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mynameishere

To some Christian fundamentalists, the oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico heralds the apocalypse.

Is this "some" you speak of statistically significant? Hmm? Here's how the media works, if you don't know:

1. Identify the group you detest. (Christians, liberals, whatever.)

2. Find the stupidest member of said group.

3. Pretend said member is statistically significant.

4. Spew bullshit. Repeat.

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Uh, not to harp on christians but...

As a former Evangelical, I can tell you we really did think this way. Every generation is told that they will live to see the rapture. And according to Pew, there are like 60m of these people in varying phases of commitment to this philosophy.

While your beliefs may not coincide with this particularly toxic brand of christianity, they are a significant portion of the American population and their actions can have huge impact.

If you are christian and you are offended by this article, what would you rather they have said? Would you prefer the word "evangelical christian"?

Come on dude, this is the worse writing ever. The best quote she could find was from a COMMENTER on a random internet forum?! She tries to associate the belief of a random guy on an internet forum with 60m evangelicals. Comical.

Doesn't the doctrine of "the rapture" as now commonly understood date from about the 1890s?

If you don't know many fundamentalist Christians, it's easy to assume that this kind of thinking is very rare. I assure you, there are an eerily large number of people who interpret oil spills, wars in the Middle East, hurricane, and so on, as signs that the apocalypse is coming, as foretold in the book of Revelations. I realize, this is still not statistics. This, however, is:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1002759-2,0...

I'll just quote from the article: "A TIME/CNN poll finds that more than one-third of Americans say they are paying more attention now to how the news might relate to the end of the world, and have talked about what the Bible has to say on the subject. Fully 59% say they believe the events in Revelation are going to come true, and nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the Sept. 11 attack."

So, yes, I would say that there's something statistically significant going on here.

Hallelujah

You forget Hanlon's razor:

  Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

This kind of reporting does not take place because the reporter is malicious. It takes place because the reporter thinks his public will consider it interesting and because he thinks his public should be informed about it. Which can be considered stupid, because it is really not that interesting, because it may have adverse effects by strenghtening or causing prejudices through overly broad generalizations and because it may simply be spreading falsehoods.

(In which I do not intend to take a stance on the veracity of the claim.)

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