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Goodbye Jesus

A Xian Just Told Me She Knows The World Is Going To End Because She Read It In Revelation


FreeThinkerNZ

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Now if only we could make them learn... :(

 

...anyway, glad to see you like at least some people in here ;) *hugs*

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Now if only we could make them learn... sad.png

 

...anyway, glad to see you like at least some people in here wink.png *hugs*

Strange, I like 99% of the people in here.  I just don't like genderfundies.  *shrugs*

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I was chatting with a family member, making small talk.  She asked if I like reading fiction, I said I prefer non-fiction and I like learning about the world.   She said she's not interested in learning about the world because she "knows how it is going to go".  I figured I knew exactly what she meant by this, so I asked some questions, just for fun.

 

I asked her how is the world going to go? She said everything is getting worse and gave some pat examples that I assume she got from her pastor: things like crime, wars, abortion, suicide, mental illness, government "oppression" (whatever that means, I didn't ask lol).  I said things have been getting better over time, for example we know more about how the world works through science.  I think that went right over her head.  I said the abortion rate is decreasing, she didn't have an answer for that.  I said the suicide rate is decreasing, and she said "that's just because they are drugging people more", and I said I think medications are good overall, and she was forced to agree with the logic of that point.  I decided not to bring up the decreasing crime rate, so as not to make a complete fool out of her, and to keep things civil.  She said she "knew" what was going to happen "in the end" because she has read Revelation.  I decided not to point out that the book was really about the Roman Emperor Nero.  So I summed up my view by saying I think the world has been getting better, smiled and left it at that.

 

I felt a little sad for her, that she allows herself to be kept ignorant of history, science and current affairs, and does not understand the difference between what we can know and what we may believe.  She is in a cult and is brainwashed but she is free to do that and it makes her happy.

 

I am so grateful to all of you on this site who have shared your knowledge and experience about fundamentalist religion, which has enabled me to rise above the insanity that exists within my family and not feel angry or depressed about it, most of the time.

 

I once thought I knew how it was going to all work out too, from reading the bible and reading popular Christian books on the subject. I had some Seventh Day Adventist friends about 16 years ago who had their version of the End Times scenario all neatly worked out. Of course, they were wrong. Hal Lindsay has made a career out of being wrong since the publication of his first very popular book "The Late Great Planet Earth", which I believe was published in the 1970's. John Hagee has made a career out of  being wrong with his books, too. I'm sure many other Christian authors have done so as well. Yet Christians eat this shit up no matter how many times the authors they read are wrong - which is 100% of the time -- because they want it all to be true so badly!

 

I used to believe too that the world was going to hell in a hand basket and that it was because of atheists, homosexuals, and everybody else who wasn't a Christian. I thought if everybody would just believe and follow the Bible, then this world would be a paradise. I roll my eyes now so hard... jesus.gif rolleyes.gif

 

Yes, the world is consistently getting better, and it is getting better the more secular we become. The most secular societies tend to be the most peaceful, and I believe Sweden is a prime example of that at the moment. 

 

I could write a whole topic on the subject of medications for mental illness. They work well for some people and not at all for others, and of course everything in between. Psychiatry and psychiatric drugs are in their infancy stage, imho. It's all been around for just over 100 years, and Big Pharma is not that old yet, and is far too profit-driven. 

 

The only way to stay a fundie is to stay ignorant of history, science, and the real reasons behind current affairs. 

 

Thanks for the tidbit of info about Revelation being about Nero. I was not aware of that.

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Strange, I like 99% of the people in here.  I just don't like genderfundies.  *shrugs*

Eh, that was humorous. The smiley was there for a reason smile.png

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Religious nuts and others have been predicting the end of the world for thousands of years. They always have been and always will be 100% wrong!

 

http://alma-geddon.com/

 

Glory!

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FT I wish your niece was around so I could talk to her.  But it probably wouldn't go well.  It's so good that she has a sensible person around to get her to start asking questions.  

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To Add:

 

Its all doom and gloom they cry, if only we had more believers THEN society would be so much better.

