DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
No one has used a nuclear bomb yet, against another, since WWII.
So it's not the end times quite yet.
When that happens, then it might be time to consider it, soon enough. Not until then though. It's a big world. And 8.25 billion people is as well a massive number.
In 1776 the world population was estimated to be 800 million people.
We could lose 1,000% And be just fine.
So it's not the end times quite yet.
When that happens, then it might be time to consider it, soon enough. Not until then though. It's a big world. And 8.25 billion people is as well a massive number.
In 1776 the world population was estimated to be 800 million people.
We could lose 1,000% And be just fine.
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
@DeWayfarer Why even mention square roots and algebra then?
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@ArishMell Apart of your own statement...
numerically negative as well as positive roots or values, yet although mathematically correct the minus figures would be logically ridiculous.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@Charity Yes, - mystic ideas and myths from thousands of years old, in an anthology that shows only its authors' beliefs. You cannot correlate anything Biblical with modern technical developments like this much-feared microchip business. They didn't even have electricity in John the Baptist's day.
My mildly Anglican background taught that Jesus, and indeed God, were loving not tyrannical. The only religious services I attend now are occasional funerals, and perhaps half of the funerals I have attended in recent years were secular anyway.
Besides, any religious text is largely meaningless to anyone in a different faith or none.
.....
"Micro-chips"? The human version of those already used for cats and dogs? Nothing to do with religion, of course. Yes - already being made and sold but that is a far cry from compulsory use. It might be more likely in China or North Korea, I suppose. Though compulsory use is a nasty concept, calling these chips "the mark of the beast" is meaningless and pointless; and thinking them "prophesied" two millennia ago merely imaginative.
'''''''
I know credit / debit cards, and bank-transfers, are digital transactions. I did not question that.
I hope we do not lose cash. I do not know which country is yours, and it may not matter there, but it could have very deleterious social effects in mine, the UK.
That is not for ordinary shopping, utility-bills, car tax and the like - most of use now use electronic payments for them although many smalller shops prefer cash for low-value purchases. (The banks rip them off for taking electronic payments.) Cards also allow buying car fuel without needing use the filling-station shop, thus allowing availability after shop hours; but the facility is not ubiquitous. While bank-transfers allow ready payments of, for example, club subscriptions.
Rather, it is because British society is very rich in all sorts of voluntary clubs and societies, amateur-run events like carnivals, fetes and coffee-mornings, and charities. These all rely heavily on innumerable small-value cash transactions and ad-hoc donations that totally and nationally must create an enormous yearly turn-over.
Removing cash would mean raising prices or losing money due to the banks charges, greatly reduce such transactions and donations, and wipe out money-raising by cash-collection boxes. It would also end voluntary tip-pots on cafe counters: the added "service charge" on the bill might be voluntary but seems a command, and raises suspicions of who benefits.
Further, we have seen in recent years people return to shopping by cash, at least for minor day-to-day items, because it imposes a visible self-rationing.
''''''
I don't think anyone seriously thinks a "world government" is possible, by far too many deeply entrenched, opposing interests and ideologies. Each would want its way and none other. The Pope might wish for a "world government", but anyone can be an idealist and wish for anything.
A world government? Run by whom, selected by whom and how? Run how and on what ideological lines? Under what remits and limits? Funded by whom and how?
The nearest we have are the United Nations, economic blocs like BRICS and the EU, some military alliances including NATO, and many individual, specialist international-agreement bodies (MarPol, ISO, etc.); but even some of the apolitical, non-military ones struggle to operate and co-operate properly.
If anythng the possibility of any such umbrella is receding ever further.
My mildly Anglican background taught that Jesus, and indeed God, were loving not tyrannical. The only religious services I attend now are occasional funerals, and perhaps half of the funerals I have attended in recent years were secular anyway.
Besides, any religious text is largely meaningless to anyone in a different faith or none.
.....
"Micro-chips"? The human version of those already used for cats and dogs? Nothing to do with religion, of course. Yes - already being made and sold but that is a far cry from compulsory use. It might be more likely in China or North Korea, I suppose. Though compulsory use is a nasty concept, calling these chips "the mark of the beast" is meaningless and pointless; and thinking them "prophesied" two millennia ago merely imaginative.
'''''''
I know credit / debit cards, and bank-transfers, are digital transactions. I did not question that.
I hope we do not lose cash. I do not know which country is yours, and it may not matter there, but it could have very deleterious social effects in mine, the UK.
That is not for ordinary shopping, utility-bills, car tax and the like - most of use now use electronic payments for them although many smalller shops prefer cash for low-value purchases. (The banks rip them off for taking electronic payments.) Cards also allow buying car fuel without needing use the filling-station shop, thus allowing availability after shop hours; but the facility is not ubiquitous. While bank-transfers allow ready payments of, for example, club subscriptions.
Rather, it is because British society is very rich in all sorts of voluntary clubs and societies, amateur-run events like carnivals, fetes and coffee-mornings, and charities. These all rely heavily on innumerable small-value cash transactions and ad-hoc donations that totally and nationally must create an enormous yearly turn-over.
