"It turns out there's an upside to the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah—if you're waiting for the second coming of Christ. Here's a selection of excited messages spotted over the last few days on the Rapture Ready/End Times Chat online bulletin board. By Ken Silverstein.
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Praise God! We are chosen to be in these times and also watch and spread the word. Something inside me is exploding to get out, and I don't know what it is. Its kind of like I want to do cartwheels around the neighborhood.
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Got that dancing feeling on the inside of me.
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This is the busiest I've ever seen this website in a few years! I have been having rapture dreams and I can't believe that this is really it! We are on the edge of eternity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Whoa! I can sure feel the glory bumps after reading this thread!"
"Dermatofibromas are harmless benign skin growths, found especially on the legs, that range in size from about 0.5 to 1 cm. They are hard papules (rounded bumps) that may appear in a variety of colors, usually brownish to tan. Typical dermatofibromas cause little or no discomfort, although itching and tenderness can occur. Some physicians and researchers believe dermatofibromas form as a reaction to previous injuries such as insect bites or thorn pricks."
"One way to measure the fears of people in power is by the intensity of their quest for certainty and control over knowledge.
By that standard, the members of the Florida Legislature marked themselves as the folks most terrified of history in the United States when last month they took bold action to become the first state to outlaw historical interpretation in public schools. In other words, Florida has officially replaced the study of history with the imposition of dogma and effectively outlawed critical thinking.
Although U.S. students are typically taught a sanitized version of history in which the inherent superiority and benevolence of the United States is rarely challenged, the social and political changes unleashed in the 1960s have opened up some space for a more honest accounting of our past. But even these few small steps taken by some teachers toward collective critical self-reflection are too much for many Americans to bear.
...The fundamental fallacy of the law is in the underlying assumption that “factual” and “constructed” are mutually exclusive in the study of history. There certainly are many facts about history that are widely, and sometimes even unanimously, agreed upon. But how we arrange those facts into a narrative to describe and explain history is clearly a construction, an interpretation. That’s the task of historians -- to assess factual assertions about the past, weave them together in a coherent narrative, and construct an explanation of how and why things happened.
[Actually, that's the task of EVERYBODY - not just historians, but I digress - Rob]
For example, it’s a fact that Europeans began coming in significant numbers to North America in the 17th century. Were they peaceful settlers or aggressive invaders? That’s interpretation, a construction of the facts into a narrative with an argument for one particular way to understand those facts.
It’s also a fact that once those Europeans came, the indigenous people died in large numbers. Was that an act of genocide? Whatever one’s answer, it will be an interpretation, a construction of the facts to support or reject that conclusion.
Speaking of contemporary history, what about the fact that before the 2000 presidential election, Florida’s Republican secretary of state removed 57,700 names from the voter rolls, supposedly because they were convicted felons and not eligible to vote. It’s a fact that at least 90 percent were not criminals -- but were African American. It’s a fact that black people vote overwhelmingly Democratic. What conclusion will historians construct from those facts about how and why that happened?...
In other words, history is always constructed, no matter how much Florida’s elected representatives might resist the notion. "
"TV Guide's July 24 edition, now arriving in subscriber mailboxes with a nifty Tom Welling cover, has a BIG scoop -- that the DC Comics character of Oliver Queen, better known to fans as Green Arrow, will be making an appearance in Smallville for a story arc that will go for 'at least seven episodes.'"
"Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if anyone here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, 'Brother, yours is an impossible hope.' Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid.
The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.
Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth."
"So, I wanted to do a version of what I felt what it was like being in my 30s that was a little more in touch with reality, which is odd because this movie does have a donkey show at its epicenter. "
"Robert Hibbs, 19, was arrested Friday in a park near Foothills Highway and Colorado Avenue after demanding money and attacking the deputy. Police said that Hibbs insisted he was a troll and owned the bridge the deputy was trying to cross."
"In the absolutist conservative lexicon, Compromise = Capitulation, and therefore view compromise as spineless and cowardly. So at any effort to find genuine compromise and simply they redouble their “Liberals are vacillating Frenchmen who believe in nothing” narrative. Conversely any effort at standing pat on principle and they redouble their “Liberals are obstructionist” hooligans narrative."
"We do not have to accept the singular vision being created by those in power. This singular vision of the future is hyper-urban, with decaying cities, polluted air, and corporate and technological dominance. There is not a speck of nature. White men are still in charge. And then there are those damn flying cars.
This isn't the future I want, nor is it one I am working hard to create in my community. My vision of the future includes birds, trees, and clean flowing streams; organic, small-scale farms and lots of bicycles; conversations with neighbors at local stores and engaging educational institutions; clean air, strong women, diverse communities, truly democratic decision making, and happy children. No flying cars.
Some people will dismiss my vision as idealistic or unrealistic. But as scholar Ivana Milojevic of Metafuture reminds us, the dominant, dystopic vision of the future is seen as more 'realistic' simply because it is talked about more, visualized more, and analyzed more. It is given infinite time and space in the media. It serves those in control; it is a continuation of their world. It's endorsed by our corporate culture, because people who have been made to feel powerless to contribute to a better world simply give up, becoming self-absorbed in golf games, video games, war games. Becoming relentless consumers to fill the void -- without challenging a thing."
"One of the most poisonous inventions of Christianity is the idea of a malignant force upon which the ills of the world can be blamed. This belief in a demonic scapegoat is the root of several potentially dangerous lines of bad logic, and history paints a bleak portrait of the results of this thinking with lurid flourishes of unnecessary bloodshed.
...Man would find his ultimate scapegoat within the confines of Christian theology, complete with cloven hooves, horns and skin red as sin. This arch villain was made easier to hate by early Christians who saw fit to name it after a God of oppressive Rome, Lucifer. In Roman theology, Lucifer was the morning star, the God of light and wisdom. The Romans were the enemies of early Christendom, and so it followed that their Gods became the demons of the new faith....
...The religiously devout would claim that we are on a steady backslide toward decadence caused by our embrace of reason, but compelling evidence suggests that the opposite is true. A recent article in the London Times details a study done by social scientist Gregory Paul in which the relative societal merits of Religious societies are compared with those of secular societies. In the study, religious America is compared with secular Britain, France and Japan using the contrasting statistics of crime rate, abortion rate, divorce rate, suicide rate and infant mortality rate. In all cases, religious America scored markedly higher in these negative values, which begs the question: are we worse off with God on our side? Do we, by placing greater emphasis on an afterlife rather than the present time, contribute greatly to the decay of our lives and the lives of those around us? Do we become something worse than what we are already by making a conscious effort to disassociate ourselves from our humanity?"
