[HN Gopher] The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return
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The Polymarket users betting on when Jesus will return
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 268 points
Date : 2025-05-28 04:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ericneyman.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ericneyman.wordpress.com)
| quuxplusone wrote:
| The title is kind of the opposite of clickbait -- but the actual
| article is pretty neat. Reminds me of Matt Levine.
| k310 wrote:
| Statistics and wagering aside, IMO, he'd fair poorly (like the
| previous visit). His teachings are universally not just ignored,
| but the opposite seem to have completely taken over.
|
| The "seven deadly sins" are the basis of our economy, politics
| and relationships. Quick reminder: pride, greed, wrath, envy,
| lust, gluttony, and sloth. (YMMV)
|
| And the Beatitudes? To put it in proper latin: fuggedaboutit.
| jordanb wrote:
| I've always been amazed at how hard Christianity has tried to
| retcon the camel and the needle thing. The metaphor is a bit
| mixed but the message is clear: rich people aren't getting into
| heaven. Period.
| codr7 wrote:
| It's not about the money but the ego.
|
| The two are very difficult to separate though, I've met very
| few who could handle a lot of money without becoming
| corrupted.
| phkahler wrote:
| This. There are a lot of biblical teaching about money and
| how to handle it, and to multiply it. Unfortunately people
| tend to make that an end unto itself and that was never the
| point.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Religion has always been a tool for the powerful to control
| the masses.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| religion (that is, an objective morality) has always been
| the only thing the masses have when confronted with the
| great pagan principle: "the strong do what they can and the
| weak suffer what they must"
| HexDecOctBin wrote:
| So pagans don't have a religion or morality? That is
| interesting to hear, as a Hindu. The more things change,
| the more they remain the same!
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| I don't know anything about hinduism, but I assume there
| is a base morality that the strong may not take advantage
| of the weak, in contrast with the athenian dictum I
| quoted.
| cozyman wrote:
| what is hindu morality? where does it come from?
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| "Religion" doesn't have the slightest thing to do with
| Jesus coming. Religion human thing. Jesus didn't say "go
| and spread religion to every man"...he said "go and spread
| the GOOD NEWS to every man".
|
| Religion is the word we use to describe how us human's have
| managed to twist and warp and misunderstand that good news.
| We use it for gate keeping: "sorry this event is for church
| members only". We use it to put down people based on their
| behavior: "He seems like he needs religion". We use it to
| interfere with the law of the land: "Sorry, that law
| doesn't apply because of religious freedoms". And so on....
|
| I don't think the big man gives one fiddly flying fig leaf
| about "religion". His son said(over, and over, and over!)
| that "I desire mercy, not sacrifice.". That means NOT
| excluding people over religion, insulting or belittling
| them with religion, or creating an unfair situation with
| "religious freedoms" in law. He wants MERCY.... that means
| instead of telling the beggar that religion would help him
| get clothed, fed, and generally happy - you should be
| giving him or her your clothes, sharing your food or drink,
| and welcoming them to your home where they can be safe.
| Will they abuse your trust? Who knows - and it's not
| important - your mercy to them was the critical action. You
| don't get into heaven for being discerning and
| clever...there is no award for actions like "I didn't
| invite him home, because he looked like a criminal and I
| don't trust him...". That's not mercy, that's you finding a
| human excuse to ignore the least of your brethren.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| I literally have no idea what you're talking about. I
| feel people like you pretend Europe's colonial era didn't
| exist or the American slave trade didn't exist or the
| holocaust didn't exist, etc... etc... etc... The only
| response to the millennia long list of atrocities
| Christians have committed, often times to other
| Christians, is the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy.
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| I think those were evil people doing evil things. Who
| calls the people who perpetrated these things
| "Christians"? If I am king, and direct my armies to
| slaughter another country's people because "<anything>
| cannot be tolerated by us, the Christians"....then I am a
| liar, and masquerading as something I am not. The people
| that did these things wanted to do them for one or more
| reasons, and none of those were because God told them to,
| or Christianity demanded it of them.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Sigh...
| cozyman wrote:
| Jesus founded a church in Matthew 16. He literally said
| go forth and make disciples of all nations. I could go
| through scripture and demonstrate why almost every claim
| you said here is false, but you don't care about
| scripture, just emotion.
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| Churches are fine - there are endless letters and
| instructions to them in the scripture you mention.
| "Religion" is not the same word as church. If you feel
| compelled to "demonstrate why almost every claim you
| said..." etc, feel free - it's ok! Christianity is about
| mercy and compassion, and you mention "emotion" - that's
| absolutely true. I'm very emotional about it, because my
| message is an emotional one, and emotions were high when
| it was given to me. It's not going to end my little
| universe if you disagree, or make fun of, or try to
| embarrass me about it. My sincere hope is that you are
| happy, and that through "emotion" or any other medium,
| you make others around you happy.
| cozyman wrote:
| So Jesus: 1. Founded a church 2. told the apostles to
| make all nations disciplines and baptize them, bringing
| them into that church 3. The apostles wrote letters to
| those churches instructing the people on how to live a
| christian life 4. The successors of those apostles
| carried on their teachings, spreading more churches all
| over the world and convening councils to clarify doctrine
|
| sounds a lot like a religion, how do you define religion?
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| Religion (to me) is defined as a codified subset [or even
| superset] of beliefs, rituals, and culture.
|
| The letters you speak of (penned by apostles of Jesus)
| are exactly as you describe. They were humans, trying to
| do what a divine being told them to do. It appears they
| went about it(at least partially) by writing letters. The
| passage I believe you are referring to, where Jesus
| instructs his disciples is:
|
| > Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
| baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
| and of the Holy Spirit,
|
| This doesn't say to "spread religion", it literally tells
| them to teach and baptize all nations. They went and
| wrote letters, and here we are thousands of years later
| calling that "religion".
|
| What is important to you? I see this conversation as
| attempting to make disciples of all nation. If it's
| successful for anyone(not you necessarily, maybe someone
| reading)...then hoo-ah! That's a win! If not, the
| instructions that preceded the passage you refer to say
| that I should "shake the dust from my feet", and leave
| the metaphorical house(s) that will not listen.
|
| I don't know how we got from 0-50 A.D. to where we are
| now, regarding "religion", but I don't see even the most
| remote connection from the behavior of Jesus' disciples
| and their letter writing, to whatever the heck is going
| on in modern day.
| cozyman wrote:
| You've never been manipulated though toilet, you're simply
| better than the majority of people living on earth.
| Congrats toilet.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| There's nuance and interesting bits of history that are
| missing from the orthodox pov, but that get bulldozed by
| the absolutism of "Religion has always been a tool for the
| powerful to control the masses," which, while true, is as
| interesting as saying "stairs are often used to ascend
| buildings." Power does what it always does: it grabs whats
| lying around and sharpens it into a spear of control.
|
| If you know a little about the history of Christianity, you
| see a gradual centralization over a period of hundreds of
| years. Christianity obviously didn't start centralized.
| Religious orthodoxy burned a lot of manuscripts and rewrote
| history to appear to be a powerful unbroken lineage in
| order to justify their legitimacy.
|
| We have to remember that the concept of heresy was
| invented. Hellenic and pre-hellenic cultures didn't demand
| compliance to doctrinal orthodoxy. Instead they practiced
| ritual orthopraxy. Ritual orthopraxy's sphere of influence
| begins and ends at the ritual. The sphere of doctrinal
| orthodoxy on the other hand made belief itself the
| battleground. The Greeks didn't care if you believed Zeus
| was literally real or metaphorically useful, as long as you
| poured the libation and didn't piss off the city.
|
| Christianity became not just "do you love God," but "is
| your metaphysical model of the Trinity exactly consistent
| with the Nicene formulation from 325 CE." Anything but that
| became heresy. And that rejection of the pluralistic
| orthopraxis and the inability to live in harmony with
| Hellenic culture is exactly what made Christians so
| unlikable at the time and incidentally created a bunch or
| martyrs.
|
| What gets lost is the weirdness of those early centuries
| before doctrinal orthodoxy created heresy in order to
| monopolize plurality of belief. We can learn important
| lessons from this and extrapolate to how heresy and
| orthodoxy get used today and why matters of doctrine end up
| being so encompassing and totalizing. If anything it gives
| us an additional point of view on our own culture.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Hence the Gospel of Supply Side Jesus, remade in the image of
| America.
|
| https://imgur.com/gallery/gospel-of-supply-side-jesus-bCqRp
| e40 wrote:
| Brilliant!!
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| It is important to contextualize this statement. It appears
| in three gospels, but in each it is in response to a rich man
| asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Each instance
| of the story is told with slightly different emphasis (or
| they could be similar stories - i.e. this was his standard
| "line" for rich people), but Luke's account includes 18:27 He
| replied, "What is impossible for mere humans is possible for
| God" NET
|
| This does not mean it's okay to hoard wealth at the expense
| of others, of course.
|
| I think that Saint Basil the Great's sermon to the rich[1] is
| instructive for a historical and reasonable Christian
| instruction on the rich.
|
| Let me add an excerpt I really appreciate: But how do you
| make use of money? By dressing in expensive clothing? Won't
| two yards of tunic suffice you, and the covering of one coat
| satisfy all your need of clothes? But is it for food's sake
| that you have such a demand for wealth? One bread-loaf is
| enough to fill a belly. Why are you sad, then? What have you
| been deprived of? The status that comes from wealth? But if
| you would stop seeking earthly status, you should then find
| the true, resplendent kind that would conduct you into the
| kingdom of heaven.
|
| And one more because I can't help myself: Since, then, the
| wealth still overflows, it gets buried underground, stashed
| away in secret places.... A strange madness, that, when gold
| lies hidden with other metals, one ransacks the earth; but
| after it has seen the light of day, it disappears again
| beneath the ground.
|
| (The whole thing is worth a read, Basil just went hard non
| stop)
|
| 1. https://stjohngoc.org/st-basil-the-greats-sermon-to-the-
| rich...
| kubb wrote:
| You just need to employ the right strategy to deal with it.
| Possible options include: 1. Claim that
| "camel" or "needle" are a mistranslation or symbolic.
| 2. Separate financial life from your spiritual beliefs to
| avoid inner conflict. 3. View wealth as a sign of God's
| blessing or something used to do good, making it feel morally
| acceptable. 4. Emphasize other passages that support
| generosity or success.
|
| In general, it's easy to overcome cognitive dissonance in
| religion. You just accept additional beliefs that soften it.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| In the flavor of religion in which I grew up, it's easier
| to just quickly pray for forgiveness than to bother
| justifying anything. The most vile genocidal maniac could
| pray for thirty seconds right before death and get into
| heaven. Why bother following rules when someone already
| served the punishment?
| zahlman wrote:
| 5. Interpret that the passage, especially in the context of
| the subsequent verses, is about the _need for God_ to get
| into heaven. That is; it 's claiming that wealth cannot
| empower people to find their own route in, absent
| spirituality.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| That is not true: with God all things are possible.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Could God make a man so rich that even he wouldn't let him
| into heaven?
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Wouldnt or couldnt?
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| "I don't know. When my bird was looking at my computer
| monitor I thought, 'That bird has no idea what he's
| looking at.' And yet what does the bird do? Does he
| panic? No, he can't really panic, he just does the best
| he can. Is he able to live in a world where he's so
| ignorant? Well, he doesn't really have a choice. The bird
| is okay even though he doesn't understand the world.
| You're that bird looking at the monitor, and you're
| thinking to yourself, 'I can figure this out.' Maybe you
| have some bird ideas. Maybe that's the best you can do."
| lurk2 wrote:
| No. Similarly, God cannot make a married bachelor,
| because this is nonsensical. The conversation then turns
| to questions about how we define God's omnipotence:
| Doesn't the existence of any sort of limitation placed
| upon God imply he is bound by higher principles and thus
| not omnipotent?
|
| Possibly; but this may just be a lack of imagination on
| our part. For example, can God abanlqhgfznsjks? Probably
| not, because that particular string was just a random
| assortment of keys that I pressed; it conveys nothing
| meaningful, so to ask if God could abanlqhgfznsjks might
| not really be asking anything at all.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| the human mind fails at infinities
|
| i don't know why we find this so obvious when discussing
| math and yet so difficult when discussing God
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I believe God can abanlqhgfznsjks. If a lot of bottoms
| can, than surely God can too.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| The bible portrays God as explicitly being able to do
| nonsensical things, like creating a burning bush that is
| somehow not consumed. That it was on fire, but also not
| on fire, at the same time, was proof of a miracle.
|
| And more generally, that's just the nature of the
| supernatural in any religion. If what was going on was
| entirely logical, it wouldn't be a miracle.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| some people freak out about the idea of a burning bush
| talking at people
|
| i freak out about what the bush said: I AM THAT I AM
|
| the first recorded instance of recursion, spoken in a
| language famous for its lack of abstraction, to an
| uneducated goat herder, communicating an idea that even
| the greeks struggled with thousands of years later in a
| much more sophisticated and leisured culture
| arp242 wrote:
| With modern technology you can probably liquefy a camel
| sufficiently that you force it through the needle. Jesus
| ain't said nothing 'bout no hydrochloric acid and pneumatic
| presses.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Probably easier to just make a really big needle
| arp242 wrote:
| Yes, but that would be less entertaining :-)
| ipython wrote:
| There's a whole sect who believes the opposite- that you are
| more spiritual and blessed by God the wealthier you are.
| Somehow being material wealthy is now a signal of your
| spirituality. :shrug:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
| hiatus wrote:
| This is the outcome when pearls are cast before swine.
| preachermon wrote:
| What's missed is that the camel/needle thing is a joke.
|
| The "eye of the needle" was a (very small) gate into
| Jerusalem.
|
| To get a camel through that gate, it has to lower its head
| and crawl on its knees.
|
| So Jesus was calling rich people camels; camels can be very
| arrogant beasts so it fits.
| Yossarrian22 wrote:
| There are no primary sources for this
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Dan McClellan, a biblical scholar (a practising Mormon, but
| not an apologist) discusses that here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlzR39RVQKs
| i80and wrote:
| This is an incredibly common and frustrating bit of bad
| theology. There's no textual or archeological basis for it,
| and the really interesting mystery is where exactly this
| myth even came from.
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-
| studie...
| mikestew wrote:
| I, too, used to be a "preachermon". I never found evidence
| that this argument was anything but apocryphal.
|
| It would make a better argument to find a text describing
| how Jesus referred to a rich person (real or parable) and
| said, "this rich person gets it, be like him". Direct, and
| without the mental backflips.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| it is, however, very easy to find other ways jesus has
| phrased the idea "the rich don't get into heaven". In
| matthew he says the last shall be first and the first
| shall be last, in acts he has his disciples sell all of
| their stuff and pool the money, and in several other
| places he tells the faithful to give all of their stuff
| away.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| none of this is at all true, none of it is supported by the
| historical record, none of it is supported by the rest of
| jesus's teachings (which explicitly and repeatedly state
| that the rich are not welcome in heaven), there never was
| an "eye of the needle" gate, no one even posited the
| existence of such a gate until the 9th century CE and the
| other gospels use different phrasing of "a camel passing
| through the eye of a needle" that indicate that "the eye of
| a needle" isn't a proper noun referring to a singular
| entity with a commonly-known name.
| LooseMarmoset wrote:
| This is literally not true by scripture; Abraham was very
| rich, and is considered righteous because of his faith.
| He did not withhold even his own son from God. Money did
| not own Abraham's faith.
|
| Job refused to curse or condemn God even when he lost
| most of his family and all of his holdings - his friends
| tried to tell him that because he lost his riches, he had
| obviously sinned, but he refused this. He gained back the
| things he lost, because of his faith in God.
|
| Job 1:20-22
|
| 20 Then Job stood up, tore his robe, shaved his head,
| fell to the ground, bowed very low, 21 and exclaimed:
|
| "I left my mother's womb naked, and I will return to God
| naked. The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken. May
| the name of the Lord be blessed."
|
| 22 Job neither sinned nor charged God with wrongdoing in
| all of this.
|
| In those times, rich people were considered blessed by
| God, poor people or those afflicted with disease were
| considered cursed by God. People afflicted from birth
| were said to have been "born in sin" due to the sins of
| their parents.
|
| The Pharisees and Sadducees were wealthly, influential
| people who preached exactly this. The Sadducees in
| particular didn't believe in an afterlife, and so were
| focused on only the "here and now" and material things of
| this world. Jesus specifically called them out to let
| them know their wealth wouldn't get them into heaven, and
| their success was not a sign of righteousness.
|
| Jesus distinctly preached that money could not buy
| salvation, and that those whose focus was on money could
| not focus on God, and would therefore be condemned. He
| explicitly called out Zaccheus, a tax collector, when
| Zaccheus promised to repay any money he'd taken in bad
| faith four times over and to give away half of what he
| owned to the poor:
|
| Luke 19:9-10: 9 Jesus said to him,"Today salvation has
| come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of
| Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save
| the lost."
|
| Zaccheus probably had a lot of money left even when he
| was done, but the point is that money was no longer the
| priority in his life.
|
| God may choose to bless people with prosperity, but your
| wallet doesn't make you righteous. It doesn't make you
| unrighteous either - your actions and your faith, or lack
| thereof condemn you. The whole of the Law is:
|
| Matthew 22:34-40
|
| 34 When the Pharisees learned that he had silenced the
| Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and, to test him,
| one of them, a lawyer, asked this question, 36 "Teacher,
| which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
|
| 37 Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the Lord your God
| with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
| your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and the first
| commandment. 39 The second is like it: 'You shall love
| your neighbor as yourself.' 40 Everything in the Law and
| the Prophets depends on these two commandments."
