Christians says "End of Days" in May - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyler 

M Night will have the last laugh on us all. He will laugh at ours deaths from his airtight safety dome.

But then in the end, it will turn out we were already dead...

Thanks stelios!  Try as I might, I could not find a gif of that.

THIS is why religion poses an unacceptable danger to civilization. These people are looking forward to the end of the world. Because of a bunch of lies about magic written in a book. They are looking forward to the end of the world.. in an age when humans have the technology to bring it about. Climate Change? Nuclear holocaust? Not such a bad thing, if you're a religo

Truly frightening

.. though I will laugh at them come May at least ; )

PS The end of the world as we know it? With climate change, far more likely and much more frightening than the rapture.. yet these people couldn't care less.., because of ancient desert mumbo jumbo

Magical thinking is a luxury humanity can no longer afford

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

THIS is why religion poses an unacceptable danger to civilization. These people are looking forward to the end of the world. Because of a bunch of lies about magic written in a book. They are looking forward to the end of the world.. in an age when humans have the technology to bring it about. Climate Change? Nuclear holocaust? Not such a bad thing, if you're a religo

Your ignorance is showing.

You condemn religion at large because you find this particular brand of apocalypticism distasteful, ignorant to the fact that millennial eschatology is NOT an inevitable part of religion in general. There is much eschatological fervor in this country (Which is very weird, because historically millennial eschatology appeals to oppressed, disenfranchised people, people with no power who feel the world is so rotten that it can't be healed, and their only hope lies in a violent and complete reordering of the cosmos. White protestant Americans may be the most privileged group in the history of the world, yet there's a strong strain of millennial belief amongst them?) but to equate "religion" with "millennial eschatology" is like saying philosophy must be driven out of human thought because Marxism is a philosophy.

Only Kate could make me think about sympathizing with these people.  Bravo. 

I don't know Kate, you also show a cultlike slavish adoration of a long dead pseudo godking who in fact was a raving, misogynistic lunatic who endeavored to enslave the known world and make it conform to a strict coda, upsetting the attitudes and beliefs of several native peoples.

I think you're the pot calling the kettle black in regards to religious nutjobs.

I like pizza.

Damn, it's gotta be scary to be walking around minding your own business and then blam, all of the sudden a bunch of dead birds start falling from the sky in front of you!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

THIS is why religion poses an unacceptable danger to civilization. These people are looking forward to the end of the world. Because of a bunch of lies about magic written in a book. They are looking forward to the end of the world.. in an age when humans have the technology to bring it about. Climate Change? Nuclear holocaust? Not such a bad thing, if you're a religo

"If you're a religo ...", what happened did you swallow one of the dead birds?

So you're saying this group of people, this particular group, is trying to bring about the end of the world? I must have read the wrong article ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmerica 

Damn, it's gotta be scary to be walking around minding your own business and then blam, all of the sudden a bunch of dead birds start falling from the sky in front of you!!!

I just try to have fun with it. Get the kids out. Make dead-bird angels. Sing Apocalypse carols.

Princess Kate.... The gift that keeps on giving. 

I live with two sisters who are Jehovah's Witnesses. I can't think of anything funny to say about this topic.

People, if you stop freaking out whenever Kate does her stuff, I get the feeling she'd be posting much less of it. And if, like me before becoming a mod, you really hate it so much, put her in your ignore list.

Harold Camping, the man behind the End of Time 1994, I mean, 2011.

Wasn't he in some movie?  About a little girl who could find the light?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Treasure 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

THIS is why religion poses an unacceptable danger to civilization. These people are looking forward to the end of the world. Because of a bunch of lies about magic written in a book. They are looking forward to the end of the world.. in an age when humans have the technology to bring it about. Climate Change? Nuclear holocaust? Not such a bad thing, if you're a religo

 

Your ignorance is showing.

 

You condemn religion at large because you find this particular brand of apocalypticism distasteful, ignorant to the fact that millennial eschatology is NOT an inevitable part of religion in general. There is much eschatological fervor in this country (Which is very weird, because historically millennial eschatology appeals to oppressed, disenfranchised people, people with no power who feel the world is so rotten that it can't be healed, and their only hope lies in a violent and complete reordering of the cosmos. White protestant Americans may be the most privileged group in the history of the world, yet there's a strong strain of millennial belief amongst them?) but to equate "religion" with "millennial eschatology" is like saying philosophy must be driven out of human thought because Marxism is a philosophy.

