Prophecy

[GhostSpider]

The . . . Flying Spaghetti Monster? What’s that?

Sounds yummy. Love to sink my teeth into that monster.

[Prometheus Ping]

The . . . Flying Spaghetti Monster? What’s that?

Here, it's a religion/cult that is growing on many campuses across the US, and in Britain too.
http://www.venganza.org/

They seem pretty harmless, and have one heck of an after-life promise.

[KonThaak]

I was following them before they promised anything for the afterlife. XD Back when the "true believers" just wore pirate costumes to stave off global warming...

[Eilonwy Solstice]

Really . . . if I had eyes, I’d roll them.

Oh, all right. I admit I got a giggle out of it.

[KonThaak]

Good. Because that's part of the point.

The other point is to show how ridiculous teaching creationism or "intelligent design" in science class really is. It's fine and dandy to believe that there was an intelligent designer behind it all, but the point of science is to show what happened. To demand within the field of science a belief in a higher power is to pervert the entire point of science...

It's taken more than two and a half millennia for science to catch up to Taoism... There are a lot of us who would like science to prove before it demands belief in something.

[Eilonwy Solstice]

I can’t help but think that’s the same conundrum we face. In a very real sense, this “Flying Spaghetti Monster” is the one we face as well. They laugh at a theory that has no scientific basis; at least not a science we can reproduce at will. And we’re scorned because we cannot produce tangible proof at will.

[KonThaak]

There will come a day...

[Ron Caliburn]

Yes . . . but will that day be too late?

[Shang Li]

No Mr. Caliburn, the day will not be "too late". It shall arrive exactly when it is needed, and after a breif period of absolute chaos, all of the children of men shall be pressed into our battle.

[KonThaak]

Li-sensei is right... There will be a reckoning, before all is lost. That is the way it has always been...

[GhostSpider]

The old world will burn, and a new world shall be born from it ashes.

[Sophoroto]

Hopefully one where we don't have to fight.

[Ron Caliburn]

So none of you care about trying to make the world ready for whats to come? None of you care about the lives that might be saved if we can raise the awareness before it happens?

[Shang Li]

Mr. Caliburn, have I EVER refused my aid to any being who has needed it? Have I shared nothing? Or is it simply that your attention is lacking?

I see here many hunters, a modern druid, a psychitrist, agents and former agents of at least two different governments. It appears to me that 450405 people have been given access to the education you wish to spread. If people don't want to learn, don't want to hear, what do you propose? I know of no way to force someone to believe something - just look at the ongoing debate about Darwin, Genisis, and The Great Spaghetti Monster.

Speaking the truth is easy, getting people to listen and believe is the difficult thing.

[Ron Caliburn]

No Mr. Caliburn, the day will not be "too late". It shall arrive exactly when it is needed, and after a breif period of absolute chaos, all of the children of men shall be pressed into our battle.

Li-sensei is right... There will be a reckoning, before all is lost. That is the way it has always been...

This is what I'm referring to.

The day will come because we make it come or it will be too late. If we do nothing and wait for it, we'll be caught watching as millions die. The Lazlo Society exists specifically to try and get this knowleedge to the peopel before they need it.

We create destiny, not the other way around.

[Chen Lung]

Mr Caliburn, this is moving the topic toward one that has been discussed previously; and although I agree that we should be teaching the people, you tend toward the "force them to listen" school while I am of the "speak and they will hear, understanding comes with knowledge" school. Perhaps this thread should be allowed to remain on the topic of "Prophecy"?

[KonThaak]

Ron, you know me... I hope you know me better than that. I don't just sit back and let things happen. When the reckoning comes, it will be us bringing it about... If anything, I'm not suggesting sloth, I'm suggesting a status-quo. Keep trying to bring awareness to the people... When the time for it comes, those who have heard will begin to listen, and to help us spread the word.

I'd never suggest sitting back and letting the world go by, Ron, you know me better than that...

I'm sorry if I wasn't completely clear, though, before... I haven't been sleeping the best, lately.

[Eilonwy Solstice]

Mr. Cheng, I know it seems that way, but Ron is keeping to the thread in his own way. He has had dreams of this very event. They’re what has kept him going into the blight night in, night out. I’ve had these dreams on occasion, too. They might very well be prophetic in their own way.

