I just love email forwarders!

[thewayne]

My dad is a Republican, through and through. And he keeps sending me forwards of emails from other people whose sole source of information seems to be Fox News and the RNC. Here's the latest:

--- On Sun, 9/14/08, Don <...@cox.net> wrote:

(LOTS of forwarded email header crap)

Subject: URGENT - very scary......

I encourage everyone to read this...PLEASE!!

The Book of Revelation! This will make you re-think:

A Trivia question in Sunday School:

How long is the beast allowed to have authority in Revelation?

Guess the Answer? Revelations Chapter 13:5 tells us it is 42 months.

And you know what that is. Almost a four-year term to a Presidency. All I can say is Lord Have Mercy on us.!!!!!!

According to The Book of Revelation the anti-Christ is: (NOW REMEMBER THIS IS IN THE BIBLE NOT MADE UP.) READ REVELATION; YOU TOO WILL SEE.

The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40's, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal. The prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything..... READ YOUR BIBLES, PEOPLE. IT'S COMING FASTER THAN SOME OF US THINK. NOVEMBER ELECTION IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER.

Is it OBAMA?? I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to repost this as many times as you can! Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet, do it! I refuse to take a chance on this candidate who came out of nowhere. I've always had a deep intuition concerning Obama. I John 2:18-27 affirms our salvation and condems any who believe there are more ways to the Father except through Jesus Christ the Son. A recent direct quote from Barak Obama is that there are many ways to God. Is this part of the plan of the last days? The election could be a good indication. Scary..... isn't it. Every Christian MUST STAND FIRM IN NOV.

My reply:
I have a basic problem with that. The Bible cannot specifically name something as Muslim as Islam was not founded until after the death of Muhammad in the 7th century. So that's a label and an interpretation that someone is applying. The lines are also quoting Nostradamus, and if you care to believe in him, go right ahead. Read the Snopes article that I link to below for the full quotation from Revelation.

"In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that he "was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents (whom Obama has specified elsewhere as "non-practicing Methodists and Baptists") to be detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known." He describes his Kenyan father as "raised a Muslim," but a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his Indonesian stepfather as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful." In the book, Obama explains how, through working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change.""

His church in Chicago was based on Christian teachings, not Muslim. It is not fair to accuse him of being Muslim because of his name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barak_Obama#Family_and_personal_life

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp

-----

Some additional thoughts:

Aren't the neocons supposed to be in favor of the end of times and the rapture and all that? Shouldn't Obama being the anti-Christ be favorable for their position as that is one of the parts that ushers in the end times? I could be mistaken, I am not intimately familiar with neocon philosophy and I don't buy the book of Revelation as being literally true.

Comments

[deborak]

If "every Christian must stand firm in Nov" I think you should counsel your father to vote for Pastor Baldwin on the Constitution Party ticket rather than McCain. At least Baldwin addresses the New World Order in his platform. ;-P

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's funny! I should look up Baldwin!

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

"Neocon" is supposed to refer to a certain group of liberals who decided that their ideals worked a little better with the conservative side of the spectrum. I think the term you're looking for is "paleocon"— which comes from the right side of the political spectrum, and is used, for example, to refer to Pat Buchanan.

Of course, in regards to Buchanan, I like the term "idiotarian"— another term that's come from the right. Because "idiotarian" is a lovely, non-partisan term that is equally applicable to both sides.

Incidentally, the Rapture crowd is actually a minority in the Christian population of the US. They're just loud.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Idiotarian. Beautiful, DW! Thanks for the line. I'm still thinking that the neos were in favor of setting up the conditions for the rapture, but I try to avoid most forms of ritual idiocy (except, of course, those that I favor). :-)

[silveradept]

Actually, while they are trying to hustle the eschaton along, they're also charged with converting as many as possible to their way of life before doing so. Ideally, they'd want everybody before they trigger the End Times, so in this weird sort of way, they're both encouraging it, because it means paradise for the saved and the Real True Christians they are, but at the same time, they have to stop it, because not everyone is saved.

And besides, according to most timelines, the pure are spirited away before the Antichrist rises. The last major world genocide was the Holocaust... do they really want to believe that was the Rapture?