That's the futurist interpretation of Revelation, yes. I am not a futurist. I am a preterist. In short, the preterist stance on Revelation is that the imagery in it is a reflection of the events of the then-current apostolic era, the first century AD. I am also a symbolist, in that I believe that Revelation is allegory, not a prediction/prophecy of future events.

If you're into the numbers, then I'm sure you know that the number 666 (or 616, depending on which manuscript you consult) is equivalent to the words Nero Caesar (616) or Neron Caesar (The same words in Greek), which using gematria comes out to 666. Nero, of course, was the reigning Roman Emperor at the time Revelation was written. Much of the text, bearing this sort of "code" in mind, points to the "prophecy" being about the things that were happening at the time the text was written, written of course in highly symbolic form. Much similar Christian apocalyptic literature was being written at the time. ("Apocalypse" simply meaning "revelation" in Greek.)



Then...why "have everything" if we won't seek after material things? Why would "having" be necessary or desired at all? There is little-to-nothing in the Bible, especially outside of Revelation, which speaks of having anything at all in heaven, likely because, in my view, we won't have a need for anything.



I'm quite certain that the Earth will continue to exist long after humanity is gone by whatever means. I do not think that any book of the Bible is predictive because that doesn't align with its spiritual purpose. People have made it that way, but that's reading into it what you want to see. That's not something I will mess with.

Note: A tsunami cannot destroy the Earth. Nor can it directly wipe out all of humanity. A meteor of that size would be the cause of the Earth's destruction, out of sheer size and collateral damage; sort of. It could wipe out life, but not completely destroy the planet.

Now an earthquake, Richter, say, 12, could. An earthquake of that magnitude would literally rip the Earth in twain.

Anyhow, the most likely way the Earth will be destroyed would be in the resulting supernova of the Sun dying. I think. Either that, or it'll just get shoved out of orbit and hurled into deep space.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think our sun is large enough to go supernova. If I remember my astronomy lessons correctly, our sun is predicted to become a red giant, expanding to engulf (and destroy) the planets in the inner solar system (including earth). Then it'll burn out and die. Not quite as spectacular as a supernova, but the end result is pretty much the same for the earth!

Considering that's a few billion years away, though, I doubt we'll be around to see it happen.

If we are, for some reason, we'll only have to worry about the collision with andromeda.

Mm...If I recall, I think it was red giants that go supernova. Our Sun isn't as powerful to create a spectacular nebula, maybe, but supernova is, I think, the common death. It loses the outer layers, and the insides, like the core, then revert to a white dwarf, and THEN it finally burns out and dies.

Though, the Earth may likely be engulfed, while the outer planets, I'm not sure. Now what I know for certain is it will definitely not become a black hole.

@Safyre - Yeah, fuck Andromeda, that bitch trying to come all up in our faces!

No, I don't think it's anywhere big enough to become a black hole.

It's not big enough to go supernova, either, according to this. The sun doesn't have enough mass to collapse in on itself and explode; it expands instead.

But I think we've strayed away from the main topic here. To get us back on track, let's just say that god will turn the sun off when he's done with it. Sort of like Genesis in reverse...

And God said, Let there be darkness: and He flipped the switch.

Well damn, I heard wrong! Anyway, trust me, I KNOW it's nowhere near big enough to go black hole That's what I said. It'd have to be way huge for that, at least like, a hundred-some times more mass.

And to visualize God's universe switch:

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articlei...cosmic/rip3.jpg

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articlei...cosmic/rip4.jpg

Hehehe...