Removing cash would mean raising prices or losing money due to the banks charges, greatly reduce such transactions and donations, and wipe out money-raising by cash-collection boxes. It would also end voluntary tip-pots on cafe counters: the added "service charge" on the bill might be voluntary but seems a command, and raises suspicions of who benefits.
Further, we have seen in recent years people return to shopping by cash, at least for minor day-to-day items, because it imposes a visible self-rationing.
''''''
I don't think anyone seriously thinks a "world government" is possible, by far too many deeply entrenched, opposing interests and ideologies. Each would want its way and none other. The Pope might wish for a "world government", but anyone can be an idealist and wish for anything.
A world government? Run by whom, selected by whom and how? Run how and on what ideological lines? Under what remits and limits? Funded by whom and how?
The nearest we have are the United Nations, economic blocs like BRICS and the EU, some military alliances including NATO, and many individual, specialist international-agreement bodies (MarPol, ISO, etc.); but even some of the apolitical, non-military ones struggle to operate and co-operate properly.
If anythng the possibility of any such umbrella is receding ever further.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@Charity Oh, I know the micro-chips work but I certainly don't want one!
I never said they would be used for religious purposes. I said they cannot be considered as prophesied, any more than those ancient seers could have forecast us conversing like this, or driving motor-cars. They are passive anyway: they merely transmit very limited ID codes to their scanner, and at very low power so very low range.
Cash is indeed being phased out by many businesses. For example, sometimes I refuel my car without needing go to the till because my nearest filling-station's pumps have built-in card-readers, though still with a pay in the shop option.
You can't cheat the pay-at-pump option. Its system verifies your bank-account can lend it £120 before switching the pump itself on, then it refunds the balance. The full £120 will buy roughly 20 UK Gallons of petrol at current price - probably well above most cars' capacities.
I hope though that cash will stay. It allows many transactions just not sensible or feasible electronically.
====
NATO and the EU are totally separate blocs with very different purposes and aims. They might co-operate, and their memberships overlap, but neither was ever set up to form some sort of "World Government", which as I explained, is only a dream anyway. Or more likely, a nightmare.
In effect those alliances' member countries happen to belong to two separate but largely co-operative, clubs.
====
Most countries have driving-licence, social-security, etc. systems, and many are roughly similar to others' but they are largely individual to countries. There is a "European Driving Licence" applicable in the EU's 27 nations plus Liechenstein, Norway and Iceland; but all of these except Iceland form a cluster of associated nations on one continent, so it makes practical sense. My UK Driving Licence appears to be of the same format as, but is not, an EDL. Nevertheless, I am pretty sure I can drive in the EU, as it is recognised for visitors.
Even so these are purely practical, administrative agreements between a bunch of co-operating countries, no more any sort of "World Government" scheme than my State Pension.
(Same, at national levels, with the ISO I cited.)
++++
I looked at that "Bible Gateway" page. It shows how much different editors have liked to re-write the Bible down the ages, from its original Jewish texts; but again, all that end-of-the-world stuff is meaningless for all real purposes. Though it suggests the original writer, whoever he was, thought his God a nasty piece of work perfectly prepared to kill everyone and everything on a whim at some unpredictable future time.
Never mind - I accept people believe in God or some other deity, and two of my friends are ordained priests, but I am not mystic myself.
Yes, our world will end in time..... calculated by modern astro-physicists not guessed by Late Bronze-Age fortune-tellers; and as far, far off into the future, by which time our species will have long ceased to exist in the natural course of events anyway.
That's not really forecast in the Bible though, in passages apparently designed merely to frighten people into obeying priests.
The convenient thing about all that lurid fortune-telling is that it never says when things will happen; and most were about natural disasters - floods, plagues, etc - that occur occasionally anyway.
It's a safe bet, working something: I The Seer cast my runes, stroke my beard and intone, "And there shall be a great pestilence", and lo! next year, an epidemic of some disease. Or it might wait three years, or ten. But I remind my believers what I said and they think I am Ever So Clever, or have God's clay-tablet address... No I wasn't. No I don't. I merely avoided saying what sort of pestilence and when: I simply knew pestilences are irregular but fairly common within my congregants' lifetimes.
Besides, our greatest enemy is not God, even if such exists, but ourselves.
I never said they would be used for religious purposes. I said they cannot be considered as prophesied, any more than those ancient seers could have forecast us conversing like this, or driving motor-cars. They are passive anyway: they merely transmit very limited ID codes to their scanner, and at very low power so very low range.
Cash is indeed being phased out by many businesses. For example, sometimes I refuel my car without needing go to the till because my nearest filling-station's pumps have built-in card-readers, though still with a pay in the shop option.
You can't cheat the pay-at-pump option. Its system verifies your bank-account can lend it £120 before switching the pump itself on, then it refunds the balance. The full £120 will buy roughly 20 UK Gallons of petrol at current price - probably well above most cars' capacities.
I hope though that cash will stay. It allows many transactions just not sensible or feasible electronically.
