Category Archives: Apocalypse Watch

Discounting on Apocalypse

Apocalypse Watch, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Luke R. E. Publican


There is the real world which we see nightly on the news, even if filtered through journalistic hubris in which people are killed, maimed, maligned and the gamut of human interaction. Then there are the “prophets” who keep cropping (usually crapping) up with visions of impending doom. The recent prayer event that Rick Perry attended was organized by some of the most bizarre religionists in our country. As noted on yesterday’s Fresh Aire, some individuals are crusading a brand of “spiritual warfare” that comes close to the real thing. These include what most normal people, including the vast majority of Evangelical Christians, would call nut cases: charismatic preachers who claim visions from God, but somehow need more money to get the vision across.

I visited one of these “prophet” sites of a fellow named Sid Roth. He looks like the kind of guy who you would meet at a Jewish Community Center and his site is all about Jews, that is all about how to convert Jews to his version of Christianity. You have to wonder about a flashy website that has a banner declaring “It’s supernatural!” as a registered trademark. There is also that “Messianic Vision”, which is blind to what most Christians believe and certainly to just about everything rational in the world today. One thing that is all over the site is the “Donate Now” prompt. However, I do find it ironic that one of the DVDs for sale at a discount is entitled “Will America Survive 2011?” Is it being discounted so more people will buy and view it (which I somehow doubt as a financial move) or because thus far it is surviving and probably will, so why not try to unload the DVDs now. Indeed there are people stupid enough in our land that will buy this DVD after 2011, just as those who predict the end of the world (or think it already ended) always keep a few followers.

A short surf of some of the sites on the network of media prophets came up not only with Sid (I do wish he were a professional comedian with that first name) but with a Faisal Malick, a Muslim who converted to Christianity and now tries to convert Muslims with slick media programs. Continue reading Discounting on Apocalypse →

Are you ready for May 22, 2011?

Apocalypse Watch, Luke R. E. Publican


If you are reading this post today, one of two things may happen in the next day (May 21, 2011): (A) the Rapture will occur and you will not be chosen, or (B) the Rapture will be miscalculated yet again. I suppose the Rapture could happen and no one will be chosen; things are rather evil these days so maybe this time the Godhead will be totally pissed off and we are all on our way to hellfire and brimstone.

So let’s assume, for insanity’s sake, that it is option B. Move over Bishop Ussher, the alpha and the omega have been revised again. Bishop Ussher was the Irish prelate who in 1654 published a tract that calculated the creation of the world commencing October 23, 4004 BCE. This was the date that became embedded in many editions of the KJV, although there were other counts of the biblical begats that came up with different dates. You would think that a loving God would at least give his creation an exact time rather than this “one day is as a thousand years” nonsense. Bishop Ussher sure thought that.

Now one of the current daze of judgment scenarios making the rounds among bibliolaters of this age is for May 21, 2011, tomorrow by my reckoning, but I do hope God is using the Gregorian and not the Julian calendar. The folks at ebiblefellowship.com have pushed creation back to 11,013 BC, bumped the birth of Jesus back to 7 BC, initiated the “great tribulation” back in 1988 (the year the film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was released) and now predict the rapture for May 21, 2011. I, for one, will be checking their website on May 22 to see what I might have missed, since I do not have reservations myself for the Last Trump (and I do not mean the Donald). I can’t even get Broadway tickets for “The Book of Mormon” before mid-June. Continue reading Are you ready for May 22, 2011? →

Tabsir Redux: Apocalypse Watch: The Man Who Knows Squat

Apocalypse Watch, Islam and Christianity

Most people find it hard to take cartoons seriously, apart from political satire and that can become a deadly issue, depending on the target. Given the recent Danish cartoon controversy it would seem that comics and religion do not mix well or at least settle well for the believers who see themselves as the target. But what about comic relief for the political struggle between Israel and the Palestinians? Fundamentalist tract artist Jack Chick, whose comic empire is dedicated to winning souls for Christ by drawing on God’s hate, has been using his pen to spread a rather nasty version of the Gospel for over 40 years. One of his more recent offerings is called “The Squatters” and it provides a virtual roadmap to apocalypse. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Apocalypse Watch: The Man Who Knows Squat →

Oh Brother(hood)!

Apocalypse Watch, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Luke R. E. Publican, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


First, something positive: there is an excellent op-ed in today’s New York Times by Greg Johnson on the situation in Yemen.

