Comparable to the Bible: Dualism

I'm taking a break from the Egalitarian series (even though it's not yet finished) and coming back to my series on The Book of Mormon.  It's been a while since I wrote about it, but since last writing I've run into a sort of Mormon seeker coming to my church and he asked to study The Book of Mormon with me, hoping to get back into the swing of evangelizing and sharing the good news of Mormonism.

He's had some rather eye-opening surprises.

Meanwhile, reading with him has put me well into the "book" of 2 Nephi and given me lots to write about.  The book opens where 1 Nephi left off.  For those of you who've slept since my last post (I know I have), the story so far is that Lehi, a Jew living in Jerusalem around 600 BC, is told by God to pack up his family and get out before the city is destroyed (by the Babylonians, though I don't think they're ever really mentioned).  Lehi has a number of sons, three of which are important to the plot.  Leman and Lemuel are the eldest sons who are constantly doubting God, antagonizing their brother, and falling into egregious sins, such as rudeness.  Nephi, the younger son, is faithful.  He is also the first-person narrator who wrote these books.  He will let you know that he is Nephi, the author!  He will say it again, and again (one of the most common phrases in the book is I, Nephi, just in case we might have forgotten who he was in between sentences).  He will waste whole chapters telling you that he wrote these books, named them after himself, and wrote them in the language of his own Jewish subgroup (reformed Egyptian, naturally)...and then he will complain about how much he has to leave out because of all the space he wasted telling you the above (not to mention how much space he wastes telling you he's having to leave stuff out...or all the other unnecessary stuff he does).  He goes on to have many adventures with many teachable moments, such as how to murder someone in cold blood when the spirit of god commands you to in a highly uncharacteristic manner, nearly starve your entire family to death because you broke your (historically impossible) steel bow and everyone else's bows "lost their springs" (exact quote, I kid you not), and be given divine instructions on how to build a very special ship to cross the ocean to the Americas and somehow forget to write them down.  And to be honest, that's just the highlights reel.  I could go on all day.  But anyway, after faithfully following god's directions via a magical compass powered by one's own belief (because one of the major lessons of this book is that all truth comes from direct revelation of God and that it's completely dependent on us believing the truth as hard as we can before we get any proof) to the Promised Land (by which we mean America...somewhere), Nephi, his brothers, and his aged parents (who were left ambiguously hanging on the edge of death when the narrator forgot about them in chapter 18) finally arrive at book two.

Here, having just completed an important journey by God's grace and power alone, anyone familiar with the Old Testament Jews and their habits might expect Nephi and his family to offer a sacrifice in thanks or build an altar of some sort as a memorial (as did Noah in Genesis 8:20 and Joshua in Joshua 4:5-9), but despite professing multiple times to be a faithful follower of the Law of Moses (which is full of sacrifice requirements), Nephi has yet to mention offering a sacrifice of his own even once.  Apparently, he's just that kind of Jew.

But I don't want to get too bogged down here in the many, many details I could nit-pick—like how The Book of Mormon is consistent with saying that everyone in Jerusalem was killed and the city was completely destroyed, whereas history and the book of Jeremiah in the Bible tell us that there were a significant number of survivors still living in Jerusalem at the time (including Jeremiah himself), or how it explicitly claims that God hid the Americas from every other nation except Nephi and company because otherwise it'd be overrun with other peoples, even though history and even The Book of Mormon itself tell us there were other people in the Americas long before the children of Lehi.  Yeah, I could go on for a while, but I want to get to the titular issue for this post: Dualism.

Dualism, strictly speaking is a theology wherein both an evil and a good deity exist, equal in power.  Almost always, these two have each been around as long as the other and will always be around because neither can conquer the other.  In fact, in some way, they need each other.  It's this last part of Duelism that's most popular today, and that finds its way into the most places.  It's a popular idea that good and evil coexist in some way, even with their obvious conflicts, and that one really can't exist without the other.  It's a sort of justification for evil in all of its forms, an answer to the Problem of Evil.  Why are there bad things in the world?  Well, because without them, we wouldn't have good things either!  So the story goes, anyway.

