Religious people: The world is ending

They forgive the real aggressors and unload all that anger at targets chosen by the very same aggressors.

According to mainstream Christianity, that's trying to force God to do something. And the Bible is clear that nobody, not even the faithful, will know when the end times will come.

Not that I care, being an atheist. But these people make shit up without even bothering to see if it's consistent with the shit that's already been made up.

“However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.".

I feel like I should start calling myself an ironic Christian because I've actually read the book.

Making decisions in God's name - that should be heretical or something?

I dunno, sounds pretty good to me. If you're wrong, there's always the mystery of what the future could bring to sell your magazines. If you're right, you've suddenly got a huge list of addresses for people you know are probably well stocked with pretty much whatever you told them they needed.

My perspective has been that if things really do go to shit to the level of what peppers believe, financial stuff won't really matter unless you've invested in setting up a self-sufficient compound. And even then, owning such a compound would likely be as much of a liability than an asset because unless there's many such compounds, you're going to get swarmed by anyone who hears about it, so you'll also need security forces and equipment to defend it.

And if you have a small army on the compound, good luck not getting couped by them.

A business venture like a magazine would be completely irrelevant if society ends. But it might make a decent income in the time between now and the end. And it'll be kinda like religion: once anyone is in a position to find out how good any of your advice really was, they won't likely be in a position to get upset with you if it was all just made up.

When you make people follow bunch of rules that nobody else follows, you need some kind of carrot to dangle in front of them. Salvation and afterlife rewards don't cost anything and there's zero chance you need to pay up or get called no your bullshit. Win-win.

The classical options are that the world will end in the future, is currently ending, or ended in the past. Today, I'm here to tell you that there is another option: the world never even existed. Poof!

Peter himself.

And then before the turn of the 5th century, the 10th century, the 15th century... Christians do love those round numbers.

Not all early Christians followed Paul. The church in Jerusalem under James was at odds with Paul on a number of subjects. There were also more radical groups outside Jerusalem that combined Christianity with Greek philosophy, having women preaching and leading congregations, and incorporating various mystical beliefs that didn't originate in Judaism or the teachings of Jesus.

Matthew 16:28 - “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Jesus himself said that his own followers would be alive to see the end of the world. Hence the medieval legend of The Wandering Jew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew

Yeah, JWs (I'm ex) believe climate change is foretold in Rev 11:18, which says (dunno which version, just googled, but not the JW version as it uses ruining the Earth);

The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.

Italics mine. JW version is bring >"to ruin those ruining the Earth." Either way, they believe that means God will stop and destroy those bringing about climate change. Since it relies on God, it's another one that really doesn't help even if they believe in in, because they believe God will stop it before it's too late.

The late Carlo Bonomi was the original voice actor of Pingu.

Still close. 1 lightyear.

😏