Oh How Embarrassing
I’ve just discovered that Dispensationalism (the kooky and dangerously twisted strand of religious fundamentalism unnervingly popular in the United States) was invented by an Irish guy, in Dublin: one John Nelson Darby no less. We’re really sorry. Dispensationalism preaches the fairy-tale notion of “Rapture”, which is a bit like being abducted by aliens or elves, instead this time it’s God. The idea that they will escape a whole lot of shit coming down the pipeline apparently gives many fundamentalist christians licence to abdicate responsibility and let the environment and civil society go to hell because, well, it’s going to turn into hell anyway. Or something like that. Some of the weird “prophecies” within dispensationalism are also to blame for some of the less rational bone-headed foreign policy moves by successive US governments, especially with regards to the Middle East.
one thing that bothers me is how do we know that the rapture hasn’t already happened? maybe all the chosen ones have been taken away, and we’re just left with the loser-fundamentalists…
if the chosen were taken, then it must have been a very small group… like 3 or so. so small anyway hthat nobody noticed.
Perhaps you could discuss the following sectarian bigotry while you’re at it: “Sexual abuse is disgusting, but it’s not as harmful as the grievous mental harm of bringing children up Catholic in the first place.” – Richard Dawkins, as transcribed in the Dubliner, October 2002.
This is a disgusting piece of bigotry from a famous intellectual. Probably something that the Dublin 4 types would approve of, though. They have no problem with bigotry, as long as it’s aimed at Taigs. They probably want to pretend they were never Taigs in the first place.
You listen to Dawkins you get what you deserve.
OK, what’s your problem with Dawkins? I know he can be an ass at times – he tends to rant too much, but what is it that makes you say “You listen to Dawkins, you get what you deserve”?
I mean that taking what Dawkins says at face value, and then extrapolating them as somehow representative as the views of a majority of rationalists is nonsense. Dawkins is obsessed with a cult of celebrity. I think he is merely maximizing his reproductive fitness.