====
NATO and the EU are totally separate blocs with very different purposes and aims. They might co-operate, and their memberships overlap, but neither was ever set up to form some sort of "World Government", which as I explained, is only a dream anyway. Or more likely, a nightmare.
In effect those alliances' member countries happen to belong to two separate but largely co-operative, clubs.
====
Most countries have driving-licence, social-security, etc. systems, and many are roughly similar to others' but they are largely individual to countries. There is a "European Driving Licence" applicable in the EU's 27 nations plus Liechenstein, Norway and Iceland; but all of these except Iceland form a cluster of associated nations on one continent, so it makes practical sense. My UK Driving Licence appears to be of the same format as, but is not, an EDL. Nevertheless, I am pretty sure I can drive in the EU, as it is recognised for visitors.
Even so these are purely practical, administrative agreements between a bunch of co-operating countries, no more any sort of "World Government" scheme than my State Pension.
(Same, at national levels, with the ISO I cited.)
++++
I looked at that "Bible Gateway" page. It shows how much different editors have liked to re-write the Bible down the ages, from its original Jewish texts; but again, all that end-of-the-world stuff is meaningless for all real purposes. Though it suggests the original writer, whoever he was, thought his God a nasty piece of work perfectly prepared to kill everyone and everything on a whim at some unpredictable future time.
Never mind - I accept people believe in God or some other deity, and two of my friends are ordained priests, but I am not mystic myself.
Yes, our world will end in time..... calculated by modern astro-physicists not guessed by Late Bronze-Age fortune-tellers; and as far, far off into the future, by which time our species will have long ceased to exist in the natural course of events anyway.
That's not really forecast in the Bible though, in passages apparently designed merely to frighten people into obeying priests.
The convenient thing about all that lurid fortune-telling is that it never says when things will happen; and most were about natural disasters - floods, plagues, etc - that occur occasionally anyway.
It's a safe bet, working something: I The Seer cast my runes, stroke my beard and intone, "And there shall be a great pestilence", and lo! next year, an epidemic of some disease. Or it might wait three years, or ten. But I remind my believers what I said and they think I am Ever So Clever, or have God's clay-tablet address... No I wasn't. No I don't. I merely avoided saying what sort of pestilence and when: I simply knew pestilences are irregular but fairly common within my congregants' lifetimes.
Besides, our greatest enemy is not God, even if such exists, but ourselves.
Charity · 70-79
@ArishMell
You don't see the connection in prophecy and these modern days of technology so be it.
God did say that he detest man's inventions and the inventions take man farther from him but he also said whatever man dreams to do, he will do it. Man in the past 200 years has indeed gained much knowledge from walking to transportation to the Moon and all of the other technologies.
Thank you for the intelligent conversation and I'll leave with this biblical prophecy the gospel must be preached to All Nations as a witness and then the end will come....... As it said today an estimated 100 on contacted people exist on the Earth which is partially true they have been contacted they just reject the outside world. And who can say at some point some missionary 200 years ago or so hasn't already made contact and told them of the Gospel.
Good luck or whatever you believe in.
You don't see the connection in prophecy and these modern days of technology so be it.
God did say that he detest man's inventions and the inventions take man farther from him but he also said whatever man dreams to do, he will do it. Man in the past 200 years has indeed gained much knowledge from walking to transportation to the Moon and all of the other technologies.
Thank you for the intelligent conversation and I'll leave with this biblical prophecy the gospel must be preached to All Nations as a witness and then the end will come....... As it said today an estimated 100 on contacted people exist on the Earth which is partially true they have been contacted they just reject the outside world. And who can say at some point some missionary 200 years ago or so hasn't already made contact and told them of the Gospel.
Good luck or whatever you believe in.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@Charity Of course I don't see any such connection because the ancient prophets were concerned with mystical aspects of natural events; not inventions they could not possibly even imagine.
I don't know what you mean by 200 "contacted" people - some sort of cult, I suppose, not mainstream Christian denominations.
I don't know what you mean by 200 "contacted" people - some sort of cult, I suppose, not mainstream Christian denominations.
Charity · 70-79
@ArishMell
If you believe they had no natural sense of events so be it for you.
Actually I said an estimated 100 uncontacted people / 200 is about missionaries.
And no uncontacted people is not about cults / definition below.
[media=https://youtu.be/KpoOh94zQcg?si=pdp7FtL9ETLSmZUH]
[media=https://youtu.be/CEQam0pVLx8?si=kvXLrB_0iuptD0A6]
There is science written in the Bible and science as we know it didn't exist then but they knew it such as the Earth was round and not flat - Isaiah 40-42 KJV / that the Earth just sit in space Job 26:7 KJV ...... medicine comes from plants / they knew how to surgically operate ....... they knew how to embalm ......... they knew how to build monuments that man even with the technology today still have no idea of how they accomplished them / things that were so tall and hugh you wonder just how did they .......... Such as the Inca Walls or the pyramids are the Nazca Lines which can only be seen in the air ......... Easter Island ......... Stonehenge ......... and so much more / they knew the Stars / maps the charted lands, how did they do that /
[media=https://youtu.be/KpoOh94zQcg?si=pdp7FtL9ETLSmZUH]
Ancient Mysteries Researchers Still Can't Understand https://share.google/wZVZXKzLBLQcZWVRR
[media=https://youtu.be/EILw-mKefew?si=TH99btCH42954JZ-]
[media=https://youtu.be/qBMPKbZwipI?]
