The Decline & Fall of Religion?

Posted Jan 7, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

In truth, everything has its cycle. There is no escaping this reality upon which the entire universe was created. There has been a steady decline in church membership which has been consistent with perhaps the politically correct movement with the broader societal trends that also manifest in the declining church attendance. There appears to be a rising trend of an increasing proportion of Americans with no religious preference which is strikingly similar to the decline in religion which took place within the Roman Empire.

Indeed, Constantine’s (309-337AD) decision to decriminalize Christianity within the Roman Empire was a turning point for religious change cyclically. It was the year 313AD, when Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan decriminalizing Christian worship. Constantine thus became a great patron of Christianity but keep in mind his mother, Helena, was a devout Christian.  She searched all the holy places and constructed churches over them from where Christ was born to where he was crucified.

Note that the medallion pictured here showed Constantine with Sol, the sun god. The cult of Sol was becoming the supreme god even among the pagans – Sol Invictus (invincible sun because it roise every day no matter what). Constantine had set a precedent for the position of the Christian emperor within the Church and raised the notions of orthodoxy, Christendom, ecumenical councils, and the state church of the Roman Empire was officially declared by edict in 380AD. However, Constantine was not really such a devout believer. He adopted Christianity because the movement was rising substantially when people prayed to the pagan golds and nothing happened. The Christians exploited that and argued that the reason their pagan protectors failed was because they did not exist. The pagans, on the other hand, persecuted Christians because the barbarian invasions and the fall of the Roman Empire was taking place because the gods were angry at the Christians.

Constantine sought to be the sole emperor. He really wages civil war. He took a risk to move against Maxentius’ forces which greatly outnumbered his own. Constantine descended through the Genevre Pass and entered Italy. Several battles were fought as Constantine neared Rome itself. The final battle came on October 28th, 312 AD at Milvian Bridge. It was this battle where Constantine I claimed to have had a vision of Christ and marched against Maxentius under the Christian symbol of the cross. Despite the biased historical accounts, the Battle of Milvian Bridge was less of a battle between Christianity and paganism as it was a battle for power and control. While Maxentius may have been a pagan, he did not persecute the Christians and in fact built the first Christian church in Rome. Many of his own troops were Christians. No doubt, Constantine realized that placing the cross on the shield of his army would disrupt his opposing force. Many were Christian and were reluctant to kill a fellow Christian. It was a brilliant move.

Historians have written much of the Battle of Milvian Bridge. It has been characterized as the battle between Christianity and Paganism. As Maxentius’ troops began to retreat across a temporary bridge constructed upon boats, Maxentius fell into the water when the bridge collapsed along with thousands of his troops. His armor proved too heavy and thus he drowned in the waters of the Tiber. That ended the battle.

It is not certain when Jesus Christ was actually born. The census that is the story of having to travel to Bethlehem was actually the Census of Quirinius which took place in 6AD after Herod I the Great had died and the Romans were dividing Judaea into thirds among Herod’s sons. There is no actual evidence of Herod issuing an order to kill the firstborn males when in fact he clearly died about 10 years before. Such an order would have to have been issued by one of his sons, yet there is no surviving evidence to support that as fact.

Nevertheless, our model does place a turning point about late 3AD when most scholars agree that Jesus was born based primarily upon the Census of Quirinius. We then have in 312AD the victory of Milvian Bridge by Constantine the Great who then decrees that Christianity will be the state religion primarily so he got to plunder all the wealth of pagan temples. It is rather stunning how we come to major religious events every 309.6 years. This appears to be a change in beliefs that do not necessarily suggest complete changes in religions. Often these are shifts that become more fundamentalist in their beliefs or a turn toward liberalism.

There are two primary cycles. First we can look at the cycle of change in religion which seems to follow the 309.6 year cycle which is, of course, the 8.6-year frequency. The second is to look at the derivative of the 8.6-year which produces a target for a major collapse in religion, which is underway at this time, by 2033.

