Apocalysts Now sic
“Apocalysts Now” (sic.)
by David S Katz Mar 10, 06 posted from here. url: http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume121issue2_more.php?id=1954_0_41_0_C
David S. Katz is chair of the Department of History, Tel Aviv University, and author of The Occult Tradition
What if you not only believed that the world was going to end but had the power to make it happen? David S Katz explores the modern occult--
Conservative American columnist Daniel Pipes concludes a recent article for the New York Sun on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the following words: “The most dangerous leaders in modern history are those… equipped with… a mystical belief in their own mission. That, combined with his expected nuclear arsenal, makes him an adversary who must be stopped, and urgently.” As evidence of Ahmadinejad’s mysticism Pipes cites the fact that he believes in Mahdaviat, the ‘second coming’ of the ‘Mahdi’, an Islamic version of the Messiah. Such radical religious beliefs, held by the leader of a powerful nuclear state, Pipes argues, will have ominous consequences. No doubt he is right. But if Pipes is concerned about the rise of powerful nuclear-armed men who believe in the second coming, he might have looked a little closer to home. Forget Iran. The mainstay of religious radicalism and mainstream occultism, is the United States, and America already has the bomb. More than one.
Consider these statistics: 95 per cent of Americans believe in God; 86 per cent believe in Heaven; 78 per cent believe in life after death; 72 per cent believe in angels; 71 per cent believe in Hell; 65 per cent believe in the Devil; 34 per cent believe that the Bible is inerrant. But then again only 40 per cent believe they have actually had contact with the dead (source Kosmin and Lachman and The Economist).
America is a country where beliefs of this sort are commonplace. According to the National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI) (whose estimates are more cautious than some) 20 per cent of the American population – 50 million people – can be called Evangelical Christians; that is, Fundamentalists. While Fundamentalist beliefs can appear extreme, in terms of numbers American Fundamentalism is not a fringe phenomenon.
Fundamentalism is a term more often used than understood, applied in a rather casual way to literalist followers of many religious texts. In relation to American Christianity, however, the term does have a clear historical origin. The word ‘Fundamentalism’ originally referred to a series of a dozen pamphlets entitled The Fundamentals which were distributed free of charge by the American Bible League between 1909 and 1915. The project was funded by two brothers, Lyman and Milton Stewart, who had made their fortunes in the California oil industry, and 250,000 were printed.
The Fundamentals emphasized two key points. The first was the truth of the infallible Bible, the conviction that the Old and New Testaments represent the complete and exact word of God and are the comprehensive and final authority over faith and practice. The second point stressed the concept of the ‘born again’ Christian, the insistence that salvation and eternal life come only as the free gift of God’s grace through a radical and sudden commitment to Christ.
Fundamentalism has thrived in America since the end of the Second World War, usually under the name Evangelical Christianity, which is seen as less pejorative. The success of the movement since 1945 is due to a number of factors. The first is the general prosperity of the post-war years, for Fundamentalism is a faith of the economically comfortable, and in that it is similar to Calvinism in general. Secondly, there was a religious revival during the 1950s, when Fundamentalism successfully reflected the values of the times. Billy Graham, that era’s most prominent preacher, described by George W Bush as ‘America’s pastor’, dressed like a successful businessman and used television to convince viewers to make a ‘decision for Christ’. He spoke the language of American individualism, emphasizing personal sin and the benefits of coming to Christ. The third factor was the perceived threat of communism, which came to replace evolution as the chief satanic ideology in the Fundamentalist cosmology. It was an easy substitution: like evolution, communism came from abroad, it spread subversively and uncontrollably, and it undermined Christianity. Russia was seen as the headquarters of the Antichrist on Earth, and this political stance endeared Fundamentalists to American administrations, and anti-communist politicians to Fundamentalists, for many decades.
[Please click here to read the rest of this article, as it is not my own, and is, in total 5 pages long. Don’t wanna do that? Right click here to download an MS Word doc of the article to your hard drive. Remember, this is from http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/ okay!?]
