Theology is the only field I know of with multiple, irreconcilable paradigms, every one of which is based entirely on conjecture. Objective evidence need not apply.
Do believers never consider the fact that the Rapture can't happen in one day due to the Earth having 24 different time zones and is not a single time zone? That their today is someone's yesterday or someone's tomorrow?
[shrug] If the rapture WAS going to happen, it could occur just as easily at 3 in the morning as at 3 in the afternoon. It could happen any way that an omnipotent deity could decide that it would happen.
Problem is, where is an omnipotent deity when you really NEED one? 🤪
Maybe, just spitballing here, it will be a rolling rapture. One time zone at a time. But what about daylight savings time? Suppose the rapture occurs when the clocks change. Does one time zone get raptured twice while another one gets passed over. What does the Bible say about this?!?!
That's easy to manage: just use sidereal time, maybe key to sunrise at any given location ... though that might make either the North Pole or Antarctica a bit problematic, depending on the time of year! 😁
Me too! I had all the underground comics, you could only get them from a head shop back then. Are you familiar with their Canadian counterpart "Harold Hedd"?
No, I’m not. That was all too long ago, when I was just a wee hippie lad with great hair and paisley bell bottoms. As They say, if you can remember the 60s, you weren’t there.
I imagined a “rolling” rapture as well, starting at the International Date Line at 12:00am Tuesday, and moving west with the clock around the world. That’s the only way the whole world could be raptured on the same day. We’d have a few hours to get ready once we heard it was happening, lol!
When you think about it, the “accepted” view of the rapture is totally based on a flat-earth model.
And this is why I favor science over superstition.
Here's how Carl Sagan put it in his final interview with Charlie Rose back in 1996:
"Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along."
"I am just a believer. A simple believer in Jesus."
Might want to read American history and find out what happened to Africans kidnapped from their homes and sent to this country in chains to be bought, sold and owned by good Christians, Joshie. Even your own holy book endorses slavery.
And come to think of it, how did black South Africans fare under Apatheid rule by the Christian white minority?
So, since there’s only supposed to be 100,000 folks making the cut, it is possible that those who were chosen are already dead and they were raptured. We just couldn’t see it. IIRC no one goes to heaven until the rapture, so everyone is rotting in their graves waiting for god to get off his lazy ass and send them upward.
Now, I am not a believer, I knew this was a big pile of feces, but if there was going to be a rapture, yesterday would have made sense in the story provided. The anti-Christ is in the White House, believers are all wearing the mark of the beast on their foreheads (maga hats), Israel is ethnically cleansing the promised land, climate change is causing fires and floods, it’s all lining up.
As a not exactly retired engineer, I'll agree. And I never used it.
I've talked to two people lately about other math classes I've taken, one was (maybe?) discrete applied mathematics. I couldn't even tell them what it was about.
I used algebra all over the place, particularly to model to Maintenance Training students how software-calibrated amplifiers and measuring instruments used y=mx+b to tweak their linear errors.
Other than that, no, not a lot of higher math in my toolbox.
The Atheist numbers are...........weird. Only 84% don't believe in Jesus? 16% believe in him but he ain't coming back? And Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is up with 1% believing in him *and* that he'll be doing a sequel‽
Well, believing in Jesus might just mean believing there was a guy by that name running around Judea when Pilate was governor, and believing he will return might refer to the guy you hired last week showing up for his shift tomorrow.
I believe there was a man who lived, noticed/said some things, claimed he was the son of God, and committed suicide by doing so. In other words, there’s nothing magical about it.
I've thought about the suicide angle before. If Jesus was divine, it works, considering he had to put himself in a position to die. If he wasn't, it's harder to make the argument that it was intentional, but it might be possible.
Interesting. I see it as intentional (suicide) because anyone claiming to be the son of God must have also known they would be killed for that claim. I don’t see that as proof of being divine at all, but instead being careless with one’s own life.
