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Root Of All Evil?

PART ONE



PART TWO



PART THREE



PART FOUR



PART FIVE

Libertarianism

I for some time now had up till recently been calling myself a Libertarian (or something very close to Libertarian). Now, I don't think I really identify with that group anymore, except for a large part of what they believe about individual/personal freedoms. I guess it is the economic view that Libertarians hold, which (if I am getting this right) is: let the market do whatever it wants. It seems a little to wild west to me. The recent (relatively) financial crisis has reinforced my views about this. I think that we absolutely have to have regulations in place in order to protect the consumer, potential investors, and the American public. I think it is a bad idea to let the inmates run the asylum. Though, you might bring up that the SEC knew about Madoff for a decade and did nothing about it. You are absolutely right, government be as easily corrupted as an individual. But at least we have some sort of recourse with those on the SEC that let Madoff happen than what we do with some individuals. I am just rambling at this point, so I don't know if I have made any coherent statements, I just needed to get it out so that maybe you my dear reader can help me through it. I mind you, I am in no way an expert in economics or politics, I do enjoy both but it is a bit out of my scope of expertise (do I have any??). So, if I am wrong or misled about any of this, please let me know and I will post it here.

D

Gay Marriage Cartoon

David Wilkerson = The Lose

According to David Wilkerson, there is going to be an earth-shattering calamity soon (his words: about to happen.....I take this to mean soon). The holy spirit told him this and only him because god is just to busy to send out this calamity memo to everyone else. Ever notice that prophets, messiahs, and holy men in general get to have these secretive one on one conversations with god when they are alone with no one else to witness the event? If there is going to be riots, famine, looting and so on, why doesn't god bother to tell the rest of us? God is all powerful, why not email, text, or call us? God apparently is too busy doing whatever it is god does.

I'm not worried though. If you read David's warning below, you will notice an incredible lack of details for this impending doom. I guess god was in a rush, you know, had places to be and didn't have time to explain in detail what is going to happen. Or, David could just be making this stuff up. That way, when none of this happens, he can say something like, "God said it was going to happen soon. Soon is different for god than it is for us mere humans.". Or because he is sooooo vague with the details, almost any event can fit into what he is describing. Now, with little effort he can say. "Look, all of this happened as the holy spirit said it would.".

Look, I don't know if god exists or not. But I know that if god does exist, he isn't talking to this guy.

D

Reposted from: http://www.worldchallenge.org/coverletter/an_urgent_message

I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to send out an urgent message to all on our mailing list, and to friends and to bishops we have met all over the world.

AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. IT IS GOING TO BE SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE — EVEN THE GODLIEST AMONG US.

For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires — such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago.

There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting — including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written,

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (v. 3).

God is judging the raging sins of America and the nations. He is destroying the secular foundations.

The prophet Jeremiah pleaded with wicked Israel, “God is fashioning a calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh, turn back each of you from your evil way, and reform your ways and deeds. But they will say, It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart” (Jeremiah 18:11–12).

In Psalm 11:6, David warns, “Upon the wicked he will rain snares (coals of fire)…fire…burning wind…will be the portion of their cup.” Why? David answered, “Because the Lord is righteous” (v. 7). This is a righteous judgment — just as in the judgments of Sodom and in Noah’s generation.

WHAT SHALL THE RIGHTEOUS DO? WHAT ABOUT GOD’S PEOPLE?

First, I give you a practical word I received for my own direction. If possible lay in store a thirty-day supply of non-perishable food, toiletries and other essentials. In major cities, grocery stores are emptied in an hour at the sign of an impending disaster.

As for our spiritual reaction, we have but two options. This is outlined in Psalm 11. We “flee like a bird to a mountain.” Or, as David says, “He fixed his eyes on the Lord on his throne in heaven — his eyes beholding, his eyelids testing the sons of men” (v. 4). “In the Lord I take refuge” (v. 1).

