The world "might" have ended yesterday

I mean, I might be nothing more than a set of recorded memories in a probe that was sent out to the stars at the last minute, and everything I think I'm experiencing is nothing more than an illusion.

But I doubt it. I think the world is still here. As messed up as ever, but still here.

Just wait 'til the next time your anus blasts a green-cloud howler. That'll prove to you that you're still disgustingly corporeal.

We live in V'Ger.

No, you live in V'Ger. The rest of us are real.

Yes, but now that you've said that, my subconscious might invent that very scenario, in order to convince me that I'm still myself. So I still can't really be certain.

"I wonder, therefore I'm not sure I am..."

*Plays flute*

These repeated predictions and let downs are like a roller coaster ride.

"I think I am; therefore I am, I think..."

Jesus said "no man knows the day of the hour." That has kept me off of these date-setting roller-coaster rides.

If you're going to try that excuse, you should at least quote the full thing.

The specific "day or the hour" were not foretold. That it would happen within the lifetimes of his first century followers was.

In short, your own views on the apocalypse are no less certifiable than Harold Camping's. You don't gain credibility just by being so super-vague that nobody can ever show that you were wrong.

Do you have any idea what you are slobbering about? I have never discussed my eschatology views here.

For the record, I actually read about 2000 pages of Camping's drivel (both this year and back in 1994 when he first tried this) so unlike you, I actually know WHY he is wrong theologically. I wanted to know WHAT he was teaching and HOW he got to what he believed. Did you? No? Then should you be wandering into a thread like this?

And I'm sure you have done extensive research of early church eschatology and have extensive notes on Daniel, Revelation and other prophetic passages of Scripture that you'd be willing to share with the class? I do. I have commentaries on 2 Thessalonians, Daniel and Revelation (that needs extensive revising) that my Facebook friends can download as they know what my website is. What I have written is out there for all to see, whether you agree with it or not.

BTW, I also uploaded by book on the Second Great Awakening today, in case anyone is interested, an interesting look at American church history.

There's no such thing as being "wrong theologically". It's all bullshit, all trying to make square pegs fit into round holes, and you're not impressing anyone by trying to say that your bullshit is better than his bullshit.

There isn't any correct way of reconciling crazy Jewish prophecies from the first century about the imminent end of the world with the reality that that the world hasn't ended.

The only way we'll know for sure whether or not the Christians were taken up will be to see how many parking spaces there are at restaurants at lunch tomorrow.

So what about this part, then?

Which generation?

Wow! Just wow! You take a quote out of context, begin it at a very specific point, apply it to something to which it never applied, and then think you know what the Bible says. You should start a cult. That's the way they all do with the Bible.

Hint: Use the context to find out what period he was talking about before you start deciding which generation is "this generation" in the context.

And that in the very post where you chide Bulldog for not "quoting the whole thing"...

...when weasels attack.

If you're addressing a crowd and you say "this generation," you don't mean "any generation that comes along after I'm dead so nobody can prove me wrong."

Or, I dunno. Maybe you guys would. But honest people don't.

Talkin' 'bout mah jehhhhhhhh-nration...

Fixed that for you.

One has to begin at some point.
Matthew 24 is an extended treatment of Jesus' views on the end of the world, speaking to his followers. He speaks of false prophets, wars, people fleeing to the mountains, cosmic disruption and so forth. Nowhere in it is there anything that negates his words about "this generation", something he repeats later in the passage and which he's quoted as saying in several other parts of the gospels too.

In fact, it appears to me that imminent end-times were a central element of Jesus' preachings (particularly given their centrality in Matthew, the earliest and likely most reliable gospel). And that this was an uncomfortable issue for his followers as more time passed, leading to the creation of the convoluted "eschatalogy" nonsense to explain them away.

And I'm sure you'd defend the coherency of the prophecy in this tradition by trying to maintain that the fact that nothing happened during the lives of Jesus' followers is somehow equivalent to "all" being fulfilled (Luke 21:32). Or that the Kingdom of God did come "with power" (Mark 9:1), but that it was in some sort of "spiritual" sense. Or that "this generation" somehow refers to a non-specific future generation other than the one which he was directly addressing. Or by doing some sort of hairsplitting about the tribulation and the second coming. But, sorry, the Emperor has no clothes. At least Camping's bullshit is testable.

^ IOW: "My mind is made up, I don't want a reasonable explanation that flows from the context, I want my own, which allows me to make fun of Christianity."

Fine with me. Just don't project that interpretation onto others, and claim that they are irrational for believeing something that you have to twist out of its context to make irrational.

I know I, at least, would never want to believe in the variety of Christianity that you seem to think is the only "true" Christianity...

Yep, here we go with the "putting words in people's mouth", game.

Yeah, you gotta keep that goalpost on greased wheels, and always moving, so no one, including yourself, know exactly what "Christianity", exactly you believe in.

Don't have to defend what can't be defined.
It's like shooting at Predator.
Neat survival trick your memes have evolved there.

Anyone who wants to know what I believe only has to ask me. I've been much more straightforward about my beliefs than you have. You only spend your time telling us what you don't believe, and making fun of other people. Where my beliefs are well known to anyone who has ever bothered to ask and read my answers.

Don't know where you're getting that "no one, including yourself, knows what Christianity you believe in" stuff from. Probably making it up, as if the voices in your head were actually real or something.

Yeah, you're pure as the driven snow, aincha?

I love how atheists can't resist being close to religion. They don't believe in it, but they just can't stay away from it either.

Especially Diacanu, who announced so loudly to everyone a year ago or so (maybe less; I'm not sure anymore) how he was done with these threads on religion!

Is that what you said to the savages?

Diacanu has rejected the foundation for morality, so it isn't surprising that he would lie.

Sorry, I don't know any savages.

The closest I come to that are a few WF posters...

You're free to spell out exactly what it is that you believe. But you've already given enough information for the conclusion to be drawn that it's approximately what I outlined.

And I'm free to make fun of it, no matter how much polysyllabic "theology" it gets dressed up in.