In 2 Nephi, Lehi opens the book by going into a multi-chapter sermon, in which he's supposedly blessing his sons on his deathbed, but gets very distracted along the way.  One of the points he winds up talking about is definitely an endorsement of Dualism.  "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things," he says in 2 Nephi 2:11.  Right there, you have the definition of Dualism embraced in a nutshell.  But just in case you missed it, Lehi will reiterate it and spell it out several times in the rest of the verse, and the verses that follow (even Mormons call this the Gospel of Repetition).  Specifically he claims that the following cannot occur outside of opposition "[neither] righteousness...[nor] wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad."  This need for "opposition" (that is, Dualism) is expounded upon until it becomes clear that it encompasses all of existence, and even the existence of God, for "if these things are not there is no God," as 2 Nephi 2:13 asserts.  Even life cannot exist without death, sense without insensibility, purity without corruption (2 Nephi 2:11).  Though it is not stated outright that there is a second Dualistic god out there, it's an almost inescapable conclusion from the text.  If God is good, if God is love, if God is life, and wisdom, purity, joy, and peace, and if none of these can exist outside of opposition (and even god is not immune to this principle, as per 2 Nephi 2:13), then surely there must exist a deity who has been around as long as god and who is his opposite in every way: evil and hateful, a god of death, folly, corruption, misery, and war.  Some outside The Book of Mormon have proposed Satan to be that very god, an eternal, undefeatable, and necessary opposite to the God of the Bible.

However, when we examine the Bible, we find that the Dualistic good-god is, in fact, not the God of the Bible.  First and most obviously, the God of the Bible stands alone.  He does not even know of any other gods that do or ever have (or ever will) exist (Isaiah 44:8).  Satan, certainly, is not a Dualistic equal and opposite god to our God.  Satan cannot even inflict the most basic of miseries without God's express permission (Job 1:8-12), and He is a created being who has not always existed, nor will he always be free to cause trouble.  That alone should make it clear that the Bible does not share Lehi's Dualism.  But for further proof, we need look no further than the creation account in Genesis.  At the end of chapter 1, God declares His creation finished and "very good."  He has made a wonderful paradise full of life, love, purity, joy, and peace...and there is not a trace of evil, hate, folly, misery, war, or death anywhere in creation.  Clearly all things do not have to exist in opposition.

In fact, claiming the need for Dualistic opposition leads to some very strange interpretations on the creation story, particularly the Fall.  Lehi spells it out for us.  Was man made to serve and glorify God (as per Isaiah 43:7, and numerous other Bible passages)?  Not at all!  According to 2 Nephi 2:16, man was created to "act for himself."  Here, the Humanistic all-importance of man's agency in Mormonism appears (it's so pervasive that they explicitly teach that Satan's evil plan is essentially just predestination—and must be rejected because it takes away our agency!).  Humankind needed to have a choice to do good or evil from the beginning.  Going further, Lehi claims that they needed to do evil, in order to balance out all of that good and secure their own existence in the cosmic Dualism.  "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy," says 2 Nephi 2:25.

That verse might be a little surprising to anyone familiar with the Bible.  In fact, it should be.  That's because there is no passage anywhere in the Bible giving a positive spin to the Fall.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Adam's Fall was necessary.  Nowhere does it say that it was ultimately a good thing.  In fact, in Genesis 3, God pronounces a terrible curse on all of Creation because of Adam's Fall.  Paul in Romans goes on to elaborate that it was this one act of Adam that brought sin and death down upon all mankind, and that Christ came as a type of second Adam specifically to free us from these.  In the Bible, the Fall was such a terrible thing that it wrecked all of creation and fundamentally broke all of Adam's descendants in such a way that, in order to make healing, reconciliation, and forgiveness possible the very Divine Son of God had to suffer and die on a cross thousands of years later.  That's what the Bible says the Fall was like. It's not exactly the portrait of a positive and liberating necessary event.

