As a public service, here are my predictions for the new year:
- There will be a lot more talk about the likelihood of the Euro failure. It will either fail or it won’t fail. The Eurozone will still be in crisis at the end of the year.
- The London Olympics will take place. Everyone responsible for organising them will describe them as an outstanding success. Everyone caught up in the jams in London will describe them as a major pain in the backside.
- Obama will be re-elected to the White House in November. Or he will be beaten by Mitt Romney. The US will still be in crisis at the end of the year.
- The ratings agencies will make a whole series of baseless judgements about different national economies. Because the people who make the markets will slavishly follow the ratings, they will all be proved accurate. Governments will continue to allow the agencies to dictate their policies.
- The Chinese will discover the hard way that ‘overheating’ really is a phenomenon and you can’t sustain unsustainable growth indefinitely. Or they will have another boom year and that painful but salutary lesson will be postponed again.
- Germany will win the European football championships. Or they won’t in which case one of the other teams will. It might be Spain but then again it might not.
- In other football-related news, a leading star, faced with his 25-year old supermodel showing her age, will make a fool of himself with a seventeen year old mesmerised by his figure - the athletic one he shows on field and bedroom or the one in his bank account. He will try and fail to block publication of the story. Eventually he’ll find it cheaper to pay off the teenager, who will make the easiest 300 grand of her life, and the wife will stand Tammy Wynette-like, by her man’s earning potential.
- The Queen will celebrate her diamond jubilee. It will all be jolly wonderful. People in countries round the world who take joy in poking fun at the British monarchy will be glued to their TV screens to enjoy the pageantry.
- David Cameron will do all he can to take credit for the jubilee as he’ll have no other achievements to his name. He’ll get a three-point bounce in the polls.
- The pope will piss off the followers of one of the World’s great religions. It might be the Catholics.
- The Tea Party in the States will continue to delight us by achieving that ideal and elusive balance, sought by our best dramatist in some of their finest plays, between side-splitting caricature and and naked menace.
- Sticking with the States, the day of rapture will be announced, will be prepared for by believers and will pass without their leaders offering a word of apology or learning an ounce of humility.
- And on the ounce of humility front, starting in mid-December forecasters will tell us what’s going to happen in 2013 without the slightest mention of what they previously told us was going to happen in 2012.
Happy New Year!
5 comments:
thanks, david; now the world and i know what to expect.
happy new year.
san
(Hi David. Saw this item on the net. Reaction? Jeff)
PRETRIB RAPTURE POLITICS
Many are still unaware of the eccentric, 182-year-old British theory underlying the politics of American evangelicals and Christian Zionists.
Journalist and historian Dave MacPherson has spent more than 40 years focusing on the origin and spread of what is known as the apocalyptic "pretribulation rapture" - the inspiration behind Hal Lindsey's bestsellers of the 1970s and Tim LaHaye's today.
Although promoters of this endtime evacuation from earth constantly repeat their slogan that "it's imminent and always has been" (which critics view more as a sales pitch than a scriptural statement), it was unknown in all official theology and organized religion before 1830.
And MacPherson's research also reveals how hostile the pretrib rapture view has been to other faiths:
It is anti-Islam. TV preacher John Hagee has been advocating "a pre-emptive military strike against Iran." (Google "Roots of Warlike Christian Zionism.")
It is anti-Jewish. MacPherson's book "The Rapture Plot" (see Armageddon Books etc.) exposes hypocritical anti-Jewishness in even the theory's foundation.
It is anti-Catholic. Lindsey and C. I. Scofield are two of many leaders who claim that the final Antichrist will be a Roman Catholic. (Google "Pretrib Hypocrisy.")
It is anti-Protestant. For this reason no major Protestant denomination has ever adopted this escapist view.
It even has some anti-evangelical aspects. The first publication promoting this novel endtime view spoke degradingly of "the name by which the mixed multitude of modern Moabites love to be distinguished, - the Evangelical World." (MacPherson's "Plot," p. 85)
Despite the above, MacPherson proves that the "glue" that holds constantly in-fighting evangelicals together long enough to be victorious voting blocs in elections is the same "fly away" view. He notes that Jerry Falwell, when giving political speeches just before an election, would unfailingly state: "We believe in the pretribulational rapture!"
In addition to "The Rapture Plot" (available also at any library through inter-library loan), MacPherson's many internet articles include "Famous Rapture Watchers," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," "America's Pretrib Rapture Traffickers," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy" and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" (massive plagiarism, phony doctorates, changing of early "rapture" documents in order to falsely credit John Darby with this view, etc.!).
Because of his devastating discoveries, MacPherson is now No. 1 on the "hate" list of pretrib rapture leaders who love to ban or muddy up his uber-accurate findings in sources like Wikipedia - which they've almost turned into Wicked-pedia!
There's no question that the leading promoters of this bizarre 19th century end-of-the-world doctrine are solidly pro-Israel and necessarily anti-Palestinian. In light of recently uncovered facts about this fringe-British-invented belief which has always been riddled with dishonesty, many are wondering why it should ever have any influence on Middle East affairs.
This Johnny-come-lately view raises millions of dollars for political agendas. Only when scholars of all faiths begin to look deeply at it and widely air its "dirty linen" will it cease to be a power. It is the one theological view no one needs!
With apologies to Winston Churchill - never has so much deception been foisted on so many by so few!
Thanks San - glad to have been of assistance!
Jeff - that's good material and bang on, I'm sure. On the other hand I find it more appealing to mock their delusions and perhaps, in the long run, it'll be more effective too...
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