|
|
| Note: When this list was first produced in 1999, it included a number of
Christian websites which made predictions, based on the Bible, about
the years 1999, 2000 and 2001, asserting various events would occur,
e.g., World War III, the Rapture of the saints, the appearance of the
antichrist, the return of Christ, etc. One such website stated:
'Rapture...I now think it will be Pentecost, 1999'. Elsewhere it was
asserted: '(i)1st rapture of the saints, between now and
the beginning of the Tribulation - could be about 3.5 years after 1997.
(ii)Beginning of Tribulation - 2000/2001'. When in January 2002, I reviewed all of those sites listed, those which made such predictions had all completely disappeared without any word of explanation... In fact, according to the Bible, anyone who offers a prophesy which is false 'shall die' (Deut 18:20), i.e., be executed (stoned to death). Such Christians should therefore be very grateful that Biblical injunctions are not permissible in today's world. Even in the short list below, wide divergences in belief are very apparent. And yet Christians are supposed to be 'one faith' (Eph 4:5) and the Bible used is said to be uniform and wholly consistent. But surely if it is uniform and consistent, so many conflicting viewpoints, many of which are related to central doctrines, would not arise? |
Great Joy in Great Tribulation
Describes itself as 'A Christian web site full of reference material...[and] answers to Islam, Christain [sic] frauds and hypocrites, and lots of graphics and neat stuff...'.
The author says: 'The index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture. You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture'
To provide some idea of what fundamentalism involves, The King's Community Church, Langley, British Columbia offers information about the ideas which pervade fundamentalist thinking.
For example, in the article 'Og the Aboriginal', the question of land ownership is raised. When commenting on war, the writer says 'We deplore the horrendous suffering that such a process entails', but adds 'we should bear in mind that this is the way in which most of the currently-accepted territorial boundaries were historically established. We now claim territory on moral or legal grounds - but it is territory that previous generations fought for...'.
The writer then cites Acts 17:26 and claims that 'The countless Moslems coming to Christ in war-torn Yugoslavia bears eloquent testimony to God's redemptive purposes in geopolitical upheavals', and we should remember that 'God, in pursuit of His own redemptive purposes, directly initiated territorial conquests in Old Testament times' and then refers to Psalm 135 when 'the Psalmist describes the annihilation of the Egyptians as an illustration of God's greatness and a reason to praise Him'. Finally, 'those who regret the ascendancy of the white man in North America ultimately have to argue with God about that. But His purposes were essentially redemptive: the proclamation of the Gospel was at stake'.
It would seem from this that war and invasion, irrespective of the cost to human life, is permissible if it allows 'the gospel' to be preached. And yet Jesus supposedly taught non-resistance - Matt 5:39, 26:52, and the fruit of the Spirit includes peace and gentleness (Gal 5:22,23). As always, we see Christians 'customizing' their beliefs to suit their own viewpoint.
In the article dealing with 'The AIDS Alarm clock', when the question of whether 'AIDS is God's judgement on homosexuals?' we are told that 'God is the Sovereign Lord, Ruler, and Judge over all that happens in the Universe. Nothing happens unless it is "according to the purpose of Him who works ALL THINGS according to the counsel of His will." (Eph. 1:11) Therefore, AIDS is God's judgement...'.
We are advised that AIDS is 'a result of sin', and 'a cause and effect judgement resulting from breaking God's physical and moral laws', and thirdly, 'specific divine judgement'. As AIDS affects so many, it is then said that 'AIDS is not a specific judgement' [but] 'one of many cause and effect judgements' arising from a range of supposedly immoral activities.
The article then says 'AIDS is one of God's wake-up calls to the Church' and 'AIDS is an opportunity for the Church to arise...We must not miss the eschatology of AIDS. When a new disease appears in history...it is a manifest signal that Someone is knocking on the cosmic door'. Additionally, 'God is evidently punishing certain sins more strictly and directly than in past ages' and it is 'the public demonstration of His justice becomes more evident as well'.
So much for Christian compassion.
Apart from not explaining why AIDS should be counted as one of the 'certain sins' that God is 'punishing more strictly', if AIDS is an illness brought about as a result of disobeying God's laws, it would be interesting to know how Christians would be able to show that infant death, child-onset diabetes, leprosy, and the host of other illnesses, including mental illness which afflicts humanity, are the result of God's judgement. Indeed, many illnesses are brought about by human greed in destroying the environment, but as will be seen by an article following, this group of Christians deny that there are any major environmental problems. Thus, they cannot shift the blame for any illness which arises from pollution, e.g., asthma, leukaemia, etc, on to humans (as they deny there are any real environmental problems) and therefore these too must be the result of 'God's judgement'.