Nor should it be.  There's a very simple reason why the fundamentally Dualistic theology and philosophy of The Book of Mormon clashes so badly with the Bible: Dualism isn't a Biblical idea, nor does it come from any culture that existed in Lehi's time.  It comes from the ancient Greek philosophers.  From them, the idea passed on to us and has gained a certain credence, despite its logical problems (like how it would, logically, require that logical principles such as squares not being able to be triangles could only exist in opposition with some nonsense place where squares could be triangles if they wanted to be).  It became popular with humanism, which saw it as a way to excuse our flaws and turn a blind eye to the evils of the world.  After all, there's no use sweating over your own shortcoming when you believe that, without them, you couldn't be great!  Evidently Smith found this train of thought appealing.  He certainly would have been exposed to it, the Burned-Over District where he came from being a melting pot of Christian-like philosophies.  This of course, explains exactly how Dualism found its way into The Book of Mormon and exactly why it doesn't agree with the Bible...because Smith was it's human, uninspired author.

Why Obama isn't the Antichrist

I'm not the greatest fan of our president, but lately someone showed up on a Christian forum where I'm an admin purporting to be a prophet, revealing with absolute certainty that Obama was the very Antichrist prophesied to come in the end times.

His name has been removed, as has is post and account, but let his argument live on as a shining example of how not to study prophesy in the Bible.

Original Post:

100% PROOF THAT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS THE ANTICHRIST AND THAT WE ARE ALREADY IN THE GREAT 7-YEAR TRIBULATION!!!

Why would Jesus pray this if it was God's will that we be raptured out instead of going through the tribulation? If it wasn't God's will that we remain on this earth, then it would mean that this prayer that Jesus prayed to the Father was a sin, and we all know that Jesus was sinless. Like I said, the tribulation already began a few years ago, and it won't be long before Jesus arrives on His white horse with ten thousands of His saints (See Jude 1:14-15).

The Tribulation Will Soon Be Over and Obama Revealed as the Antichrist!

By Prophet/Evangelist [name redacted]

Matthew 24:27-31 "For as the lightning (HEBREW WORD FOR LIGHTNING IS "BARAQ") cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west (HE WAS BORN IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THEN CAME TO BE PRESIDENT OF AMERICA IN THE WEST); so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together (WHERE THE CONGREGATION OF THE DEAD IS, THE ELECT, THE ONES WHO ARE WAITING ON THE LORD, WILL MOUNT UP WITH WINGS AS EAGLES). Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

In fact, Jesus even gives the antichrist's full name in Luke 10:18 "And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Remember what I said about the Hebrew word for "lightning" being "baraq"? Well, the Hebrew word for "fall from" is a simple "o" and the Hebrew word for "heaven" is "bamaw." So, put them all together and the actual pronunciation that Jesus said in Luke 10:18 was "I beheld Satan as baraq o bamaw."

Isaiah 24:22-23 "And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously."

Hebrews 11:32a "And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae;...."

Hebrews 11:35b-40 "......and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."

Revelation 6:15 "And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;"

1 Samuel 13:6 "When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits."

Obama has secret underground bunkers all throughout the United States which house the 30,000 top-secret guillotines along with the millions of plastic caskets that he has purchased. This is where the missing people of the United States are beheaded including children so that Obama can harvest their organs for money. He is pure evil! These next verses tie into Hebrews 11:32 up above:

Daniel 7:3-4 "And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it."

Daniel 7:8 "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things."

Yeah, there's a lot of great things that come out of Obama's mouth, but they're all lies!

Daniel 7:17-21 "These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom."

Daniel 7:25 "And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time."

Yeah, Obama has nothing good at all to say about Christians, and he's worn out a lot of saints because of it. He's attempted to rewrite the constitution since he was elected. "a time and times and the dividing of time" = 3 and a half years.

Revelation 13:5-7 "And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations."

Obama's most famous blasphemous statement is "The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet Muhammed."

