What's a good website for believing Christians to discuss prophecy?

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by jasong

How much understanding is necessary to understand the science behind it?

Behind the Poisson distribution, the GM counter, or the LSC?

Originally Posted by jasong

Edit: The name Poisson is a bit ironic. Makes me wonder if the name is connected(!) to the french word puissance(sp?) which means "to connect."

It's just a guy's name, Siméon Denis Poisson. He was French and the word is "fish" in French.

[chappy]

Originally Posted by jasong

You really do love to play the role of the little shit, don't you?

yes

Originally Posted by jasong

If I really am such a monster to you, maybe you should take the time to actually visit an evangelical church like New Life, or maybe a Southern Baptist one, to meet the monsters first hand.

I grew up Southern Baptist; when I was 17 I left my parent's church and joined the much more Pentecostal church The Assemblies of God, hoping for a spiritual truth that would overcome the textual worship of the SBC. I see and interact with Southern Baptists every day of my life. As well as Catholics and other denominations.

Originally Posted by jasong

With the timing of my writing, I guess I hadn't yet wrote the post about God having a wicked sense of humor and intentionally misleading people who try to discover God without first discovering Christ. Like the fact that some verses are interpreted as a call to a Holy War by Christians, but it's intended to be a verbal war, a spiritual war, with us absolutely refusing to take up arms against our enemies.

It is even worse, in my view, to think that a being that would intentionally mislead is worse than one that would just arbitrarily define salvation. Your version does both.

The truth is that I don't see you as a monster, I do see you as believing in the kind of thing that allows monsters to sleep at night. Whether you find a way to worm around the texts and create a meaning that lets you do that is your own business. For me? I just don't see it. And you can claim some kind of spiritual call to pacifism, yet there's no historical or textual precedent for that claim.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by jasong

I don't have a ton of knowledge of history, but what I've seem would suggest that, while we have a huge potential to gain knowledge, our basic morality hasn't expanded in any major way.

I would (perhaps naively) disagree with this statement (and I have read a lot of history). I would also remind you of an very old adage: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Originally Posted by jasong

As we grow in knowledge, we also grow in our potential to hurt ourselves and others. Last I heard, we have enough atomic bombs on the planet to destroy the Earth multiple times over.

Yes. But we haven't used them, except for the two relatively small nukes dropped on Japan which effectively ended the Second World War. Some argue this saved several hundred thousand lives on both sides; others argue this was an empirical experiment. The truth is probably somewhere in-between.

Originally Posted by jasong

We have people working on artificial intelligence without seeming to give a thought to people displaced by that taking jobs. We have people creating fantastic robots which, while awesome in their own right, are forming the potential for an army that doesn't need to worry about dying.

And we also have some *serious* minds very concerned about how this plays out, and are investing a lot of time, effort and money to try to guide this in a positive direction.

IMO, within 100 years (probably less) the AIs are going to be smarter than humans. Let us hope that they turn out to be partners rather than advisories.

Originally Posted by jasong

We've seen what happens to people when the government's only response to poverty is to give them money and send them on their way.

You mean like Gene Roddenberry's dream of the future where people work hard not because they are rewarded with money, but instead because of the satisfaction of contributing (because they don't want for food, health, clothing nor shelter)?

Originally Posted by jasong

You can't live without hope, therefore everyone seeks hope wherever they can find it, and I feel like, even if Christianity isn't true, the human race needs something bigger than it's individual desires in order to continue to survive and thrive.

I agree with this completely. It is fine for anyone to take hope from whatever resonates with them. So long as it doesn't harm anyone else, and a difference of option and/or believe is respected.

[chappy]

Originally Posted by chalsall

I would (perhaps naively)
You mean like Gene Roddenberry's dream of the future where people work hard not because they are rewarded with money, but instead because of the satisfaction of contributing (because they don't want for food, health, clothing nor shelter)?

.

I credit the utopian ideals of Star Trek with helping shape my value system. Specifically removing the bottom rungs of Maslow's hierarchy from the equation. See also Ian M. Bank's Culture series.

[chappy]

Originally Posted by chappy

It is even worse, in my view, to think that a being that would intentionally mislead is worse than one that would just arbitrarily define salvation. Your version does both.

poorly worded sentences are hard to parse.

Arbitrary punishment being is bad. Intentionally misleading being is worse. You subscribe to a being that is both kinds of bad.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by chalsall

IYes. But we haven't used them, except for the two relatively small nukes dropped on Japan which effectively ended the Second World War. Some argue this saved several hundred thousand lives on both sides; others argue this was an empirical experiment. The truth is probably somewhere in-between.

