One third of the Bible is prophecy—God’s way of preparing and warning us of what would one day happen. In perhaps Jesus’ most explicit prophecy, The Olivet Discourse, He gives us several warnings as he prepares us for His return.
•Wars and Rumors of War. The 20th Century saw more people killed in war than in the entire history of the world combined before it. And as you watch the growth of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons being produced; the growing lust for power and wealth among nations, and brutal regimes rising before our eyes—we may soon see a war that makes the wars of the 20th century look like a walk in the park. The Bible prophecies that one third of the world’s people could die in the next world war.
•Famines and earthquakes. Every scientific study produced points to the undeniable fact that earthquakes have increased in numbers and strength at an alarming rate over the past 40 years. We are seeing unprecedented droughts in areas of the world, including the United States, that could put the world’s food supply at risk very quickly.
•Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. We live in an era where the gospel is just too harsh and offends too many people. After all, who are we to tell someone they are a sinner? And heaven forbid we as Americans should ever repent of our sinful ways!
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1) More people were killed in war in the 20th century than previously because, in large part, the major wars of that century were total wars, involving the entire populations of the belligerent countries rather than the more discreet wars fought by volunteer or mercenary armies of previous centuries. There is no evidence of any connection to the Bible.
2) The number of nuclear weapons is not as large as it was in 1984, nor is there the same race to produce them.
3) The idea that "we may soon see a war that makes previous wars look like a walk in the park" has been around for a number of centuries. The existence of Mutually Assured Destruction is one of the reasons there hasn't been a world war since 1945. As for the Bible, it didn't prophesy the first two world wars, so why would it prophesy a third?
4) Increasing frequency and severity of earthquakes? Um, no:
image
(Source: University of Wisconsin Green Bay)
5) Unprecedented droughts? Nothing that could be done, say, to change behavior, that might alleviate this?
6) False prophets are just as plentiful as they always were. It sounds like you are one of them.
All three of these prophecies are true at all times throughout history. That's the trick to prophecy, be incredibly specific about things that you know will happen anyway, and vague about everything else. People will see the obvious prophecies fulfilled and force the vague ones on contemporary events out of desperation.
Actually Mike, the number of earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or above have generally remained consistent over the last century or so and high magnitude earthquakes have decreased slightly in recent times. The only reason why it may seem that earthquakes are on the increase is because seismologists are now able to detect much lower magnitude tremors, due to more sensitive equipment.
"We live in an era where the gospel is just too harsh and offends too many people"
Lots of people are offended by the Koran, especially you christian fundies. What can we conclude from this?
Wars and Rumors of War
While wars are bloodier when they do happen, you'll also notice that wars happen less often and wars among superpowers went out of fashion after WWII. As horrible of an invention as nukes were, they seem to serve as a pretty good stick and the intertwined nature of international commerce is a pretty good carrot. Notice, despite the fact that Putin was acting all big and bad the economic sanctions have pretty much shut him up. And China, despite wanting to beat the US is far too dependent on us.
Famines and earthquakes
I'll steal Hasan's answer for the earthquakes. Um, no. As for the famine, you've got to be fucking kidding. Ever heard of the Dust Bowl? That was many orders of magnitude worse than any drought we've had since. It sucked and helped ruin the economy but we lived through it.
Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. We live in an era where the gospel is just too harsh and offends too many people.
As opposed to the Era when Christians killed heretics for having the wrong interpretation of the Bible? As opposed to Jesus' time when there were hundreds of messiahs preaching their own message? As opposed to the flourishing of cults in the supposed "golden era" of "God fearing Americans"?
Yes, yes, we're all quite aware of Jesus' astounding ability to predict that the basic facets of life on our planet would continue on as they have from the dawn of civilization tens of thousands of years ago (or from the dawn of the planet's formation billions of years ago in the case of the earthquakes).
Curiously enough he couldn't really predict when he'd make his own return trip, though. I mean by my watch he's at least 1,900 years late. The traffic in Heaven must be it's own kind of Hell...
1. The Twentieth century had about the same amount of war. More people were killed because of advanced weaponry. Had Ancient Israel possessed machine guns, poison gas, and nukes, you would boast of their billionfold body count. Today, a record portion of the global population lives without the threat of war.
2. Bullshit. Earthquakes are the result of tectonic plates. They are no more numerous today than before. Now, there may be population centers existing in fault zones, but the seismic activity itself is the same. As for famine, you live in an area with less famine globally than at any other point in history. In fact, we could feed the entire world easily if that was deemed a priority.
3. When has the entire world agreed with your version of Christianity? Ever? People disagreeing with you has been a reality ever since your religion came into being. Get used to it.
Oh, you mean one third of the bible is bullshit prophecy and the rest is general bullshit? Yeah, sounds about right!
By the way, saying "something bad will happen some day" is not a prophecy.
Notice that in war these days there are far more destructive weapons than other historical wars. Also note who it is who wants us in wars.
You're aware of climate change?
The gospel is offensive when used asa guise for hate.
Any fool can predict wars, famines, earthquakes and false prophets. I predict that in the next 2,000 years, there'll be a volcano erupting in Hawaii, a hurricane in Florida and a war in the Middle East.
The bible I read had an extraordinary percentage of content based on farming, a nonstop parade of various crops, trees, livestock, food processing, planting, bad harvests, blah and blah. The allegedly prophetic bits are a mere drop in the bucket compared to their obsessive banging on about food.
We live in an era where the gospel is just too harsh and offends too many people.
Which would be why Jesus softened it... but that makes him a false prophet in your eyes, so...
"Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. We live in an era where the gospel is just too harsh and offends too many people. After all, who are we to tell someone they are a sinner? And heaven forbid we as Americans should ever repent of our sinful ways!"
What exactly is prophetic about saying that the Holy Bile is full of unfair, hateful and/or nonsensical stuff? We live in an era where we know and learn too much for an ancient book of fable to remain credible. As for sin, you'd first need to prove that such a thing exists AND that your list of what constitutes a sin is accurate before you can badger someone about being a sinner or require that a country (that doesn't even appear in your big book of bloody fairytales) should "repent" of some nonspecific sins.
Wow, a really general "prophecy" of something that "could" or "would one day" happen. And something like "wars and rumors of wars". And earthquakes! Damn, those have never happened before..how could we ever doubt that? If they happen again, the ONLY POSSIBLE EXPLANATION must be the sky-pixie causing them!
Maybe I should "prophesy" that tomorrow, somewhere on earth, weather will occur! And the sun will rise! And set! And somewhere on earth, it will rain!
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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