 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
Cajun
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jul 28th, 2008 |
| Location: | Peckerwood., USA |
| Posts: | 802 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: |  |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 03:20 pm |
|
I was being tongue in cheek. I've never believed the hype about the US, though I am certainly proud of the US and to be a US citizen.
____________________
Like water on a duck.
|
ChadE
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jun 23rd, 2008 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 251 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 03:30 pm |
|
| Agreed.
|
Ronson
Ronson
| Joined: | Sun Aug 19th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 529 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: |   |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 05:07 pm |
|
Aldaron wrote: You've gotta be kidding?!?
So when the US invades a sovereign state on a tissue-thin wad of lies, it's okay and everyone should just shut the fuck up and deal with it.
I never said any such thing.
But when Russia does something similar, it's a resurrection of the Cold War and the US feels it has the moral high ground to tell Russia to get out of Georgia?
The WEST (including the EU) is taking a stand on behalf of Georgia. YOU said "the U.S."
Damn, but some of you guys really do think the rules apply to everyone but you, don't you?
Team America, fuck yeah...
Listen, you unsophisticated bumpkin... The next time you feel an emotional outburst coming on, especially when accompanied by a lack of comprehension, try getting in out of the sun.Last edited on Wed Aug 20th, 2008 05:08 pm by Ronson
____________________
"This idea that there is no logic in heaven seems illogical to me." ~~~~ Stiggy
|
Evelyn
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Sun Aug 19th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 589 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 05:34 pm |
|
Cajun wrote: Evelyn wrote: the Vikings and Northern Europeans really haven't had that much affect on the Jewish people I think, much less Israel.
So where are the Germans in biblical prophecy regarding the Jewish people? They did quite e number back there in the 30s and 40s....
In general the Germans would follow with the Old Testament proclaimations and prophecies about the Jewish people continuing to be oppressed.
While the Holocaust was no doubt the most aggressive and expansive effort in European history to oppress and obliterate the Jewish people, it was by no means the only time such oppression of the Jews (specifically in Europe) occured, nor did it occur due to a new thought in the psyche of one person with no correlation to previous, European culture and history.
It could be argued that the Holocaust was a culmination of over 1,500 years of European bigotry and xenophobia. Of course, it still occurs among some with the continued oppression of the Romas.
Even if - and to a degree it certainly was - due to a warped understanding and interpretation of who was to blame for Christ's death, surely a couple of centuries of Enlightenment and a growing movement of secularism in Europe thru the late 1700's and especially the 1800's should have seen a reduction in the bigotry towards the Jewish people. And yet it continued. Christian religious views then cannot be soley blamed for the culmination that was the Holocaust.
There are references in the Bible that seem to correlate to Europeans as a whole, and perhaps some individual tribes/groups. However, many literalists of a Roman view of the End Times certainly see plenty of references to Europe via the Roman Empire when interpreting the Bible (often taking a verse discussing Babylon and correlating it to Rome, thus seeing it as figurative)... and the Roman Empire could be said to have continued with the Holy Roman Empire ( as well as portions of the original whole Empire) into much/if not all, of what is modern Germany.
The Bible doesn't talk about quite a lot of things, and at the same time it does talk about a number of specific people and issues. That Germany or the Holocaust isn't mentioned in the Bible doesn't negate the importance of that event or people, or End Time prophecies, their relevance or eventual occurance.
What people often fail to consider is that while the Old Testament is relevant for the world, just as the New Testament is, it was written by Jews, for Jews and discussing people and places with whom they interacted. It's because of this backdrop that is apparent throughout the OT that some theologians throughout the ages have disregarded a Roman/European paradigm to the end times and instead have placed more consideration to an arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim paradigm.
Consider as well that as far as might and power are concerned, and having a relationship with the Jewish people, one might expect to read about the British People or the United States in the Bible. Yet neither are mentioned, and only by taking an extremely allegorical interpretation (that throws a lot of context and summation out the window) will one come to the belief that the US is the end time power mentioned in the Bible.
Euro-Asian people mentioned in the Bible:
Sycthians, Gomer, Togarmah, Javan, Kittim, Rome (in the NT). The Sycthians, Gomer and Togarmah are understood to have been from the region of northern Turkey, the Caucasus', Ukraine and the Western portions of current Russia. Kittim may be about Europeans. It seems up for debate. Also, the city of Tarshish is often mentioned and some put it in Greece, Spain or far England!
