Left Behind
discussion
its funny how they call this christian fiction...
Wow. Where do I begin. I don't know what to say except that Africa and the reasons it is how it is, is and are extremely complex. Your democracies in the west did not happen overnight. It took hundreds of years for them to evolve. In Africa it was thrust upon people almost overnight. As for cruel and barbaric ways of killing people, nothing quite matches what took place in Europe just 65 odd years ago, does it? It's really not that long ago. My dad fought in that war and he's still alive.
Yes, Africa is in many respects a mess. But it's an incredibly contradictory place. I worked as a photographer for about 6 years for South Africa's largest newspaper, and I can assure you I saw some of the worst (post-apartheid that is), but I also came across many stories of indescribable hope and optimism. Moments and deeds that make you marvel at the human spirit.
I wouldn't be the first person from here to say this, but Africa will pull the floor out from under you one minute and the next have you weeping with incredulous joy.
Perhaps you are right to not give aid money. I am unconvinced that aid has done very much more than allow African leaders to abdicate responsibility for their own people (and enrich themselves vastly in the process). You would do Africa a much greater service if you held your own leaders in the West accountable for the long succession of African tyrants they have propped up with guns and money simply because these leaders were friendly to French business interests/ American interests/ combating communism/ whatever. Martin Merediths The Fate of Africa is a good history of post-colonial Africa in this regard, and leads one to conclude that the peace and prosperity of the First World is built, to a certain extent, on the chaos of the third world.
One final thought: there seems to be only one major lens through which we view the world: that of economics and the market economy. All other viewpoints must bow down to this. But consider this: Europe and America have chopped down all their forests. According to a National Geographic article recently, none of America's major rivers reach the sea any more, or if they do it's a trickle. Thirty years ago I recall our German science teacher saying,
"Ja, you go svimming in ze Rhine you come up vit a turd on your head zere!"
But here we can still drink our water. In fact in our constitution in South Africa, rivers have rights: to reach the sea in an unpolluted state! We still have forests (for how long I'm not sure. The demand from the first world for timber from Africa is huge).
And people say Africa is poor!
Depends which way you look at it.
And there I was planning to tell you about Millenarian movements. Amazing how these threads change. I'm new to this Internet thing. We only just recently got fax machines here in Africa...
I'm pretty sure the rivers of america still reach the sea, and that there are still plenty of forests too.Same in Europe. I'm from the UK, and we have laws about waterways, and keeping them clean, too.
Not according to the Geographic I read, and when they do it's not in a healthy state.
Do some research and see exactly how much forest there was in Amrica 400 years ago. You'll be amazed. Same for England. It took a LOT of oak trees to build those ships you used to expand the empire. So the word 'plenty' is not really the right word when looked at in this context.
I know we've lost a lot of our trees, but we do still have forests, and we have laws relating to it now, and we have reserves.
Tim wrote: "Wow. Where do I begin. I don't know what to say except that Africa and the reasons it is how it is, is and are extremely complex. Your democracies in the west did not happen overnight. It took hund..."You are still at the fax machine stage? Maybe you don't understand how far away from modern standards Africa is. This may seem off point, but it isn't. Check out the tourist and travel websites, admittedly rosy, but you'll notice a lot of regular, plain citizens living in the middle of these European tourist sites, they are not especially built for tourists. Every country has problems, but Africa appears amazingly sad. Fax machines!!!!!
I'd rather have 24/7 tech and electricity and health care from hospitals and tap water and flushing toilets any day. I like stepping outside and living my life without worrying about the daily grind of acquiring supplies or using primitive facilities and out-of -control police forces and murdeous government suppression of constitutional rights and shutdown of media information by murdering reporters. If I had kids, can send them free to school, which they can walk to in a half an hour, or be bused, safely. If I could wave a magic wand I'd give Africa modernity. The poorest people in the West are rich compared to African poor people.. Forests haven't made Africans a better quality of life, I've never read about so much ongoing pain, horror and destruction of humanity in modern times. Why? Africa should be the most modern being the oldest human environment.
Okay. The fax machines was a joke, which you fell for. Sorry, but we love doing stuff like that. Like, we have lions in our gardens and crocodiles in our swimming pools. Amazing how many people fall for that. We got Internet same time as everyone else. Sure, okay, maybe Malawi and Zambia didn't but they do now. And we also have big cities that weren't built for tourists. Have you ever seen Johannesburg? Very few tourists go there, trust me.
I can't argue that Africa isn't run by thugs, on the whole. The point I was making was that these thugs are aided and abetted by some of your own leaders. Mobutu would not have remained in power for long without the help of America and France. In Washington terminology he was a 'friendly tyrant'. In fact the only reason he was there in the first place was because the CIA along with some Belgian mercenaries killed their democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba.