From the Battle of the Milvian Bridge which took place between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius on the 28th day of October 312AD (312.824), it was 309.6 years until the rise of Islam. At the age of 40 in 610AD, Muhammad is said to have received his first verbal revelation in the cave called Hira.

This was the beginning of the writing of the Quran that continued up to the end of his life. There was also the persecution of the newly converted Muslims like there had been among the Christians. Muhammad and his followers migrated to Medina in 622AD, an event known as the Hegira and the birth of the Islam calendar (622.298).

The next cycle produced the target where we see the beginning of pilgrimages to the Middle East during the 10th century. The belief that the world would end come the year 1,000 was very prominent, so much so that the English King Aethelred II (978-1016AD) replaced his image on the coinage with the symbol of Christianity – the lamb. We seem to fear whole even numbers like the 2000 Y2K bug which was going to destroy all computers.

The next target was 1241 which was the year of the Great Mongol Invasion. Poland fell to the Mongols that year who are eventually beaten back. We also see in this cycle was a new trend of Antipopes when France seized the Catholic Church and installed French popes as puppets of the French king that became known as the Avignon Papacy. This was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon. The Seventh Crusade was a crusade led by Louis IX of France from 1248 to 1254. This was the cycle that we see Constantinople fall to the Turks in 1453.

The next cycle turning point began in 1551 when the Council of Trent reconvened to deal with the Protestant Reformation. This cycle also marks the attempt of Islam to conquer Europe and impose Islam as the state religion. The invading army was the new Ottoman Empire, which was defeated at the Battle of Vienna which took place on the 12th of September 1683 after the imperial city had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The peak of that cycle arrives 212 years from the beginning. That was 1763 and the start of George II restrictions placed upon Americans which led to the American Revolution, which was also about the freedom of religion.

This brings us to 1860 and this is the beginning of the American Civil War, which was rooted in a religious question concerning slavery. This current cycle will reach its peak in 2072 and the next will begin in 2170. We are clearly moving toward a clash of philosophies both within Christianity as well as among different religious foundations. As we move into that major turning point, we will see rising discontent and religious confrontation engulf the world. In the USA, we have the liberal v conservative confrontation which is also incorporating the religious right and anti-abortion movements v women’s liberation factions. They see this as plain and simple – thous shalt not kill. Yet this is inconsistent with the idea of war itself. Perhaps it is ok to kill someone if the government tells you to do it?

This is part of the religious cycle as well. We will also see the conflict between Christianity and Islam build in Europe. This will be no different from the anti-immigration movement that surged into gun battles on the streets of Philadelphia during the economic depression that followed the Sovereign Debt Defaults by states during the 1840s. As the economic decline picks up speed from 2018 into 2020, the tensions against immigration will only rise. This is also behind the separatist movements in Europe.

While we are currently in the Seventh Wave 309.6-year cycle following the birth of Christ, from a pure cyclical perspective, the next turning point in 2072 may be a significant religious change. What comes, can only be subject to speculation. We have completed six waves of 309.6 years. The Seventh is where major change and conflict will be unleashed. However, if we just look at Christianity, from the Edit of 313AD decriminalizing this religion, then 2 x 8.6 = 17.2. Therefore, 1720 years from 313AD brings us to 2033 which aligns with the Sixth Wave of the ECM – 2032.

Further confirmation that we are in a major Private Wave is that the belief systems also shifts not merely away from government (Public v Private) but also from formalized religion and even sports. The evidence is very clear that church memberships have been declining. The various church membership data reflected the steady decline from the 76% level to the 50% level. There has been rising discontent even within the Catholic Church over the left-wing statement of Pope Francis. He has been alienating many Catholics. He has adopted the climate change agenda and supported the United Nations in this anti-industrialization movement. He has also adopted the Piketty argument against capitalism supporting the Marxist view of economic inequality. Many feel he has abandoned the faith since one of the Ten Commandments is thou shall not covert what other people have. This has led many to question if he is not just expressing his personal beliefs disguised as religion.

