Signs Of The Last Days  

The 2012 thing - isnt that about the Mayan prophecies where their calendar ends in 2012? As far as I know, there's also another calendar or prophecy seeing 2012 as being something spectacular... perhaps it'll be something like me making payout :)

LOL, cooler!

I agree with PrarieStyle, man will not know the date on which the end of days will arrive in advance.

we can all speculate ... and worry ... but whats that going to do for us?

There have been naysayers and foretellers of doom from time began - but we're still here despite some of the biggest and most horrific events: chernobyl, the tsunami, world wars, famines, 9/11, etc.

I suppose there's one big lesson for us all - and thats never to take anything for granted, and be as prepared as you can be for death. But there's no point in worrying about it - because if you do ... one day you will suddenly realise that life has passed you by and you didnt live it!

Oh my goodness, I AGREE with you cooler! If that isn't a sign of the apocalypse I don't know what is!

I have a relative who is of a doom and gloom brand of religion, "the end is nigh" and every single news report of ANYTHING is another sign of the end of the world - I try to explain to her that there has ALWAYS been war, and poverty and earthquakes, etc, and that I need to live and deal with things in THIS life, to no avail. It gets tiring after a while. She insist on baring the weight of the world on her shoulders and in doing so misses out on so much of the JOY that exists in abundance in this life and in this world for all who are wiling to embrace it. Sure the world is screwed up and life can be REALLY hard, but if that's all you focus on, you will miss out on all the GOOD stuff!

there you go kitty!

Im a nice guy - ask sndcain :P

Life is for living - and enjoy it as much as you possibly can.

BUT ... be firmly grounded - dont get too carried away. We ALL need to be mindful of the life after death, and be prepared to take the consequences of our actions on earth! Thats what religion teaches me.

Kinda like the old scout rule - be prepared!

I'm a mother of tow young children, I kind of HAVE to keep my feet on the ground and my head in reality. I also find comfort in my faith, but my spiritual beliefs and my reality are compatible with eachother. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst sums it up pretty well for me.

Having children makes you look at life in a different perspective. There are so many ills in the world today, and you wish that they have a life which is fruitful, positive, and least harmful.

Faith, along with good morals is the best way to help your children prepare for a long, and hopefully happy life!

Anyways, Im off to bed - long day at work!!!

I'm off to cook dinner now. Have a great night.

Okay, not knocking a good thing but I have definitely witnessed the nearing of the end. Either that or I'm having an acid flashback! I could swear I just read Kitty and Cooler have a reasonable dialogue! I'm going back to bed cause something ain't right!

Oh my god it is the last days, I agree with cooler too lol.

It is most DEFINITELY the last days! I agree with him! Who would have thought?

Anyway...to address PS...

We ARE being attacked. It will get much worse. I don't believe it will go for 50-100 years before it hits the fan. Too many of the signs are fulfilled. I also don't look for a year. It is enough to know it's near.

Does it make you sad...to see so many that will be left behind?

As far as the left behinds go, if sndcain cannot smuggle me into heaven at least I'll have company here!

Kitty, that's what saddens me. That some of my friends might be left here.

And I must clarify...I only agree with cooler about the be as prepared as you can. I know there have been scoffers, and there WILL be scoffers. I don't think EVERY news story shows the end is near. Maybe it just hit home when our son told us he was in an area that had it's FIRST earthquake of record! THAT got my attention.

TBH ramoth, everything must be contextualised. Im sure that when the black plague was raging through europe, they thought that the world would end shortly after. The same with the holocaust. But from the very beginning of time, there have been natural disasters, people inflicting pain and harm on others, and evil in people's hearts. The only reason we're seeing a "rise" in it now is because of the communications gap being breached. Just think - someone sneezes on capitol hill, and a guy in outback australia hears about it the same day. Less than 50 years ago, news of a disaster may not have reached most places for days, weeks, months - if ever.

There have been many twists and turns in the history of earth, and these twists and turns will continue. What must be most guarded against, and something which we probably have a better scope for maintaining some control over is the human factor.

