Comparing Russia vs Ukraine to other countries

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In any translation, with the context of the two previous verses, we have a description of a deceitful tyrant who first lets people feel safe and then turns to destroy them - that's quite unlike a concept that peace would be Antichrist.

As you just said, it is in two stages: stage 1 is making people feel safe, stage 2 is turning tyranical. So the point is that today's world is on stage 1. So we have globalization that makes people feel safe (and you even mentioned some of the ways in which globalization makes people feel safe). But then later on stage 2 will happen when antichrist will use globalization to become world ruler and then turn tyranical.

There's been some 2,500 years since this prophecy has been made.
What makes you think it's about this particular phenomenon and not some other, 2000 or 108 years ago or another 500 years from now?
A tyrant/terrorist hitting when everyone feels most safe is a pretty universal occurence. That's how opportunist terrorism works.

↑ Actually, more like 1900 years, but yeah.  The critical tests for accepting or rejecting blocks of Revelation text are:

1. Is it clearly understandable by all who read it?
2. Does it exhibit consistent internal logic?
3. Does it exhibit consistent Old Testament compatibility?

Obviously, the answer to each question is 'No'.

What also gets me are not only these negative aspects, but the inclusion of irrelevant information,  For instance:

• The sequence of the Seven Seals is broken after the Seventh Seal is opened in 8:1, when the narrative then switches to a completely different sequence of Seven Trumpets and Three Woes which do not refer to anything that has just happened, and then the material of the Great Portents which also does not have anything to do with the Seven Seals.

• The narrative until 8:1 leads up to the climax of the Seventh Seal with a steady escalation of events, but then the climax itself is replaced with a great amount of additional narrative that has no connection with the Seven Seals, which are not mentioned again.

• The sequence of the Seven Trumpets and Three Woes are broken after 9:21.  The First Woe is clearly the locusts of the pit in the fifth trumpet.  Then the sixth trumpet presents the cavalry of the Euphrates.  The destruction of the cavalry must serve as the second woe.  But after this occurs, the statement “. . . the second woe has passed. The third woe is coming very soon”, occurs not directly after it, as would be expected; but in 11:14, after chapters 10 and 11:1-13 -- two chapters later!  Chapters 10 and 11:1-13 must therefore be considered to be a likely later insertion into the sequence.

• The sequence of the Seven Trumpets and Three Woes is broken again after 11:19.  After the Third Woe is declared to be coming soon, the Seventh Trumpet is blown, and God’s Temple opens.  However, the narrative then shifts to the Great Portents of the Woman and the Dragon and the Beasts.  There is no mention of the Temple of Heaven again until the section 14:14-20, where the narrative finally comes back to the Temple in Heaven, out of which come two angels -- one calling for the Son of Man to reap the earth, and one who reaps with his own sickle.

• Everything from 12:1-14:12 seems to have no reference to the Seven Trumpets and Three Woes.  And it is most likely that the Third Woe is this reaping of the earth and the Winepress of God’s Wrath in 14:14-20, though it is not referred to as such.

So with these inconsistencies, there is reasonable cause to believe that: (1) Revelation was written by more than one person, and (2) Revelation has been edited and re-edited numerous times.

Now, if burning sulfur starts falling from the sky as four men on horseback spread death and suffering all over the world, then I will reconsider Revelation as something more than a collection of symbols and allegory related to events that have already come to pass.  Until then, I will keep an eye on this thread and jump in when necessary.

We were talking about Daniel prophecies, not Revelation.
Anyway: Such prophecies are always vague and symbolic, which makes them open to all possible interpretations. A bit like newspaper horoscopes
How to tell which interpretation is right and which is wrong?

Actually we were talking about both. The two books are often interpretted in conjunction. In Revelation they use beasts and in Daniel it is explained that the beasts are kingdoms.

You mentioned elsewhere that you are a Christian. So how can you be a Christian while at the same time dismissing books of the Bible. Are you saying you believe some parts of the Bible and not others? If so, can you outline what are the parts of the Bible you believe in and what parts you don't?

you're making the right point. But be aware that Revelations is in the New Testament, not the Old. Hense its only 19 centuries old abouts- as Fnord said.

Daniel is Old Testamment.

Anyway, I still see no reason why these profecies would speak about 21st century any more than they spoke about 2nd or 10th centuries.

I find either contemporary or universal symbols the safest interpretations.

Since Daniel and Revelation have matching symbolism, and they both talk about 3 and a half years, it is commonly believed they are talking about the same future event. It’s not just me saying is, most Christians say this too, as you can find by googling “Daniel and Revelation”, for example.



Because Revelation ends by Jesus destroying the kingdom of antichrist and establishing his own kingdom. Also according to Revelation antichrist rules for three and a half years until his time is cut off by coming of Jesus. That’s why any historic time period is ruled out, since there was no second coming yet.

People that say antichrist is about to come are also saying Jesus will come three and a half years afterwords. You can’t rule that out since it’s the future.

