This is a real thing Peter Thiel told a group of tech professionals recently.
In a four-part series of religious lectures in San Francisco, Peter Thiel — yes, that Peter Thiel — has argued that the End Times are nigh and that a biblical Antichrist — yes, that Antichrist — will come to Earth in the form of onerous government regulations placed on science, technology, and AI.
These are, incidentally, areas where the tech billionaire, venture capitalist, and cofounder of Palantir has a vested financial interest. […]
Note: source uses a two-headline system; the submission uses the shorter of the two
So as someone who grew up very much immersed in “end times” focused Christianity I have never really understood something- why do so many end times Christians view end times prophecies like the Antichrist or the Mark of the Beast as things to be prevented or avoided? Even growing up I didn’t understand this because in the Bible it’s very clear that all that stuff will happen (or is happening, depending on whether you believe Revelation was meant to be a metaphor for current events at the time of writing) because God is explicitly allowing it to, and that these things are necessary for Christ’s ultimate victory over Death and Evil. So why would you try to prevent the rise of the Antichrist? In the “best case” you’re just kicking the can down the road and delaying the Return of Jesus a little. In New Testament apocalyptic writing, believers are described as resisting the Antichrist’s persecution, but not in having anything to do with its arrival one way or another. If humans are able to prevent, delay, or hinder the rise of the Antichrist, then God is not in charge and the whole point of these prophecies is kind of invalidated. The whole point of apocalyptic literature is that these bad things are happening and it seems like evil is winning over good, but in reality God is still all powerful and is still in control of all of it, and wins in the end.
wasn’t raised Christian, but this kind of dissonance is what made me 1) question the faith of so-called believers around me, and 2) question the validity of my own faith / the teachings.
When it comes to most hardline religious people, If they really believed the teachings they claimed are true, they would behave in a completely different manner.
To live in literal accordance with most conservative religious teachings you basically have to act like an unhinged crazy person.
Any biblical scholar will tell you Revelations was never meant to be a prophecy.
I’m guessing it’s all down to sports. “I’m a Christian, so that means I’m on Christ’s team. Obviously Christ’s biggest rival is Antichrist, so I have to be against him too. Booooo Antichrist!”
So Anti/Christ is like Heel/Face in pro wrestling
I think a little more like Yankees/Red Sox in baseball. Two things that basically seem the same to outsiders but which have their own devoted/crazy followings.
I understand that distinction, thus proving your point ig
You’ve put a lot more thought and consideration into it than these folks. That’s why they’re all “this bad, that bad, oh no Anti-Christ!”
To be fair, the end times isn’t likely to be good for most. God’s people for salvation number only a few:
That ain’t much. There are billions of people on the planet. At the end, the Christian God will only protect a small number from the events of the end times. The rest of us will have to just suck it up and live and suffer through the apocalypse, as it were.
I’m not a believer so I can only guess. But my guess is, despite being “Christian” (in really big finger quotes), I think deep down, a lot of these folks know they are Hell-bound (according to their own system of belief), or at the very least, hell-on-Earth-bound. They’re far from Christ-like in their behavior and existence, and I can’t see why they’d be among the chosen few of God’s protection in the end days. Especially since many of them aren’t Jewish, and actively despise Jews (despite also supporting Israel? I dunno, these people confuse the hell out of me). So postponing the end serves to postpone their own damnation.
That is a pretty specific number. Any chance they reconsidered it at some point within the last 2000-ish years though? Like at some point, was god like “We gotta update those
abductionrapture numbers guys. They’re super outdated”.Maybe they had a total capacity of 150.000 at the time, due to fire regulations and stuff, and then you have the staff and a bit of headroom in case a few people sneak in. But who knows, maybe the counsel has reconsidered fire code? Or did they at any point consider building an extension to heaven?
You’re right, these numbers should be updated.
Since the world population increased from roughly 200 million people on earth at the time these texts were written to closely 8 billion today, that’s a roughly 40x increase in total population. So if we assume the same relative percentage, that’s gonna be 6 million people to be saved in total. xD
666,000,000 to be precise.
/s ^that is not precise at all.