Some theologians, like Jerome have equated the Germanic tribes with the Assyrians, but this seems to be a purely allegorical take.
In the end, this is what I find so facinating about Biblical prophecies, to figure out and discover how they are correctly interpreted. In reality they'll only truly be interpreted in hindsight, though with so many interpretations and views on eschatological passages, I'd think that at least a few people have struck on the correct posits.
"And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. . . and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand" (Dan. 12:8-10) Anotherwords, people won't be able to understand or correctly interpret the end times until it's upon them. It's sort of like a puzzle and trying to put it together without the picture. It gets hard to start it at first, and you organize it by the corners and color patterns, but as you build it, it gets easier to put together. So too in life, as young people, immature and inexperienced we don't understand many things (even into old age this is still true), yet as we get older and gain maturity and experience, we gradually begin to understand more and more things.
So, from a very allegorical standpoint, Germany may well be mentioned in the Bible. It's certainly mentioned as are all people indirectly as Gentiles, the world and those generally interacting with God's chosen people and those adopted into the bosom of Abraham. But, from a literal standpoint, Germany and many important and pivitol events in history, especially that which was important to the Jewish people, is not mentioned.
Exactly the situation you'd expect if the people who wrote the OT actually only could write what people living in the vicinity of Israel would know and think on their own. In other words, exactly the result you'd expect if God was not giving them info but they were just using their own knowledge and imagination.
|
Cajun
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jul 28th, 2008 |
| Location: | Peckerwood., USA |
| Posts: | 802 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 06:24 pm |
|
Evelyn wrote:
Exactly the situation you'd expect if the people who wrote the OT actually only could write what people living in the vicinity of Israel would know and think on their own. In other words, exactly the result you'd expect if God was not giving them info but they were just using their own knowledge and imagination.
Still doesn't negate the supernatural. The only people who're negating it are those who refuse to believe that it's possible. That is, that even if something seems mundane, God can have some hand in it, either by guidance, visions, inspiration or direct handiwork.
That Christians and especially Judaism sees the scriptures as more than just something written by men with no supernatural hand, and that both believe that prophecies were given and many fulfilled, would at the very least give me pause to leave myself open to possibilities instead of completely closed out of doubt due to a purely secular view of the world and anything related to God.
____________________
Like water on a duck.
|
ChadE
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jun 23rd, 2008 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 251 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 09:23 pm |
|
Cajun wrote:
Still doesn't negate the supernatural. The only people who're negating it are those who refuse to believe that it's possible. That is, that even if something seems mundane, God can have some hand in it, either by guidance, visions, inspiration or direct handiwork.
Of course, that illustrates precisely the fact that nothing can ever negate the supernatural, other than people who don't believe things whose best argument is, "You can't prove it isn't so."
Evelyn pointed out that the scriptures in question look exactly like they would if they were done without supernatural influence. Replying that this doesn't negate the supernatural is meaningless, since nothing ever could.
|
Cajun
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jul 28th, 2008 |
| Location: | Peckerwood., USA |
| Posts: | 802 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 10:41 pm |
|
Yup.
Just like atheists cannot prove that God doesn't exist.
____________________
Like water on a duck.
|
ChadE
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jun 23rd, 2008 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 251 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 10:46 pm |
|
Cajun wrote:
Yup.
Just like atheists cannot prove that God doesn't exist.
Just like that. Theists seem to think that this is a strength of their worldview, even though they seem to recognize that it isn't a strength of Last Thursdayism.
|
JR
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Fri Jul 11th, 2008 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 113 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Wed Aug 20th, 2008 11:30 pm |
|
ChadE wrote: Cajun wrote:
Yup.
Just like atheists cannot prove that God doesn't exist.
Just like that. Theists seem to think that this is a strength of their worldview, even though they seem to recognize that it isn't a strength of Last Thursdayism.
Really? Theists do? Or maybe just *some* theists?
And I tend to think that theists who talk this way are just doing a poor job of explaining what they really mean. In my experience, for the typical genuine* Christian the explanation usually has to do with personal "religious" experiences, crappy rehashes of the teleological/cosmological argument, or because the ideas in the religion (the theology) compels them in a way they can't quite pin down.
*I reserve the right to be a judgmental fundamentalist who draws strict lines of orthodoxy to rule out what I consider to be heretical individuals.
|
Aldaron
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jun 23rd, 2008 |
| Location: | Australia |
| Posts: | 1321 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 12:14 am |
|
I never said any such thing.
Bush did.
