Flight 102 is Now Boarding

Post Reply New Topic

I do not buy into the Scofield-style rapture.Not that I have license to assert no such thing could happen, built is on the pile of "Wake me if there are ever data" topics along with surviving nonavian dinosaurs, Nemesis, Change for Dummies [Change the Rest of Us Can Believe In], and Roswell.

But it amazes me. Here are all these more or less intelligent people - all of them can apparently type - mocking the gullible uncritical unrigorous deluded people expecting a major event May 21.

Yet EVEN BEFORE MAY 21 is FINISHED - they are going, see, toldja, sttupid stuff. nothing happened, wise up.

But - we deduced they were intelligent. So they know that any prophecies or calculations underlying this have to deal with long stretches of time, major changes in era and calendar, oral and written transmission, at least minor adjustments to the earth's orbit and period of rotation.

I mean to say - consider margin for error. Unless you believe somebody heard directly from God with a precise time.

So - let's say THE END was due May 11, 2011 - + / - 50 years. not that big compared to some Carbon dates.

So we should not chortle too soon, We would have 50 years for the End Timers to turn the laugh on us - and that + / - 50 is just an out of the bag guesstimate.

Me, I'm not going to pack NOR chortle.

Your point being?

Point being calculate and jeer defensively.

I frankly do not believe the end is anything like that not do I expect to see the end before my end,

But if I believed it I would not now be instantly despairing, and if I denied it I would not now be triumphant, because if it COULD be calculated [which I absolutely doubt] it could not be calculated to a precise day.

But most people seem just to react without waiting for the higheer faculties to boot.

... and if they did, they might realize they really only holler about things they actually fear ...

... and to such people, I would pass along this bit of advice first offered to me in my own time:

"Roll that around inside your head a little bit ..."

Nice line.

Fits rather neatly with the oldy but goody "The Empty Barrel Makes the Most Noise"

Thats exactly what everybody did this past may 21st.
Again: what is your point?

My point - again - is, first,

the person or persons making the predictions did NOT, clearly, calculate defensively. Putting out a precise date on something of this sort is an insane risk.

Was there not some years back a heavenly object that might come close enough to affect our planet? Even the papers reporting such things include the scientists' possiblies and % of probability.

second,

those who here came to jeer [I'se a poet, don't I know it] did so without taking into account that even a couple of days margin of error in a setrious calculrion could leave them laughing out of the wrong side of the face.

------------

HAD I made the calculation, it would have been hedged with defenses and I would not have announced it.

Intending to diss the calculation, I confined myself to pointing out flaws in the reasoning.

Far better to be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt, eh?!

ANOTHER complement to my mother's precept. Actually, credit where due, it was my grandpappy's first.

But intelligent people know that prophesies are nonsense, plain and simple, so the chortling and jeering should be done heartily.

Really?! I have been "prophesying" a change here in PPR for some time now.

I think he meant biblical type prophecies. Since the bible is mostly nonsense then biblical type prophesies are mostly nonsense.

ruveyn

If those predicting rapture are correct, then they won't be here to say "I told you so" to the rest of us.
Therefore, we can deride them with impunity.

Ah, there you go again ...

In any case, I should have realized he was likely referring to "May 21st" kinds of prophesies ...

... but even then, the prophesied "end" only has yet to actually come!

shame these prophesies wont end till the universe dies a thermal death.

Many oracles and prophecies and divinations and pennings of dukkerin and National Enquirer headlines and scientific forecasts have been the output of charlatans or inadequate data.

And since the majority require some interpretation to evaluate many apparently failed predictions have in fact been accurate, and some apparently fulfilled predictions have in fact been wild guesses validated by chance or by too genereous interpretation.

I shall continue to differ with my assuredly learned but NOT omniscient confrere by pointing out that no one alive today is in a position to state CATEGORICALLY that no one has ever perceived and reported an actual foreshadowing of events.

A cautiously intelligent person will take prophecies, like weather forecasts, with a grain of salt, considering the source and using judgement.

An educated person [not necessarily intelligent] may be socialized to discard and disregard on sight, except where the prediction comes from a licensed professional,. in which case he may be socialized to accept it unexamined.

A gullible person [who may be intelligent and may be highly educated] is likely to swallow either what the prophet says or what the headline says or what the schooling says.