2 out of 5 Americans believe Jesus is going to come down out of the clouds sometime in the next 50 years
This is the 3rd in our 287 part series, “2 out of 5 Americans Are Idiots.” Sam Harris at Idea City ‘05 claimed that 44% of Americans believe that Jesus is (or probably is) going to come down out of the clouds sometime in the next 50 years. This is the transcript from his excellent talk:
22% of Americans claim to be certain, literally certain that Jesus is going to come down out of the clouds sometime in the next 50 years. Another 22% think he probably will sometime in the next 50 years. That’s 44% of the electorate. Now of course, this belief does not exist in isolation. It’s not an accident that 44% of Americans also believe that the creator of the universe literally promised the land of Israel to the Jews. This is in his capacity as an omniscient real estate broker. And these beliefs are knit together with a myriad of other beliefs, infatuations with the end of history, with apocalyptic prophecy. And these beliefs have geopolitical consequences. This is not just what people believe on Sundays.
It’s actually not an exaggeration to say that something like half of us, something like 44% of the American population, if they turned on their television sets and saw that a mushroom cloud had replaced New York City, they would see a silver lining in this cloud because it would be a portent to them. It would presage that the best thing that is ever going to happen is about to happen, the return of Christ.
I don’t think Jesus is going to come down out of the clouds. But I do think the human race has less than 200 years remaining, less than half of which will be worth living.
I am certain that of the members of the human family living today, no less than 100% of them will meet their maker in the next 200 years or less…
Dead end Argument. Believe it or not, Jesus is coming soon. Better be ready
you do realize that people have been saying the exacty same thing for almost 2000 years, don’t you?
Jesus- “Only the father up above knows the hour. ”
As for God hating gay people, God hates all sin. If you look at the words of the Bible you will see this lecturer picks and chooses his quotes out of context
Listen, to all who are going to respond to the text of this post or any of the comments: invoking a mystery or set of mysteries as explanation for action or consequence is not proof of anything except that you, as a single human being, believe something unprovable. That’s all. It is no help or hindrance to you if any other person has a similar arbitrary opinion on a similar arbitrary subject — just as you are no help or hindrance to them if you have an opinion agreeable with one of theirs.
If religious faith were based on proof and logic it would be called science — which would make it no better or worse than it is already. One person’s imaginary friend has no intrinsic value for — nor has any affect on — any other person or their imaginary friend. If you believe Jesus is coming, bully for you (pun intended, in United Fundamentalist States of America), but your opinion matters not at all to anyone else. Just as my opinion that Jesus is a masterful marketing fiction designed to make poor people self-loathing and rich people wealthier matters not at all to anyone but me.
“If you look at the words of the Bible you will see this lecturer picks and chooses his quotes out of context”
And I could manipulate quotes from “Winnie the Pooh” to make it sound as though Piglet were the sovereign lord of utopian island nation who hates bumblebees; who cares? “Piglet’s” feelings about bumblebees are equally valid as “God’s” feelings about gay people, and hold exactly the same weight, as the imagined attitudes of fictional people. And before you claim that God is real while Piglet isn’t, have proof.
Why bother getting riled up? Why not worry if your kid’s feel loved, if you are paying your mortgage, if your spouse is honest with you, if your boss thinks you’re worthy of promotion? Those concerns actually effect your life.
Thought-provoking post, JD.
I love it! Someone else who gets it. I do believe in a creator, but I escaped the “Christian Cult” about two years ago. I asked too many questions. I amazes me how emotionalism is somehow the pathway to blind faith. Keep the real truth coming!!
Believe what you want. If you could explain where a persons personality comes from, or how the brain works. The greatest fallacy of man is thinking he knows it all, or will know it all. As for God, not only does he exist, but he has placed in each one of us a desire to know him.
As for Christian Cults they do exist. They won’t answer all your questions. I have yet to hear a question that is unanswerable. Maybe you didn’t like the answer.
just to much talk just to say i don’t believe in god,the truth is that all of this are false religions soon to be destroyed for all the pain they have cause to the word thru the ages,man made religions,false prophets,killing in the name of god,they are all gided by satan couse he knows hes got a short period of time,and then the real kingdom of God,not the one this evangelist preachers preach couse all they are after is money(their God)will take over
No one will ever know the exact hour. Ever. Not even Jesus himself claims to know that exact hour. There’s an old saying in the Bible, “You fool, you do not know that this day your soul will be required of you!” You people don’t get it. If death does not come today it might come tomorrow, and even if you live a long life you’ll meet God in less than one hundred and twenty years from your birth. I expect to live up to about eighty years old. I now have less than forty years to meet my maker, if he doesn’t decide he wants to see me right away. So, forget about Jesus coming back (which will happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it) your whole life is one big countdown ….
God of the gaps, John, god of the gaps.
