COMensarations
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Thoughts on Revelation 9 — Part 1
A description of how the ‘locust’ in Revelation 9 match up with the Apache AH64 Attack Helicopter.
In order to describe what I understand of Operation DESERT SHIELD, I provide this....
Let’s get down to Revelation 9 and how it might relate to the Gulf War of 1990-91. In this instance Operation DESERT SHIELD....
Sources: There are a number of sources that can be used for this discussion. I’ll primarily refer to personal knowledge and experience and the King James version (KJV).
Others may prefer other versions, but I get the impression that the KJV is likely the most accurate translation for English speaking peoples. It certainly seems that way since the discovery and analysis of the dead sea scrolls.
Approaches: Looking at it from the perspective a man from the first century and comparing it against contemporary technology I’ll address each verse of Revelation 9.
Let us begin…
1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
It is interesting that these angels with their trumpets and these stars, in the book of Revelation, seem to be associated with cities and localities. In the earlier parts of the book, the seven angels are associated with the seven cities Christ is talking about. In this part the mentioned angels are also associated with cities. More on that later.
About a star falling to earth, and that star/angel is “given the key of the bottomless pit”. The bottomless pit is something of a myth in physical terms. However, looking at it in another light, an allegorical one, “war” is the bottomless pit. Nations can pour out their wealth into such a pit and never fill it.
2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
So this angel opens the “bottomless pit”, call it war, for the sake of argument, and out of this pit comes smoke, as of a great furnace. Smoke so great that it blots out the sun.
Sounds to me like a productive day in Pittsburgh. Nothing like a “good war” to make industrialists happy. Invest in “Steel” would be the word on the street, Wall Street.
3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
And out of the smoke come these “locust”. Well, out of the smoke of war came the first helicopters. Germany invented them during World War Two, specifically to fight war. In the United States, we’ve brought them to their current “state of the art” for air-land battle, in the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter.
4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
These are some really strange “locust”. I know of no biological locust that can live without “hurting” any green thing. Indeed, the great threat of the biological locust is that it will do what it always does, eat every green thing that it can find. These are strange creatures indeed to be locust that do not eat plants.
However they are authorized to hurt those men who do not have the seal of God in their foreheads.
I’m not aware of any locust that do that to men on many occasions, except for the farmers of the crops they destroy. Hardly to all men who do not have the seal of God in their foreheads.
5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
So these locust are not authorized to kill men, but that they should “torment” them for a period of five months.
It’s interesting that a few days after the invasion of Kuwait, I was in my unit’s offices talking to a fellow officer, a tanker officer who wears aviators wings as well, about the recent events and their import, with an eye on how extensive the forthcoming mobilization would be.
We could tell, already, that the world was tormented by what had happened. We figured that the coming mobilization of US combat forces would torment it even more.
Tankers are an interesting group in the Army. Unlike infantry, they are enamored of hardware. They plaster the walls of their offices with posters and pictures of their equipment; tanks, helicopters, etc.
So I was sitting on a desk in the tanker’s office talking with my compatriot of what was going on around us and just drifted off....
...my mind went blank…
...when I came back to reality, I found myself staring at a poster of the AH-64 attack helicopter, the Apache, and something in my mind’s ear whispered, “This is the locust.”
After a moment of reflection, I called Steve’s attention to this poster and said the same to him, explaining the realization as I had perceived it.
I went on to add that if this was accurate, and knowing that US combat forces would have such aircraft in operation in Saudi Arabia by mid-August ‘90; using the five-month measure described in the Revelation 9, we’d see a shooting-war break out in the Euphrates river valley in mid-January, ‘91, five months later. [Note: You can count it out on your fingers, the number of months from mid-August to mid-January.] This can be verified by discussion with me fellow officer and comrade-in-arms or my former minister [I brought this before him in September ‘90], provided they are willing to discuss the matter with you.
6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
I can imagine that the Iraqi soldiers on the frontier between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia felt that way. They knew that they could not stop these “locust” once they really set to work.
Let’s examine the locust in detail....
...again I ask the reader to put himself into the shows and understandings of a man of the first century who is seeing something from a future technology he does not understand. Turning around to look at the correlation of the current technology with the way the first century writer has described it in terms his contemporaries could understand.
7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
Imagine “locust” like horses prepared unto battle? What do they look like?
Looking at an Apache you might see a good correlation. It has a thick head and thorax with a slender abdomen, just like a locust. It also has “spears”, in the form of ITOW (Improved Tube-launched Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles. Not to mention the 30-mm chain gun mounted in the chin-turret.
“...and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold...”
I’ve seen glass reflect light in the sun. And I can see the plexiglass canopy of each Apache, the ‘head’ if you will, reflecting the desert sun as would a gold crown.
“...their faces were as the faces of men.”
And if you looked closely at the head of each of these “locust”, you’d see, through the plexiglass canopy, the faces of men; the pilot and the weapons officer.
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
This was something of a stumper for a while. However, I had the opportunity to watch the Apaches being unloaded from some C-5A Galaxy strategic lift carriers and noticed that their rotor blades were not dismounted from the helicopters for air movement, as was the technique for their predecessors, the AH-1 Cobras. Rather, they were rotated back along the spine of the tail rotor boom. In that position, they resembled four thick braids of hair.
“...their teeth were as the teeth of lions”
The rounds from the 30-mm chain gun will rend a man just as if he were bitten by a lion. The muzzle of the gun is where the mouth of a lion would be on its head, just under and a bit behind the “nose” of the aircraft. Like a lion, it “roars” when it attacks with its teeth.
9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
These breastplates are the kevlar reinforced access panels that protect the sensitive parts of the Apache’s avionics, hydraulics, crew, and engines from enemy fire. Just as an ancient breastplate would protect the most important parts of a warrior from enemy attack. They come off like an ancient Roman’s breastplate would. A couple of toggles/ties and off they come.
“...the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.”
I’ve participated in a number of battalion level air-mobile insertions and witnessed other similar scale operations from other perspectives. One thing they all have in common is that the sound of many helicopters in flight is just like the sound of many chariots racing across open ground. It’s like being in the race with Ben Hur.
10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
The tails “like unto scorpions” is interesting, but if you’ve ever seen an attack helicopter doing a high-performance maneuver starting from a hover position, you’d notice how the tail arches over the back of the helicopter just like the tail of a scorpion as it attacks.
“...and there were stings in their tails...”
Well, even though we don’t intend them to kill with their tails, if anyone steps into the rotor arc in the vicinity of the tail, it will “sting”, for a moment. After that, they won’t feel a thing.
“...their power was to hurt men five months.”
Once again we’re reminded of the five months business.
11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
Here is another reference to angels, stars, and localities. If you have a good atlas around, it’s time to get it out. Notice the name of the angel/star that is in charge of these locust.
Now look at the cities near the mouth of the Euphrates River. See any similarities? If so, ponder the import. If not, get a better atlas.
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
Thus endth Operation DESERT SHIELD.
The time of waiting is over. Now comes the excitement, part 1, Operation DESERT STORM.
13 ¶ And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
It’s the sixth trumpet. There’s only one trumpet left…
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.
And now the shooting-war in the Euphrates river valley begins, Operation DESERT STORM.
Next entry: For JD, et al. Previous entry: The Silent Mensan-
TO: All
RE: This Item........was provided as an alternate site to discuss a matter on another blog that had gone ‘astray’.
