http://www.av1611.org/666/rock_666.html
Scroll down near the bottom, where it says “666 jewerly.”
(Did I just type “jewerly”? Damn! That typo sounds anti-Semitic, and stuff.)
I would caution you, Wearia.
You can build a perfect logical argument, but it won’t matter.
From your description, logic and reason aren’t necessary to your friends’ POVs-- “God did it” or “The Devil did it” will almost certainly be their response to any sticky issues you may bring up.
These will possibly be followed with variants of “it is not for man to know,” “lean not unto thy own understanding,” and “God’s ways are not man’s ways…”
The moment you hear the keywords “swine” and “pearls–” and you eventually will-- walk away, and never look back.
-David
My response to these people who try to read signs into obscure, if not non-existent verses is simple. From the King James Version itself, for a change:
These are the words of Christ, Himself, as part of an admonishment that we should be in perpetual readiness for his coming.
Look, Jersey Diamond, no disrespect intended, but with the break up of the Soviet Union and the end of colonization, the world is even further from one world government than it was at the turn of the last century. Europe still seems to be as contentious as ever, and last I heard, Britain is still holding strong in favor of the British Pound. We haven’t even managed to unify Ireland yet, let alone Europe.
What I don’t understand is why some Christians seem to feel as if they have to live their lives under threat, if not of hellfire and damnation, then of the End Times. The world was supposed to end in A.D. 1000, complete with a comet to indicate the end was near. 970 years later, AD 2000 was supposed to bring about the end of the world and the start of a new millenium. I don’t know when Christ will return, and it’s none of my business when He will.
Wearia, please feel free to point out to your friend that, in my opinion, if I change my beliefs or my actions in response to the belief that Christ will come tomorrow and/or the End Times/Tribulation/whatever you want to call it will begin, then it is a conversion in name only, and worth nothing. The only conversions I intend to make at swordpoint are conversions to fencing. Conversions resulting from things other than fear tend to be far more lasting.
CJ
Oh yes, here’s my personal, somewhat irrelevant summary of the verses I quoted:
CJ
I have nothing to say on this topic except: “Euro, Dinosaurs and the Bible” is the best name for a thread I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you for that.
Fifteen Iguana
I shoulda figured…
And after the Rapturetm, that will be the price of a pack of cigarettes.
Oh, is this Great Debates? Sorry, my bad.
I’m going to go way out on a limb here: Even if Earth ever is unified into a single World Government (in response to an invasion from outer space, say), I predict that this will not result in the End of the World or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Marketing.
As Alice Cooper once said. “This rock music is soooo easy. You just write a song about stuff that parents will hate. And sell a million copies to their teenage kids.”
I’d copyright this idea if I were you.
Not that this ever stopped any group.
When the WatchTower Society was formed it taught that Jesus was coming to end the world in 1907. Well, in 1907, the group disbanded when it was proven wrong…
GOTCHA! Of course, no group is going to do that! Makes too much sense and shows too much integrity. They split into two groups; the sensible one (term is relative here. ?Is there a stronger word than relative? How about sensible as in sideways to reality at an angle that properly demonstrates Quark physics?)…I digress. The sensible group reworked their calculations and said that they meant to say 1917.
The less sensible group decided that Jesus HAD returned, but they reworked all the rest of their eschatology to say that it was a double secret sort of return.
Details of this will prove wrong if anyone really wants to check it all. I am not a detail person. One terrific story, though.
It’s not one of those things specifically that means the world is going to end. Those people are alarmists. They don’t take everything into consideration.
The Peyote Coyote, I have read that it could be a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros, or an elephant. They are not sure of the translation!
I guess it could be anything, but with the discriptions given, it doesn’t seem likely.
Diogenes the Cynic, there are many people that also see Revelation as a prediction of the future. I, * along with many others*,do.
Also, the “beast” in the Bible isn’t just one thing.
I think the main problem is that people who know very little about the Bible and say they are christian, try to elaborate on stuff that they over hear, and make a mess out of it. This is the problem! The friend in the OP, makes a mockery out of what is actually real by talking non sense.
You are very right though, Gobear, nobody knows when!!!
cjhoworth, I do not live in fear or in threat of the “end times”. I actually hope it is in my time. Maybe, maybe not.