Thank God people don’t go on and on about The Return of Hitler, or the Return of Stalin. Such mean are dead and will never return. Christ is the only one who deserves to return to us. And I don’t know what the fuss is anyway. So what if multitudes of “ignorant” people decide to believe a man who might have never lived (according to many of you) will descend from a dark grey, pollution-filled, acid-rain, nuclear fallout, ozone depleated sky? In the next fifty years or so we’ll see volcanoes erupting, sea creatures dying by the thousands, water levels rising, our food will be so poisoned we can’t eat it, our air will be unbreathable anyway, animals will run amok seeking food and will most likely tear our babies from our hands, we will be choking and coughing up blood and saying a very good morning to all the corpses. So who the hell cares if some foolish Christians decide they want to have a little hope! Give the world a break, you fools! We’re doomed anyway, aren’t we? This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, even if I can’t find any matches.
Furthermore, You all messed it all up, you raped the whole world of its resources and left nothing but a polluted filthy piece of junk not worth anything, so you have no right to say anything. Christ will return to set up a garden, to show mankind that only he knows how to do it right. You blew it. Soon it will be Jesus’ turn to do it right. What do you care anyway if God takes over the world? Most of you believe the grave is the end of the road anyway, right? Again, you have nothing to say, because your hope is in the grave. And you will not escape to the stars either, because sinners will not inherit the universe before the meek inherit the earth.
Finally … the grave is your God and your religion. When was the last time you prayed to your God? Can it answer your prayers? Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t speak, or think, or act, it just accepts. Your God is a wonderful God and it is a simple religion — your God makes only one demand of you — Thou Shalt One Day Cease To Live. Hey, yeah, like I want to be a part of that religion. Sign me up. One can do anything he wants, there is no such thing as sin, and you can still get into the kingdom. Have you visited your God lately, made any plans to see it? How much did that little plot of land cost? Enter amount here ________. Wherein lies your hope in your God? What does your sacred book say? “Life’s a ***** and then you die!” Ah, yes! I remember that! I used to be a part of your religion, you see! I now believe in empty tombs and empty graves. Make of it what you will.
Why the Evangelicals have as much blood on their hands as Bush does:
2 John 1:9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. 10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: 11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
Radical Westboro Baptist Church claims Amish community was punished by an angry god.
Shirley Phelps Roper has done it again and said that God is responsible for the deaths of the five young Amish girls shot by the local milkman who was obviously insane with bloodlust. I’m sorry, people, this woman needs to be hospitalized, she is clearly ill and needs medical attention, psychicatric attention.
If she actually knew the Bible she would know this verse:
Ezekiel 33:11 - Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Please, people, have this woman put away for her own good, and for the good of those people who are following her.
i like this guy nate,he’s funny,u make really good coments,ans bad ones too,like the last three before this one above,or maybe is my spanglish i didn’t understand half of it but that’s ok. this last one i like……
Thanks, I guess. What bad comments did I make? Please explain. Are you talking about my nasty little parody of real life?
http://jdallen.org/news/christian-terrorist-attempts-car-bombing-in-iowa/
I mean, what did the Evangelicals think was going to happen to the prisoners. Did they think the Muslims were going to be tickled into giving confessions?
I think I might know the meaning now of that verse in the book of Revelation. “And they died for their own sins.”
You see, the Rapture is the signal that splits up two separately distinctive periods of prophetic Biblical history: The Dispensation of Grace and the Dispensation of, well, let’s call it Judgement. During The Dispensation of Grace, you accept that Jesus died for your sins. During the Dispenation of Judgment, you must die for your own sins.
If the Rapture does not come, and the world starts chopping off Christians heads by the thousands, the Evangelicals will be left wondering what Dispensation they are in and this will confuse them greatly.
Besides, during the Dispensation of Judgement, you no longer have to treat people nicely, since they are but vermin and filth and to be tossed away like so much garbage.
It does not make any sense that Jesus would Rapture the same people that started Armageddon then return with those same people who started all the trouble in the first place, in order to rule the earth.
The Evangelicals get taken up into the sky, then we have seven years of very big trouble, then the Evangelicals return with Jesus to finish off all sinners. This does not make sense.
No. I think the Christians will stay on earth with everybody else and suffer at the hands of those they angered. They’ll go through the Tribulation (seven years of trouble) THEN Christ will come.
But nobody knows the day or the hour.
The Evangelicals will be either the cause of the Great Christian Persecution or the Perpetrators of the Great Christian Persecution. They don’t have any other option at this time. They have placed themselves between a rock and a hard place.
God have mercy on all our souls.
