tsujigiri

The editorial comments of Chris and James, covering the news, science, religion, politics and culture.

"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." -Douglas Adams

Sunday, October 06, 2002

This Article from 60 Minutes is an incredible study of the Christian Right's fanatical support for Israel, which has had an important influence on White House policy. The fundamentalist Christian Right-wing has a strong lobby, partly because they tend to act in large numbers while the less fanatical American majority fails to provide any unified opposition to this radical influence. Their motivation is bizarre: "The Jews’ return to their ancient homeland – and sole ownership of the territories Arabs and Israelis both lay claim to - is a precondition for the second coming of Christ, according to the Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians’ interpretation of the Bible."

One person interviewed on the program said that Israel "sinned" by signing the Oslo accords, because God's will clearly specifies that they must conquer all of the Biblical Israel and eliminate the Palestinians. Does anyone else see the fallacious circularity in this? The Jews return to Israel is a sign of fullfilled prophesy, which they take as validation for the Bible. Therefore, since the Bible is the validated word of God, Jews must act to fulfill the prophesies as specified or God will punish them. What's the significance of prophesy if you have to act so as to deliberately carry it out? Is the book of Revelations supposed to be a set of futuristic visions or an instruction book for the end of the world? The latter view is held by some fundamentalist groups, which is scary. There are folks out there who believe good Christians are obligated to create the events of Revelation in order to bring about the second coming of Christ.

Christianity is the most dangerous threat to the US today.

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