Evangelical belief in the Apocalypse, accurate or not, is shaping policy

There are an enormous number of people that think current events are related to the "End of Days" or the "Apocalypse," but many rational skeptics have major reasons to doubt this, at least in it's entirety since there are plenty of problems with these alleged prophecies. However there are an enormous number of skeptics, or perhaps I should say pseudo-skeptics, that go too far like an emphatic tweet, The #EndTimes significance of the #USA recognizing #Jerusalem as #Israel's capitol is... ZERO 12/06/2017 which is typical of the way many so-called skeptics treat beliefs they consider absurd.

One incredibly obvious way that belief in the Apocalypse is impacting our world is that even if there is nothing to it, as skeptics believe, there are an enormous amount of religious people that do believe it, including many that are having major impacts on world events, including the conflict in Jerusalem. Donald Trump's recent declaration that Jerusalem will be recognized as the capital of Israel predictably set off massive protests, as experts knew they would; and it's not the first time. Ariel Sharon also made a trip to the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000, with a armed escort of 1,000 Israeli police officers, knowing that this would enrage the Palestinians and set off the Second Intifada.

There's also an incredibly long history of this conflict which the traditional media rarely ever goes into; and only people that pay attention to alternative media outlets will be familiar with it. The short story of it, in case you're relying on the traditional media is that the Palestinians aren't the ones responsible for the Holocaust, nor were they responsible for running the Jewish people out of Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago, that was the Nazi's and the Roman's. The most powerful Palestinians, as well as Israelis and just about all other governments have a long history of getting away with anything, but it's the Palestinian working class that have been forced out of their land to enable the Jewish people to return to their land and they've come up with an enormous amount of propaganda to make them seem evil. When pushed to a breaking point they have occasionally struck out with violence; but not nearly as much as the Israelis. For a more accurate history see Jimmy Carter's "Peace Not Apartheid," John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" or numerous other good books on the subject which mainstream media rarely ever mentions.

I mention this because for decades I thought I was reasonably well informed about current events because I paid attention to the news; however it wasn't until I started checking out alternative media outlets and better non-fiction books that I realized how much I was missing.

This is just one of many examples where the political establishment routinely makes one absurd decision after another that predictably leads us into war based on lies! Most of them don't seem to have any connection to the Apocalypse; and people that rely on traditional media might not know how bad and obvious many of these decision are but those that are more familiar with alternative media or good non-fiction books that the majority of the public rarely read might suspect that either the political and media establishment are incredibly incompetent or they routinely and intentional maintain a permanent state of war.

Of course another one is the North Korea conflict; and as I have pointed out in numerous articles including Even Bernie Sanders Ignores History of North Korea Conflict! which reviews the history and how Jimmy Carter helped negotiate a deal that could avhe avoided this confrontation without what seems like far-fetched conspiracies and Looming North Korea Nuclear Apocalypse Result of Incompetence? Or Staged? which also speculated about a possible irrational conspiracy that might be related to a partial staging of events that might be considered more far-fetched, although I tried to separate speculation from hard facts.

However with the mainstream media and political establishment behaving in such an insane manner the official version of truth often becomes as insane as the so-called conspiracy theories they often ridicule. In many cases, like the Russian hacking claims from the mainstream media, the official version of truth is what we would have considered irrational conspiracy theories ten years ago; more importantly they have an enormous number of obvious flaws, like that Russia could never have done more to rig the election for Donald Trump than the mainstream media that covered him obsessively while ignoring honest candidates!



And with this incredibly absurd clown as president and the obsession with the Russian propaganda conspiracy theory that ignore the fact that only candidates that get massive amounts of coverage from the mainstream media have a chance to get the name recognition needed to get elected, so anything Russia might have done can't be nearly as bad as what the mainstream media did to ensure that we had two incredibly corrupt candidates to choose from that everyone hates.

