ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

Whew... looks like we missed another Apocalypse! Not sure how many I've managed to survive, but it's got to be getting up close to 2 digits.



Yes, the world was supposed to end - AGAIN! - yesterday.

http://www.goddiscussion.com/96941/hang-on-to-your-socks-for-a-memorable-memorial-day-weekend-jesus-is-scheduled-to-return-may-27-and-the-worldwide-church-of-god-will-reunite/

No, it's not Harold Camping this time; Camping was the one who predicted the end of the world last year and is probably the only man in history to predict it TWICE in a single year. After making unsuccessful predictions for 1988 and 1994 one might think he'd learn... but no.

The story gets more interesting when it's learned our most recent predictor is also up on criminal charges for tax evasion.


http://www.fox19.com/story/18599234/church-of-god-pastor-indicted-for-tax-evasion-predicts-coming-of-christ

I guess this makes Weinland the first person in history to predict the end of the world in hopes of avoiding jail.

There ain't no loons like religious loons!

SpeedyWilson Loc: Upstate South Carolina

It's a good thing that for every religious weirdo who makes the news, there are thousands of normal religious people just going about their daily routines .... raising their families and trying to do good to others as often as they can.

These people hardly ever get notoriety, and the world is a better place because of the good deeds they do to show God's love to others.

derekmadge Loc: Waterloo, Ontario,Canada

I'm glad you said that. I know dozens of such people, hundreds, if you count all the people I've met in churches, at the university I work at, at charitable car washes, youth groups, and similar settings over the years. Not one of them is perfect and there have been a few extreme views expressed over the years. And most of those people, I'm pretty sure, would decry the ignorance and treachery of religious nuts. But it's the nuts who get the attention, not the car wash to raise funds for an orphanage or the study group trying to refine the connections they have to their spirituality.

Worse, it's the nuts who "define" what non-religious people may thing religion is about.

Danilo Loc: Las Vegas

On a positive note: I don't really think the good things people do, in the name of religion or otherwise, go unnoticed.
But you're right in saying the radicals get more attention than they deserve.

sinatraman Loc: Vero Beach Florida, Earth,alpha quaudrant

people who predict the exact date that the rapture WILL occur, do not know scripture, or are minions of the prince of darkness, trying to lull the world into complacency. Look around at the world, even the earth is crying out. more earthquakes even in areas that dont get earthquakes like Dc. The last two years of killer tornadoes,never have i seen more fatalities. the soon to happen economic destruction of europe when greece defaults. the rise in new diseases like bird flu ebola, and hiv. The rising wave of anti semitism in europe, and the rising wave of anti christianity in america especially the media, and especialy aol's huffington posst. Look at the lack of morality in society, the more this society is becoming jerry springer esque.
If the specific date people had read Matthew 24: 36-37. " BUT OF THAT DAY AND HOUR KNOWETH NO MAN,NO,NOT THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN BUT MY FATHER ONLY. BUT AS THE DAYS OF NOAH WERESO SHALL ALSO THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN BE. ( words of Jesus.) they would have realized they were being bambozzeled! Another false idea put forth by these false prophets, and minions of Satan is that the world will end at that time. Read the book of revelation, at that day, Jesus will call home all those living and dead who have/had a relationship with him. Those who are left have aproximately 7 years left. In this time God withdraws his protection from the earth and people will sink to their base level of depravity except in Israel. A war against Israel will occur that the man who is really the antichrist will end. people will think he is kind and helpfull and will swept him/her into world power. three years into the peace treaty, he is going to demand to be worshiped as a god in the newly rebuilt temple in jeurusalem and watch out all hell breaks loose. But if you read the end of the book those who are obedient to the Lord win out in the end.


I would also like to add that the world scoffed at noah for building an ark, up till the momenet the first raindrops fell.

ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

No evidence anyone scoffed Noah. No evidence Noah ever lived. No evidence of a worldwide flood.

Don't you think it curious that no one has put forth a time line for this supposed flood that can be matched with time lines for extant civilizations?

Roughly, when did this greatest cataclysm take place and how does that dating fit in with commonly accepted chronologies around the world?

SpeedyWilson Loc: Upstate South Carolina

There's no way to present undeniable evidence of a worldwide flood during the time of Noah. Any information presented will be accepted by some people, and totaly rejected by others.

However, for different viewpoints, you can start here:

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=noah's+flood+evidence&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest&safe=active&as_qdr=all#q=noah%27s+flood+evidence&hl=en&safe=active&client=opera&hs=2LD&rls=en&channel=suggest&as_qdr=all&prmd=imvns&ei=SzTET9LBLJKo8QSN-4DPCw&start=0&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=4b0b65d85f967e06&biw=1272&bih=922

I wish everyone well in their search for truth ... which might just be closer than you think.

SpeedyWilson Loc: Upstate South Carolina

All of us, believers and non-believers, should be glad we live in America, and not in some other countries:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/man-faces-five-years-for-8216god-does-not-exist-facebook-post/7796

At least we can still express our opinions and beliefs.

