Messiahs, Saviours, Maddis and Madmen

A few years ago when I was working in Bahrain I got friendly with this friendly, bright guy called Ismael and Ismael offered a wee bit of intellectual ambience in a part of the world where that is generally lacking. However, the one topic we didn't talk about too much was religion and we couldn't really talk about it because this intelligent, nice little man was a Shia who genuinely believed that the Imam al-Mahdi will reappear when the world has fallen into chaos. That's right folks there is going to be a big, big, war and the Imam Mahdi will appear on the scene, with his pal Jesus, destroy tyranny and falsehood and bring justice to all and sundry. Now, Ismael was a bright guy and I really used to wonder whether he actually believed this. He did, but my attitude was live and let live and that is generally an attitude that I still hold. However, there are days like today, where I am forced to think about the consequences of that "live and let live" attitude. Today, I watched the little video, which has been embedded above, on the mad Christian Zionists, in the good old US of A and, do you know, it really is time that all of us told these people, the Mad Maddis, the deranged dispensationalists, the zany Zionists, that enough, is enough, and if they don't start to get well, we will have to put them into straight jackets and lock them all up on the funny farm. After all, what they believe is not only gobblydegook, it is dangerous destructive gobblydegook.