The Atlantic: Why Trump Didn’t Plan for the Strait of Hormuz
In wartime, the enemy always gets a vote.
(These people are deeply unserious. I mean, they *must* be old enough to remember the 1980-88 tanker war and the vital role the Straits of Hormuz played back then, right?)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/hormuz-strait-iran-oil/686365/
I was about to say the same thing. There are actually warnings in the New Testament against thinking that one can even know, let alone force, the time and place. Paul to the Thessalonians, and the Gospel of Matthew, for examples.
@stingraz @cstross @Kathmandu
#Christianity #SecondComing #USPolitics #Millenarianism
@stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
I usually describe them as mad cultists trying to complete a spell to summon their god who will then eat the unbelievers first.
@stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
they cannot be kicked in the ass hard enough for this bullshit, imo.
@stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross Civil Rights and the loss of public moral supremacy broke their existing coping mechanisms and sent them overtly nihilistic; anything so depraved as to insist they not be white supremacist in public had to be destroyed.
And of course this narrative splashed everywhere; that the sinful world deserves destruction is a core part of Christian thought. (Not historical doctrine, but thought.) The novelty lies mostly in the ubiquity of craving an apocalypse.
@graydon
It may be part of US 'christian' thought, but it wasn't where I grew up and still isn't. I think the whole rapture concept is uniquely American.
@nzlemming It's not uniquely American; if nothing else, it was exported to America and has, like many other cultural products, been exported from there since.
One of the things that trips people up is that something more than 70% of American Christians expect that the world will end soon/these are the end times. "Mainstream", particularly in the sense of being somewhere near a political center, hasn't applied in generations.
@graydon @stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross Boomers crave an apocalypse because the oldest ones turn 80 this year. They're railing against the dying of the light. They refuse to go quietly, and wish to actively PREVENT the world continuing on without them.
This is a problem the actuarial tables will address: 1955 is the boomer/jones cutoff, actuarial tables say pre-pandemic US average lifespan was 79, 1955+79=2034, hence boomer extinction burst.
What will be left to salvage, I couldn't say...
@cstross @graydon @stingraz @HighlandLawyer Younger half of the boomers have collectively noped out of the group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones
They insist they got screwed over by the older boomers too, and the sane-ish third do seem to be in the younger half.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones
I used to say 1955 was the midpoint of boom (half of all boomers born before then). Character limit made jones easier. (2034 is ld50 of 50% but how much is needed to lose political power? Nursing homes, institutions)
@cstross @graydon @stingraz @HighlandLawyer I'm firmly genx and even match a lot of the stereotypes, but it's been specifically the leading edge boomers causing the most damage.
Hank Green pointed out that bill and hillary clinton, george w bush, trump, mitt romney, and al gore were all born within three years of each other.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IwgzuSqb7ys
So far the _only_ president we've had younger than that was Obama (born 1961), and the Boomers responded with https://theonion.com/after-obama-victory-shrieking-white-hot-sphere-of-pure-1819595330/
@eliterrell @landley @cstross @graydon @stingraz @HighlandLawyer
It reminds me of the 1970s when the Soviet Union kept selecting premiers of a certain generation who kept dying in office.
I took it as a sign of a system fighting change as hard as it could, until mortality beat it and they got Gorbachev - and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
USA is feeling very collapse-y right now too.
@jonpsp @eliterrell @cstross @graydon @stingraz @HighlandLawyer
I saw Gorbachev as given an unwinnable situation. The plane was on fire and his best job would be to control the crash.
@cstross @graydon @stingraz @HighlandLawyer The name comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses and they make a good point that ten years did make a big change in the formative/developmental impact of sputnik, moon landing, watergate, stagflation, cheap mortgages switching to high interest rates on savings, career progression vs stagnation at lower levels...
The TV show "thirtysomething" didn't resonate with people just turning 20. "Greed is good" wasn't the same rallying cry for a fry cook vs manager.
@stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
The weird thing is, the number of people who will go to heaven does not include all christians, and the rapture supposedly include the jews being punished for their crimes.
So which group of christians do they think will go to heaven? Those who conspired with jews to commit those crimes, or those who didn't?
@cstross @leeloo @PilotMoonDog
Not quite. It was 144,000.
And Revelation 7 and 14, the chapters on which this is based, if taken literally (always a risky thing to do with the Book of Revelation) says that these 144,000 are Jews, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes, virgins, male, and unblemished.
Females, male non-virgins, anyone who isn't Jewish, anyone over tribal quota, and anyone with wrinkles/spots, won't be amongst the number.
@stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
I've always been struck by how people saying "We need to [do $foo] to make the End Times come / Jesus return" are basically saying that they think they can make the Lord God Almighty hurry up. They think they can give the Creator of the Universe a deadline.
@Kathmandu @stingraz @HighlandLawyer "Good news, my fellow believers! God phoned me this morning to say he got the message and is moving the clock forward!"
"Yay!"
"He says he finally tipped Betelgeuse over into a core collapse 36 hours ago, and the resulting magnetar beam is pointing directly at where Earth will be!"
"Yay!"
"… In 472 years, 3 months, and 6 days the Earth's entire surface will be turned into a lake of molten lava!"
"Yay?"
"He says, sinners get what they pray for."
@stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
I saw a short film on Instagram that told that there were two versions of the #CargoCult still active in #Vanuatu. One, perhaps the originals, wait for the second coming of some unknown American WW2 general, whom they know as John Frum who will return and bring them gifts of”cargo” for their devotion (and model airfield complete with planes ?)
The second group worships the late Duke of Edinburgh, who will perform the same function for them.
@stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
Being literalists, I like to hear them squirm when asked if the rapture is biblically correct and which verses they get it from.
@CliffsEsport @stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
Actually, it's Pauline in 1 Thessalonians 4: "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. 17After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord."
Personally, I've never cared for Paul.
@CliffsEsport @stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
There are so many stories and myths that go with the rapture, I can't keep up. I don't even pay attention to predictive dates anymore because all of them are "imminent" but don't happen. But I don't remember anything about taking Arabian horses to the holy land. Maybe they want it to be one of the horses of the apocalypse?
@CliffsEsport @stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
LOL I forgot the Jewish part. Yeah, not sure why they'd want to go to the holy land when it's in the war to end the world.
Horses don't need gasoline, so that's a plus.
@stingraz @HighlandLawyer @cstross
It was basically describing Rome at the time. Which is closer to what's happening now in the U.S.
Bringing it about is stupid.
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