The world "might" have ended yesterday

No, I vowed not to START the threads.
But, you know better.
We've established you're dishonest, not dumb.

With respect, the very concept of the religion is irrational.....and if you don't believe that then you must at least acknowledge that in this modern area any suggestion that some fundemental science-less elements of religion are irrational is, at the very least, a topic for debate, rather than something to be dismissed out of hand just because it interfers with an particular individuals interpretation of their religion?

I would have thought that tolerant and peaceful Christians would, in a day of mass communication, education and information, at least employ a live and let live philosophy, which would mean tolerance of those who think its all a fictious construct. Whichever way you look at it, surely one must accept that between a choice of Godlessness/a deity in a form not understood by humanity or an organised, prescribed dogma that is based purely on faith, the latter is the one that is the least based on science, common sense and logic. Ergo, the more humanity evolves the more questions will be asked of it.....surely?

Says you.

I am the first to acknowledge that most religion -- including most Christianity -- is irrational. It annoys me very much.

What I can't understand is how you go from "most religion is irrational" to "all religion is irrational" without yourself having to resort to irrationality, by making a statement that has no formal proof as if it was an absolute. It seems to me that the most you can say is "I believe all religion is irrational" or "I have never come across any that does not appear irrational to me" or something of that nature.

While I acknowledge that that is not the general approach of many religious people, in a number of different religions, that approach suits me just fine, personally. I have never attempted to prevent anyone from holding to the idea that all religion is baseless. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with them, or that I do not have the right to express my views on why they are wrong. (Tolerance works both ways, after all.) But in the end, everyone is free to believe what they want, it differences won't even prevent us from being friends.

Are you "intolerant" for refusing the nonsense of those who claim "All Muslims are evil and the best way to world peace is to use nuclear weapons to glass the entire Middle East"? Tolerance, it seems to me, is acknowledging the right of the other to believe what he wants, while at the same time believing he is wrong. Because if "tolerance" is only granting to others the right to believe what they want when you agree with them, that doesn't seem very tolerant to me. So there is no contradiction between tolerance and saying why those beliefs whose existence you tolerate are nevertheless, in your opinion, wrong.

No quibbles on that, that's for sure. I am probably as stong an opponent of "organised, prescribed dogma that is based purely on faith" (at least, when "faith" is defined as "belief without rational reasons") as you are. I am in fact known for that very thing, including among Christians.

Furthermore, I think that all concepts of God, including those widely held by Christians, are extremely likely to be wrong. To me, the greatest suprise after death would be to discover that everything was just the way I had imagined it. That doesn't mean I don't know anything about God, but my information is so woefully incomplete, and so thoroughly distorted by my own limited nature and my preconceptions, that it's about like a blind man sticking his finger in the ocean. That might be enough to know the ocean exists, and that it's wet and salty, but if that blind man thinks he has any real grasp of what it's really like, he is just fooling himself.

That's why I think that, although there are some things that can be known, the details just aren't worth fighting about.

Thanks, but in this case it's definitely weasels. None of them will actually answer the question. Can't blame them...there is no answer that makes sense. Every pastor I've ever heard read that passage just slides right over that "this generation" part, because if you look at it objectively, it means Jesus really believed the world would end within that generation.

And it obviously didn't. So their "Messiah" is at best well-intentioned, at worst deluded, and in any case fallible.

And. We. Can't. Have. That.

So, you dispense with the zombies, and the sky giants, and the talking animals, and feats of magic in general?

How about the praise of genocidal sociopaths, and the diabolical importance that they have a bloodline connection to the messiah?

I mean, cut all that out, you're left with a pamphlet, Thomas Jefferson tried that very experiment.

But. We. Can. Have. Coffee.

What? This thread started out being about something stupid, I'm just tearing down the drapes.

I'm still waiting for an answer. Which generation?

Well, I guess "this", is a worthless word to ya, so...fuckin' Picard and his pals, if that makes ya happy.

[action=Asyncritus]raises hand.[/action]

"I know! I know!"

But then, I've actually read the chapter in question, in its context, so I know what time period Jesus was talking about when he said that, meaning that the things he was describing just before he got to that part of his explanation would be right at the very end. Others don't seem to want to do that, despite it being such obvious good sense, because then it wouldn't allow them to make fun of Christianity.

I have to admire the effort they put into their strawmen, at least. They are willing to really defend their crazy interpretations, even when the obvious flaws are pointed out, in order to hold on to their claim that they don't make sense. (Which is kind of what were saying...)

Instead of BDS or ODS, it's kind of like JDS.

Well, if Maud is gonna play macho man, cough up my answer to post 35, or spit teeth, see?

Myah, myah!! Myah, see?

So have I.

Maybe when you're finished obfuscating, you can give us the benefit of your interpretation.

Because the rest of your post implies that there can be only one interpretation, and of course you know what it is.

Liar, Liar, pants on fire
Plug yer butt with a pacifier

Just my guess as to what the answer to your question is, 'cause I didn't read your question.

I'm out of here; back in a week or so.

Have fun until then!

List of Predicted Dates of the End of the World (or a list of various attention whores).

Please note the most probable end date, circa 5 billion CE (give or take several hundred millions years, I'm guessing).

So, keep living life as you would any other day (with the knowledge that we will all die long, long before the world does).

Actually for life on Earth the end date is about a billion years give or take a few million years of course.

As the sun gets bigger it will make Earth hotter to the point that everything on Earth is just burned away.

Isn't this guy, by Biblical standards, the very definition of a false prophet? So...shouldn't we be stoning him?

I guess so, if you're really old school Jewish.

Wait, I thought that part of the bible said "get stoned and make fun of him?"

Man, this religion stuff is confusing.

It's about 5 billion years, and at about the same time, the Andromeda galaxy is going to be crashing into us.

No, others don't want to do that because it doesn't make any sense. You don't get to decide our motives, and you're not the only one who has the ability to read the book of Matthew.

Your attempt to square the passage with reality is not at all "obvious". It doesn't make any sense in the context of what Jesus was talking about, it is contradicted in several other places - which repeat the same thing in a different form - and wasn't what the early Christian movement believed. It only became obvious when reality had overtaken matters and a retcon became necessary.

This is the theological equivalent of Lucas digitally inserting Hayden Christensen into the Original Trilogy, declaring that that was the way it was always "meant to be", and then poo-pooing anyone who chooses not to accept it.

How convenient.

Maybe when you return you can explain why you prefer Jerome to Maldonatus.

Or just duck and cover as usual.

The world is constantly being destroyed and created, every Hectasecond.

Terry Pratchett said so.

uhhhh no.

For the planet itself then yes 5 billion years is the end date.

For life on Earth? For surface water? About a billion years.

As the sun burns its fuel source it gets bigger. A bigger sun puts more heat out. Within one billion years or so the sun will be big enough and IIRC 10% brighter in the Earth's sky that the oceans will boil away and the Earth will essentially be sterilized.

So life on Earth ends one billion years from now. The Earth itself ends 5 billion years from now.

^End of the world != end of life on the planet

But we're just splitting hairs.