Rachel Maddow interviews the authors of the Left Behind series.

[Wetzelbill]

Run time: 08:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91pwDTSVsoc   Posted on YouTube: March 01, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 01, 2009 By DU Member: Wetzelbill Views on DU: 4454

 

[trthnd4jstc]

1. Fear Mongering. Evil. Anti-Life. The So-called Christians are Anti-Life.

Paronoid. Nazi-like. And, as if Socialism was evil. Socialism is more Christian than the right-wing Christians are Christian.

[Wetzelbill]

2. I am always amazed at the ease

of which they throw words like socialism around. And in such an accusatory manner. Like it's a sick obsession.

[Duke Newcombe]

3. Many of those who use the terms "Fascism" or "Socialism"...

Have no idea what they mean. Unfortunately, Fascism gets slung around here like the loons misuse Socialism out there. Pathetic, really.

[Wetzelbill]

4. my favorite is when they are used together

How somebody can be a communist, fascist, socialist etc all at once is a real brain twister, thank goodness anybody who makes that correlation doesn't have one to begin with. :)

[DUlover2909]

15. Hitler was a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

So, is being pro-labor, nationalist, and socialist mean that one is a Nazi? I never understood why that was their party's name. I guess it's kinda like how conservatives today are totally not conservative at all.

[Muttocracy]

17. People's Republic of China, Democratic Republic of Congo, DDR for East Germany... nt

[Confusious]

19. He joined the party, became its leader

and when he found people who were just as psychotic as him, he killed all the original leaders. Don't wanna change the brand name in the middle of the race.

Also, he was !!!!!!NOT!!!!!!! pro-labor. He was pro-corporation. One story I remember, he gave the unions in germany the "May Day" holiday they had always wanted. The next day he abolished the unions.


On Edit: What better way to hid what you really want then to call yourself the "German Socialist Workers Party". He was for socialization, just the corps and the rich. He was for the workers, just as long as you lived like a slave ( No rights ).

Repugs today do the same thing. "people against government waste" only thing they want is their taxes cut. They call everything else waste. Its an old NAZI tactic.

[DUlover2909]

20. Ah, cool. Thanks for clarifying!

:hi:

[DearAbby]

18. Some people foolishly

say they are one in the same, because Hitler was the leader of the National SOCIALIST Party. The get this from some book written last year I believe. I guess Saddam's Republican Guard were GOPers?

[StClone]

5. Especially Dangerous Draw in Hard times is End Times

Christo-Facists.

These stupid Sombitches and their old fables stitched together bull crap will kill us before Socialism.

[crikkett]

6. Obama's not the antichrist because the Rapture hasn't happened yet.

It's a load off my mind.

[DUlover2909]

12. Maybe the rapture has happened and we just don't know it.

People have gone missing in times past. Maybe they were the only ones that God chose to take and all the fundies of today are screwed along with the rest of us. You can't prove a negative! LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA:hi:

[rpannier]

22. I know for a fact it hasn't happened

Cuz I'd be living in Falwell's Christ-like mansion, swimming in the John the Baptist-sized pool and driving in his fleet of limos (Jesus has a fleet of Horses) if the Rapture had occurred

[DUlover2909]

24. I'm gonna say I don't understand.

You mean, after you were raptured you'd be livingin a mansion, swimming in a pool while you drive a limo instead of a horse?

[rpannier]

25. This goes back to an picture of Jerry Falwell from around 1980

He's sitting by his giant swimming pool and in the background you can see a large limo and his mansion.

I commented "Living just like Jesus" and "When the rapture comes and he's gone...I'm moving into his mansion, swimming in the pool and driving around town in those limos -- like Jesus did."

I guess in retrospect, you should probably be confused as only a few DUers (the people who saw my post to the picture) and myself would understand the reference

[DUlover2909]

27. Ooooh. ok I get it. When he is raptured, you will move into his digs.

I see. I guess I'll join you!

[crikkett]

34. Do I remember that it would only be 144,000 people? If the rapture did happen,

with any luck the chosen were spirited out of Gaza before certain people started raining phosphorous on them. :cry:

Or out of Darfur before the rape gangs hit :cry:

Or for that matter, the Congo :cry: :cry: :cry:

So many people are more worthy of salvation than greedy, overstuffed, self-righteous blowhards.

Good grief, what a bummer I am this morning. I have to go hug my dog. Sorry.

