Saturday, March 25, 2006

Christendom's Misinterpretation of The Book of Revelation






Christendom has so twisted and distorted the meaning of Revelation, but that's understandable given that they don't understand it. DragonSlayerWanted

March 23, 2006
Apocalyptic Times

by Maureen Farrell Buzz Flash

"We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic." -- Hunter S. Thompson, Nov. 20, 2000 A few years ago, a Time/CNN poll found that that more than a third of Americans search the news for signs of the Apocalypse. Since Sept. 11, they've not had to look very hard. In the immediate aftermath of World Trade Center attacks, for example, the Associated Press reported on Satan's visage in the smoke clouds, an incident Peggy Noonan wrote about in the Wall Street Journal. "If you are of a certain cast of mind, it is of course meaningful that the face of the Evil One seemed to emerge with a roar from the furnace that was Tower One," she wrote, before reminding readers that a cross emerged unharmed amid the falling concrete and wreckage. Of course Jesus made his fair share of appearances, too. A "winking Jesus" from Hoboken, N.J. was featured in the New York Daily News while a Jesus-in-a-window got considerable airtime on a Texas NBC affiliate. One North Carolina TV station was prophetically prolific, reporting on the Messiah's apparitions on everything from tail pipes to dental x-rays to fish bones. Yes, since Sept. 11, the news has gotten more surreal, with divine sightings and apocalyptic musings becoming more commonplace. Such talk has always been with us, of course, but it's no longer tied to David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite or Jim Jones-type cultists. "One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress," Bill Moyers wrote, regarding the shifting political realities fueling this mindset. From the political to the personal, people are reporting on, and preparing for, the end of the world. And though apocalyptic reports have ranged from the superstitious and silly to the sensational and scary, few can argue that they're not on the rise. How weird have things become? Consider the following:

Former GOP Strategist says 'a lot of Americans have stopped worrying about the economy because they're waiting for the Second Coming.' The Emerging Republican Majority author and former GOP Strategist Kevin Phillips bluntly states that "[T]he Religious Right and the would-be theocrats are the danger now," telling Lou Dobbs that many Americans have literally stopped worrying about the economy "because they're waiting for the Second Coming." Phillips' latest book American Theocracy was also the basis for a question posed to Mr. Bush in Cleveland this week when a reporter asked, "Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse?" It took Bush five minutes to answer, when a simple "Yes or No" would have sufficed. Why? As Phillips points out, with 45% of Americans now believing that the Antichrist is already on earth, Bush risks alienating a large segment of the population, regardless how he answers. "He can't answer the question weather or not he believes in Armageddon or it's happening in the Middle East," Phillips states. "He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't."Madonna is trying to purchase a front row seat for the return of the Messiah. In March 2006, it was reported that Madonna is attempting to buy a house overlooking the Sea of Galilee, to get a bird's eye view of the Messiah when he returns. "US pop diva Madonna wants to buy a house in the Israeli town of Rosh Pina, where the ancient Jewish Kabbalah tradition expects the Messiah to appear at the end of the world," the AFP reported. According to the Times of London, representatives for the singer have been propositioning homeowners "offering to pay any price to secure a property on her behalf," with one resident already agreeing to sell her house, which is worth approximately $500,000, for $1 million. Will Madonna ante up? Will she find her apocalyptic dream house in time? Stay tuned.