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| It is not that easy. If we look at historical context we can
| see that for example in judaism they have this midrash:
|
| "The Holy One said, open for me a door as big as a needle's
| eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter
| tents and camels."
|
| Sounds familiar? The meaning of that saying in jewish context
| is that we cant really understand Gods abilities.
|
| Could the christian saying mean something else? Sure. We dont
| even know if jesus even said that exact phrase.
|
| My point is more that there are often more than one
| interpretation of vague sayings from 2000 years that been
| through an oral tradition, translations and copying.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| In your example the saying suggests that a Camel going
| through the eye of a needle is an extraordinary event like
| a rich person going to heaven in the traditional Christian
| saying.
|
| It is incredibly clear and without nuance nor is there a
| reason to suppose it's an issue with translation. Its also
| consistent philosophically nor is it the sort of thing that
| the powerful would want inserted when they compiled works.
|
| If you disregard it then it makes more sense to disregard
| the entire bible.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > In your example the saying suggests that a Camel going
| through the eye of a needle is an extraordinary event
|
| So is the Son of God descending to earth and being nailed
| to a cross for the sins of man.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| No, it is not "incredible" clear what ancient jews meant
| by that saying. Hence the wildly different
| interpretations. Are you really saying that it is
| incredible clear that the jewish understanding of the
| jewish saying is wrong and only your christian
| understanding is correct?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Half the planet either explicitly or implicitly believes
| in the just world hypothesis and America especially
| valorizes, empathize s with, and seeks to emulate the
| rich even when they do nothing to earn their wealth and
| on average do enormous harm.
|
| It is therefore hardly shocking that some fail to see the
| plain meaning of the language and their confusion needn't
| imply actual credible controversy.
|
| It is pretty clear that the saying you provided and the
| Christian saying are different sayings with different
| meanings that share the metaphor about a Camel going
| through the eye of a needle.
|
| The surrounding context is Jesus telling a rich person to
| give his material wealth away because it is barrier to
| salvation. It is clear that focus on the temporal
| comforts privided by wealth stunts ones need for
| spirituality. The man cannot give up his attachment to
| wealth and gives up on salvation in the Christian sense.
|
| It is hard for me to get from this that the rich are
| especially virtuos and therefore the only lesson was
| intended to be taught is that not even the rich can be
| saved without god.
|
| It seems very clear that wealth was a direct impediment
| to salvation.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| You have not provided any evidence for your claim that
| there is no connection between the "christian" saying and
| the prexisting jewish saying. The schoolars disagree with
| you that there exists only one single historical
| intepretation of the saying. You are just reading in what
| you personally want the text to read. Just like all
| fundamentalists.
| ianburrell wrote:
| I find it interesting that they attack the camel and
| needle analogy when the previous line is: "I tell you the
| truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
| heaven." That is a pretty definitive statement and makes
| it clear that the camel and needle line is metaphor for
| the difficulty.
| bitbang wrote:
| That's not what that means at all, your inserting modern
| values into the parable. In the culture of that time, the
| rich were viewed with high regard. The understanding was that
| if you were rich, then clearly you were in a favorable
| relationship to God because he was blessing you with wealth.
| With that understanding, the sentence that directly follows
| the parable makes a lot more sense: "When the disciples heard
| this, they were greatly astonished, saying, 'Who then can be
| saved?'" A modern telling of the parable would replace the
| rich man with a monk who's taken a vow of poverty to run an
| orphanage in a God-forsaken third world country. The parable
| was intended to portray an absurdly impossible standard to
| entry; the whole point being that human merit, status, or
| morality, regardless of however the cultural context may
| define that, does not afford one any distinctive advantage
| before God.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Got some links to support this interpretation?
| akomtu wrote:
| The rich is firmly attached to wordly things, they would
| rather sink with their gold than let it go. The monk that
| you've described is attached to his self by training it
| with sophisticated hardships. He hoards inner peace just
| like the rich hoards gold. Both are practicing the culture
| of personality. They need to leave that baggage behind,
| their self-centered life and their polished personas, and
| reorient their life around helping others. Once they do
| this, an enormous internal conflict will emerge - the
| struggle between their selfish and selfless sides, and at
| the end of this path they'll enter the kingdom of God.
|
| Those who want to climb to the mountain top need to leave
| everything behind. The higher they climb, the longer will
| be the fall if they look back for a moment and slip on this
| narrow path, longing for what they left behind.
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| The message IS clear...but I don't see the same message as
| you. Solomon was /beyond/ rich. So was David. So were
| countless people that are destined for heaven(as in, Jesus
| describes them being in heaven in the new testament).
|
| Those people all did some things we can see and talk about -
| and possibly many things we did not see, do not know, and can
| not talk about. At the very least, those people we know are
| in/destined for heaven: followed God, feared God, obeyed God.
|
| I don't believe their being or not being rich is part of the
| calculus for "getting into heaven" as you said. Being rich
| may make you less likely to do those 3 things though, in
| which case you would correlate richness with not getting into
| heaven.
| tdb7893 wrote:
| 'I don't believe their being or not being rich is part of
| the calculus for "getting into heaven" as you said' -> I
| think viewing that some rich people go to heaven as Jesus
| not explicitly condemning rich people (which he clearly
| does multiple times) and not him showing the unlimited
| power of God's grace is a misreading of the text.
|
| The subsequent verses are much less quoted but very
| explicit about this: And looking at them, Jesus said to
| them, "With people this is impossible, but with God all
| things are possible."
|
| This is supported by other text where Jesus says explicitly
| what people should do with money:
|
| Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell
| your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have
| treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me"
|
| So anyway it's very clear that using money selfishly (which
| is what many Christians do) is clearly not what God wants
| from us, it's just that God can love us for our
| imperfections and sin, which in my view is sorta the main
| idea behind the New Testament. God wants us to love each
| other like he loves us, and he would certainly give up his
| money for us since he even gave up his own son, but accepts
| that we will be more selfish than that.
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| > God wants us to love each other like he loves us, and
| he would certainly give up his money for us since he even
| gave up his own son, but accepts that we will be more
| selfish than that.
|
| I love how you put that, and wholeheartedly agree.
| lurk2 wrote:
| Wealth is not universally maligned in the Biblical tradition.
| Job is afforded material rewards in this world after his
| tribulation.
|
| Prosperity gospel is plainly contradicted by the Bible (see
| again: The Book of Job), but so is the Redditor Christianity
| you are espousing.
| ImJamal wrote:
| You are just wrong. The Bible never says that rich people
| aren't getting into heaven. Only that it will be difficult.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The whole invention of the "Eye of the Needle" gate fiction
| is an attempt to rewrite a Gospel statement by Jesus that
| it is difficult-to-the-point-of-impossibility into one that
| it is merely difficult-in-the-sense-of-mild-inconvenience.
| wavemode wrote:
| Have you ever even read the passage?
|
| > 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
| needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
|
| > 26 And they were greatly astonished, saying among
| themselves, "Who then can be saved?"
|
| > 27 But Jesus looked at them and said, "With men it is
| impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are
| possible."
| mrguyorama wrote:
| This sure doesn't look like ancient Hebrew to me.
| _--__--__ wrote:
| Well yeah, the gospels were written in Koine Greek
| codr7 wrote:
| And I seriously doubt he would approve of Christianity as
| practiced in general.
| DougN7 wrote:
| Well as practiced by supposed believers. He said there will
| be many to whom he'll say "I never knew you". And I expect
| they'll be actually surprised, until they really compare
| their actions to what he taught.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| non-believers always seem to be the expert in that sort of
| thing
| freedomben wrote:
| Hypocrisy is always easier to see from the outside. That
| said I do think non-believers (such as myself) often have
| unreasonable and unrealistic "standards" for what they
| expect from a Christian.
|
| That said many Christians I know are much harsher critics
| of other Christians who don't live their beliefs than most
| of the atheists I know, and IMHO that's how it should be.
| tartuffe78 wrote:
| He's coming back as a lion though right? We seem primed for
| authoritarian Jesus (in America at least)
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes exactly, first time he came as lamb, next time as a lion.
| It's going to be ugly, and people rejecting him isn't going
| to stop it.
|
| _Disclaimer: No longer a believer so take with a grain of
| salt_
| roywiggins wrote:
| If he shows up like he does in Revelation it's going to be a
| bit more dramatic than the first time around.
| blooalien wrote:
| > If he shows up like he does in Revelation it's going to be
| a bit more dramatic than the first time around.
|
| Yeah, for sure. They'd best _hope_ that he _don 't_ return
| anytime soon if the Christian bible's description of his
| return has any validity to it, because he's supposed to
| return with a flaming sword and a host of angels behind him,
| and he's likely to be raging pissed at the majority of
| (Christian) humanity for the way they've twisted his words
| and teachings.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Especially the 3rd, which isn't just about swearing.
| robofanatic wrote:
| As a non-believer I am worried what will he do to us.
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| > Statistics and wagering aside, IMO, he'd fair poorly (like
| the previous visit).
|
| If I remember correctly...his first visit was prophesied to end
| exactly as it did. His next visit is prophesied to be a little
| different - to paraphrase...he is coming with an army to make
| war on the beast and all [humans] who follow him. Instead of a
| spotless robe like earlier depictions - this robe is drenched
| in blood, and he has a sword coming out of his mouth. Here's
| the passage immediately following description of this second
| coming(Revelations 19).
|
| "Come, gather together for the great supper of God, 18so that
| you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of
| horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and
| slave, great and small."
|
| I don't think this visit is supposed to be like the previous
| one. I strongly encourage you all read this book(the bible) and
| take it to heart. You aren't my friend, or someone that I know
| - but it would give me no pleasure at all to know you were
| spending eternity in hell. We don't get down seeing people
| suffer, or "you'll all be sorry when you see I'm right!!!"
| style feelings. If those true believers seem like a bunch of
| elitist jerks who are always putting you down instead of
| helping you up, those are /NOT/ true believers. Those are true
| assholes.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| But what evidence supports the theory of heaven and hell?
|
| I mean, according to the Hindus and Buddhists, we'll be
| reincarnated rather than going to heaven/hell.
|
| We could read the Bible, or the Qur'an, or the Vedas, or the
| Buddhist scriptures, or any other religious text... but how
| would we know whether any of them holds truth?
| vkou wrote:
| That's the whole point of faith. You're supposed to believe
| despite evidence.
| philsnow wrote:
| (Which is why, of faith, hope, and charity, only charity
| will remain with us in heaven / in the beatific vision)
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| _Why_ should you believe despite evidence?
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| You have faith that your choice is the right one!
| dangus wrote:
| There are approximately 10,000 religions in the world.
| What brain damage do I have to receive in order to
| believe that I have any realistic statistical chance of
| picking the right one?
| em-bee wrote:
| you don't pick one at random. you pick one that makes
| sense. what makes sense for example is the positive
| impact a religion has on the world. which religion is
| doing the most good? that alone will narrow down the
| selection to a few dozen if that many. besides the good
| it does, another question could be: what makes sense to
| you? which religion has the better answers to explain the
| world in which we live in today? take the issues and
| questions that matter to you, and then look at the
| answers and see if they are satisfactory. keep searching
| until you find the answers you seek.
| freedomben wrote:
| This is the "by their fruits you shall know them"
| argument (which I think is among the stronger arguments
| for the record), but I've personally used this to try and
| find a "correct" religion and what I discovered
| (personally of course) is that there is good and bad in
| essentially every religion. Using this as a standard is
| basically impossible.
|
| But if you took it at a high macro level and did narrow
| down to a few dozen, those are still _terrible_ odds. If
| I have a 1 in 36 chance of picking the wrong religion and
| being damned, I think we need a better standard of
| evidence to narrow this field a bit. Unless of course you
| believe that a loving (some would say omni-benevolent)
| God would think it 's reasonable to torture 97% of his
| children who are actively searching him out, just because
| they picked the wrong church. (that's not even
| considering all the others of course).
| em-bee wrote:
| once you have narrowed it down, it is reasonably
| realistic to deeply investigate the remaining ones.
|
| _there is good and bad in essentially every religion_
|
| have you looked all the major ones listed here?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups
|
| for me the standard of evidence is the search for the
| truth. that means, keep searching until i am satisfied.
| it could take a lifetime, and maybe that's the point.
| don't just make a choice and then blindly accept
| everything from then on.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Your arguments are a bit unsatisfying to me, though.
|
| > what makes sense for example is the positive impact a
| religion has on the world. which religion is doing the
| most good?
|
| I try to have a positive impact on the world by being
| vegan and donating to (secular) humanitarian
| organizations. I struggle to see how believing in a
| religion would improve on this (although I'm open to a
| good rebuttal!).
|
| > which religion has the better answers to explain the
| world in which we live in today?
|
| I think that the secular scientific tradition does better
| here than religion (even if it isn't perfect, of course).
|
| > take the issues and questions that matter to you, and
| then look at the answers and see if they are
| satisfactory. keep searching until you find the answers
| you seek.
|
| I did that, and it doesn't look good for religion, as
| explained above. And yet, here we are with one of the
| parent commenters telling us that we should believe in
| the Bible, lest we burn in hell.
|
| Hence my comment above: what evidence shows this, and if
| there is no evidence, why should I believe it (or any
| other religious scripture) over my current ideals?
| em-bee wrote:
| _I struggle to see how believing in a religion would
| improve on this_
|
| that's not what i am asking. if you believe that
| religions are "wrong", then it's on you to verify that.
|
| _what evidence shows this, and if there is no evidence,
| why should I believe it_
|
| i can't tell you that. you need to look at each religion
| yourself and decide.
|
| as i asked in another comment, have you looked at all the
| major religions (as listed on eg wikipedia), and can you
| say with confidence that none of them do better than
| secular scientific tradition?
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| The burden of proof is on the claimant. If you want to
| convince me to change my beliefs, you should provide a
| compelling argument.
|
| If you believe that religions are 'right' and/or have
| better answers than the scientific tradition, it should
| be trivial to defend your claims.
|
| (Your other comment
| [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44130369] is more
| agreeable.)
| em-bee wrote:
| first of all, i am not making the claim that religions
| are 'right' and/or have better answers. i am making the
| argument that if you want to find out if they are giving
| better answers or any answers for that matter, then you
| need to research them.
|
| i can tell you what i believe but i am not here to
| represent any particular religion, and i can't speak for
| all the religions. you will get better results and
| answers if you look at each religion yourself, and come
| to your own conclusion.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Ah, but the original claim (not by you) that I replied to
| and that spawned this subthread was:
|
| > I strongly encourage you all read this book(the bible)
| and take it to heart.
|
| This seems to be somewhat different from what you're
| arguing now, though.
|
| For what it's worth, I shared my beliefs (veganism,
| humanitarianism, and the scientific method), and I still
| think that if you believe that your beliefs (religious or
| not) hold more truth and/or usefulness than mine, you
| should be able to (at the very least) provide some
| pointers to relevant literature.
| dangus wrote:
| Your comment is a manifestation of this weird double
| standard that gets applied to atheists/agnostics where
| they're supposed to be burdened to "find answers" and
| it's a problem that they don't have that religious
| burden.
|
| It also manifests in this sort of insulted vibe that
| religious people get when their faith is questioned.
|
| Basically, it's socially not okay to question the faith
| of someone in a particular religion because it's their
| culture, it's their belief system, but the
| atheist/agnostic "belief" system isn't respected in the
| same way. The person who has not found any evidence of
| god as described in various religions is told to seek
| enlightenment as if they are the ones who are incomplete.
|
| People who use the scientific method don't "pick at
| random" when there is no available answer. They test for
| answers and wait until they observe the answers and have
| the ability to reproduce those observations.
|
| In short, the religious expect the non-religious to be
| afraid of dying and to be looking for a solution, when
| it's completely valid and logical to have determined that
| there is no solution and therefore it is not worth
| spending time dwelling upon.
| em-bee wrote:
| i expects everyone who questions any religion to do that
| search. whether they believe in god or not. if you
| question something, then it is on you to go find answers.
| even if you found your belief system that works for you.
| maybe especially if you found one you should always keep
| your eyes open and investigate your own beliefs, and not
| just blindly accept it.
| dangus wrote:
| This is still kind of backwards. The person who doesn't
| accept something blindly has no obligation to question
| anything. There is no obligation to obtain a belief
| system. Someone who is agnostic is not blindly accepting
| anything.
| em-bee wrote:
| _The person who doesn't accept something blindly has no
| obligation to question anything_
|
| not accepting something blindly IS the same as
| questioning something. or reverse, if you do not question
| your beliefs then you are accepting them blindly.
|
| _There is no obligation to obtain a belief system_
|
| i didn't say there is, except maybe that rejecting all
| belief systems is also a kind of belief.
|
| _Someone who is agnostic is not blindly accepting
| anything._
|
| again, i didn't intend to make that claim. if anything
| that was more targeted at those who do follow a
| particular religion and stopped asking questions.
| dangus wrote:
| > I strongly encourage you all read this book(the bible) and
| take it to heart. You aren't my friend, or someone that I
| know - but it would give me no pleasure at all to know you
| were spending eternity in hell.
|
| IMO, you are also an elitist jerk by telling non-believers
| that they will be going to hell for not believing your
| religion, a religion which 69% of the entire world does not
| believe.
|
| What kind of god creates beings only to punish the majority
| of them with hellfire? Why would god allow alternative
| religions to be created just to "trick" his creations into
| believing the wrong thing? And why would I want to worship
| that god if that's all true?
| josephcsible wrote:
| > IMO, you are also an elitist jerk by telling non-
| believers that they will be going to hell for not believing
| your religion, a religion which 69% of the entire world
| does not believe.
|
| Catholics don't believe that you have to be Catholic to go
| to heaven. In fact, believing that you do is explicitly
| condemned as a heresy (Feeneyism).
| freedomben wrote:
| Interesting! So in Catholicism, what are the belief
| requirements? Would that mean that some Protestants could
| go to heaven even if they've never had (Catholic)
| communion? (Genuine question)
| josephcsible wrote:
| https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM#:~:text=
| %22...
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| This lengthy text is somewhat impenetrable (at least to a
| non-Christian).
| regus wrote:
| https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-
| there-re...
| chungy wrote:
| That is the same with The Church of Jesus Christ of
| Latter-day Saints. We do not believe church membership is
| required to receive the glories of heaven; we do not even
| believe that church membership is a guarantee to get
| there.
|
| As for "going to hell": we believe that everyone goes
| there after death, as a temporary state. It's akin to the
| Catholic concept of purgatory, before the resurrection,
| final judgment, and placement in either outer darkness or
| the kingdoms of heaven. Thankfully, most people that have
| ever lived on earth are destined for the latter, not the
| former.
| dangus wrote:
| That's just one denomination. Others believe the
| opposite. See the problem?
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| Hey I don't know what works for everyone, but I know what
| works for me. I'm encouraging you to let it work for you,
| but that's a personal choice and I wouldn't force it on
| anyone.
|
| I don't think God wants to "trick" anyone. I also don't
| believe there is any hard set of "rules" he applies to 100%
| of humanity without exception. Take little children for
| instance...tragedies happen every day, and they are too
| young to know what those rules are, or have a chance to
| follow them. Those children aren't destined for eternal
| torture - that would be cruel and heartless - and I don't
| believe God is cruel or heartless.
|
| I apologize for coming off as an elitist jerk. I didn't
| realize it would be read that way, and it was not my intent
| at all. I'm not better than you, I don't /think/ I'm better
| than you, and I'm too inexperienced/ignorant/prideful to
| even be able to know what "better" is, much less which one
| of us it would apply to.
|
| All my comments, posts, and intentions are that 1 person is
| positively influenced by them. Maybe they go on to
| influence someone else, and it spreads throughout people -
| I have no idea what will happen that is influenced by
| things like my post. However, I don't think my post is
| going to hurt anyone - my hope is that it will help
| someone. Think of it like throwing seeds(in the
| parable!)... some of them, maybe just /one/ of them, will
| fall in fertile ground - and lead that person(s) to the
| same peace with God that I feel.
| freedomben wrote:
| FWIW I don't think you were being elitist at all. In fact
| I think you've come off as very humble and full of
| genuine care and interest for your fellow humans. Our
| world could use a whole lot more of that from believer
| and non-believer alike.
|
| I've read the Bible cover to cover multiple times though,
| and nothing makes me believe the Bible less than actually
| reading and studying the Bible. The book of Job alone was
| pretty hard to reconcile, but even just harmonizing the
| four gospels on the important details of Jesus life and
| crucifixion is very, very difficult (or even impossible
| depending on who you talk to). I won't even get into Song
| of Solomon :-D
|
| Honestly if you want people to find faith, I wouldn't
| recommend reading the Bible. I would recommend a mix of
| the New Testament (minus the Book of Revelation) plus
| Church attendance.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _IMO, you are also an elitist jerk by telling non-
| believers that they will be going to hell for not believing
| your religion, a religion which 69% of the entire world
| does not believe._
|
| Dude, that's pretty harsh and I would say quite unfair
| given what they've said. If he/she/they/whatever believes
| that we are going to Hell, wouldn't the right thing to do
| be to tell us and try to save us?
|
| I do think that plenty of people saying similar things can
| be elitist and requires a certain level of
| hubris/arrogance, but I don't think that's always the case,
| and GP definitely didn't strike me as one of those
| assholes.
|
| > _What kind of god creates beings only to punish the
| majority of them with hellfire? Why would god allow
| alternative religions to be created just to "trick" his
| creations into believing the wrong thing?_
|
| These are excellent questions/arguments and are on my top
| five list of "reasons I am not a Christian," and I'd love
| to hear an explanation from any believers if they'd like to
| tackle them.
| krapp wrote:
| I propose a corollary to Godwin's Law whereby as any internet
| discussion of religion progresses, the chances of a Christian
| trying to proselytize approaches 1. Call it God-Botherers
| Law.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| fare* poorly
| k310 wrote:
| Typo. I believe I checked the difference between fare and
| faire, and chose fare (even it reminded me of a subway
| token). And it came out fair.
|
| Perils of posting late at night, I guess. hattip.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Story of my life, my friend
| hbbio wrote:
| The elephant in the room is who controls/decides on the outcome.
|
| See https://decrypt.co/311634/polymarket-allegations-oracle-
| mani...