Furthermore, skeptics routinely ignore the fact that there has been extraordinary evidence for a major unsolved mystery about our early history for thousands of years, which might indicate the possibility of an unknown advanced intelligence of some sort that has influenced early history. If so this could theoretically be the same unknown advanced intelligence that religious people refer to as "God."



Of course unsolved mysteries about ancient megaliths are difficult to conclusively connect to Biblical prophecies and even more difficult to connect with insane current events; however it might be enough evidence to indicate that people should at least keep an open mind and consider different possibilities.

However even if you don't think some of these fringe beliefs are worth considering there are others that do including Florida Republican state Senator Doug Broxson as indicated in the following article:

Theological scholar explains horrifying reason Trump’s supporters celebrated Armageddon in Pensacola 12/10/2017

In a Pensacola, Florida rally Friday evening, Republican state Senator Doug Broxson suggested to supporters of Donald Trump that the president’s controversial decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem may usher in the biblical end times.

“Now, I don’t know about you, but when I heard about Jerusalem — where the King of Kings [applause] where our soon coming King is coming back to Jerusalem, it is because President Trump declared Jerusalem to be capital of Israel,” Broxson predicted. The crowd cheered.

This week, theological scholar Dr. Diana Butler Bass wrote a Twitter thread explaining the link between recognition of Jerusalem, evangelical Christians, and the apocalypse. That is important because rebuilding the Temple is the event that will spark the events of the Book of Revelation and the End Times.”

According to Bass, the counsel of evangelical adviser that Trump surrounds himself with take such “End Times” prophecies literally

“Of all the possible theological dog-whistles to his evangelical base, this is the biggest,” she continued. “Trump is reminding them that he is carrying out God’s will to these Last Days. They’ve been waiting for this, praying for this. They want war in the Middle East. The Battle of Armageddon, at which time Jesus Christ will return to the Earth and vanquish all God’s enemies.” Complete article

Dr. Bass and most moderate theologians clearly think this is a flawed or irrational way of interpreting Biblical prophecy, assuming there's any legitimacy to it at all, and I don't disagree; however, for those that accept the legitimacy of Biblical prophecy and think that God is worth worshiping there are plenty of Biblical quotes that at least seem to support these conclusions, although there are also many other ways that the Bible can be interpreted. The fact that the Bible is so unclear should raise some question about why, if God is so merciful and benevolent, he doesn't maintain an honest line of communication advising on how to avoid these wars instead of speaking in riddles that could be interpreted in many different ways.

However, for Religious fundamentalists, that doesn't seem to be an issue and many allegedly believe Donald Trump to be the messiah as indicated in the following article as well, although I suspect there are as many others that might consider him the Antichrist:

Trump's Jerusalem Syndrome: Whose End of Days Messiah Does He Think He Is?

The president just gave Jerusalem to the Evangelicals for Christmas, as a capital of their very own. After all, who else but Trump could make the Apocalypse great again read more: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.827558 12/0/2017

Is this the prophesied End of Days?

For some ecstatic observers of Trump's White House declaration this week, in which the president formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, there is ample reason to believe that it is.

"The prophets' words of prophecy are coming forth from the Bible and becoming facts right before our eyes," said Likud lawmaker and prominent Temple Mount movement figure Yehuda Glick, appearing on Israel Channel 10 television Wednesday evening as Israel awaited Trump's expected announcement on Jerusalem. 

Quoting from the opening words of the book of Lamentations, in a reference to Jerusalem, Glick noted that once Jeremiah had wept, crying "How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations!" 

But the rise of the State of Israel, coupled with Trump's declaration, had now changed all that, Glick suggested: "So Mister Jeremiah, I'm sending you a WhatsApp: 'Jerusalem is no longer alone like a widow. Jerusalem is recognized as the capital of the Jewish People.'" Complete article

If there is an advanced intelligence religious people refer to as God why would he want to stage a "Battle of Armageddon" designed to bring in the prophesied "End of Days" thousands of years after the alleged predictions were made?

What could God possibly gain by doing this, and how?

