The Next Empire

The anti-christ is here and lives in the white house.

 

GP, If that is true then I for one am VERY disappointed!

Bush is an idiot and couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions on the heel.

 

like it.

That is only because he is too stupid to look at the heel.

 

No, she left it in January 2001 but plans on returning.......

 

Roel, I never said that the Antichrist would be an American; I simply repeated what I learned in Sunday school, which is that one thing the Antichrist will do to convince people of his greatness will be to bring peace to the Middle East. As for not believing that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Antichrist will exist...trust me, you *will* believe it one day. The only question is, will you believe it before or after your death.

 

This Sounds like a new topic!!!!!!!

OK - I'm game! I'll start it.

:smok:

 

I think we've had a topic on 'religions'...

 

I didn't say he was an American either. You just said that if there would be an evil man convincing the American public that he would bring their dying economy back on tracks, it would be the antichrist. So I thought you were suggesting that to bring down the US, the antichrist himself would come up from hell. That, I thought, is rather arrogant.

And now I'm disgusted at your sunday school too. Basically what they tell you is keep the war in the Middle East going! Because if it ever stops, the antichrist will have done it. That's a nice way of turning young children against the Islam! Criminal!

Oh, and on your point that I "will believe it", just about 5/6th of the world's population doesn't believe that Christ is the son of any God and that his nemesis is the Antichrist, me included. So whatever you might believe as the truth, I believe something else and I'm the majority here. Doesn't this ever cause you to doubt your truth, and consider other versions? I will not believe this before my death, and I highly doubt believing it after. Simply because it's impossible for one religion to be the truth, and you can believe what you want, and maybe it'll come true for you, but I'm no part of it.

 

Don't you think the Antichrist will (or is) probably hidden, and that many world leaders are just his or her puppets? It's just an ambitious conspiracy theory, but there is little doubt a lot of characters during history were hidden controlling the world's fate. Thus, they aren't so vulnerable to attacks as heads of state are.
I personally think we will all realise how the Anitchrist is too late, because evil has a lot of tricks at hand, an one of those is disguise. So, maybe behind a goodness masquerade he will be sealing our doom. The only thing we can do is sit, wait, and have our eyes wide open.

 

...or if we collectively refuse to believe in him, he'll probably disappear.

 

Most Muslim nations actually thrive on being pissed off at America. It gives them an idealogical purpose in my view. I think pissing off Muslims is not a bad idea, well the radical types I mean. I have no time for them. They deserve to be pissed off.

If you want to be religious then be a Buddhist. :lol:

 

You have totally misread what I said, Roel. At no point has my Sunday schiool class ever taught us that the war in the Middle East needs to be continued; what we have been taught is simply that it *will* continue, despite the efforts of all, until the Antichrist shows up. And this evil man will not delude just America, Roel, but the entire world.

You say that 5/6th of the world does not believe as I do. Well, that's likely true, but what of it? The Bible states that most people of the world will reject God and His message. And you will believe it, Roel, after your death if you don't believe it before, because you won't have a choice. Oh, and to answer your question, no, I do NOT ever doubt my faith simply because a lot of people don't agree with it. Why would I? Who should I believe, a large group of people just as flawed and fallible as I am, or the living God?

 

Roel,

Please define what you mean when you say "5/6" does not believe as CC does. Do you mean non-Christians?

:smok:

 

Obviously.

Okay Corp, I misunderstood. I apologize for insulting you on the matter. And indeed I am not the kind of person who believes the majority is always right. either...

 

Hmmm... tricky one this.
The radical ones really should not be appeased (or we'll all end up living under Islamic law), and any sign of not wanting to have the whole darn world living under Islamic law tends to annoy them.

However, deliberately provoking them (like spitting on the Koran, or even just banging on about the Crusades) or even unintentionally provoking them through stupidity or national interest (like, say, providing famine relief for a Muslim country and including bacon in the supplies) is not always a good idea...

Fun, maybe...

 

Well Roel, I think your figures are quite incorrect:

Percentage of World Population by Religious Group

Religious 86%, non-religious and anti-religious 14%.

Religious Groups
monotheists 53%, reincarnationists 23%, primitive ethno religions 8%

Monotheists
Christians 33%, Muslims 20%

Reincarnationists
Hindu 13%, Buddhist 6%

Non-religious groups
Non-religious and agnostic 11.5%, anti-religious and atheist 2.5%


These figures are from David Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia, the standard source of religious membership statistics. This is analysis is based on what I hope is a more reasonable grouping of religious groups than is used in most sources.

"Christians are the largest portion of this group and the largest faith with one third of the world's population."

(Just one source.)

:smok:

 

That's all right, Roel. Just try to remember who you're talking to in the future, please. I do try to avoid offending people whenever possible.

 

I'll try to remember that you're such a fanaticist that I can't speak my mind even if I try to make it sound reasonable...

Okay. My last source said one billion people were Christians, which is about one sixth of the world's population. I guess I'm outdated. Scary!

 

Here is a thought - maybe in future we will see the next 'Empire' arising not from a single nation (like China, or India) but from a group of nations combined by an ideology.

No, not Europe...

Political ideology is nowadays seen as something a bit suspect (after WW2 & the Cold War...) so I reckon it would be more of a religious ideology. Christianity, Hinduism & Buddism (3 of the 4 largest, I believe) are not really Empirical religions (not when lived properly!!!!). Which leaves Islam.
An Islamic bloc unifying nations has been tried, and basically does not work because everybody was too busy working hard to achieve their own national goals and trying to appear the leading member. I would not presume to suggest that this is only a trait of Islamic cultures! Show me an alliance of nations where this has not happened...
But anyway, I reckon that, if they could rise above their national/historical/ethnic/cultural/egotistical differences, and of course call a Sunni/Shiite truce, then an Islamic 'Superpower' could easily be born.
It would straddle the globe (basically the top half of Africa, the Middle East, the 'Khazakstan'-type ex-USSR countries, and the string of Pacific islands between Malaysia and New Guinea). It would contain a heck of a lot of resources, mostly oil, and therefore a heck of a lot of money. It would also have sizeable communities living in most countries around the world.

Frankly, this possibility scares the life out of me...

 

Yeah but they spend hell of a lot of time beating the bejesus out of each other.

It strikes me that in many respects Islam is the new communism. From the outside its big and scary but from the inside about as stable as a bouncy castle.