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| This is in no way unmentioned in the article! It doesn't
| consider this a big factor, but it absolutely mentions it.
| thefourthchime wrote:
| Bump!
| seeknotfind wrote:
| > The True Believers hypothesis rings false because that would be
| a frankly ridiculous belief to hold. Sometimes people profess
| ridiculous things, but very few of them put their money where
| their mouth is on prediction markets.
|
| It sounds like the author is saying the belief is ridiculous in
| general. However, if Jesus returns, then the believers would
| ascend to heaven. So, they would not be able to cash out.
|
| What if polymarket put in the money to drive people to vote on
| the no side? It could be quite a marketing stunt.
| yabones wrote:
| Calling my bookie to run some numbers on Pascal's Wager...
|
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager)
| blendergeek wrote:
| This article fails to address that most true believers would not
| see any point to betting on the yes. If Christ returns this year,
| the world is done and there is no upside to having bet that he
| would. Temporal things (like prediction markets) will cease to be
| interesting when Christ returns. Given that, I highly doubt that
| the people betting yes actually believe that Christ will return
| this year.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| ... and a lot of those folks don't think you should gamble! But
| really if it happened you wouldn't have any need for money, see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Depends on your flavor. Some believe he'll come back and reign
| for a thousand years. Possibly with a very subtle transition.
| Of course the rapture being before or after that 1K reign is a
| big factor.
|
| Keep in mind true believers often learn to live with a massive
| cognitive dissonance, if not outright turning off critical
| thinking when topics of faith arise. (I spent 30y learning to
| do just that.)
| ivape wrote:
| _Keep in mind true believers often learn to live with a
| massive cognitive dissonance_
|
| This is quite true. Taking away just the moral teachings is
| not true belief. Revelations is serious business stuff, the
| apostles watched Christ ascend from Mount Olive, it's
| extremely trippy things. True believers are literally
| believing in wild shit. In fact, if you are true believer,
| you almost need to keep it hidden because it's going to come
| off as mentally ill.
|
| With that said, I somehow can't seem to deny it anymore
| because reality is just not explainable. Reality is the most
| ridiculous explanation for why the Big Bang happened and
| we're all just here in a perfect little globe. This "real"
| explanation is so batshit that the supernatural explanation
| is more sound - at least to me.
|
| The closest science has gotten was to actually corroborate
| that, yes, this was all not infinite and had a starting point
| (big bang), literally corroborated _let there be light_. The
| quantum stuff just gets even more supernatural. Maybe I'm
| going mentally ill, but I tend to take the supernatural stuff
| quite seriously now.
| foxygen wrote:
| What is so special about reality?
| ivape wrote:
| Purpose. That there was a purpose for all of this. If we
| believe there was no purpose for all of this, then what a
| hopeless thing. I just look at the erasure of Gaza and
| have become more and more religious, because _my god_
| what a hopeless end if this all isn't _saved_ at the very
| end. I feel that way about many of today's ills.
|
| Purpose and hope, even if the answer is utterly magical.
| nlavezzo wrote:
| If you're interested in some of the classic intellectual
| / philosophical arguments for faith (albeit from a
| Christian perspective) you should check out "Reasonable
| Faith" by William Lane Craig.
| freedomben wrote:
| I'm a non-believer, but I do think that is one of the
| best apologetic books that are out there. It's a bit of a
| tome and does get a bit slow at points, but I appreciate
| his attempt at depth and breadth and one can't do that
| without writing a pretty damn big book. I think everyone
| should read it (along with books from the other side as
| well, especially Richard Dawkins (for biology and some
| philosophy), Bart Ehrman (for Biblical scholarship and
| some philosophy), Robert Sapolsky (for
| Neurology/Neuroscience), Lawrence Krauss (Physics), and
| Robert Wright).
|
| I do wish Craig had reframed from the personal shots he
| takes at various atheist/agnostic writers (which clearly
| cross into ad hominem at many points) but he is by far
| the most interesting defender of faith out there (IMHO).
| In his defense I think he was playing along with the at
| times very incendiary approach taken by Dawkin's and many
| other "new atheists" so it's not like he started the
| brawl :-). I think he's way too confident in Anselm's
| Ontological argument, but he has clearly studied it a
| whole lot more than me so I don't hold a strong
| conviction there.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Why should there be a purpose?
|
| It's certainly possible that there is a purpose, but I
| think it's more likely that we simply happened to evolve
| the way we did.
|
| In a vacuum, wars are meaningless. It's simply humans
| fighting other humans (and the ones on the front lines
| might not even want to be there).
| freejazz wrote:
| > If we believe there was no purpose for all of this,
| then what a hopeless thing.
|
| That's a huge leap that speaks to your own perspective.
| It's not some sort of objective fact. That there is no
| purpose and we are still here is in fact quite beautiful
| and amazing.
| ridgeguy wrote:
| Opposite to my view. If there's no pre-ordained purpose,
| we're free to invent our own. I find that very freeing
| and hopeful. And a lifetime project.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| This is my take. The universe itself only cares that
| energy is as evenly distributed as possible. We are just
| a temporary ripple in that slide down entropy.
|
| There is no objective morality, because morality is a
| human invention. It's important for that exact reason
| that we make it very good then.
|
| Love strangers. Eradicate poverty. Encourage personal
| growth. Build society up. Reduce suffering. Stop bullies.
| Understand.
| freedomben wrote:
| I can very much relate to this, but I do think it's worth
| pointing out that this is not at all an argument for the
| existence of God, merely a motivation for _wanting_ there
| to be a God.
|
| I actually find a lot of comfort in the Mark Twain quote
| after he was asked by a reporter whether he fears death
| given his lack of belief in God:
|
| > _"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and
| billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered
| the slightest inconvenience from it." --Mark Twain_
| santoshalper wrote:
| Whenever people say things like this "the universe is too
| weird not to have been created", I always ask "Weird
| compared to what? To other realities you have witnessed?"
|
| The safest assumption to make, if you absolutely have to
| make an assumption at all, is that this reality is pretty
| average. With no knowledge whatsoever, it's certainly
| safer than betting it is somehow exotic.
| freedomben wrote:
| Indeed, this is a variation on the "Watchmaker Analogy."
| It presupposes that there isn't an alternative
| explanation to design that can describe how things could
| be so intricate and complex (Darwinian Evolution provides
| that alternative explanation). I highly recommend Richard
| Dawkin's book "The Blind Watchmaker" for anyone wishing
| to dive deeper on the subject.
| fragmede wrote:
| The popular stories/proverbs aren't too unbelievable, but
| Ezekiel 10 discusses the four wheels besides the cherubim.
| These wheels are celestial beings that see all. Diablo (the
| video game) draws from this. This is not a comment on your
| mental status, but that some of the stuff in the Christian
| Bible are further out there than magic tricks by Jesus that
| Penn and Teller could replicate.
| em-bee wrote:
| depends how you define a true believer. i am not christian,
| but i would claim that the people you describe aren't true
| believers because they haven't really understood the bible.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| "they haven't really understood the bible."
|
| Pretty much every religious person believes that THEIR
| understanding is the correct one. You cant objectively
| say that "this is the correct understanding" from a
| religous perspective (you can however do it from a for
| example a historical or textual analysis perspective).
|
| You cant objectively prove that only mormons or bapists
| have "understood" the bible correct and everyone else are
| false believers.
| em-bee wrote:
| that's my point. everyone has a different
| idea/interpretation, and thus there is no objective
| definition of a true believer. GP says that true
| believers come off as insane. that doesn't sound like a
| sensible definition for a true believer. iaw. whatever a
| true believer is, i don't think it's that.
|
| what if jesus already returned? then the true believers
| would only be those that have recognized his return.
| there are people who did make that claim. that's who i
| would investigate.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Aha. Sorry missunderstood you. I thought you argued they
| are not true believers. I see what you mean now.
| wat10000 wrote:
| There's "science doesn't adequately explain the origins of
| the universe," and then there's "this particular middle
| eastern tribe had the right answers thousands of years
| ago." I can see the former but the latter makes no sense.
| zchrykng wrote:
| Unless God actually exists and revealed himself to them.
| Obviously, you are free to not believe that, but
| believing that goes along with believing what you are
| dismissing.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| He revealed himself to them and only them, ignoring the
| rest of humanity all over the globe. In all the universe
| he chose just earth for his people, and over all of
| earth, he just chose a tiny section to reveal himself to.
| Omniscient and omnipotent but a very human scale for his
| messaging.
| sroussey wrote:
| Also at a time those humans also believed the Earth was
| flat.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You are reading too hard into the specifics. The general
| themes are remarkably conserved across faiths. Even
| between monotheistic and polytheistic faiths, we see what
| is a pantheon of gods in the latter become just different
| forms of the monotheistic god in the former. The same
| myths when they are distilled. Zeus is Yahweh is Ahura
| Mazda is Indra is Thor is Itzamna is Baiame,
| fundamentally all the creator sky god. Of course the most
| ardent supporters of each faith might be blind to this
| parallelism, but it is obvious from an outsiders
| perspective.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Sure, if you squint enough everything looks the same, but
| then you can't see. For instance, in your example Thor is
| not a creator sky god, and he's limited. He's not even
| the leader of his pantheon. Zeus, another famous sky god,
| is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Yahweh, especially
| the later Christian incarnation of him, is pretty unique
| if you compare him to polytheistic religions.
| monetus wrote:
| The lack of originality is proof that God exists. First
| time I've heard that tbh.
| freedomben wrote:
| I've heard it many times, but it also assumes that there
| aren't other ways to explain similarities, such as
| cultural cross-exchange of ideas (which happens
| prolifically even in the Bible, hence why Israel is
| supposed to avoid inter-marriage and the like), and the
| fact that most myths begin to explain observed phenomena,
| which itself tends to be very similar and repetitive. I
| personally think this is an extremely weak argument that
| is only compelling if you have already presupposed that
| God revealed himself and his revelations were bastardized
| by civilizations around the world. It's classic
| Confirmation Bias.
| fortran77 wrote:
| > He revealed himself to them and only them, ignoring the
| rest of humanity all over the globe
|
| That's absolutely not true. First of all, there was an
| enormous crowd of people: 600,000 families--millions of
| people--who received the revelation on Mt. Sinai. And
| secondly, G-d offered the Torah to all the peoples of the
| world.
| (https://www.sefaria.org/Sifrei_Devarim.343.2?lang=bi)
|
| It's a fundamental principle of Judaism that _all_
| righteous people will be in the world to come, unlike
| Christianity.
|
| All that being said, I will not be wagering that "Jesus"
| will come again.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > That's absolutely not true. First of all, there was an
| enormous crowd of people: 600,000 families--millions of
| people--who received the revelation on Mt. Sinai.
|
| It's true that it was very regional, within the reach of
| a group of people's ability to communicate.
|
| > And secondly, G-d offered the Torah to all the peoples
| of the world.
|
| Did he? Did all the other cultures of the world about
| that time simply not answer the door?
| wat10000 wrote:
| And how do we know that millions of people received this
| revelation? We only "know" this if we take this
| particular tribe's myths to be fact.
| CyrsBel wrote:
| Who said he ignored the rest of humanity? That's not what
| the record shows. Most people know about God. Who said
| that in all the universe he chose just earth?
|
| You're assuming too much about the motivations. I do not
| see what the issue is with a "very human scale" for
| messaging. That's...how you communicate with humans.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > Who said he ignored the rest of humanity?
|
| People now know about god, but they wouldn't have 3,000
| years ago. And it's only one particular culture that was
| being communicated with, or did the Chinese and Native
| Americans just ignore him when tried to message them?
|
| > I do not see what the issue is with a "very human
| scale" for messaging. That's...how you communicate with
| humans.
|
| It's because its messaging seems to have originated from
| a very small and region specific group of people, instead
| of, you know, being communicated across the world.
| CyrsBel wrote:
| They would've known about God 3,000 years ago. No,
| Chinese and Native Americans and etc did not ignore him.
| Abraham was of a pagan land when he first encountered
| God.
|
| In any case, it was definitely communicated across the
| world. If you're picking a specific point in time when
| first contact was established according to a specific
| tradition, that might raise a question of why first
| contract there and in that way. But we in 2025 have the
| hindsight of seeing what happened globally after that and
| spread it did.
|
| I don't think it is a coincidence that specific groups of
| people received revelation the way they did, when
| considering things like the quality of their oral and
| scribed history. Would you pick a region of people who
| don't know how to write and barely know how to talk, or a
| region of people who are highly skilled in both?
| wat10000 wrote:
| I wouldn't pick a region at all, I'd do all of them.
| wat10000 wrote:
| " That's...how you communicate with humans."
|
| Right. Why would the omnipotent creator of the universe
| communicate the same way I do?
| ivape wrote:
| Why do we sometimes bend down to look at a dog or child?
| To look them in the eye, at their level.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| We aren't all powerful. We can't reach into their brain
| or ear to communicate. Supposedly God is all powerful.
| And doesn't speak directly to everyone, just certain
| ones.
| CyrsBel wrote:
| Not everyone cares or listens. But the original point of
| the question you were responding to was that it seems
| strange that God would communicate with people in an
| intelligible or familiar or baser way. So being all
| powerful is irrelevant, because if we do it then why
| couldn't or wouldn't God do it? There's nothing wrong
| with communicating in the way that the targets in
| question will comprehend. That's the point of
| communication.
| CyrsBel wrote:
| So that...you can comprehend the communication? Are you
| going to forget how to write or speak with your mouth
| when there is telepathy available and the next thing?
| Does Telnet still work?
| wat10000 wrote:
| The topic here is _scale_. I only talk to a small group
| of people because they're the only ones I can reach. If
| Donald Trump can reach a billion people, why couldn't
| God? The technology didn't exist but that's not supposed
| to be a limit for this particular entity.
| ivape wrote:
| When Michael Jackson does a concert, it's really only in
| a few locations. It's up to the world to spread it. As
| others have mentioned, he could show up in the sky like
| Mufasa, but he could also just brain wash you in an
| instant and fix all of it.
|
| Faith is a concept, like so many other concepts. It is a
| unique creation that has properties, one of them is that
| it's not meant to be provable that easily.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, I don't really buy that. God revealed himself
| directly to Moses and Moses was still able to ignore him
| or go against his wishes and still had to come to faith
| on his own terms. Both faith and free will are a great
| bottomless pits to throw any philosophical or logical
| incongruities into.
|
| > When Michael Jackson does a concert, it's really only
| in a few locations. It's up to the world to spread it.
|
| In this example, what is up to the world to spread for
| Michael Jackson? Is god a singular entity with a specific
| location? I'm sure Michael would have happily shown up in
| every place on earth if he could have sold tickets.
| wat10000 wrote:
| "...it's not meant to be provable that easily."
|
| If ever there were a post-hoc rationalization, this is
| it.
|
| It's funny how the faithful are generally happy to use
| any evidence that they think supports the faith, but once
| it gets too difficult then suddenly it's not _supposed_
| to have too much evidence for it.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Sure, but in that case the supposed fact that God
| revealed himself to this particular tribe is the key
| thing supporting the belief, not "reality is
| unexplainable, it must be something else."
| NickC25 wrote:
| None of it makes sense. That's why religious folks are
| "believers".
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." -- Twain
| fortran77 wrote:
| Next week is Shavuot, the anniversary of when G-d
| presented the world with the Torah. The "tribe" may have
| the right answers, but they came from their Creator.
| wat10000 wrote:
| My point being, the mystery of the origin of the universe
| doesn't demonstrate that at all.
| imchillyb wrote:
| How did Israel get the order of operations correct,
| without science, if no one told them this story?
|
| Israel's creation story gets every step in the right
| order.
|
| How?
| wat10000 wrote:
| You mean the story where God created the earth covered
| with water, then created light, then created sky to
| separate the water underneath the sky from the water
| above the sky (???), then land, then seed-bearing plants
| on land, _then_ created the sun and the moon and the
| stars, then created animals? That 's... not the right
| order at all.
| texuf wrote:
| Do you think it's weird that ethnic groups separated by
| thousands of years of evolution came up with completely
| different gods and forms of worship? If there was an
| omniscient being don't you think it would make itself known
| in a little more universal fashion? And isn't it strange
| that the institutions built around our current iteration of
| God are soft power structures that wield huge amounts of
| influence both financially and politically?
| ivape wrote:
| I don't think anything is weird anymore. The ultimate
| reality of free will is that you will always have the
| option to do right and wrong. If you don't have faith,
| this privilege will be difficult. The human left to their
| own devices will always have a shifting sense of morality
| (turning a ship by 1 degree at a time).
|
| Faith was a gift to help.
|
| In terms of Christ, let me put it this way. Imagine your
| high school, and one day the President of the US visits.
| You may not directly see him, but the whole school would
| know about it, even if he was just there for 5 minutes.
| It's a matter of faith, and it's the little bit you need
| to help with the gift of free will.
|
| The very first story (well second story) in the main
| monotheistic books was the Eden Story. That story is all
| about how vulnerable we are with the choice of free will.
| Empirically, we have seen the failure of it over and over
| throughout human history (systemically you can easily see
| it). So, yes, I fully believe in the fallen nature of
| man, not because we are evil, but because what a gift and
| responsibility free will actually is.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| > I don't think anything is weird anymore. The ultimate
| reality of free will is that you will always have the
| option to do right and wrong. If you don't have faith,
| this privilege will be difficult. The human left to their
| own devices will always have a shifting sense of morality
| (turning a ship by 1 degree at a time).
|
| I think this hypothesis is flawed.
|
| I think most people in society strive to do right, and
| therefore most of us are able to live in relative peace
| and with relative trust in our fellow members of society.
|
| There are some people who do wrong, but we've set up our
| society to strive to detect this and punish those (albeit
| using imperfect systems and knowledge, leading to false
| positives and negatives).
|
| Therefore, I think religions are an encoding of human
| morality, not the other way around.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I'd challenge your position with a simple thought
| experiment. You're given a device with a button. When you
| push that button a random person you don't know will be
| killed. In exchange you'll receive $1 million in
| completely clean money, and nobody will ever know you
| pushed the button or how many times you pushed it.
|
| So how many times would you push it? Such is our
| character that asking how many times you'd push it is far
| more interesting than asking if you'd push it. And asking
| how many times you'd push it also gets rid of the
| marginal utility argument, and just to the dirty self
| centered core of humanity.
|
| People without any static set of values will trend
| towards doing whatever they want and then justifying it
| afterwards. There will undoubtedly be a guy who pushes it
| thousands of times, and then donates a fraction of it to
| charity, convincing himself that he's actually saved
| lives on net. That is humanity in a nutshell.
| baobun wrote:
| > Such is our character that asking how many times you'd
| push it is far more interesting than asking if you'd push
| it.
|
| Is that a royal "Our"? I don't think you are speaking for
| anyone but yourself. People like Trump, MSB and Netanyahu
| aren't normal. They tend to abuse religion as a
| justification for their actions rather than spititual
| inspiration.
| freedomben wrote:
| What if you were a Christian, and you knew that the
| random person being killed was a rock solid Christian who
| would die painlessly and without even knowing it, and
| would go immediately into the bosom of Christ?
|
| In that scenario pushing the button seems like the right
| thing to do. If you don't, that person might lose their
| faith later and end up in hell, and it would be your
| fault. What is the worth of a soul? My understanding is
| it's infinite. If not infinite, certainly it must be
| worth more than a measly cool million.
| baobun wrote:
| > If you don't, that person might lose their faith later
| and end up in hell, and it would be your fault
|
| Have you read the Bible? Jesus would disagree with this
| take very hard. Or do you have any support for this moral
| argument from any of the apostles?
