Another blow-hard, end of days minister has set himself up for failure once again.
Texas pastor John Hagee believes God is sending mankind a message. Hagee contends that these messages are coming through tetrads, a rare series of four total lunar eclipses that occur over two year periods. These blood moons are named for the reddish color that results when the Earth comes between the sun and moon. The Texas pastor believes these are tied to major events involving the state of Israel.
Hagee said that there would “not be anymore four blood moons in the future” that fall on these holidays, so he says the current tetrad could indicate the start of some major, earth shattering events. He uses two scriptures to prove his point, Joel 2:20-21 and Luke 21:25-28 while ignoring Matthew 24:2. It seems Hagee has something in common with the ACOG’s.
Dr. Danny Faulkner, an astronomer with Answers in Genesis, also noted that there are some limitations concerning where these blood moons are visible from during the 2014-2015 season.
“There also is a question of from what portion of the earth one ought to view these eclipses for them to constitute a sign,” he wrote. “One might think that Jerusalem would be a key site, but the first three total lunar eclipses in 2014–2015 won’t be visible from there, and only the beginning of the final eclipse will be. One must ask whether a sign that few people notice is much of a sign.”
Oddly enough, as a kid, I learned about eclipses through the comic strip “Peanuts”. Somehow a children’s plastic swimming pool landed on Charlie Brown’s head, and when it was later somehow removed, he said he thought it was an eclipse.
Anyhoo. Fast forward. I took a nice ride on my beach cruiser the night of the eclipse, and pretty much got to see the whole thing. In a way, it reminded me of the time in the ’70s when my brother and I were partying, tripping out on a lunar eclipse, and listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Maybe it was the lights of the city, but our most recent eclipse didn’t appear blood red to me. Perhaps a slight pink tint.
What occurred to me is this. For those who are still concerned with or occasionally read the book of Revelation, the astrological signs are depicted as a supernatural suspension of the natural laws of the universe, not a scientifically predictable eclipse or four, and not the natural and predictable results of pollution-induced global warming. In fact, the shamans, alchemists, and wizards of ancient times fooled and beguiled people into following and supporting them because they knew about some of the natural phenomena, and the general unwashed and uneducated populace did not. Religious leaders who latch these natural phenomena onto their messages probably think of themselves as being pretty spiritual. They are not. In fact, they are just plain charlatans and deceivers, just as the shamans, alchemists and wizards. This is not dissimilar to a Bob Thiel or a David Pack milking a hurricane for all it is worth, implying that gays, abortionists, or (gasp!) sabbath denyers caused it. When you see a charlatan indulge in this, it is a slam dunk that he has no special insights because in attempting to validate his own status, he takes an obvious physical path. Nothing spiritual about it.
If there were no scientific basis for forecasting aberrant events, and someone seemed to know in advance that, say, the moon would appear to be literally melting in the sky, and there were voices in the sky explaining it all, maybe it would cause me to blink. But, not one of the natural planetary cycles.
BB
Excellent Bob! All these idiot preachers try this crap one time or another.
If we lived back in the 12th century we would hear Thiel instruct the mases to shoot arrows at the eclipsing moon in order to drive the dragon away from it. Shooting arrows worked every time to “chase” the dragon from the moon, for all the wrong and misunderstood reasons.
Morons they are. Sad to think I once saw these jack-offs as enlightened!
Again BB has nicely profiled COGmasters who interpret the warning to “Watch” as “Speculate” and mark things off on their prophetic checklists. Would-be prophets warning people why they think a natural disaster occurred have that backward as well.
One semester in high school I sat next to a Seventh-day Adventist, who was viewed by others as a nutcase. Being a junior Armstrongist, I just considered him a remnant of Sardis. Talking about the end times, he mentioned that “the stars have fallen” – an SDA belief that one of the miraculous wonders in Revelation had been fulfilled by an eighteenth century meteor shower.
At my first FOT, another member put his money on a syzygy that would occur in 1982. From his expounding of this “omen” it was obvious he didn’t really understand the astronomical event that was scheduled to occur. Another member was reading “The Jupiter Effect”, which predicted calamities brought by the gravitational pull of the other planets. A third member dismissed all of this as “astrology”. Of course, like in 1972, nothing significant happened…
Couldn’t help but to add another timely prophetic warning I just read: There will be tornadoes in Oklahoma and Texas. This is like telling tenpins to watch out for black balls, as the plains states are in “Tornado Alley”, and seasonal storm activity is commencing.
The posting concluded with the open question of whether we will heed the weather warning…
Among meteorologists, there is some concern and debate that global warming (whatever causes it) may lead to increased hurricane activity, as warm ocean water is one of the key components in the evolution of tropical storms.
Now if the posting mentioned had stated that if we heed the warning the problem would go away, that would be a testable prophecy…
The question is, what can we make of prophecy if Flurries compound is leveled by a tornado?
Hmm, I haven’t heard a decent “attack by Satan” for a while.
Of course there is also the hype when nothing happens. I remember Dave Pack saying how Hurricane Sandy was headed straight for Wadsworth and made a sudden right-hand turn. That’s not what the map from the National Hurricane Center showed. And once a hurricane makes landfall it does start winding down…
There was a story in an old PT how a hurricane was barreling toward a feast site — maybe Jekyll Island — but it stalled in Cuba and changed direction. Hoopla about how the R(adio)CG was protected, but no apparent remorse for the 15 thousand killed by the redirected storm.