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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. The end of the world (part one) The End Times aren't By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 790 words Publication date: May 7, 2006 Many otherwise sane Americans are firmly convinced that we live in the final days of the human race. I’m uncertain of the details – I have better things to do than study the Bible and there is disagreement among those who do. The general picture, however, is that we will shortly see the Rapture, the Tribulation, and the beginning of Christ’s Thousand Year Rule. We will also see the rise of the Anti-Christ and the global battle which ends at Armaggedon. Finally God steps in to sort the good sheep from the bad goats and shut down the universe for good. With the skies dark and our home planet lifeless, the sheep spend eternity in Heaven bleating God’s praises while the goats are roasted alive down in Hell. What’s wrong with this picture? Everything. Start with the basic picture. If God knows everything, he knows who he will be saved and who will be damned. Whatever Christians do to save themselves from damnation is pointless because God has already decided who’s going where. That means the whole exercise is unnecessary. Alternately, if God hasn’t decided it’s because he’s ignorant – he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Another approach is that God knows everything but he still wants us to go through the charade. But if that is the case he is a a sadist, not the compassionate God trumpeted by Christians and Muslims. A third angle is that God knows everything and loves everyone but he is unable to save those who ignore his commandments. So you have a God who is ignorant, cruel or powerless – possibly all three. In simple terms, the God that Christians believe in cannot and does not exist. Devout Christians prefer to ignore these contradictions, but even if you give God the benefit of the doubt the depiction of the End Times is equally unbelievable. Start with the Rapture. That’s when people disappear all over the world as God takes the truly saintly up to heaven to spare them the inconvenience of global warfare. I’ll be honest. Part of me really wants the Rapture to happen, if only to see the shock and horror on the faces of those Left Behind who were convinced that they would be taken. If there is a truly just God, the arrogance of these self-appointed angels will earn them a place, not in heaven but in hell. Instead of boasting from the pulpit and on the web that they are among God’s Elect, I suggest that all these modern Pharisees get down on their knees and beg his forgiveness now before it is too late. Once God’s Goodies have gone, the Tribulation begins. This is the seven years when those Left Behind get a chance to mend our ways and decide whether to believe in the Old Man in the Sky or not. About half the world’s population is expected to die during this period of famine, plague, death, war, natural disasters and widespread sin and destruction. Does that picture ring true? Isn’t it more likely that the day after hundreds of thousands of people disappear that the rest of us would make the connection with the Bible? Wouldn’t most of us immediately drop to our knees and praise the Lord? I certainly would. So who’s going to be doing all the fighting after God has proved beyond doubt that he exists? Who’s going to pay attention to the Antichrist? We’re all going to be too busy singing hymns and being nice to our neighbors. And what’s the point of Christ’s Thousand Years? If he’s already God, why does he want to be King? Why a thousand years when you have all eternity? During Christ’s reign, what are we humans supposed to do? Carry on as normal, schlepping to work everyday? Take a very long holiday? Get ready for Heaven? What do you pack that needs a thousand years to prepare? Those of us who fail the millennial test get cast into the bottomless pit. (I guess that God won’t be impressed by my post-Rapture conversion.) The rest spend eternity massaging God’s ego in Heaven. But, as I’ve pointed out before, eternity is meaningless, with no more value than fool’s gold. Buddhists, not Christians, are nearer the mark when they say that non-existence is the most appropriate reward for a good life. Unfortunately, millions of Americans believe in the End Times and plenty of shysters – preachers, novelist and others – happily weigh on their gullibility to con them out of millions of dollars. Yet if the doomsayers waiting for God are deluding themselves, the sad fact is that we do face in our lifetimes the end of the world as we know it. But that’s the subject of next week’s column…
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist.
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