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes I've read the Bible cover to cover multiple times
| (although admittedly on the second and third time through
| I did skim a bit of the last 1/3 of the OT rather than
| reading it for diligent comprehension), and have taken a
| number of different courses on it. I've read the New
| Testament at least a dozen times through, plus many years
| of Sunday School looking at different books/passages.
|
| > _Jesus would disagree with this take very hard._
|
| Citation needed for that. This is something hotly debated
| among all sorts of Christians so I don't claim to have a
| solid answer, but perseonally I think the Bible is
| repeatedly pretty clear that you _can_ lose it[1].
|
| I used to be a strong believer, but no longer am. Out of
| curiosity, do you think I'm going to Hell or am I still
| all set for (eternal) life because of my past faith?
|
| [1]: https://www.biblestudyguide.org/articles/salvation/s
| alvation...
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Personally, I would take a strictly utilitarian approach.
| If I thought I could save >1 life for $1 million, I would
| press the button. The number of presses would depend
| solely on the number of lives I think I (or a
| humanitarian organization) could save with the money.
|
| I think that most people with a moral compass would
| either take this approach, or would not press the button
| at all.
|
| I think your second paragraph is misguided and reveals an
| overly pessimistic view of the nature of humanity. (Such
| is the nature of cynics: they always think everyone else
| is just as cynical as they are.)
|
| > People without any static set of values will trend
| towards doing whatever they want and then justifying it
| afterwards.
|
| Religious people aren't immune from that, and conversely,
| it's not necessary to be religious to have moral values.
|
| edit: I thought about this some more. I think that the
| button problem is equivalent to the trolley problem
| (provided you can save >1 life with $1 million, as
| above).
| em-bee wrote:
| free will is one big reason why god would not reveal
| himself in a universal fashion. free will includes the
| freedom to reject god. if god were to reveal himself
| openly then the freedom to reject him would not exist. we
| would not have a choice but to believe.
| freedomben wrote:
| What about Moses? Or Paul? Or the twelve apostles? Or all
| the Pharisees who witnessed miracles from Jesus himself?
| em-bee wrote:
| moses is a prophet or messenger of god just like jesus or
| mohammad. they are not subject to the same tests. some
| claim they aren't even human. according to my
| understanding paul also has been directly chosen by god
| for a specific mission. i haven't looked at the miracles
| jesus performed because, since them happening can't be
| verified and i can't witness them myself they are quite
| irrelevant for me. i also didn't get the impression that
| everyone witnessing a miracle was automatically
| convinced.
|
| also the existence of exceptions doesn't negate that the
| rest of us have that choice.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| >free will is one big reason why god would not reveal
| himself in a universal fashion.
|
| Much like how religion posits a soul, you are positing
| free will despise observing that rocks always fall in
| accordance with the laws of physics and we have yet to
| determine any normal way of altering the course of
| chemistry one jot or tiddle(in fact we build our edifices
| on these observations, so confident are we). You yourself
| suggest that the input of "revealed God" removes human
| free will to disbelieve. In other words, God can't(or
| didn't for whatever reason) create a human that can
| experience God without disbelief. Anyway long and short
| of it, just because you believe in free will doesn't mean
| it exists, either in your belief structure or in
| actuality, and Calvinists reject your hypothesis
| outright.
| em-bee wrote:
| i don't know how free will is supposed to affect the laws
| of physics or chemistry. free will is about the choices
| we can make. that doesn't imply there are no limits to
| our capacity. nor does having a choice to believe in god
| or not imply that humans can't experience god without
| disbelief. on the contrary. that's the whole point. i can
| believe that the universe is created by god, and that
| everything i experience is in some way experiencing god,
| just as i can believe that god doesn't exist, and then,
| if god does exist, i would experience god without
| believing that my experience is caused by god.
| experiencing something doesn't require that i recognize
| the cause of the experience.
|
| as for calvinism, how is that relevant? the existence if
| some faction believing something that contradicts the
| belief of others has no bearing on that belief other than
| that it may raise some questions that are worth
| investigating. my brief look at that leads me to the
| conclusion that their view of free will makes no sense to
| me.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Specifically, free will can't affect chemistry or
| physics, because what, to you, is free will, to me, is
| chemical reactions that lead to your body making
| movements. Since no known process is capable of altering
| these reactions, ergo you have no free will(defined as
| the ability to make choices outside of external
| interference, whatever that even means). Calvinism is
| relevant because they purport to believe in the same God
| you do, yet have wildly different and incompatible
| theories of mind that make no sense to you. As an outside
| observer all I can say is that either you or they are
| wrong, and it's likely you both are.
| freedomben wrote:
| Agreed, and to expand slightly, we _do_ know that our
| brains are constructed on top of neurons, and neurons are
| way too big to be affected by quantum-level events. There
| 's countless literature describing people who have had
| accidents or illnesses that damage parts of their brain
| and change personalities (typically without the patient
| being aware of any change and in most cases being in
| adamant denial about it), and we can now pinpoint quite
| precisely what many parts of the brain do. We even have
| AI that can now "read minds" to an extent based on
| measuring neural activity. The idea of "free will" is
| highly suspect given the deterministic nature of our
| brains. There are still some God of the Gaps arguments
| that try to save free will, but IMHO you have to really
| _want_ to save it in order to accept many of those
| arguments. It 's deeply uncomfortable to consider, but
| our brains are deterministic.
|
| This is not my field at all so don't take my word for any
| of it, but I highly recommend people interested in this
| read or watch Robert Sapolsky's work. His books "Behave"
| and "Determined" are utterly fascinating and get very,
| very deep into this in a way that is challenging but
| understandable for a non-Neurologist.
| bawolff wrote:
| This is a bit of a bizarre argument.
|
| > you are positing free will despise observing that rocks
| always fall in accordance with the laws of physics and we
| have yet to determine any normal way of altering the
| course of chemistry one jot or tiddle(in fact we build
| our edifices on these observations, so confident are we)
|
| Physics (quantum physics specificly) posits a non-
| deterministic universe.
|
| However even with a deterministic universe, i don't see
| how it neccesatates removing free will. Perhaps you (your
| soul or whatever) can choose whatever you want to, you
| just always have to make the same choice given the same
| input. Maybe you dont literally have free will in what
| you immediately do, but you have free will in defining
| what type of person you are, which informs what you will
| do in response to some input.
|
| [Im an atheist if that matters]
| jemfinch wrote:
| This contradicts the most common view of Christians
| throughout history, especially since the simplest reading
| of Romans 1 expresses exactly the opposite view: "Ever
| since the creation of the world his invisible nature,
| namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly
| perceived in the things that have been made. So they are
| without excuse."
| teachrdan wrote:
| > You may not directly see him, but the whole school
| would know about it, even if he was just there for 5
| minutes.
|
| My question would be: If the Bible was written by an
| omniscient and all-powerful God, then why does it have so
| many inaccuracies in it? Easy ones include a global flood
| that killed every animal on Earth. (Except for the two of
| each animal on Noah's ark, which would have overheated
| with so many animals in it, if it hadn't collapsed under
| its own weight first.)
|
| But there are also internal contradictions between the
| four gospels of the New Testament. Why would God make his
| own books inaccurate? To me, that indicates they are not
| the product of divine inspiration but the written
| accounts of oral histories.
|
| Your response may be that God introduced these errors
| into his holy books to test our faith. But at that point,
| isn't the answer to every contradiction and inaccuracy
| just, "To test our faith"? Is there literally anything
| that would change your mind, or is your faith just being
| tested even harder?
| jayGlow wrote:
| Christians don't belive the Bible was written by God they
| belive it's the word of God. the inconsistencies and
| contradictions are because its been written by many
| people over hundreds of years.
| achierius wrote:
| They don't even believe it's the word of God, strictly --
| Jesus is the Word of God, the Bible merely contains (in
| parts) the word of God as reported by men. This is a key
| distinction between Christian and Islamic theology.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I've heard it described as "Jesus is the Word of God, the
| Bible is words about God", but there is definitely
| diversity of belief within Christianity about that; there
| are certainly groups that have views of the Bible that
| other Christians view as near-idolatrous.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If the Bible was written by an omniscient and all-
| powerful God, then why does it have so many inaccuracies
| in it?
|
| This would be a very good gotcha for a religion that
| believed the Bible was written by God (or at least
| dictated verbatim) and that it was intended to be a
| purely literal factual account, neither of which are
| majority positions within Christian theology
| (Fundamentalism, in which close approximations of both
| are important defining beliefs, being a relatively new
| movement within Protestantism and not the mainstream of
| Christianity.)
| baobun wrote:
| So assumimg we have
|
| 1. Physical reality (e.g. how many years has earth
| existed)
|
| 2. Metaphysical reality (is there a creator? If so is
| your "soul" or life in any way relevant to them?)
|
| 3. Moral reality (Is killing other humans in cold blood
| justified by scripture? Are there such a thing as "Good"
| and "Evil"?)
|
| 4. Cultural reality (What do the people who raised you
| and otherwise influence you believe, local traditions and
| stories, scripture)
|
| 5. What feels intuitive for an individual to realize ("As
| above, so below", the unit of self, comparing Christ with
| POTUS, "the fall of man")
|
| Assuming your local space-time intepretation gets it all
| right (and everyone with different understanding got and
| gets it wrong) and that all of these by necessity align
| is some next-level hubris...
| ivape wrote:
| 1) We can start with the fact that Historians believe
| Christ existed.
|
| 2) I can grant you he might have just been a harmless
| mentally ill person.
|
| 3) You must now grant me that we crucified someone for
| that.
|
| 4) The above is evil. There is your proof. If you need
| more, you can check out Nazism.
|
| 5) This mentally ill person was pretty adamant about the
| nature of sin.
|
| 6) At the very least , it's worth considering if he might
| have been right about a few things.
|
| 7) At the very least, one should be slightly freaked out
| that he actually existed and most likely died due the
| very reasons he suggested - that something is utterly
| wrong with humans.
|
| 8) I'd let the whole true date of physical reality go. We
| literally reinvented time after he died. I won't hold the
| Old Testament to the test of carbon dating, and
| reconsider that those books told us all the nature of how
| things began (from a big explosion).
|
| 9) And then we find the miraculous Dead Sea Scrolls
| proving that those books were not altered through the
| course of time.
|
| 10) The books say your soul is quite important. Christ
| was also one of the first to suggest your morality is
| from within (the thing atheist often suggest).
|
| 11) I'd finally suggest the following about science:
|
| Imagine I take a shit in a toilet. Imagine you are a
| brilliant scientist that sits around and figures out
| every measurement of how the shit moves around the
| toilet, down to the physics, down to the chemical
| composition of the shit. You would have figured out the
| physics of the universe of your toilet, but you will
| never ever know that I took the shit because I ate a lot
| of Taco Bell.
|
| 12) Hubris would be thinking our constant measuring
| (science) proves anything about our purpose.
|
| 13) Given the above hypothetical, it would be humble to
| accept the fear of god scripture puts into us, since we
| would have never even come close to figuring out our
| purpose via science (finding the true nature of God's
| Taco Bell order) without these goofy books.
|
| 14) Last but not least:
|
| If the Big Bang was the moment of creation, you can
| believe one of two things:
|
| A) _Something_ caused it
|
| B) Space was a vacuum and something came from nothing.
|
| If you believe A (You believe in God), our very existence
| is contingent on the sequence, A lead to B, then to C,
| and so on, so the entire chain of us talking here was
| deliberate (plus or minus all the free will decisions of
| humans, mostly a rounding error in the grand scheme).
|
| 15) And my personal favorite, everyone one of our births
| was a miracle given how sexual reproduction works (we all
| beat a million other possibilities). Faith is not hard
| when you truly see just how insane the odds are for so
| many things. Therefore, I'm quite open to the
| ridiculousness of the Galileans story. Another way to put
| it is, I am in awe of God.
| NickC25 wrote:
| >2) I can grant you he might have just been a harmless
| mentally ill person.
|
| The same could be said for the "prophets" of any major
| religion. Muhammad (SWT) arguably went into a state of
| psychosis after the premature deaths of both of his sons.
| Joseph Smith, a local drunk in a small western NY town,
| said a magical rock in a hat that only he could see told
| him the garden of Eden was in St. Louis and that the
| native Americans weren't native Americans, but rather,
| the real original Israelites.
|
| 3) You must now grant me that we crucified someone for
| that.
|
| Sure.
|
| 4) The above is evil. There is your proof. If you need
| more, you can check out Nazism.
|
| Sure. However, some pretty fucked up stuff has been done
| in the names of God, Jesus, Allah, Muhammad (SWT),
| Israel, Buddha, and so on. Doesn't justify anything.
|
| 5) This mentally ill person was pretty adamant about the
| nature of sin.
|
| So was MLK Jr. He got shot.
|
| 6) At the very least , it's worth considering if he might
| have been right about a few things.
|
| Sure. Which is why his message is also a cornerstone of
| Islam.
|
| 7) At the very least, one should be slightly freaked out
| that he actually existed and most likely died due the
| very reasons he suggested - that something is utterly
| wrong with humans.
|
| It actually gives me reason to reject religion as a
| whole. If God made man in his own image, and man treats
| his fellow man with disdain, hatred, violence, etc, what
| does that say about God? If God was so perfect, why would
| he create beings that have free will to destroy the life
| of another? Paradoxical at best, a fallacy at worst.
| ImJamal wrote:
| Have you ever played telephone? Messages get distorted in
| a couple minutes. Thousands of years is plenty of time to
| be easily believe that people would deviate on various
| gods.
| bee_rider wrote:
| A god should be supernaturally good at telephone, right?
| Otherwise it brings would open up some pretty
| uncomfortable questions for folks who follow the
| teachings of modern translations of their books.
| freedomben wrote:
| This strikes me as a pretty powerful argument against
| trusting the Bible (and other scripture older than a few
| hundred years), especially since we have a ton of
| evidence that distortion is exactly what happened. Even
| just reconciling the four gospels requires some pretty
| serious "interpretation."
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| On the other hand, aren't most creation myths actually
| strikingly similar in terms of overall themes? That
| doesn't mean they are right, but I imagine there is an
| underlying proto religion shared by most if not all
| ancient faiths.
| robofanatic wrote:
| > aren't most creation myths actually strikingly similar
| in terms of overall themes
|
| Like any other product, someone invented it first, and
| others followed/copied. Over thousands of years,
| religions evolved separately, but you can still find
| traces of a shared origin running through them all.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| If you think quantum = supernatural you just didn't
| understand the topic.
|
| It ought to be telling that all the woo woo comes from
| people who don't know anything.
| 1-more wrote:
| > The closest science has gotten was to actually
| corroborate that, yes, this was all not infinite and had a
| starting point (big bang), literally corroborated let there
| be light.
|
| Georges Lemaitre, one of the original articulators of the
| Big Bang was a Catholic priest. He did not appreciate Pope
| Pius XII characterizing his research as confirming "let
| there be light." There are many references to criticism he
| received for publishing a theory that meshed well with "let
| there be light," however I am not able to find any primary
| sources for them.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre#Views_o
| n...
