Are you ignoring something like the need to do your taxes?
Or are you in whirl of activity and don't have time to do something complicated?
scotoma
JoinedPosts by scotoma
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26
Please help me figure out my dreams
by Socrateswannabe inhi everyone, this may be the stupidest post ever.
i am stumped for an answer and would love to hear your opinions, though.
every week or two for the last couple of years, i have a dream--or at least that's what i'm calling it--that consists of me waking up or thinking that i've waked up, and seeing the ceiling of my darkened bedroom filled with algebraic equations.
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Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?
by scotoma inwhat's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.
prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.
even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.
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scotoma
Cofty,
You can go to bed now. I don't plan on writing anymore about prophecy. If anyone has a real interest they can message me.
Sorry for boring everyone.
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Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?
by scotoma inwhat's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.
prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.
even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.
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scotoma
Viviane,
I wanted to establish that prophecy is ambiguous until it needs to be understood. Eventually it will be interpreted correctly and it will be understood by everyone.
There is exactly zero evidence of that happening. What is your basis for reasoning on this?
It's one of the rules for the prophecy game. If you want to play the game you have to accept the rules.
Daniel 8:26,27 "Keep secret the vision because it is yet for many days"..."I kept showing myself numbed on account of of the thing seen and there was nobody understanding it."
Daniel 12:4 "And as for you, O daniel make secret the words and seal up the book until the time of the end. Many will rove about, and the true knowledge will become abundant." NWT
Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” NIV
many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. American King James
seal the book to the time of the end; until many are taught, and knowledge is increased.Brenton Septuagint
Many will travel everywhere, and knowledge will grow. God's Word Translation
the scriptures ISR (1998)
I could list more versions but they all seem to indicate that understanding will emerge from an increase of knowledge.
Daniel 12:8 Now as for me, I heard, but I could not understand.
Do you detect any ambiguity in these statements?
In contrast the prophecy of Revelation is quite different. Revelation 22:10 gives opposite instructions:
"Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll for the appointed time is near"
Well here we are 2000 years later. It is possible to explain this contrast by special pleading to make sense out of it but, at the very least believing that the end is close would strengthen Christians as they faced the trials that would befall them in the first century and for however long they would need to endure.
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Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?
by scotoma inwhat's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.
prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.
even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.
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scotoma
My initial comments were meant to serve as a prelude to what I want to say about end time prophesies. I apologize for a couple poorly structured sentences. I wanted to establish that prophecy is ambiguous until it needs to be understood. Eventually it will be interpreted correctly and it will be understood by everyone. The matching game is not all there is to prophecy. The prophecy about the end has the purpose of generating certain behaviors. The prophecy isn't about sitting on a roof waiting to be levitated. It's about flight for survival. Physical flight. It is a time where those who believe will be able to say with confidence "This is it!"
All the end time prophesies have a very obvious thing in common. The prophesies specifically talk about the succession of specific powers with a western vector. Each power achieves it's ascendency by conquering the previous power. This goes on until the last power is replaced "without human hands". "Without human hands" is mentioned twice referring to the rock that strikes the feet of the immense image. The destruction of the stern-faced king at Daniel 8:23 is accomplished "not by human power". The beast of Daniel 7 meets its end when some heavenly court rules against it and it is burned with fire. After the King of the North successfully brings an end to the King of the South he is destroyed by Michael the great prince. Revelation follows a similar pattern. The last contestants for domination are the Wild Beast and Babylon The Great. Babylon the Great is destroyed by the Wild Beast but the Wild Beast is tossed into the fire by heavenly entities.
The chain of dominating powers doesn't go on forever. There are only four powers mentioned by Daniel. Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. There is an extension of the 4th metal - iron in the feet and toes. This suggests an interesting development. The feet and toes are not a totally new empire but a continuation of the iron legs. The Watchtower makes a mistake in thinking that the Anglo-American empire is a continuation of the Roman empire. The Roman empire didn't end with the fall of Rome. The Byzantine empire centered in the densely populated Eastern Mediterranean was the continuation of the Roman Empire. When the second Rome (Constantinople) fell in 1453 the Russians claimed to be the inheritor of the Roman empire. Look up the Third Rome Concept. There is plenty of research on the internet. Also look up Russian Messianism.
