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Originally Posted by Mobo123
Rapture was the term i was searching for. I coudlnt remember it.
But i am lost by your message. 144,000 F.C's people will ascend to heaven while the rest of us die horribly? Is that what the Rapture says?
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Thank you for asking, Mobo123. This ignorant, U.S. based, religious fundamentalism is the driving political influence behind the U.S. administration's policy shift that has facilitated Israel's "new dominance" in the U.S./Israeli M.E. "alliance", that has destroyed any ability for the U.S. to quickly bring about a cease fire.....to "muzzle" Israel, as it always quickly did, before the Bush administration changed everything. Note in my last post, that the "shift toward Israel", according to Paul O'Neill and others interviewed by author Ron Suskind, was not influenced by "9/11". Bush announced the new "no peace", "hands off" policy, on Jan. 30, 2001, more than 8 months before 9/11.
There is no way to know what the true influence on the Bush "shift", can be attributed to Cheney, Bolton, and Feith's involvement in JINSA, or the influence of the PNAC folks who were welcomed into the Bush administration in 2001.
Here is a briefing for you, Mobo123. I can't say that Bush believes this crap, but he responds to it, and he is advised how to mine these sentiments for votes and contributions. His M.E. foreign policies couldn't be more in synch with the "goals" of the "believers", than if they wrote the policies for him.
Scottish "promoter" John Darby, inspired by the 1830 "visions" of a 15 year old girl named Macdonald, influenced Scofield, the founder of the Dallas Theological Seminary. Many of the most prominent southern U.S. pastors were schooled there, and now this delusional belief system has a lock on southern baptists, and many other evangelical sects.......
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http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/salon73.html
Fundamentally unsound
Left Behind, the bestselling series of paranoid, pro-Israel end-time thrillers, may sound kooky, but America's right-wing leaders really believe this stuff.
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By Michelle Goldberg
July 29, 2002 | The most popular novel in America right now is one in which the world is tyrannized by the former secretary general of the U.N., who operates from Iraq, and his global force of storm troopers, called "peacekeepers."....
....There is probably very little overlap between Salon's readership and the audience for apocalyptic Christian fiction, but these books and their massive success deserve attention if only for what they tell us about the core beliefs of a great many people in this country, people whose views shape the way America behaves in the world.
After all, Tim LaHaye isn't merely a fringe figure like Hal Lindsey, the former king of the genre, whose 1970 Christian end-times book "The Late Great Planet Earth" was the bestseller of that decade. <h3>The former co-chairman of Jack Kemp's presidential campaign, LaHaye was a member of the original board of directors of the Moral Majority and an organizer of the Council for National Policy, which ABCNews.com has called "the most powerful conservative organization in America you've never heard of" and whose membership has included John Ashcroft, Tommy Thompson and Oliver North. George W. Bush is still refusing to release a tape of a speech he gave to the group in 1999.</h3>
The point isn't that all these leaders are part of some kind of right-wing Illuminati. It's simply that the seemingly wacky ideology promulgated in the Left Behind books is one that important people in America are quite comfortable with. The Left Behind series provides a narrative and a theological rationale for a whole host of perplexing conservative policies, from the White House's craven decision to cut off aid to the United Nations Family Planning Fund to America's surreally casual mobilization for an invasion of Baghdad -- a city that is, in the Left Behind books, Satan's headquarters.......
<b>........It's bizarre that more attention hasn't been paid to the series' open hostility to the Jewish religion, if not the Jewish people.</b> Imagine if, say, James Carville wrote a novel in which a band of heroic gay socialists defeated a voracious army of slack-jawed Bible-quoting Republicans to turn the world into a gigantic French-speaking free-love commune. He'd be crucified on the talk shows, and all kinds of sinister motives would be impugned to the Democratic Party.
That a Republican player can create a blockbuster media empire out of analogous extremism suggests two seemingly contradictory things. <b>First, Christian paranoia has become so mainstream that few see fit to remark on it anymore. Second, while the novels' popularity has received lots of media attention, their actual content is utterly off the radar of the kind of people who write about books.</b> Nobody, it seems -- except, of course, for the series' millions of fans -- is reading Left Behind.
<b>The Left Behind books actually play on that sense of being unfairly ignored, reveling in the moment when smug agnostics, insufficiently zealous Christians and, most of all, Jews realize how terribly wrong they were.</b> As Gersholm Gorenberg wrote of the books in his "The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount," "Christianity's ancient, anxious amazement that the people who know the Old Testament best don't accept that it leads to Jesus (don't, in fact, accept that it is Old Testament) is at last disarmed.".....
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http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north188.html
The Foreign Policy of 20 Million Would-Be Immortals
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_North">by Gary North</a>
........."BETTER THEM THAN US!"
