To ask if you think there will be a second coming?

[LuluBellaBlue]

This is inspired by the new Netflix show Messiah, about a second coming.

I really hope this doesn’t upset or offend anyone and people can share their beliefs and thoughts openly and without prejudice or judgement as I know this can be very sensitive for some people.

Following on from —binge— watching this series I did a bit of googling and it seems both Christian and Muslim regions predict this. (Not researched if any others do yet)

I’m not very well informed about different regions but the concept of this programme has really interested me, I find it fascinating that this could, maybe? actually happen!

Do you think there could be a second coming?!

(And what would it actually mean for the world? A rise in consciousness? Mass healing???)

YABU - no don't be so daft!
YANBU - yes, this could happen, why not?!

@speakout

I started out from the same position as you. I doubt that. You don't know anything of my journey

I was trying to say that I started out with neither head nor heart believing. However, you are right, I know nothing of your journey. Given your tone, I think that is perhaps for the best.

Given your tone, I think that is perhaps for the best.

I am sure you did not mean to be rude.

How extraordinarily arrogant it is when religious people demand “respect” for their beliefs

I must have missed where that has happened on this thread

Greta would make a great Jesus!

I am sure you did not mean to be rude

Likewise.

Greta is the opposite of jesus.

She wants people to think for themselves, not be a willing flock.

That's true speakout, Jesus had a bit of an out of control ego problem.

@Letsallscreamatthesistene I wouldn't bother wasting time on asking what @roisinagusniamh problem is! That 'lady' obviously has some serious issues going on and this thread has hit a nerve with her! She needs to seek the help she clearly needs.

SirChing You’ve actually been ruder than anyone else on this thread. I know you think your insults are clever, but they are actually spiteful and childish.

Why do you feel the need for that? Don’t you have “God” on your side? Why do you feel so threatened that attempting a character assassination is all you can manage to come up with. Try logic & coherent argument instead.

There is a difference between criticising a belief and making an unpleasant slur about someone’s personality. You choose the latter.

And yes, demand for respect is littered throughout this thread. Maybe not those exact words but the tone is very clear.

Nah. SirChing fully intended to be rude. It’s what you do when your worldview relies on illogical magic and you know it.

@ChestnutSmoothie I have been rude once. When I was nastily told that I knew nothing of someone's history, in a hostile manner, when I was taking the time to reply to a question they asked me.

I certainly don't think I am clever, nasty or spiteful, and am amazed that you "know" what I am thinking.

People who believe on this thread, haven't demanded respect as far as I could see, and so I genuinely wondered whether I had missed that. Which also isn't rude. I found it a bit bewildering hence the confused face.

Which unpleasant slur or character assassination have I made about someone's personality? I am unaware of having done so.

As for whether I have God on my side, I believe that he is there for me but that, like all of us, I am a pretty crap human in lots of ways and don't deserve to have him on my side. Luckily, he loves us any way and I have to keep trying to be the best person I can be.

Hence I would like to know where the things are that you have accused me of. If I don't know, I can't change them.

Nah. SirChing fully intended to be rude. It’s what you do when your worldview relies on illogical magic and you know it

And that isn't rude I don't suppose?

God loves you?
How does s/he show that love?
Why would he be on your side and not the side of some poor homeless person begging on the streets?

Funny how all the “feminists” on MN have let this disgustingly misogynistic morsel pass.

Don't worry, I would never make the mistake of being inaccurate and calling you a lady

What’s a “lady” to you, SirChing? I’d be fascinated to know.

like all of us, I am a pretty crap human

Nope. SirChing You can't speak for all of us.

You may be a crap human.
Not for me to judge.
Nor can you judge me.

Rude again to tell me I am a "crap human"

The Christian worldview does rely on illogical magic. That’s a fact. Facts aren’t “rude”.

The belief system existed long before you did and will continue long after you’ve died so it’s quite exceptionally arrogant to insist that criticism &/or ridicule of it is a “rudeness” personally directed at you. And the “you” in this is collective - and common to a great many religious people.

There’s been lots of talk of “bullies” & people “picking apart personal beliefs” on this thread. This tends to imply that people’s personal beliefs should be immune from such criticism.

Why shouldn’t stated beliefs about a reality we all inhabit be “picked apart”? It’s only religion that demands such special treatment...and it’s done nothing whatsoever to deserve it. Quite the opposite.