However, if YOU have an opinion relating to this matter, feel free to jump in.....
on 05/22 at 03:04 PM -
Hi Chuck! I’ve got to go bed, but when I can squeeze out a little time tomorrow, I’ll follow up. Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the Apaches bite.
on 05/22 at 08:23 PM -
All right let’s get to work. First of all, I think your Apache case is far stronger than your Chernobyl case. Translation from Koine Greek to English to get Wormwood and translation of Wormwood from English to Russian to get Chernobyl with collateral of a poisoned land and river is pretty tenuous. Besides which the meltdown alone is rather scanty content for one whole angelic trumpet out of seven.
It’s also kind of boring, because the narrative there doesn’t come from somewhere in the past and go somewhere into the future nearly as readily as the Iraq wars.
So I’m going to stick there. For the moment I’m going to treat your Apache analysis as totally complete and true, because it implies certain things about the rest of the narrative which should help us.
First, it implies that Revelation is a literal narrative about the fate of the ordinary, natural world. This is really not obvious from the text alone. This is helpful because it allows us to clearly make a distinction between the purely supernatural components of the visit to the Throne or Angels blowing trumpets, which it is likely that none of humanity saw, and the narrative which must have had visible impact to its contemporaries prior to the Gulf Wars.
So we can compress the material which we have to work with considerably:
First Trumpet: Hail and fire destroy a third of the trees and grass. (8:6-7)
Second Trumpet: A third of the oceans are destroyed. (8:8-9)
Third Trumpet: A third of the rivers and springs are poisoned. (8:10-11)
Fourth Trumpet: A third of the sky is darkened. (8:12-13)
Fifth Trumpet: A plague of “locusts” terrorize the Earth for five months. (9:1-12)
Sixth Trumpet: An army of 200 million kills a third of Earth’s population. (9:13-21)
Lots of red meat there, I think.The second thing your hypothesis gives us is a means of estimating narrative time. If I remember correctly, the five month stipulation above is the major time reference inside the narrative itself. This is important because of the question of “actionable intelligence”. It’s all well and good to say “Be Prepared” and “keep your eyes peeled” but this really begs the questions: Prepared for what? How long? and Where do we point our peeled eyes?
1990 was a long time ago, and if we have to wait to 2030 for the next stuff John writes about, there’s a fairly good chance that I [and maybe you] will already be dead, maybe of too much eye peeling, if nothing else.
Now I don’t expect to convince you that you are wrong. And I really don’t want to, since, if you are right, it is certainly important to know. And if you are wrong, it at the very least strengthens your faith. As a Buddhist it is very important to me that this happens—the reasons are too long and not relevant—but that is a fact.
But I would like to suggest that the “back bearings” I mentioned earlier are worth taking. Particularly to establish some standard of how long The Last Days may be taking, especially if you can establish when they actually start with 6:12. Also, if your research turns up new correspondences, that would also be interesting and useful. We can’t do it here, but I think it would bear fruit for you, one way or the other, if you attempt it later. I’ve already quoted most of the narrative material you would have to work with over at The Anchoress.
One place you might start is the 144,000 Children of Israel marked on the forehead. A closer look at the Holocaust and the founding of Israel seems to me to be the most obvious place to start looking.
So having said all that, I really don’t think you’ve got the times or the circumstances quite right with the Apache hypothesis. I’m going to propose a slightly modified version and shifted literal time frame as an alternative.
First of all, I don’t think your analysis of the “black pit of the abyss” is all that convincing. It simply is too tenuous a link to “war in general”. And I see clearly that the obvious link of reference of Abaddon, the Angel of the bottomless pit with Al Abadan island at the mouth of the Euphrates and Abadan city on the island seems, at first sight, to be why Abaddon is “king” over the locusts.
The only problem is that Abadan is part of Iran and not Iraq and it is well past the extreme right wing of Operation Desert Storm and was not really involved. The 82nd Airborne and its Apaches was the next to last unit on the extreme left of the operation, just about as far away as you could get from Abadan. So I can see no basis whatsoever for linking Abadan to the Angel Abaddon the “king” of the Locusts, if the Locusts are actually the Apaches of the 82nd Airbourne.
Finally, scorpions are really very light and delicate animals and if the Locusts had scorpion tails and tormented the Ungodly like scorpions, the Apache, which from photographs, looks rather like a flying boxcar, doesn’t really match up to the scorpion image.
There is another helicopter in the forces that matches the scorpion image far better, and still meets most of the rest of the description, however. This is the AH-6 Little Bird, which is just as deadly as it’s bigger brother. It was the main shooter in Operation Prime Chance, a “black-ops” deployment, involving army helecopters and Navy SEALS on Navy ships to inhibit Iranian mining operations in the Persian Gulf in 1987, after the mining of the US registered “oil tanker” SS Bridgeton off of Iran’s Farsi Island. Most of these operations were within proximity of the island of Al Abadan. The time frame in and around Prime Chance, 1986-1988, is my candidate for the time of the locusts.
Now why have I put quotes around “black-ops” and “oil tanker”? First, the secrecy of Prime Chance is a far better match to the “black pit” and smokescreen than war in general. Second, I think your hint of Abaddon being linked to the bound Angel of the city of Abadan is one of your most telling suggestions, and I don’t quite want to let go of it yet.
For if there is a genuine Angel of Abadan, it must be surely connected with oil. Before oil was discovered there in 1910 the town of Abadan was barely 400 people and it balooned to more that 220,000 servicing what was, up to 1980, the largest oil refinery in the world. Abadan is also the poster child for the unholy intersection of war, corrupt politics, and oil profits in the region.
Owned by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the Abadan refinery was the focus of the Abadan Crisis, the first real “Mideast Oil Crisis”. As Wikipedia summarizes it:
The Abadan Crisis was a major event in Iranian history. It began in 1951 with the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company by the government of Iran, and the shutting down by the British of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s huge oil refinery in Abadan. It ended with a successful CIA-orchestrated coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953, and enabled the Shah to rule autocratically for the next 26 years, before he was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution.
When the dust settled in 1953, AIOC became British Petroleum. And the profits of the Abadan refinery--after Iran and the Shah took 25% off the top--were carved up between BP, Royal Dutch Shell, the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, [now known as Total SA and still a very shady player in and around the oil markets], and the Saudi/USA consortium of Aramaco.
And these four, BP, RDS, Total SA, and Aramaco, are my candidates for the four Angels bound in the Euphrates River. BP, of course, would be Abaddon, and I think it is fairly obvious, given the Iranian coup of 1953, why BP is “king” over those pesky locusts. King over a lot of things, in fact, from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico.
Have they been loosed? Most certainly. There have now been 3 major gasoline price inflations in the 21st century, all of which were and are totally disconnected from any significant change in either oil supply or oil demand. One is currently in progress. And in the other two, the profits of British Petroleum became the largest single transfer of monetary wealth away from ordinary people, and to corporate stockholders, in the entire history of the world.
Loosed is too mild a word for it. Of course, the Four Petroleum Angels haven’t quite killed one-third of the people on the planet yet, But, surely, they’ve made a good start in that direction by pauperizing them.
The “five month” issue is something which I haven’t quite got my teeth into yet. There is considerable ambiguity still about what happened when and in what order surrounding Prime Chance, but I do know this. The US commitment to protect Kuwaiti tankers began in December of 1986 and the entire era, including the American naval operations, ended in August 1988 when the Iran/Iraq war finally ended. Further research would probably put the five months between those two dates. As a footnote, for John these were probably lunar months since the Hebrew calandar is lunar, which, at 28 days a month would sum to about 140 days. And when the five month issue finally gets fine tuned that’s probably the figure we should be looking for.
