Are You Ready to Face the Facts About Israel?

by Paul Craig Roberts

"On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where most of the inhabitants were Arabs." - Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History
I had given up on finding an American with a moral conscience and the courage to go with it and was on the verge of retiring my keyboard when I met the Rev. Thomas L. Are.
Rev. Are is a Presbyterian pastor who used to tell his Atlanta, Georgia, congregation: "I am a Zionist." Like most Americans, Rev. Are had been seduced by Israeli propaganda and helped to spread the propaganda among his congregation.
Around 1990 Rev. Are had an awakening for which he credits the Christian Canon of St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem and author Marc Ellis, co-editor of the book, Beyond Occupation.
Realizing that his ignorance of the situation on the ground had made him complicit in great crimes, Rev. Are wrote a book hoping to save others from his mistake and perhaps in part to make amends, Israeli Peace/Palestinian Justice, published in Canada in 1994.
Rev. Are researched his subject and wrote a brave book. Keep in mind that 1994 was long prior to Walt and Mearsheimer's recent book, which exposed the power of the Israel Lobby and its ability to control the explanation Americans receive about the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Rev. Are begins with an account of Israel's opening attack on the Palestinians, an event which took place before most Americans alive today were born. He quotes the distinguished British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee: "The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. Though nor comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality."
Golda Meir, considered by Israelis as a great leader and by others as one of history's great killers, disputed the facts: "It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."
Golda Meir's apology for Israel's great crimes is so counter-factual that it blows the mind. Palestinian refugee camps still exist outside Palestine filled with Palestinians and their descendants whose towns, villages, homes and lands were seized by the Israelis in 1948. Rev. Are provides the reader with Na'im Ateek's description of what happened to him, an 11-year old, when the Jews came to take Beisan on May 12, 1948. Entire Palestinian communities simply disappeared.
In 1949 the United Nations counted 711,000 Palestinian refugees.
In 2005 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated 4.25 million Palestinians and their descendants were refugees from their homeland.
The Israeli policy of evicting non-Jews has continued for six decades. On June 19, 2008, the Laity Committee in the Holy Land reported in Window Into Palestine that the Israeli Ministry of Interior is taking away the residency rights of Jerusalem Christians who have been reclassified as "visitors in their own city."
On December 10, 2007, MK Ephraim Sneh boasted in the Jerusalem Post that Israel had achieved "a true Zionist victory" over the UN partition plan "which sought to establish two nations in the land of Israel." The partition plan had assigned Israel 56 percent of Palestine, leaving the inhabitants with only 44 percent. But Israel had altered this over time. Sneh proudly declared: "When we complete the permanent agreement, we will hold 78 percent of the land while the Palestinians will control 22 percent."
Sneb could have added that the 22 percent is essentially a collection of unconnected ghettos cut off from one another and from roads, water, medical care, and jobs.
Rev. Are documents that the abuse of Palestinians' human rights is official Israeli policy. Killings, torture, and beatings are routine. On May 17, 1990, the Washington Post reported that Save the Children "documented indiscriminate beating, tear-gassing and shooting of children at home or just outside the house playing in the street, who were sitting in the classroom or going to the store for groceries."
On January 19, 1988, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, later Prime Minister, announced the policy of "punitive beating" of Palestinians. The Israelis described the purpose of punitive beating: "Our task is to recreate a barrier and once again put the fear of death into the Arabs of the area."
According to Save the Children, beatings of children and women are common. Rev. Are, citing the report in the Washington Post, writes: "Save the Children concluded that one-third of beaten children were under ten years old, and one-fifth under the age of five. Nearly a third of the children beaten suffered broken bones."
On February 8, 1988, Newsweek magazine quoted an Israeli soldier: "We got orders to knock on every door, enter and take out all the males. The younger ones we lined up with their faces against the wall, and soldiers beat them with billy clubs. This was no private initiative, these were orders from our company commander.... After one soldier finished beating a detainee, another soldier called him 'you Nazi,' and the first man shot back: 'You bleeding heart.' When one soldier tried to stop another from beating an Arab for no reason, a fist fight broke out."
These were the old days before conscience was eliminated from the ranks of the Israeli military.
In the London Sunday Times, June 19, 1977, Ralph Schoenman, executive director of the Bertrand Russell Foundation, wrote: "Israeli interrogators routinely ill-treat and torture Arab prisoners. Prisoners are hooded or blindfolded and are hung by their wrists for long periods. Most are struck in the genitals or in other ways sexually abused. Most are sexually assaulted. Others are administered electric shock."
Amnesty International concluded that "there is no country in the world in which the use of official and sustained torture is as well established and documented as in the case of Israel."
Even the pro-Israeli Washington Post reported: "Upon arrest, a detainee undergoes a period of starvation, deprivation of sleep by organized methods and prolonged periods during which the prisoner is made to stand with his hands cuffed and raised, a filthy sack covering the head. Prisoners are dragged on the ground, beaten with objects, kicked, stripped and placed under ice-cold showers."
Sounds like Abu Gharib. There are news reports that Israeli torture experts participated in the torture of the detainees assembled by the American military as part of the Bush Regime's propaganda onslaught to convince Americans that Iraq was overflowing with al-Qaeda terrorists. On July 23, 2008, Antiwar.com posted an Iraqi news report that the Iraqi government had released a total of 109,087 Iraqis that the Americans had "detained." Obviously, these "terrorist detainees" had been used for the needs of Bush Regime propaganda. No one will ever know how many of them were abused by Israeli torturers imported by the CIA.
Rev. Are's book makes sensible suggestions for resolving the conflict that Israel began. However, the problem is that Israeli governments believe only in force. The policy of the Israeli government has always been to beat, kill, and brutalize Palestinians into submission and flight. Anyone who doubts this can read the book of Israel's finest historian Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006).
Americans are a gullible and naive people. They have been complicit for 60 years in crimes that in Arnold Toynbee's words "are comparable in quality" to the crimes of Nazi Germany. As Toynbee was writing decades ago, the accumulated Israeli crimes might now be comparable also in quantity.
The US routinely vetoes United Nations condemnations of Israel for its brutal crimes against the Palestinians. Insouciant American taxpayers have been bled for a half century to provide the Israelis with superior military weapons with which Israelis assault their neighbors, all the while convincing America – essentially a captive nation – that Israel is the victim.
John F. Mahoney wrote: "Thomas Are reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: an active pastor who comes to the unsettling realization that he and his people have been fed a terrible lie that is killing and torturing thousands of innocent men, women and children. Not without ample research and prayer does such a pastor, in turn, risk unsettling his congregation. The Reverend Are has done his homework and, I suspect, has prayed often and long during the writing of this courageous book."
Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian and pastor who was executed for his active participation in the German Resistance against Nazism.
Professor Benjamin M. Weir, San Francisco Theological Seminary, wrote: "This book will make the reader squirm. It asks you to lend your voice in behalf of the voiceless."
Americans who can no longer think for themselves and who are terrified of disapproval by their peer group are incapable of lending their voices to anyone except those who control the world of propaganda in which they live.
The ignorance and unconcern of Americans is a great frustration to my friends in the Israeli peace movement. Without outside support those Israelis who believe in good will are deprived, by America's support for their government's policy of violence, of any peaceful resolution of a conflict began in 1947 by Israeli aggression against unsuspecting Palestinian villages.
Rev. Are wrote his book with the hope that the pen is mightier than the sword and that facts can crowd out propaganda and create a framework for a just resolution of the Palestinian issue. In his concluding chapter, "What Christians Can Do," Rev. Are writes: "We cannot allow others to dictate our thinking on any subject, especially on anything as important as Christian faithfulness, which is tested by an attitude towards seeking justice for the oppressed. It's a Christian's duty to know."
Duty, of course, has costs. Rev. Are writes: "Speak up for the Palestinians and you will make enemies. Yet, as Christians, we must be willing to raise issues that until now we have chosen to dodge."
More than a decade later, President Jimmy Carter, a true friend of Israel, tried again to awaken Americans' moral conscience with his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter was instantly demonized by the Israel Lobby.
Sixty years of efforts by good and humane people to hold Israel accountable have so far failed, but they are more important today than ever before. Israel has its captive American nation on the verge of attacking Iran, the consequences of which could be catastrophic for all concerned. The alleged purpose of the attack is to eliminate nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons. The real reason is to eliminate all support for Hamas and Hezbollah so that Israel can seize the entire West Bank and southern Lebanon. The Bush regime is eager to do Israel's bidding, and the media and evangelical "Christian" churches have been preparing the American people for the event.
It is paradoxical that Israel is demonstrating that veracity lies not in the Christian belief in good will but in Lenin's doctrine that violence is the effective force in history and that the evangelical Christian Zionist churches agree.

