GET LAID NOW! (You have until October)

[bueno bob]

I've been getting a kick out of these people lately. I was on my way up to Vancouver a while back and got behind some assclown that had stickers and posters and whatnot all over his beat up pickup truck announcing the date and a radio station. Obviously dismissed it like any good agnostic would, but I was remotely curious about the radio station.

About a week later on my way back from PDX, I got onto the light rail (was the only rider at the time) and found a pamphlet in one of the seats, which I still have around the house somewhere. The bible has been "studied" to come up with this date/time, but in no way, shape or form did it say HOW the day/time was arrived at - only that it WAS. Much the same as Scientology can't tell you WHY they've arrived at their conclusions, only that people who are apparently much smarter than I "studied" much apocrypha to come to it.

And, in a lot of regards, the same way just about every active religion can't explain WHY it believes what it does other than "Well, it's old belief that's managed to survive this long and people much smarter than you are have studied it, ergo YOU should believe it."

The sad part? When the DAY OF DAYS comes, one of two things will happen:

1) Except for the "true believers" who get called up in rapture, we're all fucked - which proves they're right, God exists, et al...or
2) The day comes, nothing happens, and guess what? It's just "PROOF THAT GOD DOES LOVE THE HUMAN RACE AND WE'VE ALL BEEN GRANTED A SECOND CHANCE!!"(c)

Thus, they're absolutely right, proving their faith, or they're completely fucking WRONG, proving their faith.

Religion is for weak minded fucking idiots. Period.

[ELVIS]

Yeah just to expand on that part of your fairy tale as it is one of the more amusing bits.

He says that he will return during the lifetime of some of the folk he's talking to.

Matthew 16:28 "Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom."

Mark 9:1 Then he said to them, "I tell you with certainty, some people standing here will not experience death until they see the kingdom of God arrive with power."

Luke 9:27 "But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God."

Unless there are some 2000 year old goat herders wandering about without anyone noticing then yet again more fucking plot holes than the Da Vinci code.

The reason it's amusing is that they were almost certainly all dead even by the time this stuff was being written 60 years after the 'events'.

These guys weren't decent story tellers never mind rocket scientists...

That's not what He's saying...

[Seshmeister]

I'm sure over the hundreds of years the churches have come up with some crazy verbal gymnastics to try and weasel out of the words in the book like they always do. I can't even be bothered to look that up at the moment.

Bottom line is that is what is written in the book under the standard meaning of words, anything else is a riddle.

[Nitro Express]

The successful religions get the next generation hooked and they use marriage to do this. In the religion I grew up in, you would catch shit for not marrying another member in the temple. Of course to qualify for temple admittance you had to pay the church 10% of your gross and do everything the church leaders told you to do. There was no paid clergy so you had plenty of busywork every week. It sucked.

What they did was create a situation where if you did leave, you would catch shit from your family and community. Since many members worked for other members or family, it could cost you your job. People just stayed in because it was less hassle and then the impossibly high demands of the church just turned everyone into a slick liar to keep the illusion going.

The doctrine was just filler basically. With the internet a lot of it has been proven a hoax but it doesn't matter, the system is set. You could have the flying spaghetti monster as the god or worship and it wouldn't matter. A successful church has a social system that keeps the membership in line and they go and do because of family and peer pressure. They have it all figured out.

[Terry]

Well, all these doomsday prophecies seem a bit silly re: pinning down an exact date the world will end, since basically anyone can drop dead at any moment.

I mean, considering life can be over in an instant, why wait to do the things you want to do?

Me, I'm gonna give the missus a solid rodgering tonight. Not because I believe the world is going to end in May or October...or December 2012, but because I could die in my sleep choking on sesame seeds from a Big Mac bun I ate shortly before going to bed.

[Nitro Express]

I think people just cook up these prophecies to get laid.