But I also discovered one still unresolved problem for both our scenarios. Abaddon is Hebrew for “place of destruction” and Apollyon is “the destroyer”. However Abadan is Persian and means “watcher of the water” or, presumably the Guardian of the Two Rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. Classical geographer Ptolemy, who wrote in Greek and whose dates may overlap John’s identifies Abadan island as Apphana. This does not seem to come close linguistically or definitionally to either Abaddon or Apollyon.
When you consider that I had none of this in mind at 7 o’clock this morning when I started this comment, I think I’ve made quite a lot of progress with my hypothesis.
on 05/23 at 07:29 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Taking It One Bite at a TimeI’ll take this piece by piece.
All right let’s get to work. First of all, I think your Apache case is far stronger than your Chernobyl case. Translation from Koine Greek to English to get Wormwood and translation of Wormwood from English to Russian to get Chernobyl with collateral of a poisoned land and river is pretty tenuous. Besides which the meltdown alone is rather scanty content for one whole angelic trumpet out of seven. —Joseph Marshall
Not being a ‘scholar’ of Greek, I cannot address the translation from Greek.
However, I will point out that the linguist at the Denver Public Library, as well as an immigrant to the US from Ukraine—who was a fellow Mensan in Denver—confirmed the translation. The latter also confirming that a wormwood-variety of plant was the most common form of vegetation in the vicinity of the town.
It’s also kind of boring, because the narrative there doesn’t come from somewhere in the past and go somewhere into the future nearly as readily as the Iraq wars.—Joseph Marshall
Well, it was a short description. I suspect that John thought the open warfare was far more interesting than watching some bright spot on the ground, and gave what he felt appropriate time for the event. Chernobyl having a news-cycle of several weeks. Whereas Operations DESERT SHEILD/DESERT STORM lasting over half a year.
So I’m going to stick there. For the moment I’m going to treat your Apache analysis as totally complete and true, because it implies certain things about the rest of the narrative which should help us.—Joseph Marshall
Thanks.
More later. Now I have to make up for lost time from yesterdays ‘road trip’ to visit the Denver Botanical Gardens with my flower club. I’m still working on the minutes of the weekend-before-lasts Annual Convention of the Colorado Federation of Garden Club. I’m the Recording Secretary.
More to follow....
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[If you want to understand a LOT of what’s going on in that Old Book, you need to look at what you read from the perspective/understanding of the writer.]on 05/25 at 07:16 AM -
First, it implies that Revelation is a literal narrative about the fate of the ordinary, natural world. This is really not obvious from the text alone. This is helpful because it allows us to clearly make a distinction between the purely supernatural components of the visit to the Throne or Angels blowing trumpets, which it is likely that none of humanity saw, and the narrative which must have had visible impact to its contemporaries prior to the Gulf Wars.—Joseph Marshall
It’s ‘obvious’ if you look at what the writer relates based on his understanding of the visions he is given of advanced technologies and concepts.
Just HOW WOULD a man of the first century describe a advanced attack helicopter? To his contemporaries? Certainly by how it looked. How it behaved. How it sounded.
And I’m not talking about a visit to a ‘Throne’ or of ‘Angels’ at this point. I’m talking about how John perceives a flying fighting machine, given to him as part of a vision. There’s something of a difference.
More to follow....
on 05/25 at 07:25 AM -
So we can compress the material which we have to work with considerably:
First Trumpet: Hail and fire destroy a third of the trees and grass. (8:6-7) Second Trumpet: A third of the oceans are destroyed. (8:8-9) Third Trumpet: A third of the rivers and springs are poisoned. (8:10-11) Fourth Trumpet: A third of the sky is darkened. (8:12-13) Fifth Trumpet: A plague of “locusts” terrorize the Earth for five months. (9:1-12) Sixth Trumpet: An army of 200 million kills a third of Earth’s population. (9:13-21) Lots of red meat there, I think. —Joseph Marshall
Yes. Lots to deal with. But, as I’ve stated before, I am not the be-all-and-end-all of Bible understanding. I only know what I know.
The second thing your hypothesis gives us is a means of estimating narrative time. If I remember correctly, the five month stipulation above is the major time reference inside the narrative itself. This is important because of the question of “actionable intelligence”. It’s all well and good to say “Be Prepared” and “keep your eyes peeled” but this really begs the questions: Prepared for what? How long? and Where do we point our peeled eyes?—Joseph Marshall
“Actionable intelligence”, indeed. We’re taught such In the Army, vis-a-vis Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) training received during the Command and General Staff Course (CGSC). We had a Named Area of Interest (NAI) and an activity to look for at a certain time reference. In this instance (1) the Euphrates River valley, (2) a war and (3) five months after the ‘locust’—vis-a-vis aviation assets of the 82d Airborne Division’s Division Ready Brigade (DRB)—deployed and ‘flew’ in Saudi Arabia in mid-August 1990.
I think that the ‘Be Prepared’ and ‘Keep your eyes peeled’ is EXACTLY what I’m getting at.
As for ‘begging the question’, THAT is a problem in any situation where you are dealing with obscure information from various sources. In the IPB phase of CSGC, you are taught to look EVERYWHERE, because you didn’t know—exactly—where things that could help you determine what was going on were going to occur.
As for ‘clues’ as to where to keep ‘our peeled eyes’ pointed, well....I’d suggest gaining a better understanding of what is printed in that Old Book And therein lies the proverbial ‘rub’. You won’t REALLY understand what is in there UNTIL you believe. Otherwise, you’re resistance will blind your own eyes: “Having eyes they do not see. Having ears they do not hear”. I found this out several months after I became a REAL christian. I’d read that book every night, for seven years. And yet I had trouble grasping what I was reading. Then, in January 1990, I became a REAL chrisiian. Several months later, in my nightly readings, I noticed that passages I had read many times before—and had not understood—began to make sense to me.
1990 was a long time ago, and if we have to wait to 2030 for the next stuff John writes about, there’s a fairly good chance that I [and maybe you] will already be dead, maybe of too much eye peeling, if nothing else.—Joseph Marshall
I don’t think we have to wait so long. As I recall the next chapter deals with some “seven thunders”. However, John was instructed NOT to tell us what those ‘thunders’ said. And therein we are on our own to suppose what they may indicate.
So....what does a ‘thunder’ indicate? From a Biblical perspective? That, I cannot speak to in complete confidence. However, I suspect them to be some significant event: war, earthquake, disaster, etc. If that is an accurate understanding, then we are in the midst of such, from the collapse of Yugoslavia and the fighting therein, to the Intifada, to 9/11 and the GWOT, to the 2004 Earthquake/Tsunami in Indonesia, to whathaveyou. Where in all that tumult we may be, I can only conjecture....and that rather poorly at best.
Now I don’t expect to convince you that you are wrong. And I really don’t want to, since, if you are right, it is certainly important to know. And if you are wrong, it at the very least strengthens your faith. As a Buddhist it is very important to me that this happens—the reasons are too long and not relevant—but that is a fact.—Joseph Marshall
Well. You’ve hardly convinced me that I’m in error. But, based on your comment, that’s probably a ‘good thing’.
However, I’ve known a number of Buddhists. You’re the first one to actually engage in cogent discussion as to my ‘understanding’ Your comment about ‘reasoning’ is intriguing. Maybe, with luck and time, you’ll expand on that.
As for the possibility that I am ‘wrong’, well....only time will tell.
In the meantime, I’m expecting more ‘thunder’. And the last one to be rather ‘impressive’. [NOTE: Ever read the Niven and Pournelle classic ‘disaster’ novel, Lucifer’s Hammer?