London's Independent runs the headline: 'Apocalypse Now: How Mankind is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth'Is that headline apocalyptic enough for you? If not, the accompanying article offers plenty of food for fretting. Citing urgent warnings from 200 of the world's top climate scientists, the article highlights the climate changes currently taking place and the consensus that time is running out to reverse this disastrous trend. Floods? Droughts? Oceans turning to acid? Oddly enough, some actually welcome such trouble. "Many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire," Glenn Scherer pointed out in Grist Magazine. "They may also believe, along with millions of other Christian fundamentalists, that
environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming Apocalypse." In Feb. 2006, despite the Bush administration's attempts to muzzle him, Jim Hansen, President Bush's "top climate modeler," and the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, reported that Greenland's ice cap is breaking up twice as quickly as it was five years ago. "We don't have much time left," he wrote, giving a scientific slant to Biblical and other prophecies. A talking fish says the end is near. Before the start of the war in Iraq, the New York Times and other major news organizations reported on how a talking fish stunned workers in New York City. "A fish heading for slaughter in a New York market shouted warnings about the end of the world before it was killed" the BBC announced in March, 2003, reporting on two fish cutters who heard the fish say 'Tzaruch shemirah' and 'Hasof bah'," which essentially means [in Hebrew] that everyone needs to account for themselves because the end is nigh." The Guardian/Observer reported that "some now believe the fish's outburst was a warning about the dangers of the impending war in Iraq," citing George W. Bush's alleged Messianic beliefs as cause for concern. The 'mark of the beast' is making a comeback. In the 1760s, American colonists believed that the Stamp Act, which required a stamp to be placed on legal documents, might actually relate to the "mark of the beast" the Book of Revelation warned against. In the 1930s, some opined that the mark might be found in the "union label" commercial jingles later told us to look for. These days, however, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has people seeing 666. Though the State Department was set to begin using RFID tags in passports beginning this year, the negative reaction was so overwhelming that the government had to hold off on its plans. "No mark of the beast for me you Luciferian beehivers. You can take all those RFID chips wrapped like a burrito in the HR 4(6+6+6) national id bill and stick it up yor [sic] own arse!" wrote one irate poster on the State Department's Web site. Although anti-RFID activists (who despite Harvard educations, also believe these chips might be "the mark of the beast") continue to rail against this technology, RFID implants are being used by businesses and hospitals and are being marketed to parents. "Why is [former Bush administration official Tommy Thompson] volunteering for the Mark of the Beast?" Blogosphere heavyweight Boingboing.com asked, just months before RFID implants became the talk of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' confirmation hearings.

A Seattle newspaper asks, "Is Bush the Antichrist?"No news of the "mark of the beast" is complete without speculation regarding the Antichrist, of course, and Rev. Rich Lang's sermon "George Bush and the Rise of Christian Fascism," is a perfect place to start. "You sit atop the nations like the Biblical Whore of Babylon openly fornicating with the military men of might," Lang wrote in an open letter to the president, accusing the entire Bush White House of a "diabolical manipulation of Christian rhetoric" which is "the materialization of the spirit of Antichrist: a perversion of Christian faith and practice." (In a more secular contemplation of evil, former Wall Street Journal editor and Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts openly wondered if the Bush administration would covertly plot another 9/11 -- and perhaps even set off a nuclear bomb to advance its agenda. ) As Christian leaders squared off in a Seattle Weekly article regarding the nature of the Antichrist and his relationship to the current administration, columnists and bloggers wondered whether or not God speaks to (and through) George W. Bush. Recently, Congresswoman Katherine Harris, of 2000 election fame, told those attending a "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference that she believes God wants her to run for the Senate. If so, God surely works in mysterious ways. Legendary American novelists say the world is coming to an end. I'm trying to write a novel about the end of the world. But the world is really ending!," Kurt Vonnegut recently declared, right about the time that Madonna was reported to be looking for real estate for the event. The late Hunter S. Thompson also made a similar observation. "This is going to be just like the Book of Revelation said it was going to be -- the end of the world as we knew it," he wrote in 2003. The Guardian says the world will 'probably' end in 2006. In 1997, former Wall Street Journal journalist Michael Drosnin wrote The Bible Code, based on the premise that hidden messages are embedded within the Bible. Using a letter-based numerological system created by Jewish mystics and facilitated by computer technology, Drosnin searched for signs of the Apocalypse and found that 2006 and 2012 have special significance. How significant? While followers of the Mayan prophecy often point to Dec. 21, 2012 as the day the world will end, in Jan. 2006, the Guardian/Observer cited Drosnin's sequel, the Bible Code II, to make its own tongue-in-cheek prediction.

Q: Will the world end this year? A: Probably. According to Michael Drosnin's Bible Code II, 'atomic holocaust' and 'world war' are predicted in The Bible for 2006. Many people expect the Rapture, Christ's devastating return to Earth, to start 6 June 2006, due to similarities with the number of the beast 6-6-6. Fingers crossed he'll hold off until 6 June 2106 or 3106. US tabloid the Weekly World News states an oil crisis will mean 'the world will return to medieval status'. Sounds like we're there already." A 'crying' statue is given major mainstream attention. While thousands of divine apparitions are reported each year, they are usually attributed to natural causes or hoaxes and are not taken very seriously. In a 1998 article for Forbes magazine, however, when Peggy Noonan penned her prescient warning regarding "the big, terrible thing [certain to occur] to New York or Washington," she spoke of such matters as if they were Gospel truth. "When the Virgin Mary makes her visitations--she's never made so many in all of
recorded history as she has in this century--she says: Pray! Pray unceasingly!" Noonan wrote.
Noonan's superstitious nature aside, by March, 2006, the mainstream media also began taking such apparitions seriously. A statue of the Virgin Mary -- which is said to be crying blood --grabbed national headlines and was featured on national morning television. Most Americans believe that the prophecy in the Book of Revelation is going to come true. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, sales of the Left Behind series jumped 60%, with Book 9, which was published that October, becoming the best-selling novel that year. Two years later, Time/CNN magazine poll underscored why the series was so popular -- finding that 59% of Americans believe that the Book of Revelation is going to come true. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go berserk," Joe Bageant wrote, of the twelfth book in the series. "Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower."
Why does this matter?