Mytherwyn Loc: United States

Well I always believed he would come back, not on a certain day but....and I bet the world did end on the 27th...for some.

derekmadge Loc: Waterloo, Ontario,Canada

I cannot recall the documentary, on either a mainstream network or more likely, an educational network, but there was one several years ago that put forward - with fairly good evidence - a good time line for The Flood and the likely resting location. Wood remains may or may not have belonged to the Ark.

Now, the "world" flood was most likely not around the globe but a very large section of the biblical lands, according to the documentary. Which makes the most sense to me.
I teach Sunday school (I tell the kids the story and open up the discussion- I do not know the anser and won't pretend to) and have always had a problem with this story being the "whole" story. God punishes sinners; Drowns thousands of animals and people.... that'll teach them! Then relents and promises it'll never happen again. I suspect there is some very human interpretation of events in this story.

As for the end of the world, well, apocolyptic literature and religious doctrine has been around for a long time, in various religions. The end of the world has been predicted for uncounted generations and I have to ask why God would decide on any particular generation to exterminate His people. Surely Hitler's generation - or some of them, deserved it. Or Stalin's, Or Ghenghis Kahn's. Or the Roman emporer's. Of Grog, the caveman who wiped out his enemy's village with rocks.

To me, anyway, Christianity is not about smiting, but about the teachings of Jesus. his religious training was based in ancient jewish doctrine, yes, and he did refer to the end of the world. But that was not what he taught.

SpeedyWilson Loc: Upstate South Carolina

I took this picture at a gas station near Newberry, SC yesterday afternoon, as the remnants of tropical storm Beryl passed by.

I was again reminded of God's promise:

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:
I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,
I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.
Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
Genesis 9:12-16 NIV

SpeedyWilson Loc: Upstate South Carolina

There was no pot of gold, but there were golden arches ....

ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

So the bible is wrong. Or, at least, grossly overblown a small flood into a worldwide catastrophe. And I don't know anyone - other than the most adamant biblical inerrantists - who have any problem with it. Of course, if that part of the bible is wrong, what other parts are wrong?

Unfortunately, it is the inerrantists who are driving much of American politics today. The anti-women, anti-humanist, anti-science, anti-progressive, anti-everything but their own belief in the absolute truth of the bible.

They are leading the nation down the road to perdition.

derekmadge Loc: Waterloo, Ontario,Canada

I agree with most of that. I was raised a Christian, wandered away then came back over time. The more I question, probe and investigate, the more I respect the spirirtuality inherent in the religion...and the more interest I have in the way people relate today and likely related way back, to concepts of divinity, origin, an all-powerful God, a force for justice and equality, an everyday factor in their life.

And then there is the apparent dichotomy of a God in the old testament killing off some of His people while others had Him on their side, vs. the kind, loving and providing God that Jesus taught about. Either man's interpretation came heavily into the OT, in some places or, as Rabbi Kushner (Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People) suggests, maybe God, grew, changed and matured (my paraphrasing) over time as did mankind. In which case, He was not omniscient; some would call that fallible, others would call that being more connected with people, fallible people.

I've never thought of every single word of the King James version - the one I was mostly raised with- to be literally true. That version, for instance, resulted from James's biblical scholars restudying and reinterpreting original texts, with contemporary translations littered about the "Christian" world. Scripts have been translated and retranslated through time. Some texts have been dismissed or reinterpreted.

Getting back to the "bible is wrong". In my opinion, (and it is an uneducated one- I did not study religion further than a few courses in college) the bible is a collection of writings, over time which are, or are purported to be divinely inspired at the least, or the direct and unleavened word of God, word for word. That last aspect, I cannot buy because all the texts were written by men. Each would have his own slant. Moses brought down the 10 commandments. Verbatim? Who knows. St. Paul, wonderful guy after he stopped killing Christians and became one of their most fervent and intelligent proponents... was still a product of his times.

I still don't have trouble accepting most of the bible as mostly the truth or close to the truth. It is also an historical account of and mirror of the times and geopgraphy that produced the various texts. Everything should be, I think, read and understood in context. Or tired, since context can be misty in some passages but clearly connected to humanity in others.

Yes, the bible has been twisted and corrupted and prostituted to serve political ends. So have other books, quotations and institutions. Today, in the past, and probabably always. That does not mean there is no value in it or that it is all bunkum because some of it is likely literally untrue. (I suspect literalists and inerrantists, a term I hadn't heard before, have driven more potential Christians away from Christianity than Richard Dawkins could.) Even Jesus, when arguing religion in the synagogue, dismissed some aspects of the older texts, (what some of us call the Old Testament) essentially updating the message.

So, circling (finally!) back to the start, the "world" of the flood was most likely the world known to the writer at that time. Does that mean the world was flooded, or not? Doesn't matter, one could argue. The message- God will never destroy all his people again in a flood, and has created a covenant with people, is more important than which shores the receding waters lapped at.

gmcase Loc: Galt's Gulch

I find it interesting that most areas of the earth have been noted by various scientists of having a massive flood at some point in time. For some reason many people accept that but reject a world wide event. Seems odd.