Free Republic

Just as some people today believe a Maya calendar pinpoints 2012 as the end of the world as we know it, some ancient Romans saw the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius (pictured: Pompeiians flee the city in an illustration), as a sign of a coming apocalypse. That's because Roman philosopher Seneca, who died in A.D. 65, had predicted the Earth would go up in smoke: "All we see and admire today will burn in the universal fire that ushers in a new, just, happy world," he said, according to the 1999 book Apocalypses. The end never came, but that...

Mideast: Iran tests an advanced warhead design as it gets caught shipping weapons to Hezbollah. Syria is reported to give the group operational control over Scud missiles. It's five minutes to midnight. Tyranny abhors a vacuum. While the U.S. and the West dither in Hamlet-like fashion over whatever we shall do in places such as Afghanistan and Iran, the Axis of Evil is in full swing in its plans to destroy Israel and threaten Europe and America. Israel last week seized what it said was the largest arms cache ever intercepted in the region. Israeli navy commandos boarded the Francop,...

Junk Science: The oracle of climate disaster has a new book out on global warming that should be on the fiction list. He asks us to commit economic suicide while he rakes in millions from his green investments. 'Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis," Al Gore's sequel to his 2006 tome "An Inconvenient Truth," came out Tuesday. Printed on recycled paper using low-VOC (volatile organic compound) ink, it will undoubtedly be a best-seller and on the desk of every attendee at next month's climate change conference in Copenhagen. In a press release announcing the book, the Oscar-...

by Emanuel A. Winston, Middle East Analyst & Commentator thelastcrusade.orgIn Tanach (the Jewish Bible), it speaks about the Nations of the North assembling and descending upon Israel in a conquest of savage killing. In the Prophecy the attacking Nations from the North succeed in occupying, first the lowlands along the sea and then they begin to ascend the foothills toward Jerusalem. They succeed with much carnage, raping, killing until the earth heaves; the skies turn black wherein a man cannot see to the end of his arm. This phenomenon speaks of volcanic ash so dense that nothing can be...

Climate Change: As a Colorado Rockies playoff game is snowed out, scientists report that Arctic sea ice is thickening and Antarctic snow melt is the lowest in three decades. Whatever happened to global warming? Al Gore wasn't there to throw out the first snowball, er, baseball, so he might not have noticed that Saturday's playoff game between the Colorado Rockies and the Philadelphia Phillies was snowed out - in early October. The field should have been snow-free just as the North Pole was to be ice-free this year. It seems that ice at both poles hasn't been paying attention to...

Climate Change: As a Colorado Rockies playoff game is snowed out, scientists report that Arctic sea ice is thickening and Antarctic snow melt is the lowest in three decades. Whatever happened to global warming? Al Gore wasn't there to throw out the first snowball, er, baseball, so he might not have noticed that Saturday's playoff game between the Colorado Rockies and the Philadelphia Phillies was snowed out — in early October. The field should have been snow-free just as the North Pole was to be ice-free this year. It seems that ice at both poles hasn't been paying attention to...

All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast-all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. (Rev. 13:8) There’s a lot of interest in the role of Islam in the End Times. And from what I’m reading, a lot of misunderstanding, too. Recent surveys are shedding some light. It’s becoming clear that Moslems are increasing in number faster than any other religious group in the world. Their current growth rate is four times faster than that of Christians. According to a recent survey...

The world ravaged by fires, earthquakes, meteor showers and floods and a heroic struggle for survivors. It sounds like something straight out of Hollywood - and it is. This is the first glimpse of the latest U.S. blockbuster, 2012. John Cusack leads an all-star cast, featuring Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Amanda Peet struggling to stay alive when the Earth is threatened with the biggest disaster man has ever known.[Read more on WHY OBAMA THREW THE OLYMPICS!]

Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol. Not only did that not happen in the cool summer of...

Security: An Iranian mullah once said "a world without America and Zionism" was a real possibility. Our sellout of Eastern Europe and missile defense brings that dream closer to reality. It would take only one warhead."Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?" Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked at a "World Without Zionism" conference in Tehran in 2005. "But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved." He added that Iran had a strategic "war preparation plan" for what it called "the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization." A...