What is clear is that under Pope Francis, the finances of the Church has been declining significantly. Some argue it is due to his political statements that are not grounded in religion. There is a rather famous Italian investigative journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose new book, Universal Judgment, is the latest in a string of reveling dispatches on financial crises which he has helped to uncover within the church. In his latest book, he warns that the Vatican will run out of funds by 2023. Certainly, the attendance is declining sharply. His previous book, Merchants in the Temple, focused on the internal corruption in the Vatican bank

Why Iran is a Major Threat

Posted Nov 14, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

The Yemeni Civil War is an ongoing conflict that began in 2015 between two factions. Each is claiming to constitute the Yemeni government. This is really a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthi forces control the capital Sana’a who are allied with forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh backed by Saudi Arabia. They are opposed by Yemen’s Shiite rebels who are loyal to the religious government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, based in Aden, supported by Iran.

To grasp what this is all about, one must understand Islam. Saudi Arabia in Sunni that boils down to a separation of church and state. They are fighting the Shiite forces of Iran, which believe that religion should control the state. Therefore, the ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Shiite rebels toward the Saudi capital was manufactured by Iran as if this should be any surprise given that Iran is their backer.

This conflict in the Middle East is religious based. This is similar to the threat of Russia back in the Cold War days when Nikita Khrushchev ruled Russia and the ideology that Marxism would conquer Capitalism was the entire issue. Here we have Iran which is similarly a threat to the world political structure because this is where religion should rule the state. Christianity went through that where the state was ruled by religion and to circumvent religion, kings appointed their political allies as priests, bishops, and cardinal. That led to the Investiture Controversy which was the major conflict between the Pope Gregory VII and the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV during the 11th century.

Emperor Henry declared Pope Gregory was no longer pope and the Romans should choose a new pope because of political disputes. When Pope Gregory heard of this he excommunicated Henry IV, declared he was no longer emperor and absolved his subjects from the oaths they had sworn to him. This was the battle of kings to control the Church for political gain.

Even if we look at England and Henry VII’s break with the Catholic Church, one need only just look before the headline. Henry’s Queen was  Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536) who was the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–1558) and was originally Charles I of Spain. Charles V had imprisoned the Pope Clement VII (1478– 1534) following the Sack of Rome in May 1527. Correct, the Holy Roman Emperor invaded Rome to take control of the Church and imprisoned the Pope. There was no way Charles V would allow Henry VIII to annul the marriage with his aunt. Once again we have evidence of kings controlling religion for political purposes.

What is unfolding in the Middle East is similar to the war between Protestants and Catholics, which was really for political and economic power. The corruption in the Church was not the design of the Pope when it had been the kings who appointed people in their domain to run the Church – not the Pope. Nothing could illustrate this point more than the case of Saint Thomas Becket (c. 1119–1170), who was a personal drinking buddy of the King. When he appointed him as Arch Bishop of Canterbury, he suddenly found religion. He then stood up to the King and he was slain right at the Altar.

This is a similar nature where here it is the religious Shite seeking to take control of the Middle East and overthrow kings. The recent Saudi Arabia incident of shooting down the Iranian missile on November 4th, 2017 near Riyadh’s international airport, illustrates just how confrontational this really is. Why Obama cut any sort of a deal with Iran given their political beliefs, is truly beyond contemplation

Understanding Islam

Posted Oct 15, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Why do Islamic extremists hate us so much?

ANSWER: I have asked why is Russia our enemy when they are no longer communist, but nobody can answer that question. The response is usually, “They are Russian.” There is this same residual issue between Islam and Christianity in many circles that people cannot explain. The Turks effectively conquered Constantinople in 1453 and created the Ottoman Empire. Through different rulers, the objectives changed over the centuries. Sometimes the object was isolation and at other times it was conquest mode. This is true of the United States. The objectives change with administrations. Therefore, you cannot really label a people one way or the other.