I'm just after realising that you guys agree with me :)

Talk about being slow on the uptake today! Must be the long hours at work ...

I guess it just depends on how you believe.

The preacher that started teaching about Revelations showed how it wasn't just Daniel. There were several other books tied in with it.

If you aren't worried, then I guess you should feel ok.

There are if you have the Swine Flu.

There once was a tyrannosaurus that spoke just like dj!

For every beginning there is an end. In the beginning, the earth was void and yet so it shall be again. Whether it is Biblicial or scientific remains to be seen but the end cometh regardless!

Well yeah prairie if your in mexico lol.


Lol a T rex huh lol. Riiight. That was an asteroid. Not some god.

Whisch would come down to the argument 'What made the asteroid?' And I am NOT getting into a theological discussion with ANYONE!

I guess you don't believe either,then. Right dj?

DJ - well, yeah, as I said;

"Whether it is Biblicial or scientific remains to be seen but the end cometh regardless!"

The world will end...in several billion years when the sun expands. Fact.

islander - perhaps thats more like science fiction for us now - just like mobile phones would have been to the caveman

Islander, how do you KNOW the world will end then? Someone's educated guess. That's all.

I take it you will be real surprised if people just disappear and the only thing left are piles of clothes.

And that will be a great day for the rest of us. Hell hopefully it will happen on a sunday, because the first thing im going to do is go to all the churches and take the money that is left and find the nice car that the pastor has.

Hon, I don't for one second believe EVERYONE will disappear. And I'm pretty sure there will still be some kind of law in the land. It's also said that those who don't take The Mark won't be able to buy or sell. So unless you take it, all that money won't do you one bit of good.

Well yeah not everyone, the people that said they believed and all that and really didnt will be left behind too. Probably be a ton of suicides. And well law and order might come to a stand still for a little bit. Hell have to clean up all the car crashes and plane crashes and all that. So have you read the left behind books?

No, but I've watched the movies.

And I don't know about the suicides. It says people will search for death, but it will run from them. (No, that's not the exact words, but it's the gist of it.)

But I believed in the Last Days long before I saw the movies.

Ahh, ive seen the first movie, how many are out now? Ive read the first four or five books back when I was living with my parents. I just took the religious part out and read it as sci fi lol.

I only saw 2. I don't know if there are any more

Actually, I only believe the End Days started when Jesus came to earth and died.

What gets me is how the Bible says the prophets will lay in the street and everyone will see them. That kind of technology wasn't around then.

Where in the Bible does it say that? My bible reading is a bit rusty.

I'll have to dig around more to support my response, so it will wait. And I'm still trying to figure out how anyone can say for certainty how old the world is. They weren't there. They ran a living clam through carbon dating and it said the clam was several hundred years old. And that is impossible.

I'm not trying to be arrogant. I was asking if anyone else saw and believed the signs.

1 Thessalonians chapter 4 goes into it in some detail, amongst other parts.

And long-lived clams aside, I don't really want to go into the depths of radiometric dating, rock strata and half a dozen other disciplines that show the earth to be around that age; the casual reader can pick up something like Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything if you want something that demonstrates how people have come to that conclusion. Personally though, I treat geologists and paleotologists much like doctors or plumbers; they've spent a lifetime studying their field of expertise, they seem more or less in agreement about their findings, and I'm reasonably prepared to trust that they know what they're talking about.

Incidentally, if I seem skeptical about the 'signs' leading to the end of the world as predicted by religion, I would point out the Jehovah's witnesses confidently predicted the end of the world in 1914. And again in 1915. And, er, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, and 1994, among others.

Self-evidently they were wrong. But they had equally conclusive 'proof' and 'signs'. Now, you might argue that they're some kind of false religion. But if you can prove that without cast a little doubt on your own religion, you're wasting your time on these boards, and should be a leading light in ecumenical circles.

When I read I Thesselonians, I didn't get out of it what you got.
When Paul said "...we which are alive and remain shall be..." he was talking about future people and future happenings. He was telling what will happen when Jesus comes back. He wasn't speaking literally.

