Allegedly many an American 'believes' that Jesus will be back some time right about now. They are serious about this belief, however, it is never explained as to how he waves a magic wand and fixes the many, many entirely man-made problems we have.
But now I see the light. Jesus was a carpenter, right?
I am imagining that Jesus, with his carpentry skills, is driving right now in his Chevy truck to the job site, to help erect that data centre for one of our billionaire overlords.
Just saying, it could happen, and is probably needed to happen, if this data centre build out is to get anywhere near completion.
>however, it is never explained as to how he waves a magic wand and fixes the many, many entirely man-made problems we have.
It's explained in the Book of Revelations - Jesus comes back and kills everyone who isn't Christian (and actually most Christians too) with plagues and fire and violence and burns the world down to ashes. And then (something something multi-headed dragon something something Whore of Babylon) a giant cube-shaped crystal city drops down from space lit by God's radiance and all of the dead Christians come back wearing white robes to live there and eat and drink and praise Jesus forever and never leave because why would you?
And belief in this is legitimately a big part of why we will never take climate change seriously.
An overwhelming number of Christians do not believe this and do not interpret Revelation in this way. The belief that "Jesus will come back and solve everything instantly" is only held by a minority of small 2nd Great Awakening groups and a few outspoken Evangelical groups, and is unique to theological traditions that arose in the United States. The official teachings of the Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, Anglican and Episcopal communions, Presbyterian denominations, etc and other mainline Christians don't believe this. Before you blame a group for ruining the world or rejecting climate change please actually talk to a representative sample of real people in the group you are making claims about.
Due to the southern strategy that has been cemented into 1/2 of the available political parties for the better part of the last 50 years, outspoken evangelical groups hold an outsized influence on policy at large. Evangelicals are also the largest donors to AIPAC, which heavily influences our society.
It doesn't matter that most Christians don't believe it. Most Muslims don't do violent attacks on civilians, yet they all seem to pay the price either in their home countries or in the US.
It seems world-wide, a hard-right extremist subset of religious believers are ruining things for everyone else.
> An overwhelming number of Christians do not believe this and do not interpret Revelation in this way.
It's actually not that particularly relevant what Christians believe exactly (and they do believe that the world will be destroyed as-is), what's relevant is what the actual crazy book says.
And if you believe the book that says crazy things, or perhaps you cherry pick and interpret the crazy things to your liking and convenience - his point stands.
And the crazy book days say that the non Christians will burn (for eternity?) in flames of hell and that great many Christians won't be able to get through the narrow gate (and also be tortured to death in hot lava).
An overwhelming number of Christians with relevant political and economic power believe this. Orthodox, Anglicans, Episcopalians etc. might as well be a rounding error compared to the influence of American Evangelical and Conservative Christians. Might as well bring up the Amish while you're at it.
You might have a point about Catholics in terms of sheer numbers, but... the only people still listening to Catholics are right wing chuds and Warhammer fans - and even the former aren't listening anymore because the Pope is too "woke" for them. The days when the Pope's word mattered are long, long gone. What happened when he gave his encyclical on AI? It made headlines for a day or two then the world proceeded to ignore the silly hat man as usual.
So I stand by my point. The Christians who matter as far as climate change policy is concerned don't care because as far as they're concerned this world just exists for God to burn anyway.
Are you under the impression that after the seven seals and seven trumpets and four horsemen and oceans turning to blood and earthquakes and famines and everything leading to a new Heaven and new Earth that most people will survive unscathed?
The entire thesis of Christian eschatology is that everyone who isn't Christian burns in hell. And Matthew says regarding the end times "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
Maybe you should read your Bible again, it's pretty clear that Heaven is meant to be a very exclusive club that even most Christians won't get into.
>"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
It's in the context of describing false prophets? It makes sense.
>Heaven is meant to be a very exclusive club that even most Christians won't get into
This is just false. At least be accurate if you have a major problem with the bible? I'm not really sure this is a great context to discuss further.
I was just looking for your reference about Jesus coming back to kill all the christians. Unfair to spout these types of things without some sort of basis right?
>It's in the context of describing false prophets? It makes sense.