The attempt to conquer Europe and the failure to take Vienna, which was was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1683 left a instinctive flavor in the mouths of Western leaders and forever made the Ottoman empire the enemy until they wiped it out in World War I. It took one Political Cycle of 224 years to complete the fall of the Ottoman empire, and the West therein laid the seeds for what we face today — the unintended consequences.

It was the West who installed power in the hands of various groups, including the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia. They were fighting an old enemy and did not comprehend the full scope of their nation building shifting the center of gravity in global Islam from the Turks to the Arabs. Both the Dutch and French attempted to prevent their Muslim subjects from deferring to the caliph of the Ottoman empire in their public prayers. It was the West who shifted the religious power from the Turks to the Arabs. That has resulted in the fragmentation of Islam where we have different groups with different interpretations and objectives.

This is really a consequence of those who run the military and their desire for nation building.

Islam II

Islam vs Christianity II

Posted Aug 13, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

This contest between Islam and Christianity is primarily at the elite level. The bulk of those in Turkey do not support the idea of returning to the days of old. Of course, both Hitler and Napoleon dreamed about resurrecting the Roman Empire. By no means did this same dream infect the general population. These types of dreams appear to be infecting those who seek power; not the general population. Even our military elite do everything to demonize Putin to justify using what they built. It is like buying a brand new car but you never leave the showroom. To them, what’s the point if there is no enemy. So make one is their motto. There is no justification to be against Russia when it is no longer communist. So at least the bankers created Putin if not the CIA.

Police exert power over citizens for they too see evil in everyone as do judges and prosecutors when we are talking about the majority of such groups. Naturally, there are always exceptions. But this infection of power to resurrect the Ottoman Empire is clearly in the mind of  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The average Turk has not such dream of a  caliphate reborn. The majority of the Turkish population does not support this idea.

However, the American people were also very anti-war. FDR had to go to Boston to promise he would only send arms to Britain, not troops for World War II. Boston was primarily Irish who fled here because of the British. They would not support sending their sons to war to die to the very people they fled from. The Germans in World War I even took out advertisements warning citizens not to travel on the Lusitania because the political elites in the USA were violating their declared neutrality sending arms hidden in passenger ships. When the Lusitania was sunk, that was the battle cry that the German sank a cruise ship that was an act of war.

The question is never what the general population believes, but only the elite. They will lie and do whatever it takes to further their agenda. Perhaps only about 15% of Turks would argue that restoring the Ottoman Empire would be a solution but primarily as a direct result of the declining economy. As I have explained numerous times, there is a direct correlation between economics and war. When everyone is FAT & HAPPY, war does not come. Let the economy crash and this fuels resentment that the elites fuel and exploit.

The biggest crisis in the Middle East is the declining oil price in combination with the decline in oil demand as energy storage expands creating cars and other products not dependent on oil. This is a lethal combination. Some countries expanded their budgets without rational thought. As the economy has turned down taking demand with it, some countries are in a similar position as was Spain after the discovery of America. The spent wildly and in the process they could no longer support that lifestyle. Spain then defaulted seven times and they fell from the richest state in Europe to the poorest. This was all magically created by fiscal mismanagement. They turned against their own people when desperate for money. They employed the Spanish Inquisition ruthlessly usurping the power of the Catholic Church to justify their exploitation of their own people. Even the Pope spoke out against the Spanish Inquisition. Religion has always become the excuse in times of economic decline.

When Rome began to fall during the 3rd century, became known as the Great Persecution since it was the last and most severe persecution of Christians even to take place during the Roman Empire. The year was 303AD, when the Emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding the legal rights of Christians. They demanded that they comply with traditional Roman religious practices because the prevailing view was the gods were punishing Rome because the Christians would not acknowledge them. They also then went after the clergy ordering all inhabitants of Rome must sacrifice to the Roman gods. This persecution lasted for 8.6 years until it peaked and began to decline. Maximian issued coins depicting himself as Hercules savior of the world.

