Today is 5/5/5. How will FReepers react over the next year? [poll]

[Mugsy]

I remember as "Y2K" approached, everyone was predicting doom around the globe. And as a computer tech, everyone wanted my opinion: "Nothing is going to happen", I'd tell them. "The computers that run water and electricity aren't dependent upon the date. There is no point in which they are told to shut down on a particular date. Ditto for our nuclear arsenal. Bank computers have been prepared for Y2K since the first 30-year mortgage was issued in 1970. Ditto for prisons timing the release of convicts. It's all a bunch of media invented hype."

I was right. Next prediction:

Ever since Bush was elected in 2001, I've been telling people that the REAL date you need to be worried about is 6/6/6, when these religious nutcases start screaming "the end of the world is coming". 9/11 only made the likelihood of this even greater.

We already have a TV miniseries dedicated to the end of the world, and an overt "false profit" of a President that wears his religion on his sleeve while he sends young men off to die in a war he started.

Movies like "The Passion" were mainstream theatrical hits (I tried to watch the movie, but it was so stomach turning, you have to be one sick puppy to sit through the entire thing). Our politicians pander to the most extreme 10% of the Religious Right because they know it buys them power. Disrespect for religions other than Christianity hasn't been this high since the Crusades.

So what do YOU think we'll see over the next one year, one month and one day as June 6, 2006 approaches?

[El Fuego]

1. I have to add this:

G E O R G E = 6
W A L K E R = 6
B U S H,J R = 6

So it will be kind of a double whammy.

[Boredtodeath]

12. Only one problem...

B U S H,J R = 6

He's NOT a junior, nor is his father a senior. His father's name is George HERBERT Walker Bush.

[El Fuego]

23. OK, but he's still the Anti-Christ! n/t

[Hugin]

2. Strangely enough...

6/6/6 will be my 23 graduation anniversary...

That's about the biggest thing I'm expecting on that day.

When the sun rises on 6/7/6... There will probably be some
long faces as there are lots of terminally cognitively
dissonant fundies out there.

When the calendar turned on the year 1000 and nothing happened
there was a tremendous backlash which lasted hundreds of years.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the same sort of thing now.

If you promise the kids Santa is coming and he doesn't show expect
them to throw a tantrum.

My interpretation of Revelations is much different than most, but,
one thing it *clearly* states is that there is no way to predict
the end... It will steal up on us as a thief in the night. So,
if such a thing were to happen it won't be as easy as looking it
up on a pagan calendar.

[mistertrickster]

5. You are correct. It is clear that the apostles all thought the

second coming of the messiah was going to happen in their lifetimes or in the very near future. It didn't.

(A few scholars consider that when Christ arose on Easter, that was in effect the second coming--but that doesn't exactly square with Jesus's description that the second coming would be like lightning that illuminates the sky from one end to the other.)

Anyway, the Bible clearly states that the angels in heaven and Jesus himself do not know when the world will end, but that "only the Father knows."

So on the basis of what they themselves believe, Pat Robertson and all these other religious quacks claim to know more than Jesus and the angels in heaven.

Hmmm . . . pride goeth before a fall.

[Mizmoon]

9. True, but there are signs

the world's troubles would multiply and come more and more quickly as the end comes closer ... like the progression of labor pains.

Of course, there will be wars and rumors of wars ... but no one knows the true hour but God.

So that kind of covers both bases - it is or isn't coming soon, depending.

Hal Lindsey told me it was going to happen in the late 1980s. I think he was mistaken.

[AllegroRondo]

11. Jesus said he would return while the apostles were alive

"there are those among you who will not have tasted death before I return"

[Double T]

3. The Religious Lunatics Will Run Around Like Chickens.....

....Yelling The Sky Is Falling, Then Nothing Will Happen.

[bryant69]

4. I Predict Robot Chickens from Outer Space

will invade. But mostly they will just get some ice cream, take some pictures with the kids, and then go back to to Chickulon 5.

Bryant
check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Hugin]

6. Good prediction...

I've seeeeeen the light!

Quick, hide all of the KFCs!