Bible Roulette--Are Ya Feeling Lucky Punk?

By Dennis Diehl
While Christmas may leave many with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, fundamentalist evangelicals and Bible prophecy nuts see dragons and beasts, men of sin and rebuilt temples.
They see that tiny little sliver of land that has linked Africa to Europe and across which our pre-human ancestors strode, now called Israel, as the Promised Land for the Chosen People. All others, of course, are not so chosen or special. That’s the problem with the concept of the chosen people. Everyone else has to be the unchosen. And that's the way it feels today when it comes to the Middle East and all her people.
These Bible literalists and prophecy geeks seek meaning for today from the Book of Daniel, with its statues of gold,silver, bronze and iron mixed with clay. They see rams and goats pushing their way across the Middle East and find meaning in the Kings of the North and of the South, though they can never quite figure out who’s who and when.
They just adore Daniel 11, which they read like a newspaper with its four great beasts of the lion, the bear, the leopard and something more astonishing than the others, crashing its way across the planet. It has ten horns all with eyes and a little horn to boot. The meanings of it all are endless but they keep churches full.
These beasts are world empires prophesied, except these descriptions were written after they had come and gone, but don’t bring that up to the read-the-Bible-as-a-newspaper crowd. Most Bible prophecy isn't prophecy at all, but that's for another time.
Later in the Gospels, we see that the end is really getting close now. Wars, rumors of wars, like that’s something new, are everywhere. Every earthquake, flood, tsunami, tornado and cold front just screams at us, “you can sure tell that Jesus has to return any day now.”
Weather can’t just be weather. It has to be prophecy come alive. Of course, it is just weather, but that won’t wash with those who play Bible Roulette with world news and natural disasters. It never dawns on them how God seems limited to expressing his wrath during the appropriate season or plate slippage in slippage-prone areas.
Enter the Book of Revelation. Written by who knows who under the influence of who knows what. Astro-theology at it's best. The Book of Revelation has been responsible for more insane Christian sects, cults and "send in your money because you won’t need it when this all happens", lunacy, than any book in the Bible. Replete with scrolls and lambs, seals and trumpets, vials and plagues, it’s a Fundamentalist preacher’s dream come true and not a bad fear mongering tool for government leaders who just know that Voice in their head is coming right from the throne room of God Himself.
I’ve kidded in the past about having met 23 of the Two Witnesses in my former life as a church pastor, lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about on this topic. I’ve met a few more since. These are the two great ones, two men actually or Elijah and Moses, Amos and Andy , depending on who you ask, who torment us sinners the last three and half years before Jesus comes.
Of all things, the Two Witnesses just returned from Jerusalem where they set off to start their mission, but it didn’t go all that well, so they came home. Actually it’s a minister, who has rather lost his mind, that I knew in the church. He said the trumpets and seals would break open in April of 2008 and get louder and louder, ending in planetary death on a huge scale and nuclear explosions in our port cities this summer. Hey, it could happen, but that would not be prophecy come alive, it just might be the government needing to cancel elections. Who knows anymore?
Conveniently, he declared his wife the other witness. God works in families, you know. Anyway, old Ron said that if by June of this year it was not obvious the Book of Revelation had come true as HE said, then he’d declare himself a false prophet because anything less would “be quite insane.”Well guess what? He changed the rules of engagement, kept his office as prophet, kept his dwindling church and kept the money. He’s also a liar.