Your leaders have blood on their hands. Maybe not as much as Idi Amin (although many would contest that), but blood nonetheless.
As to why Africa isn't as modern, read Guns Germs and Steel by Jarred Diamond. Or else take refuge in simplistic answers like most people seem to do.
And Hazel, that's great. You have put laws in place. It's what we need to do here. But then where would all the people in the 1st world buy their exotic woods from? And I don't lay the blame on the west squarely. The elites of the Third World consume much more per capita and recycle fuck-all. You wanna see conspicuous consumerism? Come to South Africa. It's disgusting the flaunting of so much wealth in the face of grinding poverty.
Now you see how the thread changes.....
Tim wrote: "And Hazel, that's great. You have put laws in place. It's what we need to do here. But then where would all the people in the 1st world buy their exotic woods from? And I don't lay the blame on the..."Tim, I can well imagine it, just take the flaunting I see over here, and multiply it.
Haha! I guess it changes because of loose cannons like me ranting off at tangents. Ah well. Life's too short to not speak your mind.
Tim wrote: "Life's too short to not speak your mind."Not to take this amazing opportunity that Internet gives us to instantly exchange views and ideas with people all over the worlds and of all cultures would be sinful even for an atheist!
Maria wrote: "I have read up to Book 11. I am on twelve the Glorious Appearance. And I loved this serious. It has drama, action, love and some comedy. For those of you who have not read it yet, I did cry in Arm..."Hey Maria, I just started collecting and reading the books. Really interesting. Would love to won the rest of the books, I'm up to three now.
Xox wrote: "Hazel wrote: "Xox wrote: "Shaun wrote: "Xox wrote: "That's not evolution in progress."
ev·o·lu·tion/ˌevəˈlo͞oSHən/
Noun:
1. The process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought t..."
Xox, I'm bored of you now, its a shame, because sometimes you say something insightful and interesting. Its such a shame that you're also a dickhead.
Tim wrote: "Okay. The fax machines was a joke, which you fell for. Sorry, but we love doing stuff like that. Like, we have lions in our gardens and crocodiles in our swimming pools. Amazing how many people fal..."I agree with you bro!
We don't have lions in our gardens, crocodiles in our swimming pools, we don't use elephants as a means of transport, we do not live on trees, we don not walk naked, I could go on and on.
But hey, let's love each other.
April the Cheshire Meow wrote: "Tim wrote: "Wow. Where do I begin. I don't know what to say except that Africa and the reasons it is how it is, is and are extremely complex. Your democracies in the west did not happen overnight. ..."Heeeeey April...easy easy on the hate speech! I'm definitely not typing this from a type writer...we have internet and we use smart phones too. Easy, easy! You're talking too much not from experience but from what you 'think' Africa looks like. Our kids go to school, and they don't walk. We have school buses for the ones who don't own cars. C'mon.
Hey Sista. Save your breath. You're just an African girl. You may be writing that in a funky little coffee shop or Internet cafe in Nairobi but deep down you're still a sophisticated savage dying to put on your loin cloth, grab a panga and go do a Mau-Mau thing. And I'll never be anything but a racist white South African. Old ideas die hard.
Man! It's cool to connect with other Africans on the net! Love u Sista!
Great. You all are starting up with this again.
Yeah. Why should we all bow down to the dominant paradigm? I'm actually part of a Third World movement that goes onto the net and hijacks threads and shifts the focus from you to us. We're tired of listening to the dominant discourse. It's time to subvert it!
You've all had your say. Now it's our turn ;-)
And by the way, April, let me tell you about something that happened where Tatuu lives (Nairobi, Kenya): someone there got tired of being screwed by banks so they developed a system where people use cellphones to do banking, linked up to little shops all over Nairobi. No banks involved at all. No middle men taking loot for doing nothing. Basically, if u owe someone money you send them a little kind of IOU thing on yr phone, pay the guy who owns the shop the bucks and then your mate who you owe the money to comes and gets the bucks. Awesome. African ideas often make a whole lot of sense.And I read about this in Time Magazine. So then it must be true...
Tim wrote: "Thirty years ago I recall our German science teacher saying,"Ja, you go svimming in ze Rhine you come up vit a turd on your head zere!"
I believe it is completely different right now. You wouldn't believe how strictly environmental regulations are imposed in UE - and Germany is in the forefront. They won't let you drive your car into a city unless you have a sticker proving your car is environmentally safe.
The sad thing here is that it all comes with a price - and the price is paid by developing countries, to which all harmful activities are exported/outsourced.
