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The Second Coming

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Second Coming:

Poll ended at Tue Sep 30, 2014 4:08 pm

Great microscopic slice of time.
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Greatest miscroscopic slice of time.
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johnson1010
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The Second Coming

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Some time soon, they say, a glorious event will transpire.

Signs and portents in the sky will show us the time has come. The world will be devastated with millions dead living under the most evil person in history, who will be ruler of all the world. Then heaven will stand open and there will be a man on a white horse who wears many crowns. His eyes will blaze like fire and he will judge and make war.

He will bodily descend from heaven, from his mouth will come a sharp sword with which to strike down nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter and on his robe on his thigh the name will say: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He will defeat evil and establish his reign of justice and peace which will last a thousand years.

A thousand long glorious years! A tremendous number. How to put this into context?

About a fifth as long as this tree has been alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)

Long enough to add another tiny layer of sediment on this rock strata. You couldn’t see it at this distance.

Image

To put it another way, Jesus’ reign will last 1 millionth the projected lifespan of the voyager spacecraft.

Well, it does sound like a long time if you thought the earth was only 5,600 years old.



I realize this is Loki, but as has been pointed out, it would be extremly dumb for us to say we don't believe in Loki. Or Hulk either for that matter, since somewhere out there in the world there may be someone who is convinced of his real life existence.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Flann 5
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Re: The Second Coming

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johnson1010 wrote:Some time soon, they say, a glorious event will transpire.

Signs and portents in the sky will show us the time has come. The world will be devastated with millions dead living under the most evil person in history, who will be ruler of all the world. Then heaven will stand open and there will be a man on a white horse who wears many crowns. His eyes will blaze like fire and he will judge and make war.

He will bodily descend from heaven, from his mouth will come a sharp sword with which to strike down nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter and on his robe on his thigh the name will say: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He will defeat evil and establish his reign of justice and peace which will last a thousand years.

A thousand long glorious years! A tremendous number. How to put this into context?

About a fifth as long as this tree has been alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)
Hi Johnson,
I would question the wisdom of your following Richard Dawkins and Carrier in making forays into biblical materials to make a polemical point.
While some Christians interpret the 1000 years literally even these understand, that throughout scripture the kingdom of Christ is described as everlasting and eternal.Scripture is profusely littered with this description of an eternal kingdom.

The description you quote is from Revelation, a book full of symbolic imagery and numerical symbolism. Robert Tulip I think would agree with me here,if disagreeing on many other things,that to interpret literally here is foolish.
Christ comes from heaven on a white horse followed by the armies of heaven clothed in fine white linen who follow him on white horses. A sharp sword comes out of his mouth with which he strikes the nations.
In scripture,the word of God is described as being sharper than any two edged sword, and the sword of the Spirit. A literal sword coming out of his mouth is overly literal interpretive nonsense, as is literal whites horses coming down from heaven.
This scene then, is symbolic of Christ's real future coming and judgement of humanity where he will verbally pronounce his judgements. The 1000 years is a symbolic number as very many others are in this book.
Rationalist critics of theism and belief in Christ who use celestial teapots,flying spaghetti monsters or your Hulk vs Loki as somehow equivalent are making a puerile comparison between things that are very different. You might wish they were the same,but that's another matter.
I'm afraid "one more post" won't do it here Johnson.
Last edited by Flann 5 on Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Second Coming

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In scripture,the word of God is described as being sharper than any two edged sword, and the sword of the Spirit. A literal sword coming out of his mouth is overly literal interpretive nonsense, as is literal whites horses coming down from heaven.
It really is nonsense. It's the same spooky language found all throughout the bible that can be interpreted a hundred thousand ways, even more vague than Nostradamus.

The point I think most apologists miss with hermeneutics is that interpreting the bible in a truthful way may mean interpreting the bible in a way that is not truthful to Christianity. Because the truth may be that Christianity is partial myth, partial fabrication, partial real events. I'd like to see your reply in Geo's new thread, regarding Carrier's methodology.

You say that Carrier is biased in his approach, but so are you. You're biased towards harmonizing the bible. Perhaps Carrier is biased towards a naturalistic interpretation. Hallucinations(even of space based crucifixions) are more common than resurrections. This is a fact, a part of our collective knowledge. Why wouldn't you apply this fact toward the bible? Does the bible get a free pass because it is so widespread, or because you learned of the stories at such a young age?

http://www.booktalk.org/carrier-on-hist ... 17998.html
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Re: The Second Coming

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Interbane wrote:It really is nonsense. It's the same spooky language found all throughout the bible that can be interpreted a hundred thousand ways, even more vague than Nostradamus.

The point I think most apologists miss with hermeneutics is that interpreting the bible in a truthful way may mean interpreting the bible in a way that is not truthful to Christianity. Because the truth may be that Christianity is partial myth, partial fabrication, partial real events.
Hi Interbane,
You really are being very dismissive here.I'm all in favour of the bible being interpreted in a truthful way which I maintain is exactly what Carrier is not doing. The bible can not be interpreted truthfully in a hundred thousand ways.
Did you know that the great scientist Isaac Newton wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation? I guess you know better than Newton.
Mythicists and debunkers like Carrier make their arguments alleging myth and fabrication. How good are they though?