There has been some speculation about what the clay and iron mixture represents. The full understanding of this is quite clear when you do research on the "nationalities" problem in Russia. There are numerous books and articles about how Russia has had to accommodate over 100 distinct nationalities. I could give hundreds of links about this and no one will go through the bother of looking up reading and digesting the information. So here is at least one link that I have snipped on the subject of Russia's Nationality problem.
http://trotsky1917.blogspot.com/2011/08/21-problem-of-nationalities.html
Lenin on the National Question
"Whatever may be the further destiny of the Soviet Union … the national policy of Lenin will find its place among the eternal treasures of mankind" (14).
This conclusion to Trotsky's chapter on ‘the problem of nationalities' shows how highly he valued Lenin's approach to the National Question – not just for the Russian Revolution but for the international revolution as a whole.
Trotsky explains:"Russia was formed not as a national state, but as a state made up of nationalities. This corresponded to its belated character. On a foundation of extensive agriculture and home industry commercial capital developed not deeply, not by transforming production, but broadly, by increasing the radius of its operation" (15).
"To the seventy million Great Russians … there were gradually added about ninety million ‘outlanders' … sharply divided into two groups: the western peoples excelling Russia in their culture, and the eastern standing on a lower level. The vast numbers of these nationalities deprived of rights, and the sharpness of their deprivation, gave to the national problem in Russia a gigantic explosive force" (16).
This amalgam of nationalities meant that a bourgeois revolution in Russia, instead of forging national unity as in countries like Italy and Germany, would tend to pull the different nationalities apart.
"Lenin early learned the inevitability of this development of centrifugal national movements in Russia, and for many years stubbornly fought … for that famous paragraph 9 of the old party programme which formulated the right of nations to self-determination – that is, to complete separation as states. Only in this way could the Russian proletariat gradually win the confidence of the oppressed nationalities " (17).
Remember the image is struck by a stone on it's feet of clay/iron and it is at that point that world empire's are dissolved making room for the stone that evolves into a large mountain and fills the entire earth.
So there you have it. Russia is the last empire after it gains control over the whole earth.
Part of the Roman iron like strength is in Russia but it doesn't hold together. It has become mixed with clay - the offspring of mankind.
Next I will deal with the 7th chapter of Daniel and the dream of 4 beasts.
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Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?
by scotoma inwhat's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.
prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.
even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.
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scotoma
Inside the KH,
You are correct. They have widened the scope of what disasters await the planet. However, it is THE BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS. The ecological problems are probably included to create some buzz. In a way "nuclear winter" from a hundred or so city busting bombs would probably solve the "global warming" problem. The reason nuclear weapons are so serious is that you can't stop the process. The events that could cascade into a nuclear conflict are rooted in fear. Fear means emergency. Emergency requires a rapid response. It could be all over in less than an hour. The two entities that have the fire power to bring this about- Russia and the USA are now in a state of serious confrontation. This current confrontation emerged in a world that thought it had reached the end of history.
The point I want to make is that without some kind of "sky-hook" we're all doomed as a species. There is no reason to believe that humans are going to change course. Territoriality runs very deep. We are of the same world as the animals. The world of humans that has naturally organized itself around it's greed for pleasure, comfort, and unbridled power is flawed and it can't reorganize itself. The world has to experience the consequences of this course right up to the brink of total annihilation.
It will take just such a cataclysmic failure to dispose humans to try a new and different approach. We learn from experience. What we experience is - failure. This process is what the Bible means when it speaks about the end. The end of an ego driven world. The beginning of a world based on the basic requirements for living. If there isn't something bigger than us we are hopeless. The Bible speaks of a Kingdom of the Heavens. It remains to be seen what entities actually make up the "sky kingdom". We need something even non-believers can believe in.