si=f6HG6l7c6Ppo4x_s
The Genesis of African Science and Technology: The Stars of the Deepest Origins-The Dogon's Planetary Cosmologic Knowhow - HubPages https://share.google/g6Ls0BmuEFSzjaODN
[media=https://youtu.be/N9r87q5oVDQ?si=DTFHVVkOUvbPuxGH]
And when you read the order of events in Genesis chapter 1 and compare them to the scientific theories of origin of the universe and origin evolution of life on Earth they are in sync, you say they were concerned with the mystical aspects of naturally events. They knew more than people of today do, they just lacked the machinery.
Ok so it is for you
Take care and thanks, I won't respond again.
If you believe they had no natural sense of events so be it for you.
Actually I said an estimated 100 uncontacted people / 200 is about missionaries.
And no uncontacted people is not about cults / definition below.
[media=https://youtu.be/KpoOh94zQcg?si=pdp7FtL9ETLSmZUH]
[media=https://youtu.be/CEQam0pVLx8?si=kvXLrB_0iuptD0A6]
There is science written in the Bible and science as we know it didn't exist then but they knew it such as the Earth was round and not flat - Isaiah 40-42 KJV / that the Earth just sit in space Job 26:7 KJV ...... medicine comes from plants / they knew how to surgically operate ....... they knew how to embalm ......... they knew how to build monuments that man even with the technology today still have no idea of how they accomplished them / things that were so tall and hugh you wonder just how did they .......... Such as the Inca Walls or the pyramids are the Nazca Lines which can only be seen in the air ......... Easter Island ......... Stonehenge ......... and so much more / they knew the Stars / maps the charted lands, how did they do that /
[media=https://youtu.be/KpoOh94zQcg?si=pdp7FtL9ETLSmZUH]
Ancient Mysteries Researchers Still Can't Understand https://share.google/wZVZXKzLBLQcZWVRR
[media=https://youtu.be/EILw-mKefew?si=TH99btCH42954JZ-]
[media=https://youtu.be/qBMPKbZwipI?]
si=f6HG6l7c6Ppo4x_s
The Genesis of African Science and Technology: The Stars of the Deepest Origins-The Dogon's Planetary Cosmologic Knowhow - HubPages https://share.google/g6Ls0BmuEFSzjaODN
[media=https://youtu.be/N9r87q5oVDQ?si=DTFHVVkOUvbPuxGH]
And when you read the order of events in Genesis chapter 1 and compare them to the scientific theories of origin of the universe and origin evolution of life on Earth they are in sync, you say they were concerned with the mystical aspects of naturally events. They knew more than people of today do, they just lacked the machinery.
Ok so it is for you
Take care and thanks, I won't respond again.
Charity · 70-79
@ArishMell I also have a question
You have a read the translations Sumerian writings concerning the war between Enlil and Enki? ...... They had flying crafts ....... And the war that took place was like that of nuclear war and nuclear fallout for a few hundred miles around the area including Sodom and Gomorrah written of in the Bible. No one knows as an absolute where the cities were located, acceptable evidence found as of yet. Similar to that which is written in Scripture concerning Sodom and Gomorrah. A pillar of salt is like white ash.
Ever read the translations of the war between Horace and Seth of the Egyptians? Extremely similar to that of the Sumerians but why wouldn't it be they communicated. Same gods different culture gave them different names.
Then there is the Epic of Gilgamesh the flood - the flood of Noah is very similar to / just reasonings and events corrected by God through the Hebrews.
Just writing this also in response to someone invented the Hebrew scriptures.
You have a read the translations Sumerian writings concerning the war between Enlil and Enki? ...... They had flying crafts ....... And the war that took place was like that of nuclear war and nuclear fallout for a few hundred miles around the area including Sodom and Gomorrah written of in the Bible. No one knows as an absolute where the cities were located, acceptable evidence found as of yet. Similar to that which is written in Scripture concerning Sodom and Gomorrah. A pillar of salt is like white ash.
Ever read the translations of the war between Horace and Seth of the Egyptians? Extremely similar to that of the Sumerians but why wouldn't it be they communicated. Same gods different culture gave them different names.
Then there is the Epic of Gilgamesh the flood - the flood of Noah is very similar to / just reasonings and events corrected by God through the Hebrews.
Just writing this also in response to someone invented the Hebrew scriptures.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@Charity No, I'd not read those Sumerian writings, but I would be very cautious of assuming from our view of the world now, something the original writers did not understand.
The "flying craft" legends occur elsewhere, such as in South America, but what they all have in common is modern opinions on what ancient artwork loosely resembles to modern eyes.
I'm not sure if the "pillar of salt" story has found any logical explanation, but it could have been some natural formation, if not of rock-salt then of some other mineral resembling it.