Why should a company owner build a factory in Germany, where he would have to stick to all these strict regulations, pay workers preposterous thousands of euro a month and quarrel with unions on top of that, when he can have the factory in China, not worrying about environment, keeping officials in his pockets, exploiting workers at his will and paying them a couple of hundred bucks a month.
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Tim wrote: "And by the way, April, let me tell you about something that happened where Tatuu lives (Nairobi, Kenya): someone there got tired of being screwed by banks so they developed a system where people us..."I'm crushed, chastised, drowned out, defeated, put in my place, whipped, condemned, shutted up, slammed to the ground, destroyed, condemned, punished, showed up, maimed, abased, pwn-Ed, effed up, blown out of the water, shown whose boss, stomped, slapped down and crawling. Burning all of my National Geographics now......
Hey Tim, That's right! We use our phones to do all manner of banking, depositing cash, withdrawing, buying and selling etc. Life is easier, and I heard people say Africans are primitive? Hahahaha!!! Look at you!
Tatuu wrote: "Hey Tim, That's right! We use our phones to do all manner of banking, depositing cash, withdrawing, buying and selling etc. Life is easier, and I heard people say Africans are primitive? Hahahaha!!..."Great amounts of money are given to Africa and her countries (and many other nations) yearly by so called "wealthy" countries. Are you saying this is uneeded and that all africans do phone banking and have nice houses, I'm sure some do but is there not great deprivation in many area's
Obviously Shanna, since they say they live in Africa, the wealthiest continent in the world as they are telling us, and they'd know, we don't have anything to add.
except thats europe, it just overtook North America , and Africa is down at number 5... of 7... with antarctica being number 7... where no-one really lives...I don't know why it is that Tim has built a strawman of the ignorant westerner who thinks theres only mud hut dwelling savages in africa, he must get off on being superior.
April the Cheshire Meow wrote: "Obviously Shanna, since they say they live in Africa, the wealthiest continent in the world as they are telling us, and they'd know, we don't have anything to add."I don't doubt Africa has a wealth of riches,it has been exploited for centuries, but if all that Aid isn't needed we'd better get on it because even in our "wealthy" countries people don't have access to these amenities.
Africa is not as wealthy as America because we are still developing. We are talking about riches here. And as for the Amenities you are talking about, it's just that one of our major mobile company developed a way where we can use our phones, first it was for sending and receiving money but it has developed to using your phone to withdraw money from the bank, make purchases et al. We may not be wealthy of riches but we do have brains which we are using to develop ourselves so that as you say...in the long run, we will not rely on aid.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa
I'm proud to be Kenyan.
Tatuu, thats a brilliant innovation, it really is. My main issue here is not with you, and not with anything such as you have told us about, you seem genuine.Tim however, has a tone of condescension, and seems to have decided that if you're not from Africa, that you assume that everyone lives in a mud hut and has no clue about modern tech etc. He complained about the conversation no longer being about the book, and then very deliberately brought it to what he wanted to talk about, so he could make sweeping generalisations about what people from europe/the states/australia think of africa, and then to knock that strawman down. As if we don't understand that everywhere runs the gamut on socio-economic classes etc.
I'm not you shouldn't be proud and aren't getting on with things with intelligence and resourcefulness. But the way you and Tim were talking implied all of africa lives the way you two seem to enjoy, it doesn't.
Shanna, I also believe that not all AMERICANS or wherever you are live a comfy life as you imply? I am sure there are homeless people in America, same as here. There are street kids just like here and there are people who struggle to get their next meal, just like here. So I don't understand what all this argument about us Africans and how will live our lives and rely on aid thing. Mostly, if not all AFrican countries are still developing...we shouldn't be looked down on because of that? We shouldn't be looked down on because we still rely on aid. And I hope this argument about America and Africa will end and I am not willing to discuss on this matter any further.
Tatuu, Shanna didn't imply that all americans (though she's australian, so also all australians) lived happy comfy lives, in fact:because even in our "wealthy" countries people don't have access to these amenities.
she said the exact opposite of that. I also don't think you implied that such things didn't exist in Africa. I think that a strawman has been built (mostly by Tim) that people from america/australia/the UK etc believe that all africans are technologically backwards savages, and that he built this strawman just so he could knock it down.
Hazel wrote: "Tatuu, Shanna didn't imply that all americans (though she's australian, so also all australians) lived happy comfy lives, in fact:because even in our "wealthy" countries people don't have access ..."
Thanks for the clarification Hazel.
