Jeremy Pallant

Yeah. 24.819347291981713192266483910899 is a scaaary number. If I run across someone with that tattooed onto their forehead, I'll definitely be concerned.

funinspace

Oh my goohd, that's like exactly a "sacred cubit". It must have some meaning :rolling:

Chili

Of course it is. Par-ousia is the final ousia just as the final form is the Ultimate Form, the final round of samsara is the end of suffering, and the final mass is the Christ-mass.

It's the "great pearl" event in the Gospel, I think.

Chili

The "number of Man" is 666 which is not the mark of the beast. The mark of the beast is the number of "that certain man" and this number is not given.

Lugubert

tezz,

Thank you for starting the thread, and thanks to you-all for the information. I had encountered the "R" word a couple of times, and have done a few searches, but hadn't been able to sort out what it implied. Now I know more (and understand less).

On a side-note, it is interesting to note a couple of differences in terminology at least between the US and Sweden.

An Evangelical Christian to is to me a person who follows the Lutheran dogma and teachings, so "R" is out. There will be a Harmageddon (our spelling) and a Final Judgment for all and everyone. Very egalitarian; no side-stepping the queue. A Lutheran here would never be interested in converting others or preaching in the streets. I'm 61, and I have never encountered something like the US Fundies.

If somebody would refer to a "liberal" Christian here, I suppose it would be implying a greater probability that the person would support female clergy, and be tolerant versus abortions and same-sex marriages etc. The "liberal" would be understood as a political label, referring to the parties between the Social Democrats and the Moderates (who are as far right as they go here; you would probably regard them as diluted Communists). Of course no "R" here either. (I don't know what Christians outside the Church of Sweden believe; they are seldom seen or heard.)

I can't remember having heard the right/left scale being used when referring to beliefs here. There are, however, often political parties running for the local assemblies of the Church of Sweden. Campaign differences are political, not dogmatical (mainly beacuse no voter would be interested in dogma).

Epictetus

"Evangelical" in the U.S. (help me out here, guys, if I am off base) is much broader than in Sweden and does not denote simply one denomination. It crosses denominational lines. It refers to any Christian who sees it as his/her primary duty to convert others to his/her brand of Christianity; i.e. The Great Commission. Evangelicals in this country are quite obnoxious. Evangelical is often linked with Fundamentalist here, meaning not only do these people believe in a literal Bible, inerrant in every word, but they try to talk everyone they meet into believing it too, whether or not you think they are crazed.

Attaching "liberal" or "conservative" to the word Christian in the U.S. tends to focus on their theology; i.e. does it take the Bible literally or allow for some interpretive flexibility. Of course, it also connotes social issues as you have described above; i.e. abortion, women clergy, homosexuality. These social issues (usually championed by our Democratic party and scowled at by Republicans) have merged with Christianity. They are almost always attached to one another; not always, but usually.

rationalOne

I generally think of the passage from 1 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians: 51
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

as well as the 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 passage, mentioned in the religioustolerance.org article mentioned above.

Kosh

No, silly!

It means one of two things:

1. The Rapture will not occur until the US population has quadrupled (I guess housing values will continue to rise!).

2. Magus has once again not bothered to get his facts straight.

I leave final judgement to the reader...

unregistered_user_1

Oh hell yeah, here's a link!

Magus55

Did I say Americans? If so I meant Christians or people in general, not a billion americans. So quick to attack people over something so simple as putting in the wrong word. Issues much?