Revelation 13:15-18 "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

Yeah, Christians who won't worship the "image" of the beast which is the fake god "Allah" are being beheaded! Also, Obama has a mandate for all humans to be implanted with a microchip in their right hand or forehead by the year 2017 or else they won't be able to buy or sell. This chip will contain GPS and he will be able to hear anything the people say. The ones who are Christians, he will have them tracked down and beheaded. His plan is to collapse the U.S. economy before the next election so that martial law will be declared, allowing him to remain in office indefinitely!
Obama calls same-sex marriages and abortions good, and those who condemn them he calls evil. Here is a verse about him:

Isaiah 5:20 "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

Matthew 24:15 "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)"

Mark 13:14 "But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:"

(WHEN YOU SHALL SEE THE "OBAMA NATION OF DESOLATION")

2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 "And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

Yeah, let those who read this understand.........Hold on till the end of the tribulation, saints!

Daniel 12:10 "Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand."

For those Christians who are mourning the death of loved ones whose heads have been cut off by the evil Muslims, here is what Jesus said:

Matthew 5:4-5 "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."

Psalm 37:9-15 "For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken."

Matthew 24:13 "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."

Revelation 20:4 "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

Revelation 2:26-28 "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

Revelation 6:9-11 "And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."

Hold on saints! It won't be much longer! Wait on the Lord! He will be worth the wait, and then everything will be worth it!

Isaiah 40:31 "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

Jesus in John 16:33 "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

Not satisfied with plopping this boisterous tome on the forum by itself, the self-proclaimed prophet then added the following instructions for forum members:

Please, no comments without first reading the entire message. Everyone who reads it ends up having their jaw dropping wide open, their eyes getting really big, and saying something like "Wow! I see what you mean now!"

Normally I'd ignore drivel like this, but this time I wrote up a response.  While the reply never made it to him, as he was banned by another admin too quickly (and yet not quickly enough!), it too will live on here, for the sake of anyone who might actually get drawn in by the words of such a charlatan.

Okay, well, consider my jaw dropped for all the wrong reasons.

 First off, the use of Matthew 24:27-31 is an excellent example of how not to use scripture, ignoring context. By context I mean that little verse that comes just AFTER the end of the quoted section, Matthew 24:36, wherein Jesus says, "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." In a parallel passage, Jesus says that even the SON does not know when the end times will take place. By putting forth this essay, the writer has implicitly made the claim to know more about prophesy and the end times than the Son of God.

The writer has then helpfully dismantled his own claim by making a number of major mistakes that render his entire argument absurd.

First, at the very start, the writer attacks the “pre-trib” view of the end times by referencing (but not citing) John 17:15, which reads “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.”  The writer takes this to be emphatic proof that Jesus was not in favor of a pre-tribulation rapture for believers.  Unfortunately the writer forgot to check his context on this one, because the section of the prayer where Jesus prays for believers today (John 17:20: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;”) doesn’t start until 5 verses later and this section is devoted to the 12 disciples who were alive and following Jesus at that time (hence the reference to the loss of Judas in John 17:12: “none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled”—same “they” as in verse 15).  While the writer’s argument is at least a decent attempt, it is far from being as watertight as he’d like to believe it to be.

 But I digress.  Getting back to Matthew 24, the writer not only ignores the very critical verse 36 by determining to know what no one but the Father knows, but also butchers the meaning of his chosen passage beyond recognition in order to set up his wordplay.  While in the original context the all-important “lightning” refers to the suddenness and undeniable nature of Jesus’ Second Coming, he makes it refer to the Antichrist…which strikes me as not only unjustified by the context but also borderline blasphemous.  But it’s all okay, right, because the wordplay between “lightning” and “Baraq” (is that even pronounced the same as Barack Obama’s name?) provides “100% proof” that our current president is the Antichrist, right?