I see no evidence from the text that false prophets are being described. False prophets don't cast out demons and do miracles. I know the prior verse talks about false prophets (and do please give me a definition for that which doesn't encompass most Christians) but it's just an assumption on your part that this verse is exclusively talking about false prophets. False prophets don't tend to do miracles, cast out demons, and witness. These are people who seem to put in more effort than most, and are sincere in their belief.
>I was just looking for your reference about Jesus coming back to kill all the christians. Unfair to spout these types of things without some sort of basis right?
I never said Jesus was coming back to kill all the Christians, I said Jesus was coming back to kill most Christians and all of everyone else.
And that is simply and unambiguously the canon. The only point that can be argued is how many Christians are a part of the body count. It certainly isn't zero.
> These are people who seem to put in more effort than most, and are sincere in their belief.
No, check this out:
"have WE not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?"
They are not sincere in their belief. Real Christians believe and rely in Christ and His work alone. The people this verse refers to are to the end clinging to their own merit and trying to earn their salvation through their own works rather than rely on Christ's perfect work on the cross.
> Real Christians believe and rely in Christ and His work alone. The people this verse refers to are to the end *clinging to their own merit and trying to earn their salvation through their own works* rather than rely on Christ's perfect work on the cross.
Man, this is bloody convenient innit.
"Yo, amma big piece of shit, but lets be real here, ain't gonna self correct that shit by my own merit and by doing good work!
Hell nah!
All I have to do is nothing, uh, i mean, believe in Santa for he died on the cross. That's all!"
I understand the point you're making, but the criticism underlying this childish caricature of the Christian faith is discussed extensively in the Bible in books such as Romans and James.
As someone else mentioned, you can read the book of Romans or the epistle of James to find out by yourself why this idea is absurd.
But simplified, say you have a spouse who you dearly love. And say you found out that said spouse would forgive and get over any nasty thing you did to them.
Would that mean that you'd start being evil to them just because you can?
Or would that be yet another reason to try to live up to what such a spouse deserves?
edit:
Actually, I think I misunderstood your issue with what I said.
To clarify, a Christian will strive to do good and be better, but knowing that we'd never be able to be good enough, and that we can only be/do good through Christ, so we never deserve or earn our salvation (hence Grace), but we put our hope in Christ (hence Faith).
Yes, yes, Christians will "strive" to do better, but never really have try that hard, because you know, it's never gonna be "good enough" anyway, therefore accept that you will do "sometimes-woops" fucked up things, and then just ask for forgiveness (but never actually do anything).
The incentive structure is set up to produce bad people.
Kind of reminds of the sight where MMA fighters brutally mash some dudes head in, and then afterwards starts praising the Lord and that only through Lord he has gotten where he is. Weirdest shit ever, and yet it's not uncommon to see it.
Imagine you have two neighboors - neighboor A and neighboor B.
As they walk past you, they say hello and smile. But other than that they don't leave their house very much.
One of the neighboors prays for the humanity and wishes the best to everyone all the time.
The other neighboor fantasizes about torturing people and animals.
Now tell me, which one is neighboor A and which one is neighboor B?
That's right, you can't tell, because from any observable thing in the world, they are virtually equivalent, A is as good and as bad as B. Their inaction in the real world are virtually equivalent.
The only way you can tell who's "good" and "bad" is only and only through actions and results of their actions. Not their thoughts, best intentions or prayers. Only through their actions and results of said actions.
If they represent themselves through inaction, they are virtually equivalent - equally as bad.
Like if somebody steals your bike? Do you want (a) their forgiveness ("i wont steal again I promise") or (b) your bike back + due compensation for caused distress?
Thus - if you do and have done bad things - and you don't make up for them via direct sustained remedial action, but mere prayer and "asking for forgiveness", you're a piece of shit that deserves to burn in the deepest depths of hell.
For better or worse, this applies to so many so called "Christians".
You're right in plenty of what you're saying, that's why I'd recommend you reading Romans and James in the Bible.
But stuff like "but never really have try that hard" and "(but never actually do anything)" are your own assumptions and silly ones at that, you're putting too many people in the same bucket.
> If they represent themselves through inaction, they are virtually equivalent - equally as bad.