What is Bible Roulette? Bible Roulette is the misuse of the Bible by religious zealots to promote governmental insanity on the world scene so that perhaps out of all the chaos of, say an attack on Iran and the ensuing explosion in the Middle East, Jesus, who loves all the little children of the world, well except Palestinian, Iraqi or Iranian, evidently, will come back and bring Peace.
Our President plays Bible Roulette every time he listens to the likes of John Hagee and his beer belly prophecies about what surely are his accurate views of the Bible and what it means for the Middle East and Christians all over the world. John Hagee plays Bible Roulette for a living.
Most fundamentalists and Bible literalist pastors do. You can get an amazing amount of mileage out of the Book of Revelation and spin it into a career. So do all the ministerial advisors to the candidates. Scary people actually whose mouths needs be shut at times, it seems to me, lest we end up, not with the return of Jesus, but only a large sanitation problem on a major part of the planet and world chaos.
Bible Roulette is currently responsible for more bad decisions in high places than one might ever wish to contemplate. It’s also quite possible that religious zealots who think they have influence in high places are being played the fool so that the narcissists and psychopaths in government can do what they want and prophet, or rather profit, from it all.
Hey, if it didn’t bother our country enough when the President said God told him to strike at Sadaam or that God wanted him to be President, nothing is going to bother us. If your eyebrows have not been raised by now over this President's abuse of power and psychopathic leanings, there is not much more to say. I guess I could say, you reap what you allow to grow.
Another problem we face as humans becoming (human beings may still be a stretch at this time in history and under this administration), is the meme that the nation of Israel is the center of the world for how it’s all going to go for the rest of us. Uzbekistan... not so much. But Israel.. you got to be kidding? Soooooooo special. It’s not. They just know how to play the game of how does a small people survive in a nasty environment.
First of all, you get to have all the nuclear weapons you want. Secondly, you make sure others don’t have any to keep you humble. And thirdly, you make every effort to promote Evangelical Christian zeal for the chosen people so they are taken care of when push comes to shove or we have to vote on something that benefits them over everyone else.
God did not literally establish the nation of Israel. The American taxpayers bought it for them. I bet if we cut off the funding and let God pick up their support, Israel would feel as special, finally, as Uzbekistan.
Time and space would fail me to show how the story of the Israelites in the Old Testament might just be a wee bit exaggerated to give a hopeless people, no different than the people around them, an amazingly more interesting pedigree.
As I was told recently, “God won’t tolerate anyone picking on the Nation of Israel. They are the Chosen People.” Argh, argh and half an argh (you have to know the Book of Revelation to understand that…).
I guarantee you, if Israel, alone or with the aid of the Bush administration, attacks Iran in the next few months and leaves the mess to the next President, you will not think Israel is so special anymore. When the results of such a fool’s game as that hits the fan, you may never want to look at your Bible again or hear one more yelling, ignorant preacher tell you how it all is and that prophecy is coming alive.
You can create your own outcomes when you have such a crazy blueprint in your head. It might not go as you planned however.
So here we sit. The summer of ’08 and it feels really dangerous on the planet as far as I can tell with Bible Roulettesters spinning the cylinder and hoping for a bang instead of a click. Of course, they are pointing the gun at others.
Will the Bush Administration attack Iran, almost as a last cynical and in your face America game? Will this administration go out with a bang just as they came in? Cancel elections maybe or declare it’s too dangerous to not have the powers that be still be for the foreseeable future? Can’t happen, you say?
Here’s how it’s done.
You load your gun with one bullet from Daniel. Drop two bullets from Matthew 24 and three from the Book of Revelation into the cylinders. Now ALL the cylinders are full. Someone is going to die. There is no chance it won't go off.
Get some fundamentalist preacher of note to spin it and then tell the God haunted members of the Congress and Executive Branch and the simple psychopathic narcissists, where to point it and why. Pull the trigger. Its that simple. There is no empty chamber. Lots of people are going to die. The world will never be the same and life as you know for you and your kids will change.
Bible Roulette...Coming to a planet near you, if someone doesn't speak up quickly.

Authors Bio:
Dennis Diehl is a former pastor of 26 years, who outgrew the Literalism of Fundamentalism. He writes about Pastoral and Church abuse and is available to speak on such topics or be helpful to any church suffering under abusive religion or pastors.

Bam Bam Bam and be Healed in the Name of Jesus

Most fundamental christian churches are nothing more than watered down religion to serve the denominations business and wealth or serve to make wealthy a non- denominational pastor. They emotionally brow beat and dumb down their parishioner's into submission to brainwash them into the "only way to heaven and the only way to a good life". But now we have found a pastor-healer that physically beats his parishioners into submission and people sit around in his sermons and laugh with him. WTF

More crazy religion out of the US. The real Deal is Here, Watch this mess... Click here.

'Saved'? Site Lets You Send E-mails Post-Rapture

Youvebeenleftbehind.com Lets Saved Christians Send Emails From Heaven

By ASHLEY PHILLIPS
June 10, 2008


A new Web site is offering a first-of-its-kind service: sending e-mails to nonbelieving friends and family who are "left behind" after you are whisked away by God in the rapture.

The site Youvebeenleftbehind.com offers users the ability to store e-mails and documents that will be sent to up to 63 e-mail addresses six days after the rapture has occurred. Users get up to 250 megabytes of storage space, 150 megabytes of it encrypted for sensitive information such as bank account numbers or eTrade passwords that can be accessed by those who remain on earth.

In evangelical Christian theology, the rapture is marked by a sudden visit from God, in which Christians will be whisked away to heaven while remaining nonbelievers will live on earth for seven years under the rule of the anti-Christ, until God returns with his followers to rule heaven and earth.

Billed as the last chance to "snatch them from the flames," Youvebeenleftbehind.com is the month-old brainchild of Mark Heard, a 49-year-old supermarket shelf-stocker who lives in Cape Cod, Mass.

"You've Been Left Behind gives you one last opportunity to reach your lost family and friends For Christ," the site reads. "Imagine being in the presence of the Lord and hearing all of heaven rejoice over the salvation of your loved ones. It is our prayer that this site makes it happen."

Heard says it's also a way to pass on financial information to loved ones who remain on earth before God's return.

"The idea started for me in 1999 when I was& trading equities online and trying to think, 'How I can send my password to my wife if the Rapture happened at this moment?'" he said.


A Way to Proselytize?
Jeff Vacarro, a 34-year-old computer programmer in San Diego who runs the Web site Godsurfer.com, which allows users to post and rank Christian-based Web content, signed up for the service when he saw it covered on another news site last week.

Although Vacarro hasn't uploaded any messages just yet, he says that he plans to construct e-mails that give the non-believers in his life a nudge along with Bible passages.

"I like the idea behind it," said Vacarro, "It would be one final, 'Hey guys, maybe you need to check this out further & I haven't figured out what I want to say yet."


Despite the promise of encryption, Vacarro said he wasn't planning to save personal financial information on the site.

"I'm not going to put any of my financial documents up, but sending out an e-mail who to those who don't believe & when this does happen, I thought, 'Why not?'" he said.

Security experts generally recommend only using data storage services that are well-known with a proven track record and that detail the type of security used on their sites.


When the Rapture Comes
Perhaps the trickiest detail for Heard was devising a way for the digital service to determine the spiritual fates of its clients. How will the Web site know when the rapture has come?

