What are some examples in the news you currently see that might make you think we are moving toward and maybe existing within the end times?
Robot
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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.
Charity · 70-79
@ArishMell
Everything that you say and more has been said by non-believers.
Personally, it's your choice to believe as you choose you don't believe in the Lord our God then don't.
In the Book of Daniel 12:4 written by those stupid ancient people it says in the last days knowledge will increase and people will be going to and fro. Knowledge has vastly increased in the past 200 years and in the past hundred years people are just like ants traveling night and Day Day and night.
And I'll leave you with this which is occurring in these modern days which is something Ezekiel wrote of: the wheels / the flying disc / the cherubims within the wheels and something David wrote of the chariots of God. Something that is written in the Bible concerning the speed and flight of the Angels....... And something written and passed down from all those ancient stupid cultures around the world of gods from the sky creating the Earth and all things on it.
https://youtu.be/Z5tzv0Mk7as?si=1dHYK5mGj39tMCvF
[media=https://youtu.be/DagOq0MPig8?si=GemGN3kC6qVqK5RP]
[media=https://youtu.be/rO_M0hLlJ-Q?si=JEAsM2PCfwiZCPLu]
Everything that you say and more has been said by non-believers.
Personally, it's your choice to believe as you choose you don't believe in the Lord our God then don't.
In the Book of Daniel 12:4 written by those stupid ancient people it says in the last days knowledge will increase and people will be going to and fro. Knowledge has vastly increased in the past 200 years and in the past hundred years people are just like ants traveling night and Day Day and night.
And I'll leave you with this which is occurring in these modern days which is something Ezekiel wrote of: the wheels / the flying disc / the cherubims within the wheels and something David wrote of the chariots of God. Something that is written in the Bible concerning the speed and flight of the Angels....... And something written and passed down from all those ancient stupid cultures around the world of gods from the sky creating the Earth and all things on it.
https://youtu.be/Z5tzv0Mk7as?si=1dHYK5mGj39tMCvF
[media=https://youtu.be/DagOq0MPig8?si=GemGN3kC6qVqK5RP]
[media=https://youtu.be/rO_M0hLlJ-Q?si=JEAsM2PCfwiZCPLu]
Charity · 70-79
@ArishMell
I need to add about those microchips I live in the United States and they have done experiments with them in humans and it works.
Switzerland is known for microchipping humans they use them for everyday living keeping records medical, financial, etc
[media=https://youtu.be/dl_gemn9a9E?si=KRMv0ooVGAuPFuLY]
Elon musk and his neurolink in humans
[media=https://youtu.be/cRhVY_AfqFA?si=OXb77h9IRn6z_y_l]
Elon Musk's Neuralink has put in its first human brain implant : NPR https://share.google/1MWZLlil6rBumejl3
China and it's brain implants
The first human brain implant raises ethical dilemmas - Exaudi https://share.google/sUSIya9VmqZ73hPLh
the microchip will never be for a religious purpose or religious as you said It will be government related, what the governments will use in a system which will mandate for all people to use and that will be in the cashless society. And the governments are those who set the rules of Law. Even President Biden was looking into biocoins. Trump is promoting his bio / crypto coins and said to be making millions. Reasoning that without cash crime will go down and certain crimes cease to exist. Trump has already cashed out the penny, next the nickel then the quarter and dime finally paper. And the US sets the trend worldwide and has done so for decades.
And we are headed for a cashless society: in the laundromat they are changing you have to use a credit card / at the car wash you have to use a credit card, they are changing / in supermarkets most self checkouts require credit cards / salaries paid from employment government subsidies paid, one must have a bank account direct deposit ( with a handful of exceptions) / retinal identification, palm prints, used for ID purposes to receive services or enter into many buildings or a scannable ID card. Yes we are headed for a cashless society.
Governments make the rules that the people have to live by, it is mandatory you have a driver's license and or ID and now the newest latest version or pay a penalty / it is mandatory you have social security numbers / etc.
And if so governments desire to have a one world system of government, eventually they will, and they I've been seeking how since at least the 1970s ...... And this began with NATO established in the 1940s and the European Union 1990s, which has representatives from various countries together making decisions.
Accept or deny there are many things in the Bible that have been predicted would come upon mankind in the last days which started 2,000 years ago a day to the Lord is as a thousand years and A thousand years is as a date. Right now we are in the last day when it will end the question therefore we watch what's going on and we will know when it's near as scripture tells us.
And you call it horrific: it gets worse from your point of view; when he comes down from the clouds in the sky and final judgment of the inhabitants of the Earth, this planet, this solar system, this universe will be utterly destroyed it will melt with fervent heat / disintegrate and go out with a loud noise.
2 Peter 3:10 - Bible Gateway https://share.google/5L1j81oiW31JdiaVt
I need to add about those microchips I live in the United States and they have done experiments with them in humans and it works.
Switzerland is known for microchipping humans they use them for everyday living keeping records medical, financial, etc
[media=https://youtu.be/dl_gemn9a9E?si=KRMv0ooVGAuPFuLY]
Elon musk and his neurolink in humans
[media=https://youtu.be/cRhVY_AfqFA?si=OXb77h9IRn6z_y_l]
Elon Musk's Neuralink has put in its first human brain implant : NPR https://share.google/1MWZLlil6rBumejl3
China and it's brain implants
The first human brain implant raises ethical dilemmas - Exaudi https://share.google/sUSIya9VmqZ73hPLh
the microchip will never be for a religious purpose or religious as you said It will be government related, what the governments will use in a system which will mandate for all people to use and that will be in the cashless society. And the governments are those who set the rules of Law. Even President Biden was looking into biocoins. Trump is promoting his bio / crypto coins and said to be making millions. Reasoning that without cash crime will go down and certain crimes cease to exist. Trump has already cashed out the penny, next the nickel then the quarter and dime finally paper. And the US sets the trend worldwide and has done so for decades.
And we are headed for a cashless society: in the laundromat they are changing you have to use a credit card / at the car wash you have to use a credit card, they are changing / in supermarkets most self checkouts require credit cards / salaries paid from employment government subsidies paid, one must have a bank account direct deposit ( with a handful of exceptions) / retinal identification, palm prints, used for ID purposes to receive services or enter into many buildings or a scannable ID card. Yes we are headed for a cashless society.
Governments make the rules that the people have to live by, it is mandatory you have a driver's license and or ID and now the newest latest version or pay a penalty / it is mandatory you have social security numbers / etc.
And if so governments desire to have a one world system of government, eventually they will, and they I've been seeking how since at least the 1970s ...... And this began with NATO established in the 1940s and the European Union 1990s, which has representatives from various countries together making decisions.
Accept or deny there are many things in the Bible that have been predicted would come upon mankind in the last days which started 2,000 years ago a day to the Lord is as a thousand years and A thousand years is as a date. Right now we are in the last day when it will end the question therefore we watch what's going on and we will know when it's near as scripture tells us.
And you call it horrific: it gets worse from your point of view; when he comes down from the clouds in the sky and final judgment of the inhabitants of the Earth, this planet, this solar system, this universe will be utterly destroyed it will melt with fervent heat / disintegrate and go out with a loud noise.
2 Peter 3:10 - Bible Gateway https://share.google/5L1j81oiW31JdiaVt
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.