Until the world runs out of easily manipulated and gullible fools, these religious hoaxes will continue to happen. Believing nonsense is far easier than critical thinking, an undertaking a lot of people find painful in the extreme.
Six Feet Under had it right. I really want to release a truckload of helium filled sex dolls near where these morons gather during the next crapture scam.
I am the Loftiest Radix of the First Church of the Great Carrot. All of you will sink into the hallowed ground to spend your life with The Orange Perfection... just as soon as you transfer all of your worldly assets over to me!
Amusingly enough, my grandfather used to occasionally talk about being the Grand Goslin of The Sons And Daughters Of I Shall Arise, claiming they were having a meeting whenever he was invited to something he didn't care to attend for whatever reason.
… NBC: “ICE agents held a 5-year-old autistic girl outside her Massachusetts home to pressure her father to surrender to authorities last week, according to the girl's family. A video of the incident shows a young girl surrounded by what appears to be several male law enforcement agents outside of her home in Leominster, MA. The girl is sitting beside what appears to be a law enforcement SUV and holding a bottle while encircled by the several men.
… The girl’s mother in the video: "They took my daughter, she’s 5-years-old. She has autism spectrum. Give me my daughter back!"
… The woman said that her husband called her while he was driving with their daughter shortly before the incident and told her he thought he was being followed. Her husband, Edward Hip, drove home and "managed to run back into the parking lot of my house, but they grabbed her.”
… The video appears to then show authorities trying to coax the girl's father out of his home: "Is that your daughter? Come here so I can see those IDs."
Fuck those ICE Gestapo goons, Fuck Kristi Gnome, Fuck bribe accepting non-human thumb head Tom Homan, Fuck Nazi Stephen Miller, Fuck tRump, and Fuck all Repukicans. And Fuck dead Charlie Kirk. Have I left anybody out?
Not the first time it happened. William Miller, who lived in the 1800s', made such false predictions that lead many of his 100,000 of his stupid, gullible followers to sell all their belongings, put on white robes and meet him at a secluded location to wait in anticipation for Jesus to show up. Day came and went, but Jesus never showed up at all. Yet Miller was stupid enough to try again and again and the gullible Christians all believed him time and time again in spite of facing one great disappointment after another until the day he died and his cult died with him.
And didn't Jesus said that No one knows the day or the hour except for his Father? (Matthew 24:36)
So no one was raptured. How many people decided to take the rapture into their own hands? I hope we do not hear about parents killing their children because they were supposed to be taken yesterday. Or suicides. But I would t be surprised if there are. Yeah, some people went overboard preparing for this one, but that just means there are people who took it entirely too seriously. And when they do that, being disappointed is just a trigger for worse outcomes.
There are few things scarier to me than that. People who, to paraphrase Hitchens, know that death is coming and can't wait to bring it on. These are people who WANT responsibility for their lives to be TAKEN OUT OF THEIR HANDS.
"He’s the theological equivalent of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. giving medical advice with no relevant expertise."
Actually one needs zero expertise for theology since nothing it espouses is evidence or reality based.
Keep in mind, too: the study of theology is the study of NOTHING.
"Philosophy is useless, theology is worse."
-Mark Knopfler
WOOF! That just became tomorrow's Quote of the Day! Thanks!
Splendid!
i can't place the tune, is that from "My parties"?
𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTb0RnJTsRQ&list=RDnTb0RnJTsRQ&start_radio=1
It's like homeopathy.
Don't tell me about it. There is still ads for homeopathic bullshit on TV...
https://youtu.be/IX2bE-OBtwk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV92Z77seO4
Just this minute.
Even the doctors prescribe homeopathy where I am. It's insane
I always thought it was the study of Theo. Not every Theo, just one guy.
Hmph. As good an explanation as any, I suppose...
Huxtable?
Roosevelt?
Nah, just a guy I knew. He explained that it is all about him. Fine by me.
Oh, you and your reality!
If God wanted reality to be taken seriously, he would not have invented religion.