Heard, who wouldn't reveal how many people have signed up for the service, has set up his e-mail server with what he calls a "fail-safe" clause: if three of his five employees fail to log on to their work accounts after six days, the service will be triggered and the e-mails be sent out.

"We don't want these things to go out early," he said.


The Business of Christianity
Not all of this is being done out of the kindness of Heard's faithful heart; he does charge $40 a year for membership, a fee he hopes to lower as more people join.

Christian-themed products make up a multibillion dollar industry that includes books, movies, music, theme parks, video games and even beauty pageants, according to Peter A. Maresco, a business professor at Sacred Heart University and author of the upcoming book "The Business of Christianity: The Growing Market For Everything Christian."

"This Web site is yet another extension of the use of the Internet to reach a specific demographic  in this instance, Christians saving lost souls before and even after the rapture," Maresco said.

The best example of Christian entertainment's crossover into the secular mainstream may be the best-selling juggernaut "Left Behind" book series, a fictional account of the rapture. Since its inception the series has sold 63 million books and spawned several movies and a video game.

Maresco said the Youvebeenleftbehind site may be poised to capitalize on the huge financial success of the rapture-themed books, but the blurring of the line between profits and proselytizing has some observers concerned.

"The section used to attract subscribers left me cold. However, it does reflect the potential of a market that may reach in excess of $10 billion in the next few years," Maresco said. "If there is an opportunity to market a product or, in this case, a service to the Christian demographic, then someone will find it, develop it and ultimately market it,"

Michael Budde, Depaul University political science professor and author of the book "Christianity Incorporated: How Big Business is Buying the Church," is similarly skeptical.

"It's hard to know whether this is the church of P.T. Barnum and a sucker is born every minute or whether this is a rather curious take on what the church needs in this particular type of place," he said. "I can't see this turning into a particularly big presence because, for the millions of people this fits with, to send e-mails to the left behind  I'm not sure this is going to be worth $40 to them."


Will the Web Even Work?
Despite its infiltration into pop culture, the idea of the rapture as depicted in the "Left Behind" series is a fairly new development in Christianity, according to Randy Maddox, a theology professor at Duke divinity school.

"The understanding of the rapture as a time when Christians are taken out and [others] left behind is not a universally accepted Christian belief," Maddox said. "Indeed, the model that this Web site [promotes] is something we don't find in the Christian church until the end of the 19th Century. It's a small subset of evangelicals who have adopted this."

Similarly, the catastrophic narrative that the rapture invokes doesn't jibe with the idea of a fully-functioning Internet.

"In one sense, they're arguing it will be a time of great disaster, but in another sense he's saying, 'I promise my Web site will be working,'" Maddox said. "There are logical incongruities with the model, and there's basic theological incongruities."


'This Is Someone Who Wants $40'
Several things rang alarm bells for Amy Frykholm, author of the book "Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America," a scholarly look at the "Left Behind" series and a writer for "Christian Century."

While Heard's site claims to be "for Christians by Christians," it never identifies who is running it, a point which Frykholm said made her instantly suspicious.

"I was shocked that there was no place on the site where you could find out more about the Rapture. & You don't know who these people are," Frykholm said. "My first thought: 'This is someone who wants $40.'"

According to Frykholm, people who believe in the rapture, also known as dispensationlists, are almost always evangelizing, something that doesn't happen on the site.

"That makes me very, very suspicious. I just expected something more, some attempt to reach me as the unsaved," she said. "You justify taking people's money by spreading the kingdom of God. There's nothing there to justify taking your money. & I'd be stunned if people are signing up for this."

Tim LaHaye, one of the authors of the "Left Behind" series, was less skeptical. He and co-writer Jerry B. Jenkins have been pitched several ideas over the years about communicating with those left behind after the rapture, from videos to bumper stickers, but have so far not endorsed any of them.

LaHaye called the Web site "likely very sincere."

"It is not a bad idea to leave behind some type of message for your loved ones or neighbors, giving them the plan of salvation and an explanation for your immediate disappearance," LaHaye said in an e-mailed statement. He added that Christians should talk to family and friends about their beliefs now.

In explaining his hopes for the site, Heard stressed his own strongly-held beliefs, reciting Bible verses in one breath and discussing server security in the next.

Though he won't reveal number of people who have signed up for the service, Heard says that there's been a fair amount of interest from other Christians  particularly those preparing for what they believe is inevitable.

"Nobody knows the day or the hour of the rapture," he said. "It's really an any-minute situation."


Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

John Hagee: deviant theology, dangerous foreign policy

By John Taylor
Online Journal Contributing Writer

May 7, 2008, 00:21

Pastor John Hagee gleefully anticipates the death of hundreds of millions of people in a series of wars preparing the world for the second coming of Christ: “The end of the world is rapidly approaching . . . Rejoice and be exceeding glad.”

Worse, Hagee wants to jump start what he sees as the inevitable battle between Israel and the US and an alliance of the Islamic states and Russia: “The United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West.” Hagee’s bizarre interpretation of the Bible sees war with Iran as a “biblically prophesized End Time confrontation . . . which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation and the Second Coming.”

If Hagee were just another kook, walking around Times Square carrying a sign saying “The End is Near,” there would be no need to worry. In fact, Hagee is senior pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, with a congregation of 18,000, appears weekly on 150 TV stations around the world and is the head of Christians United For Israel (CUFI), a lobbying group founded to advance the interests of the State of Israel in the U.S. Congress. Not only does Hagee advocate aggressive war against Iran, he is a strong supporter of our continuing misadventure in Iraq and he opposes any Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, arguing that God has given all of Palestine to the Israelis.

John Hagee’s end time theology transmogrifies Christianity into little more than a death cult in which the State of Israel is worshipped like a latter day Golden Calf. Despite his weird views, Hagee has access to senior politicians in the US and Israel; he likes to brag that he has met every Israeli prime minister since Menachem Begin.

President Bush praised Hagee’s CUFI for “spreading the hope of God’s love and the universal gift of freedom.” How to square “spreading . . . God’s love” and the “gift of freedom” with bombing the Iranians is hard to fathom, but, in any event, evangelicals like Hagee have been among President Bush’s strongest supporters and the president is not about to abandon them now.

