trodas

Political Rapture
By George Monbiot

Playboy October 2004

It's not hard to understand current Israeli policy toward the occupied territories. As part of his bid to become prime minister, Ariel Sharon provoked the intifada by marching to the Al-Aqsa mosque with 1,000 police officers. The purpose of his policies - the bulldozing, the bombing and the enclosure - appears to be to goad the Palestinians into acts of terrorism, thereby securing his position as the defender of Israel.
It's harder to understand the U.S. government's support for these policies - especially George Bush's abandonment of the road map he drew and the permission he appears to have granted Sharon to sustain the occupation of the West Bank. For years our support for some of the Israeli government's more extreme policies has been attributed to the influence of a "Jewish lobby." No question, some American Jewish organizations back Sharon's approach (others fiercely oppose it) and urge their government to support him. It has never been clear, however, why Bush and his predecessors have been so receptive to such lobbying.
Another explanation exists for Bush's enthusiasm for the escalation on conflict in the Mideast, and where better to find it than Texas? To understand what is happening there, read the resolutions passed at the state's Republican Party conventions in March. Take a look, for example, at the decisions made in Harris Country, witch covers much of Houston. The delegates began by nodding through a few predicable matters: Homosexuality is contrary to the truths ordained by God; "any mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns" should be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax should be abolished; and immigrants should be deterred by electronics fences. Thus fortified, the delegates turned to the real issue: They adopted a motion staring that Israel has an undivided claim to Jerusalem and the West Bank, that Arab states should be pressured to absorb refugees from Palestine and that Israel should do whatever it wishes in seeking to eliminate terrorism.
Why should this be a such pressing interest to the citizens of a state seldom celebrated for its fascination with foreign affairs? The explanation is slowly becoming familiar, thought it's still difficult to take seriously.
In the U.S. several million fundamentalist Christians have succumbed do an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century an Irish priest named John Nelson Darby did what many other quacks, cranks and con men have done: He claimed to have discovered a hidden prophecy in the Bible. He had cobbled together a series of unrelated passages to create what appeared to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first was the establishment of a state of Israel. Then next involved Israel's occupation of the rest of its "Biblical lands" (everything from the Nile to the Euphrates) and rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the Antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn of convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to earth.
What makes the story so appealing to Christian fundamentalists is that before the final battle begins, all true believers will be lifted out of theirs clothes and carried to heaven during an event called the rapture. Not only do the worthy get to sit at the right hand of God, they will be able watch, from the best seats, their political and religious opponents being devoured by boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the seven years of tribulation that follow.
One poll suggest that between 15 percent and 18 percent of voters belong to churches or movements that subscribe to these teachings. Another reveals that this figure includes 33 percent of Republicans. The people who believe all this don't believe in halfheartedly; for them it's a matter of life eternal and death. And among them are some of the most powerful men in America. Attorney General John Ashcroft is true believer. So are several prominent senators and the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, who traveled to Israel last year and told the Knesset, "There is no middle ground, no moderate position worth talking."
The true believers now seek to bring their glorious prophecy to pass. This means staging confrontations at the old temple site, sponsoring Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, demanding ever more U.S. support for Israel and seeking to provoke a final confrontation with the Antichrist, who, depending on the day, consists of the Muslim world, the "axis of evil," the United Nations, the European Union of France. And, these Christians believe, the Antichrist walks among us. He has disguised himself as Kofi Annan, Javier Solana, Yassir Arafat or, more plausibly, Silvio Berlusconi.
Here then we have a major political constituency - representing much of the president's core vote - that entertains a series of insane beliefs and actively seeks to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act because Revelation 9:14-15 maintains that four angels "bound in the great river Euphrates" will be released "to slay the third part of men." When Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002 he received 100,00 angry e-mails from Christian fundamentalists. He never mentioned the matter again.
The electoral calculation, crazy as it appears, works like this. Governments stand or fall on domestic issues. For 85 percent of Americans, the Mideast is a foreign issue and therefore of secondary interest. For 15 percent if the electorate the Mideast isn't just a domestic matter, it's a personal one. If the president fails to start the conflagration there, his core voters don't get to sit at the right hand of God. In other words, George Bush stands to lose fewer votes by encouraging Israeli aggression than he stands to lose by restraining it. He would be mad to listen to these people. He would also be mad not to.

http://raptureready.com/rr-fyf.html

radTube

Are we supposed to be afraid of muslim fundamentalists when there are people like this? These loonies are actually working towards the end of the world. They're the ones america should be concerned about.

This is just another doomsday cult, and these people have no right to call themselves christians. Rapture my ass

trodas

I see you the same way...

There are many group of dangerous peoples. The worst are probably these neocon war loonies, that siezed power in USA. These are the most dangerous ones, because of the power they have in hands. Rummy, Cheney, Wolfovitz, George Walker Bush and such ones... Their ideas concerning world domination, preventive war for oil (siezing oil resources before the upcomming oil crisis come) and the dangerous view of world as black and white and their need for war between good and evil...

These "christian" religious fanatics is another group, that trying to moderate the world events toward materialization of their insane believes and prophencies of armageddon. Their blind beliefs and insane goals, together with the respectable number and influence of them made them serious force.

And at least, there the the muslim fanatics, that belief only in being absolutely pure muslims and killing every muslims, that aren't that pure - witch ultimately lead to the fact, that they will kill each other. Therefore they are far less dangerous that any other group, because they will sooner or later kill themselves. In fact, before the US army occupation of Iraq take place, they are dismised and hated by own people - the normal muslims, that aren't as insane, as them. They aren't not as deangerless todays, because the actions of US army and the occupation of Iraq prove their ideas "right" and the average people starting to support these fanatics, because they fight US army, and US army is the enemy of Iraqis peoples. So, as result of neocons actions, there islam fundamentalists actually gained a lot's of power. Still, they are far less dangerous that any of the previous groups.


The worst at all this rapture thing is, that it shows pretty well, how dangerous any prophency could be. It is danerous, because any prophency find peoples, who believe in it and pushing the wheel of history the way, to make the prophency actually hapenning...!
That is IMHO the far most dangerous thing. There is too many too crazy prophencies and I do believe that when the last thing - tearing down the Al Aksa and building 3 jews temple happen - the Israel will suffer the attack from other countries. So the real danger is, that this part of the prophency is likely to be very true - while the crazy rapturers will hopelessly await their rapture, that never happen...

I mean - even if God exist - what God want's to sit with peoples, provocating other peoples to slaughter another peoples?