{"id":13705,"date":"2015-04-15T13:47:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T17:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=13705"},"modified":"2015-04-15T13:47:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T17:47:42","slug":"another-teotwawki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/another-teotwawki\/","title":{"rendered":"Another TEOTWAWKI"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"John<\/a>TEOTWAWKI – The End Of The World As We Know It – has been predicted<\/strong> ever since humans looked up in wonder at the sky and decided it was peopled with invisible beings. Beings who wanted to do us harm, it seems. And as quickly as we people the sky, there developed an industry predicting when they would harm us, which soon led to the invention of the cash register.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia<\/a> has a long list of dates predicted for the end of the world over the last two millennia. So far, every prophecy has been wrong. But because we’re here now, you already knew that.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t stop televangelist John Hagee<\/a> from joining the growing list of failed prophets. Oh, and not only is he warning\u00a0us about it, he’s written a book<\/a> about his predictions too, made it into a movie and a theatrical event, and will host a live TV show about it on April 15.\u00a0Ka-ching! the cash register sings.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, there’s almost always a commercial hook on prophecy these days… the more money you shell out, the greater the likelihood you’ll be saved. Apocalyptic prophecies seem to make people open their wallets a lot more than usual, so it’s good business. And look at all the free media attention it garners!<\/p>\n

Like any good angler, Hagee is playing his audience, making sure the hook is set firmly. He wants them to believe in\u00a0the so-called blood moon prophecy<\/a>, when,<\/p>\n

…an ongoing tetrad (a series of four consecutive lunar eclipses\u2014coinciding on Jewish Holidays\u2014with six full moons in between, and no intervening partial lunar eclipses) which began with the April 2014 lunar eclipse is a sign of the end times as described in the Bible in Acts 2:20 and Revelation 6:12.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, it’s all bunk. It always has been and always will be. End of days, end of the world: not happening. Eclipses are natural and frequent occurrences, not some supernatural event.<\/p>\n

I’ve written about these failed predictions in the past – including Howard Camping<\/a> and Jose de Jesus Miranda<\/a>\u00a0and the so-called Mayan doomsday<\/a> – all of them a load of codswallop (or, as Conrad Black might\u00a0call it, “diaphanous piffle…”) brewed from\u00a0a potent stew of religious and\/or New Age mumbo-jumbo, spiced with gullibility, fear and ignorance. And topped with gobs of liberally cherry-picked, quotes from a religious source – usually the Bible (and often from the wacky and usually misinterpreted or misunderstood\u00a0Book of Revelations).<\/p>\n

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Hagee doesn’t stray from that tried-and-true formula. Nothing wakes up the congregation and has them writing cheques faster than warning them they need to pay up before the Hairy Thunderer arrives and gobbles them all up. As USA Today<\/a> reports:<\/p>\n

He cites Acts 2:19-20 as a sign: “And I will show wonders in Heaven above and signs in the Earth beneath, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.”
\nIn extensive remarks available online on his interpretation of the Blood Moons, Hagee says, “I believe that the heavens are God’s billboard, that He has been sending signals to planet Earth, and we just haven’t been picking them up.”
\nHe adds: “God is literally screaming at the world: ‘I’m coming soon.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In another interview<\/a> about the film made from his book, Hagee was reported saying:<\/p>\n

“When people leave this film they are going to be amazed at the absolute control that God has over everything that happens on planet earth,” the Cornerstone Church pastor declared, “God is in total control of men, and nations, and kings and armies, he’s in control of their life.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which certainly opens a can of theological worms: so Hagee’s god controls ebola? Typhoid? Tornadoes? Tsunamis? And lets children starve or be killed by cancer, lets ISIS rape and brutally butcher innocent people? It sound like\u00a0Hagee’s deity should be put on trial for crimes against humanity like any war criminal. But I digress;\u00a0I\u00a0must save the age-old problem of evil for another post.<\/p>\n

Not all Christians fall for the likes of Hagee or Camping. in fact, several Christian websites even debunk his claims. Bible.ca<\/a> goes to great lengths to refute Hagee’s\u00a0blood money<\/del> moon prophecies, trying to prove that Hagee’s biblical interpretations are incorrect… it’s a bit of an ouroboros<\/a>\u00a0approach and rather dense with numbers.\u00a0Yowusa.com<\/a>, another Christian site, also\u00a0poo-poos the notion these events are aligned with historical events:<\/p>\n

Detailed study of Judaism in history shows that significant historical events more typically have occurred AFTER Blood Moon Tetrads \u2013 hardly indicative of a prophetic \u201csign\u201d or harbinger.\u00a0Examples are tetrads occurring AFTER a historical event:<\/p>\n