The WEST (including the EU) is taking a stand on behalf of Georgia. YOU said "the U.S."
The "WEST" (including the EU) didn't invade Iraq.
Listen, you unsophisticated bumpkin... The next time you feel an emotional outburst coming on, especially when accompanied by a lack of comprehension, try getting in out of the sun.
Listen, you sophisticated urbanite...the next time you feel an emotional reaction coming on, especially when accompanied by a lack of referencing, try hiring Team America, World Police and sticking it in your DVD player (yeah, we have 'em down here!).
Then you might get the reference...
____________________
|
HardyHeaven
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Thu Apr 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1170 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 01:52 am |
|
Cajun - can you catch me up on where we are wrt the 10 nation, one-world power that is spoken of in prophesy. I'm rusty because I haven't studied pre-trib in so long. I'd research on my own if it weren't for a pounding combination headache-toothache I'm gritting through tonight.
There are supposed to be 12 nations, but 2 fall away, leaving 10? Am I recalling that correctly. If so, or if not, how many nations are in the union now?
____________________
If you don't know which God to worship, why don't you start with the one you've been lying to all these years? --A.A. Catchy Phrase #372
|
Evelyn
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Sun Aug 19th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 589 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 04:00 am |
|
Cajun wrote: Evelyn wrote:
Exactly the situation you'd expect if the people who wrote the OT actually only could write what people living in the vicinity of Israel would know and think on their own. In other words, exactly the result you'd expect if God was not giving them info but they were just using their own knowledge and imagination.
Still doesn't negate the supernatural. The only people who're negating it are those who refuse to believe that it's possible. That is, that even if something seems mundane, God can have some hand in it, either by guidance, visions, inspiration or direct handiwork.
That Christians and especially Judaism sees the scriptures as more than just something written by men with no supernatural hand, and that both believe that prophecies were given and many fulfilled, would at the very least give me pause to leave myself open to possibilities instead of completely closed out of doubt due to a purely secular view of the world and anything related to God.
Sure, as Chad has pointed out, it's a non-falsifiable proposition that the Bible was written by divine inspiration. It would seem pretty obvious that a commandment like "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" is a sign that ultimate wisdom is not at work here. If some guy writing a book explaining things to us today included a line that said, "Oh and make sure you kill all the witches," we would all roll our eyes. But if it's in the Bible, Christians just accept it.
I didn't exactly come to this position from a purely secular view of the world and completely closed by doubt. I believed in the Bible for a very long time. And then I just couldn't anymore. I couldn't believe that the greatest wisdom from the source of life included killing witches and homosexuals and adulterers and disobedient children. I couldn't believe that God had chosen one tribe out of all the tribes of the world as his own special favorite. I mean, if I told you that actually it's the Hopi or the Estonians that God loves best, would you take me seriously? I couldn't believe that instead of explaining the germ theory, God would spend pages and pages on how to kill goats and pigeons to pay for accidental sins. And if I were God and I cared about the Jewish people, somewhere in the pages of prophecy, I would have found a way to tell them to do whatever it took to get out of Europe in 1939.
But if people were seeking after God, and writing down what they had intuited, how it seemed to them, then I would think that many of the laws they came up with--such as burying their waste in military encampments, and leaving some grain for the poor to glean, and allowing the land to go fallow every 7th year and allowing land to revert to the poor who sold it away every 49th year--were extremely wise and humane.
Expecting one set of guidelines and instructions to define what is moral and what is immoral in every time and place, under every economic and social condition, is absurd. For much of human history, the greatest human need was for sufficient population to survive, so anything that limited the number of children a couple could bear was not only wrong from a religious point of view, it really felt very wrong to everyone. Even secular people wanted lots of kids. It was a self-evident good. Today it is not. And today we have ways to prevent pregnancy. So the moral rules that made visceral sense to peopple in other times, do not today. Birth control was considered immoral by everyone in 1900. Today even ardent Catholics recognize that it's wrong for most people to have 12 kids. And it's wrong to stop having sex in your marriage if you don't want more kids.
Times change. Reality changes. Laws that were really good laws in 1700 or 1200 or 300 BC are no longer good laws. Why should they be?
