Breaking News: Wednesday is Judgment Day, Goodbye Everyone!

Wow, if I'd realized that Wednesday was it, I might have had more fun this weekend. Hey, at least I got to watch the premieres of The Flash and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. So, I wonder what time the end is coming? Everyone have their hell-bound handbaskets ready to go? I think it's safe to say, that's where most of us are headed, right?

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Christian group predicts the world will be 'annihilated' on Wednesday

While our planet may have survived September’s “blood moon”, it will be permanently destroyed on Wednesday, 7 October, a Christian organization has warned. The eBible Fellowship, an online affiliation headquartered near Philadelphia, has based its prediction of an October obliteration on a previous claim that the world would end on 21 May 2011. While that claim proved to be false, the organization is confident it has the correct date this time. . .

Read more (with video) at: The Guardian

FOX's Neil Cavuto Ponders: Is Syria Attack an Indicator of the Second Coming?

Kent Brockman Neil Cavuto, image from Raw Story

Yeah, you know, people can make digs that MSNBC is the liberal version of FOX "News." But honestly--beside the fact that "news" isn't in MSNBC's name--is there anything like this ridiculous babble coming out of Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O'Donnell? Really?

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Fox anchor asks viewers to consider if bombing Syria is a harbinger of the Second Coming of Christ

Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto on Monday devoted an entire segment to the possibility that a United States attack on Syria could be a sign of the End Times, a period in which Christians believe that Jesus Christ will return to face the emergence of the Antichrist. “This Syria stuff is way old,” Cavuto explained. “I mean Old Testament old. That’s how old I’m talking about. Don’t laugh. Some biblical scholars say it’s all there in black and white. . .”

Read more at: The Raw Story

Glenn Beck, Doomsday Prophet

Schtick or the real thing? Image from MStarz.com

There is a whole collection of right-wing heroes that defy description, and are probably best left without media attention to give them what they crave. But they're like catnip in the opposite way to us liberals as they are to their conservative fans. Some of them are easy to figure out. Ann Coulter is a troll, making outrageous pronouncements in order to stir up a controversy, and then she reaps the rewards. Sarah Palin is similar, but with a much shallower reserve of actual knowledge and brain power. Glenn Beck is harder to peg.

It's difficult to tell if Beck is all a show, or if he's really like that. But it's helpful to remember that Beck is an adult convert to Mormonism. That could be an act too, I suppose, to appease his wife. But if not, it might explain Beck's flights of fancy. It takes either an extremely gullible mind to be taken in by such a wacky religion as a full-grown adult, or one with rather odd neural pathways. I may be guilty of being an LDS-O-phobe, but I think if you read The Book of Mormon, and say to yourself, "this makes sense!" you might just have more than a few screws loose. And Mormons, I'm not picking on you, all religions are bananas on their surface. To convert to one in adulthood takes a mind that is not necessarily firing on all thrusters.

But Beck is a showman, so I don't know where the line is. Days ago, he was claiming his vocal chords were paralyzed, and then he was right back on his internet "radio" show, yapping away. Now, he's dragging his Mormonism out into the light, and going on about "the end times." Has the butter finally dripped off Beck''s noodles? Is this yet another ploy for attention? Or is he right?

That last question is a joke.

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Citing the Book of Mormon, Glenn Beck Warns That 'We Are at the End'


Near the end of today's radio broadcast, Glenn Beck grew solemn as he warned his audience that "we are living in Biblical times."

Read more at: RightWingWatch.org

Harold Camping: Oops, My Bad! Apocalypse Will be in October

"I forgot to carry the 1. . ." Image from source

Oh, dude, just give it up! Seriously? Is there a living being alive who'd be suckered by this guy not once, not twice but thrice? Anyone who believes this guy, and sends their money to him deserves to lose it. Suckers.

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Radio host says world's end actually coming in Oct

As crestfallen followers of a California preacher who foresaw the world's end strained to find meaning in their lives, Harold Camping revised his apocalyptic prophecy Monday, saying he was off by five months because the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21. . .

Read more at: XFinity News

The World Didn't End. That is All.

