Wright Answers The Mail, Accidentally Triggers Armageddon.

 

Update:  I’m getting mail on this piece.  Some folks feel like I’m mocking all Christians.  Not so. Allow me to clarify: I’m not lumping all Christians together. Nowhere in the text do I say “all Christians.” No where. In fact, if you actually read the post you’ll see that I’m making fun of two people in particular, three or maybe four if you stretch it.  There’s a reference to 22 million Americans with possibly similar views.  There are 265 million self identified Christians in America or about 83% of the total population.  22 million is 1/12 of the total Christian population. 2 people is ~.00000009% of 1/12th of the total Christian population of America – e.g. hardly “all” Christians.  I’m not Anti-Christian any more than I’m anti-Muslim or Anti-Semitic or Anti-any-other-religion. Where I have a problem is when advocates of a particular religion attempt force their beliefs on the rest of us though law, government policy, tradition, or custom. If you’ve read me long enough, if you’ve read my other stuff, it should be readily apparent that the only thing I’m vocally intolerant of is intolerance. Like all of my stuff, this post is an opinion piece, it was intended to provoke laughter and hopefully some introspection and to reiterate the wisdom of separating government from religious belief.

As I said in the comments section: if you see yourself in this piece, well then that’s on you, you deal with it.

  //Jim

 

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hella funny you god(gut)less libbys keep trashing the bible when it is all coming true. whose laughing now?! Syria is the final peace as predicted by God and Jeuss. its all true even if you don’t belive it. You can not denye we are now living in the end Time!  keep laughing libbys your gai boy war mongral owebama was predicted more then 2k years ago! its right there in black &white . sad

I’ve been busy this last month.

Too busy to do much writing.

Which is a damned shame, because the lunatics are out in force.

The above warning was floating in comment moderation under my previous Syria Red Lines post. I read it, chuckled yet again at the childish silliness of Christian Apologetics (It’s all twue! Twue!) and deleted it from the queue without allowing it to post.  I think that’s what Jesus would have done, by most accounts he didn’t have much use for haters and idiots either and quite frankly I seriously doubt he intended heaven to be populated with dimwitted dickheads – honestly, can you imagine spending eternity surrounded by these self-righteous jackasses?

Try to imagine which cheek Jesus would be turning after a couple centuries of having to put up with this crap.

You can’t deny we’re living in the End Times?

The End Times. You can’t deny it.

The. End. Times.

Because Syria, that’s the Sign.

Syria, oh no! Not Syria! It’s the End Of The World! It’s the Apocalypse. Armageddon. The Last Trump. Ook! Ook!

Run for your lives, everybody!

Everything is a sign of the End Times with these people. Everything. Same sex marriage? Ahhhh! It’s the End Times as foretold in the Bible! Black guy in the White House? It’s the Antichrist! Hurricanes? Evolution? Floods? It’s a Satanic Plot to destroy our souls! Abortion? It’s the Rapture! Earthquake? It’s a sign! Thunder? Intestinal bloating? It’s another sign!

Right.

I mean, come on, who actually believes in this ridiculous claptrap? I mean really? What is it? The 14th Century?

 

Sigh. Yes, yes, I know. It was a rhetorical question.

 

Last week Fox News’ Neil Cavuto suggested with a straight face in public on national TV that the Syrian conflict will “bring about the Second Coming of Christ.”

That’s right, we bomb Syria. Jesus shows up. 

We bomb all of Europe into flinters for four damned years. No Jesus. We nuke Japan and vaporize a half million people in two days. No Jesus. We bomb Korea and Vietnam. No Jesus. We bomb Bosnia, Somalia, Libya, Lebanon, Cuba, Panama, Cambodia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, every country in Central America and half the islands in the Caribbean. No Jesus. But lob a couple Tomahawks into Syria, and Jesus shows up with the Antichrist in tow to destroy the world.

Because, Syria, that’s the sign.

What if Israel bombed Syria? Do they get some Jesus? They’re Jews, what are they going to do with him? Have him crucified again?

What if an Arab country bombs Syria, will Jesus still come to the party?

Why is it always that only American Viagra can bring about The Second Coming?

Suppose Cavuto had looked out of the camera at the Fox News audience and said in all seriousness, “Look, folks, I saw this James Cameron movie once and I’m really scared that if we bomb Syria those weird glassy aliens who look like snot and live in the giant spaceship at the bottom of the ocean will be pissed off and they’ll use their control of water to destroy the world with gigantic tidal waves in some huge flood. And then all the good people will go live on the mothership with the fishy transparent snot aliens in fishy alien paradise forever and ever, and all the bad people will have to listen to that bitchy chick sobbing about her shitty apartment and how she’s all alone in the dark until they want to gouge their own eyeballs out to make it stop. So we shouldn’t bomb Syria no way no how, because, Dude, aliens. It’s true, it’s all true! Cameron is a God!” 

It’s all True! Really it is!

Uh huh. But if you say essentially the same thing except you toss in Jesus, then instead of shooting Cavuto with a tranquilizing dart and dragging him off to a nice place with soft walls and an excess of institutional lime-flavored Jell-O, Fox News gives him an hour-long segment to fondle his psychosis in public.

