End times, Now? (Jesus, bible)

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Mystic-als

Nope. Who acts in it.

I looked around for a video clip online of the little section that I was alluding to, but can't find it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/

[Elvendon]

Well.

In my honest opinion - Jesus was a Cosmic Christ. He didn't just change God, he didn't change man, he changed everything; from the stars in the sky to those little squiggly jobbies that live in the sea and eat silt. Jesus promised he would return in glory, that many of his listeners would not taste death before he returned. He was right! He rose from the dead and walked about among us. We are living in a post-apocalyptic world. Everything God had promised - the death of death, and hell's destruction, happened through the resurrection of Jesus. The afterlife is no longer in our hands - it is in God's. We humans are now free to act in the way that is best and most moral with respects to our weak and flawed human nature - we are no longer bound to restrictive and impractical laws. We just have to make this world the nicest place for everyone to be in, and God will fix the rest. I'm sure Jesus will come again at some point, but I believe the "apocalypse" per se has already happened.

All the events in the Bible did happen as history - but in another world, another place. When Jesus died, history was changed. The world became older, and natural, with it's own laws and mechanisms, which we could predict and control, and take into our own hands the reins of power. The death of Jesus was the death of the old world - the world without rhyme or reason, of blind superstition and angry gods who vied for supremacy over a defeated human race. The resurrection marked the birth of a new world, a world where the divine and the spiritual permitted matter and flesh to have it's own rules and so to be controlled by humanity. A world where we, as a species, could grow up. A world of spiritual love that could, eventually, be victorious over the shadow. That old, black magic became new, white magic; dark eldritch rituals became events of loving praise; evil demons became kindly angels. All the events of the Old Testament passed into legend - replaced by less magical realities. That is why evidence cannot prove that the world was made in 6 days. Jesus changed the world, made it "real", so we could control our own lives and be agents of our own destiny, while still following God's plan. So six days became billions of years, Eden became Africa, and the miraculous receeded just a little to give us the space we needed.

I do believe the world will "end" some day. It has to. The sun is due to burn out in a-few billion years. After that, this galaxy will be gobbled up by the black hole at the heart of the Andromeda galaxy. Perhaps the kingdom will survive all that time as those disasters? Maybe it will end. Maybe we will be resurrected physically, and another, new world to replace the old will be made. Maybe it won't. In my mind, one thing is for sure - the real apocalypse - the important bit, has already happened. And at the time, noone even noticed. Noone, except a small group of poor, disenfranchised men women and children, living in Palestine. And they changed the world.

Great isn't it?

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Elvendon

Well.

In my honest opinion - Jesus was a Cosmic Christ. He didn't just change God, he didn't change man, he changed everything; from the stars in the sky to those little squiggly jobbies that live in the sea and eat silt. Jesus promised he would return in glory, that many of his listeners would not taste death before he returned. He was right! He rose from the dead and walked about among us. We are living in a post-apocalyptic world. Everything God had promised - the death of death, and hell's destruction, happened through the resurrection of Jesus. The afterlife is no longer in our hands - it is in God's. We humans are now free to act in the way that is best and most moral with respects to our weak and flawed human nature - we are no longer bound to restrictive and impractical laws. We just have to make this world the nicest place for everyone to be in, and God will fix the rest. I'm sure Jesus will come again at some point, but I believe the "apocalypse" per se has already happened.

All the events in the Bible did happen as history - but in another world, another place. When Jesus died, history was changed. The world became older, and natural, with it's own laws and mechanisms, which we could predict and control, and take into our own hands the reins of power. The death of Jesus was the death of the old world - the world without rhyme or reason, of blind superstition and angry gods who vied for supremacy over a defeated human race. The resurrection marked the birth of a new world, a world where the divine and the spiritual permitted matter and flesh to have it's own rules and so to be controlled by humanity. A world where we, as a species, could grow up. A world of spiritual love that could, eventually, be victorious over the shadow. That old, black magic became new, white magic; dark eldritch rituals became events of loving praise; evil demons became kindly angels. All the events of the Old Testament passed into legend - replaced by less magical realities. That is why evidence cannot prove that the world was made in 6 days. Jesus changed the world, made it "real", so we could control our own lives and be agents of our own destiny, while still following God's plan. So six days became billions of years, Eden became Africa, and the miraculous receeded just a little to give us the space we needed.