I will say to my soul: No need to run…no need to hide. This is God’s righteous work. I will behold our Lord on his throne, with his eye of tender, loving kindness watching over every step I take — trusting that he will deliver his people even through floods, fires, calamities, tests, trials of all kinds.

Note: I do not know when these things will come to pass, but I know it is not far off. I have unburdened my soul to you. Do with the message as you choose.

God bless and keep you.

In Christ,
DAVID WILKERSON

Do The Evolution

One of the best rock videos ever, Do The Evolution by Pearl Jam.

D

pearl jam - do the evolution
Uploaded by steveo_russianspy

Too Busy To Pray, Then.....

This is just so very very sad. Everyone should be thinking Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (for those of you that didn't get it.....WTF) on this one. Check out the news coming from P.Z. Myers.

D

Reposted from: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/preying_upon_the_gullible.php

Do you feel like you don't pray enough? Are you too busy working, or playing golf, or fornicating to actually take the time out to get down on your knees and praise the invisible man in the sky? Well, there is a service for you: Information Age Prayer. For the low, low price of $3.95 a month, they will run your prayer of choice through a voice synthesizer every day, and allow the computer to speak to god for you. Is a loved one sick? For only $9.95 per month, the computer will beg god to help them 5 times a day! Throw enough money at this service, and you can just skip church altogether, not waste any time with the holy muttering, and get all the benefits of piety, every single one. Sign up today!

(Lest you think this must be a humor site, the buttons to bill your credit card actually work, and go through paypal. If it's a joke, it's an evil one that might actually suck some money out of the pockets of the desperately stupid.)

The Intelligent Design Zoo

Hilarious!!!!!

Sorry....

Sorry, I've been a bit preoccupied with home stuff as of late and I have been ignoring you. In the coming days I will try to rectify this situation so please hold tight. To make things a little better, here is a video of Michael Shermer at the Creation Museum. Yes, there is a creation museum, and yes, I have been there. I did feel a bit dirty giving them $20 but I am a masochist and had to see it for myself. Enjoy, well.......do the best you can, don't put your head through your computer screen.

D

This is a Repost from my facebook page:

This is a good interview by Michael Shermer with Ms. Purdom at the Creation Museum. Can anyone say circular logic? Ms. Purdom uses it and thinks it's acceptable in science. She even says that there is NO reason to test a creation hypothesis.....she really said that. Does anyone really think this is a science anymore after that? There's your smoking gun right there. The bible isn't a science book, and excepting evolutionary theory DOES NOT mean that you can't believe in god. Michael Shermer mentions Ken Miller (orthodox catholic) and Francis S. Collins (evangelical christian), they along with many others have no problem with reconciling science with their belief in god. To say that you have to have either god or evolution is presenting a false dichotomy (claiming that there is only two possible answers when there are really more than two). I'm sorry, I don't mean to be on a soapbox here but this just makes my head hurt.

Happy Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day to all (3.14)!! Here is some info and fun stuff about Pi:

1) Pi or π is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. It is approximately equal to 3.14159 in the usual decimal notation. π is one of the most important mathematical and physical constants: many formulae from mathematics, science, and engineering involve π.

2) π is an irrational number, which means that its value cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction m/n, where m and n are integers. Consequently, its decimal representation never ends or repeats. It is also a transcendental number, which means that no finite sequence of algebraic operations on integers (powers, roots, sums, etc.) can be equal to its value; proving this was a late achievement in mathematical history and a significant result of 19th century German mathematics. Throughout the history of mathematics, there has been much effort to determine π more accurately and to understand its nature; fascination with the number has even carried over into non-mathematical culture.

3) Pi Rap

4) Pi on Letterman:

4) Pi to the millionth digit is.......well, I tried putting it on the blog here but the number itself exceeded the 1mb limit I have for content. I have been thwarted by the power of Pi and blog spot. But you can find Pi to the millionth digit here.

(sources: wikipedia, piday.org)

Have a great Pi Day everyone!

