Hee hee hee

[pyat]

From the Slacktivist's ongoing review of the Left Behind series:

Bruce isn't sure what to make of the deal with the U.S., "because as much as I study I don't see America playing a role during this period of history." That's an almost verbatim quote from Tim LaHaye's stock answer whenever he is asked about the role of America in the End Times. He seems genuinely perplexed by this mystery. "As much as I study," he says, he can't seem to find any mention of America in Revelation, or Daniel, or Ezekiel.

It's eerie. It's almost as though the authors of those books didn't even know this hemisphere existed.

Comments

[shadow-maze.livejournal.com]

Tee hee!

Perhaps there are no "End Times" for us, just the rest of the world? (:-)

[athelind.livejournal.com]

*I* feel fine.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Nothing Bad Happens in Canada!

[mairesue.livejournal.com]

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

Baiting these guys is like teasing the crippled kid who falls off the bus. It's too easy, and after a while you realize it was probably never all that funny to begin with.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Nonsense. It's more like, say, poking holes in the logic of a wildly successful author millionaire.

The crippled kid was never funny!

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

Never funny unless you were, well, someone who used to think crippled kids were funny. Anyway, my point being I lost my taste for mocking this sort of thing a while back -- not because they're right, mind you, but because it's sort of like preaching to the choir. The people who actually slurp down this codswallop weren't joked into believing in it, so I doubt they can be joked out of believing in it.

Then again, that presumes anyone had the idea of doing so in the first place.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, yeah! I find the Slacktivist most interesting when he's criticizing La Haye et al within the context of scripture, I admit.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

See, that might actually have some heft to it. I've come to believe the most well-received arguments against books like these aren't going to come from the atheist/skeptic crowd, but from more moderate (sane, balanced, etc.) members of the faithful. I would think it's not a terribly Christian sentiment to indulge in what is essentially the spiritual variant of incitement to riot.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

In my experience, it doesn't usually help. People rarely change a belief they're invested in when faced with any kind of attack, whether its mockery or logic. A challenge just causes them to shore it up.

Unchallenged beliefs are the ones that sort of vanish and fall away, generally speaking.

A few months ago, all of a sudden, it seemed as if my whole mind had changed. Everything that I'd believed in till then--everything--seemed suddenly meaningless and almost silly. God--what I'd meant by God--immortal life, Heaven and Hell--everything. It had all gone.

And it wasn't that I'd reasoned it out; it just happened to me. It was like when you're a child, and one day, for no particular reason, you stop believing in fairies. I just couldn't go on believing in it any longer.'

Of course, mileage varies!

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

Mileage definitely varies. I don't think there's any one-size-fits-all approach to this stuff, either on a personal or a confrontatory level. I know that in my case I can't say I ever felt completely convinced that such things deserved my belief; I could quote you just as many counter-examples.

I guess what matters most is that people become made aware, as early on as possible, with all the myriad ways their brains work from the inside out to find meaning where there might not be any -- and how that is both our salvation and our biggest pain in the ass.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

Where do the italicized paragraphs come from?

[pyat.livejournal.com]

They're from A Clergyman's Daughter, perhaps George Orwell's least read book. And with good reason, it's sort of choppy. But it has good bits!

[paka.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. Maybe, just maybe, the USA isn't some sort of divine special project? I'm not even tackling the omnipresent nature and appeal of end times, and the way that people have made it into a cottage industry.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

America is, um, any mention of an eagle. Yeah.

They shall soar with wings as eagles.

So in the end times, America will be in space.

There ya go.