It’s been almost 1500 years since Earth got ‘smacked’ by one of those ‘cosmic spitballs’. The mean time between such ‘interesting events’ has run about 720+ years. Not that such run like a well-scheduled city bussing system.
There have been five such events in human history. The earliest correlates well with the timing of the Biblical Flood. The latest with the onset of the Dark Ages. {NOTE: These are ‘incidents’ well documented by tree-ring research conducted by Professor Michael Baille of Queens University in Dublin, Ireland.]
More to follow....
on 05/25 at 09:50 AM -
But I would like to suggest that the “back bearings” I mentioned earlier are worth taking. Particularly to establish some standard of how long The Last Days may be taking, especially if you can establish when they actually start with 6:12. Also, if your research turns up new correspondences, that would also be interesting and useful. We can’t do it here, but I think it would bear fruit for you, one way or the other, if you attempt it later. I’ve already quoted most of the narrative material you would have to work with over at The Anchoress.—Joseph Marshall
Heh....if I could calcuate the ‘standard of how long The Last Days may be taking....”, I could start a following like the reverend Camping. But I’m not in the business of being a ‘false prophet’. I’m more interested in being the watchmen in the proverbial ‘tower’.
One place you might start is the 144,000 Children of Israel marked on the forehead. A closer look at the Holocaust and the founding of Israel seems to me to be the most obvious place to start looking.—Joseph Marshall
Funny you should mention that crowd. That number amounts to almost twenty Roman legions. Maybe a bit more, unless you consider auxiliaries: cavalry, engineers, archers, etc. And what was it He said His Father could sent to His aid?
So having said all that, I really don’t think you’ve got the times or the circumstances quite right with the Apache hypothesis. I’m going to propose a slightly modified version and shifted literal time frame as an alternative.—Joseph Marshall
Actually, you—earlier in your post here—have supported the Apache analysis and not provided anything, as far as I can tell, to refute it. And the ‘time frame’ is not so important as the relevance of the facts that such events occurred in 1990-91, as compared to Rev 9, part 1.
More to follow....
on 05/25 at 10:40 AM -
However, I’ve known a number of Buddhists. You’re the first one to actually engage in cogent discussion as to my ‘understanding’ Your comment about ‘reasoning’ is intriguing. Maybe, with luck and time, you’ll expand on that.
I don’t have too much else to say at the moment, so maybe we can take a look at this now.
I have never been Christian, my first religious choice was Buddhist back in 1975. But I did my doctoral study in Art History. Though my specialty was 19th-20th Century, Art Historians are expected, at the Doctoral level, to know the field comprehensively enough to teach University classes in any of the specialties at least up to the Sophomore year.
Since Rome Christianized, and up to at least the Thirty Years war, the art of the West has been overwhelmingly Christian. And a majority of it, up to the early 19th Century has been Christian also. You simply cannot know the art without knowing what it depicts, so, by default, an Art Historian has to have a knowledge of Christianity, at least as good as, say, Lincoln reading the bible constantly.
Many, if not most, seculars and non-Christians, would simply not know what we are talking about, and would have no compelling reason to know it. When I had to delve into William Blake, I had to have Revelation with me constantly, and I have read it closely and with care. I’m a little rusty on it now--I took my degree almost 20 years ago. But none of what you have written about the issue has baffled me.
I doubt most of my fellow Buddhists could say that, if they had been following our discussion, so they really wouldn’t even be prepared to understand what I meant by the “strengthening of your faith.”
That being said, many of them are not as knowledgeable as I am about Buddhism either. My teachers have been Tibetans who trained in the old fashioned way in pre-1959 Tibet, learning thousands of lines of texts by heart and routinely debating the finer points of them openly before the entire monastery. The few who are left are in their 70s--80s.
Now I have not done anything nearly like such training, but they always taught Buddhism, even to beginners, with a high degree of philosophical sophistication, and with a systematic treatment of detail, so very little I encounter in Buddhism baffles me either, even if I may not have the details of the topic at my fingertips.
The important point is that Buddhists assume two basic beliefs: that of Karma, Cause, and Effect, and that of past and future lives. We are under no illusion that all the people we encounter would be able to become Buddhist in this life. They could only do so if they happened to have the karmic causes for it from their past.
Anyone can, however, begin to accumulate those causes by nearly all religious beliefs and practices, when such beliefs result in morally upright behavior.
So the most important thing from my standpoint is not the evangelization of you to become Buddhist, but the encouragement of you to be the best Christian you can be. Karma will take care of the rest.
Moreover, this process will be speeded up if you think well of me as a Buddhist and if I meet you halfway on your own religious ground.
I’m lucky enough to be able to do so.
I vaguely remember Lucifer’s Hammer from sometime in my undergraduate years, but all I can say is that up to the middle of the last century we weren’t prepared to watch the sky well enough to even know what to look for in that regard.
on 05/25 at 05:43 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: The Rest of the RepliesFirst of all, I don’t think your analysis of the “black pit of the abyss” is all that convincing. It simply is too tenuous a link to “war in general”. And I see clearly that the obvious link of reference of Abaddon, the Angel of the bottomless pit with Al Abadan island at the mouth of the Euphrates and Abadan city on the island seems, at first sight, to be why Abaddon is “king” over the locusts.—Joseph Marshall
I’m not very surprised that you’re reluctant to ‘accept’ this analysis. If you did accept it, your world-view would be overthrown. But that’s neither here-nor-there with respect to the Apache AH64 attack helicopter. It’s just an adjunct understanding.
The only problem is that Abadan is part of Iran and not Iraq and it is well past the extreme right wing of Operation Desert Storm and was not really involved. The 82nd Airborne and its Apaches was the next to last unit on the extreme left of the operation, just about as far away as you could get from Abadan. So I can see no basis whatsoever for linking Abadan to the Angel Abaddon the “king” of the Locusts, if the Locusts are actually the Apaches of the 82nd Airbourne.—Joseph Marshall
Doesn’t matter that the city is in Iran. It’s STILL on the Euphrates. Nor does it matter WHERE the 82d was engaged in Operation DESERT STORM. What DOES matter is that they arrived in Saudi Arabia—with their air assets—in mid-August of 1990. Five months before the shooting broke out with the onset of Operation DESERT STORM.
Finally, scorpions are really very light and delicate animals and if the Locusts had scorpion tails and tormented the Ungodly like scorpions, the Apache, which from photographs, looks rather like a flying boxcar, doesn’t really match up to the scorpion image.—Joseph Marshall
Heh...I used to scare off attack helicopters at Fort Bragg, as they ‘buzzed’ our position by pretending to throw rocks into the air. You’d be surprised how afraid these pilots are for their ‘fragile’ aircraft. One good-sized pebble in the intake and they’re history.
The ‘scorpion’ aspect comes from the way their tail rotor comes up over their main, like a scorpion’s tail, when they make a high performance forward movement. I’ve seen it, working with these attack helicopters. They come off the ground in a hurry....the tail comes almost directly over the main.
There is another helicopter in the forces that matches the scorpion image far better, and still meets most of the rest of the description, however. This is the AH-6 Little Bird, which is just as deadly as it’s bigger brother. It was the main shooter in Operation Prime Chance, a “black-ops” deployment, involving army helecopters and Navy SEALS on Navy ships to inhibit Iranian mining operations in the Persian Gulf in 1987, after the mining of the US registered “oil tanker” SS Bridgeton off of Iran’s Farsi Island. Most of these operations were within proximity of the island of Al Abadan. The time frame in and around Prime Chance, 1986-1988, is my candidate for the time of the locusts.—Joseph Marshall
The AH6 is no a combat aircraft. It is a recon aircraft. It does not bear the weapons systems of the AH64. Nor does it have the extensive kevlar armor, as a Legionaire. Let alone the ‘teeth like lions’ of the 30mm chain gun.
