Quote:
Originally Posted by allenk893
May 21, 2011 may not be true but the rapture IS true and WILL happen. We just don't know when. Be sure you have the Lord Jesus on your side when it does though. Accept him into your heart so you can be saved. There's not much time left!  |
You slay me, allenk. Your personal convictions are just that, but there is absolutely
no indication of any arriving or impending End Times, though the drumbeat of panic and terror amoungst Christians continues about May 21st, or tsunami, earthquake, food shortage, tornado flurry and so on.
(BTW, I know you won't hang your hat on May 21 now, since it's too close, and you also know
nothing is going to happen. I only wish my Christian friends would turn over all their dollars, which I'd put into a new Ecology and Evolution Research Center, but in fact, they're also hedging their bets. How unconvincing!)
These made-for-media homo-centric catastrophic events have reliably occurred with more or less intensity for the entire time of this earth. it's exactly what has formed all you see today;
that didn't all happen on it's own, and no God did it either. The Yellowstone volcanic eruption, for instance: if
that happened again now
(it has happened at least 4 times previously, with excellent evidence from satellite photos of a line of previous calderas), would pretty much terminate much of known organized and civilized Western human life as we've become used to on this planet for literally decades.
That does not mean the end of
anything, except our happy (and relatively) care-free existence for the past 150 years. We 21st century types have literally
no idea about living the tough life, out in the woods, in a cave, but many of our ancestors did and they survived far worse conditions than
you can obviously
begin to imagine. Such adversity actually breeds survival, not End-Times. You underestimate humanity's viability.
Quote:
Originally Posted by allenk893
It's not going to be as funny or comical once Jesus takes the church and the holy spirit out of the Earth to Heaven. I suggest you read the Left Behind series because it describes how the Earth will be once that happens.
Please don't make this your fate. Humble your heart and accept the Lord as your savior. He will take care of you.
He will not let you suffer here. You have a place prepared in Heaven and there's so many great things that await us all there. But you have to surrender yourself and your heart to the Lord to get there to experience it. He did not die on the cross for nothing. There is still time. Hurry before it's too late.  |
Have to surrender huh?
Hurry, huh? Even if it doesn't jive with my well-thought-out personal mindset? Just do it "in case", or should I give in to uncontrolled terror and trembling fear of... of.... well you can only imagine, right?
The Left Behind series is a stupidly developed, egotistical and truly fictitious bit of, well...
fiction, as you well know. It was hugely successful for it's authors because it describes a world in a condition it's trembling and believing readers
want it to be. There is a palpable, measurable desire for the ET to occur, because it would finally justify certain immature Christian minds to bathe in their vain and fantastic beliefs, but for which there is no actual support. Why, you say?
Even the bible says you
will not know when, and yet hordes of Christians, especially as they grow older and more desperate, claim to have exact knowledge beyond what's vaguely stated in their bible. The bible does not even claim that thee will be any warning signs of the trib. such as tsunamis and tornados. This is all made up. Or, alternately stated....
Your desperation is showing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ptsum
As a Native American ( Tsalagi )and a believer in the ancient ways of my people, which does not include Christianity, just exactly what am I supposed to be saved from ? If I don't believe in your Christianity then I don't believe your hell or your satan, you have to be either a Christian or a Muslim to believe in that.
|
Exactly. Christianity is a
lonely and
region-specific religion that evolved (stumbled and fell, was re-written and plaguarized many
many times..), if you will, in a backwards, destitute and always-desperate part of the world
(noteably, it's still spiritually backwards and under a constant state of confusion and strife). A place ripe for building false hopes.
This all while
far more advanced civilizations took scientific evaluation and common sense seriously, with predictable results. The development of documented Japanese, Indian and Chinese religion, philosophy and documented discoveries (concurrent with the development of the American horse-plains culture which comfortably took into account the real world,which Christians try to interpret and then modify) occurred both
during and
far earlier than Christianity, and it shows.
All that Christians point to as "proof", their so-called prophecies, are
all based on vague and ambiguous fairy-tales, but
all of them can also be rather easily discredited as either not having actually happened, or have not happened at all yet. Their intense personal need to see such prophecies, to imagine their occurrence, certainly colors Christians' ability to observe in an objective way. Like any good prophecy though, the biblical ones are all vague and ambiguous
to a fault, and could be easily "demonstrated" by a child in a kindergarten.