Last edited on Thu Aug 21st, 2008 04:06 am by Evelyn
|
Ronson
Ronson
| Joined: | Sun Aug 19th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 529 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 04:34 am |
|
Should anyone assume that all Australians agree with the person quoted below - after all, Australians elected John Howard, and he sent troops into Iraq under false pretenses:
"I continue to be infuriated by the suggestion we went to war on a lie," said Mr Howard in an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph. "The intelligence may have been flawed, but it was not made up."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/2218686/John-Howard,-former-Australian-PM,-defends-the-overthrow-of-Saddam-Hussein.html
Well, of course not all Australians agree with Howard. Any rational non-Australian obviously realises this. So why is it that I always hear Australians assuming that political leaders in other countries represent the thoughts of all their citizens? Is it just a coincidence or is there a systemic explanation for it?
____________________
"This idea that there is no logic in heaven seems illogical to me." ~~~~ Stiggy
|
Aldaron
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jun 23rd, 2008 |
| Location: | Australia |
| Posts: | 1321 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 04:41 am |
|
Ronson wrote: Should anyone assume that all Australians agree with the person quoted below - after all, Australians elected John Howard, and he sent troops into Iraq under false pretenses:
"I continue to be infuriated by the suggestion we went to war on a lie," said Mr Howard in an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph. "The intelligence may have been flawed, but it was not made up."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/2218686/John-Howard,-former-Australian-PM,-defends-the-overthrow-of-Saddam-Hussein.html
Well, of course not all Australians agree with Howard. Any rational non-Australian obviously realises this. So why is it that I always hear Australians assuming that political leaders in other countries represent the thoughts of all their citizens? Is it just a coincidence or is there a systemic explanation for it?
I dunno, do you always hear that?
'Cos you didn't hear it from me. Let me restate what I said - with emphasis:
Damn, but some of you guys really do think the rules apply to everyone but you, don't you?
Not even "most of you guys". Just "some".
Yet it seems to touch a raw nerve...why is that?
____________________
|
Ronson
Ronson
| Joined: | Sun Aug 19th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 529 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 05:20 am |
|
Aldaron wrote: I dunno, do you always hear that?
'Cos you didn't hear it from me...
It was an illustration. You attached your comments to my OP with the inference that I support Bush and the war in Iraq. And in both cases that would be incorrect. I was making a statement about how Russia has lately been behaving like the Soviet Union. I made no comments about U.S. policies or inferences about what the common Russian believes, and I most certainly didn't expect to be accused of supporting that which I do not, or to have it laced with profanity.
Let me restate what I said - with emphasis:
Damn, but some of you guys really do think the rules apply to everyone but you, don't you?
Not even "most of you guys". Just "some".
That's disingenuous. You attached it to my OP so it was meant for me.
Yet it seems to touch a raw nerve...why is that?
The same nerve would react if someone accused me of being a Nazi, or a child molester. Because I am neither, nor do I approve of them.
____________________
"This idea that there is no logic in heaven seems illogical to me." ~~~~ Stiggy
|
Aldaron
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jun 23rd, 2008 |
| Location: | Australia |
| Posts: | 1321 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 05:35 am |
|
It was an illustration. You attached your comments to my OP with the inference that I support Bush and the war in Iraq. And in both cases that would be incorrect. I was making a statement about how Russia has lately been behaving like the Soviet Union. I made no comments about U.S. policies or inferences about what the common Russian believes, and I most certainly didn't expect to be accused of supporting that which I do not, or to have it laced with profanity.
"Laced" with profanity? Twice, I used the word "fuck". Once was as part of a common colloquialism: "Shut the fuck up". The second was as part of the title of a song from a movie called Team America, World Police.
If you're so sensitive about the occasional swear word, maybe you should stick to places where nobody's allowed to swear.
That's disingenuous. You attached it to my OP so it was meant for me.
Of course the answer was meant for you. But if you have somehow twisted the meaning of "some of you guys" into meaning "all of you guys" (which you were, by your reference to John Howard staying stuff that wasn't what all Australians thought, so why would Australians assume all Americans agree with Bush), there's not a lot I can do about it.
"Some of you guys". Most people would grok that this means "not all of you guys" or even "not a majority of you guys."
There's nothing disingenuous about saying exactly what I mean: "Some of you guys" is exactly what I meant. You misunderstanding me is not me being disingenuous, it's you making a mistake.
The same nerve would react if someone accused me of being a Nazi, or a child molester. Because I am neither, nor do I approve of them.
And you know, if I'd said "All Americans think Bush did the right thing invading Iraq", you might have a point.
But since I used your post on the subject as a jumping-off point and said that "SOME" (ie: not all, not even a majority) of "YOU GUYS" (Americans) think "A", I'm still completely at a loss as how you think I've just accused all Americans of thnking "A".
