[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
I only know what I said, that I vaguely recall Him looking like the way one most often sees Him in paintings.
[/QUOTE]
Painted by people who never saw him. How do you know it was Jesus? Could it have been a disciple? A random guy from the same period? Murray Head? The, or An, Antichrist? Fact is, you have no idea if this vision had any reality outside your head, let alone who it was, if anyone.
Was the Jesus in the sky white with blue eyes and blond hair?
EDIT: Also, everyone should buy a copy of the Zombie Survival Guide. I am to understand that following the rapture there will be hordes of the undead. I hope they are the slower type.
[QUOTE=Fiver]
Besides which, ** GuyNblueJeans** said “site [sic] for me when there was a time when there were so many atomic bombs floating around.”
There are of course less than half as many atomic bombs today than there were in 1985, at the peak of the Cold War. So even if “great number of nuclear weapons” is an important benchmark, we’ve stepped back from the brink.
Maybe the Beast arrived in the 80s, but failed.
[/QUOTE]
To anyone who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, saying things are worse now than ever is pure lunacy.
Guy, when Solana leaves his post without the end of times happening, will you admit that Revelations is really about Rome, and is really a heap of crap. (Cool psychadelic crap, though.)
As for your Jesus - even if it happened, which I doubt, maybe someone in the car had a children’s Bible and you saw the reflection of the page in the window? We don’t remember much of what happened when we were 4, even if you did remember that, I bet that your “being ready” is a created memory to go with the picture memory.
[QUOTE=monstro]
Why? It seems like you have faith in Jesus and an eventual, if not upcoming, Judgement Day. Why would the explanation of a non-believer make you feel better?
[/QUOTE]
I was being somewhat humorous. But just the same, I am only a human being and not a strong one at that when it comes to torture and emotional pain. I’m sure you understand.
[QUOTE=pool]
I don’t believe in the Bible but there is one thing I don’t get, all these bible thumpers claiming we are in the end times when this verse would seem to contradict that notion:
“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
—Matthew 24:36-44
So not even the angels of heaven or the son know the hour, only the father, yet these fundies claim to have higher knowledge, what makes them so privileged?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know if I qualify as a “Bible thumper,” but I will point out that the scripture you present speaks to the day and the hour, not of the month or year.
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
I don’t know if I qualify as a “Bible thumper,” but I will point out that the scripture you present speaks to the day and the hour, not of the month or year.
[/QUOTE]
It always amuses/amazes me to see the mental gymnastics employed by some Christians. They pick and choose which parts of the Bible must be taken literally and which must be taken allegorically or metaphorically.
Are you saying that Revelation’s readers should feel encouraged to dope out the month and year of the Rapture, but not the month or hour? Which of the events in Revelation could only develop over a span of hours and months, but not months and years?
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Although if we could predict where he’d appear and build a vacuum chamber there and magnetically levitate him, we could use him for an antimatter supply . . .
[/QUOTE]
Is CERN working on that?
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
You’re looking for Revelation 13:11-18
So, if Solana survives an otherwise fatal assassination attempt by a sword, then a beast comes out from the sea with two horns, and makes the whole world worship a speaking idol of Solana, under penalty of death, calls fire down from heaven, and starts tatooing numbers on people’s hands and foreheads, then you should worry. Until that, not really.
[/QUOTE]
Around 1984 I heard an audio recording of what I suspect “might” be the Beast. At the time it was in repose, not blaspheming. It sounded like nothing I’ve ever heard before, and just listening to it for only a few seconds caused me and a friend to look at each other in silence wondering, “What on earth is that thing?!”
In those days they of course had good audio special effects and so I can’t rule it out as something else. But the thing is is that the person involved with it I happen to know is a man that is plenty evil enough to qualify as The Man of Sin himself, and so it really creeped me out to hear it while knowing he was invovled with it in some manner. I sometimes wonder if he’s its caretaker and that when/if the thing is ever ushered out from its current dimension that it’ll reward him by anoiting him with its great satanic mystical powers.
The other thing about it was the fact that it sounded like it was as enormous as it was evil. And I suspect that even all of these skeptics posting in here would be stopped in their tracks if they were to hear the thing. I kick myself for not getting a copy of it, because if there really is a “Beast,” then anyone honest would have to say that the thing I heard that day would sure as heck be a candidate, or should be at least looked into.
I will go out on a limb and suggest that that thing me and my buddy heard was what Jim Morrison referred to when he sang about “the snake is long … ride the snake to the lake, the ancient lake” in the song “The End.” I also wonder if it might be the worm that Jesus referred to when He said, “The worm shall wiggle forever.”
It may sound silly and maybe paranoid, but it does make me wonder. To further speculate I’d add that I suspect that if I’m right about it being the Beast/snake/monster/worm then likely it’s the same snake that was in the Garden of Eden and has for all of these thousands of years been feasting on sin and is now so bloated that it’s girth and length is far greater than when Morrison saw and wrote about it back in the late '60s, especially since the porno Internet sin machine is up and running on all cylinders and unsuspecting wicked people are feeding it day and night 24/7.
