A short list of dire predictions

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A short list of dire predictions

Tuesday, December 28, 1999

This new millennium thing isn't the first time some people thought the world was going to end. History is littered with failed prophecies and false alarms.

Here's a short list from the past 1,000 years:

999: Christians aware of the calendar count that began with the birth of Jesus believe the Second Coming will occur at the end of the first millennium.

March 21, 1843, to March 21, 1844: Led by William Miller, the Millerites, a sect of more than 50,000 based mostly in Massachusetts and New York, abandon their material possessions and take to the hills, where they wait for the world to end.

1844: Again the Millerites wait for Armageddon. Miller sets the date as Oct. 22. The apocalpytic no-show is dubbed "The Great Disappointment."

1891: In 1835, Mormon leader Joseph Smith predicted the Coming of the Lord 56 years later.

1914: Jehovah's Witnesses (an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists, who are an offshoot of the Millerites) await the Second Coming. They believe Christ returned in 1884 but chose to remain invisible.

April 22, 1959: In Texas, the Branch Davidians believe they will be killed and resurrected.

1975: Word of the impending apocalypse spreads through the Jehovah's Witness membership, though the church never confirms the prediction.

1984: The Jehovah's Witnesses suffer another unfulfilled prophecy of doom.

Oct. 2, 1985: The Jesus of Burien (a k a William E. Peterson) claims Armageddon came on this day and he is already well into his reign as Christ returned.

April 19, 1993: The Branch Davidians, now led by David Koresh, think the world will end this year. The cult's standoff with government agents ends in a fiery tragedy, resulting in 80 deaths.

March 26, 1997: The Heaven's Gate cult carries out a mass suicide. The 39 members believe that hidden in the tail of comet Hale-Bopp is some sort of self-aware life form coming to prepare us for what they call a "galactic evolution."

Oct. 23, 1997: Archbishop Ussher, a 17th-century archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, calculated that God created the world on Oct. 23, 4004 B.C., and that the end of the world would come on this date 6,000 years later.

March 31, 1998: A Taiwanese UFO cult, Chen Tao, anticipates God's return -- in human form -- in Garland, Texas. The leader, Hon-Ming Chen, claims the Lord's return will set off a series of events leading to the world's end in August 1999.

September 1999: Nostradamus' prophecies include a meteor hitting the Earth sometime this month, -- according to those who translated his predictions to our current calendar -- setting off a chain of disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, famine, etc.) leading to the end of the world.

September 1999: Shoko Asahara, leader of the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult, predicts the world's end this month.

--D. Parvaz

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@AOL.COM), December 28, 1999

Answers

Who knows? This time, mankind might actually pull off this end-of-the-world thing. We certainly have the tools to do it.

-- Stars and Stripes (stars_n_stripes@my-deja.com), December 28, 1999.

None of these prophecies involved computers that malfunctioned nor billions of dollars spent in a partially successful attempt to fix it.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 28, 1999.

Who said anything about the end of the world? This is a man made technology problem. The issues surrounding religion came in as the debate evolved. Other than finding comfort in your own faith, religion has nothing to do with Y2K.

The world has never had a shotage of Armageddon freaks.

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), December 28, 1999.


I don't know who compiled this list, but they forgot that guy I see almost every morning who wears a blanket and hasn't taken a bath in a few years. He has been predicting the end of the world as long as I have seen him. Why didn't he make the list? Is it just because he "domestically challenged"?

-- IMREADYRU (paladin456999@yahoo.com), December 28, 1999.

What the h*&* does this have to do with anything? Computers don't care about no stinkin predictions.

-- COLONEL M.I. LITIA (snafu@thecompound.com), December 28, 1999.