Well, no, actually.  You see, underlying the wordplay is an assumption that either the New Testament passage in question was originally written in Hebrew or Jesus originally said it in Hebrew.  Unfortunately, he is wrong on both counts.  The New Testament was written in Greek.  The Greek word for “lightning” in this verse is “astrape.”  “Astrape” does not bear even a passing resemblance to Obama’s first name.  Furthermore, it is certain that Jesus did not speak those words in Hebrew either.  The ancient Hebrew language was, in that period, on its way out and very rarely used in Jewish culture (analogous to the way Latin clung on for centuries among certain Catholics: they had sacred texts and services in it, but nothing else).  Greek was the world language of the time, and the locals spoke Aramaic.  We can know that Greek and Aramaic were Jesus’ preferred languages by looking at the other things He said.  When He quoted from the Old Testament, you can tell from the differences between His wording and our modern Old Testament’s wording that He was quoting from the Septuagint, the Greek version of the scriptures.  Furthermore, when He hung on the cross His cry of “Eli Eli lama sabachthani” is Aramaic, not Hebrew.  In Aramaic the word for “lightning” is “barqoa” or “barqao” (depending on pronunciation), which is, again, nowhere near “Barack.”  Bottom line, the writer, in his excitement and ignorance, is not only butchering Jesus’ meaning with this passage but also quite literally putting words into our Lord’s mouth.

These same inconvenient facts plague the writer’s analysis of Luke 10:18, where he attempts to seal the deal by proving beyond doubt that Jesus is actually talking about (and name-drops) Barack Obama.  Unfortunately he proves nothing of the kind.  The context of the verse is not only ignored, it’s completely trampled on.  It doesn’t even make sense for Jesus to mention the name of the Antichrist in this passage, but the torturous way the writer tries to make Him do so anyway is so obviously forced that it destroys the basic grammar of the sentence.  In his version, instead of saying, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,” He says, “I beheld Satan as Barack Obama.”  What is that even supposed to mean?  Is he saying Satan is like Barack Obama (and if so, in what way?  In his actions?  In his authority?)  Is He instead trying to say that He, Jesus, saw Satan just like Barack Obama saw Satan?  Throw in the fact that (again) Jesus was speaking either Greek or Aramaic and the whole attempt becomes just sad.  Rather than saying something that can even remotely be taken as “baraq o bamaw” Jesus said either “astrape pipto ek ouranos” or “barqoa danpal men shmayoa.”  Did you get “Barack Obama” out of any of that?  Yeah, neither did I.

 Next comes a rather interesting one which can only generously be called a bit of a stretch.  Less generously, it’s a lesson on how not to read the Bible.  This lesson comes in three steps.  First, grab five totally unrelated verses from opposite ends of Scripture (in this case Isaiah 24:22-23 [talking about the final fate of the wicked kings of the earth], Hebrews 11:32 [referencing great men of faith in the Old Testament who were left out of the “Hall of Faith” chapter due to time and space constraints], Hebrews 11:35-40 [explicitly talking about martyrs who died BEFORE the time of Christ, see Hebrews 11:39-40], Revelation 6:15 [talking about the suicidal reaction of the wicked in the face of God’s judgments during the end times], and 1 Samuel 3:16 [talking about how the Israelites reacted to a Philistine invasion during Saul’s reign]).  Second pretend all these verses are somehow secretly talking about the same thing.  Then grab an unsubstantiated conspiracy-theorist-fringe rumor from the internet (notably without fact-checking it) and try to present it and the above verses in such a way that they vaguely seem to be talking about the same thing.  Need I say more?

Oh, but I must, for the writer continues pounding on poor Hebrews 11:32, completely distorting its real meaning.  The writer is very pleased to have found a verse that, honest to goodness, actually contains the name “Barak.”  He wants to make it a reference to Barack Obama, who is, of course, the Antichrist.  Unfortunately, in the actual verse, it’s a reference to the Old Testament’s man of faith and military leader, Barak, son of Abinoam (better known as the male half of the “Deborah and Barak” team).  Trying to make it about our president instead doesn’t even remotely make sense.  Trying to make it about the Antichrist (here being praised for his faith?!?) is absolutely ludicrous.

But the writer’s not done, unfortunately.  He continues with a reference to Daniel 7:3-4 and 8 that can only be called weak.  Sure, the “little horn” said great things and was lying, and I’m sure Obama has said great things and been lying.  However, here’s a news flash: lots and lots and lots of leaders throughout history and in our present day have lied about great things.  Hitler lied like a rug all the way to and through World War 2.  Evil he was, Antichrist he was not.

