Is Christendom going the way of the Aztecs?

I've kinda been thinking around this a lot lately. It appears that part of the Christian world is deciding what is good for the rest of us based on prophetic writings. Now the Aztecs folded when the white man came because their prophecy of end times had a story about white men coming and they accepted those men readily based on that belief. I recently read about the prophecies that St. Malachy made about the popes and when the Catholic church will cease to be. That the Catholic church guards these prophecies and has not discredited them over the centuries would indicate that they believe them. It's not just this one issue but all the end time chatter from all quarters.

Perhaps it is too soon for me to post this because I haven't really articulated my thoughts adequately. It just seems to me that the times are being shaped by long held beliefs about the nature of man and God and time itself. It feels like this particular belief system is willing an end to the world, and the Protestant fringe groups have been more than happy to jump on for the ride.

Does this make sense?

see why this one wouldn't either. Especially when an ever increasing majority of their leadership seems to be trading doctrine for political power.

and each of these gods was all powerful in his or her time, and men trembled before them. Most have passed out of memory completely and others are the stuff of boring schoolchildren and causing their elders to giggle a bit at the gullibility of the ancients.

Our own gods will eventually pass, too. However, these gods are the only ones with the capacity to take us all with them via a nuclear Armageddon.

I hope it won't happen. We're already seeing signs that the millennial fervor is passing, "cheating" in the form of things like Christian porn (no kidding, Google it). Once people start to cheat around the edges, the movement is done for.

I take little delight in seeing gods pass out of memory because I know they'll only be replaced by new gods, creations of people with too much time on their hands and a desire to be lifted above their fellows.

Some gods are demonstrably better than others. Some gods are benevolent and bring rain and a long growing season while others are capricious, petty and vindictive and focus on successful wars. They would all seem to have their own life span, though, and none will live forever.

it isn't going anywhere much to your possible dismay

in the grand scheme of things.

The world has been around for a lot longer than 2000 years. 2000 years is barely a wrinkle in the vast fabric of time.

I can only hope that the apocalyptic event that some evangelical christians pray for applies only to the most destructive parts of their faith.

making the calendar longer, or the person in charge just died.

If we don't blow ourselves up, and leave the world to insects and bacteria, eventually the earth will be incinerated by the sun and al life will cease. This is presumably billions of years into the future, but there are so many possibilities of a scenario of doom, it seems to me to be a waste of time thinking about all of them.

What to do when the big asteroid hits and either creates hell on earth or just shatters the planet?

Good thinking.

and the only certainty among the many they proclaim for which they actually have reliable evidence, and know they cannot escape in at least the bodily and temporal senses, is death. There is a lot that separates them in the detail, but in individual mentality and group thematics the fringe sects of Christianity are death cults, and bear closer resemblance to Islamic fundamentalism than they do to the Christian mainstream.

Death is the release that promises finally to separate them from all that is icky about the world (especially their snickering neighbours) and from the pain of 'knowing' what disgusting sinners they are. The prospect of fizzling out on a sickbed is simply intolerable - how much more appealing is a scenario of mass mayhem that whacks they people they love to hate and raises their immortal souls up in a protective bubble from which they can give the two-fingered salute (in an ethereal, holy sort of way).

I'm reminded of the last words of Isaac Bashevis Singer's epic novel about the Jews of Poland from 1900-1939, The Family Moskat: 'Death is the Messiah. That's the real truth.'

and when it happens it will be the end of the RC church.

I just hope Pope Bennie lives to see it.

... that was clearly predicted to occur before the generation that saw the Resurrection died, correct?

Christianity is a belief system based on personal protection from the doom of death.

When the patriarchs were choosing how to organize an authoritative codex they left in references to things that supported that belief...like mystical references to the rapture...they really didn't move much beyond the idea of saving the individual and the world of believers from deathy doom.

Christian churches are structured to take advantage of the cognative motivators of conservative behavior. The fundamental belief in salvation from personal doom is the most highly correlated psychologcial condition with conservatism...FEAR OF DEATH. If you are into checking things off lists, you should check out the report of Jost et al. who studied the cognitive motivators of conservatism. The paper is titled “Political conservatism as motivated social cognition” ( Psychological Bulletin vol 129, pp 339-375). Publication of that paper set off a fire storm as conservatives took offense at being characterized in this way. I think you will find that political conservatism and western religion strongly share psychological correlates/cogative motivators. I am willing to bet that if you characterize christians this way they will be offended, too.