D

Trish Update

I did receive an email from Trish today. Apparently blog spot dropped the ball and didn't take here comment (this isn't the first time this has happened......ask my wife). I did return an email to her apologizing for the snafu and now we may be entering into a dialog about her claims and so on. So please stay tuned for further details. And thanks again to Trish for getting back to me and I hope we can start up something here.

D

Beat A Chess Grandmaster.....Sort Of

Derren Brown beats 9 chess players simultaneously
Uploaded by

Brain Break.......Third Grade Humor

Sorry, but this is funny. I can't help it......

D

Mr. Fire Update (Part 3)

No luck with Mr. Fire or Trish. I guess they don't want to talk to poor nobody me. That's alright because I found another person advocating non-sense to introduce to you. David Dutch the author of the blog In The Footsteps of Giants is an advocate of the Secret and an author. What does David have to say about LOA (Law Of Attraction)? His opening question will reveal a lot to us.

Do you doubt the existence of the law of attraction?..........

You may have heard of the film, ‘The Secret’ even watched it but still dismiss the law of attraction as Mumbo Jumbo.

Or is there really a force in nature that will allow you to use your secret mind to succeed where you have never succeeded before simply by harnessing the power of visuailzation and using affirmations?

Let’s look around nature and see what natural laws exist. Well there is the main one that keeps us all on this small planet of ours; you know the one that has always been there but was best explained by Sir Isaac Newton and his famous apple.

It does not matter whether or not an apple actually fell on his head the law of gravity has always been there and hopefully it always will be here, as I have no fancy for drifting off into space without a spaceship..........

Is the law of gravity simple? Is the law of Chemistry simple? Is the law of physics simple? Is the law of mathematics simple? Is the law of logic simple? In as much as they are there despite you. You may not understand them but you accept them because of the evidence you have every day of their workings.

Look around at every successful person, every goal achiever they are living evidence of the law of attraction working in their lives.

The day you stop questioning the validity of the law of attraction is the day you will allow it to work in your life.

Oh where to start? What is David really saying here? Well, he is trying to convince his audience that the LOA is like any other sort of natural law, they are there whether you want to "believe" in them or not. David is trying to convince his audience that LOA essentially is a scientific principle (or should be treated like one).

What David doesn't mention is that gravity is testable along with all other theories/laws of nature, they are also tentative. While gravitational theory may never be replaced, it could be if a better explanation came along to explain what we observe. So if LOA is a theory explaining natural events then it is possible to test it. Remember, all theories/laws are subject to verification. When you posit a theory you must be able to show what would "prove" or "disprove" it (I use the word prove, but you don't ever really prove anything in the absolute sense, everything is tentative).

Gravity, we can test that easily (for the most part). If I throw a baseball and it lands on the earth 10ft in front of me (I know, it was a very poor throw) we can say that gravity is the force pulling the ball to the earth (the earth has mass as does the ball, smaller objects are attracted to larger ones, so the earth bends space-time to attract the ball). Now, the more we run that experiment and the more we get those results we can show gravity in action, in other words, we are verifying the theory of gravitation. What would falsify gravity? Using our baseball experiment, if I threw the ball and it just kept going and never landed, that would be a start. Or if we found that bodies with mass didn't attract each other. That would be trouble for gravity.

The point I am getting to here is that whether you doubt the theory of gravitation or not is not dependant on whether it works or not. David would agree with me here But he is saying that you have to believe in the LOA in order for it to work for you.

The day you stop questioning the validity of the law of attraction is the day you will allow it to work in your life.

Whether you question the validity of gravity or not, it works, it has been tested, and even if gravity is falsified there would be another testable explanation put in it's place. If LOA is a natural law (or a theory explaining nature) then what tests can we perform to verify or falsify it?
David uses this example to show that the LOA is real:

Look around at every successful person, every goal achiever they are living evidence of the law of attraction working in their lives.


