What is the necessity of prophecy? Does prophecy authenticate the entirety of the prophet and his/her culture, history and religion? Does accurate prophecy validate the existence of God and Christianity as the one Objective, true religion? Can there be an objective religion? Do facts, now claiming to be discovered, that are written about in the Bible, make Christianity the one true Path? Many facts appear to be discovered, but aside from the fact (Black mountaintop, army at the bottom of the Red Sea), is not the assumption that it is God indeed just... another assumption? Can truth be objective and not relative? These few questions have been stirring through my mind. Let's share what we think and we feel together. We will see what happens.
I think the bible is more of a metaphor than a literal story.. When taken on the metaphoric level, God and Jesus are the same as most other ancient traditions views on God, except they dont have the christ-consiousnes, Jesus in their tradition... Though accounts of Jesus coming to mysitc schools are recorded in certain texts, from different places like india and nepal, and egypt... and take for example the christ yogis of india, more christ-consiousness bejewled ten thousand petaled lotus men and women... We all have christ-consiousness within us... and i think that is the ultimate objectivity.... and i think perhaps in some sense prophecy is used, by those of a hieghtened consiousness in the past, to manifest a new light in the future... because intentions create..
You might first like to clatrify exactly what these supposed "facts" are! This "army at the bottom of the sea" and "burnt mountain top" are nothing but the imaginings of minds suffering from religious insanity that see whole armies of chariots in images like this ~
First, I don't think anything humans know or experience (at all) is objective. All our knowledge is subjective. It can't be otherwise, because everything is filtered according to our perceptions before we are even aware we are percieving it. Many of the "prophesies" have been shown to be events that had already occurred, then written about so as to appear to be fortold. Like me writing "the USA will invade a country in the middle east on false premises" right now in such a way that later readers will think I wrote it BEFORE it happened. The motive is to keep the sheeple in the flock, so to speak.
If that were the criteria for determining the "one true religion" there would still be several; Pathogoras came up with the theory that the universe was comprised of atoms (his writings are where we get the term "atom" from) a cpl thousand years before the electron mocroscope. The hindu idea of prana--tiny particles of light or energy that comprise all matter--is probably even older. the fact that archeologists now believe there was a "great flood" some time in antiquity would validate the myths of any number of cultures-- Sumerian, Greek, (some) Native American, Hebrew...--but only so far as their statement that there was a flood.
Correction NaykidApe ~ Leucippus (400BC) was first to conceive the concept of the smallest particles of matter, and named them 'atoms'. Our good friend Pythagorus was primarily intrigued with numbers and their spatial proportions with each other ~ geometry.
oops. right you are MrRee. Archelogys been going back and forth on the issue for a cpl centuries now. It's never been universally accepted but it's never been completely dismissed either. the best recent threory I remember (I'll try and do a google search for a link later but I don't have time to sift through all the apologist sites at the moment) is based on the findings of geologists in north america who discovered a layer of strata containing evidence of sea life and elements more consisent with sub-oceanic torrain which suddenly appears in the geological record sandwiched between layers of what was dry land an which conicides with the sudden ( by Paleontologists standards) disappearance of what some estimate to be 75% of the species of flora and fauna on the continent (sometime around 11,000 bc). I think the fact that the mythology of almost all civilzations is prefaced by a flood story is pretty compelling evidence in itself (although that would be circular reasoning for the purposes of this discussion).
Despite that evidence that something, whatever it was, DID happen, the proceeding claims about how and why differ. Gods, aliens, science, science and God, science and aliens. Or... anything else really. Any other relative perspective about an observable fact. But as I see, even the facts are questionable. So we see that prophecy has been accurate in other religions aside from Christianity. That pretty much throws that argument out the window: That since the Christian prophecies are all fullfilled or are being fullfilled - it means the Christian way is the right way for everyone. Let's talk a bit about... The big question. Is there objective truth? Can truth be known? Or just experienced? What is Truth?
My theory is we're all like worms living under a huge mound of bullshit. Some of the worms spend time theorizing that there may be something called light, and speculating on the nature of light, but having been in the dark all our lives none of us can comprehend what light actually is or where it could possibly come from. Being a rather philosohic race of worms (as worms go), all through our history worm philosophers have been wrestling with questions like; Where did we come from? What is the true nature of bullshit? Why in the world would a sub-fecal race develop something like a sense of smell? There have been stories all through our history of certain worms who, attracted by the warmth of something called "the sun" (which may or may not exist) have gotten close enough to the surface of the mound to actually get a glimpse of some bit of light filterring through the thiner surface layers. Of course none of these worms has ever claimed to actually have seen the "sun" since exposing oneself to direct sunlight would fry a worm on the spot (and admittedly these particular worms always seemed a bit fryed to the other worms) but they did get close enough to be able to see that they were in fact living in a mound of bullshit.
