I've always leaned toward being agnostic. I see where it's absolutely feasible that people made "God" up. Don't know if I'll ever sway completely to that way of thinking.

Part of it is fear though. I look at the "end days" crap in the scriptures and then look at the world and think, "sure seems pretty spot-on, to me." Earthquakes in various places (there've been a crap load of major ones in the last few years), and it seems like 2012 is getting set for a major bonfire - with the solar flares that are only supposed to get worse, and the fact that America's winter has been warm and dry (not sure about other places.)

So, I know, it's probably a totally silly question, but I'm interested in what atheists have to say about predictions in the scriptures that seem to be coming true?

There are no more natural disasters today, then at any other time. The only difference is that our ability to report them is greater. Actually, there is a second difference. The amount of death and destruction from most natural disasters is actually in the decline, as we learn more on how to predict them, respond, and build structures that can withstand them.

Another thing to consider is that the Earth is twice as populated as it was just 30 years ago. So a natural disaster that would have killed 1000 in 1980 kills 2000 today. The quake, tornado or whatever isn't worse. It just has a more devastating effect on people.

Try reading some Sagan for the next 6 months. Demons of a Haunted World may be a good start.

Demon-Haunted World that is....:)

The prophesies are inevitable.
They simply prophesy of things that always happen.
There WILL be...
...another war
...another natural disaster

It's the cyclic occurance of these things that led to the "prophesies" in the first place.

"End Times" prophesies are bull.

The only reason it seems like we have more natural disasters is because we have 24 hour news channels and the internet. 10 years ago, not as many people would hear or really pay attention to all the earthquakes, especially the minor ones.

Solar flares a part of a cycle- I remember back in '01 when we had the same kind of solar storms and they kept screwing up the FAB electronic equipment. It's nothing new.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2012 10:27AM by Itzpapalotl.

Itzpapalotl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The only reason it seems like we have more natural
> disasters is because we have 24 hour news channels
> and the internet. 10 years ago, not as many people
> would hear or really pay attention to all the
> earthquakes, especially the minor ones.

10 years ago (and 20 and 30) people were saying the same damned things.

I took a geology course in college where the professor pointed out that no place on earth is safe from disasters. Some of them pretty spectacular.

When's the last time you saw a mountain move faster than a Ferrari? Heart Mountain... look it up.

There are plenty of ways the world (or at least the human race) can end, but God is not essential to any of them.

I do have my quibble with Dawkins, since culturally he is more of a Christian than I ever was, having grown up as part of a church that merely calls itself Christian, but adheres to few of the traditions and beliefs common to most of the rest. And technically speaking, if you read him closely, he essentially admits that he's technically an agnostic too. But calling himself athiest makes more noise, and almost certain helps sell the books better.

If you find many many hours, checking out the full videos for the several Beyond Belief conferences might be worth your time... there are many skeptics who spoke there, David Brin being one of my favorites, who pointed out the counterproductive nature of being a douchebag when it comes to contesting the inclinations of those who find belief necessary or preferable to making peace with uncertainty.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2012 11:18AM by ambivalentsince1850s.

Most atheists ARE agnostics. That's because most of us are aware that there remains a very slim possibility that there is a deity somewhere in the vast amounts of knowledge that has not been accumulated. That possibility being acknowledged, I don't actually believe there is a deity. I'd need some evidence before I'd go so far as to believe in one.

So your quibble with Dawkins is mostly based on a situation that exists only in your imagination.

The scriptures are generic enough to be interpretted anyway you want.

"Like". Kinda like the daily horoscope. Or a patriarchal blessing.

Even as a Mormon I never really understood the obsession with the "last days". I mean, we are all going to die some day. I could have a fatal car accident on the way home from work today. A tornado could level my home next month. I may be diagnosed with terminal cancer next year. Or Armageddon could begin this summer. I am going to die, maybe sooner, maybe later, but my date with the Grim Reaper is inevitable either way. And if I really believe in a heavenly afterlife then I shouldn't be fearful of death whenever or however it occurs. Wasn't that the whole point of the Easter story?

