Posted by johann on January 17, 2001 at 13:44:14:
In Reply to: Re: you are wrong posted by dave w on January 10, 2001 at 20:58:02:
Making a statement of, "you are wrong" and thereby implicating that "I am " or even more dangerous "we are" right has been and always will be an indication of humanity's proximity to the "Dark Ages". Since the birth of Christ for reasons of either greed, and or ignorance many Christians have gone out to the world and proclaimed that .."you are wrong" and that "I am right". The message of Christ, through human selfrighteousness therefore have become something that a lot people do not trust. Revelation reflects on this (one opinion) as the "woman" becoming the "prostitute".
As a result the " baby is unknowingly being thrown out with the bathwater"
In this so-called "golden age" through technological advances the "us in the western world" have become...
1. - blinded in there comfort and through a lack of responsibility and a loss of morality has stimulated the greedy and the not so greedy to continue on a path were the disparity between rich and poor have become greater.
In God's eyes the death of any individual especially the innocent does not go unnoticed. For the majority of humanity on the other hand the death of the innocent(sometimes millions)have become similar to the statistical nature of old stock exchange averages.
2. unable to change as we have created a powerful economical and political system in which we have molded ourselves into efficient "gears" that keep the "big machine" turning. Thus far,and maybe still for some time to come the material benefit of the system(so we believe or are told to believe) still exceeds its negative effect on society as a whole. To be even more sceptical we have created a "wolf in sheepclothes" called democracy which have allowed the "have's" in the world to have more and to control the "have not's" to think that they do and/or will have.
To change this system would probably mean the end of the world as we know it.
Belief in the "veracity"(nice word) of Revelation cannot cause the destruction of mankind. Human nature can! The choice is indeed ours. The problem here again is, how much choice does the not so privileged have?
Revelation, now, is not so much a prophesy as it is a Reflection of humanity's history and it indicates a future where man becomes a selfdestructive beast descending into a Spiritless void where God is not.
The torment and the suffering of the innocent and those that love God during the time when humanity is at the point of selfdestruction(some call it Armageddon)is why God has to "interfere".
In conclusion Dave, by your own admission you say that we may be poised on the eve of destruction. Then again we may be far from it.If people in 20 A.D have been saying that the end is near and finally after 2000 years they are proved to be correct. Can one then say that they were wrong in 20 A.D.?
Maybe your arguments are therefore not as convincing as you might think they are.