The "fires" said to been a navigational landmark in Exodus may have been a small eruption from volcanoes now dormant if not extinct, in roughly the right area for it - that hypothesis was proposed a few years ago by a French geologist. While the idea the fleeing Hebrews crossed the Red Sea is very far-fetched because it is very deep - "Reed Sea" more likely, if meaning the permanent marshes between the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates. (If they still exist - Saddam Hussein decided to drain them, perhaps to drive out their indigenous Arabs.) The majority of those who originally translated the Books of the Torah into Greek etc., did so long after the events - the original scrolls themselves likely long post-date them anyway - and never visited the area.
The Flood is plainly absurd if thought something akin to that stupid Waterworld film; but might have originated in unusually severe floods within that part of the Middle East. Floods are quite common, do feature in ancient legends, and just as now, folk-memory tends to exaggerate the bad.
I accused them of inventing particularly the Book of Genesis - which is patently silly if treated literally rather than allegory - possibly for a very specific purpose (part of creating a new society from motley tribes), but that does not preclude using convenient, existing myths for it.
The rest of the "and-God-smote-xxx" stuff seems merely to frighten the flock into obedience. It's hard to think of any other, logical, reason than the simple "politics".
We don't even know when it all happened, within a span of nearly 5000 years BCE, because the most the writers managed was naming characters' parentage: no ages, no dates by year. They seem not to have had a calendar as such, although once they started farming they had to work by the region's seasons.
That whole region was a melting-pot of different cultures, with a lot of mixing and sometimes fighting; so it is hardly surprising the early Hewbrews adopted some of their own and others' ancestral folk-tales for a long time before producing written versions they then declared absolute.
The writings suffered still further in the hands of the Europeans. The Church of Rome dictated that the Bible edition of the Torah and NT be translated and edited into Latin only, and copied from that. Accuracy went out of Scriptoria windows in the hands of monks who knew absolutely nothing about the Middle East and its many cultures, had never been there, likely had a poor understanding of Judaism, and had to follow Church dogma.
Although the Church later allowed vulgate editions, the translating and editing from Latin were not necessarily accurate, partly perhaps because Latin had been a "living-dead" tongue for so long. It was not until King James' specially convened panel of his 17C days' leading theologians and linguists took on producing an English-language version, that there was any attempt at accurate translation from the earliest sources they could find.
(To be fair to those unfortunate monks, Europeans generally were totally ignorant of the Middle East, as we see by Mediaeval and Renaissance paintings' Biblical characters dressed a la mode Rome and Paris. And more seriously, by the self-styled "Crusaders" returning from attacking the early-Muslim world, baffled by finding that culture was considerably more educated and civilised than their own.)
The "flying craft" legends occur elsewhere, such as in South America, but what they all have in common is modern opinions on what ancient artwork loosely resembles to modern eyes.
I'm not sure if the "pillar of salt" story has found any logical explanation, but it could have been some natural formation, if not of rock-salt then of some other mineral resembling it.
The "fires" said to been a navigational landmark in Exodus may have been a small eruption from volcanoes now dormant if not extinct, in roughly the right area for it - that hypothesis was proposed a few years ago by a French geologist. While the idea the fleeing Hebrews crossed the Red Sea is very far-fetched because it is very deep - "Reed Sea" more likely, if meaning the permanent marshes between the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates. (If they still exist - Saddam Hussein decided to drain them, perhaps to drive out their indigenous Arabs.) The majority of those who originally translated the Books of the Torah into Greek etc., did so long after the events - the original scrolls themselves likely long post-date them anyway - and never visited the area.
The Flood is plainly absurd if thought something akin to that stupid Waterworld film; but might have originated in unusually severe floods within that part of the Middle East. Floods are quite common, do feature in ancient legends, and just as now, folk-memory tends to exaggerate the bad.
I accused them of inventing particularly the Book of Genesis - which is patently silly if treated literally rather than allegory - possibly for a very specific purpose (part of creating a new society from motley tribes), but that does not preclude using convenient, existing myths for it.
The rest of the "and-God-smote-xxx" stuff seems merely to frighten the flock into obedience. It's hard to think of any other, logical, reason than the simple "politics".
We don't even know when it all happened, within a span of nearly 5000 years BCE, because the most the writers managed was naming characters' parentage: no ages, no dates by year. They seem not to have had a calendar as such, although once they started farming they had to work by the region's seasons.
That whole region was a melting-pot of different cultures, with a lot of mixing and sometimes fighting; so it is hardly surprising the early Hewbrews adopted some of their own and others' ancestral folk-tales for a long time before producing written versions they then declared absolute.
The writings suffered still further in the hands of the Europeans. The Church of Rome dictated that the Bible edition of the Torah and NT be translated and edited into Latin only, and copied from that. Accuracy went out of Scriptoria windows in the hands of monks who knew absolutely nothing about the Middle East and its many cultures, had never been there, likely had a poor understanding of Judaism, and had to follow Church dogma.
