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Is it possible that a Heaven Fifth Column exists on Earth still? While the devoutly religious would had laid down and rest,religious devotion appears to wax and wane like the moon. Certainly, we have already seen a religious fanatic kill Richard Dawkins.

PainRack wrote:Is it possible that a Heaven Fifth Column exists on Earth still? While the devoutly religious would had laid down and rest,religious devotion appears to wax and wane like the moon. Certainly, we have already seen a religious fanatic kill Richard Dawkins.

I don't know. Everyone knows heaven openly betrayed humanity and while we had the wacko, he killed him because he blamed Dawkins for what happened, not because he was working for Hell.

There already existed such a column, as mentioned in one of Gordon Brown's scenes as having since been in a prison previously used for holding Islamists.

Edward Yee wrote:There already existed such a column, as mentioned in one of Gordon Brown's scenes as having since been in a prison previously used for holding Islamists.

Some, but not all, of Britain's religious leaders went to the government to demand that the UK surrender to the message. To quote from Chapter 26 of Armageddon:

Some religious leaders had spoken to the Prime Minister, demanding that Britain surrender to the inevitable; those that were still alive were now residents of HMP Belmarsh, which was rather empty now that most Islamic fundamentalists were gone.

They weren't really a Fifth Column in the traditional sense.

barricade wrote:

Junghalli wrote:

Jim Starluck wrote:What I'd like to know is what would happen if you tried to send something back through it in the other direction. Where would it come out?

It was mentioned that the Demons once tried sending a few of their own people through the Minos Gate to see what was on the other side and they were never heard from again.

Which is why you send a UAV/UGV through with a camera.

As for Michael's little thing with the drugs, perhaps he's thinking like a good drug tzar and starting off his clientele with 'the good stuff', and then as they're addicted, slowly change it to the street-corner crap that gives a lesser high/low but with even a worse crash afterwards, so they're always wanting more. Meanwhile for his 'trusted' group, he gives out the better quality stuff for a job well done. The truly 'good shit' he keeps for himself, Big J, and perhaps his most inner circle, if he has such a thing. That or it gets mixed in occasionally with the incense around Yah-Yah's throne (loved that crack) to get the big Idiot Before All just high enough to lower inhibitions a little and be more likely to be persuaded by something Michael is saying to him.

EDIT:
I've actually been on board the Turner Joy over at the Bremerton Shipyards. That ship is kept in quite literally in "gimme a week and she'll put to sea" conditions by her maintenance staff/caretakers. I know with a very high degree of certainty, that certain engineers & mechanics over at the actual shipyards/mothball yards over the years have ever so quietly 'donated' parts, that seemed to have fallen off a truck, to her upkeep on occasion.

Yeah, the Turner Joy's inclusion was based on my mucking around in her engine spaces and talking with some of the people who keep her up, too. The use of the engineering faculty and students at Olympic College to do a fair bit of the work in their off-hours along with men from the shipyards who volunteered despite already working double-shifts, was based on the fact I attended that engineering programme. Other museum ships of similar excellent preservation are the USS Barry in DC, maintained by the Navy itself, and the USS Kidd in Baton Rouge, which has the added advantage, like the Barry, of being moored in freshwater, which will help preserve the hull.



The question mark ship is the second Fletcher, the Cassin Young, which I've heard both good and bad things about the condition of, someone I believe in this thread or the info thread for the story mentioned she's maintained by old retirees and yard dogs who know their stuff, but I had official documents saying she was in poor condition.. But those were quite old themselves, so it's possible over the last decade and a half she's been heavily restored. That is, of course, Stuart's call. The fifth ship in restorable condition, which is actually more probable than the Cassin Young, I originally had her on the list and then just totally forget to put her on the OOB I posted in the info thread, so I need to update that, is DD-850 the USS Joseph P. Kennedy. Those five destroyers are the only steam-fired ships that the USA would likely restore to service in this timeline. All the others are either in poor condition or don't fit with the needs of the fleet or would require to many personnel to man for not enough utility. This doesn't count the carrier JFK, which I had assumed (Stuart can either confirm or nix) was recommissioned, having been decommissioned only a few months before, but even if she was, she was in such poor condition that she would remain in service only until the Ford completes and finishes working up, and not a minute longer.