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| It is, however, pretty wonderful for the Big-Bang-is-
| creation view that light comes into existence on the
| first day, and God doesn't get around to making the sun
| until day four.
| imchillyb wrote:
| You are conflating a localized source of photonic
| emission with light.
|
| Light is an electromagnetic field that permeates
| everything in and through. Without the field first there
| are no photons, there is no physics, no gravity.
|
| God claimed to be this force. In all. Through all.
| Nothing could exist without it.
|
| How would a primitive people know this, understand this?
| They could not. We certainly can.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > In fact, if you are true believer, you almost need to
| keep it hidden because it's going to come off as mentally
| ill.
|
| Even agreeing on what a "True Believer" is would be
| impossible but, from what I have read of the bible and know
| from 18+ years in the church I agree. As I child I got in
| trouble a few times for suggesting we take the concepts in
| the bible to their logical end. Things like:
|
| - If we really believe all these people will burn in hell
| then why aren't we all becoming missionaries?
|
| Then when I learned about "age of accountability" [0] I had
| 2 questions:
|
| - If there is no age set on the age of accountability (to
| account for people living in remote areas who never heard
| the word of god) then isn't being a missionary and going to
| those places damning some percentage of them to hell if
| they don't accept jesus as their lord and savior? Aren't
| you making it worse? Even if you are able to "save" 60%
| you've damned the other 40% when before you visiting 100%
| would never have met the "age of accountability" due to
| never hearing about jesus?
|
| and the much more horrifying question (note: I was 6 or 7
| at the time)
|
| - If the the age of accountability is real, and if our time
| on earth is truly inconsequential compared to eternity in
| heaven then (AGAIN: I was a child, I want just following
| logical chains), isn't the best option to kill everyone
| before that age so they will live for eternity in heaven?
|
| Needless to say none of these questions were appreciated
| and all of them resulted in anger from the adults I
| mentioned it to. It taught me from a very young age how to
| lie or obscure what I thought/believed since voicing it or
| even asking innocent questions got me in trouble for
| reasons I could not understand. Perhaps there are logical
| flaws in my questions that a biblical scholar could point
| out but all I got was the fury of people too invested in a
| myth to question it.
|
| [0] Concept that if you are younger than it and you die
| without being "saved" then you will still go to heaven
| because, essentially, you didn't know any better. There is
| no age defined since people reach that state at different
| ages and, IIRC, it even accounts for people who never hear
| the word of god and thus don't have an opportunity to be
| saved.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| A good faith attempt to provide insight into good faith
| questions you shouldn't have been punished for asking:
|
| "If we really believe all these people will burn in hell
| then why aren't we all becoming missionaries?"
|
| Every Christian should seek to "become a missionary" in
| the sense that they should be a positive example and
| "practice what they preach" while being ready to share
| honestly about the Christian faith if appropriate/if
| asked. This is a standard we should hold ourselves to
| with the help of God.
|
| Early Christians did employ this level of urgency for
| evangelization, and (according to tradition) the original
| 12 themselves went as far as Spain and India (without the
| aid of modern transportation methods, of course).
| Christian churches spread as far as China, but later
| suffered persecution and much of the rest of the known
| world had to wait until the colonial era before Christian
| missionaries arrived in significant numbers again.
| Outside of specific uncontacted tribes (and I think a guy
| just got killed trying to evangelize one of them), I do
| not know if there are currently populations to which the
| gospel has not been preached. Translation of Christian
| writing and good works are the correct method of
| evangelization at this point, and this work should be
| supported materially and with prayer.
|
| As for the question of "the fate of the unlearned", there
| have been a variety of answers (or, more accurately,
| methods of approaching this question) which have included
| "they're screwed", "God judges them according to their
| heart", "God sends them the gospel via miraculous means",
| "Those who live according to the Logos are Christians but
| not aware of it", to the more modern "they may receive
| salvation through Christ through their faith in God as
| they know him" (other religions). It is important to note
| that from the perspective of Christian cosmology,
| (falling in Eden), God would be wholly justified in
| smiting us down into hell, and has no obligation to have
| done any of the things he has for us.
|
| "Then when I learned about "age of accountability" [0] I
| had 2 questions"
|
| You were right to consider the difficulties with this
| position as it (as expressed in your footnote) is not a
| historic Christian belief, but a retroactive
| justification for groups who deny infant baptism.
|
| If we adjust the question to "why don't we kill all
| infants after they're baptized if they will just go to
| heaven", the answer is because it is expressly forbidden
| by God in his prohibition on murder. On a similar note,
| suicide is expressly forbidden because it is a rejection
| of the role on earth you have been called to play,
| whereas giving up your life for the sake of another, or
| for the sake of the Gospel, is an ideal because it is in
| the service of others, which is the fundamental role
| Christians are ordered to fill.
|
| I hope this helps. May God bless you and reveal his truth
| in your life.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _If we adjust the question to "why don't we kill all
| infants after they're baptized if they will just go to
| heaven", the answer is because it is expressly forbidden
| by God in his prohibition on murder. On a similar note,
| suicide is expressly forbidden because it is a rejection
| of the role on earth you have been called to play,
| whereas giving up your life for the sake of another, or
| for the sake of the Gospel, is an ideal because it is in
| the service of others, which is the fundamental role
| Christians are ordered to fill._
|
| I have the same question/concern as GP (and have never
| seen another express that, so that's cool!) and have
| never gotten a great answer. I (truly) appreciate you
| engaging on this. It's very difficult because most people
| get so highly offended at the premise that they aren't
| able to address it (and I don't blame them as it is quite
| a horrifying thing to think about, even just as a thought
| experiment).
|
| Yes I agree that murder is wrong, but wouldn't it be an
| incredibly selfless act to sacrifice your own salvation
| so that countless others could be saved? I.e. if I had
| two kids (or 10 kids, or whatever), I can only go to hell
| once but I could "guarantee" salvation for all of them if
| I'm just willing to kill them. Wouldn't the best gift I
| could give them be eternal life with Christ?
|
| Going even further, Jesus (by most accounts) allowed
| himself to be killed when he easily had the power to stop
| it, which seems to me to be only a stone's throw away
| from suicide. He did it to save all of us from our sins.
| Isn't that basically the same thing?
| nineplay wrote:
| > If we adjust the question to "why don't we kill all
| infants after they're baptized if they will just go to
| heaven", the answer is because it is expressly forbidden
| by God in his prohibition on murder.
|
| As a parent, I would go to hell to keep my children out
| of it. Therefore the logical thing to do would be to kill
| my children and ensure their salvation. While I burn in
| eternal torment, I can hold onto the slight bit of
| comfort that I will never see my children burning next to
| me.
| leptons wrote:
| I like Feynman's take that "I don't feel frightened by not
| knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe
| without having any purpose which is the way it really is as
| far as I can tell"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1RqTP5Unr4
|
| The true believers in Christianity _have to know_ , their
| world view is hinged on knowing that there is a god, that
| the world was created in 7 days, and that the earth is only
| 6,000 years old, among many other questionable religious
| beliefs. They're wrong about all of it (IMHO as someone who
| grew up Catholic), but at least in their own minds, _they
| know_. And that 's good enough for them, they don't have to
| ask any more questions because a book written by kings told
| them so.
| regus wrote:
| The Catholic Church does not hold Young Earth Creationism
| as dogma nor does it hold that the seven days in Genesis
| were literal days.
| tengwar2 wrote:
| Revelations is problematic if you attempt to take it
| literally rather than understanding that it makes heavy use
| of symbolism and other literary devices. That literalism is
| largely specific to American society - and I don't just
| mean American Christians here. It's not particularly easy
| to understand the way that ancient literature works, but
| even if you don't want to put in the time, it's important
| to understand that the writers were often quite
| sophisticated, and worked in different ways from what you
| are used to.
| delfinom wrote:
| Well, if we applied some logic on top of the fiction, Jesus
| would reign for all of a month before he gets hung for being
| a socialist. lmao.
| guywithahat wrote:
| Yes you, presumably someone who is not a christian and has
| never read the bible, know better than billions of
| christians and the millions of people who've actually read
| the bible.
|
| I'm not religious, but this is a bad take.
| bee_rider wrote:
| "Socialist Jesus" is kind of a meme (or, maybe a blowback
| meme on Capitalist Jesus). But, he was apparently pretty
| into taking care of the poor, right?
| vintermann wrote:
| Selling all you own and giving the money to the poor,
| even.
|
| One thing Jesus was definitely not, was an optimizing
| utilitarian. He repeats in a dozen different ways in the
| Sermon on the Mount that people should do what is right,
| right now, and not worry about what's going to happen
| (worry about tomorrow, worry about what they will eat,
| what they will wear etc.)
| guywithahat wrote:
| The meme relies on assuming Socialism==being a good
| person.
|
| This is obviously not the case, as any economic structure
| is more complex than just being a chill dude, and the
| bible has a more complex view of morality than just
| "being nice to thy neighbor".
| bee_rider wrote:
| It also relies on modern understandings of the words
| "socialist" and "capitalist," which, as far as I know,
| hadn't been invented yet when the Bible was written.
| Memes are silly, that's the point.
| plorg wrote:
| No? The meme relies on Jesus having lived and spoken in a
| way that a large group claiming to be his followers today
| would deride as "Socialism", whether or not it resembles
| your own, Karl Marx's, or Maduro's "Socialism", and in
| fact regardless of whether the meme-sayer thinks
| Socialism by some definition is good. It's a statement
| about how the loudest followers of Jesus or Christianity
| preach and act at odds with the meme-er's understanding
| of the gospel (specifically the 4 books of the Bible that
| tell the story of Jesus), and for it to work you don't
| even have to assume that Jesus was good.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The meme relies on assuming Socialism==being a good
| person.
|
| No, it doesn't.
|
| It relies on understanding what views today have been
| _described by their opponents_ as "socialist", and what
| views Jesus espouses in the Scripture. It does not
| require:
|
| (1) thinking Jesus is good, or
|
| (2) thinking socialism is good, or
|
| (3) knowing or applying any actual definition of
| socialism (since it only involves the term "socialism"
| being used as a hostile epithet, not any concept of
| whether or not something _actually is_ socialism.)
| lovich wrote:
| I read their comment as more of a critique on the actions
| of the "true" believers, not a critique of anything Jesus
| would do
| plorg wrote:
| >Yes you, presumably someone who is not a christian and
| has never read the bible...
|
| > I'm not religious, but this is a bad take.
|
| ???
| guywithahat wrote:
| Say neither of us are French, have never been to Paris,
| and have never studied it. Everyone in France says one
| thing about the city Paris, but you say the opposite. I
| don't need to be an expert on France and Paris to say
| that the millions of people living there probably know
| better than you.
|
| In the same vein, claiming you know more about a religion
| than the millions/billions of people who follow it is a
| low-IQ take, especially if the person making the claim
| knows nothing about the religion.
| plorg wrote:
| The person you are responding to is making a point that
| many Christians have made in the past and present. Hell,
| the entire story of Jesus _in the Bible_ is one of
| conflict with existing religious and government
| institutions and authorities, culminating in his death at
| the hands of those same characters.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| If you ever do get around to reading the new testament,
| you'll find that Jesus is _obviously_ more of a
| collectivist than a capitalist. Jesus "radicalized" me.
| You can try and delay this realization by arguing over
| the minutiae of what exactly socialism is and if Jesus
| would agree with Marx on every little thing, but that,
| and also failing to practice what he preached doesn't
| change Jesus' obvious message that hoarding wealth,
| consolidating power, othering people, etc., is not a path
| to heaven.
| hinkley wrote:
| Throwing down moneylenders tables in the temple is pretty
| unambiguous. How many times did Jesus show violence or
| aggression? That's the only one I can think of really.
|
| Though he did throw out some wicked burns a time or two.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _How many times did Jesus show violence or aggression?
| That's the only one I can think of really._
|
| I think you might be forgetting about the bulk of the Old
| Testament
| meetingthrower wrote:
| Pre-JC...
| freedomben wrote:
| > 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
| God, and the Word was God. 2. He was in the beginning
| with God. 3. All things came into being through Him, and
| apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into
| being. (John 1:1-3)
|
| > I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who
| is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty"
| (Revelation 1:8).
|
| > And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the
| Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will
| give from the spring of the water of life without
| payment" (Revelation 21:6).
|
| > "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,
| the beginning and the end" (Revelation 22:13).
| acdha wrote:
| Jesus is a New Testament figure and very explicitly broke
| with the past in key ways. This is why his followers are
| not required to keep kosher, commit genocide, or abstain
| from having tattoos or mixed fiber clothing.
| freedomben wrote:
| No, they're not required to keep kosher, commit genocide,
| or abstain from having tattoos or mixed fiber clothing
| because he fulfilled the law, not because he replaced
| it[1].
|
| Furthermore Jesus _was_ the God of the Old Testament, at
| least if you accept the New Testament as scripture[2].
|
| [1]: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the
| prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
| --Matthew 5:17
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44130537
| acdha wrote:
| Your first paragraph is repeating my point: Christians
| are not bound by the same rules as the Jews in the Old
| Testament.
|
| As for the second, you're leaving out the last couple of
| millennia of Christians debating the exact nature of God
| and fissuring into different groups over the details.
| Most variants recognize some difference between the OT
| and NT gods, however, because you have to explain the
| difference in their actions and instructions.
| Tyr42 wrote:
| The pre Jesus books?
| freedomben wrote:
| Are you suggesting Jesus wasn't the God of the Old
| Testament? If so that's a fair defense, but it's also not
| Christian...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > > How many times did Jesus show violence or aggression?
| That's the only one I can think of really.
|
| > I think you might be forgetting about the bulk of the
| Old Testament
|
| I'm pretty certain _Jesus Christ_ does not show violence
| or aggression in the OT even as much as the one time
| being described as him showing violence or aggression in
| the NT.
|
| I mean, I think that's a necessary consequence of a
| pretty fundamental element of the OT vs. NT distinction.
| lazide wrote:
| I don't know about you, but I got kicked out of church
| (well, asked to leave and not come back) after I read the
| Bible and started to, uh, ask questions. And compare what
| the pastor was saying vs 'the word of god'.
|
| I personally am 100% sure Jesus would be dead pretty
| quick if he came back - a lot faster than before, and I
| doubt it would take 30 pieces of silver either!
| hinkley wrote:
| "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is burned at
| the stake."
| brulard wrote:
| He should not come as a mortal anymore. But I agree there
| would be many judases to do the job.
| hinkley wrote:
| You know Christianity was built in a time of broad scale
| illiteracy don't you? The reason sermons and the Bible
| are so at odds with each other is that for the most part
| only the priesthood had read the damned thing.
|
| Even today most Christians haven't read the whole thing.
| I'm not Christian in large part because I did. And it's
| almost all batshit.
| matwood wrote:
| > I'm not Christian in large part because I did. And it's
| almost all batshit.
|
| Haha, same. I was forced to go to church and Sunday
| school as a kid, which I hated. But since I was there, I
| read large parts of the bible. This led me to asking a
| lot of questions, some of which caused me to be remove
| from Sunday school a few times. Eventually I was old
| enough to explain why I was an atheist and never went
| back.
| hinkley wrote:
| I don't talk about this often but I took seminary
| classes. Where they tried to explain away the
| incongruities. It mostly stuck until it didn't and then
| the whole mess of it tore itself apart with tremendous
| violence. If I hadn't had a friend who was into social
| justice at the time to hold onto like flotsam after a
| ship sinks I don't know if I would be here today.
| freedomben wrote:
| It is amazing how rapidly the whole thing shimmies apart
| once the first domino starts to fall. For me it was
| Theodicy, and the backbending required to explain whose
| "free will" is to blame for hurricanes, tsunamis, and
| other natural disasters that kill hordes of innocent
| people (including children) every year.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It gets worse. Spend any time reading about psychology
| and it becomes obvious that the OT god ticks all the
| boxes for grandiose narcissistic personality disorder.
|
| The OT god is an abuser who demands unconditional and
| unquestioning love and admiration and threatens
| disobedience with eternal torture. It's textbook.
|
| The NT is more complex, but huge swathes of Christianity
| are still hypnotised by the OT. They like the idea of
| Jesus as an authority, but not so much the reality of the
| teachings.
| zajio1am wrote:
| Never heard about Jesus pleading for 'seizing means of
| production'. I heard it was more like 'Give back to Caesar
| what is Caesar's'.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Never heard about Jesus pleading for 'seizing means of
| production'.
|
| This is something he has in common with many of the
| people that modern dominant (in the US, at least)
| political groups condemn for "socialism".
| ryandv wrote:
| Then they should choose not to identify with a word that
| is defined by "social ownership of the means of
| production," [0] whose main proponent advocates that
| there is "only one way, [...] and that way is
| revolutionary terror." [1]
|
| You can't equivocate terms like this, identifying with
| the more extreme definition but walking it back when
| pressed. This is active distortion and manipulation of
| language, and this is far from the only instance of such
| in society.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
|
| [1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/0
| 6.htm
| gs17 wrote:
| They can't choose it, they didn't (necessarily) identify
| as it in the first place.
|
| > the people that modern dominant (in the US, at least)
| political groups condemn for "socialism"
|
| They weren't talking about actual socialists, they're
| talking about the right's propensity to call anyone else
| a leftist. For example, if you ask my dad if Biden was a
| socialist, he'd tell you yes, and then if you asked how,
| he would list many things that have nothing to do with
| economic policy.
| ryandv wrote:
| > They can't choose it, they didn't (necessarily)
| identify as it in the first place.
|
| On a postmodern basis: if enough people believe in that
| narrative, it becomes reified as the truth, which is
| socially constructed. Therefore if the dominant belief is
| that they are socialist, then it is so.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Then they should choose not to identify with a word
| that is defined by "social ownership of the means of
| production,"
|
| The people that are condemned by others for "socialism"
| very often do not identify with socialism in any respect.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| There's a history of a more complex definition of
| socalism than just sticking with the stuff written 150
| years ago.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way
| CyrsBel wrote:
| Jesus was a socialist? Was that before or after he used
| supernatural powers to increase the quantity of food
| instantly? Easy to be a "socialist" in such cases, but
| let's not pretend that there's any serious economic
| theorizing being done when people say this about Jesus.
| It's usually just a convenience for people looking to grift
| or instigate. lmao.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I mean, he did actually die on a cross and fast in the
| wilderness. Don't think the "multiplying food" thing was
| a huge escape hatch in the bible.
| CyrsBel wrote:
| Because that is part of what he came to do at that time.
| He intentionally chose to die on a cross and fast in the
| wilderness. If he wanted an escape hatch from that fate,
| he would've not come or he would've summoned a bunch of
| angels to defend him.
| krapp wrote:
| People call Jesus a socialist because of the numerous
| times he commanded people to distribute their wealth to
| the poor and needy, help the sick, forgive debts and
| treat immigrants with respect and dignity.
|
| No one is literally claiming that Jesus was espousing
| some kind of proto-Marxist economic theory so much as
| pointing out that in the context of modern (specifically
| American) political discourse, Jesus would be considered
| a socialist.
|
| Then again, so would Ronald Reagan and Adam Smith. At
| this point the Overton window of what constitutes
| "socialism" has drifted so far that anyone to the left of
| Ayn Rand might as well be a tankie.
| 47282847 wrote:
| > At this point the Overton window of what constitutes
| "socialism" has drifted so far that anyone to the left of
| Ayn Rand might as well be a tankie.
|
| This. Thank you.
| AngryData wrote:
| As a side note, tankie doesn't mean socialist, tankie is
| a slur against authoritarians that was invented by
| socialists to call people out for abandoning socialist
| principles in favor of authoritarian control.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Yeah, I think people outside of the socialist sphere
| whose understanding of ideology is limited to a one-
| dimensional spectrum see it as a slur by _moderate_
| socialists against _more extreme_ socialists but that 's
| not how it is seen by those using it.
| hinkley wrote:
| Marx was perhaps so influential because he riffed on
| ideas from the Bible and dressed them up as intellectual.
| lukev wrote:
| To add, not just Jesus, but the entire Bible.
|
| The Year of Jubilee alone, from the Pentateuch, basically
| eliminates capitalism as we know it (if enacted at a full
| societal scale.)
| CyrsBel wrote:
| I don't think the Year of Jubilee would eliminate
| capitalism. It just adds a reset into the assumptions so
| that nobody is ever screwed. Instead, there's a reset
| available for people every so often. I also think the
| Bible says a lot about wisdom and how to earn a profit,
| not just in financial terms but in time management too.
| Proverbs has many examples.
|
| So I would say that on the Bible, we'd still have free
| markets but with more guard rails so that nobody falls
| through the cracks if they're at least trying.
|
| I do think we should bring back the Year of Jubilee
| though. Ironically, 2025 is a Year of Jubilee. I'm a big
| fan and I'm sure there are viable modern interpretations
| for it.
| CyrsBel wrote:
| In history, America has been one of the most generous
| nations, if not the most generous, as far as charitable
| contributions go. I think people say "Jesus was a
| socialist" because they consider it an easy way to win
| more points in a debate or to ask for more social benefit
| spending. You can be a capitalist and still distribute
| wealth to the poor and needy, help the sick, forgive
| debts, be nice to immigrants, etc. There are entire
| products that are built to facilitate those things and
| enterprising individuals are able to donate from their
| surplus for those things too.
|
| None of those things have anything to do with who owns
| the means of production or taking things from people who
| produced them, though. Jesus advocated for voluntary
| selflessness, not charity by compulsion. And certainly he
| didn't advocate for there to be a hall monitor on
| someone's personal life and income in order for that hall
| monitor to be the arbiter of whether or not it's all
| according to Jesus' "socialist" tendencies.
|
| In modern American political discourse, if Jesus showed
| up he'd be expected to do miraculous things like
| multiplying resources. So...I don't see how meaningful it
| is for someone to say Jesus would be a socialist as if it
| is any kind of informed or useful commentary on the state
| of American discourse.
| hinkley wrote:
| If everyone gave away their money and followed him it
| would be a suicide cult. Even in a world where there's a
| guy who can conjure food and heal the sick how long
| before the whole world fell apart? Shit needs to get done
| constantly for the world to support this many humans.
| lukev wrote:
| I mean, this is a little disingenuous. If you posit that
| there exists a supernatural mechanism for providing food
| and health, why would you admit that it exists for a
| small subset of the population, but not a larger (or
| whole) population?
| api wrote:
| If you have a "brain wallet," can you take your crypto with
| you on the rapture?
| water-data-dude wrote:
| I feel like some of the angels would probably be able to
| calculate very large primes easily. I'm not an
| angeloligist, but maybe the ones that are wheels all
| covered in eyes.
| extra88 wrote:
| Feels like profiling to say someone with the name
| Metatron would be good at math.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Angelic intellects exist in the aevum. They are
| incorporal. They have no need to engage in discursive
| reasoning like we do, no need to calculate.
| wahern wrote:
| That's the pre-Renaissance, theological idea of angels. I
| would presume the OP probably knows that given their
| esoteric reference to Ophanim (TIL!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophanim), but also
| understands that the vast majority of people, including
| Christians, have a metaphysical conception of angels
| primarily informed by comic books and films.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| They might have no "need" to do so, but aren't we aware
| of at least one of theses beasts that exists more or less
| only to fuck with people?
| smithkl42 wrote:
| Maybe kinda analogous to the difference between
| declarative and imperative languages. They (supposedly)
| don't do step-by-step reasoning to get at the truth, they
| just "see" it. Like the old story about Bhaskara's proof
| of the Pythagorean Theorem being, just, "Behold."
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Of course they would have money in heaven. Some people are
| in a little bit more of a paradise than others I guess...
| klipt wrote:
| Is that how the rich men are squeezing into heaven these
| days?
|
| "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the
| needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven"
|
| There's a theory that the eye of the needle was a narrow
| gate in Jerusalem's city wall that was notoriously hard for
| camels to squeeze through. But seems the hard evidence for
| that is limited.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > There's a theory that the eye of the needle was a
| narrow gate in Jerusalem's city wall
|
| This is a _very_ debunked myth, brought to you by people
| who are desperate to avoid Christianity 's clear
| proscription on hoarding wealth.
| lazide wrote:
| Can you imagine how many indulgences a billion dollars
| could buy? Hey, enough billions and you might even be
| able to buy your own gospel!
| hinkley wrote:
| Emperor Constantine has entered the chat.
|
| King James has entered the chat.
|
| Henry VIII has entered the chat.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| To be clear, it isn't wealth per se that is taught is
| evil, but attachment to it and pining for it. The
| prosperity gospel demonstrates this perverse and
| unhealthy lust for riches.
|
| Many don't pay attention to the fuller context.
| And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you,
| only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom
| of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to
| go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to
| enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this,
| they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be
| saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this
| is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
|
| The rich only make up a very small percentage of any
| society, so why would the disciples ask "Who then can be
| saved?". They ask, because it isn't wealth per se, but
| attachment and greed. The poor and modest in possessions,
| who made up most of Christ's disciples, were vulnerable
| to the very same vice.
|
| Experience confirms this. Look at the aspirations of the
| poor in our societies. They are often vulgar, base, and
| materialistic.
| mullingitover wrote:
| It's clear that that proper practice for a wealthy person
| would be to immediately jettison the wealth. Matt 19:21
| NIV: "Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go,
| sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will
| have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
|
| So if you're wealthy and poor people _exist_ , you're in
| a state of sin. Christianity is an apocalyptic religion,
| you're to assume the world could end tomorrow so your
| instructions aren't to simply not _want_ the money, it 's
| to get rid of it and donate it all to charity
| immediately.
| Amezarak wrote:
| The story in Matthew 19:21 has exactly the same point and
| precedes this very parable.
|
| > But when the young man heard that saying, he went away
| sorrowful: for he had great possessions. [Then follows
| the camel and the needle.]
|
| The rich man fails the test because he is _unable_ to
| give up his wealth; his heart is not in the right place.
| He loves the world and he loves his riches more than he
| loves God. It is entirely possible to have your heart in
| the right place and be rich, as demonstrated by several
| other examples.
|
| Another example is in Acts, where Peter kills a man and
| his wife because they lie about how much money they're
| giving - they were perfectly free, and would have been
| saved, even had they withheld their money from the
| commons. Paul also says there are not _many_ rich men
| that are Christians - but there are _some_.
|
| The attitude that "ahah, you didn't give your money to
| the poor, so you're not a REAL Christian doing what
| you're supposed to do" is put into the mouth of a figure
| in the Bible. That figure is Judas.
|
| > Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very
| costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his
| feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the
| odour of the ointment.
|
| > 4Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot,
| Simon's son, which should betray him,
|
| > 5Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred
| pence, and given to the poor?
|
| Jesus, and the other apostles, are not saying that you
| can't be rich. They're saying you cannot love money more
| than God, and even trusting in money is ultimately a
| foolish endeavor because your life and prosperity are in
| God's hands.
|
| If you are snidely arguing that people aren't Christians
| or following God simply because they haven't given all
| their money to the poor, you are falling into the same
| error as Judas, and the same general category of error as
| the Pharisees.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Another example is in Acts
|
| It's almost as if the Bible has different authors with
| different audiences and different aims in their writing,
| all of whom had no idea or plan for their writing to be
| codified into a single text by third parties who in turn
| had their _own_ audience and goals.
| Amezarak wrote:
| The rich man sorrowfully turning away from Jesus after he
| tells him that to be perfect, he should give up all his
| wealth, and then the story of the camel through the eye
| of the needle immediately following it as a reflection on
| the man's actions, is repeated almost word-for-word in
| Luke 18.
|
| Luke and Acts internally claim to be written by the same
| author, and modern scholarship agrees they were written
| by the same author.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke%E2%80%93Acts
|
| > The view that they were written by the same person is
| virtually unanimous among scholars.
|
| So no, "well, it's because the Bible was written by
| different people" doesn't get you out of this one.
| hinkley wrote:
| Gambling is pining for wealth.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Gambling is humanity's way of enacting a tax on hope.
| hinkley wrote:
| Usually that's, "a tax on people bad at math."
|
| If I put an effort into not being cynical, I would say
| public funds spent on R&D are the more accurate tax on
| hope. We are collecting money for Progress and Progress
| will save us from today's inescapable facts. We hope it
| will not replace them with something worse.
| mullingitover wrote:
| I mean, if the stance is "Progress is bad, actually,"
| then yes obviously government funding of basic research
| is really bad. If your stance is "ROI is bad, too" then
| absolutely, government funding of research is boneheaded.
| o11c wrote:
| And even fuller context: for the rich to enter is "hard"
| (with comparisons), but someone who is not like a child
| "shall not enter" (no exceptions).
|
| (previous chapter in Matthew, earlier in the same chapter
| in Mark/Luke)
| tengwar2 wrote:
| That story is only tracked back to the 1400's, so not
| credible. The currently favoured theory is that this was
| a translation error. Apparently in Aramaic (the language
| of Judaea and Galilee), the word for "camel" is very
| close to the word for "rope". As with all parables (and
| this does qualify as a parable) it may be intended to
| reward some thought - e.g. the only way of getting a rope
| through the eye of needle is to strip away almost all of
| it, rather than being a flat negation.
| api wrote:
| So basically it says "you can't take it with you, so do
| something good with it while you're alive instead of
| hoarding it like you can take it with you."
| er4hn wrote:
| Only if you can also take the worldwide network and
| infrastructure that make it possible. Though a room full of
| human computers processing math out loud to send wealth
| around seems more associated with another part of the
| afterlife ;)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I feel like they accept crypto in Hell only.
| krageon wrote:
| You either believe everything will be over or you're a
| heretic. Not really any flavours to be had.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Sure there are, because your flavor is right and the others
| are wrong.
| yndoendo wrote:
| Religion is ignorance of reality. I choose reality and reject
| ignorance.
| achierius wrote:
| The large majority of Christians do not believe in any sort
| of 'Rapture'.
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| Well of course - those heretics were descended from those
| excommunicated in the 1500s.
| vintermann wrote:
| Come back and reign for a thousand years, but not touch
| private contact law and definitively let you keep and enjoy
| the fruits of the money you bet on him.
|
| Yeah, I won't rule out that they exist, but I think there are
| far better ways of "betting on Jesus" according to most
| denominations. I think price fluctuations in a market like
| this is more down to people betting on a bigger fool coming
| along, or otherwise convinced themselves that they can make
| money off this without actually believing in the outcome.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Yeah, I won't rule out that they exist,
|
| Word of Faith/Prosperity churches - God is a genie.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Faith
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
| hinkley wrote:
| Classically, the Devil follows the djinn trope. It's
| weird that Jesus is slowly being cast into that same
| role.
| korse wrote:
| Djinn trope? Point me at some relevant scholarship. I've
| always found the 1001 nights djinn interesting
| characters.
| hinkley wrote:
| The notion of being careful what you wish for because you
| just might get it is embodied in djinn, genies, Pandora,
| and the devil.
|
| You get what you asked for and not what you wanted.
| toast0 wrote:
| Sounds like programming :P
| wahern wrote:
| > Come back and reign for a thousand years, but not touch
| private contact law and definitively let you keep and enjoy
| the fruits of the money you bet on him.
|
| Modern Evangelical Christian movements have from the
| beginning incorporated (classically) liberal political
| theory, including economic theory, into their theology, not
| merely their ethics (as almost all faiths must do to some
| extent). But more recently there has been incorporation of
| more (classically) illiberal libertarian and conservative
| ideas in their theology. Someone else pointed out
| Prosperity Gospel, but the new hotness is the idea that
| charity and empathy is un-Christian. (Or to steel man it,
| the idea is that _excessive_ charity and empathy is un-
| Christian, but that begs alot of questions and arguably
| invites more self-serving utilitarian line drawing--the
| movement presupposes that contemporary American political
| culture is too charitable and empathetic.)
| hinkley wrote:
| John Goodman's character in O Brother was a man who
| realized selling bibles was a lucrative business. He was a
| con man.
|
| I think you're on the right track. It's not the betters but
| the bookie who you need to look askance at here.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| I presume your experience is limited to the parochial world
| of American Evangelical Christianity, or perhaps anecdotal,
| informed by your experience with intellectually
| unsophisticated people. Dawkins and his ilk used to love to
| pick on these poor people, because it's so easy, even for a
| philosophical and theological rube like Dawkins.
|
| But you are certainly not describing the intellectual muscle
| and heft of the Catholic tradition. You don't stand a chance.
|
| Materialists, by contrast, either never realize the
| incoherence of their naive position, or double down,
| consigning themselves to ever greater absurdities (yes, I am
| looking at you, eliminativism).
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| There is no dissonance in Catholic faith / philosophy? No
| hoop jumping to explain why Biblical claims don't match the
| lived experience of most people?
| kbrkbr wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious. What would that be?
|
| Judging by their creeds it's believing that Easter really
| happened, and that the highest being is a composition that
| must be explained in hard to understand greek ontological
| terms.
| harimau777 wrote:
| Honestly, it would be weird if a supream being DIDN'T
| have to be explained in difficult to understand, abstract
| terms. Heck, look at medicine, human's are explained
| using difficult to understand Greek terms.
| DevKoala wrote:
| What is the cognitive dissonance true believers learn to live
| with?
| wahern wrote:
| Presumably the conflict between an ostensibly scientific,
| materialist, atheistic reality of modernity and the non-
| empirical, spiritual, theistic reality of their faith.
| Though I think it's implicit in the criticism of religious
| believers that they resolve the dissonance by, e.g.,
| rejecting scientific truths. And arguably the other side
| does the same, by rejecting the metaphysical; compare
| atheism to agnosticism, where the former rejects what the
| latter says it cannot logically do as core religious
| beliefs tend not to be falsifiable. Personally, I like F.
| Scott Fitzgerald's perspective--"the test of a first-rate
| intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in
| the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to
| function." Dissonance is everywhere, including in the
| modern so-called evidence-based world, often inescapable,
| and perhaps even fundamental to the human experience.
| freedomben wrote:
| Just my opinion, I think at least a portion of them have to
| learn to live with "faith" being the answer to some hard
| questions. You also don't have to look hard for doctrines
| that are contradictory. For example: was Jesus human or
| God? (and keep in mind that God is traditinally viewed as
| tri-omni, meaning omnipotent, omniscient, and
| omnibenevolent)
|
| Many times I've asked that I'm told "he was 100% human and
| also 100% God." I'm sure different sects believe
| differently on that, but plenty do accept that. When I ask
| "how is it possible to be 100% human and 100% God?" you'll
| sometimes get answers like, "well it's like water in
| different forms, ice, liquid, and vapor" but that doesn't
| answer the question (it answers a question about how Jesus
| and God the Father can both be God yet still be
| "monotheistic"). When pushed it has always come down to
| "some things have to be accepted on faith." That is
| obviously enough for plenty of people, but I personally
| find it insufficient. Back when I was a believer I had
| cognitive dissonance over that question that I somewhat
| learned to live with (obviously not entirely as I am no
| longer a believer, but it wasn't _that_ question that led
| me to ultimately lose my faith).
| jajko wrote:
| Asking logical critical questions will not get you far
| with any hardcore believer, at least I havent met any,
| ever.
|
| What you will get plenty of depends on personality -
| outright attack, run away in some form, or usual blanket
| statements with 0 actual meaning like "its faith", "you
| have to believe".
|
| As if anything else mattered but a clean moral behavior.
| Made up rituals very specific to given sect, on different
| dates, some ignored, some have other meanings. You
| shouldn't take it all literally, but they often take it
| literally to absurd levels.
|
| Yeah, I cant give much respect to believers or faith
| which cant handle a minute or two of critical thinking,
| and deeply ignore its own past and rather harsh moral
| failures. Mistakes not acknowledged and acted upon are
| mistakes waiting to happen again.
| jdelfuego wrote:
| Traditionally the explanation involves distinguishing
| between nature ("what") and person ("who"), which is the
| basis of the term "hypostatic union". There is one Person
| (which the gospel of st John refers to as "the Word"),
| which is of divine nature, i.e., is God; this Person
| assumed also a human nature, on the incarnation; and that
| is Jesus. This is what is meant by Jesus being truly God
| and truly Man: the one Person had united in himself both
| natures, the divine and the human.
|
| I agree it's unfortunate that these kinds of questions
| sometimes get answered by inadequate metaphors or simply
| by dismissals. The whole joy of theology, while still
| requiring faith, is trying to answer these questions
| rationally.
| jemfinch wrote:
| > Many times I've asked that I'm told "he was 100% human
| and also 100% God."
|
| Does this surprise you? The council of Nicea where this
| was defined as the orthodox claim happened in A.D. 325.
|
| > I'm sure different sects believe differently on that,
| but plenty do accept that. When I ask "how is it possible
| to be 100% human and 100% God?" you'll sometimes get
| answers like, "well it's like water in different for
|
| The _vast majority_ hold that, because the vast majority
| affirm Nicea. The only major denominations not holding to
| the orthodoxy here are (in descending order of size)
| Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Oneness Pentecostals,
| Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarians, and Christadelphians.
| They represent approximately 1.6-2.4% of the Christian
| population.
|
| > you'll sometimes get answers like, "well it's like
| water in different forms, ice, liquid, and vapor" but
| that doesn't answer the question
|
| The real (orthodox) answer depends on a metaphysics of
| substance that most Christians, even those who hold the
| orthodox view, are ill-prepared to elaborate on.
| DevKoala wrote:
| Getting downvoted for asking a question lol.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Keep in mind true believers often learn to live with a
| massive cognitive dissonance
|
| The midwit meme in real life.
| lukev wrote:
| Interesting. I can make assumptions, but how would you
| label the novice and jedi roles in this particular
| instantiation of the meme?
| analog31 wrote:
| I've learned that any mature religion or ideology can become
| self consistent enough to satisfice its adherents. Thus,
| there is not necessarily any cognitive dissonance.
| wslh wrote:
| Jokes aside, it would be interesting to see if the people
| betting "yes" are also placing predictions on events after 2025
| since truly believing in Christ's return that year should make
| many irrelevant.
| scarmig wrote:
| You'd still want to hedge.
| cvoss wrote:
| Right? If you believe the odds of something are 51/49, you
| can say both 1) I believe the event is more likely than
| not, and 2) I absolutely will not bet the farm on the
| event.
| msgodel wrote:
| I've tried to explain this to people before. Polymarket's
| contracts aren't purely poles for people's predictions,
| some people just want to be long volatility for any number
| of reasons.
|
| The recent doge tax refund is a good example. If you want
| to be guaranteed payment you could bet on no even if you
| think it's a coinflip.
| zahlman wrote:
| >Polymarket's contracts aren't purely poles for people's
| predictions
|
| Polymarket propositions purportedly powerless as pure
| poles for popular predictions?