Although the Church later allowed vulgate editions, the translating and editing from Latin were not necessarily accurate, partly perhaps because Latin had been a "living-dead" tongue for so long. It was not until King James' specially convened panel of his 17C days' leading theologians and linguists took on producing an English-language version, that there was any attempt at accurate translation from the earliest sources they could find.
(To be fair to those unfortunate monks, Europeans generally were totally ignorant of the Middle East, as we see by Mediaeval and Renaissance paintings' Biblical characters dressed a la mode Rome and Paris. And more seriously, by the self-styled "Crusaders" returning from attacking the early-Muslim world, baffled by finding that culture was considerably more educated and civilised than their own.)
ThirstenHowl · M
- broad normalization of AI by the masses, including frequent mentions on SW of using ChatGPT, use of AI-generated images (even by those smart and knowledgeable enough to know better), and sharing of AI-generated music from YouTube on here, recurring false equivalence comparisons of AI to the printing press as the same league of technological threshold, and apathetic resignation along the lines of "there's nothing we can do about it"; this equates to the random SW user, for example, believing they are smarter than, say, Stephen Hawking, who warned of the existential threat of AI before OpenAI even existed ... even people here who profess to love nature — in fact making it a large part of their online persona — regularly upload AI-generate images, that is just surreal
- normalization of crypto mining (even the founder of SW brags about being a bitcoin trader, and ironically, also loving God), which has a similar carbon and water footprint to AI
- rampant climate denialism, as well as acknowledgement of climate change paired with doing nothing about it (and guess what's worsening it already? new voracious AI data centers and the corollary pretext of these being used to justify for new fossil and fission powerplants)
- rampant embrace of resurgent fascism by half the population (having learned nothing from history)
- rampant embrace of ant-vax and anti-science propaganda (science is literally the only thing which will save the human species from extinction)
- the continuing mass delusion that you can really segment one planet into myriad separate "nations" none of which cooperate with each other on the most important things affecting the entire planet (e.g., the atmosphere doesn't give two fcks about your precious and arbitrary borders or separate and differing constitutions, and it seems that by the time the masses finally get that, it will be too late) ... this in turn leads to crazy non-problems like "declining birthrates" in developed Western nations causing hysteria when the population of the planet as a whole only climbs, already at 8x what it ever was for millennia, logically pushing the limits of the carrying capacity of the planet, but any mention of population control is met with gasps of horror (and a return to the "but mah liburtee!" / "but mah holy book!" tropes yet again
- the ongoing penchant for selfishness by most people leading to ridiculous things like believing your favorite hobby of" rolling coal" with your squatted and lifted Ram diesel dually that never goes anywhere requiring a dually is somehow your right and pre-empts any other common sense considerations; the treatment of "individual liberty" as a sort of blank check with no bounds whatsoever
- the ongoing paradox of a significant amount of humanity still with a straight face believing that any entity which would ever qualify as a "deity" would ever need any human middlemen / religions / written texts, or would somehow still be ambiguous enough that 8 billion humans could still have anything less than 100% unanimous consensus agreement that said deity exists (and then in turn is used as a scapegoat for all manner of contradictory human actions)
- a lack of critical thinking skills in most people, which in past technological eras would have had a less magnified impact, but the sum of individual choices and actions now have exponentially more impact, whether on our environment, public health status, or enabling of technologies that literally have the potential for mass extinction and for escaping human control ... moreover, seemingly unrelated things like the majority of people never retaining any economic lessons they may learn for more than 5 minutes eventually leads to them falling back into old habits of just randomly punishing whatever incumbent head of state is in office, regardless of the ideology of the head of state, just because of their perception (accurate or not) that the economy is bad, and regardless of whether the head of state actually has any control over any of the relevant factors ... so if at the particular time the government has a majority that isn't fascist, and enough voters with no economic sense just want to randomly punish the head of state, et al., as some avatar of the economy, by re-engaging this perpetual back and forth between progress and regression in voting choices, then it increases the likelihood of repeating the past from less than 100 years ago (again, we don't learn from history, nor retain any economic knowledge), which is the stupidest and most childish way you could ever possibly waste a vote, just as a "protest vote"
is it really any wonder that misanthropes exist, when this is how little humans have evolved over many millennia?