Quick question here. While I know the Catholic church has somewhat survived and even exiled Yahweh, what's happened to all that real estate? We are talking about at least thousands of churches, temples, and mosques all across the world which attendance has probably gone down to zero. Are they now turned into town meeting halls? Schools? Museums? torn down? Really neat homes for those who can afford it?

Imagine some wealthy millionaire buying up an abandoned cathedral and making it his home. If this has already been covered, please point me to the chapter.

For all I know, people are still going to church on Sundays to either pray or throw rocks at the cross.

FaxModem1 wrote:Quick question here. While I know the Catholic church has somewhat survived and even exiled Yahweh, what's happened to all that real estate? We are talking about at least thousands of churches, temples, and mosques all across the world which attendance has probably gone down to zero. Are they now turned into town meeting halls? Schools? Museums? torn down? Really neat homes for those who can afford it?

Imagine some wealthy millionaire buying up an abandoned cathedral and making it his home. If this has already been covered, please point me to the chapter.

For all I know, people are still going to church on Sundays to either pray or throw rocks at the cross.

Housing crach makes it irrelevant although I can imagine the government taking over the property and selling it to finance the war effort.

Of course- Yanweh isn't really God. The message completely fucks with religion. On the one hand Christianity is true... but evil and assholy and it is quite probable than their God didn't make the universe. Atheists have to deal with the fact materialism got sucker punched, reincarnation gets killed (sort of- maybe the levels wrap around)... world religion changes massively.

The mega-churchs are definately gone, but I don't know enough about human psychology to say what will happen to every other varient. What is certain is that everyone is looking at the bible and other holy books for clues- I have little doubt the Hindus believe that their Gods are out there (after all there are hints someone else is involved).

Samuel wrote:

FaxModem1 wrote:Quick question here. While I know the Catholic church has somewhat survived and even exiled Yahweh, what's happened to all that real estate? We are talking about at least thousands of churches, temples, and mosques all across the world which attendance has probably gone down to zero. Are they now turned into town meeting halls? Schools? Museums? torn down? Really neat homes for those who can afford it?

Imagine some wealthy millionaire buying up an abandoned cathedral and making it his home. If this has already been covered, please point me to the chapter.

For all I know, people are still going to church on Sundays to either pray or throw rocks at the cross.

Housing crach makes it irrelevant although I can imagine the government taking over the property and selling it to finance the war effort.

Of course- Yanweh isn't really God. The message completely fucks with religion. On the one hand Christianity is true... but evil and assholy and it is quite probable than their God didn't make the universe. Atheists have to deal with the fact materialism got sucker punched, reincarnation gets killed (sort of- maybe the levels wrap around)... world religion changes massively.

The mega-churchs are definately gone, but I don't know enough about human psychology to say what will happen to every other varient. What is certain is that everyone is looking at the bible and other holy books for clues- I have little doubt the Hindus believe that their Gods are out there (after all there are hints someone else is involved).

Well, yeah, but I'm specifically talking about real estate. Can you imagine real estate agents giving tours of cathedrals and showing off the nice stained glass windows? Course, this all really depends on how their real estate market is doing. Considering they're currently going through a war-time economy, its doing a lot better than ours.

That would be a neat thing to see in an upcoming chapter. Government civil servants auctioning off churches to raise funds for the war.

Some of those houses of worship might get torn down for salvage. The Roman Catholic Church still has a bunch of extensive real estate holdings, but at this point they're probably just going to turn into a holding company for various universities, orphanages, hospitals, etc and that probably won't last very long once all the funding dries up.

Weird thing that keeps going through my head is that I can just see the D&D crowd going nuts about the discoveries about Hell, and start into how the ideas of 'Planes' might not be too far-fetched after all.

That and...the return of Gary Gygax.