What it has to do with religion (in part):

"We need faith in God: the God who brings corporate sanctions in history. We need times so hard that men will turn to God for help because nothing else can help. We need times so hard that good men will stop trusting in the lies of bad men. Faith in God is better than faith in gold, but faith in gold is better than faith in the welfare State. Those Christians who have put their faith in the welfare State have a rude awakening ahead of them. Soon. Gary North, ICE Newsletter, January 1998

Christians have another explanation available: the judgment of God. As soon as the millennium bug hits in full force, pastors will make this their weekly theme. Not today, of course, when warnings to the congregations might save lives. But later, surely. They will go in search of an explicitly biblical social theory that relies on the judgment of God as a means of explanation. I have a suggestion: the five-point biblical covenant model. Today, the Institute for Christian Economics has a near monopoly on this position, but not much demand. Demand will increase exponentially in 2000 and beyond. That will be a great opportunity for those who have read Ray Sutton's That You May Prosper and the books in my Biblical Blueprints Series. A great reversal is coming. The compromise of 1660 is about to come unglued. Be prepared. People don't perceive what is about to hit them. They will perceive it when it hits. Then they will search for answers: cause-and-effect explanations... Some of my many critics have understood what I am doing. I am arming a handful of people - a remnant of a remnant - with advanced warning and a biblical explanation. I am not getting encouragement from urban pastors. But I am getting support from a handful of laymen who perceive that they are at risk, society is at risk, and secular humanism is at risk. To lay blame effectively, you must be willing and able to predict the event. That's what I'm doing. I'm also laying the groundwork for handing out the blame. The battle for the minds of men after 1999 will, to a great extent, be a battle to assign and evade blame for the millennium bug. Christians will be in a position to win this battle. Gary North, ICE Newsletter, July 1998."

And the other part? Book sales. Praying to the god of money.

-- Michelle (c@ntdo.it), December 28, 1999.


Notice that ALL of the "Jesus is coming" crackpots are, & have always been, protestants. The Catholic church has stayed out of that whole business.

More proof that the farther you wander from Rome, theologically, the goofier it gets.

-- not that any (proof@was.needed), December 28, 1999.


Oh, you're SO right, 'not that any'. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and all those witch burnings in England were mighty far away from Rome, all right.

The Pope is against reliable birth control for married couples. THAT is also insanity.

-- Michelle (c@ntdo.it), December 28, 1999.


LISTEN UP TROOP!

Charlie don't surf and 'COMPUTERS DON'T PRAY'!

AT EASE. Light 'em if ya got 'em.

-- COLONEL M.I. LITIA (snafu@thecompound.com), December 28, 1999.


oh great, more god crap. Y2K has NOTHING to do with middle eastern monotheistic dribble. Maybe the FBI is right about some of these nutcases.

-- Yawn (same@old.crap), December 28, 1999.


Terrorism is never motivated by logic. Mostly by religion, which is the antithesis of logic (faith). Perhaps you meant that the y2k COMPUTER problem has nothing to do with Middle Eastern monotheistic drivel.

-- Michelle (c@ntdo.it), December 28, 1999.

Michelle... Who do you intend to 'blame' Y2K on? Who will be your 'chosen' one. Who will you blame? If you are able to find a KJV Bible that you can search, search on "is as a thousand years". Read the whole chapter, them come back and tell me we weren't warned. We are all responsible.

-- (...@.......), December 28, 1999.

Terrorism is never motivated by logic, mostly by religion... That is patently absurd and indicates you were not around to watch what happened in Viet-Nam and Cuba. You obviously are not paying attention to what is happening NOW in Columbia, Peru, and to a lesser extent Bolivia. You don't seem to remember what happened in the Phillipeans either. Child, terrorism is ALWAYS motivated at some level by a desire for political power. Terrorists want to control things. You may try to say they want to control things for their God but I will have to laugh my hind end off if you do. Do you for one moment think that Osmam Ben Laden's religious facade is real? Are you that naieve? He wears that mantle because the sheeple he leads follow that mantle and it lends a 'cloak' of holiness to him... He is a Billionair politician... not a religious nut. Did you not notice Yasar Arafat attending Christmas Mass in Jerusalem over the holiday? Do you actually believe a true Muslim would attend a Catholic Mass? He attended that mass because he is a terrorist turned politician and it server his cause. You are so deluded. It is sad...

-- (...@.......), December 28, 1999.

Well said, Michael...

.....And I for one am quite familiar with 2Peter:3.

-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), December 28, 1999.


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