 1) I am for Marxism

 2) It only takes a handful of religos to derail the national agenda. We have sitting republican senators saying that we don't have to worry about Global Warming because the bible tells us that only god will end the world. Sorry, these people are a danger. The fact that magical thinking is considered acceptable in any form allows for the ignorant to be fed a pack of rediculous lies without any means to challenge them

Case in point, this is the kind of shit being shoveled to the ignorant by one of America's leading news hosts:

From Mr Bill O'Reiley, on the subject of the oceans

Because of religion, that man isn't immediately laughed off the stage as a loon. He's allowed to state on television that the tides cannot be explained, despite any half way educated person knowing they are a result of the moon's gravitational pull

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayward_Woman 

I don't know Kate, you also show a cultlike slavish adoration of a long dead pseudo godking who in fact was a raving, misogynistic lunatic who endeavored to enslave the known world and make it conform to a strict coda, upsetting the attitudes and beliefs of several native peoples.

 

I think you're the pot calling the kettle black in regards to religious nutjobs.

 Where to begin here... I guess I'll break it down:

"Cult-like slavish adoration"? Sums up my feelings pretty nicely. While I'm not actually a practicing member of the Cult of Alexander, I certainly admire those who worshipped him in the centuries following his death

 "Pseudo godking"? No pseudo about it. That's exactly what he was. He was worshipped as a god within his own lifetime by peoples from Egypt to India, and as far as we know was directly decended from demigods (Herakles and Achilles). That's not even getting into the fact that there exists compelling testimony to suggest that he may have in fact been fathered by Zeus Ammon

 "Raving"? Not sure what you're talking about with that one. When did he "rave"? Asside from specific incidents like the murder of Black Cleitus (who, let's be honest, was deliberately trying to provoke a reaction) and possibly the burning of Persepolis (no one can say for sure how that happened, and he might not even have been involved in the decision to raze the city -- it could have been an accident), his reign was marked by level headed thinking

"Lunatic"? Perhaps. Who knows such things. If you want to call a quest to control the entire earth and reach it's literal ends crazy? Then OK. However he was not unhinged or deranged. He was a sober tactician beloved of his men (for the most part, till the mutinies ETC)                                         

"Misogynistic"? Not on your life. While the greeks may not have embraced modern ideals of equality, their views on women were not out of line when compared to those of their contemporaries. The people Alexander overthrew in Afghanistan and elsewhere were exactly the same brutal, women hating thugs that we are currently dealing with in that region, and for them Alexander was a liberator. Alexander encouraged his troops to marry tribal women, allowing them the freedom to escape their circumstances. He punished rape with death. He was famously respectful of Barsine and Queen Stateira. He (possibly) chose to marry Roxanne for romantic reasons. I cannot imagine him as a misogynist, at least not an especially virulent breed of misogynist given the common beliefs of the age

"Endeavoring to enslave the known world"? Alexander would say that he was endeavoring to *free* the known world from ignorance, poverty and closed mindedness. To quote Alexander from Stones film, "who can be free when none can read or write"? He envisioned an empire not of blood and treasure, but of the mind. A Hellenistic civilization stretching from Pella to the Indus, connected by his great Alexandrias and their libraries. Truly a visionary thinker. Unlike those he faced, he did not enslave his soldiers to fight. He respected and elevated the common man

 "Upsetting the attitudes and beliefs of native peoples"? In some cases, sure (I am sure the Zoroastrians felt upset by his actions ; ) ), but Alexander was known for his embrace of eastern culture and customs, from proskynesis to dress, he often risked alienating his own countrymen by treating the Persians and Asians as equals rather than barbarians. He studied Buddhism in India, for crying out loud. He didn't over turn belief systems for the most part, but sought to embrace them, welcoming new gods and mixing east and west. In Egypt he brought about a renaissance and helped to reaffirm the dominance of the pharaohs (who were religious figures,  so you can't say he was upsetting a belief system)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmerica 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

THIS is why religion poses an unacceptable danger to civilization. These people are looking forward to the end of the world. Because of a bunch of lies about magic written in a book. They are looking forward to the end of the world.. in an age when humans have the technology to bring it about. Climate Change? Nuclear holocaust? Not such a bad thing, if you're a religo

 

"If you're a religo ...", what happened did you swallow one of the dead birds?