 

They seem to forget, the hangings and witch burnings and lack of knowledge and lack of medicine when they ruled Europe during what was appropriately named the dark ages

 

 

Believers like to focus on the bad bits on the news and crow with excitement that Jesus has packed his bags, checked His suitcase and is preparing to “burst out of the sun, with a sword in His mouth and holding a fist full of stars”

 

World War 1

 

Jesus is coming back

 

World War 2

 

Jesus is on His way

 

Rwanda Crisis

 

This is it, pray for forgiveness

 

Iraq (part one)

 

Satan is marshalling his forces

 

1999

It’s the pre-rapture, take me Lord, take me

 

Iraq (part two)

 

It’s the book of Revelation unfolding before us

 

Iraq (part three)

 

This is really, really it this time, it’s the beginning of the end

 

And so on………..

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Castiel,

 

A local KFC has closed its doors forever in my area.

 

That HAS to be a sign of End Times™

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I hate to correct a brother in the free thought community, but that is "Chickenism", the belief that God created the Earth via a gigantic egg. The first two Chickens were warned not eat of the seeds of knowledge or surely they would be fried (in bread crumbs). Of course they did eat it( tempted as they were by a talking colonel in a white suit) and salmonella entered the world.

 

Fast forward four thousand and God had to send himself to  die in the frying pan to save chicken kind from this curse.

 

I have checked the holy book of chickenism and in the final book (The Book of Squawk), it does say that when the outlets close the chickens will be raptured, so you might be onto something

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There has to be a way to save the chickens...

I know they have to be born again of the yolk, because only those chickens get to go to the chicken shed in the sky

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This is a funny read,  For fuck sake - Revelation that book should never have been in the bible for a pletora of reasons,  Heck even back in the early church there were a sect who did not follow Johannine and Revelation texts as they knew they were heretical.

 

The alternative to John was Peter except the Apocyalpse of Peter was removed even though it was in wide circulation around 100 - 300 AD except it was removed because it taught Universal Forgiveness in the end.

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Oh yes, the old Jesus is going to let everyone into heaven no matter what......I can see why the church didn't put that in the canon

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I personally know some well-educated, intelligent people who swallow the cock-and-bull stories in the Bible. I'm amazed that those people,for all their good education and despite having seen much of the world, persist in their belief in things like a man who could walk on water, and a beast with ten heads, seven horns and the number 666 written on its head.

 

By the way, is it just me or does anyone else feel that the entire chapter of Revelations was written by someone either insane or high on drugs? I mean, the whole chapter is so surreal, it's like something straight out of an avant-garde horror movie.

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I can't remember who said it, I'm quite sure it was posted on this site some time ago...

 

"Sensational news - the long-lost final verse of the revelation of John has been rediscovered! Printed here for the first time:

 

'...whoah dude that's really good weed... have some more for me?...' "

 

:fdevil:

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Someone said something to me about the end of the world always getting closer (well, duh, every day is closer to everything), and I said, "Yeah, I read in Scientific American some years ago that the sun is slowly expanding, and in about 8 billion years it will be large enough to engulf the earth.  That'll be the end!  But I'm not too panicked over the 8 billion year thing.  I'll be long gone."

 

Yeah, I was ignored.

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It's easy to get lost in the trees and not see the forest. With all the fucked up things happening in the world like ISIS, Ebola, the NSA scandal, political corruption, American's war machine, Christians going crazy, wealth inequality, Wall Street corruption, economic problems etc...it's easy to forget that things are actually better than they have ever been.

 

And these are all the lowest estimates: 

 

World War 1 - 16 million people killed

World War 2 - 40 million people killed

The Holocaust - 5 million people killed

Taiping Rebellion - 20 million people killed

Russian Civil War - 5 million people killed

Cambodian Genocide - 1 million people killed

Vietnam - 800,000 people killed

 

Not to mention the Great Chinese Famine (15 million), Russian Famine (5 million) Spanish Flu (50 million), we now have a Polio vaccine, AIDS is coming under control etc...medical science is making progress on treating cancer and other major diseases. Gender equality is coming about, LGBT rights are now in the forefront, women's rights to birth control, the educational power of the internet...