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Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?
by scotoma inwhat's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.
prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.
even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.
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scotoma
Orphan & Viviane
I should have worded this better.
When I said "You won't find a more educated opinion" I was talking about the Doomsday clock on the cover of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
I think the doomsday clock is an educated opinion.
In other words if you are an atheist and you want an opinion the Bible is already not your focus. However, the danger humans are in because of their possessing nuclear weapons is quite real. You don't need the Bible at this point in time to understand that man has the power to bring his species to extinction. This is an intrinsic problem from the time the first pathetic protoplasm discovered the protection provided by a cell wall. Some organisms discovered toxins that would drive off other predatory organisms. The arms race has continued. This intrinsic selfishness has created an arms race. At the point of nation states with nuclear weapons it could all end.
The fluctuating minute hand on the Doomsday clock is a testimony to the certainty of catastrophic failure. It moves slightly back and there is a moment of hope to be followed by some tragic failure in international relations. This has long been the case. However, Nagasaki and Hiroshima is an example of what an enlightened democracy will do when benefit of use exceeds the cost.
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Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?
by scotoma inwhat's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.
prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.
even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.
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scotoma
Smiddy,
JW's have not been very insightful. In many ways they have put their own spin on some traditional protestant anti-catholic obsessions. For example their belief that Babylon the Great is some World Empire of False Religion. Originally, they felt that BTG was the Catholic Church as the protestant reformists believed. Then they decided that in keeping with their claim to being the only true religion they were obligated to group ALL religions under the same title. They built their narrative around the idea that survival depended on "Getting out of Babylon the Great". So, to flee Babylon the Great all you really had to do is renounce your membership in any religious organization. This expanded to forbidding (under threat of excommunication) JW's from working, even in non religious functions, for religious organizations whether under contract or as a direct employee.
This is a serious error on their part. They completely miss the fact that Babylon the Great is actually a political entity described by it's wealth and controlling the economic activities of all nations. The traveling merchants who have become rich due to her habits of consumption ("shameless luxury") beat themselves when they see her destruction by the revived wild beast. So far JW's have been unable to imagine that the destruction of Babylon the Great might require their physical flight. It's very convenient that the JW interpretations don't require any real inconvenience to their headquarters.
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Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?
by scotoma inwhat's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.
prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.
even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.
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scotoma
What's the problem with prophecy?
Prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy NOT an analytical strategy. Prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers. Even the name of the Messiah - Yeshua -wasn't foretold. Instead, the focus of prophecy is on events and actions of the significant players in a prophetic structure. This requires an adaptive approach that can accommodate a best fit. The basic criteria for a fit is the sequence of the events and after that a fit determined by the significance of the event and the relationship of the actors.
End time prophecy requires a high tolerance for ambiguity. There is a temptation for an interpreter of prophecy to become seduced by their understanding, jumping to premature closure. A misidentification of a single event, or action can lead a person way off the track. Practical minds that have a strong executive capacity for action quickly lose patience and look for ways of dismissing prophecy as just wishful thinking - like seeing objects in cloud formations.One type of premature closure is preterism. Preterists go for closure by simply saying all the prophecies have been fulfilled. Daniel’s prophecies are interpreted as being fulfilled during the time of the Maccabeans. Revelation was completely fulfilled in the succession of Roman emperors. If you are one of those impatient people that want to wrap everything up in a nice package so you don’t have to tolerate the tension of waiting for something to happen you probably have something else that is more important that you feel the need of accomplishing. There is no need for you to feel guilty as you proceed to some other thread.
Others who have gone through major life changes to accommodate some theoretical prophetic date decide they have wasted enough time on prophecy and the Bible. These may migrate to religions that don’t emphasize prophecy or become agnostics and even atheists. Many choose not to give up, but to stay alert to world conditions as you accumulate associations between the prophetic structure of events and actions that may fit the prophecy.
