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Comment: |
One concern of y2k awareness groups is that the issue will be picked up by "religious zealots" and promoted as an "end of the world" aspocalyptic scenario, thereby disgracing those who are fearful about y2k. So far, this has not happened. (Actually, it has, but hardly anyone is aware of this. Hal Lindsey got on the y2k bandwagon very late, after having dismissed the year 2000 as being irrelevant to prophecy. Jack Van Impe also has written about it, along with dozens of other reasons why Jesus will return soon. But there seems to be no event that does not lead Mr. Van Impe to conclude this, so y2k is just another blip on his prophetic radar.)
Yes, there are a handful of sites from outfits you've never heard of. None of these sites existed prior to 1998. All of them now say it's clearly predicted in the Bible. This is the standard stuff: prophecy as a retroactive discovery. The prophets cash in on the headlines. They never tell you before the media discover the phenomenon (such as the Iraq war in 1991), except for events that fail to come to pass.
For a detailed refutation of this view of Bible prophecy, see the late David Chilton's great commentary on the Book of Revelation, DAYS OF VENGEANCE (1987). It's over 800 pages in hardback. It costs $24.95. Order from: Dominion Press, P. O. Box 7999, Tyler, TX 75711. If you mention this site, you will be sent a free copy of his paperback masterpiece, THE GREAT TRIBULATION. These books show why anything regarding the Year 2000 is not in the Bible. This would include the millennium bug.
Evidence of general non-interest by religious groups is provided by a Web site that tracks religious prophecy. The group that put up the site is concerned about y2k. The groups that they track are not. Here is what the Web site says:
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What Will Really Happen at the Year 2000?
We predict that there will be three significant developments at the start of the new millennium:
Thousands of computer programs will fail causing major disruption to all sectors of the economy. It seems that in the early days of business computing, disk and memory space was costly, and so programmers used only 2 digits to indicate the year. So, 72 represented 1972. The problem is that at the year 2000, many of these programs will compute the new year as 1900, and thus cause major chaos. Millions of misunderstandings will occur in the way in which we indicated dates. There are three all-numerical methods that are now in common use. Consider February 15, 1998. It is shown as: mm/dd/yy (2/15/87) dd/mm/yy (15/2/98) yy/mm/dd (98/2/15)
Unfortunately, the early years of the next century will be shown as 00 for 2000, 01 for 2001 etc. Much confusion will be created. For example, consider 01 02 03. Does it mean January 2, 2003 or 1 February, 2003 or 2001 Feb 3? This problem will continue, in diminished form, until the year 2032. This is one of the reasons why we always try to use the unusual convention of a 4 digit year, three letter month and two number day, on this site. (e.g.1998-FEB-15). That is a clear and unambiguous system..
The major theological developments that so many people expect will not happen. The disappointment will generate a major backlash which will involve attacks on small religious groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses , New Agers, Satanists, , members of the Unification Church, Wiccans, etc. Other more established religious minorities such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, etc. might suffer as well. The Satanic Ritual Abuse hoax, which is currently dissipating, may well be reborn in strength as the fervor intensifies.
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