Now, we shake hands, hug and move on? :)
Tatuu wrote: "Now, we shake hands, hug and move on? :)"indeed :D
Tatuu wrote: "Shanna, I also believe that not all AMERICANS or wherever you are live a comfy life as you imply? I am sure there are homeless people in America, same as here. There are street kids just like here ..."Oh, no that wasn't my intent at all. And receiving Aid is not a criticism and at the moment its a fact that in the not too distant future from the links you provided maybe a thing of the past. It's just that I have a sponsor child in africa and if I'm to believe her letters she certainly didn't and still doesn't have access to phones nor does anyone she knows apart from the the local community centre. From what she describes of her life I'm amazed by the ingenuity of her community now that they aren't in grinding poverty, I would die, clueless in such circumstances I'm sure. I hope you'll understnd me a bit better and where I was coming from and please don't leave.
Yeah my tone was sarcastic I don't look down on you at all, Sorry
Hey Shanna, that's okay. I understand where you are coming from. :HUGS:
I really like Buck Williams and Chloe...can't wait to read the rest of the series.Nicolae Carpathia...hmmmm! That man scares me. Lol! Has anyone read the whole 13 books?
Excuse me can I defend myself here? I merely made mention of a Millenarian movement that took place in South Africa in the 1800s which happens to mirror, in many ways, the same one fundamentalist Christians believe, as referred to in this book. I didn't stray from the topic until April the Cheshire cat wrote her catty ridiculous diatribe. How can I remain silent in the face of such I'll-informed nonsense? I'm not by any means saying Africa is the land of milk and honey, but I see it as my duty and my right to inform people like April that their own leaders have played no small part in Africa's misery in the post-colonial period. I am proud to be African. Despite it's flaws I love the place and I love the people. With the exception of the brutal thuggish leaders.
I was going to write about what happened here, but nobody really seems that interested so you folk carry on waiting for your rapture and your Jesus. You got a long wait in store and I hope you all don't starve to death like the Xhosa did.
And I was kidding. I do not deliberately hi-jack threads to build straw men etc etc. I just see things from a perspective that is not always the same as First World perspectives, and I like to argue. The voices of people in the poorer parts of the world are seldom heard in the media of the west. The Internet is often the only place we can be heard.
Tim, sorry, I should have clarified, I knew you were joking, but you made your strawman to knock down, as an attempt at humour. I have to admit, it even made me giggle in places. I apologise for not expressing myself properly.
Karen wrote: "Will wrote: "There's nothing to forgive.While you're doing that research, you should look into how the Bible was constructed. It's a very fascinating history. There are lots of other Acts, Epistl..."
Actually I think Will is right. Many other books were not included into what is our Bible today. I believe they didn't make the book because they couldn't be considered Inspired Word of God for whatever reason. The Bible we have today is the closest we will ever get to having the complete Word of God until we get to heaven. This doesn't mean we (Christians) shouldn't follow the Bibles teaching or that we should not consider it the Inspired Word of God. In our own lives (again as Christians) we see evidence that it is God's word every day, every hour, every minute.
That being said. I think we should remember the people who do not know God cannot understand God & probably shouldn't argue God.
Back to the book: I have read the entire series & loved it! I also read the entire left behind series for Kids. I also loved that! They were well written & the Author's created good characters, a great story line, lots of action, and they seemed to know what they were writing about.
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A whole tribe? Suicide? I knew of American idiots who formed and joined cults which eventually commited suicide in order to go to other planets and other such pure stupidity, but geesh, Africa has folks with that insanity? On top of everything else?
When I was young and idealistic I worried about Africa and gave money. Later, as time went on and the stories continued, and I started to read histories about Africa, frankly, my jaw hit the floor and has stayed there. From the Muslim north to South Africa, the most unbelievable and cruel human societies exist - I wouldn't believe it possible for people to live like that at all or permit such governance to go on for years. In so many countries there it's like the post-apocalypse occurred, like Hollywood horror movies only in Africa it's real, ongoing for decades, and a hundred times more horrible than I thought any human societies could be and survive.
I still care about Africa, but it's like that cousin in the family who is drinking himself to death that you got into rehab so often and nothing worked. I stopped giving money years ago.
I had never heard of the many inventive ways Africans kill off their people, not even the Middle Ages of Europe and the Inquisition had such ongoing cruelty and, boy, the Middle Ages were insanely cruel (look up the torture tools they had).
Actually, now that I remember all that I've been reading before, religious suicide cults must seem like aberration because they do a MILD version, by African standards, involving decades of ongoing cruelty and misery.
As much as I have blamed religion for many evils of human society, in Africa I don't so much. I don't know what's wrong there, but it appears to be EVERYTHING. Religion, not so much, even though Religion has caused great harm there, I mean GREAT harm, there is EVERYTHING else mad and insane too.