[DTaggart]

I'll take that bet.

[Pitiricus]

I never bet on a certainty, the certainty is that all that won't happen...

I am sure fed up of being told I don't understand the Tanakh by people who wouldn't know the difference between a tet and a tav...

All this second coming mishmash enter in the category of how analphabetes understand a book...

BTW this kind of hysteria has been going on for 1700 years at least...

[wizardoz]

My younger sister loves those Left Behind books.

Anyway. Hope you have your flame-retardant jammies on.

[3AngelaD]

This guy has obviously never seen Michaelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

[wasp69]

I just love a "tolerant" liberal to quote scripture to me. I would be willing to bet the horrible bigot Christian authors donate much more to charity than this commie hairball.

[Phantom Lord]

Which side are you betting on?

I will bet all of my lifes fortunes that the end of the world doesn't come within 10 years.

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

I don't think one should wager with the anti-christ.

[Strategerist]

Man, Kristof seems to have ripped me off....

On various Apocalyptikook threads (usually about them lying about increases in earthquakes, etc.) I've offered to bet any amount of money that the World doesn't end within the next 10, 25, 50 years, or whatever.

[Mister Baredog]

Being wrong has rarely been so lucrative

Just look at Michael Moore.

These morons are incapable of gettin it, moral equivalency is their dogma, there is no right and wrong, just opinions and feelings, pathetic kool-aiders.

[escapefromboston]

The problem I have with the "lef behind" series is that its poorly written. I mean we used to have Christian writers like CS Lewis and GK Chesterton and now we have these two guys.
(though I guess one could argue most "popular" fiction today isn't as good as it used to be)

Also it took two people to write the "left behind" series? yeesh.

[Edgerunner]

Merchandising...The REAL money is in Merchandising!

[atomicpossum]

But I've sat down in Pakistani and Iraqi mosques with Muslim fundamentalists, and they offered the same defense: they're just applying God's word.

If Komrade Kristoff were truly being intellectually honest, he wouldn't take the tired tack of 'Christian Fundamentalist= Islamic Fundamentalist.' The argument he outlines for the Christian side is 'God Will Judge You,' and the one for the Islamic side is 'WE Will Judge You.' He's being dishonest in equating them, but I'm sure he feels no need to be fair to people he so oobviously loathes.

[evets]

When will Christ return?
"Sit at my right hand, until I make a footstool of your enemies."
Then.

[pissant]

Uh Mr. Kristof, the book is a novel of fiction. To say that everyone who reads the books thinks that this is what is coming soon is a serious leap. These guys are in business to sell books.

[go_W_go]

"...enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a born-again Christian"

Where is this depicted? Christ returns, and MERCIFULLY allows everyone to live ETERNALLY! The only difference is WHERE you spend that eternity... There is no "slaughter" in the second coming of Christ...

Jeff

[Earthdweller]

Matthew 6:19, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth." Or Matthew 19:21, where Jesus advises a rich man: "Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. . . . It will be hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
-----
Keep reading. Maybe the real meaning will come to you.

[F16Fighter]

If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering.

They already have -- it's called the 'Koran'...And they intend to create hell on earth...

Critic NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (and assumbably a gnasher of teeth) has forgotten LaHaye and Jenkins has written a novel -- although the Bible has indeed earmarked certain "non-believers" with the distinct possibility of hell -- or at least "separation from the presense of God."

[Portnoy]

When I started reading the Left Behind series, they seemed to have promise, but somewhere around the fourth book, the writing became lame, the margins became wider and the story appeared repetitive. The whole idea of a Tribulation Force battling the anti-Christ became silly.

It was a good concept that would have made a great three book trilogy. Regardless, the series has sold millions of copies. (So what do I know!) I may borrow the last book from the library just to see how they portray the Second Coming...

[all4one]

"If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering. We should hold ourselves to the same standard."

One need not look further than the islamic koran....where it tells the muslim followers to "kill all infadels". How is that for "Hatemongering"?

[Steve_Seattle]

Liberal Christians do not like to acknowledge the apocalyptic side of Jesus' message - they find it embarrassing. But scholars generally agree that those apocalyptic passages are among the most certainly authentic statements of Jesus. Nevertheless, I'm not into the specifics of the "Left Behind" series; I don't think it necessarily represents accurate Biblical scholarship.

[killjoy]

Back in the 1970s, my Grandmother was a big follower of all the end of the world religious nonsense. She would go on and on about how the world was about to end and Jesus was going to come back very soon and save everyone. I remember once asking her, "If the world is going to end soon, why do I need to do my homework?" It was an important question for someone in elementary school. Her answer, "Just in case". LOL.