In regards to Neighbours A nd B, you're also right, but that's a bad scenario. Christians should thrive to lead a life that reflects the goodness of God and the grace they have received.
Some are rubbish at it, some are better and do amazing things. Same for non-Christian people, mind you.
But ultimately it comes down to: Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins. Are you going to accept that, repent, and follow Him? or are you going to disregard it?
The first option, if done from the heart, WILL bear good fruit.
Yes, but with Christians there's always some sort of thick-layer of self-serving dishonesty on top of it all.
Imagine a person goes out of his way and really helps you out in a tough situation,
would you rather have it:
1. Be a person who does it out of his own volition - out of his own will and mind decided to do that - because that's the right thing to do!
2. Be a person who did it, because a book told him to do so - under a threat of violence no less (being tortured in hot lava!)
I'd always take (1) over somebody who's operating held at gunpoint (2) - threatened with torture for misbehaving.
> But ultimately it comes down to: Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins. Are you going to accept that, repent, and follow Him? or are you going to disregard it?
This is not a free choice! This is thinly veiled threat of violence!
And what happens if I "disregard it" (It being what exactly? Also - what sins?)?
Ah, yes, you get tortured in lake of fire!
The whole thing is just layers and layers of manipulative dishonesty stacked on top of each other.
> Yes, but with Christians there's always some sort of thick-layer of self-serving dishonesty on top of it all.
At this point you're just rooted in absurd prejudice, this conversation is getting nowhere.
> because that's the right thing to do!
Quick question, how do you know what's right and what's wrong? Who says helping others and doing good to others is the right thing to do? Where does that come from?
Anyway, if you think Christians operate under/from fear, you understand nothing about Christianity.
> Quick question, how do you know what's right and what's wrong?
So, wait a minute, you've got no idea what's right or wrong -
and you're incapable deriving and figuring it out on your own?
Thus, without delegating your thinking to somebody else or some book telling you what to do - you'd have no clue what's good and what's bad?
Imagine if instead of The Bible you happened to run upon a different book that says different things, like how killing the nonbelievers is right and blowing yourself up along with bunch of nonbelievers will guarantee you 10 beautiful virgins in heaven.
I mean, you don't know what's right or wrong on your own right, so you'd go ahead and do it?
See - if you can't figure out whats right or wrong on your own - without somebody else telling you (and threatening noncompliance with being burned alive or being promised immortality and goodies) - you are fundamentally incapable of being a good person, if only by accident - as running onto one book over another would completely changes your perception of "right and wrong".
It's pretty crazy if you ask me!
> this conversation is getting nowhere.
This conversation is going somewhere, it's just not going where you want it to go at all. Sorry about that!
You're making my point with your rebuttal. A lot of people think different about right and wrong, good and evil, than I or you do, and that's because they look towards different sources.
I'll assume you think cutting the hands off someone who stole something from you is wrong. But some other people think it's the right thing to do.
What? Are you simply morally superior to them? Or is it that you've received from other sources than them?
Long ago slavery was globally mainstream and accepted until 'some weirdos' pointed to the Bible and said 'Hey, maybe slavery is wrong, according to this we're all created equal under God so we should not hold slaves'.
But no, I guess If you'd been born a thousand years ago you'd just simply have the moral clarity of condemning slavery, honor killings, and other things the rest of the world was happy doing?
> So, wait a minute, you've got no idea what's right or wrong - and you're incapable deriving and figuring it out on your own?
Would this mean that good and evil as absolutes exist?
edit: By they way, you never actually answered my question. Again, how do YOU know what's right and what's wrong?
> Long ago slavery was globally mainstream and accepted until 'some weirdos' pointed to the Bible and said 'Hey, maybe slavery is wrong, according to this we're all created equal under God so we should not hold slaves'.
Bible does NOT directly condemn slavery.
Kind of worse than that, in the Old Testament it accepts it and puts out rules on how slaves are to be treated.
The statement that Christianity is directly responsible for - or has anything to do with abolishment of slavery is absolutely baseless.
As far as Bible is concerned, it's “pro-status quo” as far as slavery is concerned.