God in Heaven help us all!!
[QUOTE=Duck Duck Goose]
First, I need to explain to you where I’m coming from: I’m a lifelong Conservative Evangelical American Protestant. I have been teaching First Grade Sunday School for 14 years. My husband of 34 years is currently a part-time interim pastor at a tiny Conservative Evangelical American Protestant church in the Central Illinois boonies (as well as being a full-time letter carrier–and yes, they were desperate to fill the pulpit 
).
So I’m not some SDMB atheist.
So please do not brush this off as a “technical quibble”. 
Part the First:
As Captain Amazing has pointed out, the relevant passage is Revelation 13:16-17. And it says that no one will be able to buy or sell unless they have the mark of the beast on their forehead or hand.
So the existence of scanners and bar codes in modern society don’t signify. They do not signal the imminence of the Second Coming, because they do not read bar codes installed on your hand or forehead. And because, last time I looked, you could still walk into Wal-Mart and buy a gallon of milk without having to flash a barcode on your forehead.
When modern civilization starts mandating (and notice I said “mandating”, not “putting”, because yes, I am aware that they can put a chip under your skin, but it’s not mandated, is it?)…anyway, when they start mandating bar codes on your hand or forehead, then you can start worrying about the Mark of the Beast.
And I will worry right along with you, not because it means the Rapture is near, but because it will mean that America has been conquered by aliens from outer space, and I’ll be out in the hills fighting along with the guerillas.
Part the Second:
As Pool has pointed out, Matthew 24:36, in Jesus’ own words, says that no one knows the day nor the hour of Jesus’ coming. In other words, it’s a waste of time to even be wondering whether this person or that person is the Antichrist or the Beast or whatever. We’re to concentrate on the task at hand, which is saving souls and looking to our own salvation, and not worrying about when the Big Day is.
Part the Third:
To reiterate what I said before, there is no Antichrist mentioned in Revelation, and thus this whole discussion is pretty much moot.
[/QUOTE]
Your comments make me think of a deckhand on the Titanic right after it brushed an iceberg saying to a concerned passinger, “Of course there’s no problem, after all, we’re not lying on the bottom of the ocean, are we?”
There’s something called increments.
Where did you hear this recording? Was it on the radio? Did your friend “find” a cassette tape and play it for you? Did some mysterious Man in Black invite you into his lair to play you “proof of the Beast”? Did your minister play it for the Congregation? Did you hear it on one of those whacko access cable religious shows with the preachers who played rock music backwards to expose the blasphemy?
Every piece of “evidence” you’ve given us to support your contention that the end-times are coming has been vague, subjective, and pretty much untestable. Details, man, details! If you can’t provide any details of any of this, I’m guessing that there just aren’t any. All of your experiences that point you in this direction are barely remembered, personally embroidered chance occurrences that you’ve assigned great significance to but that aren’t really terribly meaningful.
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
Those who lived through WWI or II would beg to differ. Survivors of the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking would certainly do so. So would those who lived through the Russian Revolution, or survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
jayjay is right on the money-life has ALWAYS been this bad.
Tell me, who is more sinister than Hitler, or Stalin? Cromwell or Robespierre? Ivan the Terrible? Nero?
No, everything is “not fine.” But, it never HAS been. Life has always sucked. There’s ALWAYS crap in the world.
I’m going to blunt. I have a degree in history. Yet, you, a janitor, claim to know better. I’m not knocking janitors. However, this is MY area of expertise. And I’m telling you, you’re dead wrong. :dubious:
[/QUOTE]
Yes, me, a simple janitor and you an important person with a degree. It must follow that only you can be right and that I, therefore, must be wrong. Sure.
As bad as things have been in human history, they’re nothing compared to all peoples of the world being lined up and put in a spot of having to either go along with this hatefreak predicted in the Bible, i.e. taking the Number and then frying in hell for the rest of eternity for having gone along with the program. OR, not taking the Number and getting one’s head chopped off! (Imagine how horrible it will be to see little kids getting their heads cut off, as their parents scream!)
It amazes me that so many people seem to have such an overly confident regard in how they see the world, as if they have a true grasp of what’s going on. And while I never want to come off as being a Chicken Little, just the same, this strange world with all of its dangers and uncertainties seems worthy of being scrutinized in a sober way, at least by some of us (while the rest laugh and mock).
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
this strange world with all of its dangers and uncertainties seems worthy of being scrutinized in a sober way, at least by some of us (while the rest laugh and mock).
[/QUOTE]
This moment of purest irony made possible by a grant from the Fnord Foundation…
How horrible it must be for you to live your life in fear. I thought the entire point of Christianity was to “be not afraid.”
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
When I was around 4 I saw Jesus in the sky. You can mock and laugh, but it remains a fact.
[/QUOTE]
I accept you have this memory.
However it is not a fact. (You may have been dreaming; you may have interpreted a pattern as a face.)
Why do you think Jesus showed Himself to you?
What do you think of these other appearances by Jesus?:
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
I only know what I said, that I vaguely recall Him looking like the way one most often sees Him in paintings.
[/QUOTE]
Like this?
http://biblia.com/jesusart/poster-jesus-child-28.jpg
Or like this?
Or any of these?
I have a question. AFAICT, fundamentalists (Bible literalists) do NOT think that God is coporeal here on Earth right this minute, correct? They think (as do most Christians) that God became manifest in Jesus, and Jesus went to join his heavenly father, leaving the Tomb behind, and Mary Magdalene without a gardener. IMS, Jesus did a deal of wrestling with his conscience, the stupidity of those around him and those in power–which eventually killed him. He never faced a corporeal Satan, ever. (by all means, correct me if I am wrong–I make no claim to know the Bible (King James) chapter and verse).
Why–o--why would they then think that Satan is somehow coporeally manifest in ONE person, here on Earth today? If I were Satan (and believe me, I am rather cross today)–I would NOT come to Earth in the guise of one person–I would “infect” any number of people with my Wicked Evilness[sup]TM[/sup] or my Evil Wickedness[sub]patent pending[/sub].
Ok, so I’m mocking a bit–but the question is a valid one. How many times in the course of history have people thought that X group or This Person was the Anti-Christ–and been proven wrong? The Salem witch trials, The Inquisition (insert Monty Python joke here), the Fatima chick (did she deal with Satan-can’t remember)…none of them have er, panned out.
So, given this history of “crying wolf”–why o why do these people just keep changing horses, instead of questioning the journey?
Color me baffled and not a little impatient with such nonsense.
[QUOTE=Askance]
Painted by people who never saw him. How do you know it was Jesus? Could it have been a disciple? A random guy from the same period? Murray Head? The, or An, Antichrist? Fact is, you have no idea if this vision had any reality outside your head, let alone who it was, if anyone.
[/QUOTE]
It is conceivable that if Christ were to appear to someone that he would appear as that person would think Christ might look like. Simple.
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
I also wonder if it might be the worm that Jesus referred to when He said, "The worm shall wiggle forever.
[/QUOTE]
You’re referring to 9:47-48, where Jesus says, “if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”?
He’s referencing Isaiah 66:22-24 there:
And, in that case, “the worm” clearly refers to maggots feeding on the dead.
People have been trying to come up with end of the world timelines based on Revelation for a long time, and it’s really just wasted effort. I’m not a Christian, but it seems to me that whatDDG says is right. If you are one, then instead of spending your time saying, “This is a sign” or “that’s a sign”, go out and do what Jesus wants you to do; spread the gospel, help the poor, and do your best to lead the Christian message.
I don’t think most of the people in this thread are mocking you…they’re just suggesting that maybe you’re letting your enthusiasm for the topic get ahead of you.
Can I get that audio recording of the Beast as a ringtone? That would be awesome.
ETA: Forgot this was Great Debates, so I shouldn’t be posting a drive-by joke.
Guy, maybe we should bring it down to a basic difference of views: you’re making an extraordinary, frankly crazy-sounding claim, and you seem to think its our responsibility to either disprove it or jump in there with you. It works the other way; you need to give us some good logical reasons to believe that any of the stuff you’re talking about has a basis in reality.
GuyNblueJeans writes:
> Why are you trying so hard to nit-pick at everything I say? Wouldn’t you have
> been smarter to have asked something like, “Why would Jesus appear like that
> to you?” Or, “Have you had any other encounters with Jesus since then?”
> Or, “Why did you call Him the man from the river?” Or… well, you get the point.
You know, you’ve been giving us the history of your beliefs and your visions just piece by piece. It would help if you could give us the complete story of your supernatural visions (and auditory experiences) all at once, as well as telling us how this has shaped your religious beliefs. As it is, whenever someone asks you how you know something is true, you reply with another event from your visons and beliefs. This makes it very hard to have a coherent discussion of your question, since we don’t know how it fits into your worldview and experiences. Please, in one post, tell us about all your supernatural experiences (including things like dates, places, and the age you were when they happened) and how this has shaped your religious beliefs. Please also tell us about your religious background and how this fits into your experiences and beliefs.
[QUOTE=lisacurl]
How horrible it must be for you to live your life in fear. I thought the entire point of Christianity was to “be not afraid.”
[/QUOTE]
No, that’s the entire point of being a Green Lantern. Easy mistake to make.
Fair enough, but that wasn’t your original point. You implied that no time in human history was as bad as current times. Guin and several other posters have challenged that assertion. Do you still maintain your original point?
Guin, dick measuring contests are poor form wherever you are. Try to keep your degree in your pants next times. You’re making us all look like jerks.