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2012: End of Christianity?

Started by Stoicheion, November 11, 2008, 03:17:17 PM

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Titan

#30
November 20, 2008, 12:10:06 AM
Quote from: "curiosityandthecat"
Quote from: "Wraitchel"Man, for a bunch of atheists, y'all sure talk about religion a lot. :D

Nice, lol

Quotealright so if Heaven is only temporary. What is supposed to happen after it ends?
New Earth... I would go into it further but I don't want to drag you into a discussion of something you aren't that interested in  ;)
"Those who praise the light of fire, but blame it for its heat, should not be listened to, as they judge it according to their comfort or discomfort and not by its nature. They wish to see, but not to be burnt. They forget that this very light which pleases them so much is a discomfort to weak eyes and harms them..."
- St. Augustine

"The soul lives

Arthur Dent

#31
November 20, 2008, 01:59:41 AM
New Earth? What will be different? aka, why would reality ever be anything other than what it is?

Let me guess, "this" is bad and "that" is evil so those things "won't be in new earth" or whatever. New earth will adhere to the will of god, unlike the current earth...  :| and lions will lay with lambs, breaking the most basic of evolutionary truths...
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Titan

#32
November 20, 2008, 02:08:30 AM
Why did you even ask if you were going to mock it?
"Those who praise the light of fire, but blame it for its heat, should not be listened to, as they judge it according to their comfort or discomfort and not by its nature. They wish to see, but not to be burnt. They forget that this very light which pleases them so much is a discomfort to weak eyes and harms them..."
- St. Augustine

"The soul lives

Arthur Dent

#33
November 20, 2008, 02:44:36 AM
Quote from: "Titan"Why did you even ask if you were going to mock it?

I've just heard it all before and it actually offends me, on behalf of science. The notion that there will be a new, better earth, is a failure to understand why this earth is the way it is. The typical, over-optimistic, over-idealistic, "lion and the lamb" view is to suggest that this world is failing to adhere to some intended reality. It's based on nothing more than wishful thinking and a misunderstanding of the natural world.

"No doubt, the universe is unfolding as it should"
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Titan

#34
November 20, 2008, 02:55:22 AM
The idea of a new earth has NOTHING to do with the way this earth is. In fact a rejection of the importance of this world is a theory called neo-Gnosticism which is a deviation from Christianity.

Do you doubt that there are things that ARE wrong with this world? How is an eschatology a proposition to avoid dealing with this world? The two are not mutually exclusive unless you become a utopianist.

As for Christians being "over-optimist" and "over-idealistic" I find this statement rather ridiculous concerning the fact that Christians are the ones who are most actively risking their lives trying to change the world. Furthermore, it is only wishful thinking if it's untrue or likely to be untrue which is a disregard for the evidence.

Again, there is nothing in an eschatological view that makes it counter-productive to an understanding of the natural world.
"Those who praise the light of fire, but blame it for its heat, should not be listened to, as they judge it according to their comfort or discomfort and not by its nature. They wish to see, but not to be burnt. They forget that this very light which pleases them so much is a discomfort to weak eyes and harms them..."
- St. Augustine

"The soul lives

Arthur Dent

#35
November 20, 2008, 04:05:46 AM
Titan, I apologize for addressing a preconceived notion of this new earth you mention.

I have been strongly fed an image of a christian-rooted new earth, so that is what I was sort of speaking to. I constantly face people who feel that god had a very set path for this earth, and that man screwed it up, (the bible pushes this notion as well). The resultant conclusion that this earth has deviated from some sort of plan that will one day be enforced is what really offends me. I think you can appreciate the true reason of my frustrations however: defeatism. So many people have a desire for god to come down and burn the wicked, end evil, etc so they simply wait for it to happen.

YES, there are things that are very wrong in this world, but all of these conditions exist from a very specific reason and there is no kingdom coming that will fix them. poverty, disease, famine all have clear causes and we can and should fix them.

"Again, there is nothing in an eschatological view that makes it counter-productive to an understanding of the natural world."