"This Syria stuff is way old. 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."

Don’t laugh.

A grown man, scared of campfire ghost stories told by goat herders two thousand years ago. Booga booga! Ook! Ook! It’s all true!

But don’t laugh.

How about if I just point and giggle mockingly? Would that be okay?

Don’t laugh. Right, I can’t help but laugh. It’s either that or cry at the utter stupidity of it all.

Cavuto was talking to born again evangelical Judeo-Christian pundit, former Rush Limbaugh staffer, and general End Times doomsayer Joel C. Rosenberg.

Rosenberg, a part-time Jew who dabbles in Christian Apologetics while writing about Muslims in order to scare the fundamentalism out of evangelicals with his Jihad novels, explained:

"These are prophecies more than 2,700 years old, some of them, but they have not actually been fulfilled.  But this prophecy, as you [Cavuto] just pointed out, talks about the complete and utter destruction of Damascus. That's an End Times or eschatological prophecy. It's a very sobering thought to think that a judgment of a city or a country could happen in which an entire city could be wiped out, but that is, in fact, what the Bible is predicting. I think it's wrong for people who teach Bible prophecies to guess, I mean, in a sense try to say for certain it's going to happen now. But you have seven million Syrians that are already on the run, two million have left the country, five million are internally displaced. That Jeremiah 49 prophecy says that people will flee, but there will still be people in Damascus when the prophecy happens. So, the bottom line is that we don't know if these two prophecies, Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49, will happen in our lifetime or soon, but they could because they haven't happened yet."

Hard to argue with that circular logic, eh? The prophecies, see, they could come true but they haven’t yet and because they haven’t yet come true we know that they are true and could happen but they haven’t yet which is how we know they might and remember to keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times, kids!

Some guy in the Bible predicts that Damascus will be destroyed, and then leaves the timeframe open-ended?

Okay, sure, sooner or later, his prophecy will come true but, c’mon, it ain’t exactly magic.

You know what? I too predict Damascus will be destroyed.

Damascus and every other city on the planet.

Sure, I predict that the sun will eventually use up its hydrogen fuel, clog up with heavy elements, and then swell up into a bloated red beach ball the size of Mars’ orbit swallowing the earth in burning plasma. I predict that when this happens, and it will, whatever is left of Damascus will be utterly obliterated. I predict this will happen sometime between, oh, say tomorrow and eight billion years from now.  Look at me, everybody, I’m a prophet!

You want to impress me, Nostradamus, give me a date and time – oh, and then actually be right.

Anyway, to recap, Rosenberg thinks it wrong to guess … and then goes right ahead and makes a couple of guesses.

I’m not entirely clear on the Jews For Jesus Who Hate Muslims rule, but I think Rosenberg is going to get sent to Scientology hell for that. 

Unless, wait, hang on a minute, unless he meant it was wrong for other people to say one thing and do another – or does that only work for TV preachers?

And isn’t the supposed End Times and the Second Coming predicted in Revelation? And isn’t that, and Jesus, in the New Testament?  Maybe it’s just me, but religion makes my head hurt. Frankly I think the Twilight series makes more sense, it certainly has a better plot, and that pasty stonefaced vampire chick is a marginally more interesting character than anything Rosenberg has managed to crank out.

Twenty-seven hundred years, folks, the “prophecy” still hasn’t been fulfilled – but it could happen, any second now.

Any second now.

Any second.

Any. Second.

Sort of like that two thousand year old Mayan calendar people were talking about last year. Or that whole “bible math” end of the world thing Harold Camping was prophesizing – what was it? Oh yes, “we know without any shadow of a doubt that it’s going to happen…” except it appears old Harold dropped a decimal point along with his marbles. And before that Michelle Bachmann was telling us how the hurricanes and earthquakes were biblical signs of the pending Blue Light Special at the end of the universe. And before that these same people were telling us how Mitt Romney was a sure thing. And before that it was … well, it just never ends with these terrified childish dolts.  Go on, give me some proof, actual no kidding proof, that the bible prophets quoted by Rosenberg are any more accurate than any of these galoots. Go on. I’ll wait.  You’ve already had two thousand years, what’s another week or so?

You have to wonder, you really do. You have to wonder if the reason Jesus was so eager to have himself nailed to a cross was to get the hell away from these unhinged assholes. 

Hey, Jesus, when you coming back? We’ve got some gay hatin’ to do! And then we’re gonna light poor people on fire! Woohoo!

Listen, tell you what, I’ll make a beer run, you guys wait here. If I’m not back between, oh say sometime tomorrow and eight billion years from now, you guys go ahead and Armageddon without me, K?

Okay, Jesus, but don’t be long!

End of the world! End of the world! Ook! Ook! The sky is falling, it’s twue! 

Any second now.

Any second.

Surprisingly, neither Cavuto nor Rosenberg openly named the world leader they suspect of being the Antichrist (who obviously must be afoot in the land even now for the prophecy of the End Times to be fulfilled anywhere in the immediate future), but I’m pretty sure we all know who it must be.  Right? You know. Wink wink. You know, yes you do.