Has David ever heard of Occam's Razor? In short, Occam's Razor is a philosophical principle that states the solution that makes the fewest assumptions is probably the correct one. For example: I showed up at work today. Is it more plausible that I drove my car to work or that Scotty on the Star ship Enterprise beamed me there? So are successful people successful because they believe that there is a LOA or because those who are successful typically have traits/skills such as: a positive attitude, honesty, hard working, multitasking skills, communication skills, the ability to commit to projects and so on?

How are we going to verify that it is the LOA that is allowing these people to be successful? This is where I am going to leave it to you the readers. Tell me how we can verify LOA and also how we can falsify it. I have a few ideas myself but I want to hear yours. I will post the best ones here on Skeptic Dave. And think outside of the box, be creative, and see what you come up with. If anything it will be great brain exercise.

D

Mr. Fire Update (Part 2)

So far no luck in getting a response from the one and only Mr. Fire. Even more disapointing is that I have not heard from Trish who claims to have the ability to heal people from a distance at the very low reasonable rate of $20 per half hour. Though personally, I would rather take that $20 to the horse track (I know someone who reads this blog that definatley would). As to make this blog as transparent as possible (and I really don't have any other content for you today.....sorry) , I will post my e-mail to Trish below.

Keep those positive thoughts going.....

D

Hello,

My name is Dave and I have a blog called Skeptic Dave. I wanted to let you know that I have found your website through the Mr. Fire blog and I have made a blog entry about your site. From the name of my blog you can probably deduce what side of the fence I am on regarding your claims of mediums, distance healing, and so on. But in the interest of fairness I thought I should allow you to respond to my writing about your site or the LOA. If you would like to do so I won't edit your response (unless for some reason you are threatening to kill me or something of that sort, though I don't see you doing that so I don't think we have to worry about that) and there will be no limit to length of your response (unless it is book length that is). If you do not want to respond, I understand and I thank you for your time.

The blog post can be found: http://skepticdave.blogspot.com/2009/03/mr-fire-update-part-one.html

Regards,
Dave

Something We Can All Agree On

My friend Alison posted a moving story on her blog and I wanted to share the very last paragraph with you. I am only going to share the last paragraph as I feel it is the most important part of the story (and because I do not share the theological position of the storyteller, so I feel that her concluding paragraph is what is important) . But if you would like to read the whole story then please visit Alison here.

D

"Life is too short for drama & petty things, so laugh hard, love truly and forgive quickly. Live While You Are Alive. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. Forgive now those who made you cry. You might not get a second time."

Mr. Fire Update (Part One)

If you aren't up on things then you can check out my last post here to get caught up. For those of you that are up to date, so far I have received no responses to my comment left yesterday on Mr. Fire's blog. You can find the thread I posted on here (I posted under the name D and I am the 49th comment down). So, as it is, Joe nor any of his hoard have bothered to defend their LOA (Law Of Attraction) or refute the assertions that I have made (and I am by far not the first to make such assertions).

Though half (if not more than half) of the folks blowing smoke up Mr. Fire's crack are folks who have websites and they themselves are trying to sell something. For example we have:

#48 Trish Craig says

Joe I just wanted to say how much reading the attractor factor has opened up a block I wasn’t even aware I had. I cannot tell you what happened or how it happened, just simply reading the book did something. The night after reading it and every day since I am on a continuous cycle of Dinvinly inspired information, I can barely keep up with the writing it down and or sketching things. Color everywhere! Even the way my message work is received is changing, the Universe does like speed! Something shifted inside of me also, I no longer feel off balance all because I read attractor factor and gained clarity on manifesting - I literally felt the moment of the difference between ego and divine - everything has now come together for me. Thank you so much! I am also using “hopo”. I also am a Realtor and things are changing there also. Amazing. Thank you. Much Love, Trish.

