is pretty much directly contradicting her vested interest in being with Jesus for eternity.

So Paul didn't think jesus would return in his lifetime or within the desciples life times?what about the fact that people have been saying the end was near since paul?

If memory serves me I remember seeing a video by that name around 1980, narrated by Orson Welles (!). It stated, or at least heavily implied, the USSR was going to get together with some unnamed moslem country and take out a new city (implied NYC) because Nostradamus supposedly said so. It also mixed in Revelations with eathquakes in LA, plague, beasts with horns, and of course, armageddon and the antichrist. All this was supposed to start to take place in 1997.Of course 1997 came and went, and by that time there was no USSR.I also remember a Penn & Teller Bullshit episode with Hal Lindsey still hawking the same wares, with a later date stamp.The next dates I have heard being bandied about are 2010 because some local church says so (some guy even appeared in a big spread in the local paper spouting this nonsense), and 2012 because the Mayan and Hopi calendars supposedly end.This message has been edited by anglagard, 04-16-2006 10:19 PM

I've long agreed with those who see Christianity as a failed religion/prophecy whose followers are in denial. Jesus didn't return. The Catholic and Orthodox churches were stuck creating a religion that hadn't been planned on as it wasn't supposed to have been needed. Spread the word cause before you or some one you know dies the world ends. It didn't end so they had to improvise.This view is supported in that whenever people circumvent the traditions and go back to the NT for their religion they start to seeing the end times and expecting the return because that is what the religion said.And it just wasn't Jews but pagans also were full of apocalyptic predictions and perceptions. Then two thousand years passed and still the notion of the end of the world can sell books, movies, videos. Go figure.lfen

Come to think of it maybe Paul was right. The world did end and we are living where? Heaven, Hell, Purgatory?lfen

Thanks for your patience, RDG.I believe all beheadings of Westerners has gotten adequate coverage for the last fifty years. I believe the Stam missionaries to one of the Asian nations were beheaded and this was widely covered, for example. I think they were killed in China. That must have been about 50 years ago. The ones in the totalitarian Islamic theocracies, of course would not have been covered because most of them were done where reporters were not allowed. Now that we're involved in the region and the reporting is allowed, we see what happens to enemies of any of the Islamic factions. Ones captured are beheaded to intimidate others. They can't and don't want to hide those. But the persecution of their own citizens in their closed nations, they would not want known. Why? Because they want potential outsider converts in Europe and the West to think theirs is a peaceful religion. LOL on that! The persecution doesn't start until the nation is brought under totalitarian theocratic domination by violent ideologies.I checked out the Stam beheadings and they were in 1934, so even back then at least the rare incidences of US beheadings were covered and likely any Westerner ones would have been. John and Betty Stam were beheaded by Chinese Communists along with some native Christians. I couldn't get the link to work that I used but google "Stam beheadings" and you get several links.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

To my knowledge Christians had little to do with Israel becoming a nation. Hitler did more than anyone else to effect that. The Jews had had it with Europe and Zionism was revived by that. After all, the orthodox devouts also had the prophecies and longed for the time of their fulfillment. Add to that that there was no better or safer place for them to go. It was, for the most part a desolate land ripe for the plucking by about anyone who might venture to develop it. Anyone could have went in and bought cheap, but who else even wanted it? Heck, the nomadic herdsmen who sold out cheap simply moved on to another desolate area. It wasn't a crowded densely populated place, so at the time there was plenty of space. The Israelis began moving in and it didn't take long for the Jews to begin development and irrigating. Then the ones who sold cheap scrub waste began waring to get what they sold out back by force after the Jews did all the work.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

In the early days of the Zionist movement Christians didn't believe the Jews would ever return to the land. If anything they fought the idea or at least scoffed at it. Christian Zionism is a very recent thing, based on seeing prophecy as an already-accomplished fact. Some small number of Christians started supporting it in the 30s and 40s I believe, but it didn't really take off until the 70s and 80s.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-17-2006 07:47 AM

Again, Christians had nothing whatever to do with the Jews' returning to Palestine. Now that they are there Christians are enthusiastic about the fulfilled prophecy and definitely support Israel. However, there are other reasons to support Israel than Biblical reasons. Mostly in a positive direction. It certainly made a difference to other Arabs from outside the area who moved into Palestine because they got hired by the Jews in the rebuilding of Israel. Most of what are now called "Palestinians" didn't live there until then. Some lived there, yes, and that includes Jews who had also been there for the last 2 millennia. But the area was basically a wasteland when the Jews first started settling there and they made it productive. The "huge difference" they made was in a positive direction.The native Arabs SHOULD have welcomed them instead of fighting them, should have learned from them how to improve their own lot, should have accepted their help, etc.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-17-2006 07:13 AM

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People should be taught to know and love Jesus and to live each day on its own terms alone, in a non-religious non-cultic mentality.

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Phat, how does one "know and love Jesus" in a non-religious mentality?

For the record, some of the more fundamentalist Christians of the 19th century did take the prophecies literally, including the restoration of the nation of Israel. Some place in my stuff I have some old books and pamphlets of the late 19th century documenting that. I'm not aware of any funding or monetary solitations for that purpose by them for that though.I suppose it would be good to get back to topic as we're straying here.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

Read a history book, Faith. You too, Buz. The Christian government of Great Britain had almost everything to do with their return.