logicpolice
Registered Member
Having read through the discussions on this board about questioning one’s religion I am inspired too throw in some of my own thoughts on the validity of religious prophesy.
I should first point out that I am a firm believer that the world is 4.5 billion years old and that evolution is a reality. I should also point out that I firmly believe all life that has evolved on this planet has done so out of a preexisting pattern that is congruent through out this universe. That is to say that just like an apple seed can be said to have a predestined future to become an apple tree, so it is that this planet has a naturally occurring predestiny too do all of the things that it has done.
When I look at a road map of the United States I don’t see a scare on Gods green earth caused by humans, rather I see the planet wide development of a neural network. Capable of giving the planet a form of self-awareness. Within it is the capacity to understand, catalog and even manipulate all of its life sustaining systems, biology, geology and all the symbiotic relationships therein. Uniquely sentient life gives the planet a chance for its life to escape the confines of its thin atmosphere and spread to other places within the solar system or even its galaxy. After all the one thing that can be said about life is its persistence to spread. While this may seem to be an over simplification of why we are here, it lends itself to the notion that all of the things we have experienced in history (stone age, iron age, industrial age, nuclear age, computer age) may very well be parts of a very recognizable pattern that occurs consistently through out the cosmos.
The challenge for the believer in this is to put aside any of the usual dogma of seven day creation or a 6000 year old world and acknowledge that science might be a reality. Like wise the challenge for the scientist is to put aside the dogma that religious text are bogus and lack any true relevance in defining the future. My approach to this is to lend credence to this ancient text by exposing what might be simple pattern recognition of the development of sentient life on this planet.
The book of Revelations is 22 chapters long and for those of you who don’t know, the first chapters are simply letters that John wrote to various churches in his part of the world (describing their faults). The real meat of the story actually starts in chapter 6 with John having been whisked away to a place were Jesus himself is about to reveal what you all know as the seven seals. The seventh of which is actually further divided into seven more parts known as the seven trumpets. These seals and trumpets take up all of chapters 6-11 and because I believe they encompass an entire overview of history from beginning to end, they are all that I will be dealing with in this exercise. The subsequent chapters I believe are more detailed examinations of the things that will come about within that overview.
We begin with the infamous four horsemen, which are reveled as the first four seals are broken on the scroll. The first is a white horse its rider has a crown and a bow and is sent forth conquering and to conquer, the second is a red horse its rider has a great sword and he goes forth taking peace from the earth that they should kill one another. The third is a black horse its rider has a set of scales and he sells wheat and barley but hordes the oil and wine. The fourth horse is a pale horse and his rider is called death. Him and his followers go forth killing with sword, famine, pestilence and the beast of the earth.
Now there have been many interpretations of these symbols the most common of course is that they stand for the false prophet, war, greed, and death and it is assumed that they are all things that shall appear in the “end times”. I however have come to see them a different way. I propose that they could represent a model of development that starts in the past, and highlights the things that might be common to an emerging sentient life form. In short it is a time line.
The white horse with his crown and bow represent the innocent beginnings of hominids. Blessed with his crown of intelligence and his ability to make complex tools like the bow. He then begins to have an edge on conquering his environment. With newfound abilities of hunting, shelter and controlling fire he is able to spread across continents and explode in population
.
Enter the red horse and his great weapon of intelligence. He may bring us a couple million years down the road to a place in our history where Homo erectus finds himself pitted against Homo sapiens in a battle for limited resources and the rights to further populate the world. This is the time when his survival instincts are first focused not on his environment but on his fellow man, that they should kill one another.
Eventually we are lead to the dawning of civilization where a black horse represents a dark turning point in human nature. With all of our needs being easily met over abundance changes our survival instincts to pure greed. We begin to covet the finer things in life and cheating and stealing grow in proportion to the have’s and have not’s that will stay with us for the rest of our journey.
As this new greed builds empires the pale horse of death along with his followers begin to evolve the art of war itself. Man soon finds the powers to destroy crops, spread disease, and domesticate large numbers of animals. All for the sake of expanding his empires and his own glory.
Oddly the fifth seal seems to fall out of context with the rest of the seals and trumpets. But its significance is important to describing these things as a time line because it seems to be the marker for were John is within this time line. When this seal is opened John is shown the souls of all those that have died in the past for the word of God and when they cry out to know when judgment will be delivered they are told to rest yet awhile longer until all that will parish in the future should be fulfilled. It seems to have no other relevance other than time.
The sixth seal I believe brings us to what might be the most significant thing man has done thus far! While he begins by describing something that bears an incredible resemblance to carpet bombing (stars falling like figs from a shaken tree, shaking the ground and filling the sky with smoke) He ends it with a mushroom cloud (splitting the sky like a scroll) moving mountains and inlands out of there places. Causing humans to hide within caves and inside the rocks of mountains. The dawning of the nuclear age surely must be a pivotal moment in the history of any planets sentient life.
The SEVENTH SEAL is divided into seven more parts (the seven trumpets). The first four again grouped together, all have an ecological theme. The burning up of grass and trees. The poisoning of both sea and fresh water and air pollution.
