[BREAKING NEWS] World To End....THIS SATURDAY!

A good percentage of the knee jerk anti-(fill in the blank) crap that get posted on an average day != "thoughtful disagreement"

 

I actually agree with you on this. It's like how I don't believe in Islam, but I would recognize the authority of an Islamic scholar who points out misconceptions about Islam and the Koran spread by Islamic terrorists.

 

A. Because study is done poorly in one place, it is always done poorly? Because i see one bad driver who's Mexican, I'm free to assume all Mexicans are bad drivers, right?

B. there are not a few people who study intently the Bible, and other "holy books" who do not believe ANY of it to be REMOTELY true.

C. Believing "it says what it says, and what it says is absolutely true" doesn't go very far when you realize that a huge amount of it has disputed meaning. All the more so in areas of predictive prophecy.

let me give you a specific example of a counter-point: Me. I studied the Bible and commentary material about the bible pretty intently for over 20 years (albeit, I don't think to the degree Bulldog has and definitely not to the degree Async has - and by the way did you notice both of those men are "experts" yet disagree significantly on some points?) and it's quite true that in my younger and more impressionable days (i.e. before i studied it much at all) i accepted what people TOLD me it said as a given.

I can't tell you the number of times back in the day that I would re-quote something I'd been told the Bible said (without having studied it myself) which I now know to be ass-backwards.

But in the course of studying it, what i found was all sorts of ways I DISAGREED with the "everybody knows" claims regarding it's contents. i cam to my current view regarding homosexuality (for instance) almost exclusively BECAUSE i was able to know what the book said about it and see the holes in what had been claimed. if i hadn't studied it, I'd be forced to assume that what "everybody knows" about being gay being a sin was true.

But hey - let's assume for the sake of the discussion that every last claim in the book is false. it is STILL a valid field of study to say "Fred Phelps says the Bible says this and the Pope says the Bible says that and Async says the Bible says that - and how do the three compare?

 

So?

 

A good percentage?

Yup.

ALL?

Not remotely.

 

But there must be one, mustn't there?

Even sweeping it under the rug with "when it happens, it happens", doesn't eliminate the problem.

It may be politically soothing...if you manage not to think about it, but the problem is still there.

That being, Bulldog essentially believes what camping does, so can't exactly giggle and guffaw at him as "crazy".

 

So what meaning, what value, does "orthodox theology", have as a term?

None that I can see.

 

I don't.

It makes political nice-nice not to stir up the hornet's nest by waving away the beliefs of "the good Muslims", just because of that pesky problem of neither version of their religion being true...but..y'know..fuck it...I'm not a fucking diplomat, I'm a dude on a board, and shit ain't gonna start blowing up from what I say.

 

It's like when a Trekkie argues that Spock couldn't have seen the destruction of Vulcan from Delta Vega, because Delta Vega is near the edge of the galaxy, many, many lightyears from Vulcan.

And you say "uh huh," smile, and think "All true, but, of course, Spock, Vulcan, and Delta Vega don't actually exist..."

 

Well see, the difference is, religion is sacred to people.

There's magical fairy dust in that word, and you're to respect that fairy dust just because, just because, just because.....


So, what we've got to do is wrap the fairy dust forcefield of sacred around both political parties, and it'll shut down all discourse and dissent in this country, and then everyone will be happy.

 

Ehh, part of me would like to relent, and look at it that way...

..but then this looks me in the face..

...and I'm like "dammit, I have to arm wrestle it down with my willpower into being about that, or it's all been a fucking lie".

 

Ah, 00's classic bullshit.

 

No, Mr. Diacanu, there does not have to be a correct date. Shocking huh?

 

Hey, if this guy had said doomsday begins with twisters in the midwest, everybody'd be believin' him!

 

um, what? I'm pretty sure there does.
Revelations is fairly specific in the matter.

 

Actually, IIRC, Revelation (singular, no "s") says something about "no man knowing the date and hour..." or something to that effect.

I'm too lazy to reread this whole thread, but I think that's kinda what Bulldog was getting at.

 

Well, everybody's got to have a hobby.

 

But, that would flush centuries of Christian Eschatology down the toilet.
CENTURIES!
Isn't it arrogant to dismiss all that expertise, and insight?

 

A board is its posters, if the posters don't do it, who the fuck does?

 

How do you figure?

 

So you're here to play a role. Gotcha.

 

not knowing the date isn't the same as no date, Soma said 'no date.'

 

No one can know the date or the hour, centuries of heehas trying to know exactly that...tch, oh well...

 

Well what the bible doesn't say is that God hid a secret code in the text for the fans.
Cause you know, God is a big believer in viral marketing.

 

Matthew 24:36, "but about that day or hour no one knows"

 

so?

context matters.

 

About as much meaning, accepting your opinion for the sake of the discussion, as the plot of the last Superman movie.

But one can still speak authoritatively on the content of said film.