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Oops. Left out that that the date is set for sometime in every year for the last more than 100 years!

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Arce and Mara

Aw gee, I guess this means I do have to do the dirty dishes after all. And I was just getting comfortable with my tin foil helmet with antenna.

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I believe that God honors our individual beliefs in the matter. So only pre-tribbers get raptured, and post-tribbers have to endure the tribulation. That’s why I choose partial Preterism. Makes me feel safer.

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Where’s Scully & Mulder when ya’ need em’? I’m sure they could clear this up.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F5DNEEV8d4

Hope the link works. My computer is giving me fits lately

Anyway, replace two thousand zero zero with two thousand one one and have fun. Those who can, anyway.

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Though Gary has become far too cozy with Vision Forum, here’s his stuff on Camping. Gary DeMar is post-millienial:

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Cindy,

I saw the Gary DeMar stuf and found it interesting. There is so much out there on Camping that it’s incredible!

Well, it’s just after 2 pm in my little corner of the world. What a magnificent day! My daughters and I are going strawberry picking on a Mennonite farm this afternoon. We’re gonna get enough to put in the freezer for future enjoyment.

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It’s Y2K all over again. How embarrassing.

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At least the Y2K scare caused the biggest peacetime economic boom – which brought prosperity to just about everyone, as the results of $2 trillion of consumer spending on software trickled through the US economy. Companies like Microsoft made a king’s fortune, and many Microsoft employees prosepered as a result. Even Bill Clinton would boast that he left the country with a “surplus” after his term of office.

The only thing prospering from the latest May 21 scare is Harold Camping’s wallet.

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well, next year is 2012… so I guess we can all look forward to another doomsday scare, albeit from a different quarter.

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A little end-time fun…ones in bold are just special…

2nd Century CE: The Montanist movement predicted that Jesus would return sometime during their lifetime and establish the New Jerusalem in the city of Pepuza in Asia Minor.

365 CE: A man by the name of Hilary of Poitiers, announced that the end would happen that year.
375 to 400 CE: Saint Martin of Tours, a student of Hilary, was convinced that the end would happen sometime before 400 CE.

500 CE: The antipope Hippolytus and an earlier Christian academic Sextus Julius Africanus had predicted Armageddon at about this year.

968 CE: An eclipse was interpreted as a prelude to the end of the world by the army of the German emperor Otto III.

992: Good Friday coincided with the Feast of the Annunciation; this had long been believed to be the event that would bring forth the Antichrist, and thus the end-times events foretold in the book of Revelation. Records from Germany report that a new sun rose in the north and that as many as 3 suns and 3 moons were fighting. There does not appear to be independent verification of this remarkable event. (Now there’s something that could have convinced an atheist!)

1000-MAY: Charlemagne was disinterred on Pentecost. A legend had arisen that he would rise from his sleep to fight the Antichrist.

1005-1006: A terrible famine throughout Europe was seen as a sign of the nearness of the end.

1147: Gerard of Poehlde decided that the millennium had started in 306 CE during Constantine’s reign. Thus, the world end was expected in 1306 CE.

1179: John of Toledo predicted the end of the world during 1186. This estimate was based on the alignment of many planets.

1205: Joachim of Fiore predicted in 1190 that King Richard of England would defeat the Antichrist The Millennium would then begin.

1284: Pope Innocent III computed this date by adding 666 years onto the date the Islam was founded.

1346: The black plague spread across Europe, killing one third of the population. This was seen as the prelude to an immediate end of the world. Unfortunately, the Christians had previously killed many of the cats, fearing that they might be familiars of Witches. The fewer the cats, the more the rats. It was the rat fleas that spread the black plague.

1533: Melchior Hoffman predicted that Jesus’ return would happen a millennium and a half after the nominal date of his execution, in 1533. The New Jerusalem was expected to be established in Strasbourg, Germany. He was arrested and died in a Strasbourg jail.

1669: The Old Believers in Russia believed that the end of the world would occur in this year. 20 thousand burned themselves to death between 1669 and 1690 to protect themselves from the Antichrist.

1689: Benjamin Keach, a 17th century Baptist, predicted the end of the world for this year.

1736: British theologian and mathematician William Whitson predicted a great flood similar to Noah’s for OCT-13 of this year.

1792: This was the date of the end of the world calculated by some believers in the Shaker movement.

1794: Charles Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, thought Doomsday would be in this year.

