Letters to the Editor
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What do the Israelis think about all this?
I can understand why the Millenialists and the Dominionists are looking forward to the Rapture, and actually want it to occur because they will all be whisked away and won't have to pay their credit card bills. I understand that Bush believes that he has been chosen by God to lead America in the end times (http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00114) and that he really doesn't care what happens because he's going to be whisked away anyway.
But what do the Israelis get out of assisting the End-of-Timers in achieving their goal? They lose their country. They lose their lives. They lose their future generations. And they don't even get to go to see Jeebus in Heaven.
Seriously, what do the Israelis believe about their alignment and acceptance of support from people with severe delusions and deathwishes?
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It's not wishing for mass suicide, it's gleeful I told you so.
As someone who was raised by a rapture believer, yes it's cookoo bannanas. It's not mass suicide these people are hoping for, understand that. In their crazy belief system, all true believers are transported to heaven to wait out the wars and pestilence that the Left Behinds have to deal with. During this time the Left Behinds have a choice to believe in God and accept his way of life or be banished for eternity into hell. Then there will be a second "rapture" where the Left Behinds who've converted also get transported to heaven. After God has wiped out the planet of all those sinners who refuse to believe, he will rebuild it and all the faithful will be returned to planet Earth to live in the new Eden.
So basically what these people are all wishing for is concrete proof that all their shunning of sex, drugs and rock n roll wasn't for nothing. They also want to point fingers at all the atheists and agnostics and go see, we told you so. We told you God was real and we told you abortion was wrong and yada yada. It's basically a schoolyard mentality of na na na nanna naa.
You may have had your earthly fun of drugs and sex and all the other pleasures of earthly existence, but you don't get to be in the best club ever!
So no, they aren't wishing to die and go to heaven, they are waiting for Earth to be put in a state where everyone does the "right" thing, so there will be very little pain. What they want is an existence free from failure and pain and filled with the joyful love of God. Hey if your spouse doesn't cheat on you, no one has drug addictions, your children aren't taken and molested and all that other evil shit doesn't exist, then you can live in a happy whappy bubble where your biggest problem is skinned knees.
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Biblical Quotations
Why is the King James Version of the Bible being quoted in this article? Could the author not find a more modern translation?
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Jews? What? Huh?
"And I got some. I suggest Salon start a cooking column where they can cover new culinary arts, and of course those fucking Jews.
You folks here need not even pretend to pretend anymore. We got it. We really really understand where the Salon readership is coming from. Say it PROUD!!!!"
Are you very stoned? Where in the article or these letters have you found anti-Semitism? If I missed some I'm very sorry, but it seems to me the vast majority of the posters here are railing against wacko fundy Xtians, not Jew-bashing. The two are not the same. Personally, I did my Jewish friends and have a hell of a lot of respect for Israel, which puts up with a lot of shit and handles it better than, say, the U.S.
Then again, if you go looking for hatred, you'll probably find it if that's the way your mind is wired. Sad.
But since we're on the subject, how about a little Karnak the Magnificent:
Answer: "Judo."
Question: "What are bagels made out of?"
Oh, I kill me. Try the veal. Thank you, good night.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again
The majority of Salon readers need to get over their naval gazing and obsessive desire to engage in schoolyard slam-book insults and realize that what's going on with the Evangelicals DOES matter and IS important because the belief systems of the Evangelicals are important to enough people in this country that their beliefs change the actions and outcomes of what goes on in this country.
It isn't enough to not like the Evangelicals and be good at hurling insults. What good liberals think about the evangelicals alters the Evangelical plans and influence not one whit. What matters is understanding the Evangelicals enough to be able to predict their behavior and how to undermine their influence.
This article did a pretty good stab at explaining what a lot of us already know and what worries a great many people. If you're good for nothing than deriding the message of it and laughing at the stupid Evangelicals or getting all hot and bothered about their belief systems, you're not going to help change anything: you're just going to give the Evangelical desire to be persercuted a boost.
Thanks to the few message writers who want to discuss this logically. I'm fed up with the rest. They're signing their own death sentences with intolerance and smug senses of false superiority.
Yeah, yeah, fightin' words, I know. I just had better aspirations for the left-leaning side of this world than finding the same stupid-ass means of behaving on the left as on the right.
Let me go howl at the moon a little and maybe I'll be in a better humor later.
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Israel and "Culture Wars"
The ironic thing about Evangelicals' support of Israel is where it stands on their beloved "culture wars" issues. It is, after all a secular, gay-tolerant, abortion-legalizing, death-penalty-abolishing, free-health-care, solar-powered welfare society where collective farms prevail over agribusiness. Why on Earth would they support such Commies ?
If the Evangelicals really are so faithful to these issues, they really should align themselves with Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah. Not only would they most certainly agree with them not just on abortion and gays, but also on the coming of the Apocalypse and of Mahdi, the lost 20th Imam.
The truly scary thing about all this is how Bush and Ahmadinejad both have the power, and willingness, to bring their beliefs to fruition.