...now I have a mental image of a group of really dedicated people forming up into their own "adventuring party" to go into Hell and try and find Gygax.

Well, and one thing to remember about a lot of the old cathedrals and fine churches: The building may be worth less than the sum of its parts. There's often, in the older ones, a lot of fine sculpture, statuary, and stained glass. With that in mind, the land may not be worth much, but I can see many parts of the buildings being worth more.

Also, this begs a question: How are the pre-Message deceased religious (i.e. nuns, priests, etc.) taking all that has happened? I'm not thinking of the nutbars (i.e. Jihadists and whatnot), but I am thinking of Father Ted, so to speak.

Well, a lot of historic churches and cathedrals are works of art in their own right. Unfortunately dedicated to a lie, though there are ways around that like saying that Yahweh isn't the real God. On a side note it seems reasonable to think that Christian Gnosticism might make a big comeback and actually stick around here, depending on what the big J is like.

The most famous and important ones like Notre Dame, or the Cologne Cathedral, might be taken over by the state and converted into museums of architecture and medieval life and depending on degree of militancy a reminder of the wasteful consequences of false belief. I would expect a lot of arson on the local level, especially of the many more far less impressive churches in the world. Could see megachurches converted over to malls and civic centers, which they more or less are already. Many leaders of unaligned evangelical churches have a decidedly mercantile streak and I do not see them laying down and dying from true faith. I do wonder if a lot of televangelists have been arrested for fraud...

Edit: And speaking of Jesus, does his status as the son of Yahweh confirm that angels can breed with humans? I suppose that assumes without necessary confirmation that Yahweh is of the same nature as his servants, granted. Still the Nephilim were originally conceived (pardon!) as the offspring of the angelic "Watchers" with mortal humans. If there are two strains of Nephilim, one angelic in origin and one demonic, their differences (or lack of differences) could be rather important to understanding the species of the higher dimensions.

Marshall,
You do bring to mind an interesting question: Pat Robertson and company (the ones who made millions)...what are the odds that they're not facing a lawsuit for, among other things, deceptive practices and pain and suffering?

Jim Starluck wrote:...now I have a mental image of a group of really dedicated people forming up into their own "adventuring party" to go into Hell and try and find Gygax.

I'd sign up. Heck, it would be fun! Painful, bloody and possibly fatal fun, but still fun.

Ed.

EdBecerra wrote:

Jim Starluck wrote:...now I have a mental image of a group of really dedicated people forming up into their own "adventuring party" to go into Hell and try and find Gygax.

I'd sign up. Heck, it would be fun! Painful, bloody and possibly fatal fun, but still fun.

Ed.

Well, and on top of that...the worst that happens is you get resurrected in what are by now not unendurable conditions. Not Heaven (figuratively or literally), but not too awfully bad.

It would be ironic if Mr. Gygax had already made it to one of those little statelets (well, maybe not so little by now) while all these D&D people are running around looking for him. Sounds like the basis for a Sci Fi channel show.

Hmm, seeing the different reactons to the Message and how some of the religons are coping with the change makes me wonder. Is there someone out there that probably believes that Yahweh is the God of the Bible, in his opinion it's just that people are too devoted to their religon to see it's true. And the person also believes that Yahweh being the murderous, tyrannical, egotistical, control freak that he is (Based on the person's reading of the Bible with a critical Mind); doesn't deserve his worship?

GrayAnderson wrote:Marshall,
You do bring to mind an interesting question: Pat Robertson and company (the ones who made millions)...what are the odds that they're not facing a lawsuit for, among other things, deceptive practices and pain and suffering?

They acted in good faith. It would be like suing people who sold a product who couldn't possibly have known it was dangerous. If they KNEW heaven was a sham and Yaweh was a monster, then you'd have a case. As it is, they were deceived as much as everyone else.

WesFox13 wrote:Hmm, seeing the different reactons to the Message and how some of the religons are coping with the change makes me wonder. Is there someone out there that probably believes that Yahweh is the God of the Bible, in his opinion it's just that people are too devoted to their religon to see it's true. And the person also believes that Yahweh being the murderous, tyrannical, egotistical, control freak that he is (Based on the person's reading of the Bible with a critical Mind); doesn't deserve his worship?