And now for something completely different… Now the “duh” moment. Here is a headline that deserves all the possible bad things one can say about an ignorant and stupid headline:
“Yemen’s Government Poised to Fall to the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda ?” The source I consulted is the Right Side News, where “right” certainly does not make “right”. It would be quite a major event if Yemen was taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood, since it does not have any kind of presence there. Of course if most Muslims are radical and all radical Muslims are the same, it hardly matters to someone like the ludicrous ranting of someone like Robert Spencer (whose Islamophobic magazine rag is the ultimate source of this story). The article was posted Wednesday at 5:38, but over a full day later the prediction that Ali Abdullah Salih would be ousted in 24 hours was unfulfilled. Back to the drawing board or the Book of Daniel, perhaps? Is this regime change supposed to be before or after all the bible believing Christians are raptured away? Continue reading Oh Brother(hood)! →

Let’s Play Spot the Muslim

Apocalypse Watch, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media



left, Muslim Moroccan-French actor Said Taghmaoui does not care much for shirts; right, scary Muslim garb

The recent debate over remarks by NPR reporter Juan Williams on the Bill O’Reilly Show is quite revealing, although not in terms of fashion. Of late NPR has gone public with its No Partisan Reporting image, placing comments on Fox News atop the same perch as Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity. Lost in the shuffle is the ultimate bottom line in media as business: Williams has just signed a multi-year contract with Fox News. In commenting on his statement that he personally feels uncomfortable traveling on an airplane with fashionably coded devout Muslims, Williams is quoted on the Fox News website (with the typographical error intact):

“They take something totally out of context,” Williams said Thursday night, adding that his point was that Americans must come to grips with their prejudices.

“I have always thought of journalism, in a way, as a priesthood. you honor it you protect it,” he said, before criticizing his former employer. “These people don’t have ay sense of righteousness, of what’s right here. They’re self righteous.”

Of course, we all know that Fox News, especially someone like O’Reilly is not at all “self-righteous.” Continue reading Let’s Play Spot the Muslim →

WWGBD

Apocalypse Watch, Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Luke R. E. Publican


Yesterday there was a rally at the Lincoln Memorial, a political act paraded as a national revival meeting. And guess who showed up? None other than Elmer Gantry. If you are too young to remember who Elmer Gantry is, Youtube comes to your rescue. Based on a novel published by Sinclair Lewis in 1927, the fictional character Gantry is a consummate hypocrite preaching against vice from the pulpit and practicing vice whenever he has a chance. Lewis wrote it as a satire on the bigoted Protestant fundamentalism of his day, and earned the mantra of “Satan’s cohort” from famed evangelist Billy Sunday. Perhaps it is time to bring the novel back to the required reading list or at least re-release the film version starring Burt Lancaster.

Glenn Gantry, I mean Elmer Beck, well you know who I mean, left the set of his Fox News extravaganza and cozy radio perch to lead a rally of Tea Party and other discontents, but claimed that God had dropped a sandbag on his head (I suspect it was rather heavy sand to cause such a reaction) and made him realize the rally should be a religious revival, getting America back to her Christian roots. The fact that it was planned on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s memorable speech in the same place (only three years after the release of the Elmer Gantry film) is said to be accidental or divine. I suspect for showman Beck, there is little difference between the two. Continue reading WWGBD →

God is my co-sniper

Afghanistan, Apocalypse Watch, Bible and Holy Land, Contemporary Art, Islam and Christianity, Terrorism Issue

Not since Tammy Faye Baker embroidered Bible verses on her underwear has there been as eye-opening a scriptural scandal as the recent revelation that an American manufacturer routinely engraves Bible verses on U.S. military gun sights. As reported earlier this week, the Michigan-based corporation Trijicon has supplied the gun sights used by American marines to aim at and shoot the Taliban and their sympathizers in Afghanistan. The company may now be in quite a few critics’ sights given the new publicity. The Wikipedia entry already details the controversy. But the main company website has nothing to say. In the detailed descriptions of the gun sights on the website the biblical abbreviations are nowhere in sight. But it does say that “Trijicon self-luminous night sights are proven to give shooters five times greater night fire accuracy- with the same speed as instinctive shooting.” Five times, got it? Try MARK 6:38 (do look this up) and don’t forget the fishes. It may very well be that the procurement officers never noticed the addition of gospel acronyms after the serial numbers, but the company is not shy about its Christian views: “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.”

The actual verses are not inscribed, only the chapter and verse in code. It appears that all of the verses are from the New Testament, so at least it cannot be claimed to be a Zionist plot (or perhaps it could be said to be a very clever Zionist plot…). I have no idea how many verses have appeared on the 800,000 units contracted for $660 million by the U.S. Marine Corps. I suspect that MATT 5:44 (do look it up) is not one of them. Perhaps the Sermon on the Mount is not part of what the company defines as “biblical standards.” Continue reading God is my co-sniper →

Even Iraqi Snakes are Terrorists

Animals, Apocalypse Watch, Iraq, Iraq War


The Desert Horned Viper lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface.

Webshaykh’s Note: Cyberspace harbors a host of apocalyptic websites that relate current events in the Middle East to biblical prophecy. From the site Heaven Awaits it would seem that even Iraqi snakes are suspected of being terrorists… after all these snakes have horns. The following commentary stems from a news item in The Independent.

Snakes preparing the way for demons?

from Heaven Awaits website

The Desert Horned Viper lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface. Interesting ….that it has “horns.”

The Bible predicts that the Euphrates River will dry up, and demons will come out. See the latest headlines from Iraq. Continue reading Even Iraqi Snakes are Terrorists →