Tim Callahan
Administrator
Registered: 09-2008
Posts: 387
Karma: 15 (+16/-1)
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
The New Babylon: Another Fundie Pundit makes an ass of himself
In the book of Revelation, John of Patmos referred to the city of "Babylon" as a city resting upon seven hillls (Rev. 17:1 - 9). Of course the city built on seven hills is Rome, and most commentators on Revelation, whatever their leaning, have understood "Babylon" as a code word for Rome.
That is, until recently. Not able to let go of the symbolism of the U.S. "War on Terror," which resulted in our misguided invasion of Iraq; a number of fundamentalists have decided that Babylon = Iraq, which will now rise, due to our interest in Iraq. The following bit of nonsence is from Pat Robertson. I got it by googling "Babylon in Prophecy":
Ladies and gentlemen, we just took over Babylon. The United States is now in the role of liberating a country known as Iraq. It used to be known as Mesopotamia, the area of the Tigris and Euphrates, then it was changed to Iraq, and now we're there. But it's the old Babylon.
Now there was a king of Babylon who probably was their greatest king - about the year 586, 590 B.C. His name was Nebuchadnezzar, and he had a dream where he saw a statue. What he saw of that statue was a head of gold, arms and chest of silver, thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and then he saw feet of iron mingled with miry clay. And when it was all over, a huge stone cut without hands came and smashed down the statue.
Nebuchadnezzar didn't exactly remember what the dream was, and he told his fortune tellers to give him the explanation - "Tell me what the dream means," and nobody could do it. And finally, Daniel, the prophet of the Lord, prayed and said, "God, what is this all about?" So God showed him this statue and what it meant.
He said, first of all, the head of gold meant Nebuchadnezzar. The head of gold meant that this was absolute power. The second was diminished power. Silver wasn't as powerful as gold. And the Meads and the Persians were silver because those people were bound by law. Nebuchadnezzar could do anything he wanted to, and that's exactly what Saddam says: "What's law? It's what I wrote on a scrap of paper." But the Meads and the Persians, if they made a decree, they were bound by it.
Following that was the empire of Alexander The Great. And, you know, he had strictures as well. Not to mention the fact he had an army that rebelled against him when he went too far. Following them were the Romans who were iron. They were very strong, but, again, it was more tending toward democracy. And finally, the feet with clay. This would be a mingling of the power of Rome and the miry clay.
Equating the various sections of the statue of Daniel with various nations has been a hobby for those fascinated with prophecy for years, if not centuries. Pat Robertson, apparently not ashamed of himself for having claimed to have prayed hurricanes away from Virginia years ago (he apparently fell down on the job when Katrina hit New Orleans. But what the hell? They're all a bunch of papists down there anyway), has now decreed that Babylon is . . . well, Babylon. He seems to think that because Nebuchadnezar's dream in Daniel said that all the empires following the Chaldean would be inferior to it. that this must be true. In fact, al those following the Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean were far greater in both terretory and power.
What particularly underlines Robertson's ignorance is that he, and whoever serves as his editorial staff, can't tell the difference between a certain ancient people and a medival alcoholic beverage; hence, he refers to the Medes as the "Meads." Forgive me for being a stickler, but this is like findgernails on a blackboard for me.
Why does anyone take this man seriously?
Tim
|
2/4/2009, 3:19 am
|
Link to this post
Send Email to Tim Callahan
Send PM to Tim Callahan
|
Stormdog
Administrator
Registered: 09-2008
Posts: 264
Karma: 5 (+5/-0)
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Not in years...
actually, I doubt I ever took Robertson or any of his ilk seriously, other than to either seriously ignore or seriously rebuff his idiocy. Has he ever said anything intelligent, even while discussing this era? Not to my knowledge. He's usually busy making Christians look stupid.
--- There' s probably no God.
Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
|
2/4/2009, 9:43 am
|
Link to this post
Send Email to Stormdog
Send PM to Stormdog
|