It would be easy to dismiss this ridiculous End Times biblical bilge as the fevered fears of few hysterical dimwits (or the sly opportunism of a hack writer and a news organization who makes a tidy living off those self-same mental patients), but it’s really much worse than that.

Rosenberg gets around.

On his website, Rosenberg explains how he recently spent a couple hours with an unnamed congressman talking biblical prophecy, specifically the “Burden of Damascus” as outlined in the Old Testament’s Isaiah 17. 

The basic idea here is that in the final run up to the end of the world, God will level Damascus in favor of Israel and bring the world within spitting distance of the Rapture.

Now, how Damascus will be destroyed isn’t exactly made clear, the Bible doesn’t explain what method God will use.  Most of Damascus was blown up and burned to the ground by the French in 1926, but I think we can safely say that the French are not God’s favorite people, so I guess that’s why the world didn’t end.  In fact, various parts of the city have been burned, reduced to rubble, and blown up for going on a couple dozen centuries now. What makes today different is beyond me. I did an online search but Bible Gateway Search returned exactly zero hits for “Tomahawk Cruise Missile.” Go figure.

As I said, Rosenberg gets around. Fox News cites him a “nuclear expert,” which is lot like calling Stephen King a “ghost expert” … or for that matter calling Ayn Rand an “economist.”

Last March, Rosenberg met privately with Texas Governor Rick Perry and Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX). Both of which are big fans of this apocalyptic nonsense. Because, sure, who better to be in charge of our country’s future than a bunch of people who think that the world will shortly be destroyed by mystical forces and that most of us are doomed to eternal damnation anyway.

Ever wonder why these people don’t seem to give a shit about the environment or sustainable energy policies? It’s because they don’t figure to be around long enough for it to matter.

And now they’re basing their foreign policy positions on this dreck? Oh, yeah, nothing to go wrong there.

Rosenberg says,

"The innocent blood shed by the Assad regime is reprehensible and heart-breaking and is setting the stage for a terrible judgment."

A terrible judgment.

You know, you’ve really got to love a religion that is essentially indistinguishable from a mafia protection racket, but I digress.

Look, I’m no expert, but for the sake of argument, let’s just say this silly nonsense has some merit. 

The End Times come, the final Trump is blown, everybody dutifully lines up in front of Jesus for the Big Judgment, Jesus looks sternly down at the first guy in line – just for fun let’s just say it’s Louie Gohmert – raises one eyebrow and asks, “So, you could have done something about all those people suffering and dying, but you didn’t.  And you didn’t because you figured the quicker the everything went to hell, the quicker you got to go to heaven. Is that right? Uh huh. Get in the sack, Louie… .”

Right around seventy-five percent of American Evangelicals believe that they are living in the supposed End Times.

Seventy-five percent, that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-two million Americans.

Twenty-two million Americans actually believe that two thousand years ago some Bronze Age goat herder who’d spent all day sitting on his ass in the broiling Mediterranean sun while slugging down one skinfull of wine after another really actually talked to a real actual no kidding winged mystical being who really actually told him that “sometime” in the future there was really actually going to be some kind of big battle where a giant demon man would wrestle a smiling bearded non-violent hippy for control of the earth that he, the hippy man, really actually already controls anyway since he’s really actually the supreme being who’s actually his own father who created not only the aforementioned world but the giant demon man too according to his big mysterious plan but never mind that and then all the right thinking people will really actually literally fly naked up into space and live happy lives free of want in some kind of socialist paradise with Hippy Man in the cloudy blue sky forever and ever while everybody else gets cornholed by Satan for all of eternity in lakes of boiling pitch and brimstone. Really. Actually. No foolin’. It’s all twue!

Oh, sure, it does sound frighteningly plausible when you read it out loud, but then again so does the Twilight saga.

Here’s what I don’t get, isn’t the End Times what these people are praying for?

Don’t they all want to be Raptured?

Don’t they want all the rest of us to get cornholed by Satan?

Isn’t that basically their entire religion?

Aren’t they just dying to fly up to hippy heaven and leave all the rest of us behind to eternal torment? Isn’t that exactly what they pray for each and every Sunday, all smug and pious in their pews?

So why don’t they support military action in Syria? If they actually believe in their version of Christianity, I mean really actually believe in their own ridiculous dogmatic mumbo jumbo, if they really believe that military action in Syria will bring about the End Times, shouldn’t they be demanding the total annihilation of Damascus? 

And yet, when polled, more then seventy-five percent of evangelical leaders oppose military action in Syria, action which they claim could lead to a series of preordained events that will bring about their ultimate salvation in accordance with their God’s design.

How come it’s okay for them to thumb their nose at The Big Plan, but not people like us?

And we’re right back to where we started, aren’t we?  Do as I say not as I do.

 

Folks, I hate to say it, but we might need to give up a couple of aircraft carriers and put our money into some kind of massive mental health care program that involves forcible restraints combined with high amperage electrical shocks.

You need me? I’ll be over here hosing out the mailbox.