The Washington Times would have us believe that Lawrence O’Donnell has ushered in the End Times
Last week, Lawrence O’Donnell attempted to live up (or arguably down) to his Beck-bashing maestro predecessor Keith Olbermann by unleashing a litany about Bill O’Reilly, the word “hype”, Glenn Beck, the Bible and something about the end of the world.
The predictable MSNBC vs. FOX head-butting session wouldn’t have caught my attention except for one thing – the MSNBC host used the talking points skirmish to discredit the world’s most renowned literary source: The Bible.
After playing a very short clip of Beck chatting about the premonitory nature of the book of Revelation, O’Donnell scoffed on March 17th,
“The book of Revelation is a work of fiction describing how a truly vicious God would bring about the end of the world. Now, no half-smart religious person believes the book of Revelation anymore. Those people are certain that their God would never turn into a malicious torturer and mass murderer beyond Hitler’s wildest dreams.”
I’ll briefly interrupt this message to say: The above assessment of Revelation is dead wrong.
O’Donnell inferred that Beck’s mention of Revelation will cause people to think they can give up on life and be irresponsible. But after hearing Beck’s emphasis on preparedness and self-governing and reading Jesus Christ’s emphasis on the same (Matthew 25), it’s obvious that O’Donnell is completely missing the point.
“Glenn Beck doesn’t know if this is the end of the world. Luckily for you, I do. I know – and I know it with absolute certainty – this absolutely is not – it is not the end of the world…”
Pardon me again: It’s easy to dismiss after-the-fact that the natural disaster which occurred in Japan was not “the end of the world”. No single disaster signals the actual end of the world, and Beck didn’t say so. He merely said what any person who acknowledges entropy and current events would say: There is a steady, interdependent decline going on worldwide. Watch out so you don’t get caught off guard.
Beck and other Bible-believers just happen to have the advantage of citing a source that actually has a track record of predicting the future.
My god this is to much. Why do people write this stuff and expect to be taken seriously?
And I’ll state for the record, full disclosure, this is not the end of the world. And of that I’m a hundred percent sure. If I’m wrong my god strike me down as I type this.
Glenn Beck is very, very angry with me - so angry that he dare not speak my name…I’ve gotten to Beck as no one has before – thrown him off his game by going where none of his television critics have gone before: To his preaching. To the religious components of his fact-free presentations on FOX News and his radio show…
…Beck has enjoyed the convention that we must never talk about another person’s religious beliefs…the more religious education you have, the less trained you are to observe a phony zone of sanctity around this subject…with 12 years of formal religious education behind me, in which matters of doctrine and faith were debated relentlessly in classrooms run by nuns and priests, I don’t have the fear that Beck thrives on – the political media’s fear of discussing religion…
…He is now enraged that I have told you the truth…he’s enraged that I would dare to suggest that the book of Revelation has nothing to do with what is going on in Japan or in the world today and that I know it has nothing to do with it…he is much more enraged that I have said good and thoughtful Christians do not believe the book of Revelation, just as no good and thoughtful Christian literally believes everything in the Bible.”
Pardon me one more time: The Bible contains a variety of literary styles within its pages, from literal to figurative. Coming from over 40 authors in a time span longer than 1500 years, the unity of its overall message is quite impressive and undeniable. This is among the reasons why (contrary to O’Donnell’s assessment), many thoughtful Christians believe what the Bible says.
Also, O’Donnell referenced misconceptions about the Old Testament that skeptics mistake for genuine criticism. Bible-believers don’t select “what makes sense”. We just read the Biblical message in its entirety, which resolves misunderstanding. It’s a matter of reading comprehension more so than interpretation.
Is she saying here that Catholics like O’Donnell aren’t Christians? I never thought I’d see the day when evangelicals were calling out Catholics as non-believers and mormons as true believers. What a strange place this country has become.
“Glenn Beck’s fake Biblical literalist piety has taken itself to its obvious extreme…how long will his audience allow him to be wrong? …And tomorrow, Glenn Beck will be torn between the businessman side of himself who wants dearly to never refer to me in any way again for the rest of his life, and the religious fanatic side of himself that so far has been unable to resist the temptation I have put before him.”
Like every little boy at MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell has a conflicted man-crush on Glenn Beck. But how did it come to this?
Perhaps depressing, scripturally unfounded, soap-opera-style spirituality has something to do with it.
Well of course. People point out Beck’s lies and crazy conspiracy theories because they have secret “man crushes” on Beck. Why does it always come back to this weird homo-eroticism fetish with the far right? It’s so base and childish.