In my opinion the truth is not somewhere-in-between but way out on an extrapolation. The empirical experiment explanation seems very likely to be true, IMO. However, the "several hundred thousand" is almost certainly a gross underestimate.

In the early summer of 1945 the US and UK sent teams over to what was left of the Reich to understand better what had and had not worked in practice to bring down the Germans as a fighting force. Even at that early date it became clear that destroying populations centres, such as Hamburg and Dresden, had not damaged morale or fighting effectiveness as much as had been predicted. Destroying transport mechanisms, such as railways, docks, bridges and canals had been much more effective.

Over in Japan the USAF had already carpet-bombed around 50 cities with incendiaries. Ironically, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two of the few not particularly badly hit. The USAF had already predicted that an invasion of Shikoku would cost at least half a million allied casualties (this includes wounded as well as confirmed dead and MIA) and experience from Iwo Jima and Okinawa showed that the Japanese casualties would be at least as great. The invasion of Honshu, planned for spring 1946, would be even more bloody. Remember that Japanese geography and the range of allied land-based aircraft had already told the defensive forces where the attacks would come and that the Japanese had plenty of time to dig in. They had already mobilised the entire population for the defence of the home islands by early 1945.

A further influence was Russian intentions. The USSR had already taken the Kuriles, Manchuria was a dead-loss (the Japanesse had already conceded that) and Korea was defended by largely second-rate forces. By spring 1946, the Soviets would almost certainly have landed in Hokkaido, against fierce resistance to be sure, and the US would have had to give serious consideration to postponing the invasion of the Tokyo Bay area in order to face off the Soviets from a position in the north coast of Honshu.

Now consider what would likely have happened if the nukes hadn't given the Japanese government a face-saving reason for a rapid and (very nearly) unconditional surrender. Allied strategy had already changed to take out the (rather primitive) railway system and had already destroyed much of the Japanese merchant fleet. Japan had relied on coastal transport for moving rice from the rural areas to the cities. The railway system would have barely coped even if it remained undamaged. The layout of the lines and marshalling system were such that its effective use would have been pretty much over within a couple of weeks.

It seems overwhelmingly likely that the resultant famine would have killed between 5 and 10 million Japanese. There would have been very few survivors among the POWs and civilian internees held elsewhere in the remaining Japanese empire. It seems quite likely that another 1-2 million would have died over and above the United Nations military casualties and the Japanese famine victims. Remember that the Soviets were not at that time renowned for their humanitarian views, let alone the Chinese and Koreans who had been colonised with less than enlightened methods.

Add to that the knowledge that the Allies were already considering the use of chemical weapons against the Japanese rice crop. The world had to wait another 25 years before herbicides began to be used as military weapons on a large scale. (Incidentally, I haven't come across any justification for the use of Agent Orange which is any where near as persuasive as that for nuclear weapons.)

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by xilman

Now consider what would likely have happened if the nukes hadn't given the Japanese government a face-saving reason for a rapid and (very nearly) unconditional surrender.

I have considered that.

I also find it interesting that the Japanese have become our allies, but aren't allowed to be aggressive in their defence.

Meanwhile, North Korea shoot missiles in their general direction, and China build islands.

[jasong]

Originally Posted by chappy

The truth is that I don't see you as a monster, I do see you as believing in the kind of thing that allows monsters to sleep at night. Whether you find a way to worm around the texts and create a meaning that lets you do that is your own business. For me? I just don't see it. And you can claim some kind of spiritual call to pacifism, yet there's no historical or textual precedent for that claim.

Do you not understand that the world's history books are written by the people who dominate in said world?

One of the most popular tv shows on tv literally has the word "idol" in the title.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by jasong

Do you not understand that the world's history books are written by the people who dominate in said world?

Please don't become flippant, Grasshopper. History books talk about the history. By definition, the past.

Have you read "A Brief History of Time" by Hawking?

You keep saying you will read, but you don't. This becomes tiring to those who read and think.

[jasong]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Don't become flippant Grasshopper.

I can assure you I'm totally serious.

Consider the history that ISN'T talked about. Ask yourself why the Holocaust is a way more common topic than the Trail of Tears? Or the fact that even if Trump improves the country in a major way, he's still a liar, even though the history books might not care at that point.

I've heard that there are tons of young Germans that don't fully comprehend what a Nazi is and what they did.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by jasong

I've heard that there are tons of young Germans that don't fully comprehend what a Nazi is and what they did.

Do you have any evidence for that?