 

We hardly live in an ideal world but I would argue things are steadily getting better, and it's in spite of people like your family member. 

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Speaking of the 'end times' and Jesus second coming - the fact that it still hadn't happened yet in my lifetime was one of the 'chinks in my armour' that drove me from faith or at least started me questioning , even if, ever so slowly!

I had been inundated with end time books, tapes, videos and sermons in the 70's as a teen and then into my 20's so much so that I firmly believed that I would never make it to my 30th birthday (1990). I was absolutely convinced that Jesus HAD to return by then with all the signs being fulfilled etc. I was seriously shocked when I turned 30!  I really couldn't believe it and it definitely affected my faith even though I continued as a faithful evangelical/charismatic christian into my mid forties. Going through a 'mid life crisis' was a great time to re evaluate my core beliefs and look at my beliefs critically and objectively. Once I began that process - everything about my christian faith and experienced unraveled. It was difficult on many levels at first but I also experienced such a sense of freedom and also felt that finally the 'light' was turned on. Life makes so much more sense now even if it's not always pleasant.

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Christians, Jews, Muslims -- They are all death-worshipers. Everyone must die to be judged by God.

 

Christians venerate a dead Jew on a cross and hold that symbol of bloody death to be holy. Perversely they claim the cross and a man's death upon it to be redemptive. All must suffer; all will die. The good go to Heaven and the bad will be punished

 

The world is always getting worse. It is a perpetual state of decay and no human being can overcome it. One day we will all be so debased that we will kill every living thing. The anti-Christ, blah blah. Unless we just degenerate until everyone is subpar and accepts salvation because they cannot think for themselves.

 

It sickens me that the monotheists believe that the world must end to usher in the era of the divine. It sickens me that they are hypocritically blind to the beauty of life. So much so that they wish that we were all dead so that we could praise eternally like lemmings or burn in Hell, depending. What kind of faith is that really? What kind of mindset is it? Death is the supreme function of life. The only point of being born is to die. But you can't kill yourself! That's a sin!

 

Precisely the reason why suicide is a sin, imho. If they hadn't have made it so in the early days, people would have offed themselves and their kids to go to heaven. Fuck all of this striving on Earth, all of this pain and suffering.

 

I shun such teachings. Life is something that we should celebrate. Not death. The present should transcend the past and the future should be thought of as a living reality, not a death fantasy. Science is a blessing. It leads us to understanding and if allowed, it will imbue humanity with real wisdom. Technology is not a curse. Rejection of progress is a death sentence and those that believe that we live in a decaying world are always the first to clamor 'round for the latest and greatest.

 

In my former church, there were plenty who shunned some tech and most science, but no one had the balls to go all the way in their rejection. We didn't believe in the End times though. We weren't allowed to talk about it. Revelations was seen as prophecy but not of the sort that we should take seriously. People still stupid shit though. They were anti-abortion, afraid of crime, God needed to be in the schools, the next great calamity was always around the corner. But we thought it was all because people were choosing sin and living unrighteous lives. The world would end someday, but that didn't matter. We were living in the Messianic age and by accepting the Messiah, we were saved.

 

So fuck the rest, basically. We were better than them, chosen, if you will. We were the height of godliness and all that crap.

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As to Revelation, it was one of a number of manuscripts about Armageddon that were written in the 200 years before Christ. Daniel was written in that period.  Revelation in the NT followed this genre.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         bill

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Oh I used to "know" too.  A-mum is still in the phase that she "knows" how the world's going to end and everything.  Of course it's going to be in our generation.  It used to have a weird effect on me, this "knowing".  There was both comfort and terror- and when you put those two things together it's very powerful.  There is definitely comfort in being sure of what's to come in the future and that way being able to avoid the very scary unknown.  With my interpretation of the bible through revelation, god was going to put me through hell on earth, torture me with earthquakes and antichrists, but at least in the end I could know with certainty that everything would be made new and perfect.  That final absolute ending provided the comfort.

 

In one of my civil war books it shows a letter between a soldier and his mum.  The mum says that things are so bad that this has got to be Armageddon. 