Strategic Defense: A new report says the United States must develop robust missile and space defenses to counter China. If you think the current economic crisis is something, imagine the effects of a nuke over Iowa.Imagine a world in which you can't get money from your bank or can't get a loan. You can't get money from your ATM even if it's within walking distance. You can't drive to one because your car won't work. No, it's not what would happen if the Congress doesn't pass a bailout bill. This is a small snapshot of what would happen if a...

By Christopher Logan I have frequently spoken to Islamic apologists who say that their Muslim "friends" respect Jesus. They probably do, but it is not in the same way that Christians do. In the view of Muslims, Jesus is coming back as a Muslim and he will break the cross (destroy Christianity) and be a slave to Islam. He will also abolish the jizya, which will leave Jews and Christians with only two options. To convert to Islam or die.

Remember James G. Watt? He was Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior. A Westerner who believed the country’s resources should be wisely used, not hoarded. This was an abrupt reversal of the trend under Nixon and Carter in which millions of acres were put under the control of the federal government annually, and the definition of “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act had broadened beyond all meaning. Enraged environmentalists finally settled on a line of attack towards Watt that had little to do with his (and Reagan’s) policies, which most Americans would consider common sense if they bothered with the...

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are described in just eight verses of the book of Revelation, which is the last book in the bible. The four horsemen appear when the Lamb (Jesus) opens the first four seals of a scroll with seven seals (which is described in Revelation chapter 6). As each of the first four seals are opened a different coloured horse and its rider is seen by the apostle John as described in Rev 6:1-8. First seal is opened : a white horse appears, its rider held a bow (conquest). (Rev 6:1-8 NIV) I watched as the...

Twitter is experience a DNS attack. Facebook is also sluggish as is blogspot.com. Hide the women and children. I'd link the wired article, but I can't. Is Twitter Down?

Matthew 24:36a (NIV) "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. We cannot know the day or the hour for the Second Coming of Jesus following the Seven Year Tribulation Period, because Jesus stated that those days would be "cut short". The Word of God does not state that the Seven Year Tribulation will start late. The Seven Year Tribulation will begin precisely on time, but it will be "cut short". Matthew 24:21-22 (NIV) For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the...

Climate Change: NASA predicts the lowest sunspot activity since 1928. Is a major solar storm in the offing? While we worry about man-made warming, the sun may soon show us who's boss... But this dry statistic has more significance for the earth and its climate than all of Al Gore's gloom and doom about tailpipe emissions and rising sea levels. Whether the warm-mongers like it or not, the sun rules earth's climate — always has and always will.

A 350ft crop circle of an ancient Mayan symbol, said to be a sign of an impending apocalypse, has appeared next to Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. The giant pattern - thought to represent a traditional Mayan head-dress - appeared next to the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe last week. Members of the crop circle community believe the mystic symbol is a signal of the end of the 5,126-year Mayan 'Long Count' calendar on December 21, 2012. Karen Alexander, a crop circle enthusiast, said: "This is one of the most interesting crop circles I have ever seen. It is definitely...

A 350ft crop circle of an ancient Mayan symbol, said to be a sign of an impending apocalypse, has appeared next to Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. The giant pattern - thought to represent a traditional Mayan head-dress - appeared next to the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe last week. Members of the crop circle community believe the mystic symbol is a signal of the end of the 5,126-year Mayan 'Long Count' calendar on December 21, 2012 Karen Alexander, a crop circle enthusiast, said: "This is one of the most interesting crop circles I have ever seen. It is definitely...

Saddened by the wickedness of man, God directs the righteous Noah to build an ark for his family and two of each species of animal. Together, they ride the ark through 40 days and 40 nights of torrential rains that God unleashes upon the Earth. And when the waters subside, Noah and the animals return to land. "That seems almost like a fairy story," said archaeologist Randall Price, who is director of Liberty University's new Center for Judaic Studies. "But we believe it was an actual event." This summer Price, 57, plans to continue on a journey to prove just...

On October 19, 2008, seventeen days before the US Presidential Election, Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden again made one of his prescient and memorable "gaffes:" Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. We are about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. …Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a GENERATED CRISIS, to test the mettle of this guy. (emphasis, smb) President FD Roosevelt recognized ‘unintentional...

