>>The world has been coming to an end for almost 2000 years. I remember when I was three years old (1945), there was a man in San Francisco who walked around 5th and Market Streets with a sign, “Repent! The world is coming to an end”! I saw him walking with that sign whenever I was in that area, until 1963.
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>>The world will indeed come to an end but I am sure that none of us will be aware of it.
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>>A problem with being a Protestant is that God gave you the ability to interrupt the bible, but there is a major issue. You see, Martin Luther in the 16th century threw out the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the two books of Maccabees, as well as sections of Ester and Daniel.
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>>Protestant’s can only pretend to interrupt the Bible as they do not know which books are inspired, since they do not have a complete Bible. Yet Protestant’s may and do disagree amongst themselves as to the meaning of each word of the Bible. This disagreement is the reason that there are 40,000 different Protestant sects today. The passion of disagreement is most evident when you talk to members of any specific Protestant Church concerning scripture. Such discussions are quite entertaining!
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>>A fellow I know who is a Protestant belonged to a Church. The Pastor gave an interpretation of a passage of Bible scripture, and several members of the congregation vehemently disagreed! Members of the congregation immediately split from that church and formed a new church. This occurred three times within one year. Thus where there was once one church there are now four.
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>>While I was in the mid west and south, I became familiar with many different Protestant Churches. One worshiped rattle snakes, and was inspired by the Bible. On occasion members of that Church are bitten and a few have died.
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>>In the mid west and south there is not much tolerance for Roman Catholics and Jews. The country singer Reba McEntire said it best: “In our town, the Presbyterian Church was in the middle of town, next to city hall. The Methodists church was a block away, and the Baptist were a quarter mile away. The Catholic Church was 1 ½ miles out of town”!
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>You must've been in a different south or a different time. Doesn't even resemble today's south. It's very tolerant and almost every religion on earth is represented now. I was born in the north, lived in Colorado, Oregon, and California before I graduated high school. It's changed a lot. I am told often by northerners who come to the south for work how amazed they are at the diversity. Most cultures and nationalities and religions are represented here now. Yet the old prejudiced views of the south remain.

There isn't just one south, though, is there? One south is the research corridor of NC, Northern Virginia, Atlanta, some other places. But have the rural areas changed that much? I spent some time in Baton Rouge, a state capital, and it was still pretty redneck. Nice enough people but still a lot of redneck in them.

I am not being a northern snob. I could say things as least as unadmiring about Chicago. In fact now that my daughters are adults and no longer live here (some nice visits over the past month) I expect to relocate in the next couple of years, as soon as the real estate market starts to bounce back and I can afford to sell my house.