Blast from the Past: Blondie's Rapture

What with Saturday's big, anticipated Rapture and all, I just can't get this old Blondie song out of my head. I'm an atheistic agnostic myself, so I figure the chances that the Rapture is actually going to happen to be about 0.0000000001% at best. And the odds are even smaller that the post-rapture "tribulation" period is going to go as it does in the dreadful apocalyptic book series Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The way I see it, if all of us naysayers actually witness an actual Rapture event--followed by all that wacky biblical prophecy--there will be no need for a Tribulation Force of newly converted believers, fighting armies of the Anti-Christ's followers. Sorry, but I think most of us are gonna be fundamentalist believers at that point. For now? I'm going to snicker and laugh a lot, and continue to think of Debbie Harry when I think of Rapture.

Economy a Sign of ARMAGEDDON?

Until recently, we as a nation lived under a policy of fear. "Be afraid, be very afraid" could easily have become our national motto. What works out for politics also seems to be one line of attack in religion as well.

We know why. Because fear sells. It works on all of us at times, but some people seem to be masochists for it, dreaming up rich conspiracy theories that show they're out to get us! And religion--it claims--offers a solution. But the scary thing is, some religions seem to be eager for the scary stuff to happen. They're really itching for Armageddon, because it means paradise after. Or something.

Look, I've read the doomsday religious series, Left Behind. Nearly as scary as the terrible writing is the "tribulation," the nasty stuff those of us who aren't "raptured bodily into heaven" will have to live through before the "glorious appearing" of Jesus. And then it gets even worse.

Jesus isn't the warm, loving being we learned about in Sunday school, if you believe these stories (and way too many do). He's apparently a slaughterific, blood-n-guts, friggin' destroyer of souls! And you don't even have to be a bad person. You just have to not be a believer.

But it's trickier than it sounds. You have to be a particular kind of believer.

Being Catholic won't save you. Even being a protestant won't save you. You have to be a believer in the tribulation and rapture and all that comes with it. To make matters worse, there are at least three schisms even in that: Pretribulationism, Midtribulationism and Posttribulationism. Yikes!

I of course pick none of the above. It's all rather gruesome and hard to square with the rest of the religion. Plus, if I did throw in with them, the kind of people who are believers aren't the sorts of people I really want to hang around with anyway.

Which is a long way to go to show you these scans of an invitation I got in the mail from a group called "Creation to Revelation." They're having a big gig this week tying the current economic crisis with the end of the world!!! The creepiest part is the last photo of the jubilant children with the notice, "Bring the whole family!" Worse, the event is being held at the Boy Scouts Resource Center. Which is a whole 'nother level of creepy.

Sarah Palin's Church: Alaska a Refuge from Armageddon?

Image from source, Raw Story

OK, I've read (most) of the apocalyptic Christian book series, Left Behind, and I don't recall there being any refuges, excepting perhaps Israel, and that was quite temporary and for a select few. I did wonder what might happen during the "tribulation" to astronauts on a space station, or other outer space base, since the Bible only talks about what happens on Earth. And Earth is pretty much devastated everywhere, at least according to Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkens, alleged experts on the Rapture and all that follows.

So how is it that Alaska could be some sort of safe harbor during apocalyptic hell fire? Oh, and full disclosure: I find all of this end of days stuff a load of hooey anyway.

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Palin church: Alaska will be a 'refuge' for Armageddon

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has attended a number of different churches over the years, but for most of her adult life, she belonged to the Wasilla Assembly of God, which has attracted attention for its unorthodox beliefs and practices. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Tell Your Hellbound Friends They've Been Left Behind!

Photo from source, Wikpedia

Speaking of doomsday cults, there is a very large one right out in the open in the US of A. They're the believers in the rapture, a time when God draws all "true believers" up into heaven bodily, with the rest of us sinners left behind! It's a much wider-spread belief these days after the mysteriously successful Christian sci-fi fiction series, Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.

Not wanting to go along trashing this series of badly-written books, I actually read them to see what all the fuss is about. Save yourself the trouble, by the way--feel free to criticise them any way you see fit, because you couldn't possibly give a worse review than they actually deserve. Unfortunately, a lot of mushy-brained Christian readers bought the whole scenario, even though it was only dreamt up in the 1800s.

But let's assume they're right for a second. Rather than watching your unsaved loved ones burn in the lake of fire (something lots of Christians are apparently eagerly awaiting), what if you could give them one last chance, after you are zapped to heaven? This site aims to let you do just that--for a price, of course.

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Post-Rapture document delivery

You've Been Left Behind is a company that stores electronic documents for later delivery to your heathen loved ones after you get swept off to heaven during the Rapture. The idea is that there will still be time to save them too. The company claims to provide secure storage, but Bruce Schneier is suspicious.) . . .

Read on at: Boing Boing