What is rarely discussed publicly by Jews or fundamentalists is the fundamentalists' view of the looming cost to Israelis for their return to Palestine. Fundamentalists believe that the Great Tribulation will wipe out two-thirds of the Jews in Israel. Hence, to encourage their return to the State of Israel is to encourage their destruction.
<h3>John Walvoord, who died in 2002, served for three decades as the president of Dallas Theological Seminary, the largest and best-known dispensational seminary (founded, 1924). He was the author of numerous books, both academic and popular, on dispensational prophecy. He taught Hal Lindsey, who attended Dallas Seminary. Here is his assessment of the future of Israelis.</h3>
The purge of Israel in their time of trouble is described by Zechariah in these words: "And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith Jehovah, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried" (Zechariah 13:8, 9). According to Zechariah's prophecy, two thirds of the children of Israel in the land will perish, but the one third that are left will be refined and be awaiting the deliverance of God at the second coming of Christ which is described in the next chapter of Zechariah. (John F. Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, [1962] 1988], p. 108.
Nothing will be done by Christians to save Israel's Jews from this disaster, for all of the Christians will have been removed from this world three and a half years prior to the beginning of this 42-month period of tribulation. The only Christians present at that time will be recent converts to the faith, who had been left behind as non-believers at the time of the Rapture.
<b>Therefore, in order for most of today's Christians to escape physical death, two-thirds of the Jews in Israel must perish, soon.</b> This is the grim prophetic trade-off that fundamentalists rarely discuss publicly, but which is the central motivation in the movement's political support for the State of Israel.
<b>It should be clear why they believe that Israel must be defended at all costs by the West. If Israel were removed militarily from history prior to the Rapture, then the strongest case for Christians' imminent escape from death would have to be abandoned. This would mean the indefinite delay of the Rapture.</b> The fundamentalist movement thrives on the doctrine of the imminent Rapture, not the indefinitely postponed Rapture.
Every time you hear the phrase, "Jesus is coming back soon," you should mentally add, "and two-thirds of the Jews of Israel will be dead in `soon plus 84 months.'" Fundamentalists really do believe that they probably will not die physically, but to secure this faith prophetically, they must accept the doctrine of an inevitable future holocaust.
This specific motivation for the support of Israel is never preached as such from any fundamentalist pulpit. The faithful hear sermons – many, many sermons – on the pretribulation Rapture. On other occasions, fundamentalists hear sermons on the Great Tribulation. But they do not hear the two themes put together: "We can avoid death, but only because two-thirds of the Jews of Israel will inevitably die in a future holocaust. America must therefore support the nation of Israel in order to keep the Israelis alive until after the Rapture." Fundamentalist ministers expect their congregations to put two and two together on their own. It would be politically incorrect to add up these figures in public.
The fundamentalists I have known over the last four decades generally say they appreciate Jews. They think Israel is far superior to Arab nations. They believe in a pro-Israel foreign policy as supportive of democracy and America's interests. They do not talk much about the prophetic fate of Israel's Jew. Nevertheless, this is the bottom line: the prophetic scapegoating of Israel.
CONCLUSION
The survival of the State of Israel is mandatory for its role as national sacrifice for Christianity, as fundamentalists perceive Christianity. Millions of Jews must die in horror in order that Christians may avoid death.
To imagine that fundamentalists will ever abandon their support of the State of Israel is to imagine that these people will also symbolically sign their own death certificates. That would be the meaning for such a reversal in outlook regarding American foreign policy.....
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http://www.leftbehind.com/printerpub...ssreleaseid=17
Press Release - Position Statements about the Left Behind Series
The Left Behind series is based upon a pre-millennialist interpretation of the book of Revelation. The blockbuster thrillers use the prophecies found in the book of Revelation as a framework and place the apocalyptic events in the unidentified future. In recent months, several misrepresentations of the authors' theology and storyline have been circulated in the press. Following are corrections to a few of the most prevalent misstatements:
.....Misstatement: The Left Behind series represents an end-times theology that is embraced by only a minority of Christians.
Response: While it is true that in the broad spectrum of Protestant Christianity there are multiple views of the end times scenario, <h3>the pre-millennialist theology found in the Left Behind series is the prominent view among evangelicals Christians, including their leading seminaries such Talbot Seminary, Trinity Seminary, and Dallas Theological Seminary.