[DUlover2909]

7. I like Rachel and her show, but I disagree with one thing she said.

"None of us have the right to judge anyone else's religious beliefs."

I actually do have that right as a US citizen. I also have the right to express my judgement with my freedom of speech. I understand sorta what she is trying to convey, which is that it's impolite to openly object to someone else's religion, but I've seen enough damage caused by loonies and their silly belief systems. I saw a Young Turks video about a cop in Africa that locked up a goat because he believed it was a criminal that had cleverly disguised himself as a goat to avoid capture. I'm supposed to respect that belief and keep quiet? Seriously?

[Wetzelbill]

9. Yes! The goat shapeshifted!

I saw that too. I wonder if somebody put Pastor Muthee on the case, he probably would have fixed that goat.

[uberllama42]

10. It's difficult, too, because it isn't usually considered PC

to look at other cultures as backward. But the whole goat/magician thing doesn't deserve one whit of respect, IMO. It's a groundless superstition and it doesn't constitute cultural imperialism to point out how ridiculous it is.

[onlyadream]

29. So true...watch this by Pat Condell:

Shame on the Netherlands
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJKRF2uB8xU

[uberllama42]

8. No one has the right to criticize anyone else's religious beliefs?

We absolutely do. Anyone can believe anything they want, and anyone can criticize my ideas or your ideas or President Obama's ideas, etc. That's what free intellectual exchange is about. Where does this idea come from that criticizing someone you disagree with is automatically a form of persecution?

[scytherius]

11. Not only DO we. We should! tolerating religion has led us to this n/t

nt

[stray cat]

37. Tolerance of religion is bad? How is that constitutional or progressive?

[eagertolearn]

38. We are fighting it here in La Grande,Oregon where the religious

right has got our high school play cancelled "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" by Steve Martin. Now because of pressure from the religious right Eastern Oregon University (our local college) will not let us put the play on there (even though we are supported by just about all the college professors who were actually willing to foot the bill too). Then we tried to rent the Blue Mountain Conference Center (also known as the armory) and when they found out it was for this play THEY SAID NO! Yes we need to fight religion because when you are not looking they will take over the schools sex education (abstinence pretty much only here and 20 pregnant teens this year alone), teaching of evolution (they don't here but my kids love the teacher so they don't want me to complain) and any book or music production or play that has any cuss word or mention of god or hell or words I wouldn't even consider cuss words. Help...These students have been practicing this play for a month now and they are so dissolutioned with our education system. This time it was the Mormon church who stopped it but now they've got every other church on their side. Freedom of speech is sinking fast here...help!

[Silent3]

31. That was definitely a "WTF!" moment for me.

What a civil society needs is respect for the right to believe what one wants to believe, but there doesn't have to be, nor should there be, any automatic respect for any particular belief. Beliefs need to earn respect by standing up to careful scrutiny. Ridiculous religious beliefs are just as worthy of scorn as ridiculous political beliefs.

[gbate]

32. Certain religious groups have always played the persecution card.

Read (if you can stomach it) any conservative Christian forum or website or message board and you'll see the persecution theme time and time again.

[uberllama42]

35. Everyone likes to play the victim

It doesn't take long to find members of any group waxing apoplectic about their own victimhood. The important point is that some groups have legitimate claims to victimhood while others see any challenge to their own supremacy as persecution. See conservative Christians and white Republican men.

Atheists have been persistently victimized in Western culture, but that doesn't mean that you will never come across the occasional overwrought "Woe is us" post out their on the Internets. I know I've indulged myself a few times before.

[BREMPRO]

13. Lahaye and his minions are weaving a fantasy world that is just fukin crazy and stupid..

Why in the 21rst century, with all our knowledge, does anyone still hold up these superstitious clowns as prophets with anything valuable to say? Let them write their fantasy christatologly books, but who cares what they think of Obama! They are the epitome of evil for poisoning the minds of their readers with this GARBAGE!

[DUlover2909]

14. Their literature stinks too. It's a novel for dimwits. Just plain bad writing.

[liberal1973]

16. Rachel Maddow failed in that piece

Rachel Maddow is usually good ,but she let those creepy un-American snakes off the hook.

These people put out a game based on that pos book.

Left behind and Mein Kampf two pos books that go hand in hand. Both from right wing extremist who hated America.

[onlyadream]

30. she has to walk a fine line..

expose their stupidness without insulting them - this is how you sway the sheeple.

