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Reason: None provided.

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.

49 days ago
1 score
Reason: Original

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.

So it's a bit more involved than "empires will rise and fall." I'll leave it at that for now.

49 days ago
1 score