Showing posts with label endtimes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label endtimes. Show all posts

Monday, December 14, 2009

The Rapture

I have been following a breaking story on PZ Myers blog about the coming Christian rapture.  I know everyone is already tense about the 2012 end of the world scenario (yeah right!), but the news is that the end is going to happen on September 21, 2009.........October 21, 2009.........on or before December 14, 2009...

Wait, I think they have the date right this time; now it will happen on December 21, 2009.  So unwrap and return all of those Christmas presents you bought or give them away early, because we aren't going to see Christmas this year.  Actually, considering the track record of the fella (gal?) running this website predicting the rapture, I wouldn't.  Though I will be happy to take any early Christmas gifts if you want!  Any guesses on what the next date will be?

D

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

More 2012

Here is an interesting article from the NY Times about the 2012 doomsday.

D

Re-posted from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/science/17essay.html?_r=1#

Is Doomsday Coming? Perhaps, but Not in 2012

By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: November 16, 2009

NASA said last week that the world was not ending — at least anytime soon. Last year, CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, said the same thing, which I guess is good news for those of us who are habitually jittery. How often do you have a pair of such blue-ribbon scientific establishments assuring us that everything is fine?

On the other hand, it is kind of depressing if you were looking forward to taking a vacation from mortgage payments to finance one last blowout.
CERN’s pronouncements were intended to allay concerns that a black hole would be spit out of its new Large Hadron Collider and eat the Earth.

The announcements by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the form of several Web site postings and a video posted on YouTube, were in response to worries that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012, when a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count in the Mayan calendar supposedly comes to a close.

The doomsday buzz reached a high point with the release of the new movie “2012,” directed by Roland Emmerich, who previously inflicted misery on the Earth from aliens and glaciers in “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

In the movie, an alignment between the Sun and the center of the galaxy on Dec. 21, 2012, causes the Sun to go berserk with mighty storms on its surface that pour out huge numbers of the elusive subatomic particles known as neutrinos. Somehow the neutrinos transmute into other particles and heat up the Earth’s core. The Earth’s crust loses its moorings and begins to weaken and slide around. Los Angeles falls into the ocean; Yellowstone blows up, showering the continent with black ash. Tidal waves wash over the Himalayas, where the governments of the planet have secretly built a fleet of arks in which a select 400,000 people can ride out the storm.

But this is only one version of apocalypse out there. In other variations, a planet named Nibiru crashes into us or the Earth’s magnetic field flips.

There are hundreds of books devoted to 2012, and millions of Web sites, depending on what combination of “2012” and “doomsday” you type into Google.

All of it, astronomers say, is bunk. (emphasis is mine)


“Most of what’s claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy and a level of paranoia worthy of ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ ” Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, in Los Angeles, and an expert on ancient astronomy, wrote in an article in the November issue of Sky & Telescope.

Personally, I have been in love with end-of-the-world stories since I started consuming science fiction as a disaffected child. Scaring the pants off the public has been pretty much the name of the game ever since Orson Welles broadcast “War of the Worlds,” a fake newscast about a Martian invasion of New Jersey, in 1938.

But the trend has gone too far, suggested David Morrison, an astronomer at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who made the YouTube video and is one of the agency’s point people on the issue of Mayan prophecies of doom.

“I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money,” Dr. Morrison said. “There is no ethical right to frighten children to make a buck.”

Dr. Morrison said he had been getting about 20 letters and e-mail messages a day from people as far away as India scared out of their wits. In an e-mail message, he enclosed a sample that included one from a woman wondering if she should kill herself, her daughter and her unborn baby. Another came from a person pondering whether to put her dog to sleep to avoid suffering in 2012.

All of this reminded me of the kinds of letters I received last year about the putative black hole at CERN. That too was more science fiction than science fact, but apparently there is nothing like death to bring home the abstract realms of physics and astronomy. In such situations, when the Earth or the universe is trying to shrug you and your loved ones off this mortal plane, the cosmic does become personal.

Dr. Morrison said he did not blame the movie for all this, as much as the many other purveyors of the Mayan prediction, as well as the apparent failure of some people, reflected in so many arenas of our national life, to tell reality from fiction. But then, he said, “my doctorate is in astronomy, not psychology.”

In an e-mail exchange, Dr. Krupp said: “We are always uncertain about the future, and we always consume representations of it. We are always lured by the romance of the ancient past and by the exotic scale of the cosmos. When they combine, we are mesmerized.”
A NASA spokesman, Dwayne Brown, said the agency did not comment on movies, leaving that to movie critics. But when it comes to science, Mr. Brown said, “we felt it was prudent to provide a resource.”

If you want to worry, most scientists say, you should think about global climate change, rogue asteroids or nuclear war. But if speculation about ancient prophecies gets you going, here are some things Dr. Morrison and the others think you should know.

To begin with, astronomers agree, there is nothing special about the Sun and galactic center aligning in the sky. It happens every December with no physical consequences beyond the overconsumption of eggnog. And anyway, the Sun and the galactic center will not exactly coincide even in 2012.
If there were another planet out there heading our way, everybody could see it by now. As for those fierce solar storms, the next sunspot maximum will not happen until 2013, and will be on the mild side, astronomers now say.