Now why have I put quotes around “black-ops” and “oil tanker”? First, the secrecy of Prime Chance is a far better match to the “black pit” and smokescreen than war in general. Second, I think your hint of Abaddon being linked to the bound Angel of the city of Abadan is one of your most telling suggestions, and I don’t quite want to let go of it yet.
For if there is a genuine Angel of Abadan, it must be surely connected with oil. Before oil was discovered there in 1910 the town of Abadan was barely 400 people and it balooned to more that 220,000 servicing what was, up to 1980, the largest oil refinery in the world. Abadan is also the poster child for the unholy intersection of war, corrupt politics, and oil profits in the region.Owned by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the Abadan refinery was the focus of the Abadan Crisis, the first real “Mideast Oil Crisis”. As Wikipedia summarizes it:—Joseph Marshall
The Abadan Crisis was a major event in Iranian history. It began in 1951 with the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company by the government of Iran, and the shutting down by the British of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s huge oil refinery in Abadan. It ended with a successful CIA-orchestrated coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953, and enabled the Shah to rule autocratically for the next 26 years, before he was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution.
When the dust settled in 1953, AIOC became British Petroleum. And the profits of the Abadan refinery--after Iran and the Shah took 25% off the top--were carved up between BP, Royal Dutch Shell, the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, [now known as Total SA and still a very shady player in and around the oil markets], and the Saudi/USA consortium of Aramaco.
And these four, BP, RDS, Total SA, and Aramaco, are my candidates for the four Angels bound in the Euphrates River. BP, of course, would be Abaddon, and I think it is fairly obvious, given the Iranian coup of 1953, why BP is “king” over those pesky locusts. King over a lot of things, in fact, from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico.
Have they been loosed? Most certainly. There have now been 3 major gasoline price inflations in the 21st century, all of which were and are totally disconnected from any significant change in either oil supply or oil demand. One is currently in progress. And in the other two, the profits of British Petroleum became the largest single transfer of monetary wealth away from ordinary people, and to corporate stockholders, in the entire history of the world.
Loosed is too mild a word for it. Of course, the Four Petroleum Angels haven’t quite killed one-third of the people on the planet yet, But, surely, they’ve made a good start in that direction by pauperizing them.—Joseph Marshall
Heh...again. I’m somewhat familiar with ‘black-ops’. Comes with the Ranger turf. But, in my opinion, your conspiracy theory—which I’m not opposed to—goes far astray of the discussion at hand. Maybe another thread could look into that.
The “five month” issue is something which I haven’t quite got my teeth into yet. There is considerable ambiguity still about what happened when and in what order surrounding Prime Chance, but I do know this. The US commitment to protect Kuwaiti tankers began in December of 1986 and the entire era, including the American naval operations, ended in August 1988 when the Iran/Iraq war finally ended. Further research would probably put the five months between those two dates. As a footnote, for John these were probably lunar months since the Hebrew calandar is lunar, which, at 28 days a month would sum to about 140 days. And when the five month issue finally gets fine tuned that’s probably the figure we should be looking for.—Joseph Marshall
You don’t have to get your ‘teeth’ into it. It’s a classic example of Occam’s Razor. The 82d deploys to Saudi Arabia in mid-August 1990. Five months later, mid-January 1991, the shooting war breaks out.
But I also discovered one still unresolved problem for both our scenarios. Abaddon is Hebrew for “place of destruction” and Apollyon is “the destroyer”. However Abadan is Persian and means “watcher of the water” or, presumably the Guardian of the Two Rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. Classical geographer Ptolemy, who wrote in Greek and whose dates may overlap John’s identifies Abadan island as Apphana. This does not seem to come close linguistically or definitionally to either Abaddon or Apollyon.—Joseph Marshall
Words change over time. Especially minor changes in spellings, going from one language to another.
When you consider that I had none of this in mind at 7 o’clock this morning when I started this comment, I think I’ve made quite a lot of progress with my hypothesis.—Joseph Marshall
You’re doing pretty good. All things considered.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen his friend.]on 05/27 at 04:56 AM -
Just between you and me, if you have any serious sharpening to be done, choose extra-fine grain tungsten carbide, followed up by polishing with ceramic.
Sharp knives are a superior form of pleasure, just like fine food and alcohol. I make a point of keeping all my working blades sharp, from the Swiss-Tec Utilikey around my neck, to the laminated blade chef’s knife next to my stove, the leveraged, tight curved, blade that I made from the cutting half of a bypass pruner, and my titanium finished folder.
As I said above, I hold no brief to change your mind, and I can but encourage you to watch and pray.
on 05/27 at 07:52 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: “Sharpening’Funny! And appreciated. The parable IS appropriate. I’m an ENTJ, according to the MBTI. We learn best by discussion with others. I’ve found the truth of the statement....
As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another.
Probably written by a fellow ENTJ about the time of Solomon. Maybe even by that wise man, himself.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[A clash of doctrines is not a disaster. It’s an opportunity.]on 05/29 at 09:45 AM -
P.S. An opportunity to learn....
on 05/29 at 09:45 AM -
P.P.S. I pray very frequently. I’ve found it works.
Indeed.....
....in one ‘tight spot’, e.g., a snit with an 18-wheeler on I25 one Winters night, it saved my life.
I was on his right. He was in the far left of a three-lane in the Denver area. I had another 18-wheeler on my left.
He activated his right turn signal. He OBVIOUSLY was ignorant of my presence, in my little 4-wheeler.
I down shifted and floored it. I ALMOST got out of the sandwich. But not quite.
He clipped my left rear panel and I went skittering down the interstate like an iced hockey puck.
I cried out, “God help me!!!!”. I was just about to put my foot on the brakes to try to regain control and that ‘still small voice’ screamed in my ear, “DON’T DO THAT!”
I jerked my foot away from the brake pedal.
I wound up sliding sideways down the interstate with the rear bumper against the barrier dividing north-south lanes, as the 18-wheeler flashed past my front bumper at a distance of 2-3 feet.
If I had applied the brakes at the time I thought to, I’d have been perfectly lined up to be completely run-over by him.
He IS there. He DOES help.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. I had a similar ‘encounter’ twenty years earlier. It involved a malfunctioning parachute on a night jump. But that’s another story....on 05/29 at 09:53 AM -
Reminds me of many near misses of both myself and my fellow students when I was in graduate school in Albuquerque. The Rocky Mountain West is a harsh land that will kill you given half a chance. I can still count the number of times it tried on my fingers, but not just with one hand.
It was beautiful, but it is no longer mine. More’s the pity. There were many things to be found in the dialog with solitude. I now live where I grew up, in one of those states that has Climate as a substitute for weather, and has so many tiny little towns tucked away among its woods that you can’t take deer with rifles--shotgun slugs or bow-and-arrow only. It is also the leading edge of the Great American Pool Table as Denver is the trailing edge.
on 05/29 at 01:18 PM -
TO: Joesph Marshall
RE: ‘Near Misses’Had some of those in other situations.
What’s your ‘point’? You had some ‘small still voice’ screaming in your ‘ear’ to do something opposite to what you were about to do?
on 05/30 at 01:54 PM -
Actually, no. I survived by sheer dumb luck. And I’ve never bothered speculating about where the sheer dumb luck came from. I was merely parenthetically expressing my love/hate relationship with a land that I have permanently lost.
