Posted on 10/23/2002 1:04:07 AM PDT by Roscoe
OP, In my early youth when I was "denominational," I converted from a baptist-like denomination to a presbyterian denomination. When it comes to philosophical and theological points like free will vs. determinism, I don't think either group has got it right.
However, (at least in recent centuries) when it comes to things like nutty End-Times Millennialism, the Calvinists usually are much less dangerous than the free-willers. I feel much safer when a staid Calvinist reads Revelation and doesn't take it all literally, than when Jerry Falwell sends mass mailers to #3Fan and Roscoe reminding them to vote in droves for pro-Armageddon "conservatives."
A recurring theme in Murray Rothbard's economic history is an almost cyclical pattern of insane religious Millennialists plunging civilization into near total destruction. Rothbard often ties these movements to Calvinist authoritarian revivalists (and he usually considers Catholicism to have a counter-acting moderating influence on these crises).
But I think its clear that in these dark days in which we live, it is the mob-response of free-willer Baptists to the mass psychological operation of insane TV evangelists/network news that is paving the way to destruction.
I love Baptists too (a few of them anyway...).
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