Religion and The End of Times
Not sure how far one can trust these figures, but the point is taken.
In the United States, 39% of adults say they believe “we are living in the end times,” while 58% say they do not believe we are living in the end times, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
https://www.pewresearch.org/?attachment_id=420176
In this article, I am raising questions without pretending to know the answers, but also publish facts that might be found offensive, although offending anyone doesn’t interest me. As you know, this is not a religious site, but its prominent focus cannot circumvent the ultimate questions about life, the way it’s worth living, and its end.
Religion has never been allowed to be of higher priority than submission to the state and, most recently, to “the benefit of the public.” At a time, when all religions are projected as equal, the next projection will likely be that the outcome of all religions amount to equally nothing, while the divisions between them are setting them up against each other until they cease to exist.
The largest (“most global”) branch of Christianity, Roman Catholicism has been infiltrated by Freemasons and the like ever since it started losing its glamor with the French Revolution, and its “diversity” exponentially increased already in the 19th century. By the mid-20th century, it would have been a major feat to find two of its theologians who would agree on everything, and with poverty and the status of the clergy diminishing, it only stood strong in former communist countries for a while as part of the “counterculture,” while it was quietly dying in the West, where living standards were high enough to ignore the most important questions, and life became about living it to its full. In recent decades, the hierarchies of most denominations distanced themselves from both doctrine and tradition, which was obvious during their focusing on fear and compliance during the plandemic. At the same time, Christianity has been the most persecuted religion ever since it ceased to openly serve the state, that is, since the creation of secularized (mostly) nation-states. Still, placing religions outside the sidelines has been perhaps the most successful strategy against them.
Not only Catholicism has been suffering from decline. For Sunni Islam1, “50,000 out of the 75,000 Iranian mosques have shut their doors, ‘due to a significant decline in attendance.’”
https://nishantkarna.quora.com/Out-of-75000-mosques-50-000-mosques-have-closed-in-Iran-Fall-in-mosque-goers-in-Muslim-community-is-highly-alarming
In Sunni Islam, the caliphs are direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed2 (which is not very different from the fact that for Anglicans, the presiding royalty is the head of their church):
As for Roman Catholicism dying in public, a superbly tactful, but detailed comment was published on LIFESITE, which I consider a popular site against Christianity3, posing as opposition that resembles the activities of RFK, Jr. in many ways. The comment, for some reason, is still left intact after the article on church attendance on its last legs in Italy:
After a lot of half-truths and nonsense in the comments, Harold Frost commented:
You need to be completely honest with yourselves here. First question, what does the Catholic Church do to bring people to Christ? Not much if anything. They had this thing called the New Evangelism and there wasn’t anything new about it, its just that the Catholic Church has never done it. https://catholicexchange.com/what-is-the-new-evangelization/
Second, perversion in the Church. Tons of it. It affects a lot of people who are looking for a Church but see this happening.
Third, their Covid response. It was all based on fear. Name one Catholic Church who stood up and kept their doors open or tried to do it outside. The people, who are the Church, see this and will think that what will happen when the end times come and people are being persecuted, will the Church hierarchy abandon them? Based on what we’ve seen, that answer is a clear yes.
Fourth, the Sacraments aren’t being taken seriously. Let’s look at Baptism. Babies are baptized but aren’t given the chance to make a commitment to Christ. Then you have Holy Communion and most people aren’t being told what Scripture says about taking Communion and as it says in 1 Cor 11:28-29, “Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.” Then let’s talk about Confirmation. The people, who are the Church, aren’t being told about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and that we should be using them. As well, they’re missing out on all the Gifts as the Leadership in the Catholic Church never mention about tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing, prophecy, wisdom, knowledge, discerning of spirits. Its read at Mass but never discussed in the sermons. Its like it doesn’t exist and yet it is clearly in God’s Word. See 1 Cor 12.
Fifth, the Catholic Church takes forever to do things. They took 11 years, yes 11 years to make the changes to the English version of the Mass. That’s a joke. If anyone took that long to do that in any part of our society (maybe not government) they would be fired.
Sixth, the Catholic Church caters to the rich and powerful and treats them better than us regular people. For example, let’s look at Brian Mulroney’s funeral. Guess what they had at the beginning of the service? Eulogies. They aren’t supposed to allow any but because its the rich and powerful, they allow them to do it. That is what the Pharisees do. They cater to the rich and powerful. Look here:
This is a joke. Oh and did they give Trudeau Communion? Cameras won’t show it but you can bet that they did.
Jesus can take away a Church anytime he wants. One look at Revelation 2 and 3 shows that very easily. If you think He wouldn't do it, then I would add arrogance to my list.
Lastly, we are nearing the end [of] times and so that means that most people will fall away from Christ no matter what we do. The only thing is with the Catholic Church, they aren’t helping matters.
If I may add something, I’ve lived a long life and in many places, but apart from a few singular exceptions, I haven’t seen a lot of examples of anything uplifting that takes people to the Divine and transforms their lives. Talk is cheap, but apart from making my own decisions as much as that is possible, talk is all I can do, too.
If this is The End of Times, is there anyone going to be left to endure in the service of… You-Name-It?
About a tenth on Islam is practiced in Iran, which is an absolute theocracy: religious leaders have the final say in everything. In contrast, Shia’ is based on tradition and is community-centered.
For further details on the difference between Sunni and Shia’, check out https://the.ismaili/global/news/features/shia-and-sunni-understanding-different-muslim-interpretations
My previous analysis of Islam was primarily based on Shia’: https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/the-one-world-religion-and-islam
About three and a half years ago, they banned me after two days of signing up, because I wrote that focusing on abortion was a red herring, when the whole country was being aborted.
Since PEW did not consider the opinions of observant Jews important enough to include in their survey, I took the liberty of posting this link.
Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe :
"Iran vs. Iron Dome of Emunah_ Modern Miracles and Divine Wonders "
https://MyTAT.me/v294664
Sunni Caliphs are not based on lineage to the Prophet (pbuh), this is what Shia's believe to be the case and was the point of disagreement when the prophet (pbuh) passed away.