It was Constantine and Licinius who issued a new Edict of Milan in 313AD has traditionally marked the end of the Great Persecution. Keep in mind that this correlated with the economic decline. Here, the people said the gods were punishing Rome since they could not attribute the decline to another empire. When there is an external enemy, then that is who will always be blamed first. If nothing else exists, then they turn against their own people singling out some group be in Christians in Rome or Jews in Germany under the Nazi movement. The he Fontanelle cemetery in Naples Italy is a reminder of the Christians put to death during the Great Persecution.

Moreover, just so it is clear, the people of Turkey and other Islam following countries are completely different regarding paths of Islam just as Catholics and Protestants, or in Judaism be it Orthodox v Reformed. Probably, the majority do not go to church these days so it is debatable to what extent religion really plays a role in the majority of people’s lives. Politicians steal regardless of their religion. Nevertheless, the elites seek power by trying to  inspire a unifying factor.

That said, what we are really talking about here is not the dream of the majority of the people, but of elites. They will do whatever it takes to make that dream reality driving the people to act in one way or another. The people are always collateral damage to achieve their goal of domination

Islam

Contest between Islam and Christianity returns ?

Posted Aug 13, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

Are we headed into a new age of Islam v Christianity? What people do not grasp is that the first panic in our list of panics from which I derived the Economic Confidence Model was 1683. That was the invasion of the Ottoman Empire directly against Vienna, which was the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor resurrected following the death of Charlemagne. The First Crusade (1095–1099) was the the initiation of this religious war. However, the actual conflict between Christianity and Islam began in 1064.  The Seljuk Turks stormed Anatolia (modern Turkey), taking Caesarea and Ani. This was the beginning of the invasion of the Turks into Western culture. In Spain, King Ferdinand of Castile took on June 9 – Coimbra. Then, European warriors stormed Spain to participate to the siege of Barbastro, which Pope Alexander II first preached the Reconquista in 1063 as a “Christian emergency. This expedition is sanctioned by the Pope and was really the first Crusade despite the history books. The Crusade of Barbastro was an international expedition to take the territory from the Hudid Emirate of Lārida. The large army was composed of elements from all over Western Europe and the siege and conquest of the city thus took place in 1064. From this point in time, 309.6 years later we end in the preparation for the final peak in the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire was founded in 1299 and had moved into Eastern Europe conquering Serbia 1389 and Bulgaria by 1396. Constantinople fell in 1453. It was during the 14th century when the Ottomans revived the still-older concept of a caliphate. They declared that the sultan and caliph were one and the same. Murad I (ruler June 1326 -June 1389) was the first Ottoman ruler to actually claim the title of Sultan 1383. The holder of the title Sultan was originally the power behind the throne of the Caliph in Bagdad. It was later used for various independent Muslim Monarchs. This title was senior to and more prestigious than that of Amir. Moreover, it was not like the title of Malik ‘King’, which was really a secular title or Shah among Persian or Iranian rulers. Murad I  actually established the former Osmanli tribe converting this into into a sultanate.


Therefore, we are looking at the resurrection of the caliphate, which began in 1383 and reached its peak in 309.6 years. by 1692. It was Sultan Mehmed IV (Sultan 1648 to 1687) who marked the peak. His ambition was to take all of Europe. On May 3, 1683, Sultan Mehmed IV entered Belgrade. Then on July 14, 1683, his 140,000-man Ottoman army arrived at Vienna and began to lay siege to the city, which was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. Then on September 12, 1683, the Battle of Vienna took place. The Ottoman siege of the city was broken with the arrival of a force of 70,000 Poles, Austrians and Germans under Polish–Lithuanian king. This was the contest between Islam and Christianity. From that point onward, with the death of Mehmed IV in 1687, the decline and fall took shape by 1692.

This claim of the Sultan being the caliphate lasted until 1924, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the great modernizer, abolished the office as a relic, insisting that Turks had to build a new Turkey and not lay claim to an enervating empire, temporal or spiritual. This was covered by the magazine the Economist on March 8th, 1924. Therefore, 1924 marked the split of the Muslim world into two primary factions with the Turks and other nationalities being free of Ottoman rule, embraced Western culture.