Sunlight fills the bedroom. It's past 8 a.m., and it's cold. Why didn't the alarm go off? The bathroom lights are out. The house is without power. The battery-operated radio plays nothing but static. The phone is dead. What on earth has happened? In fact, what happened was not on Earth. It was above it. A nuclear weapon has detonated high over North America, an explosion so far up that neither the flash nor bang disturbed anyone slumbering in darkened bedrooms across the United States. Electrical systems and computers from New York City to San Francisco cease to function. City...

“Behold, I am coming soon, to repay everyone for what he has done, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first, and the last, the beginning and the end." (Revelation 22:12) These mesmerizing words of warning are more than two thousand years old but when read or heard, they still cause fear and trembling in the minds of 21st century man. They are the words found in the last, and for many - the most dangerous book of the Bible – the bloody, end-time Apocalypse known as “The Revelation”.

(Washington, DC) -- DC Council member Marion Barry was among those who spoke at a rally Tuesday at Freedom Plaza in protest of proposed legislation that would recognize out-of-state same sex marriages in the District. The demonstration was organized by the High Impact Leadership Coalition, a loosely-based group made up of Christians and clergy members. Barry told a group of dozens of protesters that he is against gay marriage. The Council is due to take up the legislation May 5th. If approved, it would have to go before Congress for its approval. For that reason, some feel the DC issue...

If you need a break from taxes day and everything related, here's a little needed humor.

On the March 23, 2009 edition of Fox News Special Report, Washington Correspondent ran the following report: [Video of Barack Obama]: "These investments are not a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air – they are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long: the high cost of health care and our dependence on foreign oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit." [End video] Much of the federal budget every year is already committed for the poor and elderly,...

�� 1 �� Things have gotten so bad that there is a guy who is eating bacon, and only bacon, for the entire month of February. At least I know that when the apocalypse comes, this is an option on the list right before eating my neighbors. Just in case I have no bacon, I hope I live next to bacon man. Yummy. �� 2 �� So how much will President Barack Obama's budget cost us taxpayers? Toby Harden does the math. I'm an American taxpayer and the starkest figure is what this could cost me. The latest figure...

(I'reading a fascinating book calledThe Siege of Mecca by Yaroslav Trofimov. I came across of section I thought Freepers might find interesting. It has to do with the Muslim concept of the "End of Days" and part played in it by Jesus Christ. It is from Chapter 5, pp. 47-48. (P.S. I having to type this in, so please forgive by hunt-and-peck fingers. Hopefully there's not too many typos.) ================================================= "The idea of a Mahdi has fuel Muslim imagination for centuries. There is no mention of it in the Quran itself . But the Phophet Mohammed, according to some nattators,...

Climate change is essentially irreversible, according to a sobering new scientific study. As carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, the world will experience more and more long-term environmental disruption. The damage will persist even when, and if, emissions are brought under control, says study author Susan Solomon, who is among the world's top climate scientists. "We're used to thinking about pollution problems as things that we can fix," Solomon says. "Smog, we just cut back and everything will be better later. Or haze, you know, it'll go away pretty quickly." That's the case for some of the gases that contribute...

xactly ten years ago this week I preached in our church's morning service...It being the first Sunday of 1999, I decided to preach an appropriately forward-looking message on Matthew 6:34 and its context: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." In those days, the evangelical world was at the peak of the Y2K insanity, so I made reference to that issue in my message. At the time, Gary North was operating a heavily-trafficked website that included this: We've got a problem. It may be the biggest problem that the...

The article is about a Channel 4 (UK) documentary series called Catastrophe. I found the following excerpt particularly interesting. I don't remember ever hearing about the 1783 toxic cloud over Britain, and now wonder whether this had any influence on early British-American relations, or any long-lasting historical impact. Toxic Cloud Over Britain In 1783 in Laki, Iceland, a volcanic eruption occurred, spewing out gas and lava for eight months and covering an area of 200sq miles in molten rock. The Laki eruption produced huge quantities of sulphur dioxide, burning people’s eyeballs, scorching the skin off livestock and killing plants. The...