Earth's population meets both requirements- it is obvious this is New Testament God AND we are at war with him.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:

GrayAnderson wrote:Marshall,
You do bring to mind an interesting question: Pat Robertson and company (the ones who made millions)...what are the odds that they're not facing a lawsuit for, among other things, deceptive practices and pain and suffering?

They acted in good faith. It would be like suing people who sold a product who couldn't possibly have known it was dangerous. If they KNEW heaven was a sham and Yaweh was a monster, then you'd have a case. As it is, they were deceived as much as everyone else.

Actually, any fundamentalist could arguably be accused of knowing perfectly well that Yahweh is a cruel monster. Fundamentalists take the entire Bible as the literal truth, which means that they believe Yahweh actually exterminated the entire human race except for Noah when they pissed him off, nearly exterminated his own "chosen people" when he caught them worshiping a golden calf, and committed and/or ordered numerous acts of terrorism and genocide including the deliberately targeted mass-murder of children in Egypt.

Well yeah, but a fundamentalist would also take the New testament as literal truth, too, when it turns out all the Jesus stuff is the not-true part. So they'd say 'I thought he was done with all the smiting and killing murderousness.'

And, like I said, they're just as much victims as everyone else. That being said, I can see church assets being siezed and sold off for the war effort.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Well yeah, but a fundamentalist would also take the New testament as literal truth, too, when it turns out all the Jesus stuff is the not-true part. So they'd say 'I thought he was done with all the smiting and killing murderousness.'

Bullshit. Jesus talks a good game about being nice to people, but he never says anything about God being done with smiting and killing. In fact, the Book of Revelation is drenched in blood. Moreover, he never even makes the slightest hint that he thinks God ever did anything wrong, so Yahweh is completely unapologetic about anything he's ever done.

It is pure religious apologist tripe to say that the New Testament somehow erases Yahweh's crimes, or that it even indicates a change of heart from him. If he had actually had a change of heart, he would acknowledge that he erred. He made no such acknowledgment.

And perhaps most to the point, since when do we consider a mass-murdering psychopath to be a wonderful guy just because he temporarily stops doing it?

And, like I said, they're just as much victims as everyone else. That being said, I can see church assets being siezed and sold off for the war effort.

Bullshit. They knew perfectly well what kind of monster they were worshiping. They just thought it was OK for him to act that way because he's God.

I’d imagine many of the assets would be simply taken over for the war effort directly; it’s hard to see much market or profit selling them in a mobilized war economy. Church schools can become training grounds for troops, and housing for people displaced by storm attacks, while churches themselves are turned into command centers and observations posts for local militias.

Darth Wong wrote:

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Well yeah, but a fundamentalist would also take the New testament as literal truth, too, when it turns out all the Jesus stuff is the not-true part. So they'd say 'I thought he was done with all the smiting and killing murderousness.'

Bullshit. Jesus talks a good game about being nice to people, but he never says anything about God being done with smiting and killing. In fact, the Book of Revelation is drenched in blood. Moreover, he never even makes the slightest hint that he thinks God ever did anything wrong, so Yahweh is completely unapologetic about anything he's ever done.

It is pure religious apologist tripe to say that the New Testament somehow erases Yahweh's crimes, or that it even indicates a change of heart from him. If he had actually had a change of heart, he would acknowledge that he erred. He made no such acknowledgment.

And perhaps most to the point, since when do we consider a mass-murdering psychopath to be a wonderful guy just because he temporarily stops doing it?

And, like I said, they're just as much victims as everyone else. That being said, I can see church assets being siezed and sold off for the war effort.

Bullshit. They knew perfectly well what kind of monster they were worshiping. They just thought it was OK for him to act that way because he's God.

Perhaps one could argue diminished capacity or mass delusion? Its not like they invented the cultural significance of 'God' themselves, and they were (usually) indoctrinated from a young age.