 

So you're saying this group of people, this particular group, is trying to bring about the end of the world? I must have read the wrong article ...

 

 Religo is a word I invented, taking my cue from American Iconoclast Bill Maher, which is derived from 'Person of Religious Faith' and 'Wacko'

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickP 

 

Harold Camping, the man behind the End of Time 1994, I mean, 2011.

Wasn't he in some movie?  About a little girl who could find the light?

 

 

You've repeated your initial points, but you haven't actually responded to anything I've said here, except for the Marxism comment (and since I was making an analogy and not any value judgment on Marxism, what you said there is completely irrelevant). And the Bill O'Reilly thing makes it seem like you're trying to drag this off-topic.

And your argument re: Bill O'Reilly (a walking straw man if ever there was one) amounts to "ignorance is widespread, religion is widespread, here's one man possessing both, ergo religion is ignorance" which is a correlation equals causation fallacy.

I simply disagree with your basic assertions. I don't care WHY dooms day nonsense appeals to people. I care that religion has invented these crazy beliefs for them to latch onto. It's dangerous. That's my take. Nothing really more to say in reply to your post

My point about Bill O'Reiley is that we have a television personality who is well respected, watched by millions and has interviewed the POTUS, and yet thinks god causes the tides. The ignorance that religion engenders is poisonous and wide spread

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

I simply disagree with your basic assertions. I don't care WHY dooms day nonsense appeals to people. I care that religion has invented these crazy beliefs for them to latch onto. It's dangerous. That's my take. Nothing really more to say in reply to your post

Right. You're not interested in discussion or actually offering an intellectual argument; you just want to assert your extreme views, repeatedly. (Funny how people who loudly voice extreme opinions on a subject tend not to be very educated on that subject. It's not surprising though; people who actually bother to educate themselves tend to develop more nuanced views on said subject.) To me it seems a lot like trolling.

Unless you actually offer real discussion rather than repeating your uneducated opinions, I'm not going to respond to you any further here.

We've talked at length about Alexander in the chatroom, and I think we cleared out our particular viewpoitns well enough. Let's leave it at that, and those few poor souls who got caught in the crossfire.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Treasure 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Princess Kate 

I simply disagree with your basic assertions. I don't care WHY dooms day nonsense appeals to people. I care that religion has invented these crazy beliefs for them to latch onto. It's dangerous. That's my take. Nothing really more to say in reply to your post

Right. You're not interested in discussion or actually offering an intellectual argument; you just want to assert your extreme views, repeatedly. (Funny how people who loudly voice extreme opinions on a subject tend not to be very educated on that subject. It's not surprising though; people who actually bother to educate themselves tend to develop more nuanced views on said subject.) To me it seems a lot like trolling.

 

Unless you actually offer real discussion rather than repeating your uneducated opinions, I'm not going to respond to you any further here.

 I've discussed this in great depth on the board before. I don't have the time or the inclination to rewrite my thesis every time a thread on religion pops up. You're absolutely correct: I'm not interested in debating with you here, I was stating my view on this news story

I've been a member of the board for more than a year now, and have explained my views in detail in that time. I advise you to search out various other threads if you want to see my in depth take. It doesn't mean that I'm uneducated just because I am not interested in repeating myself every time someone disagrees with me

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayward_Woman 

We've talked at length about Alexander in the chatroom, and I think we cleared out our particular viewpoitns well enough. Let's leave it at that, and those few poor souls who got caught in the crossfire.

Fair enough!

Ran into one of Harold Camping's flock today!  She was surprisingly tactful and awash with what I can't deny was sincere concern.  She looked around 50 or so and, most interestingly, behaved completely contrary to what one might expect (or stereotype?) from someone preaching the end of the world.  No skittish speech, no agitated proselytizing, no relating the litany of sins (homosexuality, abortion, condoms, voting democrat...) the world has committed to bring on the end.  I got the impression that she simply wanted to keep as many folks as possible from being caught unawares on Saturday.

Having been interested in eschatology since may late teens, I had actually come across his book 1994? around '92 or so...when the idea still had an air of prophecy.  'Course now he hides behind the clever use of a question mark in the title.  Camping's been a fixture on one of my cable's churchy channels forever but I never really listened closely enough to catch his renewed doomsday angle.  As a fan of this kind of thing, I've been pretty curious to see just how serious a following he actually had (one that took this business as gospel!).