Ezekiel 38 through 39 tells of a future invasion of Israel by a vast coalition of nations that surround it.  As we read the headlines in the newspapers of today, and witness the conflict in the Middle East, it's not hard to imagine that this invasion prophesied over 2600 years ago, could be fulfilled in our lifetime.  Ezekiel 36-37 predicts a gathering of the Jews to the nation of Israel, which will be followed by this massive invasion.  For 19 centuries the Jewish people were scattered throughout the world, and until May 14, 1948 there was no nation of...

Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years. Only the prepared will survive, Geryl said, and not even all of them. These may sound like the ravings of a madman, or perhaps the head of a small apocalyptic sect. But Geryl is not the only one who believes in the apocalypse. Thousands of people worldwide seem to be preparing, in one way or another, for the end of days in 2012. Survival groups exist in Europe,...

In the beginning, God created heaven and Earth, and he saw that it was good. So begins the Book of Genesis, the dramatic opener of the Old Testament. But things went downhill from there. God's wrath seems at work these days, as the heavens and Earth have unleashed earthquakes in China, a cyclone in Burma, killer tornadoes and record floods across the U.S. and even a plague of locusts (cicadas) in New England. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa today, floodwaters forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad...

Many people believe that the great harlot that revelations talks about is the cathlic Church and that the daughters of the great harlot is the protestant churches. and that makes sense to me more than any thing else. The catholic Church has claimed to change the saboth day from the seventh day ( saterday ) to the first day ( sunday ). And of course the protestants went right along with it, have you noticed that especialy in long gone days many of the religious people worked harder and worked thier animals harder on what they called the saboth than...

Clerics have told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stick to more worldly issues after he was quoted as saying the "hidden imam" of Shiite Islam was directing Iran. Ahmadinejad has always been a devotee of the Mahdi, the twelfth imam of Shiite Islam, who Shiites believe disappeared more than a thousand years ago and who will return one day to usher in a new era of peace and harmony. But in a speech to theology students broadcast by state television on Monday, Ahmadinejad went further than ever before in emphasising his belief that the Mahdi is playing a critical role in...

My hobby is Secrets. I am fascinated by secrets — the bigger the secret, the better I like it. Over the years, I have spent many hours and lots of money digging through mildewed stacks of forgotten government documents in libraries, reading reams of self-published zines and newsletters and pamphlets by crazy, semi-literate po' buckra, and going from link to link on the Tubes trying to glean tidbits of verifiable (or at the very least entertaining) information from various websites, all in an effort to discover the hidden truths that I crave. To this end I spent several years doing...

Mayan Apocalypse, 2012 If you observe the ancient Mayan calendar, then your time's running out. Dr Karl has been rummaging through ancient Mayan scribblings that are said to indicate an apocalyptic end by 2012. By Karl S. Kruszelnicki Villagers and tourists celebrate next to the Kukulkan pyramid at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula(Source: Victor Ruiz/Reuters) The driver was taking me from Melbourne airport into the city. As we chatted, it came out that he was deeply worried. He had a wife and child, and a new baby on the way - but what was the...

Call it the Obamalypse, if you will. Andrew Sullivan makes an interesting argument that a Hillary Clinton victory over Barack Obama could create “mass flight from the process” as disillusioned voters embrace apathy and reject electoral politics altogether. He thinks that killing it would be 1968 all over again: What I think this misses are the cultural and social consequences of beating Obama (or McCain) this way. I don’t mean beating Obama because the Clintons’ message is more persuasive, or because the Clintons’ healthcare plan is better, or because she has a better approach to Iraq. I mean: beating him...

Recently, I mentioned some of the kooky apocalyptic theories that swirl around evangelicalism and involve various interpretations of Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation and some of Jesus’ more obscure sayings, all coupled with various predictions about Russia, Israel, the European Union, red heifers, Islam and the rebuilding of the Temple. It’s all very complicated.Now, as I mentioned, Catholics don’t have to buy any of this and, in my opinion, do well not to bother with it. What I did not have time to mention is that some Catholics do nonetheless exhibit the same tendency to waste a lot of time on similar...

Seven years ago, there was mass preparation for Y2K, alleged by some to be the end of the world. Believers scurried to save water and canned foods just in case the new millennium brought the immense devastation theories speculated. Again, we are faced with the timeless question of whether our world will endor not. The highly intelligent Ancient Mayan civilization developed an intricate calendar which anticipated the end of their Great Cycle of the Long Count-better known as the apocalypse-on Dec. 21, 2012.