1830: Margaret McDonald, a Christian prophetess, predicted that Robert Owen would be the Antichrist. Owen helped found New Harmony, IN.

1850: Ellen White, founder of the Seven Day Adventists movement, made many predictions of the timing of the end of the world. All failed. On 1850-JUN-27 she prophesied that only a few months remained before the end.

1856: At Ellen White’s last prediction, she said that she was shown in a vision the fate of believers who attended the 1856 SDA conference. She wrote “I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel: ‘Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and
remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus.” That is, some of the attendees would die of normal diseases; some would die from plagues at the last days, others would still be alive when Jesus came. “By the early 1900s all those who attended the conference had passed away, leaving the Church with the dilemma of trying to figure out how to explain away such a prominent prophetic failure.” (Hmmm…now what?)

1891: Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church, attended a meeting of church leaders. He said that the meeting had been called because God had commanded it. He announced that Jesus would return within 56 years (History of the Church 2:182)

1914 was one of the more important estimates of the start of the war of Armageddon by the Jehovah’s Witnesses (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society). They based their prophecy of 1914 from prophecy in the book of Daniel, When 1914 passed, they changed their prediction; 1914 became the year that Jesus invisibly began his rule, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994, etc. were other dates that the Watchtower Society (WTS) or its members predicted. (There nothing if not persistant!)

1970:The True Light Church of Christ made its claim to fame by incorrectly forecasting the return of Jesus.

1981: Hal Lindsey boldly declared that “The Rapture” would occur before Dec. 31, 1981, based on Christian prophesy, astronomy and a dash of ecological fatalism. He pegged the date to Jesus’ promised to return to Earth a generation after Israel’s rebirth. He also made references to the “Jupiter Effect,” a planetary alignment that occurs every 179 years, that would supposedly lead to earthquakes and nuclear plant meltdowns.

1982:A group called the Tara Centers placed full-page advertisements in many major newspapers for the weekend of April 24-25, 1982, announced: “The Christ is Now Here!” and predicted that he was to make himself known “within the next two months.” After the date passed, they said that the delay was only because the “consciousness of the human race was not quite right…”

1983: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Guru of the Rajneesh movement predicted massive destruction on earth, including natural disasters and man-made catastrophes. Floods larger than any since Noah, extreme earthquakes, very destructive volcano eruptions, nuclear wars etc. will be experienced. Tokyo, New
York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bombay will all disappear.

1986: Moses David of The Children of God faith group predicted that the Battle of Armageddon would take place in 1986. Russia would defeat Israel and the United States. A worldwide Communist dictatorship would be established. In 1993, Christ would return to earth.

1988:Rapture in Rosh Hashanna Sept. 1988 before Sept 21, Edgar C. Whisenant (Book: 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will be in 1988

1989: After the passing of the deadline in 88 Reason’s, the author, Edgar Whisenaunt, came out with a new book called “89 Reasons why the Rapture is in 1989.” (if at first you don’t succeed!)

1992: David Koresh of the Branch Davidian group in Waco Texas changed the name of their commune from Mt. Carmel to Ranch Apocalypse, because of his belief that the final all-encompassing battle of Armageddon mentioned in the Bible would start at the Branch Davidian compound. They had calculated that the end would occur in 1995

1991:A local group in Australia predicted Jesus would return through the Sydney Harbor at 9:00 am on 31st March, 1991.

1991:Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan proclaimed the Gulf War would to be “the War of Armageddon … the final War.”

1991:Menachem Schneerson, a Russian born rabbi, called for the Messiah to come by Sept 9, 1991, the start of the Jewish New Year.

1992:Lee Jang Rim started a church called, “Mission For The Coming Days” was jailed for two years after embezzling 4.4 million dollars from 10,000 of his cult followers. He had used the money to buy bonds that matured after the end of the world! (I think the proper word is Chutzpah!)

1992: Rapture; Full page ad in USA Today, on Oct. 20, 1991, placed by the Hyoo-go (Rapture) movement. EP News service quoted one sect, “50 million people will die in earthquakes, 50 million from collapsed buildings, 1.4 billion from World War III and 1.4 billion from a separate Armageddon.”

1994: In the book, F. M. Riley foretold of God’s plan to rapture His people. The name of his ministry is The Last Call and operates out of Missouri.

1994: Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church Los Angels caused quite a stir when he announced he had received a vision for God that warned of apocalyptic event on June 9th, 1994. Hinkle, quoting God, said, “On Thursday June the 9th, I will rip the evil out of this world.”