Makes you wonder just how embarrassing it would be if these folks turned out to be right.  Not really clear on the exact details but regarding the rapture I'm not looking forward to an afternoon filled with suddenly driverless cars.

On the bright side, Camping and company say we've made it three years into the time of tribulations which means it's half over.  So there's that.

No! It can't happen May 21st! I have tickets to a Toronto FC game for the 28th and I have great seats for a Toronto Blue Jays game the next day! Last time I was at a TFC game I missed half the game because the person with the tickets forgot one. And was late. I never got my full game!

Well, the 21st is my mother's 60th birthday, so it very well could be the apocalypse.

Or yeah, driverless cars. But religious people can't drive, right?

New York Man Spends Life Savings Ahead of May 21 Doomsday

Another serious believer.  And he smartly sidesteps a deadly sin when questioned about thoughts on his own rapture.

If you look into his book you'll find that he splits the Judgment Day hair a little further.  Yes, there will be a great earthquake on Saturday, but he's calculated that the literal end of the earth will be October 21st, perhaps allowing mankind to hit the snooze bar so to speak.

That brings up the point that I think we all need to convince these people to give their money to us heathens to better enjoy our non-hellish time left on Earth. I don't think I could even feel bad about it.... Well maybe with the 60 year old, but anyone less than 50 is fair game.

I was looking into this yesterday, for some entertainment.  The equation he uses, is really funny.  It's based on "fairy tale" logic in my opinion. 

Harold Camping assigns messages to numbers. According to him, the number 7 means completion, and the number 23 means judgment.  Got that, okay.

So if 7 eqauls completion, multiply that by 1000 because according to the Bible, a day for god is like a Thousand Years.

So now you have 7000, still following?  God told Noah, seven days before flood of the impending end, and that took place in 4990 BC.

So 4900bc + 7000 years = 2010, but since there was no year 0, you have to add 1.  So, 2011.  Also, the flood took place on May 21st.  So, May 21st, 2011.

But it doesn't end there. 

Jesus was cruciufied on April 1st, 33AD. 

The equation (5x10x17)  squared = 722500

5= Atonement

10 = Completeness

17 = Heaven

so, 722500 days, from April 1st, 33AD, equals MAY 21st, 2011.  I still don't know why those numbers have to be squared?

It's actually kind of sad, that people beleive this.  I mean, he's assigning numbers and values, then taking sums, and subtracting them from the date he wants, and puting relgious events on that date.  Jesus was crucified on April Fools Day... I guess that was the ultimate April Fools?  "Thought I was dead, didn't ya?"

Then I guess Camping had access to carbon dating, and wood from the Ark, and was able to conclude the date of the "Great Flood".    Pretty good for a ninety year old man. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brendan 

No! It can't happen May 21st! I have tickets to a Toronto FC game for the 28th and I have great seats for a Toronto Blue Jays game the next day! Last time I was at a TFC game I missed half the game because the person with the tickets forgot one. And was late. I never got my full game!

You better hope Jose Bautista doesn't get raptured away. He's the best hitter in the game right now.

So he's the asshole I can blame for having to put up with all that crap on the subway ride to work*. Good to know that come May 22nd, he'll be getting some letters.

* - granted the NYC subway is full of ridiculous ads (looking at you, Dr. Zizmor!) but this end of the world brouhaha just rubs me the wrong way.

Oh man, I'd give anything to spend one of those supposed final days with a true believer. Their growing dissapointment would be to me the best feast I've ever had. And at the end of the day, when their despair and defeat would be at its zenith, I'd give them my most triumphant smile and ask:

"Where is your God, now?"

Then I'd put the Trololo song playing on a stereo and gracefully prance away. 

These people have had their billboards all over the Bridgeport, CT area for months now.  I can't decide if that means that they have a branch office open here, or if they assume Bridgeport is the epicenter for the apocalypse (who could blame them?).  All I know is I can't wait for Sunday since that means I won't have to look at their wack-assed signs on my way to work anymore.

I was having this discussion with someone elsewhere, and we semi-jokingly came to two conclusions:

1.  Anyone that has one of those "In case of Rapture..." bumperstickers is guaranteed to still be here on the 22nd.

2.  So few people are likely going to qualify for salvation that even if the Rapture DID happen, it wouldn't effect enough people for the world in general to notice.  IE A year from now someone in the FBI's crime statistics division goes "Huh...that's funny, there was a 2% increase in missing persons reports around Mid-May...."

