Posted on 11/24/2008 5:15:55 PM PST by Michael Eden
> But the article is say something about the Panic of 2008. That only leaves 1 more month for the panic to begin. I don’t think that’s really going to happen so soon. <
You don’t call what’s happened in the market over the past 2-3 months a panic???
That passage is speaking of Babylon.
The problem is we don’t know how long the book is.
The current situation is far from being the prelude to the End. Jim Jones convinced thousands of people that it had come thirty years ago and that things were beyond horrible when they were just a little out of whack.
LOL! This is on page 5 of a 2001 interview of Celente...
“Look at these groups. Eminem, the Backstreet Boys. The most amazing thing is that they’re talentless. They’re not good looking. It’s amazing. The industry keeps missing the opportunity. And they’re dumb. When the Beatles were popular, they were hip, they were clever. But these guys are dullards. “
http://www.allbusiness.com/services/amusement-recreation-services/4571925-1.html
He’s got good sense!
Mr smith,
You said:
LOL! This is on page 5 of a 2001 interview of Celente...
“Look at these groups. Eminem, the Backstreet Boys. The most amazing thing is that they’re talentless. They’re not good looking. It’s amazing. The industry keeps missing the opportunity. And they’re dumb. When the Beatles were popular, they were hip, they were clever. But these guys are dullards. “
http://www.allbusiness.com/services/amusement-recreation-services/4571925-1.html
Thank you for the link.
I call this “ANTICULTURE.” The same media that so completely engaged in propaganda to elect Obama and Democrats is also advancing a culture of nihilism, vacuousness, and moral degradation such as defies rational thought.
Anticulture is like a giant reciprocating engine, pushing culture down into worse and worse ignorance and degradation with every stroke, every story, every program. They create a culture that despises what we once cherished, and cherish what we once despised.
Anticulture mocks the Judeo-Christian Western civilization that gave us Bach and Beethoven even as they feed us Backstreet Boys.
Arrogantsob,
You said (with one long para deleted to be concise):
Trying to set a time line for such an event is a futile gesture in my mind and has been done so many times any new attempt has no credibility.
So far one of the main elements is missing in any case and that is the rebuilding of the Temple.
Where is Islam in the Bible other than the references to the founder of the Arabs, Ismael?
I would argue that everyone who plans ahead for ANYTHING is doing that very thing. What you are saying has no credibility is a part of human nature. We plan. We predict. We forecast. People who buy stocks and bonds care VERY MUCH what the market and the world will be like.
The Bible doesn’t specifically mention Islam, but why should it? What the Bible DOES do (Ezekiel 38-39) is mention the coalition of countries who will one day attack Israel under the leadership of Russia. The coalition is composed entirely of what are Islamic countries today, and they are the very countries that most actively hate Israel today.
Here is an identification of those countries:
http://www.theomegareport.com/articles/joel_rosenberg_0801.shtml
Joel Rosenberg, btw, is ANOTHER guy who has been identified by the media as having an incredible grasp of what WILL happen. He predicted a terror attack on the world trade center by terrorists flying an airplane. He predicted the US would take out Saddam Hussein. Before it happened.
And why? Because he believed the Bible, and wrote a novel based on a literal interpretation. He noticed that the Gog-Magog powers that invaded did NOT include Egypt and Iraq (Babylon); Egypt had already made peace with Israel; but Iraq? Under Saddam Hussein? So - BECAUSE he believed the Bible - he created a scenario in which Saddam would be taken out and Iraq would become a future ally.
You are entirely right: the temple WILL one day be rebuilt. That event will occur after the Antichrist assumes power and forms a pact with Israel (one the Bible says he’ll betray and break). The reason we don’t have a 3rd Temple is because we haven’t had Antichrist come yet.
And ANY legitimate student of Scripture would NOT have bought into your “Look at all those other people who believed we were in the Tribulation” precisely BECAUSE that hasn’t happened yet.
In any event, many of the events the Bible has predicted have occurred - specific things like a 200 MILLION many army and a route across the Euphrates - as opposed to general things like wars and plagues.
What Celente - and for that matter myself - are doing is like looking at cancer. Once you’re diagnosed with it, there’s nothing crazy about looking at how it will likely advance in the future. Celente is looking at incredibly disturbing 2008 economic data - economic data he largely predicted in advance in 2007 - and making reasonable predictions of what will happen in a few years.
