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The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

ericneyman.wordpress.com

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Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he shows up like he does in Revelation it's going to be a bit more dramatic than the first time around.

> If he shows up like he does in Revelation it's going to be a bit more dramatic than the first time around. Yeah, for sure. They'd best hope that he don't return anytime soon if the Christian bible's description of his return has any validity to it, because he's supposed to return with a flaming sword and a host of angels behind him, and he's likely to be raging pissed at the majority of (Christian) humanity for the…

Especially the 3rd, which isn't just about swearing.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#182
post #70
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so special about reality?

Purpose. That there was a purpose for all of this. If we believe there was no purpose for all of this, then what a hopeless thing. I just look at the erasure of Gaza and have become more and more religious, because my god what a hopeless end if this all isn’t saved at the very end. I feel that way about many of today’s ills. Purpose and hope, even if the answer is utterly magical.

Opposite to my view. If there's no pre-ordained purpose, we're free to invent our own. I find that very freeing and hopeful. And a lifetime project.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's missed is that the camel/needle thing is a joke. The "eye of the needle" was a (very small) gate into Jerusalem. To get a camel through that gate, it has to lower its head and crawl on its knees. So Jesus was calling rich people camels; camels can be very arrogant beasts so it fits.

none of this is at all true, none of it is supported by the historical record, none of it is supported by the rest of jesus's teachings (which explicitly and repeatedly state that the rich are not welcome in heaven), there never was an "eye of the needle" gate, no one even posited the existence of such a gate until the 9th century CE and the other gospels use different phrasing of "a camel passing through the eye of…

This is literally not true by scripture; Abraham was very rich, and is considered righteous because of his faith. He did not withhold even his own son from God. Money did not own Abraham's faith.

Job refused to curse or condemn God even when he lost most of his family and all of his holdings - his friends tried to tell him that because he lost his riches, he had obviously sinned, but he refused this. He gained back the things he lost, because of his faith in God.

Job 1:20-22

20 Then Job stood up, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground, bowed very low, 21 and exclaimed:

“I left my mother’s womb naked, and I will return to God naked. The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken. May the name of the Lord be blessed.”

22 Job neither sinned nor charged God with wrongdoing in all of this.

In those times, rich people were considered blessed by God, poor people or those afflicted with disease were considered cursed by God. People afflicted from birth were said to have been "born in sin" due to the sins of their parents.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were wealthly, influential people who preached exactly this. The Sadducees in particular didn't believe in an afterlife, and so were focused on only the "here and now" and material things of this world. Jesus specifically called them out to let them know their wealth wouldn't get them into heaven, and their success was not a sign of righteousness.

Jesus distinctly preached that money could not buy salvation, and that those whose focus was on money could not focus on God, and would therefore be condemned. He explicitly called out Zaccheus, a tax collector, when Zaccheus promised to repay any money he'd taken in bad faith four times over and to give away half of what he owned to the poor:

Luke 19:9-10: 9 Jesus said to him,"Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."

Zaccheus probably had a lot of money left even when he was done, but the point is that money was no longer the priority in his life.

God may choose to bless people with prosperity, but your wallet doesn't make you righteous. It doesn't make you unrighteous either - your actions and your faith, or lack thereof condemn you. The whole of the Law is:

Matthew 22:34-40

34 When the Pharisees learned that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and, to test him, one of them, a lawyer, asked this question, 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39 The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 Everything in the Law and the Prophets depends on these two commandments.”

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#185
post #83

Well, but who would then buy the "yes" bet at an elevated price?

Right! The explanation in the article -- that "no" holders will need to sell to buy other things before the market resolves, pushing the price up -- doesn't make sense to me. Sure, maybe the price goes up shortly before the market closes, but that's a hell of a falling knife to try to catch.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"Religion" doesn't have the slightest thing to do with Jesus coming. Religion human thing. Jesus didn't say "go and spread religion to every man"...he said "go and spread the GOOD NEWS to every man". Religion is the word we use to describe how us human's have managed to twist and warp and misunderstand that good news. We use it for gate keeping: "sorry this event is for church members only". We use it to put down peo…

I literally have no idea what you're talking about. I feel people like you pretend Europe's colonial era didn't exist or the American slave trade didn't exist or the holocaust didn't exist, etc... etc... etc... The only response to the millennia long list of atrocities Christians have committed, often times to other Christians, is the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#187
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You are just wrong. The Bible never says that rich people aren't getting into heaven. Only that it will be difficult.

The whole invention of the “Eye of the Needle” gate fiction is an attempt to rewrite a Gospel statement by Jesus that it is difficult-to-the-point-of-impossibility into one that it is merely difficult-in-the-sense-of-mild-inconvenience.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#188

So, there are actual geopolitical ramifications of this metric. A lot of US protestant theology is rooted in a concept called "dispensationalism" that was introduced in the mid 1800s. It's a heady concept to explain, but essentially it comes down to a few linked core concepts: - The secret, sudden arrival of Jesus to "rapture" believers away - The world is getting worse, not better. There is limited use in improving…

- The world is getting worse, not better. There is limited use in improving society.

That sounds like 19th century fire and brimstone revivalism. Most Christians are not that nihilistic. The sects that survive and flourish tend to be those that don't impose a fatalistic view of the world.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#189
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You may not directly see him, but the whole school would know about it, even if he was just there for 5 minutes. My question would be: If the Bible was written by an omniscient and all-powerful God, then why does it have so many inaccuracies in it? Easy ones include a global flood that killed every animal on Earth. (Except for the two of each animal on Noah's ark, which would have overheated with so many animals in…

Christians don't belive the Bible was written by God they belive it's the word of God. the inconsistencies and contradictions are because its been written by many people over hundreds of years.

Re: The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return

#190

I read many comments that essentially say, "Today's (how we practice) Christianity/churches are definitely not something he'd approve of when he returns". I live in the largest Muslim country in the world, and I'd say the majority of people also think that the "commercialization" (for lack of a better term) of their religion is also "too much". It seems people do have a "conscience" (for lack of a better term). But w…

> I live in the largest Muslim country in the world Are you a Muslim? I have a question for you... if I crawled onto your doorstep beaten and starving, would you invite me in and feed you? I am ignorant of Muslim teachings, and I don't know if this sort of things is covered...that's why I'm asking you. I'm a Christian, and if you crawled onto MY doorstep, I would be ashamed with myself if I did not invite you in and…

You should look up the free ebook by Bob Altemeyer called Authoritarians. It explains how religious organizations that highly value authority and discourage critical thinking get corrupted.
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