- normalization of crypto mining (even the founder of SW brags about being a bitcoin trader, and ironically, also loving God), which has a similar carbon and water footprint to AI
- rampant climate denialism, as well as acknowledgement of climate change paired with doing nothing about it (and guess what's worsening it already? new voracious AI data centers and the corollary pretext of these being used to justify for new fossil and fission powerplants)
- rampant embrace of resurgent fascism by half the population (having learned nothing from history)
- rampant embrace of ant-vax and anti-science propaganda (science is literally the only thing which will save the human species from extinction)
- the continuing mass delusion that you can really segment one planet into myriad separate "nations" none of which cooperate with each other on the most important things affecting the entire planet (e.g., the atmosphere doesn't give two fcks about your precious and arbitrary borders or separate and differing constitutions, and it seems that by the time the masses finally get that, it will be too late) ... this in turn leads to crazy non-problems like "declining birthrates" in developed Western nations causing hysteria when the population of the planet as a whole only climbs, already at 8x what it ever was for millennia, logically pushing the limits of the carrying capacity of the planet, but any mention of population control is met with gasps of horror (and a return to the "but mah liburtee!" / "but mah holy book!" tropes yet again
- the ongoing penchant for selfishness by most people leading to ridiculous things like believing your favorite hobby of" rolling coal" with your squatted and lifted Ram diesel dually that never goes anywhere requiring a dually is somehow your right and pre-empts any other common sense considerations; the treatment of "individual liberty" as a sort of blank check with no bounds whatsoever
- the ongoing paradox of a significant amount of humanity still with a straight face believing that any entity which would ever qualify as a "deity" would ever need any human middlemen / religions / written texts, or would somehow still be ambiguous enough that 8 billion humans could still have anything less than 100% unanimous consensus agreement that said deity exists (and then in turn is used as a scapegoat for all manner of contradictory human actions)
- a lack of critical thinking skills in most people, which in past technological eras would have had a less magnified impact, but the sum of individual choices and actions now have exponentially more impact, whether on our environment, public health status, or enabling of technologies that literally have the potential for mass extinction and for escaping human control ... moreover, seemingly unrelated things like the majority of people never retaining any economic lessons they may learn for more than 5 minutes eventually leads to them falling back into old habits of just randomly punishing whatever incumbent head of state is in office, regardless of the ideology of the head of state, just because of their perception (accurate or not) that the economy is bad, and regardless of whether the head of state actually has any control over any of the relevant factors ... so if at the particular time the government has a majority that isn't fascist, and enough voters with no economic sense just want to randomly punish the head of state, et al., as some avatar of the economy, by re-engaging this perpetual back and forth between progress and regression in voting choices, then it increases the likelihood of repeating the past from less than 100 years ago (again, we don't learn from history, nor retain any economic knowledge), which is the stupidest and most childish way you could ever possibly waste a vote, just as a "protest vote"
is it really any wonder that misanthropes exist, when this is how little humans have evolved over many millennia?
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@ThirstenHowl I think you exagerrate a bit but I agree broadly with your message. We never learn.....
Charity · 70-79
1) The ability to initiate the mark of the beast / microchipping.
2) internet / cell phone / television - ability to for the whole world to see the Lord coming from the clouds in the sky with his angels
3) the US government slowly releasing knowledge of extraterrestrial visitations
4) family violence increasing worldwide / Jesus said he comes to turn family against each other and whoever sats at your table with you will be your worst enemy.
5) the rise of crypto / biocoins governments for decades want to eliminate cash money. Making tracking easy.
6) everything going digital, from laundromats, to car washes, to grocery stores, autos, slowly eliminating cash. Making buying, selling, and trading easier.
7) NATO / The European Union / even Pope Francis edging on to a world government.
8) prices of food and the necessities to live steadily on the rise worldwide.
9) pandemics that can wipe out millions and the KEY is worldwide. And the oddest thing is animals are generally the cause, look like written in Revelation.
10) natural disasters on the rise, more intense and destructive, since man began keeping record.
11) crime / iniquity worldwide is abound and note acts of war / war crimes.
And that's just off the top of my head and I'll end with this last one
12) Trump who seems to be paving the way for the rise of the ways the government of the Beast and his Antichrist.
2) internet / cell phone / television - ability to for the whole world to see the Lord coming from the clouds in the sky with his angels
3) the US government slowly releasing knowledge of extraterrestrial visitations
4) family violence increasing worldwide / Jesus said he comes to turn family against each other and whoever sats at your table with you will be your worst enemy.
5) the rise of crypto / biocoins governments for decades want to eliminate cash money. Making tracking easy.
6) everything going digital, from laundromats, to car washes, to grocery stores, autos, slowly eliminating cash. Making buying, selling, and trading easier.
7) NATO / The European Union / even Pope Francis edging on to a world government.
8) prices of food and the necessities to live steadily on the rise worldwide.
9) pandemics that can wipe out millions and the KEY is worldwide. And the oddest thing is animals are generally the cause, look like written in Revelation.
10) natural disasters on the rise, more intense and destructive, since man began keeping record.
11) crime / iniquity worldwide is abound and note acts of war / war crimes.
And that's just off the top of my head and I'll end with this last one
12) Trump who seems to be paving the way for the rise of the ways the government of the Beast and his Antichrist.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@Charity Not sure if you are being satirical or very pessisimistic with those predictions of horrors-to-come!
As for your mystic ideas I can only say I am glad not to share that strange version of Christianity!
Doesn't the advantage you suggest for Point 6 rather contradict your fear in Point 5?
Point 7: "World Governments" have been a dream or nightmare - I am not sure which it is for you - for a very long time and the possibility seems receding further. It's almost as if trying to push nations or blocs with totally opposing cultures and ideologies together is a sort of opposite to how magnets work!
As for your mystic ideas I can only say I am glad not to share that strange version of Christianity!
Doesn't the advantage you suggest for Point 6 rather contradict your fear in Point 5?