One cop out is to say that people have always felt the end of the world is near. That may be true of people’s wishful anticipation of deliverance but the actual facts show that we are living in the most serious time for human civilization. That’s why the doomsday clock appears on the cover of the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists. The Bulletin started in 1947 with a clock set to 7minutes to midnight. Look up the timeline of the Bulletin http://thebulletin.org/timeline Since1947 the most optimistic estimate of time until doomsday was 17 minutes when the Soviet Union fell and the cold war was declared over.The Bulletin describes the situation in 1991: “With the Cold War officially over, the United States and Russia begin making deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty greatly reduces the number of strategic nuclearweapons deployed by the two former adversaries. Better still, a series of unilateral initiatives remove most of the intercontinental ballistic missiles and bombers in both countries from hair-trigger alert. "The illusion that tens of thousands of nuclear weapons are a guarantor of national security has been stripped away," the Bulletin declares”.
Just 4 years later the clock is moved up to 14 minutes to doomsday. Why? “1995: Hopes for a large post-Cold War peace dividend and a renouncing of nuclear weapons fade. Particularly in the United States, hard-liners seem reluctant to soften their rhetoric or actions, as they claim that a resurgent Russia could provide as much of a threat as the Soviet Union.”
- 1998 9 minutes
- 2002 7 minutes
- 2007 5 minutes
- 2010 6 minutes (the famous Russian reset)
- 2012 5 minutes (the reset didn’t work)
- 2015 3 minutes "The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because internationalleaders are failing to perform their most important duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization."
You can brush this off as mere opinion. But if you don’t believe in the Bible you aren’t going to find a more educated opinion of the world’s situation. The biggest players in this scenario are the United States and Russia. So, let’s look at end time prophecy to see if the USA and Russia really figure in.
The prophesies I will address briefly later in this thread are as follows:
- The immense image with the head of gold and feet of clay and iron.
- The four beast of Daniel 7
- The blasphemous horn that emerges from the last of the four beasts.
- The horn that arises after the Ram and Goat struggle
- The King of the North vs The King of the South.
- Revelation The Wild Beast vs. Babylon the Great.
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What exactly is encouragement?
by naazira inwhen elders want to meet with an inactive person to encourage them, what does this really mean?
encouragement is a term thrown around by the organisation.
does this encouragement usually consist of prying into the inactive one's lifestyle?.
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scotoma
When the elders ask when they can come by to encourage me I tell them it will be after they invite me and my wife over for a meal on some weekend. Anything less than that shows they don't really care.
Years ago it was common to be invited to an elder's home. I haven't received an invitation in 30 years.
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Ooops. They're back at the anti-type game.
by scotoma ini thought it was ex"plane"d at the corporate meeting that type-antitypes were finished unless it expressly is stated in the bible.. from the feb 22 study article.
question on paragraph 11- what comparison found at psalm 122:3,4 could be applied to god's people today?.
during the coming time of trouble for this system, we will have to be truly united.
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scotoma
I thought it was Ex"Plane"d at the corporate meeting that type-antitypes were finished unless it expressly is stated in the Bible.
From the Feb 22 study article
Question on Paragraph 11- What comparison found at Psalm 122:3,4 could be applied to God's people today?
During the coming time of trouble for this system, we will have to be truly united. The spiritual unity that we will need to have among ourselves could be compared to the physical proximity of houses in ancient Jerusalem. Those dwellings were built so close together that the psalmist described Jerusalem as a "city that is joined together as one." That enabled the inhabitants to help and protect one another. Moreover, their physical closeness could well represent the spiritual unity of the whole nation when all "the tribes of Jah" assembled for worship. Today and in the critical days to come, we likewise need to remain "joined together as one."
While they didn't call this a type/anti-type it's the kind of reasoning that puts the idea on a slippery slope toward that. Especially, is this the case when you see how they over reached in the explanation.They apparently didn't do enough research to understand that Jerusalem's population density was typical of most Middle Eastern Cities that were subject to invasion. They were fortresses with strong walls that limited the space for the inhabitants. Almost all ancient walled cities built their houses tightly against each other.