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Brian,
You wrote,
> I don't know about you, but I don't know a
> single Christian who is in favor of global
> government.
In my limited experience (nearly all Christians I know are LDS and anti-world government) I'd have to agree. However, I'm sure there are many Christians who are in favor of global government or it would not be promoted as much as it is (are only non-Christians promoting it?). Not all Christians put as much stock in peculiar end-of-the-world interpretations of ancient scriptures like you and the people we both know.
"World-wide" (as far as they could tell) governments were common in ancient times. It's not surprising that religious leaders would write about it and be concerned about it. It was after the fall of the Roman empire that small kingdoms dominated in Europe (the dominant political force later on). Only now are we reapproaching world-wide governments again. There are political/historical/economic reasons for this development. You don't have to require God to be doing it all through Christians or non-Christians.
> Do a search on the contemporaries of the
> ancient Hebrew culture, for example the
> Hittites, Amorites, Jebusites, ancicent
> Babylon, etc. Where are they now?
So what? Some population groups died out, were assimilated, or exterminated. What does that prove? These groups also had religions that claimed they were blessed of the gods, and predicted their successful continuation. Those prophesies failed. The only difference is that the Jewish people survived. Does survival MEAN their God was the true one, that their prophets were true? Maybe they were just lucky. Maybe they were a little smarter, or meaner than the rest. Read how willing they were to kill men, women, children, and beasts for their blood-thirsty deity Yahweh. God isn't a very nice person, is He?
One of the reasons I think atheistic societies did not survive in ancient times is because if/when they did temporarily exist the people were independent-enough thinkers that they wouldn't easily go to war or form mobs and ended up being destroyed or assimilated by their more mob-inclined neighbors.
Do a search on worthy Christians through out time. They prayed to God for blessings, yet sometimes lived horribly painful lives (so have non-Christians). Some of them were promised long life and happiness by their religious leaders. Where are they? They're all dead and their corpses are still decomposing in their graves. Their dead bodies haven't resurrected, have they? You could dig up their bones to find out if it wasn't illegal due to superstitious worries about "disturbing" or "desecrating" the dead.
> Why is Israel, which is no bigger than a small
> state in the US, and Jerusalem playing a such a
> significant role in world politics? There is no
> oil there. If the world is hell-bent [no pun
> intended] on denying the truth in the Bible,
> why don't they just ignore it so it will go
> away?
I thought Alex and I already gave some indications of this.
Palestine became so important because Christians made it important. If the Crusades had not happened, if Israel had not been re-established by Christian-believing Western victors of WWII, and such things then the area would be not much more important than other sites in Asia Minor, Northern Africa, or Mesopotamia. It probably would have all gone away if Constantine hadn't taken it under his wing.
Israelis were sometimes difficult to rule. This is why they were sometimes removed from the area and dispersed throughout the ancient world. It wasn't Yahweh that did it, it was Israelis who believed in Yahweh that unintentionally pressured governments to enact the diaspora.
Jews were not well-liked by the Christian communities they lived among. They tended to keep to their own people. They were hard salesmen and shrewd financiers. Governments often saw them as a risk to their security. It's sadly ironic that Christian communities through out time were led to dislike Jews because they were blamed for crucifying someone who may never have existed!
I see the Jewish-Christian tradition as an example of a religion that has survived because it adopted pretty good ideas acceptable to the communities of the day, had some pretty talented leaders and followers, adapted as society changed, and was lucky. I don't see it as evidence for the benevolent hand of the blood-thirsty Yahweh taking care of his special people through out time.
I welcome the day when othewise rational people finally throw off the superstitious religious beliefs of our ancestors and their childhood and embrace science. |