I don't know if you do or don't, and I frankly don't give a shit either way (ooooh! There's that profanity again!). I was referring to the FACT that the Bush administration is whining about Russia invading South Ossetia, and that it has absolutely no credibility when it comes to international diplomacy. Nor do the SOME OF YOU GUYS who agree with him.
See that? Again? Not ALL OF YOU GUYS.
SOME.
Repeat it a few times and it'll sink in. SOME.
____________________
|
Cajun
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jul 28th, 2008 |
| Location: | Peckerwood., USA |
| Posts: | 802 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 06:00 am |
|
HardyHeaven wrote: Cajun - can you catch me up on where we are wrt the 10 nation, one-world power that is spoken of in prophesy. I'm rusty because I haven't studied pre-trib in so long. I'd research on my own if it weren't for a pounding combination headache-toothache I'm gritting through tonight.
There are supposed to be 12 nations, but 2 fall away, leaving 10? Am I recalling that correctly. If so, or if not, how many nations are in the union now?
Oy!
A lot of the discussion about 10 and 12 nations has to do with references in Daniel and Revelation. I guess the ten toes of the statue (though the toes are never directly noted, only the feet (foots  ) as a whole) and the horns and crowns on the beast in Revelation.
My off the cuff knowledge about the details of the one world power is a bit rusty myself, and it's late and I should be in bed (will hear about it from my wife).
Suffice to say, that for a number of years hardcore pretribbers have speculated that the UN or something similar to it might be the world power and the 10 nations would instead be 10 regions. There's current circumstantial evidence that some pretribbers use to support this posit. Then there's some that pointed to the EU as the rebirth of the Roman Empire... only thing is, there's more than 10 member nations. Both positions borrow from each other and coalesce. Both positions have pluses and minuses, chinks in the theories.
One of the more interesting points that has helped steer me away from a Roman/UN/EU, whatever paradigm is the Hebrew wording in Daniel describing the feet of the statue. The feet are mixed iron and clay. The hebrew word for mixed is literally, 'arab'. The Hebrews considered the arab people an ethnically mixed people long, long ago, and that same exact word was used to describe the feet of the statue. Mixed but not cohesive. Furthermore, the legs of iron are distinctly seperate. Some drawings that you may see of the statue will show the legs together, but anatomically, legs are not joined together. The two legs are then seperate from the girdle. The position of many over the years has been that the legs symbolize the original Roman Empire and perhaps to a degree a description of its seperation into Eastern and Western Empires. The feet then are supposed to be the reborn Empire... and thus the toe/horn imagery becomes combined. Quite a contextual feat (punny). Some flaws are readily apparent though. The Roman Empire as a single unit existed for quite a while before splitting. Also, the Eastern Empire continued on for nearly a millenia after the Western Empire fell (And in the interim there was also the rebirth of the Western Empire via the Holy Roman Empire).
An Islamic paradigm makes a little more sense when taking the Old Testament as a whole. Islam was effectively split from the death of Mohammad to this day. Some also posit that in some ways, the End Times may actually be more of a local affair rather than a literal, global affair... puts a new spin on the thinking of a number of Biblical issues.
____________________
Like water on a duck.
|
Cajun
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Mon Jul 28th, 2008 |
| Location: | Peckerwood., USA |
| Posts: | 802 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 06:02 am |
|
Evelyn wrote:
Times change. Reality changes. Laws that were really good laws in 1700 or 1200 or 300 BC are no longer good laws. Why should they be?
Well, feel free to murder, steal and commit adultery all you want, because evidently they're no longer good laws since time and reality has changed.
____________________
Like water on a duck.
|
HardyHeaven
Dialogue Facilitator
| Joined: | Thu Apr 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1170 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 01:12 pm |
|
Cajun wrote: HardyHeaven wrote: Cajun - can you catch me up on where we are wrt the 10 nation, one-world power that is spoken of in prophesy. I'm rusty because I haven't studied pre-trib in so long. I'd research on my own if it weren't for a pounding combination headache-toothache I'm gritting through tonight.
There are supposed to be 12 nations, but 2 fall away, leaving 10? Am I recalling that correctly. If so, or if not, how many nations are in the union now?
Oy!
A lot of the discussion about 10 and 12 nations has to do with references in Daniel and Revelation. I guess the ten toes of the statue (though the toes are never directly noted, only the feet (foots ) as a whole) and the horns and crowns on the beast in Revelation.
