what if you gave an Armageddon and Jesus didn't come? I spent my youth and adulthood thinking it might happen any day (those test sirens at noon, duck and cover, air raid shelters, on and on). Then it seemed to crawl into whatever hole the lunatics took temporary comfort in.
And now its back. Is Gog going to stand the end and say "sorry, suckers?" Seems pretty clear that trumpseth is Gog and the whole regime is Magog. But they're never going to admit they were wrong, even as nothingness replaces any concept of heaven.
An oddly mustachioed German (well, Austrian) gentleman believed he was the catalyst for the same event. Personally, I'm all in on Ragnarök and be damned with John and his mushrooms.
At least it that version the earth comes back green and with humanity. That three year winter thing - I’d have to stream “The Day After” and see how long they thought nuclear winter would last. Seems to fit?
Check out Jonathan Schell's 1982 book, The Fate of the Earth for that. The New Yorker printed a key excerpt from that book that might be available online. I'm pretty sure the consensus was that even a very limited nuclear exchange between smaller nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan would generate a nuclear winter that would decimate agriculture, especially in the northern hemisphere, and would last longer than the few who survived the resulting devastation.
That book, along with "The Day After," was said to have had a significant influence on Reagan, who started working more amicably with the Soviets after he encountered the two.
When I was in high school in the first half of the seventies, all the white church going kids of conservative parents couldn’t get enough of church youth group and the Book of Revelations was the rage amongst all these Jesus Freaks as they were called back in the day. One of them was such a true believer, being the son of the head pastor of the local megachurch, that knowing the End of Days could come at any time, kept a loaded 32 revolver in his school locker. No surprise he was already far down the neo-Nazi path by age seventeen. I quickly became skeptical of these kids and kept my radar set on high. Then came college and a degree program that demanded no more than two hours of sleep per night, thus I would sneak a thirty minute nap on the quad lawn only to be awakened by, you guessed it, a Jesus Freak on a mission to see how many students he or she (it was almost always a he, women were in short supply at my university) could convert in any given week. I imagined the local Christian student group probably kept a large white board, tracking names and numbers of converts, much like the sales board at a used car lot. Critical thinking in history classes got be connecting dots between wars and various religious faiths over the ages. Then came the glorious eighties and tv evangelists with 1-800 numbers. Thus began my long journey into viewing organized religion as a big money grabbing con, with a good share of fearful hate mongers, almost all with a good dose of hypocrisy. I read your essay with much amusement being the history buff I am. Less amused at how this is being played now. I’ll take being awaken from my nap on the lawn over Iran War news and the latest from lunatic Pete.
PS: Herr TrumpEpshTeen is classic. I must remember and use (with credit but not royalties given)
what if you gave an Armageddon and Jesus didn't come? I spent my youth and adulthood thinking it might happen any day (those test sirens at noon, duck and cover, air raid shelters, on and on). Then it seemed to crawl into whatever hole the lunatics took temporary comfort in.
And now its back. Is Gog going to stand the end and say "sorry, suckers?" Seems pretty clear that trumpseth is Gog and the whole regime is Magog. But they're never going to admit they were wrong, even as nothingness replaces any concept of heaven.
“Seems pretty clear that trumpseth is Gog and the whole regime is Magog.”
The wicked irony of it all isn’t lost on me.
An oddly mustachioed German (well, Austrian) gentleman believed he was the catalyst for the same event. Personally, I'm all in on Ragnarök and be damned with John and his mushrooms.
Any self-respecting Norwegian mushroom user will tell you we all face our own personal Ragnarök at some point.
On the other hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U289pi28r8&list=RD4U289pi28r8&start_radio=1
At least it that version the earth comes back green and with humanity. That three year winter thing - I’d have to stream “The Day After” and see how long they thought nuclear winter would last. Seems to fit?
Check out Jonathan Schell's 1982 book, The Fate of the Earth for that. The New Yorker printed a key excerpt from that book that might be available online. I'm pretty sure the consensus was that even a very limited nuclear exchange between smaller nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan would generate a nuclear winter that would decimate agriculture, especially in the northern hemisphere, and would last longer than the few who survived the resulting devastation.
That book, along with "The Day After," was said to have had a significant influence on Reagan, who started working more amicably with the Soviets after he encountered the two.
When I was in high school in the first half of the seventies, all the white church going kids of conservative parents couldn’t get enough of church youth group and the Book of Revelations was the rage amongst all these Jesus Freaks as they were called back in the day. One of them was such a true believer, being the son of the head pastor of the local megachurch, that knowing the End of Days could come at any time, kept a loaded 32 revolver in his school locker. No surprise he was already far down the neo-Nazi path by age seventeen. I quickly became skeptical of these kids and kept my radar set on high. Then came college and a degree program that demanded no more than two hours of sleep per night, thus I would sneak a thirty minute nap on the quad lawn only to be awakened by, you guessed it, a Jesus Freak on a mission to see how many students he or she (it was almost always a he, women were in short supply at my university) could convert in any given week. I imagined the local Christian student group probably kept a large white board, tracking names and numbers of converts, much like the sales board at a used car lot. Critical thinking in history classes got be connecting dots between wars and various religious faiths over the ages. Then came the glorious eighties and tv evangelists with 1-800 numbers. Thus began my long journey into viewing organized religion as a big money grabbing con, with a good share of fearful hate mongers, almost all with a good dose of hypocrisy. I read your essay with much amusement being the history buff I am. Less amused at how this is being played now. I’ll take being awaken from my nap on the lawn over Iran War news and the latest from lunatic Pete.
PS: Herr TrumpEpshTeen is classic. I must remember and use (with credit but not royalties given)
I hereby declare Herr TrumpEpshTeen licensed under a Creative Commons license, meaning it's freely available. :-)
My best high school best turned into a "Jesus Freak." It was like getting a divorce. He turned out ok though. It was just a phase.