However, the rise of ISIS is the attempt to resurrect the Caliphate. However, the  concept behind the Caliphate lies  a message of salvation through an international Muslim solidarity. The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, retains a vision  for “his” rebirth of Turkey. He dreams not only of new age of the Ottoman Empire and the former glory, but of a caliphate reborn and led by a Turk. Many suspect that he sees himself as the coming Caliph and this is greatly ignored in the West. The end of the Caliphate in 1924 was 860 years from 1064. There is a significant risk that we will end up in a religious battle by 2036 on the other side of 2032.

Cycle from the beginning of the Crusades,

Marine Le Pen Clearly States It Is Not a War Against Terrorism, It Is a War Against an Ideology

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Martin Armstrong

Marine Le Pen states with absolute clarity that this is by no means a war against terrorism — it is a war against the ideology of Islamic Fundamentalism. Refusing to state that truth where “terrorism” is merely a weapon, one cannot wage war or ever defeat such a weapon because there is no acknowledgement of what we are really facing.

Even taking a cycle from the beginning of the Crusades, we still come up with a very similar time frame.* The West has a made HUGE mistake in trying to dethrone Syria. The removal of dictators in Iraq and Libya have destabilized the region far worse than we care to admit. Trying to dethrone Syria will create a vast new area for ISIS, and this, precisely as Le Pen points out, is a war against Islamic Fundamentalism, not Islam or terrorism. Identify the problem before you take all of our rights.

*Note: Ironically, it was French Pope Urban II who initiated the Crusades.

So has Europe imported a civil war?

Hamburg Is First European City to Authorize the Seizure of Private Vacant Buildings to House Migrants

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Martin Armstrong

In response to the refugee crisis, the German city of Hamburg has enacted a new law that will enable the government to seize vacant commercial properties to provide temporary housing for refugees. The law will go into effect next and will last until March 2017. Despite the additional measures, many refugees will die of exposure during the cold German winter

The migration of refugees to Europe is part of a long historical trend. The last invasion ended with the Battle of Vienna, which took place in Vienna on September 11, 1683, and concluded on the following day. The battle caused the first financial panic on that list of panics I stumbled upon which led to the discovery of the Economic Confidence Model.

This current migration, which some are calling an invasion, appears to be on time no matter what we call it. Whether it is a real invasion or fleeing from another Islamic civil war the results, to a large extent, are the same.

The attempts of the Muslim world to invade Europe go back to the Battle of Tours in October 732 AD (also known as the Battle of Poitiers) led by Charles Martel (688-741 AD), the grandfather of Charlemagne. During the Battle of Tours, Martel stopped an invasion led by the Umayyad Caliphate, the second of four major Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. This particular caliphate was centered on the Umayyad dynasty rising directly from Mecca.

 

For those unfamiliar with the history of Islam, there were rivalries between the Arab tribes that caused civil unrest in the provinces outside Syria. The Second Muslim Civil War (680–692 AD) occurred when the leadership of the Umayyad clan shifted from the Sufyanid branch of the family to the Marwanid branch. The failed invasion of Europe in 732 AD during the Battle of Tours led to a decline in confidence of the leadership. The Berber Revolt of 740–743 AD closely followed this period. As a direct result of all this warfare, the resources of government were exhausted. The Umayyads were further weakened by the Third Muslim Civil War (744–747 AD) and were finally defeated by the Abbasid Revolution in (750 BC–132 AD). One branch of the family fled across North Africa to Al-Andalus and established the Caliphate of Córdoba, which lasted until 1031 AD in Spain.

So has Europe imported a civil war? Clearly, the Western powers do not understand history or the fact that the attempt to topple the Syrian government will lead to total chaos. This is by no means in the best interest of national security for Europe or the United States. This is a braindead war game with very serious consequences for it is not over territory; it involves religion with no borders.

Sorry – It’s Just Time.