Geological apocalypse is a better bet. There have been big earthquakes in California before and probably will be again. These quakes could destroy Los Angeles, as shown in the movie, and Yellowstone could erupt again with cataclysmic force sooner or later. We and our works are indeed fragile and temporary riders on the Earth. But in this case, “sooner or later” means hundreds of millions of years, and there would be plenty of warning.

The Mayans, who were good-enough astronomers and timekeepers to predict Venus’s position 500 years in the future, deserve better than this.

Mayan time was cyclic, and experts like Dr. Krupp and Anthony Aveni, an astronomer and anthropologist at Colgate University, say there is no evidence that the Mayans thought anything special would happen when the odometer rolled over on this Long Count in 2012. There are references in Mayan inscriptions to dates both before the beginning and the ending of the present Long Count, they say, just as your next birthday and April 15 loom beyond New Year’s Eve, on next year’s calendar.
So keep up those mortgage payments.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

2012

No doubt that most of you have heard something about the world coming to an end on December 21, 2012. If you haven't then you may be aware of the new John Cusack movie, 2012, in which the depicts the world being destroyed by an impact of Planet X; a planet supposedly discovered by the Sumarians. While much of the 2012 nonsense has been floating about over the past year or two, it is the release of the movie 2012 that has prompted NASA to publicly debunk 2012 myths that are lurking about. So don't sell your house, quit your job, or start to whore around quite yet. But you can check out the NPR article below.

D

Re-posted from: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120436493

Scared Of Planet Nibiru? NASA Would Like To Help

November 15, 2009
According to numerous sources on the Internet, in 2012 a planet called Nibiru will collide with Earth, resulting in the extinction of the human race. Or the Earth's magnetic poles will flip, causing the rotation of the planet to reverse, resulting in the extinction of the human race. Or the Earth will fall into something called a "dark rift" in the Milky Way — resulting in the extinction of the human race.
So, what's NASA doing about it?
"NASA has nothing to do with the Planet Nibiru, because it doesn't exist," NASA astrobiologist David Morrison tells NPR's Guy Raz. "What I am doing is trying to answer all these people who are really scared, and see if we can't get some facts out to counteract the mythology on the Internet."
Morrison writes a column called "Ask an Astrobiologist" on NASA's Web site. Some years ago, he started receiving questions from people genuinely worried about what may happen in 2012.
The questions aren't as funny as you might think. "I've had three from young people saying they were contemplating committing suicide," says Morrison. "I've had two from women contemplating killing their children and themselves. I had one last week from a person who said, 'I'm so scared, my only friend is my little dog. When should I put it to sleep so it won't suffer?' And I don't know how to answer those questions."
Morrison now maintains a 2012 FAQ, where he debunks the doomsday scenarios.
Magnetic poles flipping? "The Earth reverses its magnetic polarity once every 400,000 to 500,000 years. There's no reason to think it will happen now, [and] no reason to think it will cause a problem if it did," he says.
Dark rift? "The dark rift is just a place where there are dust clouds in the Milky Way. I can't imagine where someone decided to be afraid of that."
The only real proof for many 2012 believers will come on Jan. 1, 2013 — but Morrison says that won't be the end of doomsday hoaxes.
"The Planet Nibiru was predicted to hit the Earth in May of 2003," he says. "As far as I know, it didn't. And someone just pushed reset, and now it's coming in 2012. So I don't think we'll ever be rid of apocalyptic stories about Planet X and the end of the world."

Friday, March 20, 2009

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

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

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.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Obama The Anti-Christ.....Or Maybe Not

It is the eve of the inauguration of the our new President Barack Obama and change is on the horizon. Now, I'm not just repeating our new president's mantra. According to some misguided, kooky, crazy, silly, strange, and unthinking half wits, Obama brings with him the end times. Yes, that's right, someone out there in T.V. land has just played the anti-Christ end times card.

My dear reader, you may be picking up on my skepticism here. As well you should, this is after all Skeptic Dave you are reading. Sorry, but I bet there are just as many missed anti-Christ predictions as there are end of the world predictions (maybe not as many, but A LOT!) So, I have been inspired to list all of the supposed anti-Christs throughout history. Though, I will only be focusing on the most famous for the sake of brevity.

I also want to challenge all of you to list as many that you can think of (or find), especially those that I have missed. Are you ready? Here we go!!

Hitler
Yasser Arafat
Jimmy Carter (WTF?)
Bill Gates
Mikhail Gorbachev
John F. Kennedy
Martin Luther
Henry Kissinger
Benito Mussolini
Nero Ceaser
Pope John Paul II
Ronald Reagan
Pat Robertson (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!)
David Rockefeller
Anwar el-Sadat
Saddam Hussein
Willy Brandt
Caligula
King Juan Carlos of Spain
Emperor Frederick II of Germany
King George II of England
Emperor Justinian
Ayatollah Khomeini
Nikita Khrushchev
Sun Myung Moon
Napoleon Bonaparte
Czar Peter the Great
Pete Seeger
Josef Stalin
Kaiser Wilhelm
Boris Yeltsin
Barack Obama
George W. Bush
Elvis
John Lennon
Prince Charles of England
Tony Blair
Barney the Dinosaur (is there any reason to take these folks serious anymore?)

Sources:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/antichrist/quiz.html

http://www.bible-prophecy.com/antichristtheories.htm#Theories (the Barney folks)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist