Here’s a question: Has Poly said that the person he’s thinking of is the only person who’s acting or will act as a Messiah?
Really, this may just be a very vivid way of saying “Christ’s second coming is expressed by the loving and stewardly behaviour of human beings. The person who behaves this way whom I am closest to is X.”
Furthermore, I agree with Diogenes that even were this pronouncement taken literally, it is no more nutjob than the orthodox version.
Jeeeeepers, Poly. 
I’m momentarily speechless.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Well.
“What Truth Seeker said”, I guess. It’s a starting point.
Poly, the Bible is quite clear–the Second Coming will be obvious, dramatic, non-hidden.
Matthew 24, courtesy of the Bible Gateway.
Jesus Himself said that if you think you’ve spotted the Messiah, you’ll be wrong.
So what I’m hearing here is that your liberal theology is being extended to not believing one of the Bible’s basic doctrines anymore. I can deal with your liberal take on other issues like Fundie-style “jot and tittle” inerrancy, but this is something that isn’t really negotiable. Jesus isn’t going to sneak in the back door the next time around, His existence revealed only to a Chosen Few; He’s going to come like lightning, unmistakeable, and all the nations of the earth are gonna go, “Oh, shit…”
To me, there’s a big difference between saying, “We can discount many of the cultural biases that appear in the Bible and just take the Bible as spiritually accurate rather than factually or scientific accurate”, and saying, “We can ignore Jesus’ own words regarding His return.”
It sounds like you’re saying that Jesus was just a man, just another desert “messiah”, just another cult leader, and we can ignore his prophecies concerning his return because…he was just another cult leader, and cult leaders always give their followers dramatic prophecies concerning their return.
So you’re saying that you don’t believe Jesus was the divinely incarnated Son of God? He was just an itinerant rabbi? Well, that would explain a lot here, I suppose.
Or are you saying that the writer of Matthew, whoever he was, just put that in there about the lightning and stuff, for–what, for shits and giggles? Because all that apocalyptic stuff was a part of the culture? And so we can ignore it?
A professing Christian throwing out a literal, physical Second Coming of the type predicted by Jesus Himself is just…weird.
Question: is this an Episcopalian thing, or is it just you?
There is also verse 36:
Not even Jesus Himself knows the hour of His return. So, here you are, thinking you’ve spotted Jesus, living on Earth again. And you say he’s a teenager? So isn’t that saying that you’re banking on His returning sometime within the next, say, 55 years or so? Isn’t that “picking a date”? You of course are aware of how many people during the last 2,000 years have picked dates for the Second Coming, yes? The Millerites, for example? Annnnnd…how many of them were right?
So what makes you think you’re right?
I hang out on several of what I call “tinfoil hat brigade” message boards, and they all have a resident population of people who are equally certain that they know EXACTLY when the world is going to end, whether it’s because of Planet X doing a flyby (last May was when this was supposed to happen), or aliens coming to destroy us, or the sun exploding, or the CIA spraying us with chemicals from jet exhausts until our DNA deteriorates and we all go crazy, or whatever. They ALL are positive that “this is it”, mankind is doomed, any time now–and they alone know about it. They alone have this secret inside information.
Psychologists tell us that people like this, far from living in fear, actually feel quite empowered by being the Chosen Few and having this special inside information. You have no idea how depressing I’m finding it to discover that you, too, evidently regard yourself as one of the Chosen Few with secret inside information concerning the End Of The World.
So, let’s see your extraordinary evidence for your extraordinary claim, Poly. Here you are, on the SDMB, a website devoted to Fighting Ignorance. We have people wearing tinfoil hats, bursting with self-importance with their secret inside information, come into Great Debates more often than I like to think, and you know perfectly well what we tell them. We tell them, “Prove it. Let’s see whatchoo got.”
You know the drill, Poly. Not gonna give you a pass on this one unless you’re gonna come back and tell me I’m being whooshed.
Cite?
This could be said, with perfect fairness, about ANY period in history during the last 2,000 years. And it has been said–every one of those groups who picked a date and went and sat on a mountaintop and waited for Him to come back, did so because they firmly believed that they were living in the End Times, that the world was going to Hell in a handbasket, fast, and that This Was It–duck.
And you know how many of them were right.
So let’s take your points in best SDMB fashion. Are we or are we not living in the End Times?
“Hegemony under a conquering ruler”? Who, pray tell? George W. Bush? Oh, yeah, his hegemony is going real good in Iraq, not to mention the U.S. of A, where he now has a whopping 61% approval rating. Funny, Merriam-Webster online defines “hegemony” as “preponderant influence or authority over others : DOMINATION”. I’d think someone who had a preponderant influence or authority over others would have considerably higher than a 61% approval rating, not to mention the ability to get Congress to pass his energy bill, and the rest of the world to kick in some money to fix Iraq. They must not be making hegemonies the way they used to…
Widespread disbelief? Define “widespread”.
Harris poll from last January.
[ul]
[li]90% of adults surveyed believed in God.[/li][li]84% believed in the survival of the soul after death.[/li][li]84% believed in miracles.[/li][li]82% believed in Heaven.[/li][li]80% believed in the resurrection of Christ.[/li][li]77% believed in the Virgin Birth.[/li][li]69% believed in Hell.[/li][/ul]
Whatchoo got for statistics on “widespread disbelief”?
You know, you sound exactly like the Fundie handwringers moaning about how the gay bishop means we’re living in the End Times.
Bah. This is useless weaseling. I expect better from you. Saying, “He’s going to fill the role of the Messiah” is the same thing as saying, “He’s going to be the Messiah”, unless you’re postulating the Second Coming as some kind of Broadway production, with Mr. FamousLastName in the role of “Jesus”.
You’re saying “when” he is ready to act, not “whether”. You’re assuming that he IS the Messiah, and that at some point in the future, he WILL act. It’s not just a “hunch”–you’re sure.
I’m betting on “Rothschild” or “Rockefeller”.
P.S. to Diogenes–
Um…satellite TV? Cable? CNN? The Internet?
Maybe Polycarp waits with revealing who the guy is, until April first?
matt_mcl,
I’d say this pretty firmly nails it down
He has a hunch of who the messiah is. And it’s a single person with a companion. Not ‘Christ’s second coming is expressed by the loving and stewardly behaviour of human beings’.
Personally I find the leap from ‘Christ will return’ to I’ve identified Christ through a webpage and I’ll post info about him on these boards but not identify his name is very much nutjob
Duck Duck Goose, I disagree with a lot of what you said but I think I agree with considerably more. Especially this:
It’s only fair.
Darkhold:
If it is talk about his belief in god and his nature or teachings then I just plain disagree with you. I’ve been pointing out the flaws in his arguments for some time.
I’m not saying you did, in fact you made it clear that you didn’t. However, I think others were likely unable to see through him as you did. He’s well worded, I’ll give you that but his answers to any of the difficult questions are just plane sorry ass shit.
Poly has stated that Jesus said he will throw people in a lake of fire. I have asked him repeatedly to clarify his position on hell and generally wimps out every time (I’m starting to like this pit stuff).
I agree, I just said so a long time ago.
To be fair, DDG, Poly never asserted anything as fact. He merely said he had a “hunch” which is not a falasifiable statement. He didn’t say he “knew” anything. He’s allowd to have hunches isn’t he?
Poly said (emphasis mine):
Of all that he has said, this is the phrase that intrigues me the most - the implication that this perosn may be the messiah for our time just as Jesus was for his time and someone else may be at some future unspecified time… the concept of a recurring messiah I find… troubling.
Grim 
[sup]Awaiting the third posting of Polycarp[/sup]
Huh. My flimsy excuse is less and less flimsy as it goes on.
[Dale]
It was done through me!
[/Dale]
It better not be David Icke. He’s not too well known on that side of the pond but has a readily google-able surname. He also has the weird eye thing that Poly mentioned. He’s a former BBC sports presenter who IIRC believed himself to be the son of god, although his current beliefs defy categorisation. As far as I can work out, it’s got something to do with love and possibly reptiles.
Can’t be him though as his website is still up. Like Jesus, he’s in need of a stylist - he sported the shiny tracksuit of the century during his infamous appearance on the Wogan show on BBC. Check out the banner for his Australian tour under the ‘On Tour’ heading for an eerie resemblance to Faceman from the A Team. All in all, I pity the fool.
I second what Gaudere said.
So Poly believes something that, to our minds, is silly. So? When you look at it from an objective standpoint, most religions are pretty damn silly. I find it rather perplexing that some two billion people think that a Jewish preacher from two thousand years ago, born of a virgin, is their salvation. I also find it odd that another billion or so think that some Arabian merchant was chosen by God to reveal the truth to humanity. But then I look at the things I believe and find that those include some bizarre things too. I have faith, for example, that humanity is basically good at heart. When I read the news or look at human history, that belief is constantly contradicted by our penchant for destruction. Yet small human acts of kindness keep me convinced that I’m right. Logical? Probably not, but what the fuck? Who hasn’t found himself or herself convinced of something utterly ridiculous, and yet kept believing? I try to be as much of a rationalist as I can be, but I frankly have my doubts about those of us who don’t have any silly little convictions.
And I don’t really consider myself qualified to debate the finer points of Christian dogma about the Second Coming, but I will note that the bits about the “foolishness of God and the wisdom of men” in 1 Corinthians Chapter 1 seem quite relevant here. While I haven’t seen any Biblical sanction for Christians coming up with their own candidates for the Second Coming (but I could care less because I’m not a Christian), the passages in Corinthians make it blindingly clear that Christianity is supposed to be silly.
So for those Christians that want to debate whether Poly is going to hell or not for his idiosyncratic beliefs, go ahead, but don’t knock him just because his ideas are weird.
Oh, and I too am anxiously awaiting Poly’s post about who this dude is. I’m in my late teens and have blond hair and blue eyes, but I’m disqualified by not being tall or having a bad heart. But then again, visitors to my (cheesy and never finished because I’m a lazy bastard) website are greeted by a picture of myself with the caption, “I AM YOUR GOD. worship me now, dammit”
Heh.
I’m as taken aback as anyone by these recent of Poly’s posts (but as Diogenes said, it isn’t any more weird than the idea of a flying luminous returning Christ), but Looking at those passages you quoted, there is the important qualifier “At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’…” - I don’t think it is appropriate to use those scriptures as a blanket rebuttal of any claims as to the whereabouts of Christ, unless we’re sure that we’re living in ‘that time’*, otherwise we’d have to be suspicious of Peter’s cry of “It’s the lord!” in John 21:7.
Not that I’m going to build this into an argument in support of Poly’s claims (I’m going to wait and see) - just saying, is all.
*[sup]"You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel–let the reader understand-- then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now–and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time…”[/sup]
Hey, maybe Poly set this all up in as an experiment, in the microcosm of the SDMB, to see what would happen in real life if someone everyone respected, say the Pope (Poly is the Pope of the SD, isn’t he?!) stopped all the quibbling and ‘the age of miracles is past’ kind of stuff and went out and said something mad, ie that Jesus was back and that was it, the end of the world. Some would scoff; some would want to believe; some would weigh up the options; everyone would argue.
This is a fascinating thread, anyway. I’m getting quite excited. I really do hope the Second Coming is Sean Astin, although then I’d have to stop with the hobbit fantasies, dammit.
Jesus Christ makes you feel,
He’s a Cool Cleric with a heart of Steel.
But as Ironman, all jets a-blaze!
He Fights Satan with Repulsor Rays!!!
Or maybe his surname is so unusual that a quick Google search would narrow it down to one guy. Like Schærfenplïîckerblörfenstein or something.
Having been recently rather vehement in opposition to the proudly-ignorance-based criticisms of Poly’s scriptural interpretations, I guess I count as one of JRDelirious’ “so far pro-Poly members”. Should I rend my garments and gnash my teeth now that he’s expressed his strong hunch? Broken-heartedly offer support to him and gently suggest therapy? Express my disillusionment?
Sorry, but I’m still in the “wish more Christians were like Poly” camp. And, like JR, I’m underwhelmed by the fact of this hunch, although I’m intrigued by it.
I’m frankly puzzled by some of the reactions here (at least, those from posters who don’t have an unrequited boner for Christian apologists). Poly claimed three things that I find rather unsuprising.[ol][li]that the prophecies of the Messiah were fulfilled in an unexpected way by Christ and that his promised return will, in Poly’s opinion, also be in an unexpected way[]that the return of Christ was a direct promise of his physical return to earth, and that it’s likely to be “in our time”[]and that he believes he may know the probable identity Christ has chosen this time[/ol][/li]Well, as far as the first item, the first clause shouldn’t be a controversial stance among Christians, one might think. And it’s hard to argue for New Testament inerrancy if you accepted the first part about Old Testament imprecision, but I suppose this part could be considered heterodoxical by some Christians, although it doesn’t seem to be the sticking point with people who’ve posted in this thread.
The second item doesn’t seem to be an unusual belief for a Christian to hold, but again, that doesn’t seem to be the problem here.
It’s the third item that’s causing the hullabaloo, and I’m wondering why anyone would grant the sanity (and arguability) of the first two premises, yet consider the third to be evidence of mental instability. Hell, I happen to believe that all the mythology and damn near all of the dogma in scripture are inventions of man, not God, but I’ve also striven to develop the habit of looking for the Christ in those I meet. (And bowing to their Buddha nature, of course. ) And Poly very explicitly says he’s not proclaiming the Christ; he just thinks he recognizes him in the person of this young man.
Now, you can consider that highly unlikely, based on a rejection of Christianity or on your own interpretations of scripture, but to consider it heretical or pathological requires a bit more rationalization than anyone’s yet offered. Poly hasn’t made any claims beyond his own personal expectations, which don’t radically differ in substance from the stated expectations of most orthodox Churches, only in style. Big deal.
My own expectations are that Poly’s faith will withstand the blow if he finds he’s mistaken in his hunch. I’m just happy (but unsuprised) that he’s paying more attention to the fruits of every tree than to stature and appearance.
Fuck, no! Far from it, esteemed Doper brother! As you probably would have noticed in past discussions of religion, that would leave ME out… I’m actually trying to say the opposite, that it does not lessen my opinion of Mr. Polycarp as person or poster(*). And that when he makes a good point it should continue to be acknowledged as such.
BUT in ANY analysis of someone’s writings it’s good to bear in mind where the person is coming from. (For example, if I’m writing on Puerto Rican/US relations, it’s useful for you to know I’m a statehood supporter when weighting my points.) You still have to evaluate them on their validity, consistency and impact on others, independently of the messenger.
In that sense I must be heartened by the position of Diogenes, who is standing up and NOT doing any distancing. And that of Already in Use, too.
(*and as to my statement that I expected him all along to incur in something “considered heresy by the establishment churches”: that stands; orthodoxy virtually forces anyone trying to think independently into heresy. And he has all along been clear that he has put his own thought into his faith – hell, that’s one of badchad’s ongoing gripes with him and Liberal Christians in general!)
And may I add that xenophon41 makes a very good analysis from the religious side. I guess we’ll find out who really held Poly dear for his contribution to the community, and who viewed him as a convenient “safe” Christian.
All these eliptical postings, with vague hints and clarifications that don’t clarify anything make me wonder if somebody might just be enjoying the attention they are getting after their rather bold proclamation and either (a) trying to make it last as long as possible; (b) embarrassed to actually reveal that is really was Justin Timberlake; © is stalling for time as he is making this up as he goes along; or (d) might be a set of plans short of an outdoor barbeque if you know what I mean.
Otherwise, why the continuous tapdancing and vague clues. It’s like a combination fortune cookie & horoscope, mixed with a wee bit of conspiracy theory. Ask yourself- why?
Add in all the points made by Duck Duck Goose and I am pretty
:dubious: