Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Black Wolf on March 25, 2003, 12:27:15 am
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'Tis the first spam I'm actually glad I recieved - gave me a good laugh. :lol:
(http://images.agoramedia.com/leftbehind/hd_email_wariniraq.gif)
You've asked the questions. Now get answers from a respected, authoritative perspective. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, best-selling authors of the Left Behind series, along with noted Bible historian and end times analyst Mark Hitchcock have teamed up to lead the Left Behind Prophecy Club.
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• Weekly Analysis of world events and their relationship to end-time prophecies.
• Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins and Mark Hitchcock answer your questions.
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• Is the UN a precursor of the One World government prophesized in the Bible?
• Could the Antichrist be alive now? If so, how can he identify so he does not deceive us?
• Are ATM's and other revolutions in global banking foretelling of the Mark of the Beast?
I always knew there was something fishy about those ATMs...
:devil:
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:shaking:
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:doubt:
Yeah, ok, whatever....
:ick
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:wtf: invox? since when do you recieve e-mail by a vox?:p
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Like the:
"Armageddon is upon us and we shall all die! But if you pay us 15 dollars a month, and we reach our target of 1 million dollars, the world will not end!" We are so sure that it won't end with your help, that if it does, we will send you your money back! 100% guarantee! See what other people had to say:
My lord... I am so happy I sent you that money! I was so sure the world was going to end on...now I can finally rest in knowing I can wake up and be Alive! --John Wikes (actor)
Just when I though all was lost, you guys came along and stopped it! I thank you. --Julia Hertzgovich (mother of 4)
When I woke up in the morning I knew I was safe. Thank you, its even helped my sex life! --Henry Davenport (Fisherman)
I saw this on a website not too long ago. But its probably a joke. Fun anyway. :D
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Oy Vey. The Left Behind series actually spawned a movie, which I saw. Valiant effort, but it was pretty silly at times.
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And lets hope that it never spawns another movie...
Remember "The Omega Code"? *shudders*
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I don't know whether to respond with :rolleyes: or (http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/scroll/misc/banghead.gif).
1) "Left Behind" series = BAD eschatology! BAD! BAD! BAD! I could launch into a whole tirade about why it is so deeply and fundamentally messed up, nevermind the disgusting commercialistic abuse of the Christian faith involved, but I will exercise restraint (unless someone wants to know)...
2) "Respected, authoritative perspective" != Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins or Mark Hitchcock.
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
I don't know whether to respond with :rolleyes: or (http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/scroll/misc/banghead.gif).
1) "Left Behind" series = BAD eschatology! BAD! BAD! BAD! I could launch into a whole tirade about why it is so deeply and fundamentally messed up, nevermind the disgusting commercialistic abuse of the Christian faith involved, but I will exercise restraint (unless someone wants to know)...
2) "Respected, authoritative perspective" != Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins or Mark Hitchcock.
I couldn't agree more. Personally, I never understood how Bible-reading Christians could arrive at a pre-tribulation rapture. :rolleyes: :p
{/open can-o-worms}
The one thing that I think the Left Behind movie did do with some success is portray the world-wide reaction to millions of people being taken away "in the blink of an eye." ;)
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I actually met the author of that series...and let me tell you that is one of THE must messed up fundies I have EVER had the displeasure of meeting. The second this moron found out I was an athiest...lets just say this *bleep* went off the wall on how I was "damned" and "going to burn in hell". If there weren't little kids around, lets just say I wouldn't have been so nice in return.
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Originally posted by Vertigo1
I actually met the author of that series...and let me tell you that is one of THE must messed up fundies I have EVER had the displeasure of meeting. The second this moron found out I was an athiest...lets just say this *bleep* went off the wall on how I was "damned" and "going to burn in hell". If there weren't little kids around, lets just say I wouldn't have been so nice in return.
Gah - those kinds of people well and truly piss me off. Jesus didn't condemn people with harsh accusations of damnation, so why do they feel the need to? :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Gah - those kinds of people well and truly piss me off. Jesus didn't condemn people with harsh accusations of damnation, so why do they feel the need to? :rolleyes:
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cause whats the fun of beeing saved if you can't rub it in the faces of all the damned people
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Originally posted by Bobboau
cause whats the fun of beeing saved if you can't rub it in the faces of all the damned people
{monotone voice}Oh my gosh. How come I did not see that before? You have convinced me now.{/monotone voice}
:p
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Originally posted by Sandwich
I couldn't agree more. Personally, I never understood how Bible-reading Christians could arrive at a pre-tribulation rapture. :rolleyes: :p
Okay, I'm going to undergo the risk of being overrun by worms, but... in Christian terms, what are the tribulation and the rapture meant to be? I never understood them.
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Originally posted by J.F.K.
Okay, I'm going to undergo the risk of being overrun by worms, but... in Christian terms, what are the tribulation and the rapture meant to be? I never understood them.
(Sesq, feel free to add/subtract here... :nod: )
Tribulation = time on Earth before the return of Jesus during which (basically) the Anti-Christ has power, uniting the world in the name of the god "Peace", severely persecuting all other religions. Not fun.
Rapture = Y'know, I'm not quite sure about this one anymore. It generally refers to Christ gathering His own into heaven, basically, all the Christians disappearing to dwell "up there". But actually, the Bible states that Christ is going to be reigning from down here on Earth for 1,000 years when He returns, in which case, I'm just not quite sure. :o
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I'll make two posts here: one discussing how the basics of a right understanding of these things go, and one about errors like the sort that produced this thread to begin with.
The core of Christian eschatology (the study of "last things") is very simple to tell, actually. Basically, Jesus Christ is going to return on the last day, when the entire cosmos will be renewed and set free from death and decay, and we shall be resurrected to eternal life (or eternal destruction, if you decide to tell God he can go take a running jump because you'd rather die than live with anyone but yourself as your god). The Biblical language is that there will be "a new heavens and a new earth" in which we will live, or in more boring terms, we will have both a physical and spiritual existence the likes of which we cannot even imagine. And at this time, we will no longer be separated from God, but he will come and "dwell with us" and "his kingdom will have no end." All things will be fixed, and every evil set right, and "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." And that, my friends, is when life will really begin! :D
The book of Revelation is one of the places in the Bible that talks about this, and one of the longest. It is written in very, very, very symbolic language, and its purpose is not to give "history before it happens" but to 1) provide a different way of seeing and understanding things when they do, and 2) to tell forth the hope the God's people can look forward to, come what may.
(This bit is for Sandwich, mostly) One of the symbols used in Revelation is the kingdom of a thousand years, when Jesus Christ will rule over the earth, and we with him. Some people understand this literally (see below for my opinions about that), while some understand "a thousand years" (correctly, in my opinion) according to the symbolic nature of the kind of literature that Revelation is written in. By this view, saying "for a thousand years" in that context is much like saying "for, like, ever" in our common speech today. If we wanted to be boring and accurate, we'd say "for a long time," but by using on of these other symbolic expressions we make things more interesting and meaningful.
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Both of those terms actually come from a small, but unfortunately very vocal section of right-wing Christian theology that arose in the 19th century. To give a proper explanation of what they do, and do not, have in common with the historical Christian understanding, I need to talk a little mor about Revelation:
Like I said above, Revelation is written in an very, very, very symbolic genre of literature. This genre is called "apocalyptic," which does not mean "sudden catastrophic death from on high" but simply means "revelatory." This genre of literature uses lots of symbolic and poetic language to communicate its meaning, instead of the more usual fact-by-fact historical style that we most naturally employ in modern Western culture. The descriptions that Revelation gives of things to come are to be understood in this fashion if they are to be understood at all. (I could go on about how to go about that, but brevity is the key here, so I won't...)
However, apocalyptic literature is not a genre we use in our culture today, and as a result many people open the book of Revelation and don't know what is going on inside it. They don't understand how this kind of literature works. So, some people treat it like some sort of "history written in advance" that for odd reasons they don't understand uses lots of strange imagery for things. They start trying to "decode" Revelation and look for one-to-one correspondence between the things in the book and literal historical events and people, which is very silly behaviour if one does understand the sort of writing Revelation is.
The terms rapture and tribulation, as used above, come from a particular school of thought that, not understanding what the genre of Revelation is about, treats it as a literal document instead of a symbolic one.
Now, the term "tribulation" does come from the Bible, but the way those guys are using it is an aberration. By ignoring the way the symbols work, they come to the conclusion that there will be a period of exactly seven years when all the stuff described in Revelation is going to happen, more or less as literally as it possibly can. This is, of course, not the right way to understand Revelation, but I've been banging on about that already. In reality, the "tribulation" is not intended to be understood as a specific seven-year period, but the wording in Revelation refers to the tribulations (=trials, difficulties, persecutions) the Christians have undergone and will undergo before Christ's return. So you can see how the way these guys us "tribulation" is aberrant.
The term "rapture" has absolutely no Biblical precedent whatsoever. Remember how I said there would be a resurrection when Jesus came? Well, this school of thought, as a result of poor logic based on their faulty way of reading Revelation and other passages, thinks that this is somehow a two-phase thing. Jesus is going to "sort of" come back once when all the currently living Christians get taken away from the earth, and then later he comes back "to finish the job." This understanding is not only wrong, nor even just wrong from the get-go, but can only arise once one has already been going along the wrong track for a long time already.
So, it is unfortunate that I have to introduce you to eschatology by telling you about things that are wrong, J.F.K., but I guess that is the way the cookie crumbles. If you want to attain a clear and proper understanding, stick with with the simple description I gave you and basically just ignore the likes of Tim LaHaye.
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Gah - those kinds of people well and truly piss me off. Jesus didn't condemn people with harsh accusations of damnation, so why do they feel the need to? :rolleyes:
Exactly. I just told the little twerp that "You really do love your neighbors don't ya?" and walked off. (Yes, I know perfectly well that not all christians are like that. I just said it to piss the little jerk off. Hell, some people started clapping right after I said that too.
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:yes:
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
(This bit is for Sandwich, mostly) One of the symbols used in Revelation is the kingdom of a thousand years, when Jesus Christ will rule over the earth, and we with him. Some people understand this literally (see below for my opinions about that), while some understand "a thousand years" (correctly, in my opinion) according to the symbolic nature of the kind of literature that Revelation is written in. By this view, saying "for a thousand years" in that context is much like saying "for, like, ever" in our common speech today. If we wanted to be boring and accurate, we'd say "for a long time," but by using on of these other symbolic expressions we make things more interesting and meaningful.
Just a clarification here - these thousand years do not represent a literal "forever", as it does talk about the events that will occur immediately after the 1,000 years are over.
Also, Sesq, concerning literal meaning in the Bible, did you run across that whole thread a few months back about the literal 6 days of creation?
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Just a clarification here - these thousand years do not represent a literal "forever", as it does talk about the events that will occur immediately after the 1,000 years are over.
Yes.
I was equating the metaphoric function, not the two particular metaphors themselves (or rather, metaphor on the one hand and simile on the other).
Also, Sesq, concerning literal meaning in the Bible, did you run across that whole thread a few months back about the literal 6 days of creation?
Nope, don't recall it. :)
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Yes.
I was equating the metaphoric function, not the two metaphors themselves.
Nope, don't recall it. :)
Basically, there's a scientific way of looking at the 6 literal days of Creation as ~16 billion years, and vice-versa. Think the theory of relativity, connected with velocity and the Big Bang. :D
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silly author, drugs are for cool people
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you got it in your invox (http://www.invox.net/)?
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[Random Pointless Phylosophical Interlude Vaguely Having to Do with Sandwich's Last Post] Have you ever realized that the whole Creationism vs. Evolution thing is pointless? From my POV, Genesis is essentially symbolic in nature, and Evolution is a far more likely explanation. However, I believe God (or insert one of the random other names from the Bible such as Yahweh, Jehovah, etc.) would be guiding the process. Not precisely, but vaguely. [/Random Pointless Phylosophical Interlude Vaguely Having to Do with Sandwich's Last Post]
But anyway, the person who wrote the Left Behind books is a complete and total nutcase.
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Basically, there's a scientific way of looking at the 6 literal days of Creation as ~16 billion years, and vice-versa. Think the theory of relativity, connected with velocity and the Big Bang. :D
Mmm. That was not in the mind of the author, so I have little use for it, really. Since I don't think the original Hebrew audience took this as a literal tale, I see no reason to make it into one now.
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Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
[Random Pointless Phylosophical Interlude Vaguely Having to Do with Sandwich's Last Post] Have you ever realized that the whole Creationism vs. Evolution thing is pointless? From my POV, Genesis is essentially symbolic in nature, and Evolution is a far more likely explanation. However, I believe God (or insert one of the random other names from the Bible such as Yahweh, Jehovah, etc.) would be guiding the process. Not precisely, but vaguely. [/Random Pointless Phylosophical Interlude Vaguely Having to Do with Sandwich's Last Post]
Well, it used to be that Christians (probably still is, for the most part) couldn't concieve of how God could have created an ecological system that has evolved in some ways. Mainly their disbelief stemmed from the fact that, according to a literal view of the Bible, the universe is no more than ~6000-7000 years old, which certainly does not leave room for evolution to take place.
But with this new discovery, by a scientist named Gerald Schroder (he has a few books out, if anyone's interested), those 6 original and literal days of Creation, with every stage defined clearly (on the fourth day God created the sun and moon - our solar system, essentially) can be mapped with frightening accuracy to the scientific ~16-odd billion years the universe has been in existance. And it isn't a linear "one day = 2.6 billion years" correlation, either. It follow how time would have been percieved here on "Earth" (at the Earth's future locale, rather) from the moment of the Big Bang. The Law of Relativity states that as one moves faster, or the heavier a gravity well one is present in, the slower time passes from that POV.
So take an absolute position of rest relative to the point of the Big Bang: from that point, until now, ~16 billion years have passed. But here on Earth, because of the velocity from the Big Bang explosion, those ~16 billion years have passed as ~6-7000 years, with the majority of that time passing in the first 6 days.
Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Mmm. That was not in the mind of the author, so I have little use for it, really. Since I don't think the original Hebrew audience took this as a literal tale, I see no reason to make it into one now.
The problem with that point of view is that if you stop taking various things in the Bible literally, there's no definition of where to stop. Did David literally slay Goliath with a mere stone from a slingshot, or was it an exaggerated battle story? Did God part the waters of the Red Sea to allow the Hebrews to walk across on dry land or not? Did Satan appear as a physical snake to Eve, tempting her with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil or not?
Did Jesus rise from the dead or not?
You see, there is great danger in dictating when you take the literal basis of your faith literally and when you don't. Look at the Jewish Rabbis of today. "...do not boil a kid {baby goat} in its mother's milk." They refuse to realize the simple direcness of that command, which was to prevent the Israelites from offering up sacrifices to foreign gods (which is, historically, just what that practice was, BTW). Instead, they have amplified it somehow into "Do not mix milk and meat." And living here, I see the pure bondage (quiet, Shrike! :lol: ) they are in because of that one thing.
Personally, I'd rather not be faced in heaven with God asking me just why I didn't take the 6 days to be literal... "That's what I told Moses to write, isn't it?"
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Originally posted by Sandwich
The problem with that point of view is that if we stop taking various things in the Bible literally, there's no definition of where to stop. Did David literally slay Goliath with a mere stone from a slingshot, or was it an exaggerated battle story? Did God part the waters of the Red Sea to allow the Hebrews to walk across on dry land or not? Did Satan appear as a physical snake to Eve, tempting his with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil or not?
Did Jesus rise from the dead or not?
Ah, but you misunderstand my reasons. I make such decisions 1) tentatively and 2) based on genre. I do not make my decisions based on whether I think such and such is possible, or fits well with modern Western culture's worldview, or anything of the sort. I do not judge the text; it judges me. And because I take that very, very seriously, I want to pay very careful attention to what it is, does, and says, and assume nothing beforehand.
Where the text presents itself as historical narrative, I take it as historical narrative. Where it presents itself as poetic prophecy, I take it as poetic prophecy. And where it presents itself as songs of prayer and worship, I take it as songs of prayer and worship. Do not think I am throwing away what I find "inconvenient." On the contrary, I am letting the text dictate its own terms, and going from there.
The whole project of trying to see how Genesis 1 is "really" a veiled scientific description of the Big Bang and subsequent events 1) is an unwitting capitulation to the notion that collapses truth into nothing more than mere empirical fact, and 2) completely ignores the text's own genre, instead imposing modern Western categories and mindset onto it because we don't appreciate what the author is doing and the forms he is using. In effect, this kind of project is allowing the current worldview to judge God's Word, instead of God's Word to judge the worldview.
I don't have a problem saying that Genesis 1 isn't literal, because I don't buy the tacit assumption of Western culture that the only things with truth value are those one can put on a scale. Western culture is just plain wrong on that. Looking at the kind of literature Genesis 1 is, the author pretty clearly never meant to write a "scientific discourse" on the creation procedure, and intended to do something else entirely with the text.
In short, God inspired this text in order to reveal his truth to us, so we have to take this text seriously and on its own terms. If it contains some inspired mythology (that isn't a bad word), that means that God can inspire mythology, too, and moreover had some truth to convey to us that is best and most perfectly conveyed to us in just that way. The Bible is my norm and no other, so I want to know what it says, how it says it, not what 21st century Western culture thinks it should say or the way it thinks it should say it.
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
*snip*
Gotcha - I just thought it cool that the modern scientific theory on the begnning of the universe actually correlates with a literal take on the Biblical account of creation, in complete contrast to the previous norm of "science contradicts Bible contradicts science..." :)