Do you think that religious groups that talk about the end of the world are promoting the end?

I think I can safely say even 80% of delusional people are not that delusional.
It’s a pretty radical idea, and there’s better ways.

Still, I guess there’s certain types of doomsday that’s I’d be willing to cause. Moving on to better stuff and stuff. But I have more likely things to do.

They’re just warning of it, not promoting it.

Thanks for the apocalyptic warning, doom-sayers, but no thanks. Keep your paranoia to yourselves. I’ll cherish today and each day as it comes.

They can’t even control when they wake up in the morning, never mind the Apocalypse.

I wouldn’t worry.

In the Netherlands, there recently was a law suit by a former of a sect that had donated all his possesions to the sect, based on their predicting the end of the world.

The sect had told him the date and time and said that having any possesions around that time would negate access rights to the after life.

Now that the world is still there, he sued them, putting forward coercion and threat as a reason. The judged agreed and he was granted most of his money back (About 400,000 us$, the proceeds from selling his house).

There is a theory (I may not accept, but it’s interesting) but there is a theory that the doomsday prophets of Christianity are actually self aggrandizing themselves by attempting to write themselves into the book of Revelation. By doing so, they see themselves as being part and parcel to the inner workings of God’s final plan, as if they were appointed from the beginning of time to be God’s messengers, thus comforting themselves in the knowledge that whatever they do is the will of God, noting that they are guaranteed a place beside his throne.

They have an incentive for actually helping to bring about the end of the world as we know it. In this way, they make themselves valued instruments of God.

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However, I’ve seen many churches recently abandon doomsday prophecy. Some view the book of Revelation as being fulfilled already, and actually depicting the fall of the Roman empire. And some concentrate more on the message of hope and salvation presented by Jesus Christ.

No, not at all.

Not Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, but evangelical extremists… Absolutely! I remember in our last election that there was a right wing group of fanatics who were actually *trying” to get Obama in office because they were certain he was the one that would bring the end of days on us.

Nah!! it’ll come!! All in good time, All in good time! :-/

Some christian and evangelical extremists absolutely. They get a high just thinking about zipping up in the rapture. They would love to bring it on. It is an ego thing.

Some people may be promoting the end of the world, they are not trying to cause it though.
The book of revelation is part of the bible. it “tells” us what will happen at the end of the world. No one knows when this will take place and promotiong it is probably impossible to do. No one can cause the world to end, it’s just a series of events.
Even if the bible is wrong, everything ends eventully. People may just look to revelation for answers. since the beginning of time people were asking how the world would end.
The religions that talk about the end of the world are just looking for answers, even if they talk about it it doesn’t mean that it will happen.

I don’t think they have that power.

I would say that the majority of the groups promote the “end of the world’ scenario because it fills the seats. Disgruntled people pay big bucks to hear science fiction told at truth. Another way to make money is to say that since the world is ending, “you might as well hand your worldly goods to me because I can use them to save more people.”

@truecomedian No. Don’t worry lovey.

What bigger power-grab could there possibly be?: I use the superstition of millions and the ignorance of the rest to orchestrate the perfect fall for this Age. The chosen are kept safe, while the necessary reductions are made. I instate my personal Christ the King, and through him I control this glorious Heaven On Earth.

All it would take is some disaster, some implementation of great “new” technologies never before seen by the public (our miracles,) and an arbitrary parallel with one or more of the popular prophecies. Then you could have the world on a platter.

Scary possibility, grandiose maybe, but plausible. Would feel better if there was some kind of actual defense against this occurring. But the only defense would be reason and reason is in very low supply during disasters. It would just take the right sociopath(s) to get the right amount of power and get into the right position to take advantage of some massive catastrophe.