[…] This is the 4th in our 287 part series, “2 out of 5 Americans Are Idiots.†According to a recent Time poll, 38 % of Americans still support the President’s decision to invade Iraq and that a stable democracy will form. Only 38% of respondents in the TIME poll now support President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, down from 42% three months ago. A similar number believe that the new Iraqi government will succeed in forming a stable democracy, while 59% believe this is unlikely. […]
I’m sorry, I just have these ideas and have to express them as best I can. Do the Evangelicals think Jesus is some kind of monster? Why would Jesus rescue people who are causing trouble in the world, then keep them safe for seven years while the earth got torn asunder by earthquakes and diseases and such, and then being back the same people who started all the trouble to rule on earth? I mean, yeah, God is forgiving and all, but, I don’t think God would be that unfair. At Bush’s order thousands of people will be imprisoned and questioned, and at that same time Jesus will make a brief appearance, he will say, “Well done thou good and faithful servants! Come on up!” and the trumpet is blown and the Evangelicals go up into the sky! Then the pissed off people of earth (like the Muslims) who were tortured and had bombs dropped on them go to war with the Christians and chop off all their heads? Wait? What Christians? I thought they were all taken up? Oh, I see, any Christian that was NOT an Evangelical! I see! So, these “Left Behind” Christians get all their heads chopped off! Meanwhile the Evangelicals are in heaven living in spiritual luxury! And Jesus is still telling them, “Well done, thou good and faithful servants! Now it’s time for us to go back and finish the job you started!”
No.
Jesus is not a monster. Not my Savior. “Peace on earth and good will to all men,” was announced at his birth, and the Evangelicals will never change that.
Wow. I guess that’s what I’ve been trying to say all along. You can check out some of my other comments at my Blog …
http://christianprisoners.blogspot.com/
I go under the name Paulsthorn. And I do hope I’ve been a thorn in the side of the Evangelicals. They have hijacked Christinaity much like they accuse the Muslims of hijacking Islam in order to forward their agendas. They say it’s for our own good. They say they’re doing it all in the name of God, in the name of love.
I don’t trust them at all.
You’ll find a new weapon in the arsenal of the War of Armageddon the Evangelicals have let loose upon the earth. Get this …
Spraying the bubbles from sparkling wine across the enormous gray bow of the USS George H.W. Bush, the Bush family on Saturday christened the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the 82-year-old former president.
“I know you join me in saying to our father, President Bush, your ship has come in,” the current president said during a ceremony for the last of the Nimitz-class carriers, the CVN 77.
“She is unrelenting, she is unyielding, she is unstoppable,” Bush said, –
– Wait! What was that word? Unstoppable? Didn’t they say something similar about the Titanic? Didn’t some wise woman of that day say she changed her mind about boarding the Titanic because she believed the statement “She is unsinkable” was something like mocking God to his face?
Be sure that God heard this line, “She is unstoppable.” God knows exactly where and how she will sink.
Get off that carrier, people! That carrier is doomed! Make plenty of bones about it! You don’t have to be a prophet to know “She’s gonna sink!”
You see, Bush, you have to add the phrase, “God willing,” to whatever grand statements you make, or … it just isn’t going to work out.
I don’t agree with everything this guy says at this link …
http://jdallen.org/news/2-out-of-5-americans-believe-jesus-is-going-to-come-
down-out-of-the-clouds-sometime-in-the-next-50-years/
… But I do understand his frustration with the world of religion. Too many Christians don’t know when to pull back, retreat from their aggressive attacks. Fact is, Christ is more concerned about the world HEARING THE GOSPEL than OBEYING THE GOSPEL. He says things like, “And then this Gospel will be preached in all the world and then the end will come.” Does this mean we Christians must find converts or we fail to meet some kind of quota? Christians get all in a huff when people don’t convert and actually get angry — this attitude is what brought on the Spanish Inquisition!
Relax, you foolish Christians! Speak of the love of God and leave the results to God! Who do you think you are, forcing others to join our religion, saying “Join us, or else!”? I wish I could take your heads and bang them together until they ring like bells!
I didn’t find very much that I disagreed with when it came to this speaker. I have no idea who he is but a lot of what he said made sense. Even so, I’m under the sneaking suspicion that people like him are way too paranoid about people like us Christians, and damn it to hell if they don’t have good reason to be!
Unless we all come to realize that our beliefs can be used for dangerous things as well as for good things, how are we ever going to figure out exactly what we are doing wrong, or which one of our ministers is leading us astray?
“Woe to the man that trusts in man.” This means no minister is to be trusted implicitly. No man deserves the kind of trust one usually places in God himself!
If any Evangelical says Armageddon is the coolest ever and is coming soon to a theater near you, so to speak, they forget the saying, Amos 5:18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. 19 As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20 Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
Christian heretics! Turn from your desire to see Armageddon fulfilled! For all you have to offer the world is pure darkness!
[…] Does this really surprise anyone? Considering the fact that 41% of Americans still think Saddam was behind 9/11. 44% of Americans think that the second coming of Jesus will take place in the next 50 years. 28% of Americans still think that Bush is doing a great job at running the country. Dr. Miller’s data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century. […]