And Josh, he wasn’t referring to you. He just tends to talk like that. He knows you care. I know it, too.

[Chen Lung]

Very well; I apologize for my misunderstanding Mr Caliburn. I only wish to reinforce that "Prophecy" is absolute and cannot be avoided, while those events that are foretold and never happen are simply bad attempts at fortune-telling. Until an event happens it is merely predictions; and prediction is more conjecture than fact.

The biggest problem with predictions is that too often they are vague and imprecise in their descriptions of the "event to come." When this is the case, a prediction can be applied to many different situations as they happen. You can predict events until you are blue in the face and if they do not accurately depict the events to come, or if the event never comes, then the prediction was simply a bad guess.

These predictions that are said to have come to pass previously, are not truely predictions so much as they are unclear, generally worded statements that never name people or places by name and never clearly state exactly what the event will be. This allows the reader (normally centuries after the "prophecy" was written) to look at events that have appened and "plug" them into the prophet's "vision."

I do not believe that the future is fixed. There is no God to determine my actions before those actions have happened. If that were the case, why would that God (an all-knowing and loving God) create an entire portion of humanity simply so the actions he had determined for them would damn their souls to hell for all eternity?

Why punish a criminal for his crimes if they were determined to happen by God? He had no choice but commit the crime and his victim had no choice but be his victim. It seems so defeatist.

No. I must believe that it is only through the actions of individuals that the events available to the future become at all. The future is not known even to the gods; you are responsible for your own actions and must, therefore, act in a virtuous manner or pay the price for your failure.

Prophecy is a crutch for the immoral and weak!!

If a person has flashes, dreams, visions, epiphanies of a possible future it should be recognized that this is ONLY a possible future and it should be worked against in any means available never accepted as determined to happen by God. I applaude your efforts Mr Caliburn. My training hall stands to assist you in your work.

[KonThaak]

Master Lung... With your definition of prophecy, I do not believe they exist at all. You are right; the future is always changing, always moving, always malleable. We determine our own futures, and shape and change them through our actions. There can *never* be any kind of foretelling that isn't in some way self-fulfilling or absolutely set in stone. In the case of "self-fulfilling prophecy", if the "prophet" never foretold what they foretell, the events would've never happened...which means that whatever tragedy they foretell could've been avoided by them keeping their damned mouths shut, and there lies the implication that these are not set in stone, either.

However, I believe you misunderstand the implications of the Christian God... Many of them believe you will be condemned to Hell for your actions, but they at least claim that it is your actions--not God's will--that will condemn you. Many Christians believe that if you do not believe in God out of love, you should at least believe out of fear of damnation. This--I believe--goes against the teachings of Christ himself, who is now touted to be the "only begotten son of God", who teaches us to love others as we love ourselves, and to love God...and he defines God as love itself. Jesus never spoke of damnation... It was his followers who put these ideas in his mouth posthumously.

The "too long; didn't read" version is, yes, Christ and his followers believe God is omnipotent, but in his omnipotence, he gave us free will and allows us to exercise it. This doesn't stop people from blaming God when they make bad decisions, but they have no way of backing up these blames.

[Chen Lung]

Sorry, it's another long one.

Master Lung... With your definition of prophecy, I do not believe they exist at all. You are right; the future is always changing, always moving, always malleable. We determine our own futures, and shape and change them through our actions. There can *never* be any kind of foretelling that isn't in some way self-fulfilling or absolutely set in stone. In the case of "self-fulfilling prophecy", if the "prophet" never foretold what they foretell, the events would've never happened...which means that whatever tragedy they foretell could've been avoided by them keeping their damned mouths shut, and there lies the implication that these are not set in stone, either.

However, I believe you misunderstand the implications of the Christian God... Many of them believe you will be condemned to Hell for your actions, but they at least claim that it is your actions--not God's will--that will condemn you. Many Christians believe that if you do not believe in God out of love, you should at least believe out of fear of damnation. This--I believe--goes against the teachings of Christ himself, who is now touted to be the "only begotten son of God", who teaches us to love others as we love ourselves, and to love God...and he defines God as love itself. Jesus never spoke of damnation... It was his followers who put these ideas in his mouth posthumously.