In a recent poll by the Barna Research Group, when a group of 1003 Americans were asked if they had ever heard of the phrase "the Rapture," nearly two out of every three Americans (64%) responded yes.</h3> Naturally, Christians are much more likely than are non-Christians to have heard this phrase before. Eighty-three percent of born agains recognize the term compared to 53% of non-Christians. So, regardless whether they agree with every detail of the authors' interpretation, <b>the Rapture is not a new idea to them.</b>
Given a definition of the Rapture, this same group of Americans was asked if they believed there will be a Rapture or not. About 44% of Americans believe that there will be a Rapture while 43% do not (and 13% of adults say they are not sure what they believe on the matter.) There is a clear denominational division when it comes to belief in the Rapture, with non-mainline attenders nearly twice as likely as mainline attenders to believe that the Rapture will occur (71% to 38%), respectively. Eighty-five percent of evangelicals believe in the Rapture.
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http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary...o02?print=true
American "Rapture"
By CRAIG UNGER
Best-selling author and evangelical leader Tim LaHaye has contacts that extend to the White House. That could spell trouble, since his theology espouses a bloody apocalypse in Israel
On a scorching afternoon in May, Tim LaHaye, the 79-year-old co-author of the "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic thrillers, leads several dozen of his acolytes up a long, winding path to a hilltop in the ancient fortress city of Megiddo, Israel. LaHaye is not a household name in the secular world, but in the parallel universe of evangelical Christians he is the ultimate cultural icon. The author or co-author of more than 75 books, LaHaye in 2001 was named the most influential American evangelical leader of the past 25 years by the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals.........
........ Far from being a Prince of Peace, the Christ depicted in the "Left Behind" series is a vengeful Messiah—so vengeful that the death and destruction he causes to unconverted Jews, to secularists, to anyone who is not born again, is far, far greater than the crimes committed by the most brutal dictators in human history. When He arrives on the scene in Glorious Appearing, Christ merely has to speak and "men and women, soldiers and horses, seemed to explode where they stood. It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin." Soon, LaHaye and Jenkins write, tens of thousands of foot soldiers for the Antichrist are dying in the goriest manner imaginable, their internal organs oozing out, "their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ."
After the initial bloodletting, Nicolae Carpathia gathers his still-vast army, covering hundreds of square miles, and prepares for the conflict at Megiddo. As the battle for Armageddon is about to start, Rayford Steele climbs atop his Hummer to watch Christ harvest the grapes of wrath. Steele looks at the hordes of soldiers assembled by the Antichrist, and "tens of thousands burst open at the words of Jesus." They scream in pain and die before hitting the ground, their blood pouring forth. Soon, a massive river of blood is flowing throughout the Holy Land. Carpathia and the False Prophet are cast into the eternal lake of fire.
According to LaHaye and Jenkins, it is God's intent "that the millennium start with a clean slate." Committing mass murder hundreds of times greater than the Holocaust, the Lord—not the Antichrist, mind you—makes sure that "all unbelievers would soon die."..........
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http://www.antiwar.com/utley/?articleid=8588
February 24, 2006
The Brutal Christ of the Armageddonites
Religious fanaticism in
American foreign policy
by Jon Basil Utley
........A major reason the Armageddonites have become so powerful is that most journalists can't comprehend that millions of Americans could really want, in this day and age, their God to destroy most of the human race, much less that they are donating millions to promote it (subsidizing settlements on the West Bank and paying for Russian Jews to immigrate to Israel in order to fulfill prophecies faster). Nor do most Americans know that Armageddonites are in the highest levels of government. .........
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...and for the record...I believe that a more plausible approach to all of this, is to embrace the traditional interpretation: (Jesus was speaking of these things circa 30 AD, and the second temple, rebuilt by King Herod, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, in the apostles' generation. It has never been rebuilt...)
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http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...=24&version=50
Matthew 24
Jesus Predicts the Destruction of the Temple
......The Great Tribulation
15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’[c] spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.
23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.
26 “Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. 27 For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 28 For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.
The Coming of the Son of Man
29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
The Parable of the Fig Tree
32 “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So you also, when you see all these things, know that it[d] is near—at the doors! 34 <b>Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.</b> 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
No One Knows the Day or Hour
36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,[e] but My Father only. ......
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http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache...en&lr=&strip=1
The Rapture? I'm Afraid You're About 1,934 Years Too Late
....Preterist interpretations generally identify Jerusalem as the persecutor of the Church, "Babylon," the "Mother of Harlots," etc. They see Armageddon as God's judgment on the Jews (the destruction of the Temple in AD 70) carried out by the Roman army, which is identified with "the beast." The Antichrist himself is none other than the Emperor Nero, first Roman persecutor of Christians (whose numerical sum of the letters of his title and name add up to exactly 666). As for the words used by Jesus to win the battle of Armageddon, the Preterists had a gentler interpretation. The Word is simply the Gospel, against which the might of Rome was powerless. Revelations, in this view, uses symbolic language accessible to believers but opaque to Roman authorities who might try to read it. It is also the only view consistent with Jesus' Olivet discourse that "this generation" would see all things things fulfilled....
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