Ask yourself: as we throw $7.4 TRILLION at our economic problems, do you not think it’s possible that our dollar will come to lose value? Do you not think that hyperinflation is at least a real possibility? Should wise people looking at what to do with their money not be at least a LITTLE interested in what will happen?
Is is speaking of “mystery Babulon”. Think of it as a system, a “way” more than an individual country.
Yes. People also thought Hitler was the antichrist.
Since the most significant threat to God's people in the last two thousand years, and to the world itself, is Islam any system of prophecy which does not even mention it does not give me any confidence in it.
An example of the logic necessary to believe your belief is the deduction explaining the removal of Saddam. Little of the postulates necessarily lead to the idea that Iraq will not be part of the destruction of Israel or that the removal of Saddam has any thing to do with it.
Identification of Russia as the leader of the coalition is also nothing more than faith. There is no mention of Russia in the Bible and the nation did not even come into being for more than a thousand years after the mention of Gog and Magog.
Your analogy to detecting and defeating cancer also strains logic.
Sorry but chapter 18 says nothing of a “mystery” but speaks of the fall of Babylon.
>>Sorry but chapter 18 says nothing of a “mystery” but speaks of the fall of Babylon.<
Correct. Babylon is called a “mystery” in Rev 17:5. And she is described as a woman with this on her forhead: MYSTERY
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
And in verse 18 of Rev 17 describes her as “...the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”
Revelation 18 then continues on regarding this subject.
Keep in mind, at no time did I say that the US IS the prostitute. What I said is that as more time passes, she seems to be. Rev 18:11 is especially interesting: “”The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more— “
If this were to happen today, to what nation would this refer?
You are right on the level of human “logic” being transcended by prophecy. On the simple, “Atheism is the only way to believe or think” view, you’ve got me.
If there is a Creator God - if such a Creator is even worthy of consideration - than prophecy is likewise worthy of consideration. The fact that you are willing to throw it out to due entirely to atheistic presuppositions really doesn’t amount to diddly as far as I’m concerned.
Prophecy is as valid as the one giving the prophecies. And Christians have good reasons for believing their “source.”
Interestingly, by the way, Judeo-Christianity and Judeo-Christianity ALONE provides prophecy in its holy Scriptures. Islam does not (save one, when Mohammad gave a self-fulfilling prophecy to return to Mecca). The Bible, however, confirms itself again and again by prophecy.
I actually COULD argue that Islam is referred to in the Bible, given the fact that Allah is the moon god, and Moses mentions worship of the moon in Deuteronomy 4:19.
But your argument assumes that God is somehow more afraid of Islam than He is of anything else. I guess I just don’t think so. There have been innumerable false religions, and Islam is simply one more of them. The fact that it should be specifically singled out in prophecy because it would come to have more adherents (1.3 billion) than other false religions (Hinduism has 870 million adherents, shouldn’t IT have been mentioned, too?) doesn’t mean that much to me. There are 2.14 billion Christians, btw
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20060106/christian-population-growth-rate-higher-than-world-less-than-muslims-hindus.htm
“Any system of prophecy which does not mention X does not give me any confidence in it.” Any system of prophecy which does not mention Einsteinian physics does not give me any confidence in it. That pretty much becomes a game where you can justify unbelief by making “X” anything.
God gave the test of a false prophet, and false prophecy. If it doesn’t come to pass, it’s false.
God created individuals with free will, including the freedom to reject Him. You want to reject divine prophecy, fine. You want to reject the coming Antichrist, the coming one world government, the coming Tribulation, fine. You want to reject that one day - and I believe soon - there will be a global economic system in which anyone who does not have a particular mark will not be able to buy or sell, fine. You’ll just be one among billions of fools taking it.
Me, I accept it, and I believe I’m seeing more and more confirmation that it’s beginning to come to pass all the time.
“Human logic” is all we humans have to work with. Certainly there is no reason to accept the reasoning of those who incorrectly claim their opponents are “atheistic”.
“Confirmation” of biblical prophecy is in the mind of the beholder not objective fact. It is like that of Nostradamus, subject to multiple interpretations through whatever Decoder Device is handy.
It is an excellent method of fleecing the flock however. One of the best since it cannot be argued against with any kind of rationality.
Allah is not a “moon God” but ONE god. Islam does not accept multiple gods and calls believers in the Trinity, Polytheists. Sick and perverted as the followers of Mad Mo are they do not worship Nature Gods.
