In this post I'm going to be referring to the Christian Baptist church teachings I grew up around. I recognize that these views do not represent the majority of Christianity, but it does represent the majority of Christians I know.
The Pastor says that nuclear war cannot and will not happen. "There will be wars and rumours of wars when the end is near" he touts. The Christian view is that humanity cannot destroy itself; Jesus will come back before that happens! So, obviously all out nuclear war won't happen, as that would be the apocalypse, and the apocalypse is only gonna happen a specific way.
Does anyone see the danger in this thinking? As a Christian, I think there is the distinct possibility humanity can wipe itself out before Jesus comes back, at least mostly.
I have a question for you, if you're a Christian. Do you think that all out nuclear war can possibly happen before the rapture and all that? Or do you think God will prevent it?
I assumed that rapture was the world getting nuked (no life left).
It has been obvious, for some time, that the Religious Right wants to accelerate the process of killing the world so that they will end up in heaven. To this end, they are building up arms in the Middle East.
Reverend Jimmy Swaggart has been gleefully saying that Jews will be wiped off the face of the earth, but, with great sadness, Reverend Swaggart says that the Jews will die at the hands of their traditional enemies. Hence, the need to build up the powder keg that we call the Middle East.
You can see that military spending in the Middle East is greater now than ever....even more than in Russia (and Russia is a super-power and currently in a war).
Religious dogma can lead people astray....make them think that they cannot be hurt by a nuclear war.
If God protects us, then why don't theists stand in the middle of busy freeways defying cars to hit them, or jump off of tall buildings? Certainly the Jim Jones cult committed suicide (though they didn't know that the Kool Aid was really poisoned. And, the Heavens Gate Cult (of Reverend Applewhite) committed suicide with the idea that their souls would ride the Hale-Bopp comet around the solar system for eternity. I think of the Christian predilection for mass suicide as a type of "Doctor Strangelove" obsession. Dr. Strangelove rode a nuke as it was aimed at earth to destroy it.
I see a vast disparity between the fantasy world of theists and the world of reality. So, when the theists vote in great numbers to elect leaders, I worry that they might have some kind of suicide attack with nukes and kill everyone. It seems obvious that "fighting evil" and "fighting the Axis of Evil" has religious overtones. It makes me think that the US had a holy jihad against the Middle East, and attacked it merely because it was somewhat near the terrrorists in the Middle East.
Should we follow suicidal religious zealots?
Certainly the suicidal religious zealots have good reasons for voting in large numbers for presidents and having them appoint Supreme Court justices for lifetime appointments. They want to end abortion (they consider it to be murder, especially in late term). But few want late term abortions. They want to have prayer in schools, led in their religion, with their bibles (certainly not in a Satanic religion with a Satanic bible)--either would be a violation of the separation of church and state, which allows all of us to freely practice religion. Theists believe that the environment is not important because they will be raptured to heaven (so they are done with it and it is not necessary anymore).