[SmokingJacket]

7. That's my birthday...

Maybe I'm the antiChrist?

:shrug:

But as for your question: I would like to think that Fundamentalism has already peaked, that there was a frenzy of it around the millenium but now it's cooling off and, slowly but surely, rational thinking will return.

But I could be very, very wrong. I just can't tell -- since the rise of the religious right makes so little sense to me, I just have no idea where it's going.

[Hugin]

17. Your birthday!

Now I've heard something important is happening on
that date!

A very pre-mature happy birthday to you!

:party:

[lectrobyte]

8. I thought I read somewhere in the last month or so that 666 was a

mistranslation, and the real number specified in Revelations is 616.

[lectrobyte]

10. googled, found 616 is the number of the beast...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=634679

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616.

The new fragment from the Book of Revelation, written in ancient Greek and dating from the late third century, is part of a hoard of previously unintelligible manuscripts discovered in historic dumps outside Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Now a team of expert classicists, using new photographic techniques, are finally deciphering the original writing.

[SpiralHawk]

13. 616 - the nUmBer of the bEasT

now we know the tRutH

That bastard Caligula - I bet he was a Republican

[northstar]

14. Whatever the number, FEAR is the name-of-their-game

These are the last two paragraphs from the article you cited:

<snip>
The Book of Revelation is traditionally considered to be written by John, a disciple of Jesus; it identifies 666 as the mark of the Antichrist. In America, the fundamentalist Christian right often use the number in sermons about the coming Apocalypse.

They and satanists responded coolly to the new "Revelation". Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, based in New York, said: "By using 666 we're using something that the Christians fear. Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we'll start using that."
<snip>

[lectrobyte]

21. it is all about fear, and control, for the fundies. I have to mess with

my relatives when they start up with fundie-ness, and I usually send them off to look at the barcodes on their favorite bag or Cheetos or any other consumer item, since all of them (barcodes, not Cheetos) have a 6 6 6 embedded in them.

[Hugin]

15. So, do I plan my orgy of shadenfreunde on 6/2/6 instead?

I'd think that makes more sense.

I wonder where the 6/6/6 thing comes from... How it
became telegraphed.

But, then the ancients were never all that good at
accounting.

[lectrobyte]

22. Not a biblical expert by any means, but thought the 666 was the

mark that everyone would need to have to buy and sell, as opposed to a date. So I guess any time is good for an orgy of shadenfreunde.

[Fescue4u]

16. I thought it was 6/6/2006

I don't recall hearing anything about 6/6/1996 ot 6/6/1986

I suppose some of the nuttier folks will freak, but I doubt we'll hear much.

[Hugin]

18. You must be a programmer...

They're the only people who are now acutely aware this
is in fact... 2006 we're talking about.

Good job!

(Edited to remove implications of time travel. But,
hopefully you knew what I meant.)

[Fescue4u]

19. Used to be :)

Old habits die hard :)

[Wise Child]

20. Chatter about the Apocalypse will probably increase next year,

because some Fundies will play the Biblical numerology game again. Remember when some Fundies were talking about the Rapture in 1988? The last prophecy, they claim, to have been fulfilled was the founding of the state of Israel, Fundies point to some scripture saying that the first generation (of the re-established Israel) will witness the Second Coming. A Biblical generation is supposed to be forty years so 1948 + 40 = 1988. Well, I'm sure soon, some Fundies will start claiming that the important detail will be the holy city of Jerusalem, which was annexed in 1967. So, 1967 + 40 = 2007. Next year, some Fundies will probably start talking about the Rapture happening in 2007. They may even claim that the number seven has much Bibilical significance.

Or maybe they will really start talking about the Rapture if the Democrats regain some seats in Congress in the Fall and sworn in, in early 2007.

[Mugsy]

24. Only see 2007 after 6/6/6 falls through.

Only after nothing happens on 6/6/6, would anyone suggest 2007 as a possible "Biblical Due Date".

But mostly, we've seen time and time again, the effects of a "self-fulling prophesy". Anyone recall Iraq being called "a hotbed of terrorist activity" *before* the war as justification for going in?