Senator Joe Lieberman is also a Hagee fan and praised him at last year’s CUFI meeting in Washington, likening him to Moses, “a man of God . . . leading a mighty multitude.” If comparing Hagee to Moses seems over the top, remember Hagee and Lieberman have a lot in common. Both men were keen to see the US invade Iraq and both would like to have Uncle Sam attack Syria and Iran, a wish shared by many in Washington, especially arms makers, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and neocons in the White House and the Pentagon.

John McCain recently thanked Pastor Hagee for endorsing his run for the presidency. Eight years ago, McCain made a point of denouncing Hagee’s fellow evangelical Jerry Falwell as an “agent of intolerance” and an “evil influence on the Republican party.” Clearly times have changed.

Hagee’s distorted view of Christianity, his hatred of Islam (Hagee once said "those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews”) and his toxic criticism of American Middle East policy have all become part of American political discourse. For example, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma believes “We are Israel’s best friend . . . because of the character we have as a nation . . . This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.” Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey opined, “I am content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank . . . I happen to believe the Palestinians should leave.” And just a few months ago, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, an ex-evangelical preacher himself, said he favored the establishment of a Palestinian state, but not in Palestine, rather in Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

Many people, some influential, some not, think religious belief should guide American Middle East policy. Others would say that that the Bible and foreign policy ought to remain entirely separate and that a discussion of Hagee’s religious doctrine is about as meaningful as trying to decide how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. What individuals on both sides of this debate don’t realize is that Hagee’s highly selective reading and strange interpretation of the Bible put him well outside mainstream Christian belief.

Hagee regards God’s covenant with Abraham in the book of Genesis as granting the Patriarch and his descendents unconditional title to the Holy Land. He concludes, therefore, that no territorial compromise with the Palestinians is desirable or necessary. Hagee preaches that those who bless Israel will themselves be blessed (Genesis 12:3) and that a close military and political alliance between the United States and Israel is mandated in scripture. Further, Hagee sees the 1948 emergence of an independent Israel as a sign of the second coming of Christ. Finally, and most controversial of all for an evangelical preacher, Hagee claims that God’s covenant with the ancient Hebrews allows Jews to be saved without belief in Christ.

Did God grant Abraham and his offspring unconditional and eternal possession of the Holy Land? Many scholars would argue that remaining in the land required the Israelites to keep God’s laws. Failure to do so would bring divine punishment. Moses warned in Deuteronomy 28, “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law . . . you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of.” The Hebrews’ captivity in Babylon and the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 AD demonstrate to many scholars that God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendents was conditional and their right to the Holy Land by no means absolute.

When Hagee advocates unqualified American support for the State of Israel as a means of obtaining the Almighty’s blessing, he assumes the modern State of Israel is a linear and worthy successor to Abraham. Does blessing Israel mean giving the government of the State of Israel unconditional political, financial and military support? One could argue that Israel’s efforts to colonize the lands captured in 1967 and to dispossess the Palestinians violate the Old Testament commandments against theft and killing. Furthermore, Hagee’s callous disregard for the suffering of indigenous Christians and Muslims is certainly contrary to the New Testament injunctions to “love thy neighbor as thy self” (Matt. 19:19) and to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you” (Matt. 7:12), to say nothing of “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). Hagee’s bizarre theology has hijacked the messages of the Old and New Testaments to sanctify the injustices done in the Holy Land.

The second coming of Christ is a difficult issue because the Bible can be interpreted in many ways. In his book, Jerusalem Countdown, Hagee enumerates 10 “signs” which he claims “prove” that Christ’s return to earth is imminent. But Luke’s gospel (17: 20) gives a diametrically opposing view: “The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed.” Furthermore, Pastor Hagee may say he knows when Christ is returning but his confidence is inconsistent with the parable of the bridegroom (Matt. 25): “you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”

Most people who have studied the Christian religion, believers or not, would assert that the New Testament requires belief in Christ for salvation: that is, after all, what makes Christians Christians and the New Testament new. Hagee’s interpretation of scripture posits that salvation for Jews is also possible in Christianity because of God’s covenant with Abraham. Pastor Hagee’s view is obviously erroneous: the gospel of John states, “I (Christ) am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

It is easy to understand why Hagee preaches what he does. If you make the State of Israel an object of veneration and at the same time insist that its inhabitants convert to Christianity, you are not going to make many friends in Israel or among Israel’s supporters in the US. And for similar reasons Hagee asserts the Bible favors the Israelis over the Palestinians: Pastor Hagee obviously enjoys meeting Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, speaking in front of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee and having Malcolm Hoenlein, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, visit him in San Antonio. Hagee bartered his faith for power and fame, money and notoriety. An advocate of unjust war, Hagee has put down the Bible and taken up the sword. His kingdom is very much of this world.

The Founding Fathers were wise to forbid in the Constitution the establishment of a religion in the US. Although morality, often finding its roots in religion, will always influence government and election of public officials, the specifics of religious belief and practice have been kept, for the most part, in private life, to the nation’s great benefit. Making decisions about war and peace based on strange interpretations of arcane End Time prophecy is dangerous and absurd. That Hagee is a serious political player in 21st Century America shows we have truly entered a post Enlightenment era.

John Taylor, a lifelong Republican, received an AB in Near Eastern Languages from The University of Chicago. He is a US Army veteran. As a young man he served in the Middle East as a civil servant, archaeologist and banker. Prior to retirement he worked in the energy business in Texas for 20 years.

Should the United States Worry About “Zionists” as Fifth Column?

Yes.

Jefferson Corner/ Kenny's Sideshow

Last week calls by candidate Hillary Clinton to obliterate Iran for and on behalf of Israel and her willingness to commit to nuclear war costing the lives of hundreds of millions of people for and on behalf of a state that since its inception has been at war with all of its close and distant neighbor is a grave warning to Americans of the danger of Zionism on America and the world.

In few weeks President George Bush will lead a delegation of “Whose Who” in politics, government, business, media and arts and head east to Tel-Aviv to their “Mecca” to celebrate and give allegiance to the State of Israel on its 60th anniversary. Europeans will be celebrating for having gotten rid of the majority of Jews within Europe.

Since its inception in the late 18th century Europe, the zionist movement worked so hard to transform All Jewish communities within the West in its own image and tried and have succeeded to a great extent to transform the US and European Jewry to loyal followers and Israeli loyalists resurrecting the feelings of alienation among world Jewry to their own countries and of course reigniting again the horrible seeds of anti-semitism. The measure of success of the zionist enterprise is its ability to disfranchise old established Jewish communities in their native countries and countries of birth and citizenship and give them their “choice” of immigrating to Israel, the only place “where Jews can feel Jews”.

