I don't know if anyone here will be interested, but I am always open to discussion on the Y2K subject. I will be holding a live radio show, this Thursday night, 8 PM Central Standard Time. Whenever I have posted here, people have debated my stance. Several have stated that I have not provided "real" answers to their questions. Well, here is your chance to ask away. It will be live, and it will be broadcast over the entire Internet. (You must have RA, go to www.ccmag.com/ra or follow the radio buttons from the home page.)We have promoted the show in our magazine, and on our site, so you will have your chance to ask me any questions you like. You will be able to call toll free, 1-800-456-1868 (on my dime) to ask away. I think our chat room will also be open, so you can ask questions that way as well as watch the ongoing discussions that take place there whenever we do one of our live shows.

One more resource, if anyone is interested... John Ankerberg did a TV show, which aired live in Orlando FL, about 4 weeks ago. He has now cut it up into 5 shows for his national program, BUT they are also being made available, one new one each week, on the net at his site... www.ankerberg.com This debate included Michael Hyatt, Jim Lord, Shaunti Feldhahn, Jim Lord and Chuck Missler. Of course, I am there with Dave Hunt, so it can get a little lively. I am sure both sides of the debate got in some good points.

I'm sure, somehow, someway, I will get flamed for this post, but first of all, here is YOUR chance to get YOUR point in about Y2K to MY readers. Hey, at least I am giving those in this forum a chance to ask their questions, or make their point.

Second, John's show is being offered for FREE on the net. I know he has an offer for a donation and you can purchase the video. Later, we will also be offering the complete video, but right now you can catch it each week for FREE (should be no complaints there, huh?)

Have fun...

-- Steve Hewitt (steve@ccmag.com), August 16, 1999

Answers

Mr. Hewitt, did it ever occur to you that perhaps God allowed people to find out about Y2k so that they would prepare? And that while Y2k in and of itself won't be that big of a deal, there is something else on the horizon that they will desperately need those supplies for?

I do not condone scams or the people who perpetrate them, but I do believe there will come a day when you regret some of the words you have spoken.

(from prior thread)

-- (still@waiting.for a reply), August 16, 1999.

Still Waiting...

Exactly what is it you are waiting for? "Still waiting" seems to imply that you have asked me something before and I have not answered. Ask again, and I will do my best. However, join me via RealAudio, call me toll free, and ask live. Don't worry, you don't have to use your real name.

Now, to your statement... If you would have been in one of the many Y2K conferences I speak at, for at least three months, you would have probably heard me say the following... "For those of you looking forward to the doom and gloom being over next year, don't be too positive. I predict that Y2K has taught many that keeping the flames of a disaster "just over the hill" is too good for business. I have already been documenting statements from many of the professional doomers that have already stated that maybe it is not about Y2K, but that SOME disaster is coming, and we should prepare!" So you see, you have not suggested anything new. You have also not suggested anything that I have not already predicted... not because I am a prophet, but because I have learned how the scare game is played.

Let the disasters come, I will trust in the Lord tomorrow. Steve Farrar states that "God has always warned His people" and therefore he sees Y2K as an example of this being continued. When I asked him on a live radio show, who he was talking about, he said Noah and Joseph. My response was something like this... "Oh, I see... I thought by "His people" you meant US. You see, I thought somehow you had some inside information that Christians were warned to get out of San Francisco the night before the great earthquake and fire. I thought you meant that somehow the "Christian" sailors in Pearl Harbor were somehow warned not to report for duty on their Battleships on Dec 7, 1941.. I thought you meant Christians were warned of the great depression... NO, the fact is, in this age and time, God has not been in the business of giving us advance warnings as a people. Instead, he has given us His GRACE which is sufficient to meet our NEEDS in times of trouble, or in times of plenty!

Y2K has had an affect on theology in America. Believe me, it is not world wide. Christians are being killed each and every day in the world right now, and God is not warning them, or plucking them out and putting them down here in America. And they are sickened that "Christians" like you think God is somehow providing you a warning so that you can protect your 401K plan and your life of comfort. While I think Gary North is a nut, and has USED Y2K fear to accomplish his purpose, he is right about how Americans are too soft and worried about their personal comfort.