Out your way, if you get into the right place at the right time, you can experience true silence: no wind, no human bustle, no animal noises, nothing.
I never heard this until I got there. The most lonely country road in Ohio is always full of animals skittering, birds chirping, jet airplanes flying to Buffalo or Pittsburgh, train rolling stock or cars dopplering in the distance, and the constant AC hum of the powerlines which are everywhere.
Even the least taste of true silence can be addictive. I found it so.
No point beyond that, really. It’s off topic, but I think we’ve pretty well exhausted the topic.
on 05/30 at 05:47 PM -
TO: Joesph Marshall
RE: Off Topic........but it has not been ‘exhausted’.
The point still stands that John’s description of the ‘locust’ is spot-on, if you look at it from his understanding of such a technology and how he might explain the vision to his contemporaries.
And what, exactly, could POSSIBLY be the significance of a 100% accurate description of such ‘beasties’ from almost 2000 years distance in time?
Could it be that God DOES exist and DOES give visions?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Coincidence, n., When God works a miracle and doesn’t get the credit.]on 06/01 at 08:55 AM -
It’s perfectly possible that God does exist and does give visions. It is also perfectly possible that the narrative we call the Bible is a true rendering of God’s actions, God’s intentions, and most of the visions God has favored people with.
But “possible” is not “certain” nor is it even “likely”.
Now, as I say, I have no agenda of changing your mind, but as someone whose mind is not same, I think I can say certain things objectively.
First, the absolute best you have evidence for, is a necessary condition of Revelation being a true vision of the future--that some piece of it can be matched by a future object.
However, this match is not a sufficient condition for calling Revelation as a whole a true vision of the future. Not even close. There’s a lot more Revelation and a lot more history to be matched together before we can come near to legitimately asserting that.
Moreover, even if Revelation is a complete and true vision of the future, you have a necessary condition for the Bible to be an accurate narrative of God’s intention and actions. But you don’t have anywhere near a sufficient one to prove that it is. There is a lot more of the Bible to be verified before we can get even close to proving that this is “likely” or “certain”.
If there is one thing I have reservations about in the behavior of believing Christians that I know, it is an unwillingness to accept the reality that most of what goes into anyone’s religion simply must remain a matter of faith. It is a creed and not a foregone conclusion.
For example, I would never call the beliefs of Karma, Cause, and Effect and of past and future lives, provable conclusions. I accept them on faith, because by accepting them they make the things I don’t have to accept on faith in my ordinary life make a lot more sense.
This not a sufficient condition to “prove” that they are true to anyone not willing to accept them on faith.
And I have no problem with that.
All I can say beyond that is that “faith” of one form or another is what makes a religion a religion. Accepting the fact that “faith” is not “knowledge”, and that if it were there would be no need for “faith” at all, is what makes a believer in any creed capable of the real personal humility that “faith” requires.
on 06/01 at 05:25 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: So Tell Me........is there a ‘book of prophetic readings’ in Buddhism? One that is even reasonably accurate?
If not, what does that mean vis-a-vis compare and contrast analysis with other forms of ‘Faith’?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
on 06/02 at 01:49 PM -
Not one single book, no. Buddhists generally are of the opinion that the future in what’s known as the Human Realm is highly indeterminate because human beings have the maximum freedom of choice. The converse of this is that in the Human Realm nothing is permanent or reliable and this fact results in a particular style of suffering of constant restlessness and busyness attempting to make things permanent.
In practice many Buddhist yogis have made [and still make] true predictions of the near-term future. This is what is called “supra-sensible cognition” and is a by-product [not an end product] of intensive meditation. But since the further from the present you go, the less the future is determined, clearly correct longer term predictions are much rarer, but even these are not unknown.
As far as the difference that it makes, the most important one is that our texts are not, for the most part, life stories of the Buddha or anyone else, nor are they narratives of the history of a “chosen people”, they are instruction manuals of how to practice to achieve Enlightenment. The nearest [very rough] equivalent would be a Bible largely consisting of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Sermon on the Mount.
One of the most famous of them, the Heart of Perfect Wisdom can be rendered into English in 16 sentences:
Thus have I once heard:
The Blessed One was staying in Rajagrha at Vulture Peak along with a great community of monks and great community of bodhisattvas, and at that time, the Blessed One fully entered the meditative concentration on the varieties of phenomena called the Appearance of the Profound. At that very time as well, holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being, beheld the practice itself of the profound perfection of wisdom, and he even saw the five aggregates as empty of inherent nature. Thereupon, through the Buddha’s inspiration, the venerable Sariputra spoke to holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being, and said, “Any noble son who wishes to engage in the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom should train in what way?”
When this had been said, holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being, spoke to venerable Sariputra and said, “Sariputra, any noble sons or daughters who wish to practice the perfection of wisdom should see this way: they should see insightfully, correctly and repeatedly that even the five aggregates are empty of inherent nature. Form is empty, emptiness is form, Emptiness is not other than form, form is also not other than emptiness. Likewise, sensation, discrimination, conditioning, and awareness are empty. In this way, Sariputra, all things are emptiness; they are without defining characteristics; they are not born, they do not cease, they are not defiled, they are not undefiled. They have no increase, they have no decrease.
“Therefore, Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no discrimination, no conditioning, and no awareness. There is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no texture, no phenomenon. There is no eye-element and so on up to no mind-element and also up to no element of mental awareness. There is no ignorance and no elimination of ignorance and so on up to no aging and death and no elimination of aging and death. Likewise, there is no suffering, origin, cessation, or path; there is no wisdom, no attainment, and even no non-attainment.
“Therefore, Sariputra, since the bodhisattvas have no obtainments, they abide relying on the perfection of wisdom. Having no defilements in their minds, they have no fear, and passing completely beyond error, they reach nirvana. Likewise, all the Buddhas abiding in the three times clearly and completely awaken to unexcelled, authentic, and complete awakening in dependence upon the perfection of wisdom.
“Therefore, one should know that the mantra of the perfection of wisdom - the mantra of great knowledge, the precious mantra, the unexcelled mantra, the mantra equal to the unequalled, the mantra that quells all suffering - is true because it is not deceptive. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is proclaimed:
tadyatha - gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!
Sariputra, a bodhisattva, a great being, should train in the profound perfection of wisdom in that way.”
Thereupon, the Blessed One arose for that meditative concentration, and he commended holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being. “Excellent!” he said. “Excellent! Excellent! Noble child, it is just so. Noble child, it is just so. One should practice the profound perfection of wisdom in the manner that you have revealed - the Tathagatas rejoice!” This is what the Blessed One said.
Thereupon, the venerable Sariputra, the holy Avalokitsevara, the bodhisattva, the great being, and that entire assembly along with the world of gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas, all rejoiced and highly praised what the Blessed One had said.
on 06/02 at 05:41 PM -
Now please don’t ask me for a commentary on it. There’s plenty of that sort of thing on the Net, from the Dalai Lama on down to far less well known monastic scholars.
The point is that Buddhist texts are practical descriptions of the human condition and instructions on what to do about it.
One of the things that makes dialog between Christians and Buddhists slip into cross-purposes is that Buddhists not only have different religious answers, they also have different religious questions.
Consider the Nicene Creed, probably the most generally accepted description of Christian belief:
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Now this is not only a statement of faith, it is also an answer to a question: What is the nature of God?
This is simply not a question that interests Buddhists.