To this end trillions of dollars of “Jewish” money and from citizens tax payers from around the world were committed to Israel building its new infrastructure based on defense, armaments and Spartan siege mentality. Unlike the claims of zionists of having made the desert bloom, Palestine was a thriving community with well known products around the world such as Jaffa oranges. With Trillions of dollars pouring into Israel and with an already thriving Palestinian community, one can make the “moon bloom”. Hence the Zionist myth of making the “desert bloom” we did that in Arizona and we are not zionists.

The zionist ideology based on “Jewish nationalism” fed on and in reaction to European and Western/Christian anti-semitism, pogroms and the holocaust, succeeds for the most part in converting and transforming Jewish loyalties to “their” Jewish state Israel and the zionist movement. If the Catholic church and Islam tried to convert and shift loyalties of community of the faithful from that of their national state to loyalty to Rome and Mecca, I am sure that zionists would cry foul and would charge Rome and Mecca with inciting “treason” among citizens of the world. zionism as a form of racism did succeed in making transformation of Judaism from a religion of faith to one “religious nationalism” with the Israel being the “nation” and central to Jewish life and succeeded in making the Jews feel the needs for “separate” and shifting loyalties from their native countries to that of Israel. This new zionist ideology is not different from that of the communist ideology which demanded shifting of loyalties from ones country to that of the Soviet Union and Moscow. If Islamists loyal to a foreign agenda could not be trusted or entrusted with the interests of the United States claims often raised by the likes of Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Charles Krauthhammer then the same can be said of zionists within the United States, they too could never be trusted with the interests of the United States since they too are loyal to a foreign agenda, Israel.

Not only did the zionist movement demand Jewish loyalties to zionism and Israel it also sought to recruit Christian evangelical movements and transformed them to Christian zionists with shifting loyalties to Israel from than of their own country especially in the United States. This unholy alliance came about as an alliance between Israel’s Likud party and right wing Republicans during the Reagan administration where each was supporting the other for their own domestic and international agenda, especially in oppositions toward peace between Israel and the Arabs. Of course we all know the agenda of evangelical zionists which is the ultimate conversion of Jews or putting them to death in fulfillment of biblical prophecies. Such is the unholy alliance.

In the hey day of the Soviet Union, it succeeded to a limited extent in having a”fifth” column within the government of the United States. The Zionists went even further, they made sure that committed and loyal zionists are in every branch of the US government and in key positions, in the White House, Justice Department, Home Land Security, State, Defense, CIA, NSC and other key security agencies, especially in US Congress where key decision makers, staffers are loyal zionists. However it was not enough for the zionists to have such an army of Israeli loyalists among the tens of thousands in government, it made sure that it also spread its tentacles to the media, art and culture and of course in business, hence the danger to Western democracies and to the world in general.

The arrest two week ago of the 84 years old American Jew, Ben-Ami Kadish on charges of spying for Israel is but a tip of the iceberg where committed zionists with loyalties to zionism and Israel are in the tens of thousands within the different branches of government especially the State and other security agencies, with many security agencies employing dual nationals (Israelis and US) and employing former members of Mossad in key positions with US security agencies...

This commitment and loyalty to Israel was and is the driving force behind many of the very dangerous acts and decisions taken by officials within the different US administration. The Ben-Ami Kadish case is but on case, to be added to the Pollard case and many other cases the government simply refuses to bring out into the open.

One has to keep in mind the many incidents where zionists put the interests of Israel first. The case of the missing/stolen 100 kilogram of uranium 235 missing from the Apollo plant in Pennsylvania is but one of those incidents where the managing director of the plants having strong ties to Israel. The same is true of the case the nine kilogram of weapon grade uranium found missing from Erwin, Tennessee. The case of the missing two tons of uranium missing during a trip between Antwerp to Genoa but an added story to Zionists loyalty to Israel where the owner of the ship was identified by the Norwegian as an Israeli secret agent.

In the United States, the zionists tentacles are found every where. Lyndon Johnson as president under the influence of his “zionist “ national security advisor Walter Rastow made sure that nuclear capabilities of the F-4 Phantoms delivered to Israel where left intact in violation of the US export regulation, even refusing to fully investigate the case of the missing nuclear fuel from the Apollo plant.

More dangerous was Johnson's total disregard of the lives of US sailors killed in cold blood by Israeli jets and torpedo boats on the USS Liberty with Johnson's Jewish national security agency director snuffing out any resolution and finding Israel responsible for the cold blooded murder. Admiral McCain (father of John McCain) as Commander of US Sixth Fleet denied help to the attacked ship and its dead and injured crew on orders from the Zionists within the White House. In the 73' War, Kissinger a die hard zionist almost caused a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union in his attempt to save Israel in the first few days of the October War, stripping the US army of its tanks and missiles in Europe and flying military equipment directly to the battle field in an added attempt to save Israel while putting the US and its armed forces in Europe at risk. However Kissinger's committment to Israel did not stop there. He made sure he got rid of all “Arabists” within the State Department for fear that they may be hostile to Israel. Kissinger's decisions again, were based on his zionist ideology and not based on the US national security interest.

Zionists with the State and Defense Departments were the driving force behind Cheney-Bush War on Iraq. It is their zionism and loyalty to Israel, that was the driving force for getting the US committed to war. Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearl, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams and William Kristol are all zionists with loyalties to the zionist agenda and Israel, are fully responsible for the death of more than 4,000 US soldiers, responsible for the more than 40,000 combat injuries, more than a million Iraqis dead and of course the more than $ 600,000 Billions the cost so far, of the War on Iraq. All of that for and on behalf of Israel. These zionists with their loyalties to Israel are similar to Communists with their loyalties to Moscow. However the George Bush administration is not the only administration to put zionists in charge of the US policies in the Middle East. Bill Clinton entrusted US policies in the Middle East to key staffers who came directly from Israeli/zionist work shop. Dennis Ross and Martin Indyke where and are committed zionists and Israeli loyalists...

Presidential candidates John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should think twice before making loyalty to Israel and zionism the central theme of their presidential campaign. How about putting America first for a change?