The "too long; didn't read" version is, yes, Christ and his followers believe God is omnipotent, but in his omnipotence, he gave us free will and allows us to exercise it. This doesn't stop people from blaming God when they make bad decisions, but they have no way of backing up these blames.

I am sorry; I do not believe there is a misunderstanding of the nature of the Judeo-Christian God. It seems as though you are willing to give too much credit to the grace of this God while ignoring his punishments. I find it amazing that when things in a person's life are going well, they thank God for his interaction; but when things are going badly, that same person believes that it is his own actions that brought it on not the interactions of God. "God does good things for me, but I make bad things happen to me."

As for "His" damnation of those not favored: Although the words "Omnipotent", "Omnipotence", "Omniscient", or "Omniscience" never apear in the Bible, the idea that God has the capacity to know anything He desires is well documented. Hebrews 4:13 reads: "And before [God] no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account." And Psalm 139 states:

"O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are aquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely." (Psalms 139:1-4)

Clearly, according to the Bible, God is supposed to know it all. Certainly the Christian God is described as having the power to do all things. "For with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37). In Luke 18:27 we find, "And he said, the things which are impossible with men are possible with God." This omnipotence implies that God has the power to know all of the future. But, as philosopher and theoretical physicist Joseph Francis Alward notes, "Having the power to know all of the future is not the same as knowing all of the future. The God described in the Bible has the power to know as much of the future as He wishes, of course, but does He -- or did He -- want to know all of it?" The God of Abraham is usually not considered omniscient on some days and not others. I say "usually" because there do not exist philosophers who suggest the biblical God is omniscient only when he wants to be. Would a God who is omniscient only sometimes still be considered an omniscient being? Our thinking on these matters is easily twisted like taffy in a taffy puller. Look at Romans 8:29:

"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn of many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called."

Alward says that the Romans phrase "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined" implies there are two categories of people: those "for whom he did foreknow and predestinate," and those for whom he did not. If this is what this passage means, then this might indicate that God did not have foreknowledge of all things. Alward suggests that the only kind of omniscience suggested in the Bible is knowledge of past and present. God knows some future events but not all future events. The Bible makes it clear in a number of places that its God does not know some of the future.

If God is omniscient or partially omniscient, how does God reason? Of course this is a presumptuous question for us limited humans to ask. Can a dog understand how humans might reason? But really, the very task of reason is to proceed from previously validated knowledge to evaluate new knowledge claims according to its congruity with that previously validated knowledge, with the intention of validating new knowledge as a result. A being said to be omniscient by nature does not have to go through this drawn-out process as there would never be any new knowledge for it to acquire or validate; it simply knows because it already knows. No means or method of knowledge is at all applicable in the case of an omniscient being.

If "He" is omniscient, God does not reason! Of course literal omniscience makes little sense, think of what it implies. I hold a rock in my hand. It contains silicon atoms. God must know the past of each atom of silicon, thier birth in stars, and their constituents way back to the beginning of time. But wait, He must know much more. He must know the atomic positions that change every picosecond. He must know the state of all of their electrons, the history of their quarks and electrons, the quantum states, the vibrations of the strings. Oh God, and every ripple of the quantum foam. Tell me, is this the same God, who in Exodus 21:28-33, gave Moses the law "If an ox gores a slave, the owner shall pay the slave owner thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned?" Is the God of gluons and galaxies the same God concerned with Israeli oxen dung?

The ancient Greek philosophers believed that God could not possibly talk to humans and be concerned with daily events in human lives. The French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) likewise thought it unlikely that the God of the Bible would be very interested in the affairs of creatures residing within the thin film of life that coats the planet Earth.

Can God change his mind? Although the Ten Commandments forbid murder, the Old Testament appears to contain numerous murders by God or aided by God in which innocent women and children are killed. How do you reconcile this conflict? Can an omniscient being lose its temper?

Prophecy requires that this being should desire to give information to beings that have no power to do anything about those events. It is sadism! Do you subscribe to the idea of a sadistic God?

[KonThaak]

First of all, let me re-iterate that I AGREE with you that there is no such thing as "prophecy", at least not by the definition you have here given.