Point 7: "World Governments" have been a dream or nightmare - I am not sure which it is for you - for a very long time and the possibility seems receding further. It's almost as if trying to push nations or blocs with totally opposing cultures and ideologies together is a sort of opposite to how magnets work!
Charity · 70-79
@ArishMell
Well whatever you think you think.
Not my mystic ideas but prophecy written on Scrolls that is 2 to 4000 years old.
You call it a strange version of Christianity then you haven't read the Bible.
I read the Bible and I see the prophecies in the Bible are happening and being enabled to happen with the exception of two: the days of Noah and the rise of the Antichrist.
Actually 5 and 6 go together = ALL DIGITAL PURCHASES EVEN USING A CREDIT CARD IS DIGITAL -
I'm not the one that's pushing for a one world government the governments of the world is.
Cash will soon be obsolete. Will America be ready? | Brookings https://share.google/Wn7WXxkzubRj0PLF3
Pope Backs Plan for World Government; Sees It as a Means to Establish Peace - The New York Times https://share.google/Y3B984KGKyTVSFL94
Revelation 13:17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark--the name of the beast or the number of its name. https://share.google/s7k02hUa05RGVurIb
Well whatever you think you think.
Not my mystic ideas but prophecy written on Scrolls that is 2 to 4000 years old.
You call it a strange version of Christianity then you haven't read the Bible.
I read the Bible and I see the prophecies in the Bible are happening and being enabled to happen with the exception of two: the days of Noah and the rise of the Antichrist.
Actually 5 and 6 go together = ALL DIGITAL PURCHASES EVEN USING A CREDIT CARD IS DIGITAL -
I'm not the one that's pushing for a one world government the governments of the world is.
Cash will soon be obsolete. Will America be ready? | Brookings https://share.google/Wn7WXxkzubRj0PLF3
Pope Backs Plan for World Government; Sees It as a Means to Establish Peace - The New York Times https://share.google/Y3B984KGKyTVSFL94
Revelation 13:17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark--the name of the beast or the number of its name. https://share.google/s7k02hUa05RGVurIb
Picklebobble2 · 56-60, M
Plenty of doommongers more right-wing than left but all declaring the 'foreigner' the enemy.
The only way to ensure your reasonable safety is by 'hiding' since even when home certain 'authorities' can enter to question and detain and remove you or members of your family without so much as probable cause.
A complete lack of 'moral outrage' from religious heads failing to defend their fellow man. No matter what their faith/colour/social status...worth.
Business seemingly desperate to separate their customers into 'worthy' and 'unworthy' depending on whether they can sell them credit cards/loans or other accumulative debt.
The only way to ensure your reasonable safety is by 'hiding' since even when home certain 'authorities' can enter to question and detain and remove you or members of your family without so much as probable cause.
A complete lack of 'moral outrage' from religious heads failing to defend their fellow man. No matter what their faith/colour/social status...worth.
Business seemingly desperate to separate their customers into 'worthy' and 'unworthy' depending on whether they can sell them credit cards/loans or other accumulative debt.
Younameit · F
Extreme political polarization, toxic nationalism getting stronger in many countries, increased hate towards minorities, strong AI dependency. Many isolated conflicts over territory control.
Maybe those don’t indicate the end of the world, but they could indicate a pre world war scenario, which could indeed cause our extinction.
Maybe those don’t indicate the end of the world, but they could indicate a pre world war scenario, which could indeed cause our extinction.
Roundandroundwego · 61-69
@HoeBag trying to make it happen is new. Black magic in the Jew oligarchy and US evangelical community.
Roundandroundwego · 61-69
@HoeBag that's the point, not the oligarchy trying to cause Armageddon. Yup.
bijouxbroussard · F
Thevy29 · 41-45, M
Covid and some new disease that is supposed to be more contagious and dangerous then Covid that news doesn't want to talk about.
Climate change
The Chinese are making aggressive moves in the South China Sea and sent a war ship around Australia to conduct: Practice drills, in the path of commercial airlines.
The American president had lost his grip on reality.
Or the fact that with all these streaming services lulling the population into apathy, they don't care about the world around them.
Climate change
The Chinese are making aggressive moves in the South China Sea and sent a war ship around Australia to conduct: Practice drills, in the path of commercial airlines.
The American president had lost his grip on reality.
Or the fact that with all these streaming services lulling the population into apathy, they don't care about the world around them.
AbstractWave · 61-69, M
Rolexeo · 26-30, M
Nothing, it's all the same.
onewithshoes · 26-30, F
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MrBrownstone · 46-50, M
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Roundandroundwego · 61-69
Nothing. You're proposing black magic. God's not going to be bound by your actions to end anything.
Stop destroying things. Stop playing that game.
Stop destroying things. Stop playing that game.
dubum · 51-55, M
Gaza conflict
Iran v Amerisrael tension
Cuba blockade
Ukraine war
Transgender shooting spree
Iran v Amerisrael tension
Cuba blockade
Ukraine war
Transgender shooting spree
LordShadowfire · 46-50, M
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FloorGenAdm · 51-55, M
@gregloa yeah liberals they're the problem 🙄