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| This would be less revealing than you'd hope. If NASA did a
| press conference this afternoon telling you that there was an
| inbound planet-killer that would annihilate us in six weeks,
| you'd still brush your teeth tonight. It wouldn't be that
| you'd didn't believe them either, it's that your mind isn't
| rational in the way that we like to flatter ourselves. Your
| mind's this big burlap sack of agents, and they aren't in
| perfect sync. The one that tells you what will happen in 24
| months isn't the same one that plans out your routines... the
| latter can still have you behaving in ways that make no sense
| considering the strongly-confident predictions of the former.
|
| There is evidence of this everywhere, in nearly every person
| you meet. Including yourself. If even skeptical atheists act
| that way, why would the bible-thumpers be different? If they
| weren't different, how would that be an indictment of their
| belief?
| LPisGood wrote:
| I would brush my teeth so my mouth tastes better in the
| morning
| ebiester wrote:
| Is the purpose to collect money, or is it to proselytize? It
| may as well be a "Keep the name of Jesus and the thought of his
| return relevant"
| bsza wrote:
| More basic than that, I doubt he would take kindly to people
| placing bets on him.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| I'll never skip an opportunity to point out that of all the
| evil he faced, only the financiers were actually able to
| drive Jesus to the point of violence.
| tboyd47 wrote:
| Not true. The majority of people who actually believe Jesus
| will return are Muslims who believe he will oversee an earthly
| kingdom for 7 years. The world doesn't end with that event.
| cvoss wrote:
| Not sure if you are making a nuanced claim about the
| proportions of self-identified adherents who actually
| subscribe to orthodoxies, but the population statistics
| generally cut against your claim.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/374704/share-of-
| global-p...
| tboyd47 wrote:
| If not "the majority", then a proportion conceivably large
| enough to affect the polymarket results.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Isn't that subset of the population also very likely to
| believe that gambling is haram?
| username332211 wrote:
| Isn't the entire field of Islamic finance legal (moral?)
| loopholes that turn the haram into halal?
| tboyd47 wrote:
| No.
| tboyd47 wrote:
| Touche
| sb057 wrote:
| Technically, prediction markets aren't gambling, they're
| soothsaying, which is a form of witchcraft punishable by
| death.
| flir wrote:
| Reminds me of the people who claimed Covid vaccines were going
| to kill the vaccinated and were crowing about it.
|
| Mate... if you're not spending every cent you earn on freeze-
| dried rations and sacks of seed, then not even _you_ believe
| you.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| And when there were no mass deaths they claimed it was
| because everyone got a fake shoot instead with water.
|
| Which makes no sense at all. There is an evil conspiracy to
| kill everyone with a vaccine but then the conspiracists
| (guess doctors?) just give everyone a fake dose instead.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| Hey now, that's not fair. They claimed the shot was fake so
| mass deaths weren't happening, and that the mass deaths
| happened but were covered up, and that the shot was
| engineered to delay the mass deaths in order to aid said
| coverup, and also several other things. It was the reality
| of the week club, whatever reality resonates with you,
| that's the actual truth and aren't you just the cleverest
| chap for picking up on it when all the "experts" and their
| "education" and "evidence" and "experience" all tried to
| cover up the real truth: You Were Right All Along.
| Izkata wrote:
| They always said that it would be most visible 3-5 years
| after vaccination due to cumulative damage. I just did a
| quick search and am only finding numbers through 2023,
| the 2-year mark.
| Izkata wrote:
| Other way around, the saline shots were supposedly given to
| important people so they could pretend to get the
| vaccination without having to actually do it.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Yea, that was the line at first. But when you asked them
| 1-2 years after the shots where all the dead vaccinated
| people are they often say it didnt happen because most
| didnt get the real vaccine (of course different anti-
| vaxxers are going to have different explantions. This is
| just some of them)
| zahlman wrote:
| My experience was that they just disappeared; it became
| harder and harder to find anyone willing to propose any
| theory at all in that general ballpark.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Even worse, they spend every cent on stupid prepper bullshit
| like freeze dried rations!
|
| Rations will not help you or your family if civilization
| breaks down. Without a literal _army_ , you are no more
| powerful than the ones who did nothing to prepare. All
| rations do is ensure that you starve to death a month later
| than expected.
|
| Even better, those of you that collected guns and ammo as a
| hobby are about as prepared as the people who jokingly
| collect bottle caps in reference to Fallout. You have ensured
| you die _first_.
|
| If you are not currently capable of planting, tending, and
| harvesting an entire acre of potatoes every year, you will
| not survive post civilization. If you do not have a stable of
| oxen and a simple machine shop to repair the old fashioned
| steel plow you own, you will not survive. If you do not
| already have fully formed pest control, without chemical
| inputs or external solutions, you will not survive.
|
| It took humanity thousands of years to develop agriculture.
| Farming isn't a game. You will not pick it up after the end
| of civilization. You will not get it right on the first try.
| You will not reinvent it while hungry. Even if you get lucky
| and nothing goes wrong for a few growing seasons, you WILL
| have a failed crop eventually, and you will starve. Even
| successful farming is an eventual death sentence without
| civilization.
|
| People who prep for "after the end" are not serious people.
| If you had a serious concern about the potential fall of
| civilization, you would not buy food and bullets, you would
| be throwing every resource you have at improving democratic
| representation and access, to _prevent_ civilization from
| falling.
|
| It might not be _possible_ to restart if we kill it.
|
| Prepping is like trying to develop a backup strategy after
| the datacenter has already burned down. Even if you are
| successful, have you really, honestly, considered what
| success looks like?
| mywittyname wrote:
| I'll throw in my $0.02 on this topic. I have a basement
| full of shelf stable foods, a reasonably large battery
| backup system plus some solar panels, and a couple of guns.
|
| I don't see civilization collapsing overnight. I see it
| playing out as a series of scarce times that ebb and flow.
| I don't think the supermarket will go away, but I do think
| there will be times when it looks like those videos of
| Soviet groceries, where there's not much selection.
|
| And I'm aware that natural disasters are increasing in
| frequency and cost/impact to a degree that the government
| won't or can't do anything about them. So I need to be able
| to weather the storms for a few months at a time.
|
| As an aside, I also prepared by living in a neighborhood
| where people take care of each other and is close enough I
| can walk/bike to places.
|
| Basically, I picture the USA collapse as turning the place
| into Puerto Rico, not Mad Max.
| zahlman wrote:
| > I don't think the supermarket will go away, but I do
| think there will be times when it looks like those videos
| of Soviet groceries, where there's not much selection.
|
| Seems to me we already saw that in 2020.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Yeah. My mindset is assume "2020" becomes a regular
| occurrence that gets progressively worse over time. And
| I'll mentally work through situations such as "2020 with
| an extended utilities outage", or "2020 but car travel is
| not possible", or "2020 plus pervasive violent hate
| crimes". Then we dry run for the weekend.
|
| You learn a surprising amount in that first day. I.e.,
| being stuck without power/internet/cell service/water,
| and realizing you can't watch DVDs on your laptop because
| they haven't come with disk drives for years. After the
| weekend, you end up with a list of issues to address,
| i.e., you buy a portable dvd drive and put together a
| Plex server with a bunch of locally-hosted media.
|
| Honestly, I feel more capable and resilient than I ever
| have before. We had some tornadoes come through and we
| didn't even need to think about what to do, we went into
| our safe room which contains our go-bags, hiking food,
| critical docs, usb backups of key pass, battery backups
| and some ipads, and we chilled out watching a weather
| channel and listening to the emergency radio. Had a
| tornado hit our house, I'm confident we would have
| survived, been able to help the neighbors, and manage a
| few days until aid could come.
| tengwar2 wrote:
| Picking up on your acre of potatoes: no, you don't need
| oxen for this. In fact one reason for the importance of
| potatoes historically is that you can grow them on marginal
| land with only hand labour. There are various techniques
| such as the lazybeds used by displaced Highlanders in
| Scotland, but they don't need oxen. In fact oxen had their
| heyday before the iron ploughshare, as you needed a team to
| pull the older wooden plough, and the plough was used for
| planting grain. Of course these days it is also used for
| planting potatoes on rich land, but that's not essential.
| toast0 wrote:
| I think this is perhaps too negative. I'm not stocking up
| on rations or anything, but if you're out in the boonies
| and don't bring attention to yourself, what are the chances
| of post-civilization people coming across you? Having
| rations helps you survive until the rations run out, and
| having guns helps you negotiate with _small_ groups.
|
| Depending on where you are, food beyond the rations might
| be easy or hard. Where I live, we've got seasonal berries,
| and plenty of wildlife of various sizes. Potatoes grow
| easily, if you happen to have any to plant. Probably too
| many people around here to avoid detection though, but a
| couple hours drive in the right direction and you'd be in a
| better place for that. Plenty of fresh water if you know
| where to look; if the surface wells stop running, it'll
| simply come out of the ground most of the time.
|
| If there's all of a sudden a lot less people, nature's
| abundance starts becoming more apparent. Indigenous peoples
| thrived in my area without modern technology. I'll have a
| damn hard time, but if I can find a peaceful community to
| join, we can probably make it work.
| im3w1l wrote:
| This assumes belief must be absolute. They may have believed
| it was 90% likely, 51% likely or even just 10% likely (even a
| 10% risk of mass death is arguably unacceptable and worth
| crowing about).
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| There is the potential for psychology, I think, where people
| who do not truly believe but that do want that religion (or
| something like it) to be true, and so perversely hope for
| "Christ's return" even if that means they will be damned. For
| them, they will have gotten to witness something non-boring,
| something truly important, even for the first time (and last)
| in their lives. I can't decide if this fits the definition of
| "believer" or not.
| jl6 wrote:
| Pascal's middle children of history.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| Performing faith has significant social value. It's not that
| they expect they'll want the money after the bet pays off, it's
| that they want to show everyone else how sure they are that
| this is definitely going to happen because when they do a bunch
| of people they consider to be peers will shower them in praise
| and validation.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Wouldn't the inverse be true also? Why would non-believers bet
| yes? If they lose (which they see as the near certain case)
| they're out the money, if they win the money doesn't really
| offset eternal damnation. Seems like betting no is the only
| smart play regardless of personal beliefs.
| tempestn wrote:
| Except for the actual logical reason presented in the post.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If Christ returns this year, the world is done
|
| If you believe in the literal statement about only 144,000
| people being saved _and_ in a pre-tribulation rapture, then
| "the world is done" only applies to a trivially small number of
| people.
| masfuerte wrote:
| I'm not a theologian, but if this were to happen I don't
| suppose the unsaved would be able to peacefully play the
| prediction markets during the _tribulation_. It sounds bad.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| The tribulation occurs 7 years after 144,000 of the most
| boring most devout people disappeared forever.
|
| Are you sure you would even notice? Especially not for
| long.
|
| Supernatural things won't start occurring again for 7
| years, and in a fairly slow drip. Unexplained loud trumpets
| in the sky? Natural disasters that already occur?
|
| This isn't an issue regarding the existence of money and
| markets. That still functions. Maybe even in more
| degenerate ways than before, which is super exciting!
| masfuerte wrote:
| I was misled by the marketing. The tribulation seems to
| be less annoying than most of modern life.
| downrightmike wrote:
| True, but most Christianity, esp in the USA is truly anti-
| Christ
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| That's an argument in _support_ of the article 's thesis, not
| _against_ it. It doesn 't make sense to say that the article
| doesn't "address" it. It's true that it doesn't _mention_ it,
| but there 's no sense in phrasing that like it's an argument
| against the article's point!
| zahlman wrote:
| The primary reason to bet on something outlandish sounding is
| to take advantage of some inefficiency or other in the market.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I feel like it looks good on your rap sheet when you go before
| St. Peter. Maybe get a pardon of sorts?
| einpoklum wrote:
| Markets will cease to be interesting?
|
| I see you have not yet been blessed by the gospel of Supply-
| Side Jesus:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc-LJ_3VbUA
| wubrr wrote:
| It could also be a way of showing just how much they believe -
| 'Jesus will return in X years and I'm willing to bet all I have
| on it!'
| hinkley wrote:
| God forbid you become rich at the last possible moment and then
| damn yourself for eternity in the process.
|
| Doesn't the Bible frown on gambling anyway?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| In one prominent flavor of Christian lore, there would be 7
| years where nothing happened except for the people that go
| missing during the rapture in an instant.
| bawolff wrote:
| Hypothetically, its an expensive commitment that proves one's
| faith. Anyone can say jesus is coming, but less people are
| willing to put their money where their mouth is.
|
| The upside isn't the important part - the downside is. It
| proves that you really believe what you say.
|
| This happens all the time with countries when they are
| negotiating. E.g. Russia is pretty unimpressed when countries
| say they are going to give ukraine weapons unless there is a
| ceasefire. Its all cheap talk. If one of the countries bought
| the weapons first (that they otherwise would not of) and then
| threatens to give them to ukraine, its much more credible since
| they have sunk money into it.
|
| Or you could look at the animal kingdom with energy expensive
| mating rituals. The point is to waste resources in order to
| prove your commitment.
|
| Examples of this sort of thing show up all over the world.
| ty6853 wrote:
| High probability bets on polymarket usually pay worse than the
| prevailing interest rate, and on top of that you have to deal
| with counterparty risk.
| Supercompressor wrote:
| This is mentioned in the link.
| delichon wrote:
| The resolution source for this market will be a consensus of
| credible sources.
|
| I'm too skeptical to believe that a source is credible if that
| source claims any resurrection, let alone of a messiah. If a man
| who looks just like Jesus in the images showed up and performed
| all of the same miracles, I still wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't
| believe it if the Pope declared it true, or something claiming to
| be God announced it into my ear.
|
| At the very least they should name the credible sources in
| advance, because the bet is on their credulity.
| tempestn wrote:
| This is actually interesting. What would make you believe it?
| Is there any evidence at all?
|
| I agree that almost anything I can think of would be more
| likely some kind of trick. Or in the most extreme examples I'd
| have to assume there's a good chance I was experiencing some
| kind of psychosis. So I'm not sure I could actually be
| convinced either. I suppose if I personally witnessed clearly
| impossible miracles being performed and multiple people I know
| and trust corroborated what I was seeing, that might do it.
| haunter wrote:
| It's not a betting market though but a prediction market. There
| is no house and odds.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Jesus ... I mean would you return if you faced likely
| ridicule/imprisonment/cancellation for spreading woke, radical,
| leftist ideas?
|
| I don't blame him for taking a back seat.
| enaaem wrote:
| Also suspiciously Palestinian looking
| jebarker wrote:
| How much does this kind of Time Value of Money effect and other
| similar effects determine trading in the stock market? i.e. just
| trading based on predictions about what other traders will do
| rather than just beliefs about the value of the underlying
| assets?
| ivape wrote:
| Things are supposed to get real bad before it happens. World War
| 2 should have been it really, but I guess even that wasn't bad
| enough. The gospel has also not been preached to every nation, so
| there are billions that are unaware of it (this is a
| prerequisite).
| em-bee wrote:
| christianity has spread all over the world. it is being taught
| in every nation. all muslims know about jesus because mohammad
| too talks about him. buddhists and hindus have christian and
| muslim neighbors. so where are those unaware billions?
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| I read many comments that essentially say, "Today's (how we
| practice) Christianity/churches are definitely not something he'd
| approve of when he returns".
|
| I live in the largest Muslim country in the world, and I'd say
| the majority of people also think that the "commercialization"
| (for lack of a better term) of their religion is also "too much".
| It seems people do have a "conscience" (for lack of a better
| term). But why do we still see people selling God on TV (and it
| sells)?
|
| It's like people complaining about their government, but they
| don't take action.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| It's reasonable to not like something and realize you alone are
| powerless to change it. The actions necessary at this point
| require _collective action_. This is exceptionally hard when
| the public's opinion is sliced and diced like a fat sow.
| hatradiowigwam wrote:
| > I live in the largest Muslim country in the world
|
| Are you a Muslim? I have a question for you... if I crawled
| onto your doorstep beaten and starving, would you invite me in
| and feed you? I am ignorant of Muslim teachings, and I don't
| know if this sort of things is covered...that's why I'm asking
| you.
|
| I'm a Christian, and if you crawled onto MY doorstep, I would
| be ashamed with myself if I did not invite you in and care for
| you.
|
| If your faith urges you to help the helpless, and my faith
| urges me to help the helpless... why do Muslims and Christians
| seem so opposed? If the news is to believe, we're like matter
| and anti-matter, we can't be friends, and at some point it
| always devolves to violence from one or both of the sides.
| judahmeek wrote:
| You should look up the free ebook by Bob Altemeyer called
| Authoritarians. It explains how religious organizations that
| highly value authority and discourage critical thinking get
| corrupted.
| enaaem wrote:
| There is a conspiracy theory going around that Trump is an Anti-
| Christ.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| A relevant passage in the gospels is as follows [0]:
|
| > Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him
| privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what
| will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" And
| Jesus answered and said to them: "Take heed that no one deceives
| you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,'
| and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of
| wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must
| come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise
| against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be
| famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All
| these are the beginning of sorrows.
|
| > "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and
| you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then
| many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one
| another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
| And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow
| cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this
| gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a
| witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
|
| Regardless of one's faith, from reading this text it is apparent
| that things would need to get _substantially_ worse than they are
| today to warrant the return of Christ. In particular the part
| about being delivered up to tribulation--similar persecutions
| have happened in history but the scale necessary for such an
| event as described would be immense.
|
| 0:
| https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2024&ve...
| akomtu wrote:
| There is a more detailed prophecy of these events:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Masih_ad-Dajjal
|
| "The Dajjal will imitate the miracles performed by Jesus, such
| as healing the sick and raising the dead, the latter done with
| the aid of demons. He will deceive many <...>"
|
| As for the time of events, I find this the most compelling:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_age
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Year
|
| Earth's polar axis slowly rotates, with a period of 26,000
| years. This period is divided into 12 ages: the age of Aries,
| Pisces, Aquarius and so on. A lot of christian symbology
| revolves around sheep and fish. Symbolically speaking, 2000
| years ago, Aries died to begin the age of Pisces. Similarly, in
| around 2150, Pisces will yield to Aquarius.
|
| It's also interesting that the age of Aries is considered the
| last age of the 12, after which the next great cycle begins
| (see Pistis Sophia). Whether this has astronomical foundation
| is a question.
| excalibur wrote:
| Everyone just seems to assume that whether Jesus has returned
| will be obvious and easily verifiable. As if they could prove
| that Jesus isn't already here.
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| We dont know the day or hour. Yet, the end won't come until the
| Gospel has reached all nations. Likely, people groups.
|
| https://biblehub.com/matthew/24-14.htm
|
| https://joshuaproject.net/
|
| Jesus also warns that His message, the Gospel (GetHisWord.com),
| will be universally hated across the world by those who dont
| believe. The Devil will inspire people to censor it to prevent
| both people's sins being forgiven and godliness in nations. This
| is happening.
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
|
| https://www.persecution.com/
|
| As for signs of the end, a number must happen. Many already
| happened or are happening. That should worry non-believers while
| friends of Christ are encouraged. I listed some here:
|
| https://gethisword.com/signsofthetimes.html
|
| A few more that may or may not be in the article.
|
| God's Word predicts Jews wont worship in the temple despite
| taking their country back. They still can't today. Prophecy
| appears to say there will be a peace deal that lets them do that.
| Then, the situation will reverse.
|
| Two prophets will be preaching and performing miracles before the
| whole world. YouTube and the Internet make that feasible.
|
| The leaders will promote a new, world order. Important aspects
| will be a world government with one currency. Then, by a mark on
| the body or forehead, people will be allowed to buy or sell goods
| (or banned from participation). Our country's leaders, along with
| business leaders, keep pushing for the same thing in
| multinational organizations. We also have the tech to do it now.
|
| So, there's a few, specific things to look for that will be easy
| to spot. Christians meanwhile resist attempts to create those
| things to give non-believers more time to hear the Gospel and
| repent. If they dont, Jesus says they go into a fiery furnace for
| the evils they did in their lifetime. Those receiving the mark...
| which they'll know requires rejecting Jesus as Lord... are
| tormented forever in the presence of the Lamb.
| em-bee wrote:
| interesting. what's the source for there being a world
| government with one currency?
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| GotQuestions often has Biblical answers to common questions.
| It has supporting data for this one:
|
| https://www.gotquestions.org/one-world-government.html
|
| I'll also add that the Bible teaches that Satan puts thoughts
| in people's heads, including rulers and business elites, to
| cause them to pr p mote his goals. If true, we will
| repeatedly see the same ideas pop up that the Bible warns
| about pushed top-down in many cultures. We'll also see them
| do damage over time.
|
| So, in Revelation, it's a push for world governemnt, a single
| currency, and ability of governments to dictate both commerce
| and religion (esp universalism). In Old Testament, the pagans
| push subjectivism (eg polytheism/atheism), sexual immorality
| (esp homosexuality), exploitation of the poor, arrogant
| attitudes, violence, and sacrificing infants for more sex or
| money.
|
| If we see these trends, we're to oppose them because God
| promises to punish them in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
| Historical data confirms that most countries that did such
| things were destroyed in time. Often from the activities
| driven by their cultures. That's also why we not only share
| Christ and His Word but promote character education and
| righteous government.
|
| (Note: Christians being mere humans beings redeemed from sin,
| but with a human nature, means they will often fall short of
| the above goals in politics and life in general. Sadly.
| Doesn't make it any less true, though.)
| blooalien wrote:
| > As for signs of the end, a number must happen. Many already
| happened or are happening. That should worry non-believers
| while friends of Christ are encouraged.
|
| I'm not sure why it should or would worry "non-believers" since
| by definition they _don 't_ believe, therefore ... what would
| they even have to worry about?