Compare it to the Four Noble Truths, spoken by the Buddha as his first teaching and the most basic doctrine accepted by virtually all Buddhists:
Life is Suffering.
Life’s suffering is caused.
Since life’s suffering is caused, it can be stopped.
There is a method to stop it I call the Eightfold Noble Path.For clarity, I have rendered it a little more freely in English than a strict translation. The question being answered is: How do you stop the suffering that we all experience in our lives?
The differences in the questions should be pretty evident. One is an abstract question beyond the human condition, the other is a concrete question about the human condition.
Buddhists are simply interested in our direct experience, right here, right now, and we want to know what to do about it. And we are not all that interested in religious questions beyond it.
on 06/02 at 06:09 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Lessons in BuddhismQuite a interesting report, all of that. I appreciate the time you’re taking to enlighten my understanding.
I understood that Buddhists didn’t believe in a supreme being. Call it God or Allah or Satan or whatever.
It would be an interesting topical thread to examine Buddhism and Christianity in a compare and contrast manner, as you did in that latter missive.
RE: Back On-Topic
Not one single book, no. Buddhists generally are of the opinion that the future in what’s known as the Human Realm is highly indeterminate because human beings have the maximum freedom of choice.—Joseph Marshall
Logically speaking, human behavior IS constructed in an environment of ‘maximum freedom of choice’, local laws notwithstanding. However, the ability to nail the name of a local that sustains a runaway nuclear reactor, e.g., Wormwood, in English from Ukrainian, AND the line-for-line description of a high-tech attack helicopter AND the outbreak of a large war in a particular geographic region, e.g., the Euphrates River valley, from almost 2000 years away, IS ‘impressive’. And something of an indicator to the veracity of an intelligence beyond the scope of the average individual.
I had some JWs visiting on a bi-weekly basis last Winter. An highly intelligent couple of whom the male member of the family unit was the honcho of a local Kingdom Hall.
We got into the discussion of this, that and the other. And in ‘the other’, I brought up Revelation and the items we’ve been discussing here. This sent the gentleman into something of an ‘agitated’ state. He kept asking, “What does it mean?” Over and over again. I had to interrupt him after he’d said that five times in a row. And after getting a chance to answer his question, I said, “It means God’s Word is true.”
Apparently the JWs are what we in Christendom call ‘Ammilennialists’. This being someone who does not believe that Old Book when it talks about a thousand year reign of Christ. They and the ‘Post-Millennialists’—a belief that Christ has already returned, something shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the rebellion of 70-73 AD—have given up hope of Christ’s physical return at the proverbial ‘End of the Age’. They look for metaphorical explanations of what is described as happening in the latter part of Revelations. They don’t believe there is actually a physical fulfillment.
At any rate, the statement ‘God’s Word is true,’ threw them for a loop. It put their whole world-view out of kilter. They’ve spent their whole adult life thinking one thing. And to have that think found to be in error was just too much for them.
They tried all kinds of other pulls on Scripture to explain away my understanding. They said that Christ’s prophecy about the Temple’s total destruction—no stone shall be left standing upon another—was fulfilled by the Romans. However, I pointed out that there are STILL three tiers of stone from the wall surrounding the Temple, that stand one-stone-upon-another. Added to the Temple by Herod the Great, during the time of Caesar. The Israelites worship at it daily. It’s known as the Wailing Wall. I explained that Christ’s prophecy has not yet been fulfilled. And that I’m confident that when the Muslims overrun Jerusalem...in the not too distant future...that it WILL be fulfilled. As they’ll surely tear those stones down.
They never came back. And I can understand that. It’s very ‘frightening’ to hear such, if you don’t ‘appreciate’ Christ properly.
For instance many people are uneasy with the economy. They’re fearful of that is going to happen next. It’s a great unknown to them.
On the other hand, if you do understand what is going on around you, you are never really totally afraid.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Prophecy, fulfilled, is proof to Christians that God’s Word is true.]on 06/04 at 12:08 PM -
I understood that Buddhists didn’t believe in a supreme being.
The Buddha basically accepted the general Hinduism of his day, but he made the point that you could look nowhere but in your own mind for the end of your own suffering. So you might say that Buddhists are polytheists [at least historically] but find it to be beside the point; so much so that the degree to which individual Buddhists credit such things now varies widely.
Buddhism largely kept this link to Hinduism until it was destroyed in India by Muslim invasion in the 1100’s.
The backbone of Buddhism was the monastic sangha, and the monasteries were totally destroyed. There were Buddhist yogis, of course. But, in time, they were absorbed back into the general Hinduism, because the actual techniques are so similar. Hinduism itself survived because of its broad and popular layperson base.Buddhist teachings still speak of the God Realm and still use the Hindu names for it’s inhabitants. They speak of it as a realm [or a set of realms] with no overt suffering over many thousands of our years, but the most horrible suffering of all when the karma sustaining God realm life runs out and you go through the death process of the God Realm which takes many, many of our years.
They also sometimes speak of “Mara” and “Rudra” [Confusion and Ego] as if these were actual independent sentient beings, but point out that all such things are “mere appearance” and have no ultimate reality independent from our mental perception of them.
They further speak of Hell Realms and Ghost Realms of overt and horrible suffering without let up or break for many hundreds or many thousands of our years. These two are essentially mental hallucinations without ultimate reality outside of our own confusion and the source of all our particular experience of being in this realm or that is the habitual patterns we create for ourselves by our actions.
So from another vantage point, Hell is the solidification of our own anger, Ghosts are the solidification of our own greed and miserliness, and the God realm is the solidification of our own spiritual pride in the all the good things we do.
on 06/04 at 02:39 PM -
I’m confident that when the Muslims overrun Jerusalem...in the not too distant future...that it WILL be fulfilled. As they’ll surely tear those stones down.
That doesn’t seem likely to me. The Temple Mount itself is an artificial structure with a couple of very important Mosques on top. The Western Wall is part of its foundation and in addition, contains stones weighing up to 13 tons. The wall Jews pray at is, I believe, below ground level and is only a small section of the actual wall.
The more likely scenario for “not a stone standing” is the destruction of the entire complex by a nuclear weapon.
on 06/04 at 05:36 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Nukes, Anyone?—Joseph Marshall Not really. I recall photos of ‘ground-zero’ Hiroshima, that had buildings standing. Depends on the architecture.
However, I’m confident that the Muslims would thoroughly enjoy tearing down the Wailing Wall by hand. Much as the West Berliners die their ‘wall’.
When you see this event happening, I ask you to recollect on this particular discussion. It might be ‘useful’.....
on 06/06 at 02:46 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: In the First Place....The Buddha basically accepted the general Hinduism of his day, but he made the point that you could look nowhere but in your own mind for the end of your own suffering. So you might say that Buddhists are polytheists [at least historically] but find it to be beside the point; so much so that the degree to which individual Buddhists credit such things now varies widely.—Joseph Marshall
....let me caveat this discussion that it is not, repeat NOT, within my ‘power’, let alone ‘authority’ to ‘convert’ you to Christ. There is only ONE who can do that. But you....I mean YOU, personally....have to ask Him to do that. This is not a matter-of-faith. It is rather a matter-of-fact. But that’s another story.
So, having put that aspect of MY ‘converting’ YOU ‘aside’. Let us continue in this discussion.
So...as I addressed earlier, Buddhism has no ‘proof’ of its ‘power’, vis-a-vis ‘prophecy’. On the other hand, we have Christianity predicting event from 2000 years ago. Giving proper-noun names in the process.
Interesting.....don’t you think?
on 06/06 at 02:53 PM -
Oh, I’m not worried about you trying to convert me. Because I’ve been repeatedly asked the following questions:
You say you have a “me” [or a “self” or a “spirit” or a “soul” or whatever]?
Just where is this “me” of yours? In your head? Your belly? Your heart?
What color is your “me”? What shape is it? What size is it?
When you look at your hand, is that hand an object which your “me” perceives, or is a part of your “me”?
When you feel the rough texture of the carpet with your hand, is your hand now a part of your “me”, when it wasn’t before?
When your body goes to sleep does your “me” continue to exist? If so, where? And just what does it perceive then?
What was your mother’s maiden name?
Where was this information when you were writing the post immediately before this? In your memory?
Well, where is “your memory”? In the same place as your “me”? Is it a part of your “me”? Or is it an object your “me” perceives? Where does it go when your “me” is paying attention to something else?
And that’s just the start.
This is not something somebody wrote in a book and maybe it came true. You and I and a whole bunch of other people have been mooting this for days. You say St. John wrote it when? And it came true when? Why then and not some other time before this? Or after?
The questions I asked are all about stuff that we carry with us every day. It is as close to us as the food in our mouths or the breath in our nostrils. You shouldn’t need a book to tell you about it, you ought to know about it first hand. Right?
Do you really? If not, how can you be sure about something as detached from you and as abstract as the true meaning of St. John’s prophesies?
You may have a possible match of St. John to two historical events out of 2000 years. But “may” is not “must” and “possibility” is not “certainty”. And the possible matches are not “knowledge” though they may easily support your faith if you don’t try to turn them into knowledge.
When you start asking the questions of yourself that I just asked, you are at the starting point of the search for real knowledge and what you take on faith is for the support of your search and not the other way around.
Now the search is not the ultimate discovery, but to have the discovery, you have to start the search. Buddhism is about starting the search and nobody can start it but you.
on 06/08 at 05:20 PM -
It put their whole world-view out of kilter. They’ve spent their whole adult life thinking one thing. And to have that think found to be in error was just too much for them.
Is doing this really wise? Is it likely to make a difference in their ultimate Salvation whether or not they take Revelation literally? And, if not, is there any compelling reason for them to find out they are wrong before the Last Day?
There is always the possibility that you have started them on the path to complete disillusionment.
I have been very frank with you about Buddhism for two reasons. First, because you have asked; second, because I am pretty certain it will not alter your faith or induce fatal doubts about it. I would never be so frank to your JW acquaintances, who are not likely to ask, anyway. This is what we call using “skillful means” in how we present our views.
Intellect and reason argument are potentially deadly weapons and need to be applied sparingly and with discretion.
on 06/09 at 01:26 AM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Wise ActsIs doing this really wise?—Joseph Marshall
Is it worth it to discover the truth of a matter?
If we apply exposing the truth to people in a different venue, e.g., health care/medicines, is it ‘wise’ to tell people the truth about some med that may be causing heart attacks while saving their liver?
What can people actually DO with the ‘Truth’? Whether it is medical or religious? Or even fiscal?
Should we hide a ‘truth’ from people? Or should we proclaim it?
RE: Understanding Buddhism
I greatly appreciate your educational efforts. They’ve been very helpful in expanding my heretofore limited understanding of that form of belief.
Tonight, I go to a dinner to honor the best Buddhist I know in this community. He is about to give up his position as my distaff’s ‘boss’—a dean in the local college—to move on to another position. It’s always been a pleasure to discuss various matters with him. However, I admit to watching his becoming ‘less’ that what he was when we first met and he got me involved with local politics, as his wife—a universalist ‘minister’—divorced him. It’s sad.....he was so full of life and energy and vision before that event befell him.
RE: The Dangers of ‘Intellect’ and ‘Reason’....
...are only ‘dangerous’ to people who have an agenda that (1) they cannot give up and (2) has no basis in rationality.
Some people could claim such of Christianity. However, as I’ve experienced over the last ten years, the only people who will ‘kill’ a Christian on the web, are those that are deathly afraid of engaging them....likely because they know the logic will fracture their world-view.
Indeed. Yesterday I was threatened with being ‘killed’ on one web-site because I had the audacity to ask someone on a thread whether or not they were an atheist.
The web-mistress came down on me, claiming such a question was ‘hateful’.
Lots of people are deathly afraid of knowing whether or not God exists. And they’ll outright ‘kill’ anyone who can make cogent arguments that He does. Such is the nature of the world. And, I suspect, it has a LOT to do with ‘ego’, e.g., ‘pride’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....whether people like it or not....]on 06/09 at 01:58 PM -
I had the audacity to ask someone on a thread whether or not they were an atheist.
The web-mistress came down on me, claiming such a question was ‘hateful’.
I don’t know exactly how you asked it, but if you asked it the way you have written it, it is also an instance of the hostile rhetoric of labeling. Consider the sloppy way many people use the words “socialist” as a from of rhetorical abuse. Socialism is a very distinct and specific doctrine which most people who use it as a rhetorical club couldn’t describe objectively and accurately if you paid them to do it.
All you have to do is to rephrase the question as, “Do you believe in the existence of God?” and the tone changes considerably while the substance does not.
Just how would you characterize the question, “Are you a Fundie?” were it put to you? Surely not as emotionally neutral or favorable toward you. Change it to, “Are you ‘born again’?” or “Do you believe in the literal truth of the entire Bible?” and you once again alter the tone without changing the substance.
Were we always able to use intellect and reasoned argument exclusively from disinterested motives and “speak to the question”, as they say in formal debating, then our claims to possess “Truth” which we are merely defending from error might be legitimate.
But who can say that they are not also engaged in defeating a debating adversary whose doctrines [or whose lack of a coherent doctrine] they dislike as well as disbelieve?
Certainly not me, most of the time.
This is what I mean by the use of intellect and reason as deadly weapons. It is precisely the difference between a chef’s knife in your hand chopping celery and one planted in the middle of your back point forward.
Another thing is that you are actually arguing for far more than the existence of God when you proclaim the Truth of Christianity. You are arguing for something much closer to all that is embodied in the Nicene Creed. I don’t know how closely this Creed expresses the actual content of your Christian belief, but surely it is far closer to the Creed than it is to the mere assertion “God exists”.
Most of your opponents do not have a clear and informed sense of this and that means that you have them at an outrageously favorable rhetorical advantage.
You, frankly, seldom expose to rational argument the rest of the beliefs that your stance on the net clearly implies: the Divinity of Christ, His rising from the dead after 3 days, the immanence of a Holy Spirit, and a concrete and actual “person” [in exactly the same sense that there are 3 “persons” in the Trinity] called Satan who is the embodiment of all evil, among a lot of other beliefs.
Would you truly be ready to examine and explain the fact that in the Book of Job Satan appears to be able to saunter into the counsels of God any time he likes? Or that Cain somehow mysteriously acquired a “wife” from somewhere, when nothing is ever mentioned about his having had a sister?
You are, in fact, implicitly arguing that these things are both true and rationally explicable. And you are operating from what is clearly an irrelevant and unfair advantage that you know how much of the rest of this you actually believe, and you know the content of these beliefs far more intimately than 95 out of 100 non-Christians on the web. So you can always meet them on whatever grounds you may be stronger and more knowledgeable.
That is precisely the advantage you had over your JW acquaintances, and it is a rhetorical advantage and not a rational one. They had to expose their hole cards. You didn’t.
on 06/09 at 04:05 PM -
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