Should we trust a God that communicates in this manner, assuming he exists?

That one is actually easy to answer, if the Bible is the literal truth, as fundamentalists, which should be referred to as literalists, believe, or even if it isn't.

First of all if you consider the Bible the literal truth the word of God is hard to portray as trustworthy or moral according to many Biblical stories about atrocities including numerous ones that are obvious entrapment like Exodus 9:12 "But Yahweh made Pharaoh stubborn and, as Yahweh had foretold to Moses, he did not listen to them;" 14:4 "I shall then make Pharaoh stubborn and he will set out in pursuit of them; and I shall win glory for myself at the expense of Pharaoh and his whole army, and then the Egyptians will know that I am Yahweh.' And the Israelites did this;" and 14:17 "while I, for my part, shall make the Egyptians so stubborn that they will follow them, and I shall win glory for myself at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army, chariots and horsemen;" all which indicate that the reason the Egyptians didn't obey God was because HE "made Pharaoh stubborn" not because they chose to disobey him of their own free will, which should be considered obvious entrapment!



The Bible is a series of one example after another staging Wars for all the wrong reasons including Deuteronomy 9:4-5 "Do not think to yourself, once Yahweh your God has driven them before you, 'Yahweh has brought me into possession of this country because I am upright,' when Yahweh is dispossessing these nations for you, because they do wrong. You are not going into their country to take possession because of any right behaviour or uprightness on your part; rather, it is because of their wickedness that Yahweh is dispossessing these nations for you, and also to keep the pact which he swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Religious people routinely claim that they have some form of higher morality because they're doing God's will, however the explanation for his will, if it exists at all, is as absurd as many of the stories in the Bible. Throughout history many of the most important improvements in morality didn't take place because they obeyed the perceived will of God but because they obeyed it; however regrettably, they often give credit to God, perhaps, because it is easier to get people to go along with the improved sense of morality.

From the beginning of the Bible to the end, one thing that is fairly consistent, is that it teaches blind obedience, without much if any critical thinking skills so many religious people don't question the most obvious flaws in the Bible. Some of the most important verses teaching blind obedience are those that use violence to intimidate children that don't blindly obey orders or believe what they're told to believe including Proverb 13:24 "Whoever fails to use the stick hates his child; whoever is free with correction loves him." There are also verses telling people not to use corporal punishment much that it kills the child; however they're clearly far more concerned with controlling the child than looking out for the best interest of him or her.

This is especially clear in Genesis 19:8 which says "Look, I have two daughters who are virgins. I am ready to send them out to you, for you to treat as you please, but do nothing to these men since they are now under the protection of my roof,'" implying that innocent girls can justifiably be sacrificed for the benefit of angels sent by the Lord.



A God that remains silent while this is going on is supposed to be considered a higher source or morals? Fundamentalists clearly think so, which may be why there is such strong support for Roy Moore and denial about the allegations against him even though anyone that looks close at the details should have many doubts. If as Moore's defenders claim there is some doubts about his accusers, then there should still be more doubts about his bad denials, often implying that he might have dated teenage girls when he was in his thirties. Alabama is one of the states that uses Corporal punishment the most in schools, and presumably at home as well, which leads to blind obedience to authority and a lot of long term emotional dysfunction, including, as I've pointed out in several articles, higher murder rates in the states that still use corporal punishment in schools. It is also the state with the most sex abuse by teachers of students according to Education expert declares Alabama ‘ground zero’ for teachers having sex with students 03/31/2016

Alabama is one of the most religious states in the country and there's good reason to suspect that their religious beliefs and child rearing tactics have a major impact on their willingness to look the other way at these problems and cover them up.

If this isn't enough to indicate that Religion is as much if not much more about control than it is about moral values, or if people think that the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus changed that numerous verses including Matthew 10:34-8 "'Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; a person's enemies will be the members of his own household. 'No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me," should raise major doubts about that.



These are the teachings of a cult intent on controlling their followers!

