Thank you for posting this, Nagamaki. Too bad that few besides readers on this forum will read it. Even those who read it entirely - some will blow it off for the reasons Bill mentioned.

Dang, I've heard bits and pieces of other concerns such as Moyers thoughts but he puts it all in a well wrapped Nutshell! I hope like h@ll he's wrong about the insane path our quasi-religious political leaders are headed. vgkg

I'm glad someone else opened this can of worms. I thought about it last month after reading this article from the OCA but decided against going to Disney.
Being related to a fundamentalist (my term for fanatic) I find this story to be completely believable. In fact a lot of things started making more sense.

Here is a link that might be useful: OCA article

Upon reading through Much of Bill Moyers's remarks, I am reminded that there is a battle for the minds, hearts, and souls of mankind.

Two possibilities come to mind. First.....either there is a real Jesus Christ or there isn't a Jesus Christ. Now many things are done in that Name that are perversions of it....always that way. Note the Maryland arson yesterday on those houses. Is it fair for all environmentalists to be tarred for the actions of a few...of course not!

Now if there is a real Jesus Christ, then do you realize that certain calamities are in motion? To welcome calamities is not exactly my cup of tea.

I believe that we should be responsible stewards for our piece of the action....even if this is my last day or even if "the end" is at hand.

Wayne, you failed to mention another possibility: the Bible is true, but the interpretive grid under consideration is wrong.

We got along just fine for 1900 years before J.N. Darby.

SoCal, I guess I just don't comprehend your post very well.
I was reading Time Magazine's newest issue......Behind the First Noel.
My, parts of the article looked to me like "buzzards picking at things".

You see, I don't believe that the Bible story of the birth, life, death, and resurrection are smorgasbord feeding where...I'll have some of that...none of that etc.
Either Jesus Christ was who He said He was [God in human flesh] or He was history's greatest fraud...easily.

One place in the Time article is alluding to "discreptancies" between two different accounts. The different accounts are meant to be complementary. The writer says that Luke's account has the baby Jesus born in a manger...true and sheperds came that very night to see the new Lamb born in a place where lambs might be born. Now the article says that Matthew's account has the baby born in a house.....WRONG. It does not say that! The Magi did come to the house where the child was...probably a couple of weeks later....Would you keep a new baby in a stable for an extended time? I better quit for now before the ACLU [Anti-Christian Liberties Union] complains.

My comment was regarding the writer's consideration of a certain eschatological (last things) view. I don't think mudbugtx wanted to offend anyone with a generalized rant against christianity. If that was the intent, then I demand an immediate apology (hint to mudbugtx- If it was your intent, just lie and say it wasn't for the sake of civility :-).

No, I don't mean to offend. I live in the middle of the Bible Belt, so that wouldn't be in my best interests ;) While I won't go into my personal beliefs, what I understood from the OCA article was that fundamentalist extremism (there seems to be plenty in all religions) is, in part, responsible for policies that are detrimental to the environment. I'm not lumping all christians together. But I do think an extremist viewpoint on any matter can be dangerous.

"policies that are detrimental to the environment"

LOL, from what Moyer said it appears that their motivations are detrimental to mankind. To think that God is waiting with open arms for those who want to put armagedon on the fast track makes about as much sense as the car-bombers looking forward to meeting up with 72 virgins. God should feel pretty darn insulted or at the very least embarassed by followers like these who think that he/she/it is that stupid or blind. Perhaps all these sorts of "believers" should merge into a new & improved "Death Wish" Sect? They're new slogan could be: "Commit suicide without really trying (God won't notice)" or "End it All by Proxy" or "Welcome to the New Dark Ages".
vgkg (hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Disney I go.....Hi there Mickey! ;o)

North Korea I suppose wants the bomb...for peaceful purposes I reckon. Iran probably does too for .....reasons. It would not take much to bring an Armaggedon or worse. I really believe that mankind is heading that way for sure. Our little efforts to sustain our environment ........well keep up the good work.

I don't know, maybe Iran is smart enough to have learned something from the cold war: "You invade, we launch nukes."

They don't have to get very far as the invading army will be blamed for the carnage that ensues. Sort of a modified MAD.

Great Post! Thanks for the links and insights.

I didn't want to start a new thread on this story below but thought it may be of interest....

Atheist Philosopher, 81, Now Believes in God
By Richard N. Ostling
Associated Press
posted: 10 December 2004
09:31 am ET
NEW YORK (AP) _ A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God -- more or less -- based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.

At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.

Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives.

"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."

Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.

Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.

There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"

The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.

The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote.

The letter commended arguments in Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God" and "The Wonder of the World" by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.

This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Books.

Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well "that's too bad," Flew said. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."

Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife.

Flew's "name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up," Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew's reversal, "apart from curiosity, I don't think it's like a big deal."

Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.

A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15.

Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.

Another landmark was his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.

Excellent info in this thread. nagamaki, Vgkg, thanks for sharing.
Lots to think about.