Bill Moyers: There Is No Tomorrow
Bill Moyers: There Is No Tomorrow
#0Bill Moyers: There Is No Tomorrow
Posted: 2/17/05 at 10:14pm
What's really scary is that there are posters on this board who admitted to believing in the "Rapture" Bill Moyers is warning us about.
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There Is No Tomorrow
by Bill Moyers
Published January 30, 2005
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the
delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of
the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-
engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress thatprotecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was
talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.
That's right -- the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.
As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer -- "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened -- as a sign of the coming apocalypse.
As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe
lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election -- 231 legislators in total and more since the election -- are backed by the religious right.
Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt.
The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.
And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll
found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"
Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history
book, "America's Providential History." You'll find there these
words: "The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality
and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."
No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that
militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.
It is hard for the journalist to report a story like this with any credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: "What do you think of the market? "I'm optimistic," he answered.
"Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am
not sure my optimism is justified."
I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will
protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that -- it's just that I read the news and connect the dots.
I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration: That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to judge beforehand whether actions might damage natural resources.
That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle
tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.
That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to
keep certain information about environmental problems secret from
the public.
That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against
polluting, coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees
reached earlier with coal companies.
That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.
I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental
Protection Agency had planned to spend $9 million -- $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry
Council -- to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in
their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological
damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.
I read all this in the news.
I read the news just last night and learned that the
administration's friends at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon, Mobil and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising" [and] scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."
I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent
appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and
obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered
species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.
I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer -- pictures of my grandchildren. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."
And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?
What has happened to our moral imagination?
On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly.'"
I see it feelingly.
The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free -- not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma -- the science of the heart ... the capacity to see, to feel and then to act as if the future depended on you.
Believe me, it does.
Bill Moyers was host until recently of the weekly public affairs
series "NOW with Bill Moyers" on PBS. This article is adapted from AlterNet, where it first appeared. The text is taken from Moyers' remarks upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#1re: Bill Moyers: There Is No Tomorrow
Posted: 2/17/05 at 11:20pm
And there goes Andrea McArdle's Future Vegas Medley.
Papa, you must DO something to stop your party fellows, you ARE NOT LIKE THIS. (Offer does not apply to Gothampc, who is exactly like this.)
#2re: Bill Moyers: There Is No Tomorrow
Posted: 2/18/05 at 12:06amAny Republican who ain't part of the solution, is part of the problem.
#3re: bill moyers: there is no yomorrow
Posted: 2/18/05 at 7:19am
well, the part about jimmy watt's a straight up lie. that somewat dims my enthusiasm for the rest of the piece. but i'm sure, that just because the story starts with a lie that doesn't mean anything, right?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ep/20050209/en_bpiep/billmoyersapologizestojameswattforapocryphalquote
i was more partial to bill's screed after the 2002 mid-terms.
http://www.pbs.org/now/commentary/moyers15.html
and anyone who puts that much faith (or fear) in a david duchovny movie, even one with a sweet mimi rogers (when she was in blossom) full body massage, worries me.
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#4re: bill moyers: there is no yomorrow
Posted: 2/18/05 at 8:23am
"Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye."
I understand liberals have a hard time telling the difference between fiction and reality, but as far as Christians are concerned, they understand that the "Left Behind" series is a work of fiction.
"These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans."
Nice of him to cite his sources. I've been in church all of my life and I've never heard this.
As for the rest of his "rapture" theory, it doesn't hold true to anything that I've been taught nor does it reflect anything that I can find in the Bible.
"As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture."
This is why I laugh at Bill Moyers. Never have I heard blasphemy like this. Christians do not teach this and there is nowhere in the Bible where something like this can be found.
The Bible does teach that the Antichrist (who is gay by the way) will come out of the European Union (i.e. Brussels) and attempt to set up a kingdom in Israel.