In Preparing our children for their teenage years and beyond, the writer says: 'In Psalm 127, [it] speaks of building a house, or better still, a family. We are told that sons are like arrows in the hand of a warrior...God's intent in giving us children is that we should be able to "shoot" them into distant times and places where we would never be able to go personally...'.
He continues that children should be seen as 'an offensive resource', secondly, a 'defensive resource' for old age, and thirdly, a 'purposeful resource' because 'Gen 1:28 speaks of the need for multiplication as part of the mandate given to families, and it is with a view to the same end: A means to subdue the earth'.
One naturally wonders how much more 'subduing' the Church wishes to undertake and how any of what is said here can be deemed acceptable when millions of children are dying in the world through starvation, neglect, and a lack of resources, and the fact that one of the greatest dangers now facing humanity is overpopulation. It is sad to note from the above that children are only seen as a means to an end, i.e., a way of securing a need, e.g., 'spreading the gospel' or providing financial support to parents in old age, rather than being persons in their own right.
Additionally the writer's keen support for having offspring is impossible to reconcile with the words attributed to Jesus about becoming eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom (Matt 19:12), Paul's words about it being preferable to be single (1 Cor 7:27,29,32-34,39-40) and the redeemed being depicted as celibate males (Rev 14:4). Furthermore this shaply conflicts with Luke 14:26 when Jesus is supposed to have instructed his followers to hate their children (there will be more about this when dealing with the last article).
In the article Is Christian doctrine divisive?, the writer recalls how in a class he 'had my own agenda: I had Good News to share. I had just finished reading Environmental Overkill by Dixy Lee Ray and Lou Guzzo. The book clearly demonstrates that the rumours of the earth's demise are greatly exaggerated'. He goes on to say that he told the class 'You don't have to fear anymore!...the environmentalist's scary claims was very suspect if not downright fraudulent'. Moreover, so the writer says, 'the earth is amazingly resilient and that technology had already provided and would continue to provide satisfactory solutions to these problems...'.
He then goes on to blame 'the overtly socialist agenda behind the Montreal Protocol, the Rio Summit and other UN environmental initiatives' and complains about 'spending huge amounts of money to eliminate acid rain which...is not the serious problem its made out to be. We're evacuating towns and imposing impossible standards to eliminate dioxins from industrial waste despite the fact that no research to date can demonstrate that they cause anything more than a rash in humans. And so it goes for Global Warming, Endangered Species, World-wide Starvation, Asbestos, Electro-Magnetic Fields, Alar, and DDT, among others..'.
Firstly, while saying 'the earth is amazingly resilient and that technology had already provided and would continue to provide satisfactory solutions to these problems', the writer chooses to overlook that the earth has not been resilient to these problems as they exist and worsen; furthermore it is nonsense to claim that technology has provided and continues to provide solutions because, as stated, the problems exist and worsen and has therefore clearly failed to 'provide solutions' for, for example, global warming. Moreover, ironically, it is often modern technology that causes these problems in the first place. It is not technology but a change in attitude that is required to assist in the problem.
While the writer makes the ludicrous claim that environmental concern is a left-wing conspiracy, the reality is that humanity's disregard for the planet, both past and present, has resulted in dramatic climate changes together with the permanent loss of thousands of species of plants and animals. Moreover, the atmosphere in many industrial areas in both West and East, are so polluted that the population suffers not only serious ill-health, but premature death. In many cases, the principal victims are children.
Here we encounter the all-too-familiar practice of Christians burying their head in the sand and having a total disregard for the world simply because they believe the 'Second Coming' is due and therefore the world as it is now will be destroyed: therefore problems such as gloabl warming do not matter. In this not only is Christian ignorance demonstrated, it also reveals how Christians disregard and hold in contempt the world and those who live upon it.
In sum, this article merely confirms the tendency of Christians to deny or ignore anything which conflicts with their beliefs. In contrast to what the writer says, global warming is obvious (I write this section only a short time after Britain suffered the worst floods for over three centuries). Unlike the writer's view that warnings are exaggerated, the reality of the matter is easily demonstrated: for example, in reviewing just one national newspaper, selected at random, the following news articles appeared in a matter of weeks, confirming the presence of climate change:-
Too late to halt global warming
Hague talks to stop global warming
Evidence piles up against human profligacy
Welcome to the new world
Climate change: World may be warming up faster
Useful links regarding global warming
Europe's biggest glacier now falls to global warming
Earth will get hotter than expected
Warming could be worst in 10,000 years
The world as we knew it
World now skating on thin ice
The oceans are coming ashore
Grim forecast, warns climate report
Climatic Research Unit
As Christians seem to experience severe difficulty in grasping otherwise simple facts, they may find the following url useful as it provides a picture of the climate changes occurring:
Guardian Climate World Map.