 

We can all fall so easily into a this is Armageddon mindset because it is comforting to think that all the pain of the world is about to be over. 

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I was chatting with a family member, making small talk.  She asked if I like reading fiction, I said I prefer non-fiction and I like learning about the world.   She said she's not interested in learning about the world because she "knows how it is going to go".  I figured I knew exactly what she meant by this, so I asked some questions, just for fun.

 

I asked her how is the world going to go? She said everything is getting worse and gave some pat examples that I assume she got from her pastor: things like crime, wars, abortion, suicide, mental illness, government "oppression" (whatever that means, I didn't ask lol).  I said things have been getting better over time, for example we know more about how the world works through science.  I think that went right over her head.  I said the abortion rate is decreasing, she didn't have an answer for that.  I said the suicide rate is decreasing, and she said "that's just because they are drugging people more", and I said I think medications are good overall, and she was forced to agree with the logic of that point.  I decided not to bring up the decreasing crime rate, so as not to make a complete fool out of her, and to keep things civil.  She said she "knew" what was going to happen "in the end" because she has read Revelation.  I decided not to point out that the book was really about the Roman Emperor Nero.  So I summed up my view by saying I think the world has been getting better, smiled and left it at that.

 

I felt a little sad for her, that she allows herself to be kept ignorant of history, science and current affairs, and does not understand the difference between what we can know and what we may believe.  She is in a cult and is brainwashed but she is free to do that and it makes her happy.

 

I am so grateful to all of you on this site who have shared your knowledge and experience about fundamentalist religion, which has enabled me to rise above the insanity that exists within my family and not feel angry or depressed about it, most of the time.

1. based on that logic, she would not care about her body either, it will end, we'll see the sign of aging body before it's end

2. it's a confirmation biased.Those things has been happening for thousand of years of humanity but back then u did not hear it because media limitation. Before internet, we barely know what happened to the other side of the world, tv and newspaper were so limited that they put the most important things in the headline rather than rape done in 3rd world country 12000km from my country. Now with internet you can find the "not important" news from all over the world. 

3. throughout the history of human, many people failed miserably to predict armaggedon. They said the sign was out there but the world is still turning. 

4. that what church doing to her, those damn churches, made human cannot think or experience by themselves by feeding them. it's like it if someone offered you fruit and chew it before giving it 

to you instead of u chew the fruit by yourself
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The first time I studied Revelations it was a shock.  The writing and feel of it seemed so different from the rest of the NT.  It felt totally out of left field and was very frightening to my high school mind.  How could anyone look forward to times of war and famine?  Even if they belive you get to go before the tribulation, are they still ok with the terror innocent people will go through just because they don't believe the right book?

 

My ex MIL is extremely into the end of days thinking.  Conspiricy theories, the war on christianity, and most importantly stock piling supplies.  My christmas present last year was a booklet on which products stores will sell out of first and how to make sure our family gets enough.

 

I remember the look of shock on her face when I told her that I hope the end doesn't come during my life or my son's.  I want us to be able to live life and experience everything it has to offer us.  I want to grow old and see my grandkids.  You would have thought I admitted to drowning puppies.

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The first time I studied Revelations it was a shock.  The writing and feel of it seemed so different from the rest of the NT.  It felt totally out of left field and was very frightening to my high school mind.  How could anyone look forward to times of war and famine?  Even if they belive you get to go before the tribulation, are they still ok with the terror innocent people will go through just because they don't believe the right book?

 

My ex MIL is extremely into the end of days thinking.  Conspiricy theories, the war on christianity, and most importantly stock piling supplies.  My christmas present last year was a booklet on which products stores will sell out of first and how to make sure our family gets enough.

 

I remember the look of shock on her face when I told her that I hope the end doesn't come during my life or my son's.  I want us to be able to live life and experience everything it has to offer us.  I want to grow old and see my grandkids.  You would have thought I admitted to drowning puppies.

Wow, she has got it bad, huh?  I don't think my family member has thought it through.  What you describe is the place people end up if they do.

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