Predictions are best guesses of a fooled nation. If you toss out the bible, where would society be?

Like Forbidden said, reporting and ability to forecast has increased 10 fold. I remember radar on tv growing up as a joke, "ground clutter". Now we get doppler indicated tornados.

But if you were a true bible believer, then you believe this scripture

Matthew 24:36
But of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

I don't think I'd care so much about Armageddon if I didn't have children. Watching them suffer or losing them would be, I imagine, the worst pain one could ever experience.

I realize solar flares are part of a cycle. I believe that if God is real, he uses scientific methods to accomplish his tasks.

But on that same note, it's hard to believe in a God that would do such things because of "justice." He supposedly loves us an incredible amount. My love for my kids is overwhelming, and I don't believe there's anything that would compel me to do that sh*t to them. Then again, they're not teenagers yet. I might feel differently 10 years from now.

...is just so we'll feel helpless and afraid and turn to religion for (false) comfort and security. If you're going to be in the boogieman fighting business, you need boogiemen. "Oooooo, be afraid of this! Be afraid of that! Even be afraid of yourself! But it's okay because religion is here to save you with more fear-soaked magical thinking."

As long as you believe in some kind of supernatural something or other, you're not an atheist or even an agnostic. You're still a believer -- just not a neatly categorized one. It's not just about belief or disbelief in the biblical capital-G God. We either believe in magical woo (from formal religion or new age hybrid beliefs or occult or whatever) or we don't.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2012 11:29AM by Stray Mutt.

For instance, wars. Well human beings have war. Predicting it is a lot like predicting a massive blazing sphere of plasma will peek over the eastern horizon in a few hours. Weather? That's eternal too. Sooner or later we were going to go into a warm shift -- although I believe humans have drastically speeded that up.

No, I don't think it's anything supernatural. Just normal cyclic behavior and, as the others have pointed out, better access to worldwide news.

And most of us atheists are disinclined to dogmatically state that there is zero possibility of a deity. There is a very, very, very slim chance of a deity (did I mention not likely?). But the odds are slim enough that I'm comfortable living and going on as if there were no deity. I'm sure a deity will feel free to correct me if it cares.

+1

Evolution is the key, but it would be akin to the 1) LDS admitting they are a fraud or 2) Pandoras box. Take your pick

I personally am looking forward to global warming. The only people I think will truly suffer will be TBMs who have to wear garments all the time. Everyone else will go around barely dressed, which will be wonderful for perverts such as myself.

That, and warmer weather means higher food yields from crops. We'll just have to adjust where we plant what.

The scriptures are too narrow in scope. rumors of wars...at what point in time have we not had rumors of wars?


the way I look at it, since the egyptians have been around before during and after the flood, its all bronze age myths.

Yes, notice all the POSITIVE things biblical prophets failed to predict.

Good stuff Stray Mutt.

One of the many things that struck me along the lines of "what a fraud" in Rough Stone Rolling was how when the Church first got started, it had a major "end of days" theme to it. The focus seems to have shifted according to whatever the boys recently read in the scriptures and decided to expand on.

I guess there are two points to address in your question.

First: Is our time really more troubled and full of disasters than times past? As others have answered, the perception of today's slew of disasters can be explained by improved access to information. How do you tell if there has been actual increase in today's number of disasters or if there hasn't been any significant difference in today's number and in the past? You tally the disasters' consequences. The death & destruction rate is way lower today than before.

We have the same perception issue in medicine sometimes with things like cancer and lupus. There are more known cancer and lupus patients today, but their mortality rate had gone way down. The increase in number of patients is due to improved diagnosis technique that is catching the less severe cases that would have gone undetected before. Of course, the lower fatality rate is also due to improved treatment, so even the severe cases of those diseases aren't necessarily death sentence anymore.

Second: What scriptural predictions are 'coming true'? Most religious predictions are so vague that one can hardly fit just one event to it. And the specific ones that don't come true are usually just ignored.