1) Left Behind series co-author Rev. Timothy LaHaye -- the political activist Rolling Stone dubbed "Rev. Doomsday" -- reportedly played a "quiet but pivotal role" in putting George W. Bush in the White House. 2) LaHaye shares the same End Times theology as the Islamofascists we're trying to neuter. "And as far as the imminent apocalypse is concerned, they're on the same page as the Mullahs in Tehran," conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote of America's fundamentalists. "Just in case you were sleeping soundly at night." The "Rapture Index" stands at 'Fasten Your Seatbelts'. To anyone paying attention to the Left Behind series phenomenon, it is no surprise that prophetic activity is currently being analyzed and measured. The "Rapture Index," which founder Todd Strandberg calls "the Dow Jones Industrial Average of End Time activity," has been given widespread attention, something that would have been unheard of just a decade ago. Even more importantly, it's being taken seriously. Last year, Jon Carroll spelled out the significance of this new form of prophetic measurement. "What does it all mean?," he asked in the San Francisco Chronicle. "The Rapture Index, as of this writing, stands at 153. Anything over 145 is labeled by the Rapture Actuaries as 'Fasten your seat belts.' In other words: Repent for the End Is Near." A Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich is auctioned on e-bay. Remember when a decade-old Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich fetched $28,000 on e-bay? Soon afterwards, the Virgin Mother miraculously appeared on a frying pan while Jesus manifested on indoor plumbing. Attempts to auction off these and other miracles, however, did not receive national and/or international attention. The White House consults with End Times zealots before setting policy. While the link between the Bush White House and the Religious Right was clear from the start, the connection between those actually rooting for the End Times and Mr. Bush was not. Before the war in Iraq, President Jimmy Carter explained why the majority of Christian churches were against military intervention (except for those literally praying for Armageddon), but few knew why Mr. Bush was shunning mainstream churches in favor of the more rapture-minded.

"Some wonder if the president might be influenced by evangelical teachings that envision an end-of-the-world battle between Israel and its enemies. It would be dangerous for a president to take a particular theology like that and apply it to world events," former Nixon aide Charles Colson mused, a little more than a year before the Guardian reported that "US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy." Ultimately, however, an e-mail unearthed by the Village Voice proved how entrenched fundamentalists actually are. "Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios," Rick Perlstein wrote, in an article that should scare the bejesus out of everyone. Legislation to Turn the US into a Theocracy is Introduced in the House. Remember when Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior James Watt said that we need not worry about depleting our natural resources because, thanks to End Times prophecies, future generations won’t be needing them anyway? Or when Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said he believed that "time is running out ..." as in Armageddon is approaching? Back then, Frank Zappa appeared on Crossfire, shocking panelists when he said that the US was gearing up to become a fascist theocracy. More than two decades later, legislation to complete the transformation was introduced in the House. "If enacted, the Constitution Restoration Act will effectively transform the United States into a theocracy, where the arbitrary dictates of a 'higher power' can override law," Chris Floyd wrote. Columnist James Heflin warned that "If the Act passes, Iraqis would have stronger protection from religious extremism than Americans."
Cosponsored by Sen. Brownback, whose rent is subsidized by the "secretive" religious organization, the Fellowship, the legislation is the work of Dominionists, or Christian Reconstructionists, who call for the "universal development of Biblical theocratic republics."
The crusade to Christianize America in order to prepare for Christ's Second Coming is not one that is going away any time soon. The Act, which was reintroduced in 2005, is currently being marketed by the media-savvy Concerned Women For America, which was founded and is headed by Rev. Timothy LaHaye's wife, Beverly.