Quote:

Originally Posted by stelios 

Oh man, I'd give anything to spend one of those supposed final days with a true believer. Their growing dissapointment would be to me the best feast I've ever had. And at the end of the day, when their despair and defeat would be at its zenith, I'd give them my most triumphant smile and ask:

 

"Where is your God, now?"

 

Then I'd put the Trololo song playing on a stereo and gracefully prance away. 

Weird.  I think the whole thing is kooky but I'm boggled by the vindictiveness on display.  I think I'd like to spend that day nowhere near these people who I spend every day nowhere near because I'd prefer they do their own thing while I do mine.

What can I say, I'm a fun loving guy. And schadenfreude is fun.

A friend of mine sent me an email yesterday saying that he was seriously thinking about taking a bunch of his old shoes and clothing and depositing them in small piles all around town on Sunday morning to freak some of us heathens out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stelios 

Oh man, I'd give anything to spend one of those supposed final days with a true believer. Their growing disappointment would be to me the best feast I've ever had. And at the end of the day, when their despair and defeat would be at its zenith, I'd give them my most triumphant smile and ask:

 

"Where is your God, now?"

 

Then I'd put the Trololo song playing on a stereo and gracefully prance away. 

I've wondered about this. Does the prediction have a certain point in the day listed as the "rapture minute" or is every nut job going to be clinging to hope till midnight?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sleeplesslumber 

 

 

I've wondered about this. Does the prediction have a certain point in the day listed as the "rapture minute" or is every nut job going to be clinging to hope till midnight?
 

 

Yes.  Saw the guy on the local news last night.  6PM.  Expect an earthquake.  I told my wife I'm standing in a doorway just in case.

Quote:

Originally Posted by A-Pathetic 

Weird.  I think the whole thing is kooky but I'm boggled by the vindictiveness on display. 

I think for a lot of people it amounts to getting the feeling of seeing someone presumably so easily duped.  It's the same as the weird aggravation I get at seeing a news report on yet another bunch of old people getting rooked by door-to-door scam artists ("Jesus, don't they know better by now!")

I certainly don't find these doomsday folks maddening.  Quite the opposite, I find them intriguing.  The closest to a negative feeling I could have about this business is the tiny concern that people as thoroughly convinced as a good deal of these people are might do something 'apocalyptic' to themselves and take out a few innocent bystanders.  But, like I said, Camping and the rest don't seem 'apocalyptic', certainly not in a Branch Davidian/Jonestown sense.  The woman I spoke with, and it was a two way conversation not me simply going "uh huh" as she prattled on, came across more like a librarian - measured speech, quiet purposeful language and radiating genuine sincerity.

I'm hoping to run into the woman again (it was at the library which nowadays tends to attract regulars more than any other demo) after the weekend, not to gloat but to genuinely see how the endgame effected her.  Part of me worries that if I don't run into her (and there hasn't been a detectable rapture!) that she might've done something in lieu of Judgment Day.

As I don't regularly attend a church (well, more like I don't go to one at all) I'm pretty curious to hear how different churches in all denominations may be handling this business in their sermons.  The coverage of the looming Judgment has been pretty wide, it'd be hard to imagine it escaping the attention of community clergy.

^I don't think any churches will be talking about this, well, maybe cracking a joke or two.  Why encourage the madman.  We all know come May 22nd, he will have his speach all ready, stating he "misread" and is working on a new date. 

Yet, much like how I sometimes really want to see the villain get the better of James Bond and actually blow some shit up, I have this small, perverse hope that maybe, juuuuuuuuust maybe Camping is right and we are in for some shit on Saturday.

Well since there are earthquakes everyday, if one is barely felt anywhere he's going to use it as justification for his insanity.

The doomsday forecasts have ended the planet a thousand times over already, but the annoying thing is that when the world actually does end, these opportunistic doomsayers will have, like a dead stopwatch, been right in spite of themselves.....and proud of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickP 

^I don't think any churches will be talking about this, well, maybe cracking a joke or two.  Why encourage the madman.  We all know come May 22nd, he will have his speach all ready, stating he "misread" and is working on a new date. 

Exactly.  Most clergy are probably covering their eyes realizing how many people are painting everybody remotely religious with the same brush because these guys are such easy targets.