Um...I forgot to mention that earth is socalled New Babylon.
Well, 666... No. 7 means perfection. So no. 6 is imperfection. Why? Because 7-1 is 6. But Why this 1? I think that is maybe no. 1 number of one God. But number 3 is also number of God, but of Holy Trinity.
Here is one nice picture for ones who are not informed about Holy Trinity:


So we have 3+3=6. And here is also one reason why is 6 imperfection.
"Do not have any other gods before me."
And so 666 is triple imperfection and also because 3 is number of only one God.
Also no. 12 is number of Israel, Christians, Church. No. 12 means perfect perfection (because Jews are God's nation). But if there's no harmony in God's nation, they will crumble. 6+6=12; 3+3+3+3=12 - No. 4 is number of world, so we can understand that there's no harmony between material (world) and spiritual (religion).
Yes, I agree with you iCad about influence of 7 Caesars (54 A.D. - 96 A.D.). Caesar was like god in that times and they were against Christians.
Some say that Hitler was born 666666... (I am not sure how many 6).
Also I remember a day, before few years, when was born again 666........th human. It was on TV and they said that he/she will be like new Hitler...

And about end of the world, I think that last day of the life on the Earth will be when Sun burns like candle. Sun can't burn forever.
But there's always chance for externals.

According to my fiance's mother, who is a Priest and reads Ancient Greek, the original documents say 616, not 666. This is thought to be a transcription error by the monks who copied the parchment by hand.

Yeah, everything depends about source.
It's like word YHWH, because in Hebrew language, there's no writing vowels (almost like in ancient egyptian) so we will never know what's the truth.

don't worry humans will destroy the Earth before the Sun does

I agree.

Yeah, we suck.

And Ivan, you're incorrect. As the Sun expands, it will further heat the Earth, turning it into an uninhabitable oven. You think the Sahara Desert is hot? The Sahara would be nothing compared to this future. No life would be able to survive; none.

Some manuscripts have 616, some have 666. The difference isn't necessarily an error. Although there are rather well-known transcription errors in the Bible, this is likely not one of them.

Rather, the numbers in Revelation (and perhaps in other places throughout the Bible) are thought to be numerological transcriptions of letters and words. In this case, it could very well be a "code" that conceals in this case a name, in order to attempt to protect those who wrote and circulated the literature at the time, the first century AD. (Much apocalyptic literature was being written at the time; John's apocalypse is just one of them.) Numerologically, 616 is "Nero Caesar," working from Latin. 666 is "Neron Caesar," the same title, only in Greek. Since (what became) Scripture was circulating in both Latin and Greek at the time, it isn't surprising (and isn't an "error") that both versions exist or that the two numbers would be interchanged as texts were passed around and copied. But since both numbers are thought to mean the same thing, numerologically, it's not really of consequence. Both are references to Nero, a "beastly" emperor from all points of view, but definitely in the eyes of the early Christians who were writing this kind of literature, one example of which ended up being "canonized."

I have read that in one magazine before cca. 5 years.
Anyway, the end is coming.

The question is, what kind of end. Because I absolutely scoff at this idea of oncoming Endtimes; Apocalypse and Armageddon and all that. Scoff, I say!

OK, I'm no expert on things Norse, but isn't the concept of Ragnarok sort of like Armageddon? Or am I way offbase? I'm afraid I'm quite ignorant of Norse things. All I know I learned from Stargate. (Kidding!)

Also...I don't believe in the Endtimes and the Tribulation and all that stuff, either. Even as a Christian. It's all an interpretation from Revelation, which IMO doesn't talk about the future but about, if anything in the "future" from when it was written, the fall of the Roman Empire. Yeah. So...it all already happened. Symbolically speaking, anyway. But...Well, heck we could have a whole debate just about Revelation.

No kidding.

If someone wrote such garbled nonsense today, most people would dismiss him as a loony.

I sometimes wonder if ol' Johnny-boy was smoking something...

Oh, it is. Just WAY more badass. To sum it up:

The dragon, Nidhoggr, will finally chew is way through the roots of Yggdrasil. Three cocks will crow to signal the beginning of Ragnarok, and Heimdall will blow his horn to rally the Einherjar (the fallen warriors of Valhalla) and all the gods. Sol and Mani (the Sun and Moon) shall be devoured by the wolves that chase them. The dead will rise and sail in a giant ship. Loki will lead the frost giants and all the monsters shall come. And the fire giants from Muspelheim (or just one, Surtr, who is far larger than any giant seen before) shall come and burn the worlds. They all met on a field (I forget the name) and fight in the most epic badass awesome battle every possibly conceived.