1994:After promising themselves they would not make any more end time predictions, the Jehovah’s Witnesses fell off the wagon and proclaimed 1994 as the conclusion of an 80 year generation – the year 1914 was the starting point

1996: California psychic Sheldon Nidle predicted the end would come when 16 million space ships converged upon the Earth on Dec. 17, 1996, along with a host of angels. Nidle explained the passing of the date by claiming the angles placed us in a holographic projection to preserve us and give us a second chance. (Gotta love the creative spin!)

1997:Stan Johnson of the Prophecy Club saw a 90 percent chance that the tribulation would start Sept 12, 1997. He bases his conclusion on several end-time signs. The date of September 12 was chosen by Johnson because it will be Jesus’ 2000th birthday and it will also be the day of atonement, although not what is currently the Jewish Day of Atonement.

1997: Weekly World News carried a statement by a spokesperson of the International Association of Psychics. 92% of their 120,000 members have had the same “end time” vision that the world would end by 2001 (The ‘500’ who witnessed the resurrection pales in comparison!)

1997:The Vortex of the Star of David religious sect of Luskville, Quebec was quoted as predicting the end of the world on Saturday, MAR-8.

1998:A Taiwanese cult operating out of Garland Texas predicted Christ would return on Mar 31 of 1998. The group’s leader, Heng-ming Chen, announced God would return, and then invite the cult members aboard a UFO

1999:1999 – Sept – 30: Second Coming of Jesus Christ predicted by Kirk Nelson using Edgar Cayce’s Predictions in correlation with the Christian Bible.

1999:Sun Magazine listed a prediction of “Bible expert” Dotson Meade. He predicts that “something will happen that brings about the war which will end the world as we know it… There will be a vicious cycle of storms and earthquakes that lead to the final battle the world has awaited.” This date was derived from
information in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

1999:Concerned Christians This group, whose members were ordered deported from Israel, was started by Monte Kim Miller, who used to run an anti-cult network in Denver. People who know the cult say Miller believes he is the last prophet on Earth before Armageddon. Miller, who reportedly believed he
talked to God each morning before he went to work, was said to claim that America was Satan and the government evil. Miller has predicted he will die on the streets of Jerusalem in December 1999 but will rise from the dead three days later.

SOON!: Jerry Falwell “In a speech about the concern people have over the new millennium, The Rev. Jerry Falwell said the Antichrist is probably alive today and is a male Jew. Falwell also told about 1,500 people at a conference in Kingsport, Tenn., on Thursday that he believes the second coming of Christ probably will be within 10 years.

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OK… gotta eat my words, as there were mass suicides among the Old Believers in Russia:

http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/content/47/1/1.full.pdf

also in this book: click to see (link is in “click to see,” as it’s a Google Books search result and those links are incredibly long; might get flagged as spam here).

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“Y2K scare”

It was real. Computers were going to belly flop, crash, burn, whatever all over the place. It was only due to a massive spending effort that a lot of issues were avoided. Of course some of that spending was done to kick the can down the road. There are not a lot of systems with Y2021 and such problems.

But believe me. The issues were real. Just talk to the small merchants who got to buy a new credit card processing box because their old ones were not “fixable”. At $400 and up it was painful for a lot of small businesses.

I even got to deal with a similar issue on a business system where I was the lead developer. Way back when, before my time, a date system was picked that would run out in 1991. This was in the P&C insurance industry. We had to do a Y2K conversion in 87 for about 2500 insurance agency systems. It was a royal PITB. Lots of work with little appreciation and basically no income.

Y2K was real. It was a non event to most people because it was handled by the computer nerds.

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Karl, I think people are going to believe what they want to believe regardless of what public schools teach or don’t teach.

That said, I’m troubled over what I think is a real lack (in most schools, public and private) in teaching kids to think critically about what they are taught. The ability to do that well is (imo) a very important component of life and goes far beyond analyzing textbooks and other assigned material.

Have you ever read Frances Fitzgerald’s book America Revised It was published in 1979 and … I think very few people listened to her. (Look at the incredible attempts at historical revisionism in the Texas public school curriculum, for example…)

I also feel that it’s entirely possible to believe in a deity (or deities) *and* be able to think through the particulars of one’s beliefs and religious texts. My guess is that a lot of folks from non-evangelical backgrounds (Anglicans, in many cases; also the best Roman Catholic scholars) don’t feel a dissonance between belief and study/questioning.

