Latest article on the Secular Web Kiosk: The Lowdown on God's Showdown by Edward Babinski, on purported "Last Days" prophecy.

For more "last days" stuff, see also the following two threads in the Church-State Separation forum:

• The fanatical beliefs of Israeli would-be theocrats
• The Temple Mount (Yikes!)

[This message has been edited by Kate Long (edited April 17, 2001).]

Are we in the last days again. I wished it would just follow through and be over, I started waiting for the end days back in 1973 when Hal Lindsy predicted it all. Then with his continued misses through out the years only to bomb really big time on the Y2K,I though he would just give up.

I was shocked (ok, not really) to hear the phoney is appearing at CornerStone Church this weekend spreading it thick for the locals in San Antonio. Maybe this next time it will be for real and we can all just die.

[This message has been edited by critical thinking made ez (edited April 17, 2001).]

According to Babinski's Kiosk article, the New Testament makes it pretty plain that Jesus's return was expected within the lifetimes of people living at that time. Through the centuries, Christians have come up with various elaborate schemes to explain this away.

Paul made it very clear that he though JC was returning shortly. He gave very clear instructions to single men not to get married. Basically, don't marry unless you are so horney you will fornicate, then in that case, and only in that case, marry. But try to hold on because it won't be long and with marriage, small babies etc. it will divert them from keeping their minds 100% on the Lord.

For what other reason could Paul have made a declaration that if followed would have eliminated marriage 100%?

Critical thinking,

It's amazing how Paul's stuff on staying single "for the Lord's sake" still gets used today - I was in a fundie church that strung together a bunch of verses like that to convince lots of men to stay single and "give it all" to God. Which, of course, translated into giving all in the offering (except for a $20/week allowance).


Kate,

Thanks for the links; these people are scary. When I was a fundie, I knew a Navy officer that believed the US should have taken over the world after WW2 - after all, we were the only ones with nukes then, and it was a perfect opportunity to "spread the gospel." Yeah - nothing like making converts at the point of a gun. Yikes! Even back then, people like that worried me.

Looking back at my fundie years, it's just funny how uptight I was sometimes about "the end times." Always worrying about being watched by Big Brother Jesus isn't a very healthy thing, I think. For that matter, neither are the mental gymnastics that are required to reinterpret all the scriptures in a way that explains why he's almost twenty centuries late. Glad to be rid of all that crap - the future is now an open place where anything is possible, as opposed to the dead-end of biblical determinancy.