Nor do I imply God is afraid of anything just point to the fact that the most significant religious movement since Jesus is totally absent from “prophecy”. Nothing has been as destructive to Christianity as the Islamic killers which systemicly destroyed the Christian communities throughout the Middle East. Millions have died at its hands for almost fourteen hundred years. An event of such staggering magnitude and so deadly to Christians is oblivious to the “prophesy”. Islam is hardly just another religion.
People are not Christians just because they are born so but must live it. Thus, at least half the “Christians” claimed by you are not Christians at all. Look at the communist churches which make up the mainstream religions in this country ready to srrender to evil at the drop of a hat.
And, if you have not noticed, Hinduism is not a murderous millenium long assault on Christians and Jews.
China? Japan?
No, “human logic” is NOT all we humans have to work with. Again, such a statement simply rules out God, rules out divine revelation (which we would NEVER have formulated by “human logic”), and rules out most other of the most important aspects of our lives. My choice in my wife was hardly based on “logic.” And I can guarantee you that her choice in ME wasn’t!
I wrote an article based on Immanuel Kant’s proof that human reason has a very extreme limit.
http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/why-pseudo-scientific-atheists-are-wrong-about-the-essence-of-science/
Just one of myriad discussions on “Allah” as moon god. The actual fact of the matter is that you can’t find a detailed etymology of the word “Allah” without the moon god cropping up.
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/archive/index.php/t-52114.html
As to your comment:
“Confirmation” of biblical prophecy is in the mind of the beholder not objective fact. It is like that of Nostradamus, subject to multiple interpretations through whatever Decoder Device is handy.
Let me simply say that - beyond the insulting and trivializing comparison of biblical prophecy to Nostradamus (when you find me 2 billion converts to Nostradamus I’ll stop laughing), you fail to realize something incredibly important. Namely, when one simply takes the approach that one should take to ANY literature - to interpret it literally unless the author is clearly being figurative or you have sound reason NOT to take it literally - you find that most people generally agree on the message of Bible prophecy. I’ve got books on biblical prophecy by dozens of authors - and I could easily go buy books from dozens more - who essentially agree on most elements of biblical prophecy. You are simply wrong in your “eye of the beholder claim.”
All one has to do is simply take the Bible seriously, and it very much CAN be “argued against with any kind of rationality.” It is only people who are determined a priori to find it meaningless that find it meaningless.
I say again: if we have a global government which Bible prophecy predicts, and the coming of an Antichrist world leader who fulfills a number of incredibly detailed prophecies that we are given, then only a fool will pursue your line of reasoning. And I think there is very good evidence/reason to believe that we are headed for exactly that direction. You laugh at me for believing it, and I’ll laugh at you for NOT believing it.
And again, your whole “I don’t take Bible prophecy seriously because it doesn’t mention X” where X can be anything continues to strike as trivial. The Bible should have mentioned Hitler, who was responsible for 50 million deaths. The Bible should have mentioned Karl Marx, or Chairman Mao, or Joseph Stalin (all of whom were responsible for more lives taken than one can likely document re: Islam, btw). The Bible should have mentioned this or that or the other thing. The Bible should have mentioned what I had for lunch today.
Tell you what: create your very own universe, create free-willed beings in your image, and then reveal yourself to them by revelation - and you can go right ahead and tell them all about Islam or whatever else you want.
Biblical prophecies are almost always man's interpretations not literal passages from the Bible. Fortune tellers and such are explicitly ruled out for the people of God. Jesus also tells us that “even the Angels” do not know the coming of the end.
Kant did not limit reason as regards things of the world but as it applied to metaphysical things. Reason works perfectly well when applied to the material world and its manipulation.
You distort my meaning when trying to apply reason to matters of the heart. Although it certainly is a recent phenomenon that it is less relevant. Marriages were arranged in the past and reason was the primary aspect of the process.
Allah has no resemblance to the Moon God but is described as a universal and omnipotent God not one limited to the Moon. There is nothing to the argument that because of similar names the named is the same any more than it would be to claim that Jesus is the same as Zeus because of the names’ similarity.
Jesus did not have a religion started in his name because of prophecy so the “2 billion in his name” argument is also bogus.
You must be joking to claim prophecy is a literal reading of the Bible. There is little literalism in it and only makes any sense at all by interpreting obscure or symbolic language and passages.
Nor is there any truth to the claim that the elements of prophecy are universally acknowledged even by those who believe it is real. Any statement would be met with many variations of meaning and many more claims that it had no validity at all.
