[Azure]

Originally Posted by photon

I was totally programmed to think it was all true. Every time I heard about earthquakes on the news, it was fulfillment of prophecy that the earth was groaning for the end times. War on the news? Fulfillment of prophecy of wars and rumours of wars.

Same here.

I bet it was bad during the Cold War....Russia was posturing to move against Israel; Russia was the 'great whore' that Revelations mentioned. Hal Lindsey spoke about all that. In fact he said the Cold War would never stop.

And people still read his books? *groan*

What started to change my viewpoint I think was just finally growing up and taking a critical look at what I believed and why I believed it. Was there another way to interpret the scripure being used to support whatever doomsday stuff was being thrown out? Stuff like how did the Bible come into being.

Absolutely.

Many people will argue that the doomsday approach to Revelations 'is' critical thinking. Yet these days, with Christianity having be SO dominated by these fools with the biggest mouths, I've come to believe that the mainstream believe IS the apocalyptic viewpoint, while the critical thinkers are those who are still searching for answers.

Really, we have no idea what Revelations means. Just reading through Wikipedia, and its entry on the subject, there are numerous explanations.

Even things like what the expectation of an evangelical lifestyle is supposed to be like and what my personal experience actually was. That's getting far away from the topic though into a more general criticism of evangelical Christianity.

Another time, another discussion.

Funny you mention the stuff about bar codes and credit cards, I remember being in church listening to the pastor and youth pastors say the same stuff, it was all indications of the end! I think at that point I was already seeing the cracks in what I had built in my mind.

Ridiculous, eh? I can't believe people actually preach that stuff to their audience.

Computers at one point were the 'beast' as well....now the whole world can't live without it, and this prophetic viewpoint has been driven 'further' by the exact thing they once preached against. Computers and the internet. Funny how that works.

It's scary though how well that stuff has sold. Peretti's stuff maybe not so much, but the Left Behind stuff, wow. And it's pervasive, did you read about how they were going to be including copies of that Left Behind game (an RTS game based on the first few Left behind books) in care packages going out to soldiers serving overseas?? CRAZY!

Yeah I saw that.

I don't believe for a second that those books are harmless. The thoughts/ideas involved are dictating popular Christian culture.

I know Sunday School classes that are showing the videos as 'fact.'

Just a book? Right.