Maybe, as Dee has suggested before your SGM background has made you feel a need to walk away from all of it? (Meaning Christianity, agnosticism – the lot.) If so, I sympathize. Given a lot of my own experiences in abusive/doctrinally insane churches, I think it’s kind of amazing that I actually believe in God. 😉 (j/k, but not really.)

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Numo,

My SGM background had nothing to do with leaving the faith…at the time I pretty much enjoyed all of the churches I attended including SGM, it was a bit left of center for me, but other than that a good time. I left the faith because I realized how silly it all was and got tired of all the illogical, unreasoned and unsupported nonsense. I am not saying that to be mean or aggressive, but simply because that’s the truth of the matter.

People believe for a wide variety of reasons….insecurity (want group acceptance), inability or unwillingness to examine why a person does something, uncritical thinking (at least about the initial assumptions), fear of the unknown or afterlife, a need to feel in control (answers for everything), certainly, for some, it’s a job, for some a power trip (control over others), for many, just an unwillingness to abandon what they know inside to be false or unlikely because of the social ramifications…and on and on and on.

For me, there was just nothing compelling. After leaving, and 25 years later, I still feel that way. Nothing lost and a great deal gained.

Hope that gives you some insight into why I left.

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Did you look it up? I have 24 years of education. No Kinder, M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology, Postdoc in mathematical psychology and the theory of data, J.D. cum Laude from a top 40 law schoo, three years teaching research methodology, statistics, ethics, at the graduate and undergraduate level, as well as teaching some psychology courses. Research field was how to effectively evaluate programs to determine what was and was not functional. One year as a Congressional Science Fellow (got federal funding for hospice care as an alternative treatment to hospitalization under medicare and medicaid -1978, behind the scenes with aegis from a Congressman). Five years as a research manager at a large R&D organization overseeing environmental impact assessments of chemical, energy, and nuclear facilities, as well as environmentally appropriate economic development plans for communities affected by military closings. One year as Sr. mgr in industry. Started and ran my own business teaching businesses how to avoid environmental, health and safety liabilities for chemicals used or produced, and consulting in over 500 plants, with staff of six professionals. Chaired five national scope environmental conferences. Then went to law school.

Education in and the ability to critically think is not contradictory to faith. It is inimical to faith only if the faith is that which is often misrepresented as Christianity by people who are not willing to critically evaluate their faith — the sort of thing taught in bible colleges, which are really indoctrination centers. We have some seminaries who want their students to be in the 70-80 percentile and not 95-100 percentile. Smart enough to learn the language and organize the information but not sharp enough to critically analyze what they are being taught while still parroting it back effectively enough to pass the courses and keep the indoctrinators happy.

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@ Karlton: thanks for your post, although I suppose it leaves me with many unanswered questions. 😉

I do know what you mean about many things being illogical and/or nonsensical, but … I think a lot of *those* things aren’t intrinsic to Christianity (or any kind of religious faith, come to that).

And I think Arce has made some very good points about critical thinking – as well as saying that most bible colleges are “indoctrination centers.” (Funny, I never even knew that bible colleges existed until after I started hanging out with evangelicals, back in the early 70s… they just weren’t a feature of the landscape, as if they either didn’t exist and/or weren’t legit unless they had the word “seminary” in their names). I guess you can chalk that up to the dangers of being beer-drinking, card-playing, social dancing, moviegoing Lutheran(s). 😉

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Could it be that some believe because it just makes sense to them?

Good question! For me, the answer is “yes.”

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“Religiously!!!!”

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Arce, why can’t I believe in a 900 yr. lifespan in the antidiluvian past? Of course I have no proof. I simply choose to engage in reasonable speculation about much of what the Bible sez aside from the tenets of the Creeds, because the thoughts resonate with me. I don’t give a rat’s ass what Augustine, Calvin, or Luther said, I keep my own counsel.

Karlton, I admitted in a previous comment thread that my belief in an actual corporeal afterlife is driven largely by self-interest, namely the innate desire for immortality. Once again, I have no assurance, I have a hope based on what Messiah has promised me if I continue to live ethically and treat others as I would want to be treated.

The objection could be raised here that my belief is no different than poor old Renfield’s delusions in a London asylum whilst awaiting his master Count Dracula. Once again, worm food or ransomed, time will tell.