What the Judeo-Christian Civilization, a Luxury Resort Named Atlantis, and an Albanian Grand Vizier have in Common - Sort of

Between this blog, and one on the war on terror, from time to time I see comments that are: colorful.

An odd pair of comments¹ were left yesterday, in Another War-on-Terror Blog. Unlike many of these ALL-CAP things, the text was fairly restrained, and the author was not Anonymous. Possibly because they were (probably) spam for a book, a website, and a television show.

I'm not sure quite what to make of those comments. I mean to say: a "messenger of Allah" predicted the "Anti-Christ," and the "Anti-Christ" is "the Judeo-Christian civilization" - which apparently has "already been in existence for the past 472 years"?

Crazy Enough to be Sincere?

It's possible that someone's trying to make Muslims and/or Islam look bad - mimicking the sort of 'End Times Bible prophecies' I see in tabloid headlines now and then. I don't know how likely that is.

Or, maybe the comments are for real - in the sense that someone really believes that "messenger of Allah"/"Judeo-Christian civilization" stuff. Again, I don't know how likely that is.

There are many other possible explanations. Give me a running start, and I'll cobble together something involving space aliens and Elvis.

'Prophecies,' History, and a Sense of Scale

Even today, I think folks are impressed by 'ancient' things. Maybe "particularly" today, at least in America: where

• Demolitions specialists study buildings as they're constructed
  • Since they'll probably be torn down in maybe a decade or two
• A person may work in an industry that didn't exist ten years ago
  • And won't exist in another ten
    • Think specialized occupations involving information technology

I suspect that quite a few folks would consider 400 years a huge span of time - really, really ancient.

I think that what's 'old' depends on who's talking, and what they're talking about.

• In my teens, a song that was a year old might be "old." If it was popular, it might be a "golden oldie."
• Today, some folks studying Mars think they've found evidence of "recent" tectonic activity there: maybe within the last 250,000 years or so. (Apathetic Lemming of the North (January 5, 2011)
• Then there are cosmologists - folks who study how the universe works. Estimates vary a bit, but it looks like this particular creation has been around for roughly 13,000,000,000 or 14,000,000,000 years. (Apathetic Lemming of the North (March 23, 2010)

Me? Like many other kids, I was fascinated by dinosaurs; I've been interested in astronomy and cosmology since high school; and my first college degree was in history - ancient history, mostly. My notion of what's 'old,' or 'ancient' may not be quite the same as the American norm.

As for the scale of creation, in both time and space? I am not going to tell God what He can't do.

'Ancient Wisdom'

I also think it's silly to think that folks

• Stopped being smart enough to figure things out, thousands of years ago
• Knew everything there is to know in
  • B.C.
    • 4000
    • 100
  • A.D.
    • 1550
    • 1650
    • 1800
    • 1950

I don't assume that an idea is wonderfully profound just because it's old - or new. By the same token, I don't assume that all old ideas are nonsense - or that all new ones are lies.

And, because I've read what the Church has to say about faith and reason, I have no problem with honest examinations of this creation.

It's Faith and Reason

The point isn't emphasized much, here in America, but a number of high-profile scientists have been Catholics: like Copernicus, Johann Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian Abbot. And Galileo. The historical Galileo - not the heroic martyr of contemporary myth.

I've been over this before:

• "God's Creation: He Seems to Think Big"
  (September 23, 2010)
• "A Thought for the Day: On the Size of Space"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (November 22, 2009)
• "Really Old Dust Grains, a Galactic Collision, and a Lively Interest in God's Creation"
  (August 10, 2009)
• "Faith and Reason, Religion and Science"
  (March 20, 2009)
• "Once it Was Believed / Now We Know"
  Brian's Attic (2003)

"The Judeo-Christian Civilization" is 472 years old?!

Back to those colorful comments again.¹ They asserted that "THE DAJJAL (THE ANTI-CHRIST), ... HAS ALREADY BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR THE PAST 472 YEARS & HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED ... SEE WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS – ... READ THE BOOK 'DAJJAL? THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION!'..."

All caps, with exclamation marks - and I'll get back to that.

So, "the Judeo-Christian civilization" got started 472 years ago?

If those are Earth years, "the Judeo-Christian civilization" has been around since 1539. That's when Henry VIII of England's Great Bible started its first printing run.

1539 is also the year when:

• Hernando DeSoto came to where Tampa Florida is today
• Gurū Nānak Dēv, founder of the Sikh religion, died
• Çelebi Lütfi Pasha became Grand Vizier of Albania

And - Dubai's luxury resort Atlantis has 1,539 rooms!

You see?!! IT ALL FITS TOGETHER!!!

Or, not.

I think - not.

The CIA, Commies, the Antichrist, and Getting a Grip

I'm a practicing Catholic, so I have to be concerned about the Antichrist. A little.

That's not the same as assuming that anybody who disagrees with me is the Antichrist. Or that I can tell when the Last Judgment is coming by counting how many times that little "10" appears near Hamilton's nose.


(derived from USDnotes.jpg, uploaded by Andyhi18 at en.wikipedia, used w/o permission)

Here's what the Catechism has to say about the Antichrist:

"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.⁵⁷⁴ The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth⁵⁷⁵ will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.⁵⁷⁶

"The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatalogical judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,⁵⁷⁷ especially the 'intrinsically perverse' political form of a secular messianism.⁵⁷⁸

"The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.⁵⁷⁹ The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.⁵⁸⁰ God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.⁵⁸¹"
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675-677)

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"ANTICHRIST: The 'deceitful one' referred to in the New Testament, associated with the 'mystery of iniquity' which will precede the second coming of Christ, through which people will be led away from the truth to follow a false 'messianism,' by which man glorifies himself and human achievement in place of God and his Messiah come in the flesh, in whom the kingdom will be fulfilled (675-677)."
(Catechism, Glossary, A)

I've put a sort of 'starter' set of links to what the Catholic Church says about the Last Judgment, Heaven, Hell, and relate topics under Background, below.