Jefferson Corner

Barack Obama, Rev. Wright, and Racism, America Responds: We’re Not Done With You Yet

By mark karlin
April 29, 2008

Nothing more profoundly and disturbingly symbolizes America's subtle racist double standard than George Stephanopoulos's question during the Philadelphia debate to Barack Obama: "Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?"
We have all these right wing "God is destroying America because it has sinned" preachers running around with barely a question asked of the Republicans they back. Yes, Hagee, Robertson, the late Jerry Falwell, and countless other religious leaders of the fundamentalist cloth have delivered countless white versions of "God Damns America" statements. The only difference is that they don't "say it black" in black churches, and then see it looped endlessly around on FOX TV and other cable networks, not to say rerun again and again on talk radio.
The point that appears to be forgotten here is that Rev. Wright is not running for president. Barack Obama is.
As Wright takes a valedictory tour to take advantage of a national platform that has been offered to him by a media tinderbox filled with the kindling wood of race, the question remains as to why this is still front page news. Whether Wright is preaching the gospel and indignation to a media that can't get enough of this sidebar story because race sells only second to sex as far as spiking up ratings -- or whether he is just on an ego trip -- the point to ask is why this is a front page story at all.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, and most of the mainstream media have buried the lies, broken laws, torture, Iraq War malfeasance, incompetence, cronyism, etc., of the Bush Administration for the most part in the back pages of the newspapers (if printed at all) -- and generally kept it off of television news altogether; but it can't get enough of whether the former minister of a presidential candidate -- who served his nation in the Marines by the way -- "loves America."
Is this a joke?
No it's the "Made in America" racial double standard at work.
It's as racist as "nailing" Barack Obama for not wearing a flag pin, even though George and Charlie and Hillary weren't wearing flag pins at the Philadelphia debate -- and McCain is not asked why he frequently doesn't wear one. The double standard on the flag pin is so glaring that most Americans can't see it in front of their own eyes; one need only look at the television screen to see that Barack Obama is not the only candidate or television moderator not wearing the Bush Administration symbol of patriotism reduced to the size of a miniature piece of tin.
Yes, it's the old "black people have to prove themselves more than white people" thing rising to a full fever pitch. It's the media and America answering Barack Obama's challenge to confront our racist past during his dazzling speech in Philadelphia.
Unfortunately, the response by the media, other politicians in the race, and commentators has been, "not so fast, Barack -- we aren't finished with the racial double standard just yet."
We wish Rev. Wright a pleasant retirement, but we really don't know what his relevance is to the severe crises facing America. No white candidate, including Bush and McCain, has been so hammered about such an irrelevancy, considering the kooky religious figures that they have backing them.
That kind of scrutiny we reserve for a black man.
In case anyone needs to be reminded about the history of racial injustice in America, we encourage you to most appropriately watch and listen to the incomparable Nina Simone singing, "Mississippi Goddam." [1]
It's been the goal of the Clinton campaign to prove that Obama can't transcend the reality of his being a black man in a nation that is still looking for a "Great White Hope."
The re-emergence of Rev. Wright as a national news story when we have Bush and Cheney preparing to possibly bomb Iran and Senator Clinton threatening to "obliterate" the same nation, not to mention a three trillion dollar debt, the destruction of our environment, the loss of jobs to overseas slave-labor nations, and the nearing of a tipping point in our dependency on oil -- well all this re-emphasizes that Clinton may be right: we are still stuck in the gutter of our baser instincts and anyone who wants to appeal to our better selves is in for a rude awakening.

Church's Obama Message Removed After Outcry

Is this preacher, Pastor Roger Byrd, a KKKlans member or a skin head? He kinda looks like one. He is white, short hair, talks like one, I don't know, makes me think he is. REALLY, this is a classic example of what worthless messages you can find in today's church's in the good old USA.

Tom


POSTED: 5:01 pm EDT April 22, 2008
UPDATED: 5:39 am EDT April 23, 2008

JONESVILLE, S.C. -- Following a day of national attention and public outcry over a sign in front of a small church in a small town, the message has been changed.

The sign in front of the Jonesville Church of God said, "Obama, Osama, hmm, are they brothers?"

On Tuesday, the Church Of God's International Office issued a statement saying that the sign had been removed. (Full Text Of Church Of God Statement)

The message on the sign now reads: "How will you spend eternity, smoking or no smoking?"

Pastor Roger Byrd said that he had just wanted to get people thinking. He said that the message wasn't meant to be racial or political.

"It's simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ," he said.

When asked if he believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, Byrd said, "I don't know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim? I don't know. He says he's not. I hope he's not. But I don't know. And it's just something to try to stir people's minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or to offend anybody."

Obama has said repeatedly during his campaign that he is a Christian and attends Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

The amount of attention the message received surprised Byrd.

"I'm very surprised," he said, "It shocked me and startled me."

Byrd had said that he and his congregation decided on Sunday night to leave the sign up, and that he didn't want it to appear that controversy forced him to take the sign down.

The WYFF4.com story about the sign was viewed more than a quarter million times by users across the country. Hundreds of negative comments regarding the sign were posted online. On Tuesday, Byrd apparently decided the wording on the sign should be replaced.

He was not available for comment on Tuesday.

Christian Fundamentalists -- The High Cost of Being Sincerely Wrong

By Dennis Diehl

Dennis Diehl

Dennis was a 26 year pastor. Having experienced this reckless shift in how a Church chose to change itself, Dennis began to bring to the ...

Goodmorning...I used to be one of you. I know how you think and the Biblical brainwashing you have been through that makes you think the way you do about world events, Biblical prophecy, the Second Coming of Jesus and the Kingdom of God on earth. I know how ministers and pastors, most well meaning, but full of sanctified ignorance and misunderstanding of the intent, origins, errancy and the historical inaccuracies of much we read in the Bible, have filled your minds with misguided zeal. I know how you read and understand the prophecies of the four kingdoms of Daniel and the dreams of Nebuaccanezzar, King of Babylon. I doubt you know they were written after the fact and not prophetically.

I know how you read Daniel 11 and 12 as just how things will be "in the end times." I know how some of you think "a thousand will fall at your right side, and ten thousand at your left, but it will not come nigh unto your dwelling." I know how you read Matthew 24. I know some of you think that you will be "born up on eagles wings" and taken to a "place of safety," maybe in Petra, Jordan to wait out the end time carnage that you see in the Trumpets, Vials, plagues and Horsemen of Revelation. Some of you have already left and some left years ago, only to return and get back to work.

I know you read the Book of Revelation as if it was a newspaper and see these times as those times and that book as revealing all that is about to happen so Jesus can return. I know you have forgotten that 2000 years ago the opening of the Revelation says "to show unto my servants, things which must SHORTLY, come to pass." I know that you view "shortly" differently than most people understand "shortly." I know some of you think you are part of the exclusive 144,000 thousand. I know you don't understand Gematria or the 12 signs of the Zodiac but I spare you.