I still feel the entire notion of "there's another world coming/god's going to fix this" is a defeatist, denial mentality. We're simply at a point in our evolution where "morality" is in the forefront of our minds, and the cruel natural world "simply can't be so".
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Titan

#36
November 20, 2008, 04:17:55 AM
Again, it is only a defeatist mentality if people believe that the only thing that matters is the after-life. If that was the case then why wouldn't God want us to commit suicide as soon as we believed? Because this world matters, or it should matter, to a Christian. We are caretakers and God says that the world is good (which is a stark contrast to so many other religions where the world is created out of the slaying of an evil monster or some such thing).
"Those who praise the light of fire, but blame it for its heat, should not be listened to, as they judge it according to their comfort or discomfort and not by its nature. They wish to see, but not to be burnt. They forget that this very light which pleases them so much is a discomfort to weak eyes and harms them..."
- St. Augustine

"The soul lives

Stoicheion

#37
November 20, 2008, 04:39:38 AM
okay okay calm down guys.

Titan, i'm very interested; go ahead and take the time to explain in depth what the New Earth is supposed to be, and support your ideas por favor. I'd also love it if you provided us lines from the Bible.
[size=85]So why does there only have to be one correct philosophy?
I don't wanna go and follow you just to end up like one of them
And why are you always telling me what you want me to believe?
I'd like to think that I can go my own way and meet you in the end
Go my own way and meet you in the end
"Same Direction" - Hoobastank
[/size]

Titan

#38
November 20, 2008, 04:43:19 AM
Let me do that tomorrow, it will take a little while to pull together the resources and I'll be honest, I don't have them off the top of my head : /
"Those who praise the light of fire, but blame it for its heat, should not be listened to, as they judge it according to their comfort or discomfort and not by its nature. They wish to see, but not to be burnt. They forget that this very light which pleases them so much is a discomfort to weak eyes and harms them..."
- St. Augustine

"The soul lives

Stoicheion

#39
November 20, 2008, 04:51:15 AM
Quote from: "Titan"Let me do that tomorrow, it will take a little while to pull together the resources and I'll be honest, I don't have them off the top of my head : /
no prob, take your time. I'm sure it'll be worth it
[size=85]So why does there only have to be one correct philosophy?
I don't wanna go and follow you just to end up like one of them
And why are you always telling me what you want me to believe?
I'd like to think that I can go my own way and meet you in the end
Go my own way and meet you in the end
"Same Direction" - Hoobastank
[/size]

Arthur Dent

#40
November 20, 2008, 06:04:39 AM
My parents and friends have the defeatist, divisive mindset, hoping that god will one day make everything the way it was "supposed to be", which to me is just offensive lol. There is nothing in the universe that says reality has to cater to our contentions. The only reason there is so much controversy at this instant is that we are self aware and apparently unsatisfied.

I see no reason why life won't simply continue the same way it has for billions of years, constantly shifting form, rubbing elbows with itself, wrenching out new levels of complexity, eventually dying out from either its own collapse or some other catastrophic end (death of the sun, should life be so resilient!).

Humanity WILL end, which is a scary thought... No one knows how, but life can't go on forever  :(

PS - I had a horrible dream last night. Within all of 90 seconds, my dream went from a normal day to the apocalypse. There was a huge disaster with flames and explosions and I was on a helicopter that was crashing to the ground. In my dream I experienced a sensation of the whole world ending, all in one instant. As I looked down at the oncoming ground, I was actually accepting the fact that "this is how it all ends".... It was the scariest feeling I have ever experienced.
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

silentone13

#41
December 03, 2008, 07:17:21 PM
I think Christians and other end of days believers would just go on and act like nothing happened, like they never truly believed it in the first place. Some would also try to say that we just got the day wrong, and as mere mortals were bound to get the day wrong. Others would blame it on nonbelievers,stating that it was their disbelief that caused god to turn his back on us, or some crap like that. They basically would cover it all up in some fashion, just like they do with everything that might prove their belief system wrong. It's happened before, and will most definitely happen again.
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