You then elide into a implication that not believing in modern prophecy is the same as not believing the Bible. I would guess that there are many Bible believers who follow Jesus when he says forget about it and live as though tomorrow will be the last day.
Modern day tyrants did not kill more than Islam btw. It expanded almost entirely by war destroying the almost entirely Christian Middle East as its first step. War was its system of proselytization for a thousand years.
I get the idea that you have a “win by sheer attrition” style, and that is how you will ultimately “win” this argument: I am not willing to waste my time with you until doomsday writing a 1000 comments, because you would write 1001, even though I believe that “doomsday” is actually fairly close at hand.
I won’t waste my time arguing with you about Allah and the moon god. I provided a link showing a relationship. I could have provided a thousand more. Muslims try to dismiss the link, the same way they try to dismiss the Jews’ history in the land of Israel. But the etymology is clearly there. My pastor has his doctorate, and grew up as the son of missionaries in Muslim countries. He is a fluent speaker of Arabic, and his own studies have confirmed the association between Allah and the moon god. I trust his expertise over your casual dismissal.
Kant CLEARY argued that there are clear limits to human reason because we are trapped by our limited cognitive faculties and senses. There are many things that we cannot know beyond a limited and distorted degree. I provided the article to demonstrate that. You provided a trivial dismissive sentence.
And the reason we depend on divine revelation is because we CANNOT know everything. We couldn’t know God at all, unless He revealed Himself to us by revelation. We could neither seem him with our senses, nor comprehend His ways with our minds. Throw out revelation, and you throw out the knowledge of God, pure and simple.
You couldn’t be more wrong in claiming that Christianity - as well as the Messiah Jesus who founded it - was not based in prophecy. The coming of Jesus Himself was based in prophecy. The so-called “protoevangelium” (first gospel) of Genesis 3:15 prophesying a deliverer who would ultimately crush satan begins a series of prophecies that become more and more specific until we get to prophecies such as the virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14-9:7). Fully 40% of the Bible was prophetic at the time it was written - and many of those prophecies have come true exactly as God said. Many of those prophecies concerned the coming of Messiah. When Herod asks his “Bible experts,” they tell him that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2 citing Micah 5:2). When John the baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to ask Him if He was the promised Messiah, Jesus quoted Scripture to show how He was fulfilling prophecy. He also gave us plenty of last days prophecy. You might try reading Matthew 24, for instance. Jesus also prophesied that He would be raised from the dead, and literally the whole Christian religion stands or falls on believing in that prophecy and its fulfillment.
I have a book by Joel Rosenberg titled “Epicenter.” If you AREN’T an “arrogant s.o.b.” and you are actually willing to have your opinion changed, you should read it.
Rosenberg came to fame by writing a couple of novels that predicted things that actually happened. US News & World Report called him a “modern Nostradamus” as a result (to tie in with your Nostradamus stuff). Rosenberg predicted that terrorists would fly a plane into the World Trade Center before they did it. He predicted the US would attack Iraq before 9/11.
The interesting thing about Rosenberg’s books wasn’t as much what he predicted by why he predicted it: and the answer is Bible prophecy. He took the same Bible prophecy that you trivalize as total symbolism of which any interpretation is as invalid as anyone else’s, and took it literally.
Specifically, he read Ezekiel 38 and 39, concerning the alliance of countries that would attack Israel in the last days. And he noticed something interesting: that neither Egypt nor Iraq (Babylon) were on the list of countries that would attack along with Russia.
Egypt was startling enough. Understand something: prior to the time Ezekiel wrote, Egypt was centuries-long enemy of Israel. They were involved in wars against Israel again and again. Yet they weren’t in the coalition.
But precisely because of Ezekiel, Bible scholars weren’t shocked when Egypt signed the first peace accord with Israel, representing the first (and officially still the only) Muslim country to recognize Israel.
But Rosenberg’s problem was Iraq, which went by Babylon in Ezekiel’s time. How on earth would Iraq under Saddam NOT participate in an attack against Israel? There’s no way the guy who styled himself as a “modern-day Nebuchadnezzar WOULDN’T pass up such an opportunity! So Rosenberg recognized that Saddam would have to go for the prophecy to be fulfilled. Hence the terrorist attack, and hence the US invasion of Iraq to take him out.