Christian literalists grasp at
anything that even hints at a completed prophecy, but simultaneously they obviously do not clearly understand the requirements of logical, observable proof. In other words, these events can just as easily be interpreted in a myriad of
other ways, but
never are. How sad and humorous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by allenk893
Are you forgetting biblical prophecy and accounts from several events in the Bible that are backed by historical data and facts? You must be because that's precisely what makes the Bible true. (NOTE: REALLY?) If you don't believe the events in the Bible even AFTER it's been backed by other cultures and nations foretelling the same ones across the world, and even prophecies that were given in the Bible more than 2,000 years ago have came true today that is you burying your head in the sand.
|
Like Noah's flood? The disappearance of literally
every living thing on this planet, but strangely missed by all the other cultures on this planet? Or Genesis, which occurred long after other cultures had developed and had adopted written records? Or the troubling little problem of dinosaurs, which had of course disappeared long before the bible was invented, so weren't included, but then were later found and
reliably dated to hundreds of millions of years of age? Or the universe, which is still unfinished, though
your God was supposed to have finished it during Genesis?
You mean like that?
Ptsum has asked for a list of even a few of your absolutely proven prophecies.
Please do that. You seem to have been silenced by that request. Even
his native people's prophecies are far more reliable, since they predict the return of the seasons and the coyote and his brother, and so on. You, on the other hand, have nothing, absolutely
nothing. And yet, this is lost on you, and you continue to believe. Must be a severe case of spirituality addiction coupled with a personality disorder.
(I do note, however, that a careful interpretation of the bible notes that your Tribulations should have happened a long time ago. This is carefully ignored by Christian hopefuls, since it eliminates the E-T option.... And so...
Tick tock tick tock. As that clock continues to accumulate uneventful time, the likelihood of a real and God-induced E-T grows less and less likely, at an exponentially decreasing rate. Pretty soon it'll disappear into the great dusty "beyond", like a dandilion seed in a Class V tornado....)
Quote:
Originally Posted by allenk893
Every kind or thoughtful act never goes unnoticed by the Lord. I was just reading a book on Heaven last week. It turns out, there's actually a place in Heaven where your garden is at so-to-speak.
If I had to describe it, it would be like the garden centers at walmart. Except 1,000X more exquisite. (NOTE: Wal-Mart is even partially exquisite? Oh No! There is a Hell after all!) Every kind act you have ever done on Earth is remembered and builds this garden more with flowers and plants and everything with each act! Little kids in Heaven come into the garden and can play various games or just simply watch the beautiful scenery! Various people in Heaven come to view your garden and the "acts" you have done that are associated with a particular plant or flower.
(Note: But.. there's a conditional clause here...) If you accept Jesus into your heart, you will be able to see and view your garden one day. But the crazy thing is the garden stays whether you make it to Heaven or not! So think about that next time you do a kind act for someone! Think about how you are honoring Jesus and what he has prepared for you in Heaven! There's so much!!  |
This is very diagnostic. Heaven just as
you want it to be. A warning that, if you don't accept a mystical God being into your life, the promise of a childlike fantasy place as an alternate to suffering in an imaginary hell is out the window. How predictable, but obviously aimed at those who prefer to not think things through, or are tired of being terrified by those scary Sunday morning sermons.
Personally, I'd rather be
under the earth, spelunking in an evil
(but nearer-to-hell...) cave
(read the book about me: it's titled Shibumi...), or exploring in my SCUBA gear, or alone in a desert, or up in the Arctic with a good friend of mine, watching the real world and it's perfectly evolved inhabitants, mostly absent man and his infernal revisionism and tinkering. PS: I don't like artificial gardens so much. Your heaven sounds pretty much artificial!
So, do I get to go to MY specific heaven? Where's the
"You Design Your Heaven!" form? Down at my church, to be placed in the envelope along with some
dineros?
Yessiree! The impending End-Times and subsequent Deliverance into Heaven.... but
only if you convince yourself of an unbelievable and reliably uncommunicative God. What a load of childhood fantasy-building coupled with a total lack of mature adult ability to simply deal with the world as it
really is, complete with all it's endless troubles, and oh yeah I (and you, obviously...) forgot, the
joys as well, all rolled into one.
Man has not only survived for millions of years despite all the past geological, astronomical and weather-induced tribulations, he has in fact adapted and thrived (unfortunately in many cases...) because of his resourcefulness and imagination, and now has enough time on his hands to then invent religions and implausible futures.
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Palpable Fear and Trembling
