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The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

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Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#521

Post by [deleted] »

CyrsBel wrote: post #487
paulryanrogers wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't all powerful. We can't reach into their brain or ear to communicate. Supposedly God is all powerful. And doesn't speak directly to everyone, just certain ones.

Not everyone cares or listens. But the original point of the question you were responding to was that it seems strange that God would communicate with people in an intelligible or familiar or baser way. So being all powerful is irrelevant, because if we do it then why couldn't or wouldn't God do it? There's nothing wrong with communicating in the way that the targets in question will comprehend. That's the point of c…

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Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#522

Post by em-bee »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #513
em-bee wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

free will is one big reason why god would not reveal himself in a universal fashion. free will includes the freedom to reject god. if god were to reveal himself openly then the freedom to reject him would not exist. we would not have a choice but to believe.

That's not a reason. That's an excuse for why the vigorous handwaving of the religious is insufficient. We have people who are catching measles because they don't believe in measles vaccines, like right freaking now even though we know that the vaccines are safe, effective, and work. Every dimwit who is against their children getting those vaccines was once a child whose parents were intelligent enough to get the vac…

i don't understand how the freedom to believe or reject god has anything to do with vaccines. what are you trying to say here?

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#523

Post by whatgoodisaroad »

JohnMakin wrote: post #140

I can shed some light on this, maybe - In the year before the 2020 election, a market opened on predictit called "Will Hillary run for president? Yes/No" First this was a reasonable market, but quickly it became obvious she wasn't running (because she repeatedly said she wasn't, there was no campaign created at all, absolutely zero indicators she was running because she wasn't). Predictit allowed a comment section wh…

there's a really interesting book called "When Prophecy Fails" that documents a doomesday cult. the cult had predicted a huge flood sometime in the 1950s and some sociologists infiltrated the group posing as believers to document their psychological response to the calamity not occuring

one of the core theses of the book is that adherents to a prophecy paradoxically believe in it much more strongly AFTER it's been disproven

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#524

Post by tsegratis »

jajko wrote: post #439
freedomben wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my opinion, I think at least a portion of them have to learn to live with "faith" being the answer to some hard questions. You also don't have to look hard for doctrines that are contradictory. For example: was Jesus human or God? (and keep in mind that God is traditinally viewed as tri-omni, meaning omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent) Many times I've asked that I'm told "he was 100% human and also 100%…

Asking logical critical questions will not get you far with any hardcore believer, at least I havent met any, ever. What you will get plenty of depends on personality - outright attack, run away in some form, or usual blanket statements with 0 actual meaning like "its faith", "you have to believe". As if anything else mattered but a clean moral behavior. Made up rituals very specific to given sect, on different dates…

;) i love critical questions

> As if anything else mattered but a clean moral behavior

this is actually a strongly non-Christian view point: 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God' i.e. no morals are clean enough unless it's 100% of God (why should he accept less?). yes, our harsh moral failures, or even successes could never be enough

hence 100% humanity and divinity of Christ -- he alone provides a 100% perfect bridge, paying 100% the cost for us, one that was infinitely beyond our ability to pay

this is 100% grace, joy, freedom and surety. thanks be to him

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#525

Post by em-bee »

jemfinch wrote: post #500
em-bee wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

free will is one big reason why god would not reveal himself in a universal fashion. free will includes the freedom to reject god. if god were to reveal himself openly then the freedom to reject him would not exist. we would not have a choice but to believe.

This contradicts the most common view of Christians throughout history, especially since the simplest reading of Romans 1 expresses exactly the opposite view: "Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse."

i am not representing a christian viewpoint. but i also do not see the contradiction. the claim that they are without an excuse to reject god does not negate the fact that they have the freedom to reject him. if we didn't have that freedom we could not even have this argument because we would all unquestionably believe in the existence of god.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#526

Post by chrismorgan »

jemfinch wrote: post #489
freedomben wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my opinion, I think at least a portion of them have to learn to live with "faith" being the answer to some hard questions. You also don't have to look hard for doctrines that are contradictory. For example: was Jesus human or God? (and keep in mind that God is traditinally viewed as tri-omni, meaning omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent) Many times I've asked that I'm told "he was 100% human and also 100%…

> Many times I've asked that I'm told "he was 100% human and also 100% God." Does this surprise you? The council of Nicea where this was defined as the orthodox claim happened in A.D. 325. > I'm sure different sects believe differently on that, but plenty do accept that. When I ask "how is it possible to be 100% human and 100% God?" you'll sometimes get answers like, "well it's like water in different for The _vast m…

My experience in Australia and India is that increasingly commonly people, especially but not exclusively laity, don't really believe the Nicene Trinity, but more ignore the Father and make Jesus God. That’s a particularly common view among Hindus, too (I remember a school textbook saying the Christian god was named Jesus), which is almost weird given that their notion of “avatars” isn’t too bad a fit for the trinity.

There are just as many problems or difficulties with viewing Jesus as the only god as with the trinity, but comparatively few professing Christians are all that critical about it.

(For my part, I’m Christadelphian.)

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#528

Post by swores »

hinkley wrote: post #401
mullingitover wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling is humanity's way of enacting a tax on hope.

Usually that’s, “a tax on people bad at math.” If I put an effort into not being cynical, I would say public funds spent on R&D are the more accurate tax on hope. We are collecting money for Progress and Progress will save us from today’s inescapable facts. We hope it will not replace them with something worse.

I disagree, the vast majority of people I've known who gamble understand perfectly well that the odds are against them, they're not choosing to do it because they wrongly believe the EV to be positive.

In some cases it's because the enjoyment they get is worth losing money (and/or they wrongly believe it will be), in some cases it's because even though buying weekly lottery tickets is extremely unlikely to be worth it, the tiny possibility of winning big on it is the only way they could possibly become a millionaire and they want to fantasise that it might still happen.

And the ones who are gambling in the belief that the odds are in their favour, it's not because of their maths, it's because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that their knowledge / opinions on a particular sport are good enough to beat the bookies.

Sure there are also people who think things like "my roulette strategy is bound to work", but it's a tiny proportion.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#529

Post by leptons »

regus wrote: post #493
leptons wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Feynman's take that "I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose which is the way it really is as far as I can tell" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1RqTP5Unr4 The true believers in Christianity have to know , their world view is hinged on knowing that there is a god, that the world was created in 7 days, and that the earth is only 6,000 y…

The Catholic Church does not hold Young Earth Creationism as dogma nor does it hold that the seven days in Genesis were literal days.

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Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#530

Post by pj_mukh »

blendergeek wrote: post #21

This article fails to address that most true believers would not see any point to betting on the yes. If Christ returns this year, the world is done and there is no upside to having bet that he would. Temporal things (like prediction markets) will cease to be interesting when Christ returns. Given that, I highly doubt that the people betting yes actually believe that Christ will return this year.

Also, if Christ did return, the first thing he's doing is probably whipping traders. So watch out Polymarket users!
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