Incredible End-Times Article by Joseph Farah!

A bunch of circular arguments and fitting statements to events in a post hoc manner. I was especially amused by his "best reason" to believe that the end of the world is nigh.

For many reasons, I believe Jesus is returning soon. But I'm especially drawn to II Timothy 3:1-5, which describes the state of the world in the "last days." Tell me if this doesn't sound like our world:

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
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As you have been told a million times already, people have been characterizing their own times as having such conditions as long as man has been around. when was this golden age that people didn't love money, when children always obeyed their parents, when people didn't gossip etc? Because that time period was apparently left out of every history book I have ever read (and I have read quite a few) And as for the "Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god" part, even if you accept God as a given (which is a whole different argument) clergy throughout history have been characterizing people as having that trait. All in all I think it speaks to the basic nature of humanity than to the existence of a god or to whether that gods wrath is upon us.
 
Blah blah blah, typical end of the world garbage, nothing new. He basically just regurgitates what others have said before.


But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
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What makes this more acurate today than 50 years ago? How about 100? Did you know that before the days of Dr. Kellogg our society was much more open about sex? You don't consider slavery to be one of the worst things humans have ever done? Humans have problems today, but they had problems yesterday and will continue to have problems tomorrow. The world is no worse of than is has been. The only difference is that you live here today and the selfish nature of humans makes you think that this time must be very important because you are here.

Now, billiefan, you may ignore this and continue your habit of preaching by just posting links and not reading the replies.
 
Dragonrock said:
D*mnit Nyarlathotep, I was posting that.
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That's okay. It's the same thing said two different ways. Maybe one of them will click with Billiefan.

I'm not holding my breath but at least the odds of it occuring have gone from one in a billion to one in 500 million.
 
Tell us billiefan, are these the end-times? What's your opinion? Got one, other than "incredible end-times article?"

Remember, we don't have rules on the JREF forum against giving a date-specific prediction, so fell free. Please provide your reasoning.
 
Nyarlathotep said:


That's okay. It's the same thing said two different ways. Maybe one of them will click with Billiefan.

I'm not holding my breath but at least the odds of it occuring have gone from one in a billion to one in 500 million.
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Once billiefan responded directly to me, it was cool, I felt blessed. Granted mine was the first response and I was being a smart-ass, but she was responding to ME!
 
Interestingly, Orthodox Jews have long taught that the world would last for 6,000 years before the Messiah would come and usher in a 1,000-year period of restful human history.

{snip}

From the time of Adam, we've got genealogical records to show that 4,000 years passed until the time of Christ. From Jesus' time until the present age represents another 2,000 years for a total of 6,000 years or six days.
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The problem is, the author is mixing mythologies. Orthodox Jews may or may not believe that the world would last for 6,000 years before the Messiah came (I don't know), but the calculation of how long the world existed before the time of Christ was done by a Catholic monk.

Again, I'm no scholar of Judism, but is there any reason to believe that Orthodox Jews agree with this Catholic calculation?

Regardless, if they are going with the calculation that the world began in 4004 BC, then the 6,000 year mark would have been in 1997 AD. The Messiah is now almost seven years past due.
 
Dragonrock said:


Once billiefan responded directly to me, it was cool, I felt blessed. Granted mine was the first response and I was being a smart-ass, but she was responding to ME!
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Actually, Billiefan responds to me better than half the time. Until the questions get too hard, anyway. But I think it was you who once referred to his having a "tough question alarm" and I think you painted a pretty accurate image with that phrase.

Maybe we shouldn't have started with the tough questions right off the bat, eh?
 
Upchurch said:


Again, I'm no scholar of Judism, but is there any reason to believe that Orthodox Jews agree with this Catholic calculation?
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Essentially...yes.

The math is full of approximations, but it is the 58th century in Judaism.

So to make everything agree with the Judaical side of things, Jesus is gonna have to be late by about 207 years by Christian standards.

See here for more.

http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm
 
Upchurch said:
Fair enough, but I still contend that the messiah is late.
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Perhaps it's fashionable?

I hear the Christ is becoming very cosmopolitan....
 
Upchurch said:

Regardless, if they are going with the calculation that the world began in 4004 BC, then the 6,000 year mark would have been in 1997 AD. The Messiah is now almost seven years past due.
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Actually, he did return about six years ago. I had a chance to interview him for the made up newspaper I work for. Here is a clip:
A very, very prestigious and important publication


I caught up with Jesus in his small studio apartment in Darwin, MN.

Ig: Hi Jesus, real pleasure to meet you. So what brought you to this small town in Minnesota.

JHC: To be honest, it was because I heard that they had the largest ball of twine. I came here and, lo and behold, there is this huge ball of twine right in the middle of the town. I was like; “Holy Crap”…can I say “crap”?

Ig: You’re the messiah.

JHC: Right. So here they have this ball of twine and it is freakin huge. You just have to like a place like this. I guess one thing led to another and I just never left.

Ig: I like the twine too, but didn’t you return for a much bigger purpose.

JHC: Are you going to nag me about the rapture?

Ig: I don’t want to nag you about anything, but it seems like an important question and our readers are curious to know…

JHC: Look, when I left the world was a very different place and people were anxious to get the hell out of here. I promised to return and make things better because it is pretty easy to improve on a world where you work your ass off only to die young. I returned and realized that you people have it made! Check it out, I signed up for Dishnet and now I get a bazillion channels. I can sit here and flip channels and it takes me a whole hour to get through them all! And check this out, I pick up this telephone and a guy will just bring me a pizza! Can you believe that? You pick up and object and then within a half hour some young dude brings you a pizza. It’s even still hot! And the drugs you have now! In my day if you wanted a buzz you had to chew on some nasty tasting weed and…

Ig: (interrupting) Ok, moving on. What do you think about the situation in the Middle East right…

JHC: International news bores the hell out of me and takes up too many cable channels.

Ig: But surely you must have an opinion on Iraq and…

JHC: BOOOOOORING! (covering ears) LA!LA!LA!NOTLISTENING!LA!LA!LA!
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I think all of you that mocked poor billiefan now owe her a serious apology. Also keep in mind that if His tv ever goes out, your heathen asses are toast.
 
I did not read much of the article but just skimmed it and came across this one sentence/statement
For just as Jesus' virgin birth in Bethlehem was foretold by the Hebrew prophets hundreds of years earlier,
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The truth is the statements in the OT are in of course Hebrew.

The passage refereed to is: Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

This passage and translation was developed as it is seen today from Hebrew text but translated in Greek.

The word in the original Hebrew text is almah which means a young woman a maiden of marriageable age.

The word Hebrew for virgin is bthulah
There simply is no mention of a virgin in the original prophecy or for that matter was Jesus named Immanuel.

There are many “OT prophecy” concerning the “savior” that in no way apply to the Christ story.
 
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