So Christianity is an apocalypse cult. Don't bother fixing the world but embrace and cheer on the end of the world because then we'll all be happy in heaven.
You have no idea. Nebuchadnezzar's dream predicted the succession of Babylon to Medo-Persia to Greece to Rome to the balkanized present and the absolute latest date for the book is still in the BCs.
“After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. 40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay."
So his extremely vague prediction that new empires will rise and fall and that diversity will destroy the fabrics of a homogeneous group? That's your prophecy? Basic pattern recognition?
I can you give a prophecy too. It's gonna rain sometime in the future.
What controls the breeding selection of humanity? You guessed it: religion.
No. Family relationships, societal structures and population size do. Nobility didn't fuck only nobility because the Bible said so. Incest wasn't a problem in small rural communities because of religion but because they were too few people to choose from. That shit is a concept as old as humanity itself. Hell, it is as old as life.
For example, the dysgenic effects of a given religion are much easier to appreciate: an extremely high percentage of Pakistani Muslims are products of cousin marriages.
Cousin marriages are not an Islamic concept. It's cultural. Not religious. That's why the incest problem is worst in rural communities. Pakistanis did it before Islam and will do it after Islam. Incest was a big problem in every part of the world at some point. Even in the US. It's a family thing. Look at the most famous example in Europe. Habsburg dynasty. Christianity didn't stop that practice. The Habsburg or rather the nobility class stopped it themselves because they became physically and mentally disabled bridge trolls.
So Christianity is an apocalypse cult. Don't bother fixing the world but embrace and cheer on the end of the world because then we'll all be happy in heaven.
Sure, go ahead and take the crudest interpretation of that statement.
So his extremely vague prediction that new empires will rise and fall and that diversity will destroy the fabrics of a homogeneous group? That's your prophecy? Basic pattern recognition?
This prophecy is actually given in parallel form with animal metaphors in Daniel 7, and there's a lot of triangulating details between them:
the head of gold/the lion with eagle's wings: this is explicitly Babylon. The eagle's wings plucked from the lion foretells the humbling of Nebuchadnezzar when he acknowledged God's authority.
the chest and arms of silver/the bear with one shoulder higher than the other: Medo-Persia was a larger empire than Babylon, but never equaled the civilizational achievements like the Hanging Gardens. It was unique in that it was an alliance of two peoples, but the Persians were always stronger than the Medes.
The belly and thighs of bronze/the leopard with four wings and four heads: Alexander the Great conquered the known world faster than anyone before him. His most prominent generals were four men: Ptolemy, Antigonus, Cassander, and Seleucus, who famously split the empire after his death. Interestingly, Greek armor was primarily bronze (cuirass, shields, greaves etc) and their weapons were a mixture of bronze and iron.
the legs of iron/the unnamed beast with iron teeth/the beast with seven heads and ten horns: Rome was the most dominant and efficient empire perhaps of all time, pioneering modern standards of regimentation. Famously, almost every weapon and piece of armor in the Roman arsenal was constructed with iron. The unnamed beast also appears several times in Revelation, such as Revelation 13, because it also prophesies the rise of the Roman Catholic Church from Rome. Rome was founded on seven hills, and ten European barbarian tribes sacked it. Three of those tribes were subsequently exterminated for heresy at the behest of the pope.
the feet of iron and clay: after Rome, the civilized world would no longer be united, never fully adhering to each other just as iron can't bond to clay. This state has persisted despite several credible attempts such as the Muslim caliphate, Napoleon's campaigns, and Hitler's Third Reich. This will last until the end of time.
the stone that destroys the statue and fills the whole Earth: a divine act, "not cut with human hands," that sweeps aside all human structure. This is the Second Coming of Christ.
So it's a bit more involved than "empires will rise and fall." I'll leave it at that for now.
So Christianity is an apocalypse cult. Don't bother fixing the world but embrace and cheer on the end of the world because then we'll all be happy in heaven.
So his extremely vague prediction that new empires will rise and fall and that diversity will destroy the fabrics of a homogeneous group? That's your prophecy? Basic pattern recognition?
I can you give a prophecy too. It's gonna rain sometime in the future.
No. Family relationships, societal structures and population size do. Nobility didn't fuck only nobility because the Bible said so. Incest wasn't a problem in small rural communities because of religion but because they were too few people to choose from. That shit is a concept as old as humanity itself. Hell, it is as old as life.
Cousin marriages are not an Islamic concept. It's cultural. Not religious. That's why the incest problem is worst in rural communities. Pakistanis did it before Islam and will do it after Islam. Incest was a big problem in every part of the world at some point. Even in the US. It's a family thing. Look at the most famous example in Europe. Habsburg dynasty. Christianity didn't stop that practice. The Habsburg or rather the nobility class stopped it themselves because they became physically and mentally disabled bridge trolls.
Sure, go ahead and take the crudest interpretation of that statement.
This prophecy is actually given in parallel form with animal metaphors in Daniel 7, and there's a lot of triangulating details between them:
So it's a bit more involved than "empires will rise and fall." I'll leave it at that for now.