The last three called the three woes may contain more detailed predictions of an impending global political view. The first seems to imply an ideology that is akin to our modern day U.N. peace keeping policies. I.E. keeping sovereign nations at arms length, trying to establish peace without imposing any kind of internal rules for human rights or organizational polices. When that fails the second woe brings on an era of mandatory polices possibly leading to an established one-world order. (pardon the pun)
I should first point out that I am a firm believer that the world is 4.5 billion years old and that evolution is a reality. I should also point out that I firmly believe all life that has evolved on this planet has done so out of a preexisting pattern that is congruent through out this universe. That is to say that just like an apple seed can be said to have a predestined future to become an apple tree, so it is that this planet has a naturally occurring predestiny too do all of the things that it has done.
When I look at a road map of the United States I don’t see a scare on Gods green earth caused by humans, rather I see the planet wide development of a neural network. Capable of giving the planet a form of self-awareness. Within it is the capacity to understand, catalog and even manipulate all of its life sustaining systems, biology, geology and all the symbiotic relationships therein. Uniquely sentient life gives the planet a chance for its life to escape the confines of its thin atmosphere and spread to other places within the solar system or even its galaxy. After all the one thing that can be said about life is its persistence to spread. While this may seem to be an over simplification of why we are here, it lends itself to the notion that all of the things we have experienced in history (stone age, iron age, industrial age, nuclear age, computer age) may very well be parts of a very recognizable pattern that occurs consistently through out the cosmos.
The challenge for the believer in this is to put aside any of the usual dogma of seven day creation or a 6000 year old world and acknowledge that science might be a reality. Like wise the challenge for the scientist is to put aside the dogma that religious text are bogus and lack any true relevance in defining the future. My approach to this is to lend credence to this ancient text by exposing what might be simple pattern recognition of the development of sentient life on this planet.
The book of Revelations is 22 chapters long and for those of you who don’t know, the first chapters are simply letters that John wrote to various churches in his part of the world (describing their faults). The real meat of the story actually starts in chapter 6 with John having been whisked away to a place were Jesus himself is about to reveal what you all know as the seven seals. The seventh of which is actually further divided into seven more parts known as the seven trumpets. These seals and trumpets take up all of chapters 6-11 and because I believe they encompass an entire overview of history from beginning to end, they are all that I will be dealing with in this exercise. The subsequent chapters I believe are more detailed examinations of the things that will come about within that overview.
We begin with the infamous four horsemen, which are reveled as the first four seals are broken on the scroll. The first is a white horse its rider has a crown and a bow and is sent forth conquering and to conquer, the second is a red horse its rider has a great sword and he goes forth taking peace from the earth that they should kill one another. The third is a black horse its rider has a set of scales and he sells wheat and barley but hordes the oil and wine. The fourth horse is a pale horse and his rider is called death. Him and his followers go forth killing with sword, famine, pestilence and the beast of the earth.
Now there have been many interpretations of these symbols the most common of course is that they stand for the false prophet, war, greed, and death and it is assumed that they are all things that shall appear in the “end times”. I however have come to see them a different way. I propose that they could represent a model of development that starts in the past, and highlights the things that might be common to an emerging sentient life form. In short it is a time line.
The white horse with his crown and bow represent the innocent beginnings of hominids. Blessed with his crown of intelligence and his ability to make complex tools like the bow. He then begins to have an edge on conquering his environment. With newfound abilities of hunting, shelter and controlling fire he is able to spread across continents and explode in population
.
Enter the red horse and his great weapon of intelligence. He may bring us a couple million years down the road to a place in our history where Homo erectus finds himself pitted against Homo sapiens in a battle for limited resources and the rights to further populate the world. This is the time when his survival instincts are first focused not on his environment but on his fellow man, that they should kill one another.
Eventually we are lead to the dawning of civilization where a black horse represents a dark turning point in human nature. With all of our needs being easily met over abundance changes our survival instincts to pure greed. We begin to covet the finer things in life and cheating and stealing grow in proportion to the have’s and have not’s that will stay with us for the rest of our journey.
As this new greed builds empires the pale horse of death along with his followers begin to evolve the art of war itself. Man soon finds the powers to destroy crops, spread disease, and domesticate large numbers of animals. All for the sake of expanding his empires and his own glory.
Oddly the fifth seal seems to fall out of context with the rest of the seals and trumpets. But its significance is important to describing these things as a time line because it seems to be the marker for were John is within this time line. When this seal is opened John is shown the souls of all those that have died in the past for the word of God and when they cry out to know when judgment will be delivered they are told to rest yet awhile longer until all that will parish in the future should be fulfilled. It seems to have no other relevance other than time.
The sixth seal I believe brings us to what might be the most significant thing man has done thus far! While he begins by describing something that bears an incredible resemblance to carpet bombing (stars falling like figs from a shaken tree, shaking the ground and filling the sky with smoke) He ends it with a mushroom cloud (splitting the sky like a scroll) moving mountains and inlands out of there places. Causing humans to hide within caves and inside the rocks of mountains. The dawning of the nuclear age surely must be a pivotal moment in the history of any planets sentient life.
The SEVENTH SEAL is divided into seven more parts (the seven trumpets). The first four again grouped together, all have an ecological theme. The burning up of grass and trees. The poisoning of both sea and fresh water and air pollution.
The last three called the three woes may contain more detailed predictions of an impending global political view. The first seems to imply an ideology that is akin to our modern day U.N. peace keeping policies. I.E. keeping sovereign nations at arms length, trying to establish peace without imposing any kind of internal rules for human rights or organizational polices. When that fails the second woe brings on an era of mandatory polices possibly leading to an established one-world order. (pardon the pun)
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