Many religious people not only believe that there may be a great battle that could destroy the world, but they want it!

I'm not convinced they understand why.

This should be enough evidence to prove that either God doesn't exist or that he isn't the benevolent merciful being that can be trusted to pass moral judgement over us.

However whether it's the restoring of Jerusalem as the capital, "Wars and rumors of wars," including the threat of nuclear Armageddon with North Korea that could easily have been avoided or Hurricane Harvey along with many other natural disasters including the California fires, and many others, there are a growing number of people that think this is related to the "Apocalypse" or the "End of Days."

If this God does exist and he partially predicted this what could he be trying to accomplish, how, and why? And why does he communicate in riddles or prophecies?

Can there be any doubt that if God exists he has an undisclosed motive?

There should be no doubt, to reasonably well educated people, that if God exists, and is so powerful and smart that he could have come up with much better advise on how to avoid all the religious wars and the holocaust fought based on what they considered his will was, simply communicating openly and honestly would have done that.



With Climate Change coming it is difficult to completely rule out the possibility that something is going on and when you look at the Wild fires, as Bill McKibben recently pointed out, five of the worst twenty have happened since September.



Top 20 Most Destructive California Wildfires and other statistics from Cal Fire

Most other statistics aren't quite as bad; however when it comes to temperatures it's close, with ten of the hottest years happening in the last twenty years and several articles indicate that hurricanes and tropical storms have been more common in the last twenty years than in previous years

10 Hottest Years on Record all since 1998

List of the most intense tropical cyclones in East Coast and West Coast of the United States they've been more common in last twenty years other parts of the world aren't quite so clear.

The 10 strongest hurricanes ever to hit the Atlantic Ocean 09/07/2017 Five in the last twenty years; the rest going back to 1935.

15 of the deadliest, most destructive American hurricanes in history 10/04/2015

If God was able to predict Climate Change and described it in his prophecies could that be part of his motive?

Whether he could have or not there have been predictions of it going back to the sixties when Lyndon Johnson made a speech about it to congress in 1965 as I pointed out in Could Steve Bannon Be Providing Propaganda To Enable Climate Change Research Project? and Hurricane Apocalypse Coming With or Without Fringe Conspiracy Theory This means that someone knew about it and they could have taken actions to avoid some of it; but instead they catered to oil companies, so they could make massive profits, even though they knew it was destroying the environment.

This theory involved a variation of the theories expressed by the Ancient Aliens series on the History Channel, although they make an enormous amount of blunders, which I suspect are intentional, and in order for that theory to be viable a sincere effort has to be made to correct those blunders. The reason of these potentially intentional blunders might be that they may want to confuse the issue until it suits their purposes, assuming it ever does.

If this theory is correct it could potentially explain how massive megaliths were moved thousands of years ago and many other archaeological mysteries that aren't widely reported in the traditional media as well. It could also explain many of the alleged revelations that have had a major influence on our history, including those that allegedly inspired early religions and the best documented ones received by Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century. It could also explain a lot of other major unsolved mysteries including UFOs, mystics like Edgar Cayce, Padre Pio, Uri Geller, Jose Arigo, Edward Leedskalnin and many more; although there are still details that need to be worked out, and possible mistakes that need to be corrected.

This isn't a guarantee, of course, but if this theory is wrong there are still plenty of things that we should be sure of including that we need to do far more to protect the environment, allow protection of workers rights, reduce epidemic levels of fraud from religions and corporations, allow a much more diverse media to reach the majority of the public including ones that are willing to cover all candidates that want to run for office instead of only those that are supported by Wall Street campaign money and the six oligarchies that control the media and more.



However if this theory isn't right or somewhat close then there are still a lot of major unsolved mysteries that need to be explained about our history as well as current events. Are we supposed to believe that a brain surgeon would come up with a theory as insane as storing grain in the pyramids? How would you feel if you found out that your doctor had beliefs like that? Are we supposed to believe that the political establishment doesn't know how to come up with a more rational group of candidates than the clowns they've been covering?



