Entry 1299, on 2011-05-22 at 21:33:00 (Rating 5, Religion)
There's a phrase which has been common in popular culture for a while now. It's "epic fail" which is used to describe a situation when someone does something so stupid, says something so pathetic, or gets things in general so badly wrong that it's a joke. And what could be more worthy of this phrase than a failed prediction of the end of the world?
I can answer that. What could be more worthy is that prediction from someone who has already made the same prediction in the past and failed. Actually there's an even better answer: the phrase "epic fail" really belongs to someone who predicts the end of the world when it doesn't happen even though he has failed with the same prediction in the past and the same prediction by thousands of others has also failed and the prediction is based on superstitious nonsense from a silly old book.
Yes, that's the ultimate "epic fail" and it belongs to a clown by the name of Harold Camping who told us the rapture would happen today. His prediction was based on the Bible too, so how could it possibly be wrong? Wow, this situation just brings out the most sarcastic and cutting comments from skeptics and atheists. And rightly so because fundamentalism is just a pathetic but dangerous joke, and this illustrates that fact very well.
As I said above, there have been thousands of predictions of the end of the world in the past and none (so far) have turned out to be true, although some of the people making the claims have made statements like: the world did end but we just didn't notice (usually because it was a "spiritual" end or some similar unsubstantiated garbage).
So time after time the Bible fails as a source of prophecy. I have done some research on this because some of my religious friends think the alleged prophecies in the Bible make a strong case for the validity of Christianity. But it's all rubbish. Not only is is rubbish but it's obvious, pathetic, childish rubbish.
Here are a few of the tricks the Bible uses to make prophecies look real: the prophecies are written after the events they were meant to predict; the events prophesied are made up to fit the prophecy; or the prophecies are so vague that many future events could be warped to try to make them fit.
So yes, the Bible is a silly old book. It's also a rather boring old book: it's repetitive, badly written and generally lacks literary merit. And it's extremely dishonest because it's full of deliberate lies. Plus it's dangerous because it encourages many people to do stupid things and it encourages some to do evil things.
Of course it doesn't matter how many times the Bible's supporters fail, it will still be seen as the unerring word of God by many. Why? Because that's what they have been told they have to believe. They haven't thought about it. They haven't tested this rather radical claim. They just accept it like the mindless sheep they are. And that isn't an insult because they want to be mindless sheep. Why? Because the Bible tells them to!
So most of these fools deserve nothing but contempt and they are getting plenty. I have seen a lot of news items describing this latest failure of Biblical prophecy in condescending and amusing terms. Of course it is unfortunate that some people have wasted their time and money in supporting something which was obviously untrue from the very beginning. And those who have spent all of their savings because they didn't think they would need them after today deserve a certain amount of sympathy as well as contempt.
But it's hard to be too sympathetic because anyone who is prepared to use the brain they think their god gave them can easily see the truth. If they failed to use that (alleged) god given faculty then they can hardly expect too much commiseration from those who do.
I wonder what the believers thought when the apocalypse failed to materialise. Did they think they have been left behind because they are unworthy? Did they think they have been deliberately fooled by Camping? Or did they think there has been just a slight miscalculation and they should look forward to another date in the future instead?
Whatever their response it isn't good. Although there is one possible positive result: that they realise the whole belief system they are involved with is fake to its very core and they should get out. But I suspect few, if any, will do that!
Question. Why does the media take any notice of this sort of event? There are many more important subjects to cover aren't there? I think there have always been well intentioned but crazy people making these predictions but they have been mainly ignored in the past.
Comment 2 by OJB on 2011-05-31 at 10:13:35:
Answer: the media likes gimmicky, lightweight stories which cost them very little while attracting attention and increasing sales of their services. Whether the story has any merit is irrelevant. And yes, there have always been crazies predicting the end of the world. Whether they were well intentioned or not is debatable however.
Comment 3 by Michael on 2011-06-10 at 22:38:17:
What that dumbass did contradicts the bible, so he didn't get it from the bible and is just a dumbass, Mark 13:32 "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
Comment 4 by OJB on 2011-06-11 at 04:31:10:
Tell me what you want to believe and I'll find a Bible verse to both support it and oppose it. What the Bible says is basically irrelevant because it isn't a book of God's word at all: its the semi-literate thoughts of a bunch or ancient people, the re-interpretations of later translators, and the deliberate insertions of church bureaucrats. It's a poor example of literature, philosophy, theology, and even fiction!
Comment 5 by Michael on 2011-09-27 at 14:39:16:
Wow, you really have no idea just how amazing the bible as a document is, with over 144,000 copies of new testament scripts, the dead sea scrolls which dated about 200AD and had the exact same script of Isaiah as the older scripts, the point that the prophecies in the old testament and even right back to Genesis show that Jesus is the son of God, to say that the old testament was modified is complete rubbish as the Jews don't even believe Jesus is the son of God THEREFORE there would be two versions of the old testament which there are not. "Semi-literate"?? they had people dedicate their lives just to copying the scriptures. "It's a poor example of literature, philosophy, theology, and even fiction!" Ok for one it is not philosophy, As someone who has studied the bible both historically, geologically and in terms of contradictions, The bible is a rich text, full of song, poetry, history and biographies, considering how little we have of other texts from the same era its a miracle it has even survived as long as it has. As for the re-interpretations if you dig back to the greek and hebrew meanings you cannot mis-interprete it as the words that are used are clear unlike english. Just go look up strongs dictionary. "deliberate insertions of church bureaucrats" - your Knowledge of Church history is also flawed, your more than welcome to go look at the original greek and hebrew and compare them to todays translations.
Comment 6 by Michael on 2011-09-27 at 14:44:15:
Just on a side note, I have been healed by God from sleep problems, My eyes got healed on sunday and I hear from friends miracles in their lives and others. God lives whether you like it or not. I have friends who have met someone who was even raised from the dead.
Comment 7 by OJB on 2011-09-29 at 08:43:07:
There is nothing in the Old Testament to show Jesus is the son of God. The New Testament writers (whoever they were) just made up the story to fit with what the Old Testament said. Either Jesus didn't exist at all or he is a character loosely based on a real person or people. There is absolutely no credible evidence at all showing Jesus existed. Many of the Bible stories are contradictory and don't fit well with known history.
The New Testament is basically an invention of church bureaucrats. For example, how many (contradictory) gospels were there originally? About 200? Now we have 4. Why? Because those are the ones a church committee decided fitted their purposes best.
These anecdotal stories of miracles and healings always turn out to be rather less convincing when they are investigated properly. I can't comment on your own experience because I don't know the details and wasn't there at the time but I will say that real studies of these phenomena reveal they have nothing to do with miracles.
Many people believe in miracles and those people have totally different religious beliefs. Those different religions are contradictory and they can't all be right... but they can all be wrong!
Comment 8 by Michael on 2011-10-18 at 15:23:16:
In terms of how many gospels there were, you are forgetting that most of those 200 are Gnostic gospels and were written about 200 years after the events, the books that made it into the bible were based on the earliest collections found. There is more than enough evidence (Josephus texts and theres also a roman who wrote about jesus + others to which I can't remember or don't know about) to prove Jesus existed outside of the bible so yes he did exist. Seriously go do some research before ranting what you think is the truth,
The letters in the new testament are exactly that letters that were written to different churches by Paul who never met Jesus and persecuted the church before converting. As for the gospels chosen they were written to the Jews, Greeks and gentiles and the gospel of John is the only Gospel written by one of Jesus' disciples which was written about 70AD long before! any church committee etc.
heres a site listed with references to old testament prophecies of Jesus http://www.cynet.com/jesus/prophecy/ntquoted.htm some of them won't make sense to you because you won't understand the context of which some of them are said but it should give you some insight as to how wrong you are.
Also I researched just how literate the population was when Jesus was around, turns out most people could read, write, not to mention speak 3 different languages.
What most annoys me is none of your bias actually comes from REAL research or facts, for one who talks about the tangible(scientific evidence etc) and then rants about the validity of the biblical documents that you know very little and certainly not tangible knowledge on is frustrating though very easy to rebuke.
Just another note on the pre - new testament prophecies these have not been altered as the Jews never believed that Jesus was the son of God(proof that the old testament hasn't been changed) which also means what Jesus read out during his time was from the original documents too. They do match.
but they can all be wrong! - and so can you.
God Bless
Comment 9 by OJB on 2011-10-19 at 20:08:15:
All the gospels were written well after the events portrayed in them. None have any real credibility because they are all based on stories handed down from one person to another, and they copy from each other. The stories outside the Bible are useless. The "best" story in Josephus is a forgery. Why did Christians have to make this stuff up? Because credible real stories just didn't exist.
Paul never met Jesus. Does that not strike you as weird? What is his opinion really worth? None of the gospels were written by Jesus' disciples. John did not write the gospel attributed to him.
I have looked at many so-called prophecies. I asked a friend of mine to quote me the best (he quoted the prophecy of Cyrus). It was childishly simple to refute. They mean nothing.
I actually know quite a lot about this: a lot more than you do apparently. Also remember my evidence comes from independent sources where it seems yours probably come form religious sources. When your starting assumption is that the stories are true you will never reach a reasonable conclusion.
The Jews don't think Jesus was the son of God. Why not? Surely they should understand the facts better than most. Face it: only people who are already determined to believe the myth take this stuff seriously.
Yes, I can be wrong. I made that comment to show that having a lot of people believe something proves very little. I think Jesus didn't exist because there's no evidence for him. That is what my ideas are based on.
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