Nobody, in my considered opinion, has a monopoly on nuttiness.

You've got your red-white-and-blue-blooded all-Americans who don't seem to have come to grips with the idea that America isn't 13 pretty-much-100-percent-British colonies any more.

There are the folks who apparently are convinced that the CIA 'really' brought down New York City's World Trade Center. It couldn't possibly have been Islamic crazies - that's what wackadoo Christians would expect.

We hear quite a bit about the assortment of mixed nuts who burn Qurans and disrupt funerals at all-too-frequent intervals.

And there are the endemic End Times Bible prophecies. An unusually high-profile one fizzled this year - expect to hear more about Mr. Camping in October.

Does this 'prove' that liberals, or conservatives, or Christians, or Muslims, or any other group, are crazy? At best? Or that we're all dupes of the shape-shifting, space-alien lizard people who 'really' run the world?

No, I don't think so. I do think that the various conspiracy theories; invocations of the Antichrist, or Hitler; and trying to predict the unpredictable; are all indications of human folly - and often stem from a need to blame somebody for unpleasant realities. (Another War-on-Terror Blog (January 14, 2009)

And Now, Something Completely Different: How to Not Look Crazy

I ran into an entertaining - and insightful - look at how crazy people (the author's term) give themselves away when the write. Here's a very brief summary:

• CAPS LOCK
  • Don't use it
• Exclamation points!!!
  • Use SPARINGLY!!!!
    • NOT like THIS!!!!
• Dent ooze pore grinner
  • Grammar matters
  • Write sentences
    • With a boring old capital letter at the start
      • And period at the end
• No long screeds
  • Particularly not as comments in another blog
• Proofread
  • Really
• If you've got a minority opinion - don't be surprised that not everybody agrees with you
• Nobody alive today is Hitler
• Things that almost certainly won't end when you think they will include
  • The world
  • Constitutional rights
  • Society
• Commenting? Respond to the post - not something mentioned in passing

Adapted from:

• "Tips for Not Appearing Crazy on the Internet"
  Frank J. Fleming, Pajamas Media (June 12, 2011)

Sort-of-related(?) posts:

• 'Is there intelligent life on Earth?'
  • "Arizona Dust Storm: THIS MAY BE THE END OF CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT!!!!! - or, not"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (July 6, 2011)
  • "Huckleberry Finn, [redacted] Jim, and Making Sense"
    (June 24, 2011)
  • "Save the - Goldfish?!"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (June 16, 2011)
  • "Apocalypse Whenever"
    (June 14, 2011)
  • "How to Not Sound Crazy - or - THE PARANOIDS ARE AFTER ME!!!"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (June 12, 2011)
• The Antichrist, Fu Manchu, and getting a grip
  • "How Could God Floss His Teeth?"
    (July 2, 2011)
  • "The 1950s, California, and Old-School Thinking"
    (February 16, 2011)
  • "Mind's Made Up About Catholicism? Don't Read This"
    (November 8, 2010)
  • "Haiti: Voodoo, Pat Robertson, and the Catholic Church"
    (January 16, 2010)
  • " 'Catholics and Muslims along with the fake Jews all are Satanic Cults' - Who Knew?"
    (April 2, 2009)

Background, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and:

• Particular judgment
  • 1021-1022
• Heaven
  • 1023-1029
• Final purification, or Purgatory
  • 1030-1032
• Hell
  • 1033-1037
• Last Judgment
  • 1038-1041
• The Hope of the New Heaven and the New Earth
  • 1042-1051

As usual, please note: that's not a thorough list.

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¹ A pair of comments, left in another blog:

"Islam and Dajjal said...

"DAJJAL HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED!!

"DO YOU KNOW THE DAJJAL (THE ANTI-CHRIST), THE ONE-EYED GIANT PROPHECISED BY THE MESSENGER OF ALLAH HAS ALREADY BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR THE PAST 472 YEARS & HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED?

"YOU MAY BE AMAZED TO KNOW THAT IT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM WHAT IT IS THOUGHT TO BE TODAY. TO SEE WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS – VISIT THE WEBSITE http://www.hezbuttawheed.com AND READ THE BOOK 'DAJJAL? THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION!' AND WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY 'DAJJAL? THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION!'."
July 11, 2011 3:36 PM (comment on "Pakistan, America, Cultural Sensitivity, and Giving Terrorists a Break," on Another War-on-Terror Blog (June 19, 2011)

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"aymanbinmoshi said...

"DAJJAL HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED!!

"DO YOU KNOW THE DAJJAL (THE ANTI-CHRIST), THE ONE-EYED GIANT PROPHECISED BY THE MESSENGER OF ALLAH HAS ALREADY BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR THE PAST 472 YEARS & HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED?

"YOU MAY BE AMAZED TO KNOW THAT IT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM WHAT IT IS THOUGHT TO BE TODAY. TO SEE WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS – VISIT THE WEBSITE Islam and Dajjal AND READ THE BOOK 'DAJJAL? THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION!' AND WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY 'DAJJAL? THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION!'."
July 11, 2011 6:34 AM
(comment on "Pakistan, American Aid: What a Mess," Another War-on-Terror Blog (July 10, 2011)

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