I do believe the world will "end" some day. It has to. The sun is due to burn out in a-few billion years. After that, this galaxy will be gobbled up by the black hole at the heart of the Andromeda galaxy. Perhaps the kingdom will survive all that time as those disasters? Maybe it will end. Maybe we will be resurrected physically, and another, new world to replace the old will be made. Maybe it won't. In my mind, one thing is for sure - the real apocalypse - the important bit, has already happened. And at the time, noone even noticed. Noone, except a small group of poor, disenfranchised men women and children, living in Palestine. And they changed the world.

Great isn't it?

Wonderful!!

However, I must offer a few criticisms.

I don't see how you can defend the death and resurrection of Christ as bringing us into a post-apocalyptic age when the Christian apocalypses of 1 Thess and Revelation clearly do not teach this. The Christian communities continued producing apocalyptic literature after the death and ressurection of Christ, looking forward to more apocalyptic events that hail a new heaven and earth aside from the resurrection.

[Elvendon]

Originally Posted by angellous_evangellous

Wonderful!!

However, I must offer a few criticisms.

I don't see how you can defend the death and resurrection of Christ as bringing us into a post-apocalyptic age when the Christian apocalypses of 1 Thess and Revelation clearly do not teach this. The Christian communities continued producing apocalyptic literature after the death and ressurection of Christ, looking forward to more apocalyptic events that hail a new heaven and earth aside from the resurrection.

Of course. I think I was getting a bit enthused when I wrote my last post hehe. I personally am open minded on this - Revelation in particular I think could be interpreted as a use of a traditional Jewish idea (the apocalypse) as a framework for John the Divine's own mystical experiences that are concerned primarily with our own personal apocalypses - that is, our judgement upon death. I also think it sometimes smacks as a possible analogy for the persecutions of Christians and the subsequent establishment of the Vatican and Rome itself as a centre for Western Christendom. However, I do not consider this as dogma, and consider the possibility of further apocalyptic, judgement events as being it's inspiration. I prefer to be as righteous and compassionate as I can be, then wait and see what God has planned

I think we both agree upon the primacy of Jesus' death as a world-ending/changing event though? So - realised eschatology.

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Elvendon

I think we both agree upon the primacy of Jesus' death as a world-ending/changing event though? So - realised eschatology.

Yes - realized but not completely realized. There's a significant difference between thinking that "All the events in the Bible did happen as history - but in another world, another place" and interpreting the ourselves as in the same world and history as the events in the biblical events. The writers of the NT didn't believe this, and neither did the church fathers. They understood themselves to be in the same world as the one before Christ and the time of Christ - that is kinda the point of the Church.

[Elvendon]

Originally Posted by angellous_evangellous

Yes - realized but not completely realized. There's a significant difference between thinking that "All the events in the Bible did happen as history - but in another world, another place" and interpreting the ourselves as in the same world and history as the events in the biblical events. The writers of the NT didn't believe this, and neither did the church fathers. They understood themselves to be in the same world as the one before Christ and the time of Christ - that is kinda the point of the Church.

It's kindof difficult to express what my view is.

I feel that we are in the same world, but it was changed so utterly so that it is as if were a different one (the "another" was hyperbole, I apologise for it).

Jesus' life as described per the books of the New Testament did happen - recent events were not changed by the death of Jesus. In my view, the predominant changes that were wielded were to the spiritual world - i.e. changing the relationship between man and God, defeating the power of Satan etc. But some changes were effected to our world - namely that it no longer was made in 6 days, humanity did not start with two humans and so on.

This is quite a new idea, so I'm working through it. Bear with me

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Elvendon

It's kindof difficult to express what my view is.

I feel that we are in the same world, but it was changed so utterly so that it is as if were a different one (the "another" was hyperbole, I apologise for it).

Jesus' life as described per the books of the New Testament did happen - recent events were not changed by the death of Jesus. In my view, the predominant changes that were wielded were to the spiritual world - i.e. changing the relationship between man and God, defeating the power of Satan etc. But some changes were effected to our world - namely that it no longer was made in 6 days, humanity did not start with two humans and so on.

This is quite a new idea, so I'm working through it. Bear with me

I don't detect anything new at all in your view, but I definately enjoy and appreciate reading it.

I don't understand this: namely that it no longer was made in 6 days, humanity did not start with two humans and so on.

[Elvendon]

By "new" I meant "new for me" heh