One thing that bugs me when religious people start talking about prophecies coming true is that their favorite prophet(s) can make 99 wrong predictions and 1 that happens to jive with reality, and all the followers like to talk about is that lone accident rather than the 99% failure rate.

And what really rubs me the wrong way is that the scientists can have 95% success rate or better (so that you are relatively sure that the Tylenol pill you had for headache this morning won't kill you, or the car you drive won't blow up, or that just about everything you type in your email turns up exactly as typed in another person's inbox, etc), and all the religious people like to talk about is the 5% of the time when the scientists fail to get it right (which they quickly own up to and correct, in stark contrast to what religious prophets are known to do... they pretend they were never wrong and chastise anyone for 'looking back instead of looking ahead').

Just to be sure, I don't mean 'you' when I rant about the religious people that bug me. I just think it's a general trend among prophecies-believing religious folks to behave that way. :o)

+1

At no other time in history has knowledge been so freely accessible, travel is easier then ever, communication is fantastic, health knowledge is at its best.

You do not have to worry about Mongol, Viking, Barbarian, Roman hoards coming over the hill and raping your women, killing your children and forcing you into slavery. We are not having hundreds of thousands of people a year sacrificed to a God and having their hearts torn out.

The world still has it problems but for humanity as a whole it is better then at any time in history.

Look at it this way. When you start worrying about "God" and what is said in the scriptures just keep in mind.

God never revealed to his prophets about "Bacteria & Virus". He never told them to wash their hands. The one single action of having the wash their hands before eating, before child birth and before surgery would have saved millions of lives.

So if God does not even enlighten mankind about the simple benefits of washing hands then why would you believe anything in the scriptures?

More people have died in history do to bacteria, virus and lack of sanitation then any other cause.

If God really cared he would have revealed to his prophets about soap and sanitation. Instead they shit and washed their clothes in the same river they drank from.

If God does exist he is the Universe best "Troll" ever.

Agreed. But that little sliver of a believer in me is saying "God has his reasons for revealing what he wants or doesn't want."

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any advice he gave regarding living a long, healthy life (you know, other than the WoW.) So you could argue that our mortality rate isn't high on his priority list.

But I guess, yeah, considering the WoW, he probably should have spoke up and mentioned "scrubbing your hands with warm water and soap for at least 30 seconds" at that point.

The challenge is has he ever actually revealed anything at all?

There's nothing that I can point to...

Wars and natural disasters doesn't count for much. As has been stated by others it's like god revealing that the sun is going to come up tomorrow - shocker. It's manipulative - you can see yourself being manipulated by the fear.

There's just lots of stuff he didn't bother to reveal until we figured it out for ourselves. Notice how what god reveals has a lot more to do with the culture, current beliefs, and what those in charge want than anything else.

How can I not believe that all the evils in the world were once in a box opened by Pandora?

Humans have been making up gods for a couple hundred thousand years. Maybe we should start worrying about all of them instead of the one of our place and time.

Today's religions are our future's mythologies. The Earth is older than 6000 years... and other similar stories precede our current creation myth.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2012 03:19PM by steve benson.

Most prophecies are so vague and general that just about anything could happen, and the prophet can say, "see, I told you so."
I'd like to see a prophet that can predict stock market swings, or one that can predict the next natural disaster and thus help save lives. Where were all those prophets when the Japanise tsunami hit? Why couldn't they warn Japan and get everyone out safely before all hell broke loose?
Answer: Most prophets don't know $#!+.

End Time Prophecies.

The nice thing about "end time prophecies" is that they don't have a date. Someone makes the prophecies that "in that day there will be . . . "

So ANY time in the next 2000+ years when anything that was mentioned in any of those "end time prophecies" happens someone can say "Aha! See! It's coming true!"

By the way, that's exactly what they said about the Black Death during the middle ages.

Finding some similarity in something in the news with something in an ancient holy book is a harmless enough past-time I suppose, as long as you don't base anything critical on it. Don't sell all your belongings and expect the world to end on May, 21, 2011.....then again on Oct, 21, 2011. But that's the kind of unreliable thing that atheists tend to not put any stock in.