Bill Clinton is never at a loss for company. When he's not globe-trotting or charming audiences for as much as $400,000 a speech, he's often schmoozing visitors in his suite of offices in Harlem. Last July, the former president sat down with a billionaire impressed with the William J. Clinton Foundation's campaign against AIDS in Africa. The two men chatted amiably over lunch for more than two hours, and the visitor pledged to write Clinton's foundation a generous check. But there was something unusual, if not plain weird, about the meeting. NEWSWEEK has learned that the billionaire so eager to...

How might the attacks against the Jews, particularly those of the past century, relate to biblical prophecy about the role of the Jews in the Second Coming? For the fact that Christ " will come again in glory, to judge the living and the dead", in the words of the Nicene Creed, is a dogma of the Catholic faith. [1] It is attested to by the words of Jesus Himself, recorded numerous times in the New Testament (Matthew 16:27; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27). As described in Matthew 24:30-3 1: [T]hen all the tribes of...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In an unusual exhibit, the Vatican Museums has assembled 100 art works inspired by the New Testament vision of the Apocalypse. While the paintings, statues and engravings depict some catastrophic scenes, the emphasis is on hope and the victory of good over evil. In that sense, the exhibit takes a page from Pope Benedict XVI's audience talks last year, in which he said the Book of Revelation -- also known as the Apocalypse -- should not be read as a frightening warning of imminent destruction, but as an encouraging Christian vision. The images unveiled at the...

SAN FRANCISCO - City health officials took steps Thursday toward opening the nation's first legal safe-injection room, where addicts could shoot up heroin, cocaine and other drugs under the supervision of nurses. Hoping to reduce San Francisco's high rate of fatal drug overdoses, the public health department co-sponsored a symposium on the only such facility in North America, a 4-year-old Vancouver site where an estimated 700 intravenous users a day self-administer narcotics under the supervision of nurses. "Having the conversation today will help us figure out whether this is a way to reduce the harms and improve the health of...

he only surviving witness to a decades-long conspiracy theory has firmly denied the Catholic Church is hiding details about a predicted apocalypse.   The third secret of Fatima, revealed in 2000, referred to the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II Archbishop Loris Capovilla, 91, said there was no truth in the rumour that the Vatican was suppressing a vision of the end of the world.The vision said to have been revealed 90 years ago by the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children on a hillside at Fatima in Portugal. The three "Secrets of Fatima" were written down by...

It'll be bad. Hurricane Katrina bad. Likely worse. Thousands dead. Buildings collapsed. Freeways severed. Scientists for the first time are figuring out in great detail just how bad it will be when the southern section of the San Andreas Fault, roughly between Palmdale and the Salton Sea, cuts loose. "One of our goals is not to say, `We're all gonna die,"' said Lucy Jones of the California Institute of Technology, who is leading the effort. "It's, `Here's how you're going to die if you don't change anything."' Scientists, academics, utility companies and emergency planners have jumped aboard the project so...

A Jerusalem exhibit of Isaac Newton's manuscripts has some newly-discovered papers showing Newton's calculations of the exact date of the Apocalypse. Using the Book of Daniel, Newton argues that the world will end not earlier than 2060. "It may end later," Newton writes, "but I see no reason for its ending sooner. This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophecies into discredit as often as...

JERUSALEM: Renowned British scientist Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern physics and astronomy, predicted the world would end in 2060. He made the prediction in a 1704 letter that went on show in Jerusalem on Sunday. A famed rationalist, who secured a royal exemption from the ordination in the Church of England that was normally expected of academics of his day so he would not have to follow its teachings, Newton nonetheless based his prediction on a Biblical text. Working from verses in the Book of Daniel, the elaborator of the classical laws of gravity, motion and optics argued...

Join Me in a Crusade for Panic-Free Living Hi, I’m Gary and I’m a recovering Apocaholic. I am currently Apocalypse free for nearly 18 years. I left the church of the Religious Apocalypse in 1976, over 30 years ago, and I resigned from the secular church of the Financial Apocalypse in 1989. Yes, I still feel the urge to proclaim the end of all things, from time to time, but I white-knuckle my way to a history book for a little perspective, and then I breathe easier. If you wish to join AA, the only requirement is that you give...