The end of days

[Michael]

"End Days" is also a way to frighten and demoralize people so they'll more readily do what you tell 'em to.

This is so directly contrary to what actual Christian think, practice and believe that it is an affront.

Or complete ignorance. I don't care which you call it.

Research, and ye shall find. The view shared by Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal Christians is that we don't know just when the hammer drops.

Even God likes a surprise break on the trigger. Reading me, Jarhead?

Hi Klonk, let me clarify what I meant because my comment was a reaction to Bar's statement, "Pax Americana is likely ending, but American corporate culture has spread well outside the borders. After all, one of our largests "American" companies - Halliburton - is now based in Dubai." I wasn't directing my comment at Christians, so maybe my overall reading of this thread is a bit different from yours as I was thinking of "End Days" in a more general sense.

The continual doom and gloom we get from our government in so many forms, whether as bogus propaganda about artificial external enemies like Soviets or terrorists, or real information about bloodshed from war instigated because of the propaganda, is the kind of "End Days" I was specifically thinking of. This kind of negative self-fulfilling prophecy used by governments is a well-established method for influencing and controlling people. Based on Bar's statement, I was thinking more of the government, who predicts terrible things will be done by *others*, the govt makes these events happen, and then the govt offers the "solution".

I don't want to derail the thread, but just so you know where I'm coming from, the reason I say the Soviets were "artificial" enemies is the Soviet Union was created with the financial assistance of people in the West and it was continually propped up with money and technology mostly from the USA during its entire existence until it collapsed. Soviets are real because we made them real. They became our enemies because we needed external enemies to justify political objectives.

Likewise, terrorists are real because governments recruited, funded, and trained them to be real. Operation Gladio is one of the best examples of how state-sponsored terrorism functions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4640247.stm

In my post, I mentioned demoralization, which is a specific goal of government domination of a people. This is explained in a 1985 interview with a former KGB spy who defected to the West and talked about the four step Soviet process for taking over other countries, but can easily be applied to a govt trying to dominate its own citizens with fear tactics.

You can check out the interview here or watch it online on youtube. This is part 7 where he explains demoralization:

[klonk]

Sorry. Michael. My apoligies. I did, indeed, misread your statement. And that is a fascinating interview with a former sovietski.

I was turning cartwheels when the wheels came off the CCCP. I hope the same for leftists everywhere. My view is less Orwellian than yours; we propped them up because, well... the old saying is just a little bit wrong. The last Marxist will hang himself with rope he bought from a Capitalist.

The gloom and doom messages in America seem to me to come mainly from the Left and their "useful idiots" (see the interview for this phrase). The Cold War is not over here. Too many idiots.

Again, sorry to have missed your point!

Klonk

[nianfong]

if you look closely at the pax romana and the pax americana, you can see some clear parallels.

"barbarian tribes" taking the outlying territories bit by bit. aka terrorists. aka US investors shifting their money to foreign soil. aka outsourcing. etc.
massively corrupt and unpopular leaders (Bush)

[taijiplayer]

I'm a fan of the ~Bible alone~ before all those religions translated it. Jesus told the disciples that he would come back before the last disciple died. ...(clipped)
Taijiplayer

That is a remarkable interpretation. I remark it so that you may examine it again. It needs closer examination. Big time. I think it is not at all right, but I am ...(clipped)
Klonk

It was straightforward. This interpretation was common with reformed churches in the 1500's-1600's. There are several more interpretations among other churches. The reformed made sense in their interpretations but I think all interpretations made sense if you read about it long enough. Somehow I think both views are true. I think we're missing something. If the Second Coming already happened and at the same time it hasn't happen, I think we're missing something. With so many different interpretations, It makes you wonder if none of them are true or all of them are true. To me, it like trying to answer," What is the color of three?" I tried learning modern interpretations and seems to go around in circles. There is something vague about it like Astrology. Too vague. Anyways, I will examine it again for you.

taijiplayer

[Michael]

Klonk, if you liked the excellent 9 part (82 minute) interview with true defector Yuri Bezmenov, compare it to the interview with Prof. Oleg Kalugin, who I think fits into a different category altogether. Bezmenov and others have warned time and again that part of the Soviet goal was infiltrating universities, which goes along with another interview that G. Edward Griffin did that revealed that the major "charitable" foundations like Ford, Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, etc. were intent on, and had a specific agenda to install univ. professors who would re-write history and actually influence American society so it could be more easily merged with the USSR. Don't believe me? check out the interviews.