[eagertolearn]

39. Your so right or she can never get the far right to come on her show.

She still gets the point out by just letting them speak!

[proud patriot]

21. wow .. just wow

:crazy:

[spiritual_gunfighter]

23. Yeah that is my reaction too, Wow

The scariest thing in all of this is that they sold 65 million books. There are that many people in this country or close to it that actually believe this horseshit?

[proud patriot]

41. Hopefully a % knows it's fiction

hopefully ..

[RJ Connors]

26. The thing you have to understand Rachel

is that there is a reason both you and Tim are a little fuzzy on the details of the rapture and the anti-christ, and all the rest of that rubbish. It's because it is all a textbook example of what is often times referred to as "Dime Store Theology".

This is just another of these tall tales that was started after the civil war, along with dominionism, fundamentalism, and a whole bunch of other bizarre stuff, by such wanna be theologians like Cyrus I. Scofield, (The Scofield Reference Bible), which has no biblical foundation for supporting it. In fact, some of the early church fathers referred to such activities as heretical and blasphemous. (I guess they had taken their queue from Paul and his generation who where also dead convinced that they we're living in the end times as well. Which of course we all know was not true then as it is not true now)

No serious bible scholar or theologian takes such claims as being serious and the true nature of "The Revelation of St. John the Divine", (The books real name not the ever popular "Revelations" used by the masses) but many hucksters since that time have found that such stories sell well. What can you say, people like to have the crap scared out of them hence the success of the B&W, Sci-Fi and monster moves of the 1950's. It is just that in the age of improved communications Tim LaHay et-al, have taken it to a whole new level.

Note: Sometime after the completion of the Left Behind Series I was going down the road listening to the radio one day and Tim LaHaye was being interviewed. He was talking about a new 9 year book deal he had just signed for another book series that was promoted as being just as blasphemous as his last series. I thought to myself, I guess we can all rest assured that Armageddon would not be coming for a least 9 years as a good Christian like Tim would never enter into a contract that he knowingly knew he would not be able to complete. :sarcasm:

There is a pretty good book that one can pick up that addresses these issues from a lay perspective called http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41KjUXb0FsL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg
Left Behind or Left Befuddled: The Subtle Dangers of Popularizing the End Times.

It is right up there with my all time fav.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cWGUdwr2L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg
Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture.

[BlueMTexpat]

36. Thanks for these titles ...

they look like something to put on my reading list. :yourock:

I don't underestimate the influence of these people one whit ... and they scare the sh** out of me.

[RJ Connors]

40. You and me both brother. n/t

[BlueMTexpat]

42. Well, "sister" is more apropos ...

but I do share the sentiment. :hi:

[RJ Connors]

43. Oooops!

Sorry :toast:

[onlyadream]

28. I actually read their crap a LONG time ago...

and it was nothing but VERY poorly written fiction. All this crap about the rapture is taken from one little sentence in the bible written by Paul who says that there will be a "catching up" in the sky (or heavens) - and somehow this got interpretted into a rapture. The whole thing is nonsense.
There has always been plagues on our world, and other disasters - but yet Christians are always (ALWAYS) saying that the end is near - even JEsus himself thought that it was in his generation! Well, boys, I'm sorry, but it just ain't happening!

[The Doctor.]

33. This psuedo-Christian cult preys on the most powerful psychological weaknesses.

That's not as preposterous as it sounds.

The fear of death and the insecurity of uncertainty are the primary targets of this psychotic meme. Everyone has some fear of death, whether it's the how or whatafter. This belief system guarantees (with no means of proving it, obviously) that its adherents will not have to suffer physical death, and will also maintain their unique identity and consciousness forever... thus never having to suffer the idea that their own precious self will never ever cease to exist.

Second, once an adherent, there is no need for further spiritual growth... all has been answered. If you've ever looked into the eyes of the Born Again Fanatic, they have the look of the zealot; so certain they are of their own 'ultimate understanding'. What could make a person more secure than believing absolutely that they have the ultimate answer. Forget the fact that they cannot engage in any sort of philosophical debate. Where they do so, the defense mechanisms kick in and they immediately dismiss any rational or difficult points rather than deal with them by recursive reference to their interpretation of John. They also have the ultimate tool of ignorance; if they find themselves swayed to another point of view, then it must be by the machinations of the Devil! Therefore they must completely ignore the person or other source of discomfort. I call it 'The Lucifer Lock'.

Either way, these people are absolutely dangerous.