Members of Congress try to facilitate apocalyptic prophecy. In the 19th century, a British minister named John Darby came up with a theory of "premillennial dispensationalism," pointing to end times signs such as wars, natural disasters, a global economy, and the return of the Jews to the land promised by God to Abraham. Recently, members of Congress (nearly half of whom are backed by the Religious Right) have expressed their support for what many see as the prerequisite for Christ's return: making certain that Israel fully belongs to the Jews. Though the idea of dispensationalism took root when Darby began preaching in America, Ronald Reagan took things one step further, appointing Late Great Planet Earth author Hal Lindsey as a Middle East affairs consultant to the Israeli government and the Pentagon. But these days, End Times zealots have even greater influence. "Christian Zionist leaders today have access to the White House and strong support within Congress, including the backing of the two most recent majority leaders in the House of Representatives," the Christian Science Monitor explained. Sen. James Inhofe told his fellow Senators that Israel had a right to the occupied territories "because God said so" while former House minority leader Rep. Richard Armey told Hardball host Chris Matthews that he favored "transporting" the Palestinians to other countries. Tom DeLay has been especially active, and George Bush is said to have blessed Christian Zionists with a "videotaped benediction" directly from the White House. While many Israelis welcome such support, author Gershom Gorenberg underscores the underlying ugliness. "They don't love the real Jewish people," he told CBS' 60 Minutes. "They love us as characters in their story, in their play, and that's not who we are. If you listen to the drama that they are describing, essentially it's a five-act play in which the Jews disappear in the fourth act."In a starkly honest essay, Christian Reconstructist Gary North pointed to the elephant in the revival tent. "In order for most of today’s Christians to escape physical death, two-thirds of the Jews in Israel must perish, soon. This is the grim prophetic trade-off that fundamentalists rarely discuss publicly, but which is the central motivation in the movement’s support for Israel, he wrote, regarding fundamentalists' defense of "the doctrine of an inevitable holocaust." Given the Y2K brouhaha, why would anyone take North or any other fundamentalist seriously? Perhaps because, thanks largely to the formation of the Values Action Team, the Religious Right has been given "a direct lobbying line to the US Congress." Middle East Official warns that the "Gates of Hell" will be opened after Iraq invasion. Arab League chief Amr Moussa's famous 2002 prediction that a war in Iraq would "open the gates of hell" in the Middle East was made official in Feb. 2006, when the Australian reported that "the gates of Hell are opened." (Given that prominent conservatives are now issuing mea culpas regarding the war in Iraq, perhaps hell has merely frozen over?) When the war in Iraq began, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story entitled, "War in Babylon has evangelicals seeing Earth's final days" while the Washington Post subtitled one of its pieces, "End-Time Interpreters See Biblical Prophecies Being Fulfilled." Both were criticized by Christianity Today for being inaccurate. Which conjures up the most obvious question. How can anyone measure the validity of any of these predictions? Unless the world actually ends, that is? After all, end times prophecies have been with us throughout history, with each proving more inaccurate than the last. Even so, there is something unique about our post-9/11 world that not only lends itself to bizarre supernatural assumptions, but the idea that such superstitions, if acted upon, could lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. "For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington," Bill Moyers wrote. In other words, prepare for the news to get even weirder.

Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Vatican Attempts To Rehabilitate Its Crusader Image


In a pathetic attempt to mask their bloody history the church seeks to sell a kind gentle version of violent crusaders. The crusaders were motivated by greed not faith and the popes who sent them to the holy land were motivated by a desire for power over new territory. The various popes including Urban II were also motivated by a desire to prevent violent feuding "christian" nobles from turning europe into an endless war zone, encouraging them to fight muslims instead of each other. The crusaders were seduced by false calls to glory as well as the possibility of gaining great wealth, land and markets. Made up of European soldiers and peasants, they managed to slaughter many muslims as well as jews who happened to be in the cities that they marched from along the way to Jerusalem. Consider the scene in this film, Richard the Lionhearted (Henry Wilcoxon): "I fight for the Cross." Saladin (Ian Keith): "No. You wear the Cross of one who gave his life in this very land that men might be at peace. But you have no faith in this Cross." —From Cecil B. DeMille's historical spectacle, THE CRUSADES (1935). DragonSlayerWanted