Theology is the only field I know of with multiple, irreconcilable paradigms, every one of which is based entirely on conjecture. Objective evidence need not apply.
Do believers never consider the fact that the Rapture can't happen in one day due to the Earth having 24 different time zones and is not a single time zone? That their today is someone's yesterday or someone's tomorrow?
Reality, xtians. Look into it.
They won't look into it. Thinking is hard. It's so much easier to have the pastor tell you what to believe.
[shrug] If the rapture WAS going to happen, it could occur just as easily at 3 in the morning as at 3 in the afternoon. It could happen any way that an omnipotent deity could decide that it would happen.
Problem is, where is an omnipotent deity when you really NEED one? 🤪
Watching 3 million men masturbate.
That few? 🤔
At the same moment? It is a conservative estimate.
Someone needs to organize an event.
> "Watching 3 million men masturbate."
I'm going to assume that a large percentage of them achieved a certain level of rapture.
Ryan!
Yes. 200,000 of them are probably picturing him naked.
But not you and me. We’re better men than that.
What are the women doing?
Rolling their 👀s and laughing.
The same place you can find it when you don’t need one. Or at least, check the sofa cushions before you ask a question like that.
Why do I have to explain everything to you people?
I would say the same place as the state troopers, but those guys are real.
With Trump’s proof of election fraud.
Maybe, just spitballing here, it will be a rolling rapture. One time zone at a time. But what about daylight savings time? Suppose the rapture occurs when the clocks change. Does one time zone get raptured twice while another one gets passed over. What does the Bible say about this?!?!
That's easy to manage: just use sidereal time, maybe key to sunrise at any given location ... though that might make either the North Pole or Antarctica a bit problematic, depending on the time of year! 😁
Dope gets you through times of no reality better than reality gets you through times of no dope
Ah, yes, the wisdom of "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers." paraphrase.
I was there when it was new and original
Me too! I had all the underground comics, you could only get them from a head shop back then. Are you familiar with their Canadian counterpart "Harold Hedd"?
No, I’m not. That was all too long ago, when I was just a wee hippie lad with great hair and paisley bell bottoms. As They say, if you can remember the 60s, you weren’t there.
I was born in the early 60’s, but had older siblings who taught me about the culture wars, I’m more of a 70’s girl.
I imagined a “rolling” rapture as well, starting at the International Date Line at 12:00am Tuesday, and moving west with the clock around the world. That’s the only way the whole world could be raptured on the same day. We’d have a few hours to get ready once we heard it was happening, lol!
When you think about it, the “accepted” view of the rapture is totally based on a flat-earth model.
Time zones were invented to make Santa's job easier on Christmas Eve.
I mentioned this on another forum, and was told (sarcastically) that the USA is God's country now, so the rapture will come in the Central Time Zone.
Same. Mountain time at 1:00. I said, which mountain?
AM or PM? :D
Also... Standard Time or Daylight Savings? ;)
I absolutely loved the show The Leftovers ;)
I thought that was about last night’s dinner
Recalculating..... Recalculating..... Recalculating..... Recalculating.....
And this is why I favor science over superstition.
Here's how Carl Sagan put it in his final interview with Charlie Rose back in 1996:
"Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along."
Sound all-too-familiar these days?
Amen. All authoritarians are anti-science for very good reason.
I had my kids watch Sagan for, presumably, the science. Not really. I wanted them to hear his thoughts on how to think.
Worked!
You have excellent parenting skills.
shyly kicks dirt....
💖
"I am just a believer. A simple believer in Jesus."
Might want to read American history and find out what happened to Africans kidnapped from their homes and sent to this country in chains to be bought, sold and owned by good Christians, Joshie. Even your own holy book endorses slavery.
And come to think of it, how did black South Africans fare under Apatheid rule by the Christian white minority?
Nailed it NG!
Thanx. 🙂
Maybe the Rapture DID happen and Christians got "Left Behind."