Incidentally,do you have a documented and verified account of someone having a Jesus crucified in outer space hallucination?
You say Christianity may be part myth,part fabrication and part real events. How do you substantiate your conjecture?
It's easy to conjecture things,another to prove them.
Carrier needs to address the kinds of arguments Christians make about the dating and authorship of the gospels and come up with a better evidentially supported explanation.
The main objection is really the miraculous,so if there are prophecies of the destruction of the temple then they must be written after the event.It may be the prophecy is a vindication of the supernatural in the account but this is unthinkable for a naturalist.
Here are the arguments for early dating and identifying the authors.Does Carrier have better historically based grounds for his theory?
www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.php
Last edited by Flann 5 on Sun Sep 21, 2014 6:42 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: The Second Coming

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Incidentally,do you have a documented and verified account of someone having a Jesus crucified in outer space hallucination?
as a metaphysical /naturalist / atheist / agnostic /mathematical platonic algorithmic super-sonic realist, I suppose he does.

you'd have to view it in another universe though.

:clap: :clap:
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Re: The Second Coming

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Mythicists and debunkers like Carrier make their arguments alleging myth and fabrication. How good are they though?
Here's the thing regarding mythicist theory (used in common parlance):

It can not be falsified: meaning, any empirical findings whatsoever reconcile it. whatever can be grabbed out of history and or ancient mythology will reconcile the theory without ever having to admit the theory itself is possibly wrong.
for the mythicist, there is no evidence to compare to the evidence that supports mythicism because its all been dismissed..

also, consider this:
It has been argued that the historiography of science is "riddled with Whiggish history."[23] Like other Whig histories, Whig history of science tends to divide historical actors into "good guys," who are on the side of truth (as is now known) and "bad guys," who opposed the emergence of these truths because of ignorance or bias
- Wiki

This is at the heart of the accusations that state current historical scholarship is suppressing "scholars" that support the mythicist arguments.
There is no evidence that supports this alleged suppression that's supposedly in progress.


the multiverse hypothesis is very, very close to achieving unfalsifiabilty.
what evidence can you find that would disprove it?
right now, from what I've read, that's a very, very tough thing to find.

:omfg:
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Re: The Second Coming

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Incidentally,do you have a documented and verified account of someone having a Jesus crucified in outer space hallucination?
People can and do hallucinate everything. All we need is a documented and verified account of someone having a hallucination. We do not need the contents of the hallucination.
The bible can not be interpreted truthfully in a hundred thousand ways.
It can be interpreted in a hundred thousand ways, but not truthfully. You are predisposed to believe the bible is true, so how do you come by a method yourself that is trustworthy? How is your own method better than Carrier's, if you share an equal yet opposite bias? You cannot justify your own method as objective without intense third party scrutiny.
ant wrote:as a metaphysical /naturalist / atheist / agnostic /mathematical platonic algorithmic super-sonic realist, I suppose he does.

you'd have to view it in another universe though.
YES! All of the above. You're so smart ant. :clap2:
It can not be falsified: meaning, any empirical findings whatsoever reconcile it. whatever can be grabbed out of history and or ancient mythology will reconcile the theory without ever having to admit the theory itself is possibly wrong.
The methods of science are now the methods of historicity?
for the mythicist, there is no evidence to compare to the evidence that supports mythicism because its all been dismissed..
This is also true for the bible. There is no evidence to corroborate the bible because it has been dismissed. Who performed the dismissal you're referring to? Show me yours and I'll show you mine. :mrgreen:
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Re: The Second Coming

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The methods of science are now the methods of historicity?
The method and reasoning is transferable in certain instances.
Pseudo history risks infecting history, bossman.


Have you read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Historians-Fallac ... 0061315451

I have.

Read it and tell me what you think.
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Re: The Second Coming

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People can and do hallucinate everything. All we need is a documented and verified account of someone having a hallucination. We do not need the contents of the hallucination.
Can you give us a documented and verified account of the last hallucination you've had?
Or are you going to say you've never had a hallucination before?
If you haven't, please provide evidence to support your claim.
Anecdotal evidence excluded, please.
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Re: The Second Coming

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Interbane wrote:People can and do hallucinate everything. All we need is a documented and verified account of someone having a hallucination. We do not need the contents of the hallucination.



Quote:
The bible can not be interpreted truthfully in a hundred thousand ways.




It can be interpreted in a hundred thousand ways, but not truthfully. You are predisposed to believe the bible is true, so how do you come by a method yourself that is trustworthy? How is your own method better than Carrier's, if you share an equal yet opposite bias? You cannot justify your own method as objective without intense third party scrutiny.
Feel free yourself Interbane, to demonstrate from Paul's writings, that Carrier's interpretations are correct and show a spiritual being in outer space who was not flesh and blood and did not live and die on earth. I'm just stating what is patently obvious.That in the new testament Jesus is portrayed as an actual human being who lived on earth.
On hallucinations;It's undoubtedly true that the scriptures record people having supernatural visions. They also record an earthly human existence of Jesus and normal human interactions. After the resurrection Jesus' body is different but still flesh and blood and human. Carrier insists it's all hallucinations.
Here's an examination of the hallucinations thesis in relation to early Christianity. Title;A closer look at the subjective visions hypothesis.
http://www.tektonics.org/guest/wildvis.html
Last edited by Flann 5 on Tue Sep 23, 2014 8:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
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