I guess yiu can ask why they think it will be now rather than many centuries later. That’s because they look at global superpowers, such as United States and United Nations, and realize it is the first time in history that antichrist avpctually could take global control this way. Prior to both wars, United Nations didn’t exist while United States wasn’t getting involved in worldwide affairs tge way it does today.

Also they look at technology (including microchip implants) and see various ways antichrist could use that, which again wasn’t possible in the past. For example mark of the beast prophecy says it goes on right hand or forehead. As it turns out, right hand and forehead are the only two locations in the body that have enough blood supply that would power the microchip for it to work without its battery running out. Also revelations says Mark of the beast will have 666 in it. Today’s bar codes have 3 long bars that are read by machines as three 6-s. So if they were to use microchip for buying and selling, then it would need a bar code, so it would have 666 as a part of that bar code, and it would be placed on right hand or forehead so as to have sufficient blood circulation for its battery not to run out. Thus it would fulfill the prophecy about 666 on right hand or forehead. But then there is the rest of the prophecy that people that take it will go to hell. So it will probably control brain waves to create spiritual experiences that are contrary to the Bible and they would go to hell for having those experiences. Now I realize that creating such spiritual experiences is difficult even with today’s technology. So the other possibility is that even without those experiences God might see taking a microchip as a form of idolatry since they treat global government as an idol by giving it complete control over their bodies.

And then the other thing is that in 2 Thessalonians 2-3 great apostasy is prophesied before coming of the antichrist. Now, up until the end of 19-th century the vast majority of people were Christian. Today its not the case any more. Also up until 19-th century divorce was illegal in many parts of Europe (Jesus spoke against divorce in Matt 5:32) while today is is allowed everywhere. Also up until the end of 19-th century when single people had affairs it was in secret. Today it’s on the open. And of course today gay marriage is legal that wasn’t even legal in 20-th century, let alone 19-th.

But even more importantly, notice how those things occurred at the same time. I just talked about three different things:

1) Political possibility for global control (through either US or UN, or other global alliances) as well as technical possibilities of such (computers, etc)

2) Proposals of microchip implant that fulfills both hand and forehead prophecy (blood circulation) and 666 prophecy (bar code)

3) Great falling away from faith

Now ask yourself: why are all three of those things happen in the same historic period (20-th and 21-st century) And it just happened that Bible also prophesied they would happen in the same time period. So that is what points to the idea that they are fulfilling biblical prophecy.

I'm way more sceptical about such interpretations - it's obvious the author of Revelation knew the book of Daniel and used symbols from it, already present in his culture.

But he didn’t know about right hand and forehead being the only places on a body with sufficient blood circulation. Also he didn’t know bar codes will have 666 in them. Yet he prophesied people being forced to take 666 on right hand or forehead which matches the idea of the microchip implant.

So far, no one bar codes humans, nor installs microchips on hands and foreheads.
AFAIK, animal chipping is done on their necks (cats, dogs) or ears (farm animals).
Blood flow has nothing to do with bar codes and bar codes have nothing to do with microchips and microchips don't use blood.

These descriptions do not fit current reality.

Need quote.
Does this mean stronger arteries/veins or denser capillaries in these two parts?
AFAIK, the former is not.

Microchips - those used e.g. to identify animals - are not powered by blood at all.
They are powered by radio waves emitted by the device reading them.
https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/0 ... -implants/

There aren’t doing it yet, but there were the proposals to do it in the future. Particularly after 911 to track terrorism.

Also, even today, it is there on voluntary basis. The first volunteers were Jacob’s family. They got microchipped all the way back in 2001. Between then and now there were a lot more volunteers. Some do that when they think of scenarios where they get into hospital unconscious so they can get identified.

Also I read that in Sweden some bars require microchips for entry. In Sweden being microchipped is actually a cultural thing that is being considered “cool”, so plenty of people have it there.

I also read that in Mexico certain jobs require their employers to be microchipped.

As far as US, certain states, including California, passed the laws to protect people from this sort of thing. The law in California says that companies are not allowed to require their employers to get microchip on a mandatory basis. In other words if people want to get microchipped nobody can stop them, but they aren’t allowed to force them to get microchipped.

Now, on the first glance, that law is a good thing. But ask yourself: why was that law needed? The logical answer is that some companies DID want to force their employees to get microchip — that’s why they needed a law to prevent that. Well, if the movement to try to get people microchipped gains momentum, and lawmakers change, then at some point that law might go away and they might start the mandatory microchipping. Something like another terrorist attack or another pandemics might trigger it.



Two separate things:

a) Blood flow has to do with hands and forehead

b) bar codes have to do with 666

But then these two things come together:

c) microchip requires both blood flow and bar code

As a result, “c” would merge together “a” and “b” thus fulfilling the prophecy of 666 on right hand or forehead.



They do, because there was a proposal to use microchip as a credit card. The idea is that documents can be lost or stolen. So they propose to just put all the information into the chip, that is inserted in a body, and that way it can’t be fabricated or stolen.



Well, as a fellow physicist, you know one can’t have perpetual motion machine without external source. Since one can’t constantly remove microchip to get it re-charged, the idea is that the blood circulation is used as an external source that would re-charge a microchip.