The Foreign Policy of 20 Million Would-Be Immortals

[Ian David]

The Foreign Policy of 20 Million Would-Be Immortals
by Gary North

The title of this essay appears on first reading to be a joke – an attempt, perhaps, at satire or maybe irony. It is neither. It is not a joke. It is quite real. I am deadly serious about the 20 million would-be immortals.

An immortal is someone who does not die. There are approximately 20 million people in the United States who devoutly believe that there is a very real possibility that they will not die. Their belief rests entirely on the existence of the State of Israel. This is why they regard current affairs in the Middle East as a life-and-no-death matter.

I am speaking of American fundamentalists. More specifically, I am speaking of those fundamentalists who are users of the Scofield Reference Bible (Oxford University Press, 1909, 1917) and who have read Hal Lindsey's 1971 best seller, The Late, Great Planet Earth, which at latest count – depending on who is doing the counting – has sold between 28 million and 35 million copies. (Mr. Lindsey continues to weave his eschatological tapestry on the improbably named Web site, www.hallindseyoracle.com.)

There is some vague awareness within the community of journalism that the support that the government of Israel receives from American fundamentalists has something to do with what is called eschatology: "the last times." But the details of this eschatology are a blur for investigators who have not spent many hours reading the publications, past and present, of fundamentalist leaders, a task not on most columnists' top-priority list. I offer this brief report as an introduction to the closed books of a very large voting bloc.

More:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north188.html

See also:

America's Roadmap to The Apocalypse: Immanentizing the Eschaton
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/IanDB1/667

PHOTOS: A survey of Rapture Art on the Internets
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1785873

[rubberducky]

1. Please,please..............

Don`t tell me that there are that many people who buy into the rapture!! I`ve met a few of these people, but I always thought it couldn`t be but a small minority. And these are the people who are afraid of gay marriage??

[Ian David]

3. 59% of Americans belive in The Rapture, and they control The Congress...

And yes, these are the same Great Thinkers afraid of Gay Marriage:


The Apocalypse Will Be Televised
Armageddon in an age of entertainment
By Gene Lyons.
excrpts from Harper's Magazine, November 2004.

<snip>

Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.

And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"

Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "{t}he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."

No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.... --posted 02.21.05

More:
http://www.bushwatch.com/rapture.htm

[rubberducky]

4. OH MY GOD

It`s so hard for me to think that people actually believe this. How do you even talk rationally to these people? The people that I know of that believe this kind of stuff, I just kinda blew them off so they don`t really talk to me. I always thought that scientology was about as far out as you could go (without chemical help!). But the rapture people are beyond belief!! Maybe it`s just me?? But, if it wasn`t for DU I might think I was the only one NOT anxiously waiting for the rapture!! Thank you DU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ms liberty]

2. K&R