Were I a Christian, I'd start sweating.
Yep. The only one who made the cut was some guy in the middle of the desert on a solo hike.
So, since there’s only supposed to be 100,000 folks making the cut, it is possible that those who were chosen are already dead and they were raptured. We just couldn’t see it. IIRC no one goes to heaven until the rapture, so everyone is rotting in their graves waiting for god to get off his lazy ass and send them upward.
Now, I am not a believer, I knew this was a big pile of feces, but if there was going to be a rapture, yesterday would have made sense in the story provided. The anti-Christ is in the White House, believers are all wearing the mark of the beast on their foreheads (maga hats), Israel is ethnically cleansing the promised land, climate change is causing fires and floods, it’s all lining up.
"He also said in the interview that he was a “billion percent” sure he was right. A billion!"
Studied math at tRump "University", did he?
He should have went with 999,999,999%.
But if he did, it would be admitting to doubt. Can't have that.
Not giving away his stuff is the real admission of doubt.
The more they lead with ridiculous numbers, the less they really know about math, statistics, or anything having to do with the real world.
The only thing useful to know about maths is that it's evil incarnate.
I hate to admit it as a retired engineer, but I never did get along all that well with differential and integral calculus. 😝
And so it goes...
As a not exactly retired engineer, I'll agree. And I never used it.
I've talked to two people lately about other math classes I've taken, one was (maybe?) discrete applied mathematics. I couldn't even tell them what it was about.
I used algebra all over the place, particularly to model to Maintenance Training students how software-calibrated amplifiers and measuring instruments used y=mx+b to tweak their linear errors.
Other than that, no, not a lot of higher math in my toolbox.
That doesn’t add up!
The Atheist numbers are...........weird. Only 84% don't believe in Jesus? 16% believe in him but he ain't coming back? And Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is up with 1% believing in him *and* that he'll be doing a sequel‽
Well, believing in Jesus might just mean believing there was a guy by that name running around Judea when Pilate was governor, and believing he will return might refer to the guy you hired last week showing up for his shift tomorrow.
That's the only way it makes sense to me.
It'd be ONE thing if Roman records corroborated Pilate's encounter with Jesus. THEY DON'T.
Yep. There is no record of Pilate (a real person) ever having a man named Jesus put to death by crucifixion.
And the Romans were meticulous records keepers.
The Egyptians, prodigious recorders of the most mundane data, forgot to make note of all the Jews fleeing their country, too.
Strange, innit, that no contemporary people wrote down anything about those miracles and shit that happened regularly on one tiny part of the planet
Try telling that to Charlton Heston ... oh, wait, he's dead! 😂
That there are no records tells the story.
I read a hypothesis once that at least a few percent of any poll are people who stupid, confused, or fucking with the pollster.
Considering the general population, that number should be higher.
I believe there was a man who lived, noticed/said some things, claimed he was the son of God, and committed suicide by doing so. In other words, there’s nothing magical about it.
I've thought about the suicide angle before. If Jesus was divine, it works, considering he had to put himself in a position to die. If he wasn't, it's harder to make the argument that it was intentional, but it might be possible.
Interesting. I see it as intentional (suicide) because anyone claiming to be the son of God must have also known they would be killed for that claim. I don’t see that as proof of being divine at all, but instead being careless with one’s own life.
If he was delusional enough, he may have thought the claims of divinity might save him.
Suicide by Rome.
Until the world runs out of easily manipulated and gullible fools, these religious hoaxes will continue to happen. Believing nonsense is far easier than critical thinking, an undertaking a lot of people find painful in the extreme.
Six Feet Under had it right. I really want to release a truckload of helium filled sex dolls near where these morons gather during the next crapture scam.
Pre-CISE-ly.
𝐻𝑒’𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑅𝑜𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡 𝐹. 𝐾𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑑𝑦, 𝐽𝑟. 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑑𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑒.
Doesn't that describe all of them?