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| They didnt believe before the signs. God offers the signs as
| a proof. Also, it should be telling that only one religion
| even has proof it's true. Then, dominant philosophies of the
| world continue to do what it predicts, fail like it predicts,
| and more prophecies get fulfilled.
|
| At some point, they have no excuse but to believe what's
| proven good and true. Christ and His Word.
| conartist6 wrote:
| I would hate to see this conversation get off topic so... did
| you bet?
| m3kw9 wrote:
| It's a rug pull
| josephcsible wrote:
| Matthew 24:36: But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the
| angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
|
| Mark 13:32: But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the
| angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
| meepmorp wrote:
| And yet, people have been making those predictions for close to
| 2000 years.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not religious but I've read the Bible, and it's not
| clear on a lot of things but it's very clear on this point.
| zb3 wrote:
| Well, but who would then buy the "yes" bet at an elevated price?
| chrchr wrote:
| Right! The explanation in the article -- that "no" holders will
| need to sell to buy other things before the market resolves,
| pushing the price up -- doesn't make sense to me. Sure, maybe
| the price goes up shortly before the market closes, but that's
| a hell of a falling knife to try to catch.
| erikig wrote:
| Honestly, its a pretty solid hedge if you believe in any version
| of the rapture.
| legitster wrote:
| So, there are actual geopolitical ramifications of this metric.
|
| A lot of US protestant theology is rooted in a concept called
| "dispensationalism" that was introduced in the mid 1800s. It's a
| heady concept to explain, but essentially it comes down to a few
| linked core concepts:
|
| - The secret, sudden arrival of Jesus to "rapture" believers away
|
| - The world is getting worse, not better. There is limited use in
| improving society.
|
| - Strict literalist interpretation of all scripture (where
| convenient, obv)
|
| - An individual's ability to discern scripture as well as the
| state of the world
|
| - Obsession with Israel as a nation-state
|
| https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/dispe...
|
| By tracking this number, you have a good proxy for the current
| fervor of a lot of intertwined political concepts in the US.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| - The world is getting worse, not better. There is limited use
| in improving society.
|
| That sounds like 19th century fire and brimstone revivalism.
| Most Christians are not that nihilistic. The sects that survive
| and flourish tend to be those that don't impose a fatalistic
| view of the world.
| amdivia wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment, but in this specific case, the
| "nihilism" is more of a green card to do whatever to better
| your own life, as there is no point improving anyone else's,
| just focus on yourself and survive.
|
| So here it could be seen as an excuse to not only exploit
| existing systems, but also to avoid attempts at fixing them.
|
| So in a way, holders of such fatalistic believes are
| ironically flourishing
| pkkkzip wrote:
| Interesting but US isn't the only country that does this.
| There's an entire religion that was imported out of virtue
| signaling politics that rose out of the economic comforts
| afforded by this "protestant theology" that defeated a major
| superpower.
|
| Fast forward to today, that foreign religion has multiplied
| (largely due to religious customs) while the local population
| has dwindled and lost much of its power owing to a political
| ideology overriding theology.
|
| I see this foreign religion not being compatible with the host
| country's religion or value system and that many are rallying
| behind a sort of pan-Western theology to counter the many
| social issues throughout.
| lysecret wrote:
| Good moment to reread the grand inquisitor to be prepared.
| klempner wrote:
| The somewhat moribund Foresight Exchange which is a ~30 year old
| play money idea futures market has discussed this idea a lot over
| the years, even to the point of having a number of "True" claims
| of exactly the form described in the article, such as
| http://www.ideosphere.com/fx-bin/Claim?claim=T2015
| imnotlost wrote:
| Talking about blind faith... people still bet on the Dallas
| Cowboys after all.
| keeganpoppen wrote:
| wow this is an absolutely fascinating angle, and one that is
| quite revelatory about markets in general: the price of an asset
| is affected by time value of money every bit as much about any
| other form of "value".
|
| my intuition here would be that topics that are more "catnip"-y
| to "speculators" (which i'd lovingly more accurate call
| "degenerate gamblers") would be the one with the greatest "time
| value of money premium", such as it is... and also gets me
| wondering about how to model this topic preference because it
| seems like a very cool arbitrage opportunity...
| impostervt wrote:
| I take a similar approach to investing on Masterworks (they sell
| shares of paintings). Most investors seem to buy the upfront
| offering, which is always $20/share, regardless of the painting.
| They don't seem to realize that MW holds onto the paintings for
| years, so it can be hard to cash out. Many will sell at a loss
| just to get their cash our before the painting is sold, so I can
| buy their shares very cheap.
| namuol wrote:
| Filed under: "NOT the Onion"
| csantini wrote:
| I think it's just interest rates.
|
| I can easily get 3% per year investing in safe bonds, so I expect
| at least 3% to put money on any 100% safe bet.
|
| I want to be paid for waiting X months
| chrchr wrote:
| That doesn't explain why there's a market for "Yes". For "No"
| to be worth 3% instead of 0%, there must be people who think
| "Yes" will in some way be worth 3% or more.
| ddp26 wrote:
| I've been involved in prediction markets for a while, and this
| story highlights why I'm now more optimistic about using AI than
| crowdsourcing humans.
|
| So much, possibly the vast majority, of intellectual energy that
| goes into prediction markets is not about forecasting. Like the
| example Eric gives of "This Market Will Resolve No At The End Of
| 2025", it's about arbitrage, it's about edge cases, it's about
| interest rates, it's about resolution disputes, it's about
| sniping the dumb money faster than others.
|
| Prediction markets are a brilliant way to incentivize accuracy
| and good research. But you don't see much of that on Polymarket.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I can shed some light on this, maybe -
|
| In the year before the 2020 election, a market opened on
| predictit called "Will Hillary run for president? Yes/No"
|
| First this was a reasonable market, but quickly it became obvious
| she wasn't running (because she repeatedly said she wasn't, there
| was no campaign created at all, absolutely zero indicators she
| was running because she wasn't). Predictit allowed a comment
| section where people worked themselves into a frenzy every time
| some hillary "news" dropped that somehow secretly indicated she
| was running a phantom campaign. She missed primary registration
| deadlines - that only made the "Yes" market move up. There were
| still people hammering Yes up until a few weeks before the actual
| election and they closed the market.
|
| Anyway it was the same thing. Low % "Yes" and 95+% "No." However,
| I found an edge holding on to a "baseline" Yes I'd established
| (1-2%, I can't remember) and just sell the waves of "news" that
| would spike it to 5+%. Then buy again at the baseline. There were
| a lot of shenanigans in the comments and people attempting to
| move the market with various tactics - it was a wild ride and one
| of my favorite markets I'd ever studied/participated in.
|
| There are probably some true believers in the "Yes" jesus
| purchasers here but I imagine a lot of what I'm describing here
| too.
| mettamage wrote:
| Sounds similar in theme with what happened to Hertz. I think at
| some point it was bankrupt but speculation still had the share
| price way above what it was worth (nothing).
| BJones12 wrote:
| The original shares ended up being worth $8. There might have
| been a point during the bankruptcy were they were worth
| nothing (due to changing used car values) but in the end they
| were worth something.
|
| https://nypost.com/2021/05/12/hertz-investors-
| snag-8-a-share...
| mettamage wrote:
| Yea but that's the thing, if a company is bankrupt,
| shouldn't it be 0? Like rationally? In that sense, it feels
| thematically similar as people were trying to outsmart each
| other with trickery.
| BJones12 wrote:
| Rationally, I agree. But IRL it's surprisingly hard to
| measure the value of a company - both the assets and the
| value of continuing operations - even without considering
| they are in constant flux, even if there's no trickery.
| cj wrote:
| This is a reminder of how prediction markets don't always
| accurately estimate probability of events happening.
|
| The most interesting part of the article IMO was the fact that
| the 3% probability is artificially high because there is no one
| willing to take the otherside of the bet, because betting "No"
| requires you to give your money to the prediction market for 6+
| months, and if you're only getting a 1% return if you win the
| bet, you'll make more money if you put the cash in a high yield
| savings account.
|
| Seems like prediction/betting markets only really work well
| when there is a reasonable chance of either outcome occurring,
| and is less accurate the more obvious one outcome is compared
| to another?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > This is a reminder of how prediction markets don't always
| accurately estimate probability of events happening.
|
| I'm well aware that people believe that these markets are
| accurate estimators of probability of events, but I've (as a
| life long gambler) always viewed it as a measure of people's
| confidence in an event happening at a particular probability.
| People are wrong/delusional at scale all the time (think of
| the mandela effect), it can be the case that large groups of
| them converge on the right outcome via market forces, but it
| kind of makes the big assumption every participant is in good
| faith, rational, and informed.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It's possible I'm being a jerk, but actually maybe betting
| services could do a social good: allowing people who believe
| things despite all reason to incur some small cost to
| themselves and hopefully course-correct?
|
| We can even both-sides this; Hillary fans and people who
| believe Jesus will come back soon are usually on opposing
| sides, right?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| The people who were "Yes" hillary stans were very much not
| hillary fans. very much the opposite. much of it seemed
| fueled by far right wing conspiracy theories
| dyslexit wrote:
| This is exactly what the article is arguing people are doing
| when betting on the Jesus thing:
|
| > [Time Value of Money] The Yes people are betting that, later
| this year, their counterparties (the No betters) will want cash
| (to bet on other markets), and so will sell out of their No
| positions at a higher price.
|
| ...
|
| > Has this galaxy-brained trade ever gone well? Yes! In late
| October of last year -- a week before the election -- Kamala
| Harris was trading around 0.3% in safe red states like
| Kentucky, while Donald Trump was trading around 0.3% in safe
| blue states like Massachusetts. On election day, these prices
| skyrocketed to about 1.5%, because "No" bettors desperately
| needed cash to place other bets on the election. Traders who
| bought "Yes" for 0.3% in late October and sold at 1.5% on
| election day made a 5x profit!
| JohnMakin wrote:
| No, not really. What I was doing was playing predictable
| spikes in volatility in the market over a long span -
| theoretically i could have done it forever had the market
| never closed. I also doubt the hillary market moved because
| of liquidation needs in other markets - it was driven almost
| entirely by conspiracy theory news. I followed it very
| closely, it was not this at all.
| devrandoom wrote:
| Fat chance based on the treatment he got last time.
| throw7 wrote:
| The way they will arrive at the answer is very vague... "The
| resolution source for this market will be a consensus of credible
| sources."
|
| I'd like to know the list of said sources and what consensus
| means (51%?). Presumably, this question can be asked and answered
| every minute? hour? so we could have up to the minute coverage of
| the second coming.
| severusdd wrote:
| So, how much do I make if I bet 30 pieces of silver on this?
| ecocentrik wrote:
| The discussion in Polymarket revolves around the trustworthiness
| of the market creator and their resolution criteria. Any
| discussion here that doesn't consider those things is missing the
| forest for the trees. The market isn't really about Jesus. Jesus
| is just the engagement hook. It's the reason this post has 147+
| comments on Hacker News and $500k+ in market transactions on
| Polymarket. There's very little stopping the market creator from
| citing a guineapig pet lovers blog as his source with a claim
| that Jesus has returned as an adorable little guy with too much
| rizz to be anything other than the second coming.
| FajitaNachos wrote:
| The settlement criteria for most of these is pretty strict and
| clearly laid out in the terms.
|
| > The resolution source for this market will be a consensus of
| credible sources.
|
| That is pretty sparse, but I suspect Polymarket has a vested
| interest in making sure this resolves appropriately (as noted
| in the article). I do like the use of the guineapig with rizz
| anyway.
| dweez wrote:
| Great point. Never forget about counterparty risk!
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| The article _does_ mention those things. It doesn 't consider
| them big factors. And "the market isn't really about Jesus" is
| the article's whole _point_!
| ecocentrik wrote:
| Fair resolution is the single biggest issue with prediction
| markets. I don't see how a market resolution based on the
| occurrence of a supernatural event isn't a problem.
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| This is Polymarket, not Manifold. It's not "anyone can
| create a market and can resolve it however they want".
| Polymarket creates the markets and resolves them, so an
| unfair resolution could undercut their reputation and hurt
| their business. People know what "Jesus returning" means
| and if they interpret it some other way people won't just
| say "oh well I guess that was technically within the
| criteria".
|
| Again, this is in the article! If you want to argue it's a
| problem, you should start by _responding_ to what the
| article has to say on the subject, not just asserting it
| from scratch as if it isn 't discussed!
| soared wrote:
| Especially good callout in the context of Jesus returning. It
| would look very different today, but there was one who was
| pretty damn close to pulling it off - would be curious when
| poly market calls the bet. Chatgpt summary -
|
| * Sabbatai Zevi (17th century): One of the most famous false
| Jewish Messiahs. He gained a massive following across the
| Jewish world. However, when faced with the Ottoman Sultan's
| choice between conversion to Islam or death, he converted. This
| conversion was a devastating blow to his followers and
| essentially a public "recantation" of his messianic claim,
| though not necessarily an admission of it being a lie on his
| part as much as a desperate act to save his life. Many of his
| followers were deeply disillusioned, while others continued to
| believe in him even after his conversion, developing complex
| theological explanations for his actions.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| A willingness to die for his claim would be a meaningful
| addition to the resolution criteria.
| thatjoeoverthr wrote:
| If Jesus returned, people wouldn't believe it unanimously; it
| would be a scissor like everything else. (I don't even want to
| give examples.)
|
| Conversely, if Jesus has not returned, some people can be
| convinced that he has.
|
| Which brings me to the criteria. What are acceptable criteria?
| Maybe, "will a plurality of people believe that Jesus has
| returned in 2025?"
|
| Eschatological cults routinely convince small numbers of
| followers that the end is coming. Hustlers do this all the time.
| I've been told personally, directly, that we know the date. It's
| coming. (The date in question came and went.)
|
| Given the above, could 2025 be the year of Deep Fake Jesus?
|
| Deep Fake Rapture?
| jihadjihad wrote:
| > Given the above, could 2025 be the year of Deep Fake Jesus?
|
| It does make one think, at least.
|
| "Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My
| name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many."
| bdcravens wrote:
| Aren't the ones wagering yes basically acknowledging they've
| failed their religion? According to Christian scripture, they
| would have been raptured seven years prior to the return of
| Jesus.
| tengbretson wrote:
| > But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of
| heaven, but my Father only.
| bilsbie wrote:
| What's the criteria to resolve the bet?
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Is there such a thing as seeding a market to draw in gullible
| money?
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| After studying esoteric Christianity, here's what I can work out
| rationally.
|
| Jesus was understood as the incarnation of the logos (often
| translated as "word" but with a much deeper meeting). The logos
| was the emanation of the pure ineffable oneness -- ie, logos is
| the "son" of god (the oneness). These ideas were worked out by
| the Jewish-platonic philosopher Philo of Alexandria (b. 50 BCE)
| and directly influenced early Christianity. The message of Jesus
| was that we are all part of the logos -- and if we believe that,
| we have eternal life (since the logos is eternal).
|
| Since the logos doesn't die, it's hard to say how it returns. But
| you know, I'm probably over thinking this prediction market
| dweez wrote:
| To summarize the article: buying the Yes side of this market is
| like shorting treasuries. It's not a bet that treasuries will
| default, but rather a macro bet about that demand for cash (i.e.
| interest rates) will increase.
| Nevermark wrote:
| _Polymarket itself_ has a very strong incentive to offer
| interesting long odd bets, in the hopes that anyone bites.
|
| They get the time value of your money.
|
| And it makes the site more interesting. It's free PR.
|
| It would be very surprising if they don't know this and are not
| taking advantage of the dynamic. It isn't even sketchy, nobody
| loses any value they didn't choose to lose.
| tmiku wrote:
| It's worth nothing that it takes less money than you may expect
| to significantly shift a prediction market's trading price. This
| article, while its tone aged poorly with the relevant election
| results, covers the math behind this quite well.
|
| https://quantian.substack.com/p/market-prices-are-not-probab...
| xunil2ycom wrote:
| if we're betting on fictional entities, let's do the easter bunny
| next.
| fortran77 wrote:
| There's a related business for "After The Rapture Pet Care"
|
| https://aftertherapturepetcare.com/
|
| If anyone want to pay me in advance to take care of their cat
| after rapture, drop me a line!
| nullc wrote:
| The amounts involved are so small that I'm a little doubtful of
| this cashflow squeeze pattern actually working, but it doesn't
| have to work to drive markets.
|
| Fun example is the old fax pump and dumps. You'd get some 'market
| prediction' fax for a penny stock that is _very clearly_ just
| some pump and dump. No one buying thinks it 's anything but a
| P&D. But they buy thinking _other_ people will be tricked and
| that they 'll get out before the suckers do... so sad for the P&D
| savvy buyers that they are, in fact, the suckers themselves. It
| was very important to the effectiveness of the scheme that the
| faxes be both obvious to be a P&D but also not so obvious that
| their targets couldn't imagine it fooling anyone.
|
| The author though shouldn't underestimate people just spending
| their funds inefficiently. A lot of people are not really aware
| that they could just get a risk free return better than they'd
| get from this thing, and even when they are they've adopted a
| non-linear utility where they value some unlikely JesusMarket
| windfall as much more valuable than a (higher EV) bond return.
|
| Humans seem to have a pretty predictable mishandling of extremely
| small probabilities. A lot of cons work by convincing the mark
| that there is a small (but real) odds of a windfall return.
|
| This thing shows up in cryptocurrency markets all the time, you
| can have some token listed on an exchange with no information at
| all but some symbol/name and random people will plunk thousands
| of dollars on it.
|
| To some extent there seems to be a kind of wealth brownian motion
| where your income is proportional to the number of pixels on the
| internet that, when clicked, cause funds to be transferred to
| you. Of course, having an actual REASON to pay you is even
| better, but it's not strictly necessary.
| thrance wrote:
| If Jesus returned, he'd be arrested at the borders for being too
| woke and not white enough, then sent back to the middle east.
| einpoklum wrote:
| "This means that the Jesus Christ market is quite interesting!"
|
| Well, you know, if Jesus were to materialize, I think he would
| probably confiscate all of the winnings, because:
|
| >* "It is written," he said to them, "'My house will be called a
| house of prayer,' but you are making it 'a den of robbers.'"*
|
| Matthew 21:13
| NickC25 wrote:
| Jesus hated the money changers.
|
| I'm not even religious and I know that he despised usury and
| gambling.
|
| And here we are - people bet on his return.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Anyone thinking there are no true believers betting on "Yes"
| should pay more attention to Modern American Protestantism.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/LeftBeyond I wrote
| a 500 page story about it, in which I tried to explain LLMs and
| model collapse, which wasn't bad for 2015.
| amelius wrote:
| I have a different bet.
|
| Let's suspend all advertising for Him, for two or three
| generations.
|
| Will He revive?
| 50208 wrote:
| Lord almighty (lol) ... these folks are so ... I don't even know
| the word.
| ranger207 wrote:
| This is one of several reasons the prediction value of these
| markets is nil
| david_shi wrote:
| subjective/intersubjective binary event market resolution is one
| of the most fascinating areas of crypto research
|
| uma whales currently have a lot of influence on voting results,
| but I can't imagine that this won't be addressed at some point
|
| https://rekt.news/hedging-bets
|
| https://app.truemarkets.org/en
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Too bad the returns aren't high enough. 3% is lower than a
| savings account.
| beeandapenguin wrote:
| Newton spent the majority of his life trying to answer this
| question. It'd be more interesting if the question asked "Will
| Newton's prediction that the Second Coming won't happen before
| 2060 be correct?", but that might be a bit too long for
| Polymarket.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Can I bet on never? Please God, let me bet on _never_
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