Televised martyrdoms en masse broadcast for paying viewers on global cable. Reality TV shows where dissidents are tortured into confessing allegiance to the Antichrist state. Rome in the decadence happening live on everyone's i-phone devices - except for the ones being murdered.
OR: Global Shariah law. Islam takes the West and methodically eliminates all resistance to their false God through genocide and religicide. Israel gets nuked to dust. Al Qaeda/Taliban mentality now becomes state-sanctioned status quo enshrined in theocracy.
OR: Solar flares and climate change bring about extreme cultural polarization: the Christians quote the prophets ("We TOLD you so - repent or perish") but One-World Gaia worshiping neo-pagans consolidate total control in order to revive human sacrifice. Those who oppose their aims & beliefs are the victims.
In the midst of this come ultraviolet-caused skin lesions, environmental chaos, famine/thirst, weather/seismic disasters and mass death.
OR: China consolidates financial control of weakened west, impose Maoist ideology on U.S. even as they plunder our resources to establish new global Mandarin Dynasty in alliance of convenience with Islamic Tyrant-states. All non-compliant citizens herded into work/reeducation camps such as now exist in N. Korea.
OR: Fallen angels posing as intergalactic helpers of humanity from the 12th planet Nabiru arrive on strife-torn planet earth promising peace. They join with Atlantean 5th column to inaugurate the New Age of cosmic unity - but their REAL unspoken purposes are more nefarious and evil.
Enough of that - back to contemplating my Hello Kitty lunchbox for awhile...
Hell from beneath is excited about you,to meet you at your coming;
It stirs up the dead for you, All the chief ones of the earth; it has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. They all shall speak and say to you: Have you also become as weak as we? Have you become like us? Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your stringed instruments; the maggot is spread under you,and worms cover you.
How you are fallen from heaven,O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit. Those who see you will gaze at you, And consider you, saying: Is this the man who made the earth tremble,who shook kingdoms, Who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, Who did not open the house of his prisoners?
All the kings of the nations,All of them, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house; But you are cast out of your grave Like an abominable branch, like the garment of those who are slain, thrust through with a sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a corpse trodden underfoot. You will not be joined with them in burial, Because you have destroyed your land and slain your people. The brood of evildoers shall never be named. Prepare slaughter for his children Because of the iniquity of their fathers,Lest they rise up and possess the land, And fill the face of the world with cities.
[Isaiah 14 New King James Version]
You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper,sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you. You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading; therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you.
All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; you have become a horror,and shall be no more forever.
[Ezekiel 28, New King James Version]
The question arose as to how such a valued if unpleasant official such as the satan could fall from God's court. An explanation is given in Genesis in the description as to how men began increasing in numbers, "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." And in those days, "there were giants in the earth". The daughters of men bore children of these giants or angel like men. The story possibly originally sought to establish the existence of giants and heroes in very early times but the meaning became distorted when connected to the following passage:
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
It was because of this that God sent the great Flood. Although there are other versions of this occurrence in the Old Testament the fuller description of the events appears in the Book of Enoch. It had happened that men of earth had produced beautiful and comely daughters which were seen by some of the angels of heaven who lusted after them. These angels decided to take these daughters as their wives. The angels were of the order called the Watchers, or the sleepless ones. Their leader was Semjaza, or Azazel. They supposedly descended Mount Hermon. Then they entered and defiled the young women. They taught their wives charms and enchantments, botany and cutting of roots. Azazel instructed men in the making of the weapons of war: swords, knives and shields. He also taught them the evil art of cosmetics. The children of the Watchers were the giants of the earth. When the men of the earth could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and began devouring the men, then they turned, or sinned, against birds, beasts, reptiles and fish, till at last they ate and drank one another's flesh and blood. God finally took control of the situation sending the archangel Raphael to imprison Azazel in the desert till the last judgment when he will be thrown into the eternal fire. Other Watchers had to watch their children, the giants, being killed. God then told the archangel Michael to bind the angels in the valleys of the earth until the day they will be cast into everlasting torment in an abyss of fire. But this did not rid the earth of evil. The demons that came from the bodies of the dead giants have remained in the earth ever since causing wickedness, destruction and oppression. From the above descriptions several debates have arisen as to the real evil of such actions taken by the Watchers against the will of God. One is that these angels longed for the comforts of sexual and family life; but such actions were inappropriate because God had created them immortal, above men, so there was no reason for their descent. All it caused was the abnormalities in the earth of the giants. The physical union of angelic and human beings was a crime against nature. (One might note this certainly was not true in the Greek and Roman pantheons. Several notable heroes came from such unions.) Such stories as the one above possibly led to the fascination in medieval times of sexual relationships between witches and the devil. Some even think it is a diabolical counterpart of the revered mystery in the Christian faith of the Divine descending upon a virgin to give birth to a Savior. However, from the above story has evolved through the centuries the current status of Satan in Christendom. From the story the concept have evolved that Satan, the Devil, tried to make himself equal to God. Some said before his expulsion from heaven the satan was called Lucifer, but afterwards he was known as Satan. With all of this as evidence it did not take much doing for the first century Christians to connect Lucifer and Satan to the serpent in the garden of Eden who tempted Eve. But, strangely enough the book of 2 Enoch gives this graphic story too along with the Old Testament. It describes an archangel named Satanail trying to make himself equal to God by seducing the Watchers to rebel with him. They all were banished from heaven, and to revenge himself for his fall Satanail tempted Eve in Eden. There is another version, according to the Vita Adae et Evae that Satan refused to worship Adam, as the angels were commanded to do by God, God became angry and hurled Satan with his angels down to earth; therefore, Satan tempted Eve. Here the concept of the Devil's pride which caused his rebellion is combined with angelic jealousy of man. In the Old Testament there is no suggestion in Genesis that the serpent who tempted Eve was the Devil; however, early Christian writers generally assumed that the serpent was either the Devil or one of his agents in disguise. It is upon this assumption that the entire central doctrine of Christendom rests. St. Paul and later St. Augustine clearly welded this doctrine. Adam's crime plunged all further generations into the Devil's power and the toils of sin and death, for who God sent his son Jesus Christ to rescue them.
[http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/d/devil_the.html]
Think Bin Laden plotting in 1990, think Mick Jagger (or any other rock star) swaggering on stage in 1969, think of certain Medieval popes encrusted in pomp and vested with all earthly power, think of the jeweled consorts of dictators large and small smiling for the cameras...
Think of your neighbor. Think of your SELF !