Sometimes I wish Y2K was going to be much worse than I know it will NOT be... maybe then people would stop trying to "survive the coming chaos" and learn to trust in Him.

Sorry... didn't mean to preach.

-- Steve Hewitt (steve@ccmag.com), August 16, 1999.

Steve,

What is Gary North's purpose that he is using Y2K to promote? PJC: Saving lives, filling a leadership vacuum

How many people do you think Gary North has influenced? PJC: Under 1% of the sheeple

Sounds like the makings of a widespread overthrow of, of, of..... ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Why do you waste time on this topic if the outcome will be a non-event???

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), August 16, 1999.

PJC,

You could start by seeing what TIME Magazine wrote about North, or Wired, or other publications. North has USED Y2K to help bring about a panic to fulfill a decentralization of society (a crash) that will knock all non-Christians to their knees and bring the true church back to a type of old testiment law. When Y2K is over, he will hope for something else to come along.

And, if you don't know why I continue, then you are not familiar with me! Go to my magazines web site and read my position. I only have over 10 articles on Y2K... I don't think I can state the entire position all over, just for you now. (AND, I know that by suggesting someone go and read what I have said, some will slam this as just an attempt to build hits.) CCMag (Christian Computing Magazine) gets over 1 million hits a month, I don't need to advertise here... however, if you want to read my position, the address to the home page is listed at the top of this thread.

-- Steve Hewitt (steve@ccmag.com), August 16, 1999.

"North has USED Y2K to help bring about a panic"

I must have missed something here. WHAT panic?

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 16, 1999.

Gayla,

Well thank God he wasn't as succesful as he hoped, but he certainly tried. He predicted civil unrest by now (state's would not make the roll over July 1, and government workers would walk off the job because they were not being paid). Read his rants the last few months, he is VERY disappointed that so few followed his teachings. He brags about how he influenced Yourdon and Hyatt and is the power behind the entire Y2K fear movement... but yes, he did fail.

However, while millions did not go running into the night, I estimate that he and his friends did have an affect on hundreds of thousands. And, if I am right and Y2K is a bump, then these people will feel betrayed. I have met people that will never recover from their loss because of the depth of their over-reaction. I have met people that state them will never go back into a church because they were deceived by those that quoted misinformation, in order to cause them to believe Y2K was going to be more than it is.

Panic, no North didn't cause the reaction he hoped for, but it wasn't for the lack of trying!

-- Steve Hewitt (steve@ccmag.com), August 17, 1999.

Steve

While I can understand that Scary Gary is well over the top and could have an agenda (I never read his stuff) your alarm could be well deserved. The possiblility of folks getting ripped off bothers me to. That is why I set up the prep archive so others can learn what they want to know for free.

But what I don't understand is the BITR, how high is your bump compared to someone that maybe in a area with higher risk. I am not talking about banks, power, or telephones. I am talking about Health, S&MEs, international, local governments, water supply, JIT inventory, transportation and on and on. There are high risks out there and this is from GAO reports, SEC disclosures, Canadian and US Testimony and more mundane sources such as the press. The information is out there, and I would be more than happy to give you the URLs if you wish.

While I don't suggest panic is in order and alot of folks are working hard to fix the problem, there has to be a clear understanding that no one knows what is going to happen.

Here is a quote from Sen. Robert Bennett

 Y2K Forecasts

Another big Y2K worry for Senator Bennett is local
governments.

"If you live in a home town where the folks have not been
diligent about this, you could sit there and your television would
work and you would see the rest of the country watching the
Orange Bowl or the Sugar Bowl, or whatever, and you could
have real serious local service problems because your mayor or
city council or whatever was not on top of this, and there's no
way we can know that in Washington in advance.

