Among many, many, many others, one of the main things I don’t understand about fundamentalist Christians is why they speak out against technologies or government and public polices that they feel are signs of the end times.
Sure, there’s a lot of pain and suffering in the Book of Revelations, but ultimately, for the fundamentalists, that particular book is the Bible’s happy ending.
The only people who are really going to suffer are the non-believers and the Johnny-come-lately believers; everyone else will have been whisked away in the Rapture.
It seems to me that, if you’re one of those who will be dropping trou as you ascend bodily to Heaven, you’d feel a certain smug satisfaction watching events on Earth unfold into the tribulations that the people who wouldn’t accept your Chick Tracts have to suffer through.
Seriously, if the Book of Revelations is, as many (yes, I know – but don’t care – that it’s not all) fundamentalists believe, a 100% accurate prediction of events still to occur, then we know that tings are all going to work out in the end, so why bother worrying about it? After all, it’s not as though there’s any chance that God is going to lose, is there?
So if you already know how it’s going to end, you know that your side is going to win, and that there are going to be clear signs that this all going to happen, why wouldn’t you be glad when you start seeing those signs?
Take this woman (You thought I was going to say “please” in the parentheses, didn’t you?) complaining about RFIDs because she equates them to the Mark of the Beast.
Shouldn’t she be cheering it on? Sure, it’s a tool of the enemy, but the enemy is going to lose anyway, so why not just get it over with?
The sensible approach would be to encourage people to get the Mark, as ultimately you’ll be fast-forwarding to the end and helping to thin the heathen herd.
Same with complaints about “One World” government, which was also predicted to be a part of the end times, yet is something that people like Pat Robertson rail against all the time. Again, signs of the looming Apocalypse really ought to be good news for true believers who otherwise seem so eager for the end to come about.
That’s the other thing I don’t get; the fundamentalists who complain about liberals and humanists and atheists (Oh my!) who “hate” America. Like fundamentalists don’t? They can’t do anything but find fault with the country, they claim that God Himself has a mad on for us, obviously a fundamentalist isn’t going to have much love for a country that gives its citizens license to think, say, and believe whatever they want, and as they sit waiting with bated breath for the Rapture (“Coming Soon” for the last two thousand years) it’s obvious that they can’t wait to blow this godless popsicle stand.
Personally, I can’t wait for them to disappear either. If it’ll mean getting rid of Pat Robertson, Dubya, and Fox News, the Rapture can’t come fast enough.
Today has been pretty uneventful. I got up, sat around, talked to my mom, went in to work for a meeting, came home, had lunch/dinner, and now here we are.
When I was getting my lunch ready earlier I realized that should put some music playing when I found myself singing Rocksteady (We bean to rock, steady/Steady rockin’ all night long) aloud.
The batch of Nick Cave songs that soon flowed forth from my computer’s speakers were vastly preferable to my off-key rendition of a crappy 80’s song.
I’m A Perfect Example Department:
Last night’s guest on The Colbert Report was liberal blogger Arianna Huffington of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.
That she’s a liberal was news to me, as my recollections of her are as a really irritating conservative commentator – sort of a Rush Limbaugh in drag – on shows like Politically Incorrect and from various pieces of election year (1996) coverage on Comedy Central serving as a counterpoint to Al Franken.
Evidently Al rubbed off on her, though I can’t help but wonder how much “rubbing” went on given the flirtatious nature of their on-air “debates.”
She still bugs me, though, mostly because I’ve never been able to figure out why I should care what she thinks one way or the other, as I never knew (or cared to find out) who the hell she actually is and why anyone was ever listening to her in the first place.
In any case, on last night’s Report she was talking about the many advantages of blogging. Among them she listed the fact hat “you don’t have to be good-looking to blog.”
It’s a good thing, too, because what would you do without Threshold?
Of course, barring my having enough free time – and more importantly, motivation – to write some entries at work, you’ll get to find out over the next few days.
2 comments:
My friend sent me a link to this post today. I was ranting in my own blog about the same thing.
I think, and understand this is coming from an athiest, that the reason that Christians rant on and on about the End Times is because they feel it's their duty and responsibility to warn all us non-believers about our doom. It's not about the fact that they know they're going to win. It's about that they feel they should try to save the rest of us.
Frankly, I'm just fine not being saved, thank you very much. :-)
Cool blog, btw.
I can understand that perspective, and I might be more inclined to believe it if most fundamentalists acted like they actually gave a rat's ass about their fellow man.
Given their smug, self-righteous attitude I can't really believe that their motivation is to "save" people. Sure, that might be the motivation for some, but overall it seems unlikely.
Good points on your blog, though, about defacing the "V" posters (and in particular Natalie Portman).
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