"You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren't troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet."
Author: Matthew 24 Verses #: 6
Jesus tells his listeners to not be concerned about wars or even rumors of wars. He boldly claims that war is necessary for the end of time to come. Millions of christian americans wake up everyday and hope that they will be raptured, the world will be destroyed by war and Jesus will come back and set up a theocratic world-wide government that will last for 1,000 years while satan is subdued. At the end of the 1,000 year millenium, the angels will fight it out, at which time god and his armies of angels will win and eternity will be established. For a believing nation, that clings to the "supposed" words of a palestinian prophet from 2,000 years ago, possession of an earth destroying military empire is strangely comforting. We have it within out power to fulfill this prophecy and no one seems troubled. The peace movement is "dead" or at least nearly silenced as unpatriotic and unbiblical. God has always approved the killing of tribes outside of the hebrews and christians. "Love your enemies" does not apply to Iraqi's, Afghani's or Iranians. It is nearly impossible to convince an american christian to oppose the wars of the past decade and the next decade. At the very least they consider it a hopeless endeavor to oppose war, and in a larger view, it is not in their best "eternal" interests to do so.
Consequently, the earth is now poised with muslims who are taught that Islam must dominate the planet and the christians who believe that war in the middle east is necessary to usher the "end times". The children on both sides will suffer a great deal in the next century because of these ancient prophets and their books. Maybe humans should at least be humane and not create offspring who are destined by the prophets to kill and be killed on behalf of their commands. Just because a prophet declared divine revelation doesn't mean that he heard from god or was god. Panda's have stopped breeding in the face of ecosystem stress, should humans do any less when we are poised to destroy the planet?