Yep
I am the Loftiest Radix of the First Church of the Great Carrot. All of you will sink into the hallowed ground to spend your life with The Orange Perfection... just as soon as you transfer all of your worldly assets over to me!
😂
Okay. Do I just leave my shit in the yard.
Amusingly enough, my grandfather used to occasionally talk about being the Grand Goslin of The Sons And Daughters Of I Shall Arise, claiming they were having a meeting whenever he was invited to something he didn't care to attend for whatever reason.
Carrot Top?
OT - Nothing is too low for America's Gestapo
𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐁𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧 𝟐𝟏𝟑. 𝟗/𝟐𝟑/𝟐𝟓
… NBC: “ICE agents held a 5-year-old autistic girl outside her Massachusetts home to pressure her father to surrender to authorities last week, according to the girl's family. A video of the incident shows a young girl surrounded by what appears to be several male law enforcement agents outside of her home in Leominster, MA. The girl is sitting beside what appears to be a law enforcement SUV and holding a bottle while encircled by the several men.
… The girl’s mother in the video: "They took my daughter, she’s 5-years-old. She has autism spectrum. Give me my daughter back!"
… The woman said that her husband called her while he was driving with their daughter shortly before the incident and told her he thought he was being followed. Her husband, Edward Hip, drove home and "managed to run back into the parking lot of my house, but they grabbed her.”
… The video appears to then show authorities trying to coax the girl's father out of his home: "Is that your daughter? Come here so I can see those IDs."
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/today-in-politics-bulletin-213-92325
Unbefuckinglievable. Do ICE agents watch films about Nazi Germany and think THEY'RE the good guys?
Yes. They rooted for Darth Vader, too.
FWIW, I cheered when Vader picked up Palpatine/Sidious and tossed him down that shaft, saving his son and redeeming himself.
I did too. I must confess, I cheered when Anikan took his first mechanical breath.
We all did!
Yes, they named the rotting pumpkin's campaign "the Death Star".
They loathed the protagonist of the Wolfenstein games.
jeezy fucking kkkrist.
Fuck those ICE Gestapo goons, Fuck Kristi Gnome, Fuck bribe accepting non-human thumb head Tom Homan, Fuck Nazi Stephen Miller, Fuck tRump, and Fuck all Repukicans. And Fuck dead Charlie Kirk. Have I left anybody out?
Call a lawyer, have him/her show up and point out that this is literal kidnapping.
If they don't release the girl, the lawyer calls the police.
Get everything on camera.
I missed it AGAIN? Dang....I think that's the 50th time since I was born that I missed it.
No worries. They tend to repeat at irregular intervals! 😁
Not the first time it happened. William Miller, who lived in the 1800s', made such false predictions that lead many of his 100,000 of his stupid, gullible followers to sell all their belongings, put on white robes and meet him at a secluded location to wait in anticipation for Jesus to show up. Day came and went, but Jesus never showed up at all. Yet Miller was stupid enough to try again and again and the gullible Christians all believed him time and time again in spite of facing one great disappointment after another until the day he died and his cult died with him.
And didn't Jesus said that No one knows the day or the hour except for his Father? (Matthew 24:36)
"And didn't Jesus said" - Supposedly. No independent confirmation.
Jesus didn't say nothin.' He's an imaginary being whose anonymous writers put their words in his non-existent mouth.
"My parents were Raptured and all I got was this crappy T-shirt"
So no one was raptured. How many people decided to take the rapture into their own hands? I hope we do not hear about parents killing their children because they were supposed to be taken yesterday. Or suicides. But I would t be surprised if there are. Yeah, some people went overboard preparing for this one, but that just means there are people who took it entirely too seriously. And when they do that, being disappointed is just a trigger for worse outcomes.
There are few things scarier to me than that. People who, to paraphrase Hitchens, know that death is coming and can't wait to bring it on. These are people who WANT responsibility for their lives to be TAKEN OUT OF THEIR HANDS.
I just shake my head and boggle at that.