I know that even though you know Paul said Jesus for sure would come in his lifetime, and that he was among the "We, who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall be caught up together with the Lord, and WE shall be saved," was wrong. I know you know that later in his life, Paul gave up on Jesus coming for him in his lifetime and said that he had fought a good fight, kept the faith and would have to settle for a crown of righteousness that he'd get later, but not soon anymore. I know you know that Paul motivated the church to not marry the loves of their lives, give lots of money to the church and be ready to go at a moments notice, in vain. I always wonder about the people who believe what Paul said about the times being short and it being better to not marry and be like him. Did they get really bitter when their lives passed and Jesus didn't return, nor did they get to be intimate with the ones they loved because Paul said not to? I bet they did anyway, just like today in all churches who try to regulate relationships. The minister gets to rant about such things, but most just sneak around and do what they want anyway. You can thank Paul and his misquided view of the immediacy of Jesus return in HIS lifetime for the skepticism of most.

I know that you know Jesus said in Matthew 24 that "this generation shall not a pass until all these things be fulfilled" and that since we now know it was not the generation of Jesus this happened for, Jesus was not ill informed, but rather meant that the generation that these things happened in, would see it through. This allows your pastor to motivate you by drawing your attention to all that is happening in your world as proof of this being all about YOU. That's the apologetic, but that is not what Jesus, who was mistaken about this meant, when he is aleged to have said it. I know that you know "no man knows the day or the hour, but the Father only," but choose to ignore that and predict, predict, predict to put fear, fear, fear, into each other. Or as one said, "Just because we don't know the day or the hour doesn't mean we can't know the month or the year." Right... I know your ministers tell you that Jesus will return in 3 or 5 or not more than 10 years, and they are wrong, but hopeful and of course, the fear and hope of it keeps you in your seats and giving the bucks.

I know that the gayness of some people, the lack of belief of others, the movies, TV and all the events going on in the Middle East are proof that you won't have to wait much longer for Jesus. Little does the Pastor know that out of every 100 members of his church, about 10 are going to be gay by nature and that the same would be true for the 100 of the clergy he got together with at his last ministerial conference where they condemned it. I know you know that all fundamentalist college campuses have a normal number of gay students in attendance. Or maybe you don't. I know they are in denial on this topic but I spare you. Oh, and this would include the faculty of course.

I know you believe the nation of Israel is the most special of God's holy nations and that as one man said to me, "anyone who picks on Israel, is challenging God himself." I know you don't believe that anyone who picks on Afghanistan is picking on God. I have to say that meme has gone a long way to insure the safety of that small rather troublesome piece of the planet. The tales of the Old Testament have insured that the rules and ways of an obscure deity, on an obscure mountain, in an obscure land, speaking to an obscure people about obscure and dictatorial and controlling obcure practices, are relevant to today. They mostly aren't. My experience is that when a nation, government, president, church or group "can do no wrong," wrong is all they get good at. I know you know that too but don't apply it to the group you associate with. You should.

I know you are told you are special and that others are not. I know that you are told you are chosen and called, while others are not chosen and not called. I know you believe you have special saving knowledge while others are lost. I know you are told that you are true and others false. I know you are led to believe that your thinking is correct on all topics biblical and prophectic and all others are wrong. I know you can't imagine you are wrong about a hundred biblical ideas and speculations, but you are. I know you think that this President was put in power by God himself but I am not sure that you know that even he says he hears the voice of God, which is why he went to war. I know when others hear the voice of God in your local congregation, you marginalize them and think they are weird and strange or may need help. But on a national scale, you seem to accept the voice of God in the heads of men who can start a war that leads to everything BUT the Second Coming. I know you can't imagine having to clean up after such a mistake because I know you can't imagine any biblical or prophetic mistakes being made. But they are being made big time and cleaning up after the shit hits the fan, may be all you get to do, and of course, ask the pastor what went wrong and where is Jesus? Oh, you'll also get to ask why you can't afford to live and why your job ended and you lost everything you worked hard for. You'll also learn the church won't be able to help you much then, and no, you can't have any of your tithe money back to get back on your feet. That was money you gave to God and he has already spent it. I know you don't know that 100% of all endtime prophecies made by fundamentalist and evangelical TV Preechers, have failed miserably. I know...just around the corner.

I know you are afraid to die personally just as every human being before you has. I know you, like Paul, prefer to be "changed," at the sound of the trumpet and not die at all. After all, Paul said "we would not all die." I am not sure you realize he had to retract that later in life.

I know how you feel about "God's Law" and how much better off we'd all be if we kept "it." But I also know you aren't real sure which ones to keep. Sabbath over Sunday? Passover over Easter? Holydays over holidays? I know some think parents should still get to stone rebellious children. I know you are nuts if you think that. I know you that "God's Law" means different things to differrent people and I know that you tend to confuse what to keep from the Old Testament nation of Israel and drag it over into the New and the Church. Well except tithing of course. I know how you think we are all spiritual Israelites, but how would you feel if someone kept calling you a spiritual Zulu in order to be saved? How about a Spiritual Sioux? Actually I'd love that but that's my preference.

I also know, because I was one of you, that you don't know near as much as you think you know. You're knowing is, at times, wishful thinking, or sanctified ignorance based on the sole fact that it's what you have always been taught. I know that learning new perspectives is not something you are encouraged to do. I know that admitting you are wrong is not something you are often able to do. When science makes a mistake, it admits it and uses whatever information was good for future studies. When religion and churches make mistakes, they kill the people who point it out. That's how it goes.

But I also know that over zealous pastors and fundamentalists need to be cautioned about your zealotry gone wrong. Zealous and sanctified ignorance can provoke all the Vials, Trumpets, Trombones and Beasts of Revelation and you will get everything promoted in the Book of Revelation EXCEPT the Second Coming. What you will get is one big mess to clean up, if you survive along with the rest of us. You'll get a place in history as the reason why the next generation wants nothing to do with organized religion or ministers and pastors who can't admit they are wrong and it's not all about them after all. You'll reap a whirlwind but not Kingdom of God to bale you out.

While the President may or may not have said, "God told me to strike at Sadaam and I did...", it has never in the history of the planet worked out well when society has let religion call the shots as to what is and what isn't. I know you know that. I just hope you will think long and hard about the chaos fundamentalism of any kind, Islamic or Christian can bring to the lives of well meaning humans who simply want to be left alone to live, learn and love without the drama of religious ignorance.