The Mark of the Beast (666)

Originally posted by Ytse
I didn't say I was an authority. What I meant is that I am better informed than you are on this topic. You quoted a paragraph from wikipedia and concluded that it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. The paragraph immediately following that one is as follows:

Some exegetes (Touilleux, Gelin, Feuillet) distinguish two dates: publication (under Domitian) and date of the visions (under Vespasian). Various editors would have a hand in the formation of the document, according to these theories. The dating of the work is still widely debated in the scholarly community.

I kind of alluded to this in another thread when I contrasted premillennialism (the popular one in America) with the others (Amillennialism, Postmillennialism, etc.).

I did not come to that conclusion based on that article. I’ve had that opinion for a long time. It was based on a lot of reading and study I did a long time ago. I simply tried to find something that would support my claim and the wikipedia was the first thing I found.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
I did not come to that conclusion based on that article. I’ve had that opinion for a long time. It was based on a lot of reading and study I did a long time ago. I simply tried to find something that would support my claim and the wikipedia was the first thing I found.

Ah, well excuse me for being presumptuous. 🙂

This is the popular view in America today. As you can see from the Left Behind book series.

Originally posted by Ytse
Ah, well excuse me for being presumptuous. 🙂

This is the popular view in America today. As you can see from the Left Behind book series.

Again, popularity does not dictate truth, and BTW you are forgiven. 😉

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Again, popularity does not dictate truth

I meant that your interpretation was most popular (which you might've understood me to be saying but I'm not sure if I was clear). But yes, popularity doesn't necessarily mean anything other than it's popular.

Originally posted by Ytse
I meant that your interpretation was most popular (which you might've understood me to be saying but I'm not sure if I was clear). But yes, popularity doesn't necessarily mean anything other than it's popular.

OK, I was having an argument last night about this with JIA. 😉

The bigger the church = more missionaries = more popular.

Originally posted by debbiejo
The bigger the church = more missionaries = more popular.

Yep. Premillennialism (which includes this futurist view) is strongly espoused by evangelicals. Most evangelicals are baptists and baptists alone number well over 16 million in America.

You're very correct. And this wasn't the view during the Reformation nor in Jesus' time.

Originally posted by Ytse
Yep. Premillennialism (which includes this futurist view) is strongly espoused by evangelicals. Most evangelicals are baptists and baptists alone number well over 16 million in America.

And Baptists are so very wrong about their religion. I should know, I was raised as one.

Originally posted by debbiejo
You're very correct. And this wasn't the view during the Reformation nor in Jesus' time.

Yeah, it's only a few hundred years old at the most.

All of the left behind books actually was part of what turned me off of that view. I'm a bit weary of Christians trying to scare people into converting. Where's the good news there? Where's god's grace? Why not spread the gospel instead of pushing this apocalypse on people?

[/shrug]

Originally posted by Ytse
Yeah, it's only a few hundred years old at the most.

All of the left behind books actually was part of what turned me off of that view. I'm a bit weary of Christians trying to scare people into converting. Where's the good news there? Where's god's grace? Why not spread the gospel instead of pushing this apocalypse on people?

[/shrug]

Originally posted by Bardock42
To be fair where is the good news in the Bible at all?

Obviously that's an issue if you don't believe the bible has any value at all. The bible itself says that nonbelievers will reject such things. But that's not really the issue here (unless you want it to be?)

But surely you can see the difference in the gospels and in the book of revelation. Yes?

Its a ****ing number.
nothing special

Originally posted by Ytse
Obviously that's an issue if you don't believe the bible has any value at all. The bible itself says that nonbelievers will reject such things. But that's not really the issue here (unless you want it to be?)

But surely you can see the difference in the gospels and in the book of revelation. Yes?

However, if I go back to my Green Dragon Egg illustration; The bible saying that non-believers will reject the “good news” of the bible, therefore the bible is true, is like me saying that non-believers will reject the Green Dragon Egg, therefore Green Dragon Egg does exist.

Originally posted by Ytse
Obviously that's an issue if you don't believe the bible has any value at all. The bible itself says that nonbelievers will reject such things. But that's not really the issue here (unless you want it to be?)

But surely you can see the difference in the gospels and in the book of revelation. Yes?

Haha, a slight difference maybe.

I still think the news is not that good really. Well, not on the whole at least.

I mean how would you react if someone comes to you and says "Hey, Good news, the grandfather you thought just didn't exist anymore gets tortured by 10 feet tall demons, but you might be able to avoid it...oh, also you have really not much power over your life there's this really powerful dude and he knows everything about you...sleep tight"
I would punch them in the face and scream at them "**** YOU, LOOK UP THE DEFINITION OF GOOD, *******!!!"

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
However, if I go back to my Green Dragon Egg illustration; The bible saying that non-believers will reject the “good news” of the bible, therefore the bible is true, is like me saying that non-believers will reject the Green Dragon Egg, therefore Green Dragon Egg does exist.

I never said "therefore the bible is true." It's implicit that I consider it to be true of course. But nothing I can say will empirically demonstrate that the bible contains truth or knowledge about god. I've said this numerous times on this religion forum.

And the dragon egg thing only shows to be true what I've already claims. Which is that you can't prove or disprove such claims empirically. It doesn't say anything as to their internal validity.

Originally posted by Bardock42
I still think the news is not that good really. Well, not on the whole at least.

Read the sermon on the mount. It's chock full o' goodness. 😉

I mean how would you react if someone comes to you and says "Hey, Good news, the grandfather you thought just didn't exist anymore gets tortured by 10 feet tall demons, but you might be able to avoid it...oh, also you have really not much power over your life there's this really powerful dude and he knows everything about you...sleep tight"

I'd probably walk away very fast.

I would punch them in the face and scream at them "**** YOU, LOOK UP THE DEFINITION OF GOOD, *******!!!"

That would just exacerbate things. 😉

Seriously though, "good" is subjective language. Assuming god exists his opinion on what "good" is would trump Marriam and Webster.

Originally posted by Ytse
I never said "therefore the bible is true." It's implicit that I consider it to be true of course. But nothing I can say will empirically demonstrate that the bible contains truth or knowledge about god. I've said this numerous times on this religion forum.

And the dragon egg thing only shows to be true what I've already claims. Which is that you can't prove or disprove such claims empirically. It doesn't say anything as to their internal validity.

However, it is more reasonable to say that the Green Dragon Egg does not exist because there is no evidence in nature. Until the Green Dragon Egg is proved by observation this is the more reasonable stance. This analogy can be taken to the bible. It is more reasonable to believe that the bible is metaphoric until it is proved otherwise. However, most fundamentalists make a leap of faith and find reasoning to be less valuable then belief.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
However, most fundamentalists make a leap of faith and find reasoning to be less valuable then belief.

But even your reasoning that it is more reasonable to think the bible is a creation of man rather than a revelation of god rests on an assumption as well. And that is that the universe is naturalistic.

On the other hand if you presuppose that the universe is created by god then it makes absolute sense to have faith.

Of course you cannot prove or disprove either assumption via empiricism.

Originally posted by Ytse
Read the sermon on the mount. It's chock full o' goodness. 😉

I'd probably walk away very fast.

That would just exacerbate things. 😉

Seriously though, "good" is subjective language. Assuming god exists his opinion on what "good" is would trump Marriam and Webster.

Well, except if it was said 2000 years ago?

No, it wouldn't. It would just be as acceptable. Actually Merriam and Webster would win, because that is teh definition of good we accepted in the language (free will).