So we see that other prophecieshas been accurate in other religions aside from Christianity. 1. Could you show us these prophecies? 2. And are these local prophecies, or do they involved world wide events? 3. And could you state the purpose of the prophecies? 4. And are the prophecies 100% accurate?
The Mayan Calender, if you're willing to look it up. In another direction: I've been thinking, and feeling, and I've come to a minor discovery. All of this arguing, this weighing facts and evidence to discern what is true and what is false. . . . There are so many factors, and it would take quite an investigation to come to a conclusion. But, before we get into that long journey, that long debate and discussion, we first must discern whether or not Truth can be objective? Whether or not there can be one true religion? Whether or not organized religion is the path to God? To spirituality? To Truth? We first must face the very roots before we divide the branches. We must understand where this begins, and, from there, we may then walk onto these other subjects of question.
Yes, I know of the Mayan Calender, I believe it ends in the year 2012. So could you name the prophecies that are truthful in other religions. You have made some statements, could you please back them up. As far as the Bible is concerned, it is packed full of prophecies that are true and most if not all of them I bleieve will be fulfilled in our generation.
We'll see about both those unfullfilled prophecies and the Mayan Calender. The Mayan Calender is layers of seasons, with subseasons, or cycles if you will. I found a fascinating website explaining the seasons and how they actually explained most of history. I'll find that for ya Campbell. But, first, we must discern truth as it stands. Prophecy aside. We must dig into the roots to see if the ground holds any substance.
The two scientists who wrote 'cataclism: the day the earth nearly died' found that 9500 bc, +/- 150 years was the date deduced from carbon 14 testing of organic material collected from all around the world, from the same strata layer which show evidence of a terrible global event that caused mass extinctions, floods, fires, and destruction on a huge scale. In the Tigris/Euphrates delta there is a layer of mud that suggests another more localized, yet horrific flood in that area, which may have occured around 4000 bc.
By White Feather, Bear Clan, Hopi Tribe "The Fourth World shall end soon, and the Fifth World will begin. This the elders everywhere know. The Signs over many years have been fulfilled, and so few are left. "This is the First Sign: We were told of the coming of the white-skinned men, like Pahana, but not living like Pahana -- men who took the land that was not theirs and who struck their enemies with thunder. (Guns) "This is the Second Sign: Our lands will see the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices. (Covered wagons) "This is the Third Sign: A strange beast like a buffalo but with great long horns, will overrun the land in large numbers. (Longhorn cattle) "This is the Fourth Sign: The land will be crossed by snakes of iron. (Railroad tracks) "This is the Fifth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed by a giant spider's web. (Power and telephone lines) "This is the Sixth Sign: The land shall be criss-crossed with rivers of stone that make pictures in the sun. (Concrete roads and their mirage-producing effects.) "This is the Seventh Sign: You will hear of the sea turning black, and many living things dying because of it. (Oil spills) "This is the Eighth Sign: You will see many youth, who wear their hair long like our people, come and join the tribal nations, to learn our ways and wisdom. (Hippies) "And this is the Ninth and Last Sign: You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star. Very soon after this, the ceremonies of the Hopi people will cease. "These are the Signs that great destruction is here: The world shall rock to and fro. The white man will battle people in other lands -- those who possessed the first light of wisdom. There will be many columns of smoke and fire such as the white man has made in the deserts not far from here. Those who stay and live in the places of the Hopi shall be safe. Then there will be much to rebuild. And soon, very soon afterward, Pahana will return. He shall bring with him the dawn of the Fifth World. He shall plant the seeds of his wisdom in our hearts. Even now the seeds are being planted. These shall smooth the way to the Emergence into the Fifth World."
^the Hopi are a Native American tribe who live in the Arizona/New Mexico area (not sure exatly where). I don't suppose that could be because floods have and still do happen everywhere on earth and are sometimes major events that could have a lasting impression upon a tribal psyche, right? I like your bullshit worm analogy, though