#5re: bill moyers: there is no yomorrow
Posted: 2/18/05 at 8:50am
I don't think anyone who takes any book of myths and fairy tales literally should be criticizing any other person's grasp on reality.
#6re: bill moyers: i have a lie
Posted: 2/18/05 at 9:31ama-ha! now we start getting to the truth behind pim fortuyn's assassination.
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
CurtainUp2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/8/04
#7re: bill moyers: i have a lie
Posted: 2/18/05 at 9:50am
"The Bible does teach that the Antichrist (who is gay by the way) will come out of the European Union (i.e. Brussels) and attempt to set up a kingdom in Israel."
The Antichrist is a gay European who moves to Israel?
Hmmmmm. Good to know.
#8re: bill moyers: i have a lie
Posted: 2/18/05 at 9:56ammy god! those fools are building a wall to keep out supposed palestinian suicide bombers when the real threat is coming from the eu. i knew that nothing good would ever come form this unholy alliance of limeys (i say this with love, pcb) and frogs and huns (see ww1 definition), oh my!
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
#9Biill Moyers Is a Lot Smarter Than You
Posted: 2/18/05 at 10:41am
"The Bible does teach that the Antichrist (who is gay by the way) will come out of the European Union (i.e. Brussels) and attempt to set up a kingdom in Israel."
Come again?
robbiej
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#10Biill Moyers Is a Lot Smarter Than You
Posted: 2/18/05 at 10:47am
The Antichrist is gay?
That's so f*cking hot.
I think I may have met him at the C*ck.
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#11Biill Moyers Is a Lot Smarter Than You
Posted: 2/18/05 at 10:58am
:::but as far as Christians are concerned, they understand that the "Left Behind" series is a work of fiction.::
No, of course true Christianity doesn't teach any of this and certainly there is no reference to the Rapture in the Bible, but what Moyers is detailing is the way that people like Lehane have convinced, shall we say, less critical Christians that this actually IS referenced in the Bible, and that his fiction is supported by the big book, which they take LITERALLY. It's not THINKING Christians that are the problem, it's those who believe this Rapture hoo-hah, and their numbers are growing annually. It's a veritable sect, at this point.
This is where people like you come in, Papa. Truly, your party is being overrun by these people, and the ones in power who are standing by even though they don't give a crap need to be told by the likes of you, who do, that the country is being highjacked into oblivion.
CurtainUp2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/8/04
#12Biill Moyers Is a Lot Smarter Than You
Posted: 2/18/05 at 10:59am
Well... I knew that Satan was gay. I saw it on South Park. But I had no idea about the Antichrist.
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#13Biill Moyers Is a Lot Smarter Than You
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:02am
I just want to clear up:
There is reference to the Rapture in the Bible. How it is portrayed in the Left Behind series is fiction.
#14bill moyers can't even do primary sourcing research or have an intern do it
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:02amcu2, not for nothing, but ya might wanna drop the resolution on that down a teensy weensy bit because i think it loses something when you can't see more than part of it at a time, and i have a 21" monitor.
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
CurtainUp2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/8/04
#15bill moyers can't even do primary sourcing research or have an intern do it
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:04am
I always figured you for having a big one, papa. 
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#16bill moyers can't even do primary sourcing research or have an intern do it
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:10am
Is that AOL 21 inches? But Papa, you get my point. You know Kirk Cameron, star of the two Left Behind films which I watched til 4 am once because I forgot I had a VCR and could have taped them, believes every word of the "fiction." And if you watch his Christian informercial with the MTV editing and tilty camera and exhortations that ALL sins, from white lies, to borrowing your mother's lipstick , to committing mass murder are all equal in the eyes of his vengeful god, you realize he wants others to believe it.
And face it, this IS the loudest and most powerful growing block in the Republican party. I know there is a point at they will cross a line and go too far. And the few critical thinkers in the party will have to stand up and say enough is enough. I'm just going to keep checking in with you to find out if it's happened yet.
