CyberPretzel

Just a hypothetical, but if a 100 megaton weapon was detonated on the temple mount what would that mean for biblical prophecies? If Israel was a big radioactive crater could revelations be reinterpreted enough to allow for that situation or would xtianity die out because of where armageddon was supposed to take place is now a uninhabitable landscape. I asked that of a fundamentalist and he said god wouldn't allow that to happen because of what is "supposed" to happen in Israel. I was just curious to hear some devils advocate's views. thanks.

seebs

Well, for what it's worth, I totally ignore all the prophecy stuff. I leave that stuff up to God. Me, I'm going to live my life as though it's not a problem, because how could I plan for it?

For all I know, the preterists are right, and the sacking of the temple in AD70 was the "end of the age", and it's all done. Or maybe it's a metaphor for something entirely different. I dunno. What does it matter? Loving people is working out for me pretty well, so I'm not gonna second-guess.

braces_for_impact

I'm sure christianity would rationalize it somehow, there's too much money to be had. Several religions have predicted the second coming many a time and even after repeated failure they still have followers.

seebs

I know, it's sorta scary.

CyberPretzel

But is there a theoretical limit to rationalization for Christian fundamentalism? Could such a xtian rationalize Revelations if aliens abducted them and then destroyed Earth? I'm just wondering at what point do you have to reinterpret every single word in the text that it becomes unbelievable to any human.

happyboy

it's absolutely AMAZING how far theists will go to rationalize their religions with the real world. assuming we ever have a 9-minute psychlo invasion, the theists will fit the psychlos into their holy texts SOMEHOW...... :banghead:

happyboy

CyberPretzel

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Thieving Magpie

This has little to do with the thread, but it is also amazing how far atheists will go to rationalize their beliefs.

But yeah, if such were to happen, Christians would just rationalize it somehow. I would not say that that is a bad thing, because if they are right, in the end, then they are only doing their 'duty' to rationalize things like this.

CyberPretzel

How far have they gone?

Shake

As I recall, along with the whole Y2K hysteria, there were those who really weren't worried about it since the world was going to end anyway! Apparently, this is common near the century marks. Also, there've been other attempts to predict the end of the world based on scripture, and of course, they've always been wrong. But they've always got a good explanation handy when they turn out to be proven wrong yet again.

I'm sure the world will end eventually! When the sun burns up the last of its nuclear fuel in several billion years, expands out past the orbit of the Earth and then collapses back to a white dwarf. This will leave the Earth, if still intact, without an atmosphere and very, very cold!