Professor Oleg Kalugin was a former KGB station chief for more than a decade and admitted spy within the USA, and yet he now teaches at an east coast univ. I love the part of the interview where he said he hated Soviet policies when he became station chief at St. Petersburg, and then says he continued in that position for more than 10 years (in spite of how difficult it was for him to see his country men mistreated)!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JKI1hv7GTfk
28 minutes

G. Edward Griffin interviewed a man named Dodd in 1982. Dodd served as an investigator for Congressman Reece's Special Committee on Tax Exempt Foundations in 1954.
Youtube in 6 parts, part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8cC21jB9EE

You can also find the Dodd and Bezmenov interviews in their entirety on google video and on Griffin's web site. http://realityzone.stores.yahoo.net/hiddenagenda.html

[TaoJoannes]

Days will continue without end. Ages or Epochs come to an end and new ones take their place as we continue to evolve and expand.

Every age has felt that the end was near, it is plain that Jesus' contemporaries thought it would come in thier times, and history has recorded many more since then.

America will fall, because all governments will fall, but I think we've got a little more time in us, yet. Pax Romana lasted much longer than 232 years, are we really THAT much worse than they, with modern advances in technology, medicine, social equality, and self-government? Is our system so fragile as to self-destruct so quickly?

Eggs should be eaten, or given to their mothers.

[Michael]

Hey Klonk,

After thinking on it, I wanted to kind of fess up that I used to have an anti-religious bias and maybe it was seeping between the lines in some way. I've got no religious background and the mainstream media makes it so easy to generalize religion (and Christians) as hypocrites because of people like Falwell and Robertson, and I hope I'm not sticking my foot in my mouth here, but I really wonder how men like that got to their positions if not to serve as a source for Christian-bashing? Now that I think about it, mainstream bashing of Christianity is a kind of demoralization, too.

Well, just some thoughts on the topic.

Best,
Michael

[klonk]

if you look closely at the pax romana and the pax americana, you can see some clear parallels.

"barbarian tribes" taking the outlying territories bit by bit. aka terrorists. aka US investors shifting their money to foreign soil. aka outsourcing. etc.
massively corrupt and unpopular leaders (Bush)

Well, yes, Fong, there are some parallels, but there is another aspect that is not parallel. If America had imposed the brutality and draconian policies of Rome, all Asians would speak English and drive Fords or Chevies. Possibly even mandatory McDonald's...

I think that there was a moment in the 1950's when a Pax Americana was possible, in the Roman sense, but our political will was not sufficient to impose instead of invite. Some say this was American strength not weakness. We shall see.

Looking around today, in many places where Americans were once hated (by people whith no contact with mainstream America, who were only taught to hate America by people who knew no more than they), we see an emergence of new and original bright ideas like not shooting every newspaperman the government disagrees with, letting business people pursue their own original concepts, and letting people pray if they want, and to whomsoever they want. In one sense America was the keeper of the sacred flame when everyone else was trying to pee it out.

In the sense that the Russians once claimed to have invented the telegraph key and the airplane, soon even the most backward and contrary countries will claim their own new birth of freedom and their own inventors of the ideas that make it possible. The trend of the age seems to be against America as banker and babysitter, but that was not the work we liked best anyway.

Best wishes!
Klonk

[klonk]

Hey Klonk,

After thinking on it, I wanted to kind of fess up that I used to have an anti-religious bias and maybe it was seeping between the lines in some way. I've got no religious background and the mainstream media makes it so easy to generalize religion (and Christians) as hypocrites because of people like Falwell and Robertson, and I hope I'm not sticking my foot in my mouth here, but I really wonder how men like that got to their positions if not to serve as a source for Christian-bashing? Now that I think about it, mainstream bashing of Christianity is a kind of demoralization, too.

Well, just some thoughts on the topic.

Best,
Michael

As to the late Dr. Falwell and Pat Robertson, I attribute to everyone the God given right to say what he wants, even if I wish he would shut up.