In addition to these urls, recent news articles clearly reveal the stupidity of Christian belief in this matter. In The Guardian of 26 April 2002, the article World's weather hotter than ever stated:'Temperatures in the south of England will resemble Bordeaux in France by 2080, say scientists, and most of Britain will be snow-free. The world was warmer in the first three months of this year than at any time in the past 1,000 years, it was revealed yesterday, as scientists released reports predicting British weather would get rapidly warmer and more unstable.On 12 August 2002, the headline article in The Guardian stated:
Rising sea levels and storm surges threaten the south-east of England, the latest research shows. It was disclosed that work had already started on how to replace the Thames barrier and strengthen 100 miles of sea defences around the Thames estuary, where the sea level could rise by 86cm (3ft) by 2080.
Margaret Beckett, the Government's environment secretary, said the situation was far more urgent than previously thought. Because of the carbon dioxide already released into the atmosphere, climate change would continue even if we stopped emissions, although this is presently impossible.
Geoff Jenkins, head of the Hadley centre for climate change, which is part of the meterological office, said...'These are significant figures and together with other trends show that global warming is really here already'.''The first six months of 2002 have been the northern hemisphere's warmest in recorded history, Britain has had one of the wettest summers ever, and the Pacific ocean is yet again building up to another season of climatic trouble making....This matter was also reported on 12 August 2002 in The Independent in its article 'Brown haze' is blanketing Asia and changing weather, warn scientists. This stated:
Yesterday a team of international climatologists led by Professor Paul Grutzen, whose work on the ozone hole won him the 1995 Nobel science prize, said that they had identified the 'Asian brown cloud'. This 10 million square mile, three kilometre thick, fluctuating haze of man-made pollutants is now spreading across the whole Asian continent and blocking out up to 15% of the sunlight.
Worryingly for other continents, it can also be carried in the upper atmosphere halfway round the world in less than a week...With man's burning of fossil fuels believed to be increasinglyaffecting climate globally, the brown cloud adds further complexity to scientists' attempts to understand weather on a regional level.
Yesterday Professor V. Ramanathan of the US Scripps institution of oceanography, who has researched the phenomenon for five years, said...'We used to think that the human impact on climate was just global warming. Now we know it is more complex. The brown cloud shows that man's activities are making climate more unpredictable everywhere. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are distributed uniformly, but the particulates in the brown cloud add to unpredictability worldwide'.
A UN report published yesterday stated 'It is now undisputed that air pollutants and their chemical products can be transported over many thousands of kilometres....scientists acknowledge that the Asian pollution is unprecedented and will worsen as population increases and countries like China and India rapidly industrialise...
In the northern part of the globe, average temperatures fit the broad predictions by the consensus of climatologists who study global warming. The first half of 2002 was the warmest in 143 years, and, globally, the January to June period was the second warmest on record...'Warmer weather fuels natural disasters', said Pier Vellinga, a climatologist at Amsterdam University. 'Few places in the world will be spared from climatic disruptions. We can say with reasonable confidence that human-induced climate change is now affecting the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events'.''A two-mile-high 'brown haze' of human-generated soot and greenhouse gases is blanketing Asia, threatening hundreds of thousands of lives and altering rainfall patterns, scientists warn today. But the effects are being felt around the world, because the particles in the haze can travel halfway around the globe in a week, reinforcing the patterns elsewhere...After questioning the fact of global warming, the writer of the Christian article adds: 'Endangered Species, World-wide Starvation, Asbestos...' to his list of things which he considers to be suspect and exaggerated. As he challenges the well-known health risks caused by asbestos (the many burial plots of those who have prematurely died after coming into contact with the substance is surely sufficient evidence), it would be interesting to know the basis of this challenge, but not surprisingly, he chooses not to inform us.
It is already disrupting weather systems, triggering droughts in some areas and floods in others, preliminary findings suggest...
The pollution - which has been recognised anecdotally for decades - may be leading to 'several hundreds of thousands' of premature deaths due to respiratory disease. Results from seven Indian cities suggest that by the mid-1990s air pollution was responsible for an estimated 37,000 premature deaths each year'.
In the case of his reference to 'world-wide starvation', no-one is claiming there is 'world-wide' starvation, but rather starvation can be found in many places in this world.
