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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

#141

Post by michaelmrose »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #112
jordanb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is not that easy. If we look at historical context we can see that for example in judaism they have this midrash: "The Holy One said, open for me a door as big as a needle's eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter tents and camels." Sounds familiar? The meaning of that saying in jewish context is that we cant really understand Gods abilities. Could the christian saying mean something else? Sure.…

In your example the saying suggests that a Camel going through the eye of a needle is an extraordinary event like a rich person going to heaven in the traditional Christian saying.

It is incredibly clear and without nuance nor is there a reason to suppose it's an issue with translation. Its also consistent philosophically nor is it the sort of thing that the powerful would want inserted when they compiled works.

If you disregard it then it makes more sense to disregard the entire bible.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#143

Post by im3w1l »

flir wrote: post #74
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.

[flagged]

This assumes belief must be absolute. They may have believed it was 90% likely, 51% likely or even just 10% likely (even a 10% risk of mass death is arguably unacceptable and worth crowing about).

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#144

Post by jl6 »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #88
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.

There is the potential for psychology, I think, where people who do not truly believe but that do want that religion (or something like it) to be true, and so perversely hope for "Christ's return" even if that means they will be damned. For them, they will have gotten to witness something non-boring, something truly important, even for the first time (and last) in their lives. I can't decide if this fits the definiti…

Pascal’s middle children of history.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#145

Post by throw7 »

The way they will arrive at the answer is very vague... "The resolution source for this market will be a consensus of credible sources."

I'd like to know the list of said sources and what consensus means (51%?). Presumably, this question can be asked and answered every minute? hour? so we could have up to the minute coverage of the second coming.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#146

Post by michaelmrose »

bitbang wrote: post #126
jordanb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That’s not what that means at all, your inserting modern values into the parable. In the culture of that time, the rich were viewed with high regard. The understanding was that if you were rich, then clearly you were in a favorable relationship to God because he was blessing you with wealth. With that understanding, the sentence that directly follows the parable makes a lot more sense: “When the disciples heard this,…

Got some links to support this interpretation?

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#147

Post by tboyd47 »

cvoss wrote: post #82
tboyd47 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. The majority of people who actually believe Jesus will return are Muslims who believe he will oversee an earthly kingdom for 7 years. The world doesn't end with that event.

Not sure if you are making a nuanced claim about the proportions of self-identified adherents who actually subscribe to orthodoxies, but the population statistics generally cut against your claim. https://www.statista.com/statistics/374704/share-of-global-p...

If not "the majority", then a proportion conceivably large enough to affect the polymarket results.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#149

Post by Tijdreiziger »

ivape wrote: post #125
texuf wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's weird that ethnic groups separated by thousands of years of evolution came up with completely different gods and forms of worship? If there was an omniscient being don't you think it would make itself known in a little more universal fashion? And isn't it strange that the institutions built around our current iteration of God are soft power structures that wield huge amounts of influence both financ…

I don’t think anything is weird anymore. The ultimate reality of free will is that you will always have the option to do right and wrong. If you don’t have faith, this privilege will be difficult. The human left to their own devices will always have a shifting sense of morality (turning a ship by 1 degree at a time). Faith was a gift to help. In terms of Christ, let me put it this way. Imagine your high school, and o…

> I don’t think anything is weird anymore. The ultimate reality of free will is that you will always have the option to do right and wrong. If you don’t have faith, this privilege will be difficult. The human left to their own devices will always have a shifting sense of morality (turning a ship by 1 degree at a time).

I think this hypothesis is flawed.

I think most people in society strive to do right, and therefore most of us are able to live in relative peace and with relative trust in our fellow members of society.

There are some people who do wrong, but we’ve set up our society to strive to detect this and punish those (albeit using imperfect systems and knowledge, leading to false positives and negatives).

Therefore, I think religions are an encoding of human morality, not the other way around.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#150

Post by em-bee »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #98
em-bee wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

depends how you define a true believer. i am not christian, but i would claim that the people you describe aren't true believers because they haven't really understood the bible.

"they haven't really understood the bible." Pretty much every religious person believes that THEIR understanding is the correct one. You cant objectively say that "this is the correct understanding" from a religous perspective (you can however do it from a for example a historical or textual analysis perspective). You cant objectively prove that only mormons or bapists have "understood" the bible correct and everyone…

that's my point. everyone has a different idea/interpretation, and thus there is no objective definition of a true believer. GP says that true believers come off as insane. that doesn't sound like a sensible definition for a true believer. iaw. whatever a true believer is, i don't think it's that.

what if jesus already returned? then the true believers would only be those that have recognized his return. there are people who did make that claim. that's who i would investigate.

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