...and they always will be.


#############


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/28/israel-hamas-war-armageddon-palestinians-israelis-dispatch/


According to the Book of Revelation, this is the mountaintop where it will all end.

Armageddon. Or present day Megiddo. The place where, the Bible says, international armies under the leadership of the Devil will wage war with the forces of God.

“And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon,” states the passage, adding with a flourish: “And the seventh angel poured out his vial [of God’s wrath] into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of Heaven, from the throne, saying: ‘It is done’.”

Well, Armageddon does exist, derived from the Hebrew Har Megiddo, or Mountain of Megiddo; and while the end of days might have once seemed a little far-fetched, it doesn’t seem quite so improbable now.


###############



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2024 05:15PM by anybody.

Megiddo was an easy call.

Michael Howard, the eminent historian of war, tells us that 90% of all wars occur in the same 10% of the earth's land. Which makes sense because wars almost always take place at strategically important junctures. Few major wars have been fought in the middle of the Sahara, equally on Antarctica or in North Dakota.

By contrast, Troy was built and destroyed nine times because it commanded access to the riches of the Black Sea. Likewise the Swat Valley, which represented one of the few points of access to the Indian subcontinent.

Megiddo was historically such a juncture. It sat at the western end of the road from Mesopotamia to Egypt, so whenever any power--several Mesopotamian ones, Egypt, the Hittite Empire, the first Islamic armies, Persia, Alexander the Great, Rome--wanted to gain control of the eastern Mediterranean, it must control Megiddo.

At several points in time wars at Megiddo led to the end of the world for the peoples of Palestine, including the Hebrews and the Jews, because invasions brought the destruction of farms and homes and families, wholesale theft and rape and murder, the decimation of populations, and in a couple of instances the abduction and exile of the entire ruling class, leaving only impoverished and illiterate peasants.

It therefore did not take much imagination, let alone inspiration, to suggest that another war at Megiddo would precipitate the end of the world.

https://www.touristisrael.com/megiddo/9448/

"The city has seen more battles than any other location in the world."

Based on this, a more obvious location for the Final Battle is hard to imagine. Hardly a bold prophecy by John or whoever.

----

"…Megiddo Hill or Tel Megiddo, rising 21.33 meters above the valley."

Not a mountain, but a hill, just 70 feet high. Kind of reminds you of another hill (this one 110 feet high) where millions of people are supposed to have died in final battles, doesn't it?

  
    

You should have been on the Gong Show. . . would've set records.

Daddy wasted money, time, and his relationship with his sons to prepare for something that never happened. Now he looks like a damn fool, and I resent the church for all that it took from me.

Yes, donbagley. That is one of the saddest parts of it all.

When I hear Armageddon I always think immediately of my JW pals I met back in high school. What kind of a life would you have if your entire focus was on the imminent end of the world (which is the foremost JW teaching)? Pretty darn depressing. How could you get motivated to do anything? And anybody who tries to live a life is told that nothing matters because Armageddon.

Well, some days I must admit the spectre of it rises higher in this crazy world of ours but in general I hope that most people know better than I did at 16 when I joined the JW ranks for a brief interval. I did meet some people I grew very fond of but when I left I never saw any of them again. So that's not friendship after all, is it? (Because if you leave their group you are instantly disfellowshipped which to them is a fate worse than death). Fortunately for me, I just got on with things and it had little effect on my outlook or mood or life in general. But for some people it's a small taste of Armageddon itself to be shunned by people you thought were your friends. Sad, eh?

However. It does seem Armageddon-ish at times out there. I wish people would settle down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2024 08:26PM by Nightingale.