Trish, have you ever considered the possibility that you are doing better because you wanted to? By feeling more positive, you became more productive and felt less stress and so on, thus you are doing better? But not because you can make the universe manifest any of your desires just using the idea of thinking positively (though I'm thinking she will disagree with because of what is to follow).

If you click on here name you will be led to her website where we find:

I am a Clairvoyant. The messages I receive can be compared to the way that John Edward receives his messages through symbols which I then interpret. There are times that I do receive message from Spirit in the way that James Van Praagh receives his messages and this could be as sound, smell, or visably seeing Spirit.

I am a Certified Medium and I also am an Ordained Minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. I am also a healing practioner and I am certified in Hawiian Huna Reiki Practioner (Level 1 & 2) and I also retain certification in Kahi Loa Gentle Touch Healing. I also do energy transformation work and am able to run "Bars".

Where do I get my Medium certification? I think I can get that from the U.S. department of B.S. What else does Trish offer besides cold reading and telling you what you want to hear? You can get healed from a distance by her at the low cost of $20 per half hour (Does the AMA have a certification for distance healing?). So, stop going to your doctor and give Trish a call. If distance healing or any other sort of mumbo jumbo really worked, then why do we still have modern medicine? I bet if Trish (or anyone that "believes") this sort of non-sense came down with a serious illness, she (they) would be going to a real doctor, not hoping that positive thoughts would cure them.

To be fair I will invite Trish to comment on what I have posted here. I may be biased but I don't think it is fair to give someone the skeptical smack down and not give them the chance to respond.

Tune in tomorrow for more positive thought updates!

D

Joe Vitale = The Lose

I usually try to stay away from name calling and strong language on this blog, but then I found out about this asshole. Why do I call him an asshole? Probably because he tells you that positive thoughts will give you everything you want. We aren't talking about the healthy (reality based) thinking positively here. We are talking about The Secret type of positive thinking that maintains that you can have a sports car magically appear in your driveway by believing that you have a sports car in your driveway. What exactly is the mechanism that allows this to happen? Let me answer that..............

THERE ISN'T ONE, IT IS ALL JUST A BUNCH OF HOKEY NEW AGE SELF HELP B.S.!

So, I had to comment on Joe's (a.k.a. Mr. Fire) blog about such non-sense. Here is what I wrote:

"So are you implying that someone with HIV shouldn’t go to a doctor because if they are positive and believe in LOA, then the universe will heal them of HIV? What about amputees, will they get their limbs back if they are positive enough? Are starving children in Africa (or anywhere else) not thinking positive enough, and that’s why they are starving? I guess all of the seniors who get ripped off by con-artists weren’t thinking positively enough either."

ARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

Stay tuned, I may get a response for my comment, we will see.


D

Norway!!

Norway has been hitting up the skeptic dave site like crazy.....so thank you Norway!!

Norway is made of WIN!



Also, a thanks goes out to the folk(s) in Plano Texas....thanks for sticking around to see what is going around...........and since I'm giving out thanks........thanks to Rob for making it a habit to stop by!

D

Blasphemy Day September 30

Check this out. If you have a facebook acount, join the group, that is if you wish to be apart of Blasphemy Day!

D

The New Compy (Part One)

Not going to get to detailed here, but I am coming to you on my new compy. And all I can say right now is.........APPLE IS MADE OF THE WIN!! I will be sharing all of my new compy experience with you right here later. Until next time........

D

I will be back

Providing that the U.S. Government deposits my tax return tomorrow, I will be writing to you via Mac Mini! Till next time......

D

VIRUS

Computer viruses are made of the suck. I am typing all of this from my Nintendo Wii as my compy is locked up with viruses. So, we are now looking at getting a Mac. I am done with PC.

D

Penn & Teller's Bullshit: End of The World

To go along with the previous post, I thought I would show some Penn & Teller (of course!).