Again, the future is always changing, always moving... By the terms you have just given, the Christian God knows at any given time every possible future...and this, alone, satisfies the "all-knowing" aspect. By Christian tradition, God created the world and the universe... What happened after that is hotly debated. There's the Clockmaker Theory, which basically says that after setting the universe into motion, God sat back to watch his creation, imposing limitations on himself from interfering in the affairs of men... There are people who believe God is constantly whispering to us, either directly or through angels, to guide--but never force--us to the right path, and it's up to us whether or not we listen... But above all, all Christians seem to agree that God has given us free will to act out as we see fit, and this alone shatters any level of predetermination that could have possibly existed.

So you're right: there is no predetermined future that is set in stone and can be prophesied absolutely...except maybe "the world will continue to turn, and tomorrow, we will experience the illusion of sunrise, except for the people who die tonight, may their souls find rest".

As for your assertion about how Christians look at God...I believe you may be thinking of Eastern Christians. Most American Christians that I have met, when bad things happen, ask, "O God, what have I done to deserve this?" The implication, of course, is that they don't think they've done anything wrong, and God is punishing them unjustly with bad things in their lives...

Above all else, I believe that in order to most fairly judge the Christian faith, one must look at the belief that God is "beyond mortal comprehension"... If we can apply labels such as "he" or "father" or "one" or "many"--or even "omnipotent" or "omniscient"--all terms which can be defined easily and briefly, then these terms don't exactly apply...but in some ways, they probably do. Hence why I assert that knowing every possible future is probably a more accurate way of looking at "omniscience". However, Jesus defines God as "love"...and "love", it would seem, is damned hard to define. It means different things to different people... Some people recognize different levels of love, from between lovers to love between children and parents to love between friends... Some people see only the sexual connotations of "love", or do not believe love exists at all--just like some people don't believe in God.

This is why, to me, "love" is a much stronger definition for God than "some omnipotent, omniscient guy who sits on his ass all day and watches the world go by".

[Cybermancer]

[Robyn]

Prophecy is an interesting subject.

On the surface, there are two opposing philosophies at work here. Fate and Free Will. Either we live in a world of Fate where true prophecy is possible because fate will ensure it occurs or else we live in a world of Free Will where any Prophecy is at best a possible future and at worst a complete fabrication with no more meaning than is placed on it by those who hear it.

If we live in a world of Fate, then Free Will is an illusion. Prophicies aren't self-fulfilling, they were always destiny.

If we live in a world of Free Will, then it is Fate that is the illusion. Prophecies are then predictions that can be avoided by intervention.

In either case, it is likely impossible to divine the truth of the matter.

Personally, I prefer to believe in Free Will and self-determination. It is the state in which I would prefer to live; the illusion I choose to embrace (if indeed there ever was a choice).

As for psychic flashes, these seem to be often delivered as prophicies but they are predictions. If one beleives them to be sub-conscious mental calculations, spiritual connections or lucky guesses, their rate of accuracy is variable at best. They are often vague and inprecise. Thus confusion as to their true meaning often results.

Isaac Asimov, a favorite Sci-Fi writer of mine for his Robot series, invented something called psycho-history. The concept was fairly simple, that the behavior of masses of humans could be mathimatically predicted. Trends could be seen and extrapulated on. Science is already pursuing the beginnings of this.

The human brain is a fairly amazing computer, one I am still attempting to understand. It is possible, I suppose that it is capable of similar calculations on a primal, instinctive level. In each mind, little bits of data are being read, stored and calculated on. Occasionally they may come together to produce predicted results. Accuracy would depend on the completeness of the data inputed. The human mind being what it is, missing data would be extrapulated or invented, creating inaccuracies in prediction.

Such calculations are still only predictions and can be subverted by individual Free Will.

In the end, this is all merely speculation.

As for discussion on the existence of a divine creator, I have very little of relevance to add. I have no proof that such a being exists but lack of proof does not mean lack of existence. As with the matter of Free Will vs. Fate, I suppose it depends on what one believes or how they chose to perceive the world.

Still, if such creatures as many of you purport to exist, those beings that you have encountered and in some cases fought tooth and claw, if such beings of hell exist, then is it not possible for their opposites to also exist?

There is much I do not yet understand, and this is one such concern. I doubt that I will ever unravel this mystery.