Peace,
Haji
by David S Katz Mar 10, 06 posted from here. url: http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume121issue2_more.php?id=1954_0_41_0_C
David S. Katz is chair of the Department of History, Tel Aviv University, and author of The Occult Tradition
What if you not only believed that the world was going to end but had the power to make it happen? David S Katz explores the modern occult--
Conservative American columnist Daniel Pipes concludes a recent article for the New York Sun on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the following words: “The most dangerous leaders in modern history are those… equipped with… a mystical belief in their own mission. That, combined with his expected nuclear arsenal, makes him an adversary who must be stopped, and urgently.” As evidence of Ahmadinejad’s mysticism Pipes cites the fact that he believes in Mahdaviat, the ‘second coming’ of the ‘Mahdi’, an Islamic version of the Messiah. Such radical religious beliefs, held by the leader of a powerful nuclear state, Pipes argues, will have ominous consequences. No doubt he is right. But if Pipes is concerned about the rise of powerful nuclear-armed men who believe in the second coming, he might have looked a little closer to home. Forget Iran. The mainstay of religious radicalism and mainstream occultism, is the United States, and America already has the bomb. More than one.
Consider these statistics: 95 per cent of Americans believe in God; 86 per cent believe in Heaven; 78 per cent believe in life after death; 72 per cent believe in angels; 71 per cent believe in Hell; 65 per cent believe in the Devil; 34 per cent believe that the Bible is inerrant. But then again only 40 per cent believe they have actually had contact with the dead (source Kosmin and Lachman and The Economist).
America is a country where beliefs of this sort are commonplace. According to the National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI) (whose estimates are more cautious than some) 20 per cent of the American population – 50 million people – can be called Evangelical Christians; that is, Fundamentalists. While Fundamentalist beliefs can appear extreme, in terms of numbers American Fundamentalism is not a fringe phenomenon.
Fundamentalism is a term more often used than understood, applied in a rather casual way to literalist followers of many religious texts. In relation to American Christianity, however, the term does have a clear historical origin. The word ‘Fundamentalism’ originally referred to a series of a dozen pamphlets entitled The Fundamentals which were distributed free of charge by the American Bible League between 1909 and 1915. The project was funded by two brothers, Lyman and Milton Stewart, who had made their fortunes in the California oil industry, and 250,000 were printed.
The Fundamentals emphasized two key points. The first was the truth of the infallible Bible, the conviction that the Old and New Testaments represent the complete and exact word of God and are the comprehensive and final authority over faith and practice. The second point stressed the concept of the ‘born again’ Christian, the insistence that salvation and eternal life come only as the free gift of God’s grace through a radical and sudden commitment to Christ.
Fundamentalism has thrived in America since the end of the Second World War, usually under the name Evangelical Christianity, which is seen as less pejorative. The success of the movement since 1945 is due to a number of factors. The first is the general prosperity of the post-war years, for Fundamentalism is a faith of the economically comfortable, and in that it is similar to Calvinism in general. Secondly, there was a religious revival during the 1950s, when Fundamentalism successfully reflected the values of the times. Billy Graham, that era’s most prominent preacher, described by George W Bush as ‘America’s pastor’, dressed like a successful businessman and used television to convince viewers to make a ‘decision for Christ’. He spoke the language of American individualism, emphasizing personal sin and the benefits of coming to Christ. The third factor was the perceived threat of communism, which came to replace evolution as the chief satanic ideology in the Fundamentalist cosmology. It was an easy substitution: like evolution, communism came from abroad, it spread subversively and uncontrollably, and it undermined Christianity. Russia was seen as the headquarters of the Antichrist on Earth, and this political stance endeared Fundamentalists to American administrations, and anti-communist politicians to Fundamentalists, for many decades.
[Please click here to read the rest of this article, as it is not my own, and is, in total 5 pages long. Don’t wanna do that? Right click here to download an MS Word doc of the article to your hard drive. Remember, this is from http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/ okay!?]
Peace,
Haji
posted by Hodge E. at 4/29/2006 12:22:00 AM
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