> I'll assume you think cutting the hands off someone who stole something from you is wrong. But some other people think it's the right thing to do.
What's right or wrong doesn't change one bit depending on what other people think or what some random book says.
The goal here is to prevent theft, recidivism and to wholly compensate damages, right?
So, if you can achieve that goal causing less damage and suffering than chopping someones hands off, then that is objectively the morally superior thing to do.
You know there's this thing called a human brain, and if you can't use it and on your own derive some sort of Negative Utilitarianism or alike as your moral framework, then you're way too stupid to be a good person.
A person who can stop doing bad only via threats of most gruesome torture and promise of immortaltity and blissful after life, and wouldn't have no clue otherwise - fundamentally can't be a good person.
Imagine you're a God and you want to create freethinking beings that have free will, but
you (for some reason, huh) can't create all of them "very good" to begin with, but it's more like random process - and large amounts of people created are inadvertently "bad". (seems pretty incompetent if you ask me)
So you have no other choice, but spawn them lots of them and let them "do their thing" and then at the end of it pick out the ones act well and DO the most good, and do the least bad.
Now, if you told them that doing good will let them into "heaven" and the "bad ones" will be tortured and burned alive,
you're literally incentivizing (some of the most gullible of) bad people to merely "act good" under threat of gruesome torture.
You've created fakes and pretend do goodies - the self-serving dishonest kind of so called Christians (ie. vast majority of them)
The ones that don't do bad things on their own volition and do good, because it's the right thing to do, but merely because somebody is threatening them with violence, and promise of eternal bliss.
Purely on societal level - if you can manipulate bad and stupid people to do less crime and less bad things - using nothing, but make believe threats of gruesome torture and such, that's a great brainwashing tool to have. That however doesn't turn them into "good people" that can be trusted.
> The statement that Christianity is directly responsible for - or has anything to do with abolishment of slavery is absolutely baseless.
I politely invite you to do your own research, so you don't have to take my word for it.
> What's right or wrong doesn't change one bit depending on what other people think or what some random book says.
So you do acknowledge an absolute of good and evil, right and wrong. Good. We got somewhere.
In regards to the rest, you're drastically limited by your ignorance and misunderstanding of basic Christian concepts, most probably conditioned by your radical prejudices and already formed opinions.
This conversation has become absurd in the sense that you're trying to convince me, a Christian, about what motivates me, or moves me, or about my understanding of reality and absolutes.
Keep your prejudices, you're free to decide, and you're responsible of your decisions.
> You still haven't directly answered my question.
I did actually!
> So you do acknowledge an absolute of good and evil, right and wrong. Good. We got somewhere.
It's not an absolute. "Right and wrong" exists only within framing of living beings or atleast the humans with a functional brain.
And humans who don't believe Santa and alike will derive their moral framework from simple axioms (such as pain and suffering is bad) that are universal across living beings on Earth arriving at something along the lines of Negative Utilitarianism.
> This conversation has become absurd in the sense that you're trying to convince me, a Christian, about what motivates me, or moves me, or about my understanding of reality and absolutes.
The absurd part is that you think this conversation is about you.
Not everything revolves around you. Ground breaking thought, I know.
> In regards to the rest, you're drastically limited by your ignorance and misunderstanding of basic Christian concepts, most probably conditioned by your radical prejudices and already formed opinions.
So you're attacking me instead of refuting my argument or providing a well reasoned counterpoint.
I had the guy rocking up in his truck to spend a day doing carpentry for our AI overlords, and could not see the magic wand.
So now we have him solving the world's problems by killing everyone, apart from a few good people, so have we moved on from a magic wand to a magic wonder weapon?
We should be scared of this man coming back, not waiting patiently for thousands of years. Honestly, I try my hardest to understand it, but I see a greater chance of vast AI data centers in space due to a shortage of resources on earth.It is not going to happen.
But now I see the light. Jesus was a carpenter, right?
I am imagining that Jesus, with his carpentry skills, is driving right now in his Chevy truck to the job site, to help erect that data centre for one of our billionaire overlords.
Just saying, it could happen, and is probably needed to happen, if this data centre build out is to get anywhere near completion.