Again, it comes back to what you believe. If you don't believe it, that's fine. I do and others do.

And I'm not predicting its death confidently. There are still other things that have to happen before the End comes.

And I think ANYONE who puts a DATE to when that happens is a fool, no matter WHAT religion they are! The Bible says no one will know the hour. He will come as a thief in the night. So trying to put an actual date to it is foolish, to say the least.

Well, OK...

“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” - Matthew 24:34

Similar passages in Mark 13:1-37 and Luke 21:5-33, all referring to the Olivet discourse, which Jesus explictly states all the conditions of, including his return, would be fulfilled before the last person living at that time died.

You can look at it that way. But then Jesus is a liar, and that isn't so.

I found this explanation that says it in layman's terms-

'This generation' refers in Luke's narrative not to a set number of decades or to people living at such-and-such a time, but to people who stubbornly turn their backs on the divine purpose. Jesus' followers can expect hostility and calamity until the very end."

So, to have everything line up and Jesus NOT be a liar, this explanation fits all of those passages.

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Or, for a more simple explanation, you can go by how the new testament was only compiled decades after the events that took place, appropriating from multitudinous religions and festivals, while making things up wholecloth where needed.

For example, this is the guy who was born in 'the harvest time'. Even in the Middle east they don't harvest their crops at midwinter. But funnily enough, the feasts of Mithras and Saturnalia take place exactly then.

Mithras himself is kinda interesting: He was known as "the good shepherd, "the way, the truth and the light, redeemer, savior, Messiah." He was identified with both the lion and the lamb. He was born on December 25th, of a virgin, and was given gifts by 3 magi. He had 12 disciples. His sacred day was Sunday, when followers would enact a 'Lord's Supper', eating bread and wine. He died, was buried in a tomb, and rose again after three days. Rose again at Easter, mind, one of the bigger celebrations Mithraism had.

Is any of this sounding familiar?

So no, I wouldn't call Jesus a liar. I would say though that after 2,000 years of this kind of behaviour from the Church, we have no idea what he said. Or indeed, if he existed to say anything at all.

DJ, there are things to take literally and things you don't.

And Wolf, I guess I just choose to believe different than you. I believe the KJ version of the Bible. I have seen other bibles that changed certain words to be more PC or to fit with what their teachings said.

Oh, I'm not worried about running. I will be raptured out before the Tribulation happens. I was just wondering if anyone else saw the signs and believed the prophecies were being fulfilled.

You really believe that? If so, why one have to face death and go through all that expense of burial when there is an easier way out. Are you really going to bypass the undertaker?

Can you show me in the christian testament where it mentions the Rapture? You can't you know. That was made up by a preacher in the 1800s. It is not in the Bible and it is not in the christian testament. It's not going to happen kids. Google it to save searching for it.

Shalom

I believe that if the world ends today, my body will disappear. If I die before that happens, then I will have to have some kind of burial or cremation.

And I know the word Rapture doesn't appear in the Bible. I use it because it is a term that most Christians and some non-believers are familiar with.

Hi Ramoth, we have a saying that belief kills and belief cures. You are a classic believer.

I will take that as a compliment.

But that's not an answer. The question was whether you saw the signs and believed we were in the Last Days.

So you don't believe we are in the Last Days?

I'm saved, so I'm not worried. We are told to try to help those that aren't saved to gain salvation. I don't think we should have a 'just me' mentality...even now.

Hmmm interesting. If you really truly believed you wouldnt be worried lol.

I am baptized and saved and I am still worried if the end is near.
I really hope it isn't the end of the world soon. But all of
the signs are there lately.

Patricia, you only have to be saved. If you aren't saved, the baptism just got you wet. We are supposed to try and reach others. I am hoping someone reading the topic will see that the Last Days are happening now and they really can't wait any longer.

Oh yes I am saved as well as baptized.

OK. This has what to do with the topic?

Lol dont you love the real idiots ramoth? This has anythign to do with the discussion at all? Nope.

I'm still trying to figure out how this is a discussion of political issues? *sigh* Oh well.