Then you should know how the scriptures came into being and how monotheism evolved. Dispensationalists quibbled over the number and names of the dispensations, but most American dispensationalists followed Scofield's seven-fold scheme: Innocency (before the Fall), Conscience (Fall to the Flood), Human Government, Promise (Abraham to Moses), Law (Moses to Christ), Grace (the church age), and Kingdom (the millennium). Dispensational Premillennialism: The ...... | Christian ... www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-61/dispensational-premillennialism-dispensation…
I think they are didactic literature.. with an ongoing theme of forgiveness and redemption, not history. They don't need to be embellished..
Not all Christians are fundamentalists or literalists. Sadly, most Protestants are completely unaware they have been hijacked by Christian Zionism.. They don't understand the bare bones history of the first century and continue to look for the Rapture.
Historically, Christianity tends to flourish where it is persecuted, and wain where it has become authoritatively established. I would expect it to do well in Iran.
It nice you are a believer in a book that was slap together from bits and pieces of writings under the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. Lot of interesting writings then existing also with the same degree of claims to being god words that did not made it into the bible or the canon of the church. Love the The Infancy Gospel of Thomas for example.
Iranians also have access to religious programing via satellite. Perhaps they are raging fundies waiting on the Mahdi but I rather doubt it. Hopefully they aren't getting a steady diet of nutty Rapture Ready Christianity.
I believe that the Protestant Bible is the Word of God. I've read all the opinions pro and con. I'm satisfied with what I have.
Hmmm... If the state religion (a majority by a long shot) has been around for a long time, is it going to grow much? A different, smaller religion might be said to grow, but how much?
You are free to belief in what I consider complete nonsense if you care to do so. Suggest you might someday wish to employed your "god given" brain and logic with the aid of such writings of men as Jefferson and Paine an come up with a more rational conclusion however.
Well, you have your opinions and I have mine. Let's work together to make the United States a more perfect union.
You're not answering the question. My point is that things like these lead to unpredictable and destabilising consequences, as it did with Saddam. If that ends up being true again, you've not staved off terrorism like that, you've just exchanged it for another terrorism (and one which is more likely to have the US in its crosshairs).
So, your alternative is to live with it? Who is going to fund Hezbo, Hamas, etc when the gangsters in Tehran are gone and replaced? The people of Iran are fed up.
No, my suggestion is diplomacy, trade, etc. Stable impact. You're right, it won't solve everything overnight, but compared to making stuff worse (while feeling really good about our good intentions) it's preferable. Who can tell. I couldn't tell you exactly how ISIS would form after Saddam's fall before it happened, but I could have told you that something of that ilk would happen. Taxable inhabitants, banks etc. aren't going to go away. After Saddam, ISIS spread out and made use of many of the same sources of income as Saddam used. I agree, so why make it even worse for them?
Sanctions put pressure on. The people stop supporting the regime. When a regime doesn't have the support of the people it's easier to take out the gangsters. This President isn't going to reward bad behavior like the previous President did. We need allies in the region. You assume that if the gangsters in power now are removed, then someone like ISIS will rise up. That's not a given. Iran has one goal and that is to destroy Israel. The world will be better off without the current regime.
Nope... Saddam wasn't funding terrorism. In fact, Iraq was broken by 2 decades of war and sanctions. Easy pickings.. Clean Break Strategy was written in 1994 for Bibi.. He wanted Saddam taken out.