"Water is almost always a local situation," Bennett continues.
"Many federal services are administered at the local level: food
stamps, welfare checks, so on; they're all distributed at the local
level, so you could go through January 1st feeling very confident
and then discover that your county government can't distribute
any welfare checks, and there's civil unrest as a result of that,
maybe even riots, if food stamps don't get out. So again, you'd
sit there with small comfort saying, ' Overall, the nation's just
fine, but where I live, there are really serious tensions.' "

If you ask me he is a little conserned. Now at a minimum one should have an awareness of the risk and an informed understanding where their local services stand.

They might have power and a dial tone but what if a supplier fails and a business depends on it. What about job security. What about health conserns. What about the single mothers that depend on the welfare system, what about education (very sad shape) the risks can go on and on. There may be work arounds and maybe not. But I highly doubt that you have a crystal ball on such matters. I would actually applaud your efforts to get folks aware of people with less that desirable motives but Y2K is not to be trifled with and you run the risk of becoming that which you are fighting agianst.

A prophet of misinformation.

By the way I have been delving into the SEC Disclosures (2nd Quarter) and am rather impressed by alot of business and their efforts. Banks are the best. But some industries and services (health) do worry me. We are not out of the woods yet.

Good luck with your efforts and keep your heart and spirit pure.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), August 17, 1999.

Will the real audio segment be archived and accessible at your site following the the live show? I'm sure there are many who would like to hear this but won't be able to at the time it is live.

A couple of comments about some subsequent statements you made in response to 'still waiting':

"Exactly what is it you are waiting for? "Still waiting" seems to imply that you have asked me something before and I have not answered. Ask again, and I will do my best."

I believe he (or she) was referring to a recent thread asking for info about your y2k opinions. Actually, there were _many_ questions to you there that were left unanswered.

Also you said (in part, quote truncated) to still waiting:

"I thought you meant that somehow the "Christian" sailors in Pearl Harbor were somehow warned not to report for duty on their Battleships on Dec 7, 1941..."

I have heard that Missionaries had knowledge of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, but that their warnings went unheeded. Can you imagine how preposterous an air attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan would have sounded _before_ it happened?

You continued:

"NO, the fact is, in this age and time, God has not been in the business of giving us advance warnings as a people."

I sometimes fall into the trap limiting what God would or wouldn't do. It can be very humbling when those realizations, those limitations placed on God, come to light.

-- winter wondering (winterwondering@yahoo.com), August 17, 1999.

Yes, we will archieve the show so you can listen later.... You "heard" that some missionaries had advance knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor? Really? Where did you hear it? Is it recorded in any book? Is the a name of a missionary given? Boy, as Christians we LOVE to create urban legends...guess what, Darwin did not recant his theory of evolution on his death bed, there has never been any scientific study that proved our time is off by the day (so that it fits with old testiment accounts of the sun standing still) and O'hare is NOT trying to take religious broadcasting off the air. But, you can still hear all of this and more from the pulpits of america. Man, we need to grow up, get back to the Bible and trust in Him!

-- Steve Hewitt (steve@ccmag.com), August 17, 1999.

Just out of curiosity, Steve, although I am late to this thread, which of the "pulpits of America" are preaching the correct view of things in your opinion, and do not fall under your denigration? Or is this a blanket indictment of ALL the pulpits in America? In that case, what is your purpose in speaking from them, or in using Christian phrases and references to add credence to your own views? I only ask because I have not seen your stated views as generally associated with Christians as I have with agnostics.

You have roundly criticized the agenda of at least one good man here; may we inquire into what your own agenda is? You stand behind God in your presentation, but you discount Him in your words.

In reference to your remarks about Pearl Harbor, and your debunking of the idea that missionaries (or anyone else?) could have sounded a warning, do you read much history or simply give opinions on it? I was alive during the War and am one of no doubt numerous people who have read a lot about it in these intervening years, because it affected us. We are not likely to be able to quote you book and chapter now for many things we may have learned over the years. Where is your quote of authority for denial of what you insist we should prove? Doesn't it work both ways?

-- Scat (sgcatique@webtv.net), August 18, 1999.