At the end, Yggdrasil will fall, but the world shall be reborn, with only a handful of gods surviving and two humans, so they can begin the new young world.

And, that's pretty much just a summarization; there's a little more to it than that. So yeah, it's basically similar to Armageddon, just way bigger, probably.

I have wondered that, myself. And then I ask myself: If it was true that he was smoking something...Does that make his visions (or the visions of any of the other prophets; like Ezekiel seeing wheels in the sky) automatically invalid?

Many proponents of hallucinogenic drugs claim that one can tap into different planes of existence while using them, planes of which we are not consciously aware and that we can't access otherwise. If this is true, then might it perhaps be possible for us to tap into God's plane of existence or at least to somehow "channel" Him better and more clearly than we can otherwise? (Assuming, if only for the sake of argument here, that God exists.) I'm not about to experiment to find out, but the concept has always intrigued me.

Of course, then you run into the problem of discerning what is a "true vision" and what is simply delusional lunacy, and...Well, that's a pickle, indeed. Still, as I said, I have my curiosity. Even if John (or Ezekiel or Isaiah or Jeremiah or Jonah, etc.) was "smoking something," to me it doesn't necessarily mean that he/they were "wrong."

That's true.

But the problem is that, if these are drug-induced hallucinations, they pretty much only exist in the mind of the hallucinator (is that a word?). On the other hand, if they are some sort of channeled wisdom, wouldn't everybody on a drug trip have similar visions with similar messages? And then, even if they did, you'd have to wonder if that was merely a result of social conditioning, with them seeing what they've been taught they should see...

I don't have much interest in finding out, either. I figure that if we were meant to have such knowledge, we would be able to access it without frying our neurons.

Perhaps. But on the other hand, the same drug at the same dosage can have very different effects on different people, depending on, for one thing, their individual body chemistry. So perhaps a plane that one person could tap into might be inaccessible to another person. And perhaps there are other "channels" besides God's to tap into out there.

Here's my thinking, as a Christian: I believe that we all, as children of God, have the latent ability to "hear" God. (And by that I don't necessarily mean to hear a voice but more like, "to be connected to Him and guided by Him on a sort of instinctive level"...although that doesn't accurately describe it, either. ) But in any case, I believe that this connection is part of the "breath of life" with which we are imbued. (For I have always seen that as referring to spiritual life, not biological life.) I think that, for most people, that connection is now blocked, though not, I think, severed. But for some people (like the prophets and people like Moses and Abraham and even Paul and such), the connection isn't/wasn't blocked, and thus those people lead/led extraordinary (in the literal sense of the word) spiritual lives. And I think that, for some people, drugs can temporarily overcome the "block," too. But, like I said, I'm not about to try it for myself, for I prefer my neurons to remain unfried. But...that's what I think.



Indeed, that is the problem. How to separate a "real vision" from delusional fantasy or "directed dreaming" of a sort or any number of other things. Still, to me, it's an interesting concept. We seem to have the capacity to have a lot more going on in our brains/minds than what we generally have going on in there. I, personally, have to wonder why that's so.

We don't always need drugs, either. Deep hypnosis works for some people. No neuron sauté. But I understand that some people don't feel comfortable with that.

Perhaps, though, that's how some of these channels worked. It might explain the dream-like quality that some of the visions have (since they're still coming through the filter of a human brain).

The biggest 'block' people have in having no "hearing" of "gods" is not learning about it or growing up with the idea of (certain) "gods". Do people not learn about xtianity? Then noone will head that god. Will people not learn about Zeus in their time? Then they won't hear the Zeus god. Thor? Noone hears him anymore. He is out of fashion. Just like the thousands of other gods in the past.