And today, with the United States an ally of Iraq, we very much can understand why two historic enemies of Israel would NOT participate in an attack on Israel. That’s what happens when you take the prophecies in a literal grammatical manner: they come to pass.
That, btw, would constitute another reference to Islam. Russia (Magog) and Iran (Persia) attacking Israel, with an alliance that today lists all the Muslim countries that would in fact be most likely to attack Israel today!
http://www.theomegareport.com/articles/joel_rosenberg_0801.shtml
I can go back at least 150 years and quote John Nelson Darby, and show you that Christians - on the basis of Bible prophecy alone - were confidently saying that Israel would become a nation when there was NO evidence that that would happen OTHER than Bible prophecy. But prophecies in Ezekiel (e.g. 37) and Revelation made it crystal clear that Israel would have to become a nation. And after two thousand years, it did.
How did John know that there would be an army of 200 million that would flow out of the east? At the time he wrote, there weren’t 200 million people living in the whole world! And he had no way of knowing that the east would be the global population center.
There’s ALL KINDS of stuff like that in the Bible. All you have to do is read it as though the person who was writing the prophecy was describing a literal space-time event, and it comes to pass!!!
My favorite one of all is Daniel 9:24-27. The prophecy of the 70 weeks. The seventy “sevens” or “weeks” (shebua) refer consistently to the 7-year sabbath cycles for the land described in Leviticus 25:1-8. 2 Chronicles 36(esp v. 21) points out that the Jews hadn’t kept the sabbath once for 490 years. And God was going to give the land its full sabbath rest by removing the Jews from it, just as He said He would (Lev 26:33-35). And so God removes them from the land for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:12).
So Daniel 9 begins with Daniel realizing that the 70 years are almost over, and that God - again because he took the prophecy LITERALLY - is about to be completed (Daniel 9:2). And he begins to pray. And then an angel appears and provides the prophecy of the seventy sevens.
The issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Dan 9:25) refers to Nehemiah 2:1-9 and the reign of Artexerxes 1. This event occurred during the 20th year of Artexerxes’ reign, which is reliably dated to 445 BC. And according to the “clock” the angel gives Daniel, there would be 69 sabbath cycles, and then Messiah the Prince would come and be cut off and killed (Dan 9:25-26).
What happens when we start counting 69 sabbath cycles? Well, a Jewish scholar named Ben Zion Wacholder, using information that would have been common to the Jews of Jesus’ day, DID count them - all the way back to antiquity (in an article in Hebrew Union College Annual). Based on his work, we know this: the decree of Artexerxes fell during the sabbath cycle 449-442. And the 69th sabbath cycle falls from AD 28-35 - exactly the period of Jesus’ public ministry and execution.
So there was an expectation. And men like Simeon (Luke 2:25-27) were expecting to literally SEE the Messiah whose coming prophecy had described.
That’s what happens when you take the prophecies literally. Yes, there is figurative language. But we use figurative language all the time. Every single day, my newspaper tells me the time to the minute of “sunrise.” Well, the sun doesn’t “rise,” and everyone knows it. But just because language is figurative doesn’t mean that no one can know what it means. It is nothing more than a matter of learning and understanding. And it’s a matter of realizing that the symbolism refers to something literal/specific. And a great deal of the Bible’s symbolism is the same way.
You can refuse to do so, and you can trivialize those who take their Bible seriously. But you do so at your own risk. When Jesus said He’d come again (again, a PROPHECY!) He said his coming would be like a thief’s. He told His own to watch the signs, and be ready for Him. But the rest of the world WON’T be watching, and they won’t be ready. Don’t be one of them.
Before bitterly complaining of my responses look to who initiated the long “sheer attrition style”. It was not I who brought up a multiplicity of subjects.
I do not believe that modern men are in tune with the spirit of phrophecy. And that many of the parallels between phropecy and actual events happening now are extremely tenuous. In your view that condemns me. So be it. This thread was predicated on another topic altogether.
To both of you (arrogantsob and Michael Eden)
Well....this thread may well indeed have been predicated on another topic altogether....
but by God’s divine will (no doubt) this thread has become a gem and shining jewel of information, insight and inspiration (at least, for me).
Thank you both for an informative and fascinating exchange of information. I have enjoyed this thread more than any other thread that I’ve read in FR for months now.
See, arrogantsob....God really does work in mysterious ways. He put you here tonight to challenge M Eden and just look at the wonderful results. I doubt that I am alone in these sentiments.
Thanks again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.