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
#17bill moyers can't even do primary sourcing research or have an intern do it
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:23am
"I wish he would stop talking about a shared state of Israel between Jews & Palestinians. He is going to bring judgement on America if he doesn't do the right thing." - posted as a response to the State of the Union address.
This is the type of mindset that scares the crap out of me. There is a willingness to manipulate events to fit a preconceived notion of reality based on religious fundamentalism.
#18bill moyers can't even do primary sourcing research or have an intern do it
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:23am
no, no, on aol it's a 42" plasma screen.
i do understand your point, namo, and i agree that there are far too many folks out there on my side of the political fence who are far too willing to subscribe hook, line and sinker to the 21st century's jonathan edwardses. unless there's an out and out war with syria and or iran, which i doubt, i forsee a major upheaval for my party on the horizon. a kind of fight for the soul a la platoon. with any luck us sgt. elias types won't get shot and left behind. that said, if a war does materialize, all bets are off. of course, there's also the chance that 2008 will see a free for all with multiple grass roots candidates competing, thanks to internet fundraising and fickle billionaires, on an almost even keel with the major party's candidates.
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
#19Bill Moyers is smarter than you are
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:27am
If only Ira Gershwin could comment on the "Rapture," he would undoubtedly tell us to take that gospel with a grain of salt:
===
It ain't necessarily so, it ain't necessarily so
De t'ings dat yo' li'ble to read in de Bible
It ain't necessarily so
Li'l David was small, but oh my
Li'l David was small, but oh my
He fought big Goliath
who lay down and dieth
Li'l David was small, but oh my
Oh, Jonah, he lived in de whale
Oh, Jonah, he lived in de whale
Fo' he made his home in dat fish's abdomen
Oh, Jonah, he lived in de whale
Li'l Moses was found in a stream
Li'l Moses was found in a stream
He floated on water
Til Ole Pharoah's daughter
She fished him, she says, from that stream
It ain't necessarily so, it ain't necessarily so
Dey tell all you chillun de debble's a villun
But it ain't necessarily so.
To get into Hebben don't snap for a sebben
Live clean, don have no fault
Oh, I takes dat gospel
Whenever it's pos'ble
But wid a grain of salt
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years
But who calls dat livin'
when no gal will give in
To no man what's nine hundred years?
I'm preachin' dis sermon to show
It ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't nessa
Ain't necessarily so.
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#20bill moyers can't even do primary sourcing research or have an intern do it
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:27am
"There is a willingness to manipulate events to fit a preconceived notion of reality based on religious fundamentalism."
Nothing happens by chance in the world. There is purpose in everything. Cause and effect are very evident in what is happening in the world today.
#21Bill Moyers is a lot smarter than you are
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:29amIt ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't necessarily so.
WindyCityActor
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/13/03
#22The Rapture
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:49am
One thing I seem to remember regarding the Rapture (and I believe is referenced in the Bible) is that nobody knows when the Rapture is going to happen. It's gonna happen when everyone least expects it.
So all of the sitting around and waiting for it and not worrying about the present state of the world is an attitutde which , in reality, goes against the word of God.
The Anti-Christ is Gay?
I don't think so....if it were mentioned anywhere in the Bible that would have been drummed into my head at an early age as part of my Southern Baptist upbringing.(Sunday School, Morning Worship Services, Training Union, Evening Worship Services, Choir Rehearsals, Royal Ambassadors, Prayer Meetings, Vacation Bible School and occassional revival, youth camp, and church softball team)
CurtainUp2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/8/04
#23The Rapture
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:53amYou know, it just occured to me that it's not religion that bugs me, so much as the people who follow it.
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
#24The Rapture
Posted: 2/18/05 at 11:58amI'm almost certain I'm going to regret asking this, but here goes. Since the concept of 'gayness' is very new in societal consciousness, what is this definitive concept 'the anti-christ is gay' based on?
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