Re: Fear
Rick Chapman (rchap@en.com)
Thu, 17 Apr 1997 00:17:03 -0400
Ralph Nielsen wrote:
>
> >> ?
> >> << I can't remember where I saw this. If anyone has one of these archaic end
> >> time predictions, I'd love to see it! >>
>
> >> (Ian 4/16) I used to have a little booklet someone put out titled "Why the
> >Rapture Will Be In 1987" or something like that. I know I've seen it around
> >fairly recently but now I can't find it. I'll keep looking.
>
> RALPH NIELSEN
> Three or four years ago, when I was still working at the University of
> Idaho Library, I made a computer catalog search under the heading End Times
> or whatever it was. The data base went well back into the 19th century.
> There were dozens of books whose titles dealt with an imminent End of the
> World and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ; some of them included an
> actual date for the event. And such drivel is still being written today. As
> P.T. Barnum correctly observed, "There is a sucker born every minute."
>
> The current "Christian" books being published in North America and
> elsewhere are a response to a demand. The demand arises as the result of
> propaganda in churches and commercial advertising. And the Xian publishers
> admit that they sell the stuff by encouraging fear in their readers.
> Sometimes Xians can be truthful. This admission is not read aloud in
> churches; I read it in the Publisher's Weekly, a trade magazine that
> librarians also read.
I have a bumper sticker on my "Dodge" truck that says, "There's a sucker
born again every minute". Available from FFRF.
Rick