D

2015 Is The End Of The World, Not 2012

According to Pastor Mark Blitz, Jesus and his lawyer (thank you Eels) are coming back in the year 2015. Mark has been checking out the NASA website and it so happens that there is supposed to be a red moon in 2015. So, to Mark, this is the coming of the end.......so long fair world, I will miss you. Wait a minute, isn't the world supposed to end on December 23, 2012? Appearently those folks didn't check with NASA, cause NASA knows everything. So, all of you who were planning for the world to end in 2012........don't worry, you have another three years to do whatever it is that you do.

D


REPOSTED FROM: http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63076

TESTING THE FAITH
Blood moon eclipses: 2nd Coming in 2015?
Minister uses NASA forecasting to study signals of Jesus' return
Posted: April 30, 2008
11:49 pm Eastern

By Joe Kovacs

Will Jesus Christ return to Earth in the year 2015?

And can studying NASA's website provide evidence for such a scenario?

A minister who promotes the Old Testament roots of Christianity suggests a rare string of lunar and solar eclipses said to fall on God's annual holy days seven years from now could herald what's come to be known as the "Second Coming" of Jesus.

"God wants us to look at the biblical calendar," says Mark Biltz, pastor of El Shaddai Ministries in Bonney Lake, Wash. "The reason we need to be watching is [because] He will signal His appearance. But we have to know what to be watching as well. So we need to be watching the biblical holidays."

In a video interview on the Prophecy in the News website, Biltz said he's been studying prophecies that focus on the sun and moon, even going back to the book of Genesis where it states the lights in the sky would be "be for signs, and for seasons."

"It means a signal, kind of like 'one if by land, two if by sea.' It's like God wants to signal us," he said. "The Hebrew word implies ... not only is it a signal, but it's a signal for coming or His appearing."


Biltz adds the word "seasons" implies appointed times for God's feasts and festivals.

"When we hear the word feast, we think food. But the Hebrew word has nothing to do with food. It has to do with a divine appointment, as if God has a day timer, and He says, 'OK, I'm gonna mark the day and the time when I'm going to signal My appearance.'"

In the Old Testament, the prophet Joel states, "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come." (Joel 2:31)

In the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as saying, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light ... And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." (Matthew 24:29-30)

Gary Stearman of Prophecy in the News noted, "When we think of the sun being darkened and the moon not giving her light, we usually think of some astronomical catastrophe – perhaps the sun sputtering and the moon being affected by all this. But maybe it's time to rethink this a little bit and think of it as a natural cycle, the cycle of the eclipses."

Thus, Biltz began focusing on the precise times of both solar and lunar eclipses, sometimes called "blood moons" since the moon often takes on a bloody color. He logged onto NASA's eclipse website which provides precision tracking of the celestial events.

He noted a rare phenomenon of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, known as a tetrad.

He says during this century, tetrads occur at least six times, but what's interesting is that the only string of four consecutive blood moons that coincide with God's holy days of Passover in the spring and the autumn's Feast of Tabernacles (also called Succoth) occurs between 2014 and 2015 on today's Gregorian calendar.

"The fact that it doesn't happen again in this century I think is very significant," Biltz explains. "So then I looked at last century, and, believe it or not, the last time that four blood red moons occurred together was in 1967 and 1968 tied to Jerusalem recaptured by Israel."

He then started to notice a pattern of the tetrads.

"What's significant to me is that even before 1967, the next time that you had four blood red moons again was right after Israel became a nation in '48, it happened again in 1949 and 1950 ... on Passover and Succoth. You didn't have any astronomical tetrads in the 1800s, the 1700s, the 1600s. In the 1500s, there were six, but none of those fell on Passover and Succoth."

When checking the schedule for solar eclipses, Biltz found two – one on the first day of the Hebrew year and the next on the high holy day of Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh Hebrew month. Both of these take place in the 2014-2015 year.

Biltz says, "You have the religious year beginning with the total solar eclipse, two weeks later a total lunar eclipse on Passover, and then the civil year beginning with the solar eclipse followed two weeks later by another total blood red moon on the Feast of Succoth all in 2015."