In similar vein, the writer alleges that Barack Obama’s slight (in the big picture of what other world leaders say about Christians, VERY slight) verbal harassment of Christians is actually the “little horn’s” prophesied physical harassment and wholesale slaughter of Christians.  In an attempt to bolster this argument, the writer throws in a reference to Daniel 12:7’s “a time, times, and half a time” interpreting this as the prophetic 3-and-a-half year presidential term of Obama.  This reference embarrassingly dates the original writing.  The writer should really update the math on that one, because Obama’s been in office now for just over six years, a figure with precisely zero prophetic significance.  This is why re-reading and editing your own work is always a good idea as a writer.

The stretched prophetic allusions are growing tired by this point, but the writer tries one more, alleging that the great blasphemies of the world-leader (not powerful-nation-leader, as Obama) are actually Obama’s remarks that the future should not belong to those who “slander the Prophet Mohammed.”  First off, did Obama even say that?  Even if he did, how is that blasphemy?  How is that a great blasphemy foretold in prophesy?  I think I’M guilty of uttering greater blasphemies whenever I slip up and swear.  Nobody prophesied about that.

Well, after that, the writer decides to revisit one of his previous tactics and try to match Bible prophesy with internet conspiracy theories, pulling up absolute nonsense about Obama’s supposed plans, which cannot be backed by any facts because they are simply not real.  People have been spouting the same nonsense allegations about every leader or political figure they dislike since the invention of the microchip decades ago.  It still hasn’t come true, and it isn’t going to this time either.  Let’s be realistic: Obama had to fight tooth and nail for four + years to get through a healthcare reform bill which, while objectionable in many parts, was universally acknowledge as needed (or at least we can all agree that some kind of healthcare reform was necessary), and that with the full support of an overwhelmingly Democrat Congress.  Now Congress is overwhelmingly Republican.  The president won’t be able to get out of the bed in the morning without them objecting that he’s not doing it right and trying to hamstring him in some way.  The odds of him passing any major legislation in the next two years are very slim.  The odds of him passing some sweeping and EXTREMELY objectionable (as in no one, not even Democrats, would support him) piece of legislation mandating the tagging of and committing genocide against American Christians (many of which are part of the current Congressional majority—and minority: yes, there are Christian Democrats, it’s a thing) are so tiny as to make the entire idea comically absurd.

 Finally, mercifully, the writer makes his last argument, using Matthew 24:15 and 13:14.  This is the part where my jaw dropped.  I had to re-read the section because I could not believe that the writer was seriously trying to use an English PUN as a legitimate argument.  Both passages mention the “abomination of desolation.”  Rather than trying to interpret and understand that, the writer distorts it into a pun: the “OBAMA NATION OF DESOLATION”.  I wish I was making that part up, but no, that is really the level to which the writer stoops in his flat-out desperation to make his case.  First off, even in English you can tell the difference in pronunciation between “abomination” and “Obama-nation.”  Even if you couldn't, a pun does not an argument make.  Second, when we look at Matthew 24 and Matthew 13, we are looking at TRANSLATED texts, as in, the original words Jesus spoke were NOT English.  The terrible pun that this argument stands on works ONLY in English (and that only if we define the phrase “the argument works” loosely).  I’m shocked, completely blown away, that the writer would make this kind of an obvious error when fully the first third of his argument was spent trying to derive secret meanings from the (supposedly) original Hebrew.  So at the beginning of the article, the real meaning of Matthew 24 can only be decoded in Hebrew, and at the end only in English?  Is the writer deliberately trying to deceive us, or is he just dense?  In case it does need to be said at this point, no, Jesus never said, “Obama-nation” anything because He spoke Aramaic or Greek.  He said either “bdelygma” [Greek] or “msaybuotoa” [Aramaic].  Either of those look like “Obama”-anything to you?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Lest anyone should think this too difficult or think too much of me, all of the information I used can be found in 10-15 minutes on Google, counting time needed to scroll to specific references.  It's disgustingly easy to debunk stuff like this, and it makes me sick to think that false prophets actually deceive and rob people blind with this level of garbage.