Vatican change of heart over 'barbaric' Crusades

From Richard Owen in Rome

The Vatican has begun moves to rehabilitate the Crusaders by sponsoring a conference at the weekend that portrays the Crusades as wars fought with the “noble aim” of regaining the Holy Land for Christianity. The Crusades are seen by many Muslims as acts of violence that have underpinned Western aggression towards the Arab world ever since. Followers of Osama bin Laden claim to be taking part in a latter-day “jihad against the Jews and Crusaders”. The late Pope John Paul II sought to achieve Muslim- Christian reconciliation by asking “pardon” for the Crusades during the 2000 Millennium celebrations. But John Paul’s apologies for the past “errors of the Church” — including the Inquisition and anti-Semitism — irritated some Vatican conservatives. According to Vatican insiders, the dissenters included Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Benedict reached out to Muslims and Jews after his election and called for dialogue. However, the Pope, who is due to visit Turkey in November, has in the past suggested that Turkey’s Muslim culture is at variance with Europe’s Christian roots. At the conference, held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, Roberto De Mattei, an Italian historian, recalled that the Crusades were “a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places”. “The debate has been reopened,” La Stampa said. Professor De Mattei noted that the desecration of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by Muslim forces in 1009 had helped to provoke the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century, called by Pope Urban II. He said that the Crusaders were “martyrs” who had “sacrificed their lives for the faith”. He was backed by Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, who said that those who sought forgiveness for the Crusades “do not know their history”. Professor Riley-Smith has attacked Sir Ridley Scott’s recent film Kingdom of Heaven, starring Orlando Bloom, as “utter nonsense”. Professor Riley-Smith said that the script, like much writing on the Crusades, was “historically inaccurate. It depicts the Muslims as civilised and the Crusaders as barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality.” It fuels Islamic fundamentalism by propagating “Osama bin Laden’s version of history”. He said that the Crusaders were sometimes undisciplined and capable of acts of great cruelty. But the same was true of Muslims and of troops in “all ideological wars”. Some of the Crusaders’ worst excesses were against Orthodox Christians or heretics — as in the sack of Constantinople in 1204. The American writer Robert Spencer, author of A Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, told the conference that the mistaken view had taken hold in the West as well as the Arab world that the Crusades were “an unprovoked attack by Europe on the Islamic world”. In reality, however, Christians had been persecuted after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem.

The London Times

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

God: I've Lost Faith in Blair

Terry Jones cracks me up here is his take on fake Christian Tony Baloney Blair
DragonSlayerWanted

God: I've Lost Faith in Blair

All the signs are that the Almighty is unhappy about efforts to implicate Him in the attack on Iraq.

by Terry Jones
A high-level leak has revealed that God is "furious" at Tony Blair's attempts to implicate him in the bombing of Iraq. Sources close to the archangel Gabriel report him as describing the Almighty as "hopping mad ... with sanctimonious yet unscrupulous politicians claiming He would condone their bestial activities when He has no way of going public Himself, owing to the MMW agreement" (a reference to the long-established Moving in Mysterious Ways concordat). Mr. Blair went public about God on Michael Parkinson's TV show. "If you have faith about these things," he said, "then you realize that judgment is made by other people. If you believe in God, it's made by God as well." As is customary with Mr. Blair's statements, it's rather hard to tease out what he is actually saying; but the gist is clearly that if God didn't actually tell him to bomb Iraq, then the Almighty would certainly agree it was the right thing to do. "If Tony Blair thinks his friendship with George W. Bush is worth rubbing out a couple of hundred thousand Iraqi men, women and children, then that's something he can talk over with me later," said God. "But when he starts publicly claiming that's the way I do the arithmetic too, it's time I put my foot down!" It is well known that God has a very big foot. A source says Gabriel has spent days trying to dissuade the Almighty from loosing a plague of toads upon the Blair family. Gabriel reminded God that Cherie and the children had nothing to do with Tony's decisions. God's response, it is reliably reported, was: "Blair says the Iraqis are lucky to have got bombed, so how can he complain if his family gets a few toads in the bath?" The archangel is said to be ticked off with God's ability to provide glib answers without even thinking. What has particularly incensed the Almighty is that Mr. Blair made the claim on the Parkinson show. "If he'd done it on Richard and Judy I could have forgiven a lot," He is reported to have said. The archangel reported that the Almighty has become increasingly irritated with the vogue for politicians to claim that He is behind their policies - especially if these involve killing large numbers of humans. According to Gabriel, God spake these words: "That George W. Bush once had the nerve to say: 'God told me to go end the tyranny in Iraq, and I did.' Well, let me tell you I did no such thing! If I'd wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein, I could have given him pneumonia. I didn't need the president of the United States to send in hundreds of heavy bombers and thousands of missiles to destroy Iraq - even though I appreciate that Halliburton needed to fill its order books." "How do Bush and Blair think it makes me look to all those parents who have lost sons and daughters in this grubby business? Don't they know that the Muslims they're taking out worship the same Me that they do? It's a public relations disaster that ought to set Christianity back hundreds of years. Though knowing the fundamentalists, it'll probably have the reverse effect." The archangel further revealed that he had been advised by no less a person than Alastair Campbell to warn God to keep out of politics. "But it's hard to get God to do anything He doesn't want to," sighed the archangel. "It's all to do with what He calls 'free will,' though a lot of us have a problem working that one out, since He's omnipotent and omniscient."
God, the archangel says, is also disturbed by Mr. Blair's remark that while religious beliefs might color his politics, "it's best not to take it too far." "How would he like it if I went round claiming that he gave me his full backing when I sent the tsunami last year?"

Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. http://www.terry-jones.net/

Monday, March 06, 2006

Another Prime Example of What Is Wrong With Christendom

Phoney Tony Baloney Blair Claims God's Backing For Iraq War. Well Yeah but which God? Well I guess it all makes sense if you believe what the bible says about Satan being "the god of this system of things". John 14:30, Ephesians 2:2. Why is this man in good standing with his church and why is he allowed to attend mass? Oh, I forgot its Christendom, stupid. Also the article quotes Cherie Blair as being a "strong Catholic". Well the photo to the left shows another "strong Catholic", who by the way was never excommunicated. I wonder why Christendom finds it so hard to take out the trash? DragonSlayerWanted

Blair under fire for evoking God in Iraq war decision

LONDON (AFP) -
Tony Blair' triggered strong reactions from parents of soldiers killed in Iraq' and the political opposition, after the British prime minister evoked God in his decision to go to war. Details emerged Friday of Blair's interview on an ITV1 television talk show where he said God and history would judge his action in joining the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. "That decision has to be taken and has to be lived with, and in the end there is a judgment that -- well, I think if you have faith about these things then you realise that judgment is made by other people," Blair said in the interview with host Michael Parkinson which will air Saturday night.Pressed to clarify what he meant, Blair, a devout Christian, replied: "If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."The words did not sit well with Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was killed in Basra in 2004, one of the 103 British soldiers to date to have lost their lives in the Iraqi conflict."How can he say he is a Christian?" said Gentle, a campaigner with Military Families Against the War."A good Christian wouldn't be for this war. I'm actually quite disgusted by the comments."Reg Keys, the father of a dead soldier, accused Blair of "using God as a get-out for total strategic failure and I find it abhorrent."His son Lance Corporal Tom Keys was one of six Royal Military policemen killed by an Iraqi mob in Majar al-Kabir in June 2003. Keys, who stood against the prime minister in the last general election on an anti-war ticket, said Blair's remarks reminded him of US President George W. Bush' who was quoted as saying last year that God told him to invade Iraq and "God and religion have nothing to do with this war," Keys said.That view was echoed by the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, Britain's second opposition party, who said "going to war isn't just an act of faith."It requires legal analysis and a close look at the consequences, and Blair's "prospectus for military action was flawed," Menzies Campbell said. Other Liberal Democrats agreed that God should not be part of the equation. "It is a bizarre and shocking revelation that the prime minister claims to have been guided by the supernatural in this matter, especially given the particular religious sensitivities in the Middle East," said Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat member of parliament from the Oxford area, who is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.We don't want Bush or Khomeini-type fundamentalism in our politics," he added. Blair is seen by some as the most religious British premier since William Gladstone (1809-1898), who gave up his vocation as a pastor to enter politics. Blair's handlers, including his former communications chief Alastair Campbell, have reportedly tried to steer Blair away from references to God, including reputedly removing the phrase "God bless you" from Blair's television address on the outbreak of the Iraq war. During last year's election campaign, BBC interviewer Jeremy Paxman asked Blair if he prayed with Bush. Looking decidedly uncomfortable, Blair replied: "No, Jeremy, we don't pray together." But questions of religion surround Blair. There is speculation he plans to convert from High Church Anglican to Catholicism after leaving office. Blair's wife Cherie is a strong Catholic and he regularly attends Mass with her and their children at the prime minister's country residence in Chequers. The Catholic priest of that parish, Timothy Russ, has revealed that Blair asked for advice on moving between the churches. But Blair says he has no plans to convert and only attends Catholic services so the family can worship together.
HyperSmash.com