"If you think that this is a coincidence, I want you to know that it's time!" exclaimed Prophecy in the News host J.R. Church. "There are no more of these for the rest of the century."

The prospect of eclipses pinpointing the time of Jesus' return is getting mixed reaction in Christian circles.

After seeing Biltz's interview, Jim Bramlett, an author and former vice president for the Christian Broadcasting Network, expressed excitement.

"I have just watched the program two times and do not think I have ever been more encouraged or excited about the soon return of the Lord!" Bramlett said.

But Hal Lindsey, a well-known biblical analyst and author of "The Late Great Planet Earth," says while he hasn't heard of Biltz's theory, he called it "pure speculation."

"In my 50-something years of studying prophecy, to me the greatest indication of the time of Christ's return is based around the general things of prophecies coming together in the same time frame."

He mentioned not only Israel's birth as a political state in 1948, but the increase in tensions with Muslims, the rise of Russia, China and the European Union, which he says is even "calling itself the revived Roman Empire."

"I see the whole sweep and panorama spinning together in a precise scenario," he said.

During a second video interview, Biltz was presented with Bible quotes that many think suggest Jesus' return will be a complete surprise, or at least not specifically known.

The 25th chapter of Matthew features a parable where Jesus likens His kingdom to ten virgins all waiting for the arrival of their bridegroom.

Jesus said in the story, "ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." (Matthew 25:13)

Biltz says people need to examine the quote in its proper context.

"When He says you don't know the day or the hour, He's speaking to the foolish virgins, not the wise virgins," he explained.

Biltz was also asked about the famous statement in Matthew 24:36 when Jesus was discussing the signs of His "coming, and of the end of the world": "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." (Matthew 24:36)

He responded by referring to the annual Feast of Trumpets holiday, saying Israelites never knew the precise moment it began, "because it was based on the sighting of the new moon."

"When He (Jesus) says you won't know the day or the hour, He's telling you it's the Feast of Trumpets because that was known as the feast where no one knew the day or the hour that it would begin," said Biltz. "So it's kind of like if I told you, 'I'm not going to tell you when I'm coming, but "Gobble, gobble, gobble,'" [pointing to] Turkey Day."

Church stressed despite the information suggesting 2015 could be a pivotal time, "We don't know that that will be the concluding year of the tribulation period ... so we're not setting a date and saying this is a warning. We're introducing the possibility of a watch.

Theo Van Gogh's Submission

Submission is a 10-minute film directed by Theo van Gogh and written by Miss Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Liberal party member of the Lower House of the Netherlands Parliament.

The film seeks to highlight the mistreatment of women born to Muslim families. The film was shown on the Dutch public broadcasting network (VPRO) on August 29, 2004. The film displays the bodies of Muslim women who have been beaten. The bodies are used in the film as a canvas for verses from the Quran used by Muslim men to determine husband-wife relations. The women include one that suffers wife beating and one that is raped by her uncle.

The film is controversial (http://www.religionnewsblog.com/8840-.html). According to Mohammed Sini of the Islamic and Citizenship Foundation, the film is offensive to Muslims, stating: "If there is a reaction, Theo van Gogh will have to protect her (Ayaan Hirsi Ali)." The film was dismissed by Nabil Marmouch, the Dutch representative of the Arab Europe League, who said, "I know what she is up to with this film. She wants extra security and she wants others to feel sorry for her. She is simply looking for attention."

A Labour Party member of the Lower House of the Netherlands Parliament, Mrs. Khadija Arib, said, "I admire anyone who wishes to point out that the mistreatment and oppression of women is an evil. I question, however, whether this is the right way to do it. I am truly concerned that Hirsi Ali simply wishes to be confrontational when presenting others with this message."

Later, Theo Van Gogh was murdered for making this film and Ayaan Hirsi Ali has around the clock security as she has had her life threatened.

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(Source: http://www.submission.eu.tt/ )