The political establishment would of course say that these are the candidates that the public support; however before the public supported them they needed to get an enormous amount of obsession coverage while the media establishment refused to cover rational candidates. Furthermore there is an enormous industry of political operatives that study how to manipulate the majority of the public or as many as they can successfully fool; and they also have an enormous amount of help from religious leaders that are indoctrinating their followers to believe the most absurd things.

There's no way that a clown and accused pedophile like Roy Moore could come close to getting elected to the Senate unless a shocking percentage of the public had a cult mentality blindly following their leaders. These people believe that they can support one war after another based on lies oppose environmental protection and reasonable health care and still pretend they're "Pro-Life!"

The political and academic establishment is much more aware of the potential results of their actions and many of the disasters or conflicts that have been happening could have been avoided if they acted on the best research which is available to these academics and politicians. Like the conflicts with North Korea, Vietnam and in Israel and many other places there were people that understood the consequences much more than they let on to the public; but the information about this has been recorded in reliable locations so some of this isn't entirely fringe conspiracy theories, although there needs to be more details worked out and a sincere effort to actually get things right instead of intentionally trying to confuse the issues.

Also it wasn't entirely Donald Trump's decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem at all, as the media implies, this was also recommended by Chuck Schumer according to, Schumer says he advised Trump to declare Jerusalem Israel's 'undivided' capital 12/05/2017 On top of that this has been planned for decades with full support of the Congress with almost no high profile objections, although the full history of it hasn't been explained to the majority of the public. Only those that do a good job researching it on their own or have help from someone that does this research for them will be familiar with this history.

Many of the most important decisions are made without reporting the full consequences to the majority of the public, a large portion of whom isn't educated enough to sort through the details anyway. Instead they've been indoctrinated to trust leaders who routinely betray them, often accepting the choice of one incredibly corrupt candidate after another. The most devout religious people have been indoctrinated to worship their oppressors so they rarely hold them accountable and deny most of their epidemic levels of corruption or accusations about molesting teenage girls like Roy Moore or epidemic levels of corruption like Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu. Most people in they United States don't know it but Benjamin Netanyahu is involved in as many financial scandals as Clinton or Trump; or perhaps thanks, to denial or ignorance and complacency they're not even aware of the epidemic levels of corruption by Clinton or Trump either or at least not the one they support.



The faithful are routinely taught that God is constantly testing them for one purpose or another; and they often seem to believe that this is a test of their loyalty, which might be true for all I know but when loyalty means obeying orders when it comes to fighting one war after another based on lies, or when it means destroying the environment or looking the other way at epidemic levels of corruption then passing a loyalty test means flunking an intelligence test!



For additional sources see the following:

Is Donald Trump correct about the history of the Jerusalem Embassy Act? 12/06/2017 "We rate the statement Mostly True."

S. RES. 176 Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. MAY 24, 2017 With a vote of ninety to zero with ten abstaining, reaffirming plans to make Jerusalem the capital

Roll Call Vote 115th Congress - 1st Session On the Resolution (S. Res. 176 ) June 5, 2017, 05:32 PM

A corruption investigation could bring down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 08/10/2017

All the Scandals Involving Netanyahu, and Where They Stand 09/05/2017

Why Israelis support Netanyahu despite scandals 11/09/2017

The #McResistance: In a vote just six months ago every Democrat in the Senate from Chuck Schumer to Elizabeth Warren demanded Trump move the U.S embassy to Jerusalem. #AIPAC #CUFI #Zionism https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS 12/10/2017

Are Vatican II and the Jewish Restoration to Jerusalem in Apocalypse? 12/06/2017

Rabbis to Trump: 'You are fulfilling prophecies' 12/07/2017

You Can Be an Evangelical and Reject Trump's Jerusalem Decision 12/06/2017

Why Is Trump Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem? 12/05/2017

At this point it would be harder to name news events that AREN'T signs of the apocalypse. 12/06/2017