war

A great sign appeared in heaven – a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in labor. Then another sign appeared in heaven – an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that it might devour the child the moment it was born. The woman gave birth to a son, one who will rule over all the nations with an iron scepter. Her child was snatched up

After the “Lamb” (Jesus) opened the book bound with seven seals, John, standing among “four animals”, the 24 elders, and thousands of angels, saw the following. When the first seal was opened, John heard thunder. A lion-like animal shouted, “Come!” John saw a white horse and a rider with a bow appear. The rider was given a crown and he went forth conquering. When the Lamb opened the second seal, he heard an ox-like animal say, “Come!” John saw another horse that was fiery red. Its rider was given a large sword and was granted the power to take peace from the earth and cause people to kill each other. When the Lamb opened the third seal, he heard a man-faced animal say, “Come!” John looked and before him was a

Introduction A common argument against organized religion is the claim that religion has been responsible for more wars, and hence millions of lost lives throughout history. This is a fallacy – one that is easy to refute by simply studying the history of past wars and culling out contributing causes for the conflict. What you will find is that there is rarely a single cause for war and contrary to atheist claims, religion seldom serves as the primary motivator for war (albeit several wars were led by leaders who thought themselves to be “gods”). In fact, most wars are started for one of four reasons – territorial gains, political differences, economic advantage, or a rebellion against a repressive government. Even wars widely thought of as religious

President Obama refuses to call the war against ISIS a religious war? President Obama issued an emotional call to Americans today, cautioning United States citizens against labeling the looming war against ISIS (aka ISIL) a religious war. To many Americans, this likely appears contradictory and confusing. After all, ISIS is a self-proclaimed Islamic religious group and certain interpretations of the Islamic Quran do indeed allow, even encourage violent militant acts under the guise of Islam. To understand the intentions behind President Obama’s call for calm, let’s first take a brief look back to a similar historical context – the Gulf War. Gulf War provides a historic lesson on military strategy In 1990, during the height of the Gulf War (code name Operation Desert Shield), Iraqi president Saddam Hussein did