[OBW]

Interesting assortment of thoughts.

Of course, Joseph Smith's predictions are meaningless.

As for the LDS having a heyday if Romney were elected, I'm not so sure that the religious persuasions of presidents have ever had the effects that people have expected. Many were sure we would be answering to Rome when Kennedy was elected. Many would like to declare Obama to be a Muslim rather than a Christian (social or otherwise), but it really hasn't seemed to cause us to simply pull-out of the wars with those pesky Islamic radicals. If anyone points to the recent announcements, don't forget that he has supported the existing war for 4 years now and this won't be the first time that a withdrawal has been declared. It could once again be followed by some kind of surge.

While the end-times false prophet may arise from the RCC, it won't likely be because the RCC has become so soft on other religions. They may be willing to be nice to other people without regard to their religion, but they really are pretty strong in their Christo-centric positions, no matter how many grievous errors we think they have.

I must agree with the call to repent. But I fear that relying on such a misguided book as Cahn's for the inspiration is an invitation to repent in a misguided way. To repent for some irrelevancies and remain committed to some things that we should repent for.

That still means we need to repent.

And time is always short. Even if the end-times are another 2,000 years away, our time is short. We never know if we will see tomorrow's sunrise, or even our own pillow for tonight's sleep. We may be sleeping with the worms before then. It may be that having the thought that there are clear markers for the end-times as being imminent will help some keep the course. For others, the realization that tomorrow may go on without them is quite enough. Either way, in the grand scheme of things no one reading this forum has more than roughly 70 to 80 years. Most quite a lot less. Some possibly only today.

And maybe none of us have more than 2 or 3 years.

Or even a day.

The reason that I look at it this way is that I should live both as someone expecting to grow old and as someone expecting to meet my maker now. Neither is sufficient alone. Those who only expect to grow old will ignore the present. Those who too strongly expect the eminent end too often abandon sober living in the present in favor of pining for "glory."

And unlike a sort of slogan that I have been hearing lately, I do not believe that we were made for heaven, or "glory" or whatever. I believe we were made for righteous living, bearing the image of God in all that we do. To look away to heaven/glory/the NewJ too much is to abandon your purpose for being created and seek something else. Any other view seems to suggest that God goofed and had to redefine our purpose. "Those pesky humans. They wouldn't bear my image properly on earth, so I will simply invite them to abandon earth and live here." I know that is not exactly what is being said by some. But how do we suppose to be sanctified in this life if we don't actually find our way back to the God-directed righteousness and image bearing that we were created for. I believe that anything else is to try to end-run around God's purpose for us.