Quote:Oh, are they the ones with the 144,000 chosen people?
Specifically 144,000 saved comes from The Seventh Day Adventists and I think JW's . Based on yet another loopy interpretation of the loopiest and most obscure book in the entire Christian canon;Revelations. The idea of predestination comes from Calvinism (16th century)
With a wonderfully pragmatic and self serving logic,the Calvinists worked out that God reveals the saved by making them prosperous. (the original prosperity theology) Conversely,the poor were obviously damned.This smug mindset helped form cultural norms of measuring success and the notion of "the deserving poor". These concepts permeate western society to this day.
Reference: "The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism." Max Weber.