In respect of endangered species, the writer once again seems to be, as we should expect with Christians, oblivious to reality. As reported, scientists have identified and classified somewhere between 1.4 and 1.7 million different species of plants, insects, animals, algae, fungi, and microorganisms. Some estimate the total at between 4 and 5 million and some have have suggested 10 million or more. But these numbers are dropping at alarming rates. E. O. Wilson, a biologist at Harvard University believes at least 4,000 to 6,000 species become extinct each year in just the tropical rainforest areas (Home to at least 50% of all living species and perhaps, some believe, as many as 80%). Peter Raven, the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, believes species are becoming extinct at the rate of 100 per day, i.e., about 1 species every fifteen minutes. Jared Diamond, a physiologist at the University of California, suggests that if the present trends continue, at least 50% of all currently existing species will be either extinct or endangered by the year 2050. Therefore the reality of endangered species is abundantly obvious. Only those who have difficulty with comprehending reality will have difficulties grasping this. Moreover, the writer claims 'the earth is amazingly resilient and that technology had already provided and would continue to provide satisfactory solutions to these problems...'. But if this is so, how can the fast disappearance of so many species of life, and in so short a time, be explained?
The fact of the matter is that there is a constant reference to certain species disappearing from this planet due to humanity's pollution and disregard for non-human animals. For example, an article in The Guardian on 7 August 2002, reported that a rare bird 'could become extinct for a second time in Britain because of global warming...[Numbers] have sunk to less than 1,000 from 20,000 15 years ago...'.
Additionally, the following urls also deal with, and confirm, the presence of global warming: they also discuss the problems created by overpopulation and show that the previous article's thinking about producing offspring can only be viewed as irresponsible:
Negative Population Growth website
PopInfo.org - A guide to population issues and impacts
Population Action International
Overpopulation.org
Environment and overpopulation
Union of Concerned Scientists
U.N framework convention on climate change
Global change website
Global warming and changes in flood potential
A primer on climate change
USA Today: Population explosion: still expanding
In the upshot, the question that arises here is why Christians should want to deny the obvious? I would suggest that as fundamentalists and evangelicals believe the Bible details the events before the end of the world, and it makes no mention of those problems which are occurring at this time (e.g., climate changes), their only option is to simply deny that they are happening. If, for one example, vast areas of the world's coral reef are disappearing due to global warming (thus caused by modern technology rather than being saved by it), the only option is to deny that it is happening.
Nonetheless, it is deeply disturbing that so many people choose to take refuge in error and do absolutely nothing to combat or prevent global disasters and prefer to deny/ignore the terrible misery and suffering of so many people caused by these disasters, simply because of their dependence upon man-made beliefs derived from ignorance and a collection of contradictory and immoral writings which they deem to be 'Holy Writ'.
Another article deals with the church's own school in '24 wooded acres in rural Langley'. The school is said to have 'a clear commitment to Christian education'. The article proclaims that the school 'is different from many other forms of education' [because] 'We begin from the basis that God is a reality. He is at the centre of our education' [and] 'Scripture must be the foundation from which we build curriculum, teach, correct, and train our students' [and] 'We endeavour to teach every subject from a Biblical perspective'.
One wonders how ownership of a school such is this can be equated with Jesus' supposed command not to have wealth (Matt 5:42, 19:21). The school is said to prepare the children of Christians for the future, but Jesus is alleged to have instructed his followers not to consider the future but to only be concerned about the present (Matt 6:25-34): this is obviously shortsighted and grossly irresponsible and even Christians do not comply with this, but this is what Jesus is said to have taught.
Secondly, Jesus is reported as telling his disciples that they should take up their cross and follow him and 'he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me' (Matt 10:37-38). If is therefore difficult to see how Christians, who spend most of their time in secular employment in order to finance the raising of a family, are complying with Jesus' supposed request. In reality they are not and furthermore they appear to prefer earning a full-time salary to buy luxuries and other material goods in order to provide a comfortable home for themselves and their children rather than 'picking up their cross' and going out into the world to preach (Matt 28:19).
In Luke, Jesus is reported as saying 'If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children...he cannot be my disciple (14:26) (NB. The Greek word 'hate' here means 'active ill-will' or 'persecuting spirit' - again this cannot be softened into something less severe). So one naturally wonders why the Christians of this church have any interest whatsoever in their children, when Jesus, whom they say that they obey, is said to have told his followers to 'hate' their offspring...Once again, we encounter Christians 'customizing' their faith and the Bible to suit their own wishes.
Thirdly, in the matter of the school, there is the further question of why, if Christian belief is so obviously correct and 'Spirit-led', the children have to be taught in a Christian school rather than one in the 'outside world'? Why should there be any concern about education and teaching from a non-religious perspective? Moreover, if the school is to educate them for Christian witness, this conflicts with Luke 12:11-12 that says God will supply the required answer to Christians when challenged about their belief.
In the upshot, in just these few articles, it can be seen that Christians are disinterested in caring for the world and those who live in it. Additionally, they customize beliefs to suit their own personal preferences while clinging to mythology rather than seeking the world of reality.