The problem with the old theory that the world was suppose to end in 1000 AD and in 2000, is that it was not biblical. Assumptions and people predictions don’t count no matter who they come from. I would think it has to be biblical, but I guess if you don’t fully believe whatn the Bible says, it wouldn’t matter.
**Nope, you can’t explain away the friend in the OP by saying, “She’s a clueless idjit who doesn’t *really * understand the Bible”–because she got her theory from people who are most definitely not clueless idjits, who really do understand the Bible. She may have remembered it a little bit “off”, but it was still the basic “Rapture and Tribulation” Pre-millennialist prophecy theory as promulgated by people like Jack Van Impe, LaHaye and Jenkins, and Hal Lindsey.
What? You really can’t remember back to Y2K, when all sorts of Fundie websites were predicting the End of the World? Based on the Bible? Do a Google search for “Y2K tribulation”.
http://www.calvaryprophecy.com/q19.html
http://www.discover.net/~ajgood/Y2kCL.html
http://www.prophecyinstitute.com/prophecy/propheticmodels/pm-4.htm
Dang it! DDG, you got to it first! I think what you said is very important, it should make us all realize that interpretations vary and that just because one might feel that their interpretation is correct, it is no more valid than the interpretation that person rejects.
Yes, there are many people who think Revelations is a prediction of the future; that doesn’t mean it is. The whole planet could believe that it tells the future, but you know what? That doesn’t mean it does.
I think Doigenes’s point was that people who lived during the time Revelations was written, didn’t think it was a prophecy. I think this holds more weight than the people now-a-days who think it’s a prediction of the future. Why? Because they lived in those times, they had the same culture as the person who wrote Revolations. They would have more of a shared meaning of the text, IMHO.
an M.J. Agee keeps predicting it each year.
Each year she is wrong, yet people keep e mailing her saying they had a dream, or a smoke trail in the sky spelled out 2003… etc.
– King James
Genesis 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
– American Standard
Genesis 1:21 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that it was good.
– New International
Genesis 1:21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
– Romanized (transliterated Hebrew)
Genesis 1:21 Wayibraa’ 'Elohiym 'et-hataniynim hagdoliym w’eet kaal-nepesh haxayaah haaromeset ‘asher shaartsuu hamayim lmiyneehem w’eet kaal-`owp kaanaap lmiyneehuu wayar’ 'Elohiym kiy-Towb.
'et-hataniynim hagdoliym is the Hebrew phrase that literally means “creatures great”- sometimes the root “taniyn” is more precisely applied to reptiles. Thus even Theistic Evolutionist Christians and Jews have thought it applies to dinosaurs. Tho not a YEC (I’m an Old-Earther), I wouldn’t rule out Leviathan & Behemoth applying to aquatic & land-dwelling dinos, tho I think they more accurately apply to any gigantic aquatic & terrestrial animal.
Well, the Rapture Index is 174 at the moment. Mind you, the Rapture Index seems to be predicting imminent End Times every time I look at it … don’t think I’ve ever seen it dip down even into the “Heavy Prophetic Activity” range.
There are sound devotional reasons for living your life as if the world was about to end - if you remember that you could suddenly be judged on your life’s work to date at any moment, then that’s one solid reason to do good works right now, isn’t it? But speculating about when it’s going to happen, and what the signs are, has always struck me as a hollow pursuit. The Book of Revelations is too metaphorical and too susceptible to multiple interpretations for anyone to say definitively “This is what St. John the Divine meant.”
My personal take on the whole coming-of-the-Kingdom-of-God thing: Christ will return when we’ve made this world ready for him. If we want the Kingdom of God on Earth, we will have to build it ourselves. This requires a great deal of hard, mundane, work, establishing a society which is based on love and truth and justice. Gazing up at the skies and waiting for the Rapture is not any real help here.
You and me both! The number of times I’ve put my affairs in order, made sure i was standing at all times, in grabbing distance of one of the saved etc.
There were no “aquatic dinos”. And given the diversity of dinosaurs in general, which specific one would Leviathan refer to? Or Behemoth? Hmmm? Because, as I’m sure everyone knows, they didn’t all look the same.