So, conspiracy theorists get ready! Wouldn’t Obama make like, the best Antichrist? Just saying . . . check the Christian culture, white, republican, conservative, superstitious. . . Now, (foil hat time) look up the Norway Spiral and Obama’s Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. See the time difference? Obama in Norway, about to accept what would generally be considered the greatest honor humanity could possibly bestow upon him Then BAM! a magnificent spiral mystery light show in the sky! (it really was pretty, look for a video, search “Norway Spiral” a “malfunctioning” missile of some kind) COINCIDENCE!? Well, probably. That is, if he isn’t the Antichrist. And also if it isn’t a plot to convince powerful Christian leaders that he is indeed the Antichrist and this is one of the “False Signs” mentioned in the bible and OH MY GOD THE END TIMES ARE HERE AND WE’RE ALL DYING AND WE SHOULD FOLLOW THE FIRST AUTHORITY THAT SEEMS TO HAVE IT TOGETHER WHILE WE’RE ALL FREAKING OUT WITH ALL THIS DISASTER AND SHIT HAPPENING MY BUDDY JUST DIED! HE’S DEAD! I AM FREAKING OUT AND LOOKING FOR AUTHORITY TO FOLLOW! WE ALL ARE, THUS WE SET OUT UPON A NEW WORLD WHERE OUR RIGHTS ARE DICTATED BY A CRAZY FUCKING SOCIOPATHIC ORGANIZATION THAT WOULD DO SUCH A THING AS STAGE THE FUCKING APOCALYPSE TO CONTROL THE WORLD AHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! THEY’LL PROBABLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE 2012 MEME, OH SHIT I’VE FIGURED IT OUT AND AHHHHHHHHH!

But, we’ll know this theory is bullshit if I’m not killed in my sleep tonight. Goodnight.

edit oh, shit this would make a great movie. Obama making his second term speech, a Doctor Manhattan-style super-tech-Jesus descends from the sky and causes Obama to explode or something (he is the antichrist, after all) Then he microwaves all of his supporters in the surrounding crowd to an orchestra of a massive angelic choir’s eerily magnificent performance reverberating off the clouds—bursting the eardrums of the unworthy! Jesus hovers there amongst the death, looks up to the sky, blood-tears streak down either side of his face, the music reaches climax and SMASH CUT TO Then, a white house agent named John Neiler (jack bower parody) sees this all at the appropriate angles safely away over surveillance tape, and works to expose this fake Jesus to the world because he found the evidence that he’s fake. At the end, as the Pope is being transformed into his new super-angel-squid-body on a giant stage, The fake Jesus Explodes! And then the real one descends in the back of the frame and credits roll. It wouldn’t even be blasphemous! Cause the Fake Jesus was the Antichrist and was using Obama as the decoy! John Neiler figured that out cause he’s a true Christian and so is his white family with the son who likes to play football and daughter who enjoys popular music, but not the wrong kind of popular music! It wasn’t the real Pope, that was an android made by the fake Jesus! The real Pope got sucked up to heaven miraculously earlier. This actually isn’t offensive at all! Hell fucking yes. Someone make this movie and not get assassinated, please! Oh please, sci-fi Christian Apocalypse movie. Needs to happen. Would be an instant classic, forever. Unless forever has a limit. . . I don’t want to be involved, but someone should totally do this.

a note to any offended Christians: If your God exists, I’m moving closer to him every day, still keeping my mind open, getting better every day. Just don’t have much respect for the way your teachings terrified me as a child. Working some things out.

Okay, I’ve said it. I’m done. I’ll live a nice conservative lifestyle from this point out. that is like the most offensive thing I could possibly come up with, I think. and i’m posting it on the internet. I mean, it’s like a duo there. Unwise, but now that I’ve written it, it would be paranoid for me not to post it. Free speech and all that. How fucked up would it be if my post disappears? Moderators, please don’t fuck with me, lol. Those caps were justified, come on now. You’ll send me down a whole mess of paranoia if you delete this post. Goodnight.

Religion can play a part in the social exploitation of some horrible disaster, or chain of disasters. And, it doesn’t help people work to avoid those disasters much. But I don’t think it’s going to cause the end of the world. There’s too many reasonable minds at work to allow that to happen without some sort of global or semi-global catastrophe. And if that happens, we’ll have other things to worry about.

Like I implied above, religion could inspire a catastrophe to be staged to exploit the masses. But, when does that ever happen? Disasters being spun or even caused just to manipulate society? Nah. everything will be just fine

Man, I just had the extreme urge to accept a new system of regulation for how we use petroleum. We could do with less resource-intensive healthcare, transportation, etc.. I’m feelin it.

Healthy religious people don’t promote it. For them life is sacred.

It seems that every time we have a disaster there’s a prominent religious leader blaming it on homosexuals or liberal theology. Strangely, there is always a little line scrolling at the bottom of the screen with an “800” number so that you can send in your donations. These parasites thrive on misery. I hope that there is a hell for bastards like Pat Roberson, Jimmy Swagert, and Jim Dobson. Have you noticed that when times are good religious observance drops? If religion offered anything but false promises and the dream of revenge for the non-believers it would remain constantly popular.