I suppose I must, perforce, extend the same right to the journalists who have hounded and misquoted them for ages. Here is the problem, a single sensational statement may be turned, by the press, into a story, without consulting the forty or so years of context of a man's teaching and preaching and writing.

Most often, the press accounts focus on some statement about a certain behavior that may be fashionable today, but is not okey-doke with the Man Upstairs. And why is that a problem? I do not see why ancient wisdom needs to be fashionable and politically correct.

I'm not really on board with all the conspiracy stuff that gets thrown around, except that I admit some of the societal evil that goes on looks planned not accidental. But I imagine my explanation differs from yours by considerable.

Best wishes,
Klonk

[Michael]

Well, that's a good point. I think out of context quotes, or even singular accurate quotes, should have a shelf life or statute of limitations.

As far as mainstream media goes, it is owned and controlled by 5 corporations compared to over a hundred just 25 years ago. What's the difference between a conspiracy theory and a marketing plan?

[klonk]

[...]As far as mainstream media goes, it is owned and controlled by 5 corporations compared to over a hundred just 25 years ago. What's the difference between a conspiracy theory and a marketing plan?

If true, it will do them little good, for the mainstream media, so called, is increasingly suspect and decreasingly relevant as new information streams emerge to challenge them. I don't watch TV, for example, and surely I'm not alone. I don't take a newspaper, either. I am the better informed for it. Radio (including international short wave) and the Internet (including the wire services) serve up as much news and propaganda as I can handle.

I would explain the seeming coordination of evil deeds by many people in various places with reference to an outside motivating force. One of the advantages of a theistic worldview is that it explains so much.

[Michael]

Noam Chomsky says that one of the primary goals of corporatized govt and its mainstream media (they feed off each other), is to control the information that is received by the "top" 20% of the US population who considers itself well-educated, influential, and mainstream. The goal is to keep these people locked into a closed circuit information loop and continually reflect onto them a corporate designed, designer jean, genetically modified, self-image. It's enough of the electorate to control things, to swing elections your way.

I can definitely relate to what you're saying about having a theistic world view. When you, generally speaking, are struggling in the middle of a fast-moving river, it's very confusing and disorienting (disorientating for Kaitain LOL), but if you decide to move to the "good" or "evil" side of the shore, it's much easier to understand what the water is doing. Heh, a so-so metaphor, but I hope you get my point.

[klonk]

Curiously, bad guys do not see themselves as villains. There is always some patter about benefiting mankind, securing "progress," or leading us into a new and exciting future. The Bible says there is a certain kind of internal deception involved, and again, this tracks pretty well with observable facts.

[Steve James]

Hey Mike, it's interesting that you're starting to sound like a Marxist. One of the defining qualities of capitalism is the need to control the "means of communication." The media is used to promote the interests (and products) of the capitalists who own it. Its major "product" is to convince the audience that consumption (of things they do not need) is desirable. Take advertising, game shows or nightime soap operas like Dallas or Desperate Housewives. When the news media --in addition to advertising and shows-- is also controlled by the same person, the difference between editorial opinion -- economic interests (profit) -- and "news" is hard to distinguish. Anyway, point is that Marx argued this before Chomsky.

Of course, just because Rupert Murdoch owns a newspaper, radio station, Fox, movies, etc., doesn't mean he's a bad guy. Of course, there needed to be changes made to the laws to allow one person to control so much of the media.

Otoh, I'm not sure that the internet or any other specific source is better or worse. The Christian Science Monitor is, imo, a good paper; but it won't have the same things that you can find in the Village Voice or in the local Spanish newspaper. I think that the internet just gives us more sources to sort through and evaluate. It doesn't make it easier, but it gives a sense that the bases have been covered. Someone has said or is saying anything somewhere on the internet. That's not true of Fox news

[Michael]

LOL, me a Marxist. I mean hey, it's obvious I am very new to these waters, and as I mentioned to Klonk, old biases (perhaps from the very sources I am now criticizing) are getting brought forward, and without avoiding the constant stream of incoming, mind-numbing information, a person doesn't even have time to consider his own hidden belief system, much less interpret the often heavily obscured (I'm avoiding the "O" word) belief systems of others.