My off the cuff knowledge about the details of the one world power is a bit rusty myself, and it's late and I should be in bed (will hear about it from my wife).
Suffice to say, that for a number of years hardcore pretribbers have speculated that the UN or something similar to it might be the world power and the 10 nations would instead be 10 regions. There's current circumstantial evidence that some pretribbers use to support this posit. Then there's some that pointed to the EU as the rebirth of the Roman Empire... only thing is, there's more than 10 member nations. Both positions borrow from each other and coalesce. Both positions have pluses and minuses, chinks in the theories.
One of the more interesting points that has helped steer me away from a Roman/UN/EU, whatever paradigm is the Hebrew wording in Daniel describing the feet of the statue. The feet are mixed iron and clay. The hebrew word for mixed is literally, 'arab'. The Hebrews considered the arab people an ethnically mixed people long, long ago, and that same exact word was used to describe the feet of the statue. Mixed but not cohesive. Furthermore, the legs of iron are distinctly seperate. Some drawings that you may see of the statue will show the legs together, but anatomically, legs are not joined together. The two legs are then seperate from the girdle. The position of many over the years has been that the legs symbolize the original Roman Empire and perhaps to a degree a description of its seperation into Eastern and Western Empires. The feet then are supposed to be the reborn Empire... and thus the toe/horn imagery becomes combined. Quite a contextual feat (punny). Some flaws are readily apparent though. The Roman Empire as a single unit existed for quite a while before splitting. Also, the Eastern Empire continued on for nearly a millenia after the Western Empire fell (And in the interim there was also the rebirth of the Western Empire via the Holy Roman Empire).
An Islamic paradigm makes a little more sense when taking the Old Testament as a whole. Islam was effectively split from the death of Mohammad to this day. Some also posit that in some ways, the End Times may actually be more of a local affair rather than a literal, global affair... puts a new spin on the thinking of a number of Biblical issues.
Thanks for supplying that interesting perspective. Much food for thought and study here. It's been a long time since I was fascinated/obsessed with pre-trib eschatology. lol. You certainly caught my attention with your post about the planets and the Jewish calendar - and Russia being 'on the move' isn't helping to ease my discomfort/anticipation. More will be revealed I guess.
____________________
If you don't know which God to worship, why don't you start with the one you've been lying to all these years? --A.A. Catchy Phrase #372
|
Ronson
Ronson
| Joined: | Sun Aug 19th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 529 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21st, 2008 02:16 pm |
|
Aldaron wrote:
If you're so sensitive about the occasional swear word, maybe you should stick to places where nobody's allowed to swear.
Where I come from profanity is the language of adolescents and gang bangers. Perhaps it's elitist elsewhere but it's still unimpressive.
Of course the answer was meant for you. But if you have somehow twisted the meaning of "some of you guys" into meaning "all of you guys" (which you were, by your reference to John Howard staying stuff that wasn't what all Australians thought, so why would Australians assume all Americans agree with Bush), there's not a lot I can do about it.
The difference being that if an Australian commented on Chinese aggression, I wouldn't automatically start throwing John Howard in his face as though he's personally responsible for him. That was the illustration.
And you know, if I'd said "All Americans think Bush did the right thing invading Iraq", you might have a point.
Then why mention Bush at all? Because I'm American? And that my credility is somehow interlinked with his? And therefore I have no position to speak? The Cold War was between the Soviet Union and the West - not just the United States. I never even mentioned the U.S. in my OP. The equivalent would be you talking about some problem among South Pacific nations and I responded by complaining about how Australia has no credibility to speak on any issue so long as it has troops in Iraq.
I was referring to the FACT that the Bush administration is whining about Russia invading South Ossetia...
Along with the a whole pack of western democracies and members of NATO, all of whom Russia has been thumbing its nose at. I'd say France has actually been the most vocal among them all. So again, why mention Bush?
and that it has absolutely no credibility when it comes to international diplomacy. Nor do the SOME OF YOU GUYS who agree with him.
Let me guess, the Rudd administration has also been whining about Russia invading South Ossetia, and that it has absolutely no credibility when it comes to international diplomacy. Nor do the SOME OF YOU GUYS who agree with him. But I'm just saying SOME of you guys. Don't take it personally.
____________________
"This idea that there is no logic in heaven seems illogical to me." ~~~~ Stiggy
|
Current time is 11:06 am | Page:   1 2 3   |
|
|
|
|