Here is what the heck I am ranting about very briefly. . .

Jost et al evaluated 88 published studies (some of these are European so the paper is not only about conservatism in the US) to determine if correlations between political conservatism and expectations derived from social theories conservatism...

The expectations they had were the following which Jost et al found to be persistent manifestations of conservatism regardless of historic setting or geographic context of the social system described in each study:

opposition to change; and acceptance of inequality

They found the following correlates to stimulus that were claimed to motivate individuals toward political conservatism....

death anxiety ( r =50)
system stability (.47)
dogmatism/intolerance to ambiguity (.34)
openness to experience (-.32)
uncertainty tolerance (-.27)
needs for order/structure/closure (.26)
integrative complexity (-.20)
fear of threat and/or loss (.18)
self-esteem (-.09)


So were they describing Christians or Republicans? It's appears to me that they might have been describing either.

Three of these significant correlations can be lumped to gether as fear - -death anxiety and system stability and fear of threat or loss. Now, death anxiety is at the core of the notion of Christian salvation which is the core of Christianity. System stability protects from the risks associated with change. The divine intercession that Christian practitioners seek via prayer frequently seeks protection from threats and loss.

The remainder of the correlates seem to be exploited by western christian churches (in my experience of them) and do this by ministering to vulnerable aspects of human nature. Authoritative voices serve to replace personal experience. Structured belief systems provide black and white answers to right and wrong and reduce dealing with societal complexity to a handful of rules. Annual cycles of ritual provide order and structure to existance and in the case of birth, marriage and death provide formal recognition, approved meanings and closure to the events.

So, as the western world, and particularly North America swing to an unusually radical form of conservatism it is no surprise to me that Churches and their belief systems, including prophecies and myths seem to rise up and become more significant. Although the End Times and Rapture have been a part of chrisitan belief for many and many decades in this conservative season they are now out of hibernation and freely moving about, seemingly influencing contemporary life.

Do not worry. This too shall pass, and the christendom you fear will be destroyed will be re-established from the current "christendoom."

What year was this published in?

make sense. For one thing, while there are a few fringe groups that may be willing to to hurry things along, my own observation is that most of those that believe those things also believe that they will happen with no help from themselves. After all, just because God has ordained that bad things happen, does not relieve the personal guilt of those that do them.

Further, I think the vast majority of Christians,even conservative ones, are not pre-millenialists, hence have no belief in the Left Behind scenario.


And while I am not Catholic, I pay attention to church pronouncements. They are such a powerful organization that you simply have to if you want to consider yourself well-informed. This does not seem to be one of their doctrines.

exercising power in the government. Everyone else is sitting back and wringing their hands in dismay.

small pox, and probably hanta virus (or a relative)

other diseases brought to the Americas, just as all Amerindians did.

There is also the problem w/several blights that affected crops as well.

It was the compounding of several items that doomed the Aztecs, Maya and other native groups. Add to this the killing in the "glorious name of God" and you have disaster upon disaster.

may have been responsible for the extermination of what the smallpox, and conquerors didn't kill.

Their pre-Columbian culture is gone, but they and their languages survive.

I think Christianity in some areas may be on the verge of a new Reformation in which the liberal churches separate themselves from the fundamentalists. It may split denominations down the middle; it's going to be interesting to see what happens at the Episcopal Church's national meeting this week, especially in regard to how they approach inclusion of LGBT members. The RCC already has splinter groups, still very small. But I wouldn't be surprised if large numbers of American Catholics walked away from Rome over the next several years.

The Aztec's had a prophecy of the end of their civilization. That prophecy had to do with the return of the god Quetzalcoatl. They also predicted the date of the return, which happened to be the same date as the arrival of Cortes in Mexico. So one can't help but wonder if their prophecy was basically a "self-fulfilling" prophecy, or they believed it, so it happened. Now we have some Christian groups who are expecting the end of the world, and are working to that goal because they believe only they will inherit the earth. Yep, I've thought about this same thing. It is a scary time. I believe that there are people who believe that the rapture is near, and that all that is evil (in their definition) will be wiped off the earth. I don't believed that such selfishness is compatible with beliefs of Christ. It has always been amazing to me how a humans can twist and turn the words of a religion to fit their own needs and desires. It is very sad that a religion based on love can be turned into a weapon.