The following was my response to a YouTube query on the video commentary entitled “Pat Robertson: Beat Non-Religious Kid On Christmas”
In many ways things are "pre-destined" -- spin a roulette wheel, cast the ball, the ball is going to land on a number -- that's pre-destined. That you picked that number, or even chose to bet at all is not. You have a degree of free will in terms of the realities of events.
If a comet follows a trajectory which brings it across the orbital path of a planet -- it is pre-destined that the time will come for the two to be at the same place at the same time. Given the technology, you have the free will to be on one or the other when the impact occurs ... your being there is not pre-destined, even though the event is.
In showing "How a Tribal Assertion Created Modern Culture " we are dealing with religious superstition (really the lack of practical science) being used to gain control and evolving to the point where it is no longer functional -- modern society where the explanation for something emerging from absolute nothing is default shelter for religion (storm deities [etc] are no longer valid, because we know what causes storms [etc] and that they can be predicted).
The "infinite possibilities" are mentioned as the basis for asserting an all-knowing deity -- a deity that must know all the possible possibilities and therefore would NOT be interventionist (would have no reason to answer prayer, or even care about them), even though the act and effect of intervention is a possibility. An all-perfect deity would design a system that achieves the desired outcome without the need to intervene, because some combination of free choice and probability will yield the desired outcome.
"WE" have a future -- we will go extinct as every other creature has in the evolutionary cycle. "WE" will cease to exist, because all things known to exist eventually cease to exist -- even stars burn out or go supernova. Thus the answer to "there are NO other possible futures for us? " is an obvious YES there is no future for us -- depending upon how far into the future you select to set the deterministic boundary.
In today's world, right now -- the world of the "End-Of-Times" televangelism Pat Robertson types -- we have their "Book of Revelation" prophecy ... which MUST be fulfill, or debunked by it's failure to come to pass, in this century.
The fun part: Using the Hebrew Calendar methodology of those who wrote the prophecy, and assuming four starting points (they made it a point not to set a starting point so as to allow the actual dates to be hidden) we can show that it has begun, that it began in 1929 and ends prior to 2070. Given the symbolism of Babylon the great city, what if they were talking about modern Washington DC and all the prophecies required American involvement? That yields
"Death Over Life: Secret of Revelation: A Prophecy of America's Destruction"
(eBook is FREE to Kindle Unlimited subscribers) http://www.amazon.com/Death-Over-Life-Revelation-Destruction/dp/1497427169
Can Americans escape of modify the prophecy -- it's the story of The Monkey's Paw -- the words have meaning and interpretation ... what does it mean for a great city to "fall"? When it comes to death Robertson etal declare their "End-Of-Times" means total annihilation, when the prophecy says a third of life ... but predictions for global warming also say a third of life ... and the UN Population Study has the global population deceased by a third in the year 2070 (no war required).
So given this very long answer to a short query -- given that the prophecy can be fulfilled with everyone living happily and adjusting to climate change, or by having the global holocaust the Televangelist and right-wing republicans want so much, which do you want to chose? Which will the majority chose of their own free will?
No comments:
Post a Comment