@SirChing "I am confused what you mean re we don't get to choose our beliefs. No-one else can decide those for us, so it has to come from within"

Of course it eventually comes from within, but it is informed (normally) externally eg, research, culture, experiences etc. At no point does anyone make a 'choice' about their belief. Obviously you can fake it util you make it but that is a choice to 'try' & believe, not to actually believe.

Which is exactly what you described about your experience. You didn't choose to believe, you researched it, and rightly or wrongly, over time became convinced.

Many of us, like me, have researched religion and have not been anywhere near convinced enough to believe. So if there was a 'second coming' of a God and I was punished for not believing then that is on Gods head because I have had zero option to believe. God never provided adequate information and evidence to allow me to do so.

And I have to ask what kind of a God would punish people for things only it controls. A benevolent or a malevolent one?

GA colleague reported that there was a chap who passed away on a very snowy night. Before he died he kept sitting and gesturing to the window opposite his bed. After he died, there were footsteps in the snow walking away, underneath where the window was, but no footsteps walking to the window*

This is an example of lack of logic (out of many).

If the dead man was material enough to leave footprints in snow, how come he could drift through a closed window without smashing it?

If he wanted to leave a message, why do it in such an ambiguous way? Why not (if he could interact with the world enough to rearrange snow with his feet) sit up out of his dead body and wave at everyone? Walk out of the hospital leaving his corpse on the bed? Go and find someone with a camera who could record such an astounding event for posterity?

No. Best he could manage was footprints that could, in fact, have been made by anyone.

What was the gesture towards the window meant to signify? That he’d be going through it in a minute? How did he know?

Honestly...what twaddle.

Blimey! Right, one at a time:

God loves you? How does s/he show that love?
Why would he be on your side and not the side of some poor homeless person begging on the streets?

I feel God's love through the comfort that he provides me with when I pray, and the love that he has for us all by sending his son down for us. I am not going to go into details because it is personal, but when I am confused about something, I pray about it, and the answer is soon revealed to me in some form.

He is on my side AND the homeless beggar on the streets and everyone's side. Some choose to accept him, some don't. Some think He should prevent bad things happening but that isn't how it works (for long reasons which I don't feel like typing out but its to do with the deal he made with Satan when Jesus went to the cross).

Nope. SirChing You can't speak for all of us

I am sorry if you felt me saying that I am a pretty crap human like all of us, was rude. Apologies. I haven't ever met anyone who didn't think they were at least a bit crappy in some ways.

Whether it's by having bad habits, or addictions, or swearing too much, or telling white lies, or being greedy or jealous etc. I have genuinely never met anyone who didn't struggle with SOMETHING negative about themselves. I thought it was an inherent part of the human condition, and didn't realise it was rude or offensive to point it out. My apologies.

@ChestnutSmoothie Actually, the bit I thought was rude was you saying what my intentions where without asking me. It's rude to speak for someone and presume to know what they are thinking. It turned out you were right, but you didn't know that and I have explained why I was rude - in response to rudeness after a litany of rude comments made to me on this thread where people have openly said they are mocking me and have been called out by others for their rudeness to me. However, I shouldn't have been rude, so I apologise for my rudeness @speakout. It was unnecessary and mean.

Why shouldn’t stated beliefs about a reality we all inhabit be “picked apart”? I totally agree with you. When it comes to people being picked apart by them openly saying they are mocking you, then it becomes nasty.

What’s a “lady” to you, SirChing? I’d be fascinated to know

Its another word used to describe a female, like woman is. It's used by me where a person prefers that term. If they don't, and tell me that they aren't a lady, they are a woman, then I won't refer to them as such. They don't feel like they are so it would be inaccurate.

I am sorry if you felt me saying that I am a pretty crap human like all of us, was rude.

SirChing I guess it comes down to the christian idea that all humans are sinful, flawed, faulty, broken ( perfect to be scooped up by the church )
I don't see myself or others in this way.
I am a perfectly functioning homo sapien animal. Not sinful, not needing saved.

Why are humans all "crap"? What a horriffic view of your species.

@Walkingdeadfangirl

And I have to ask what kind of a God would punish people for things only it controls. A benevolent or a malevolent one?

I don't think that you WOULD be punished for that though. If God is real and knows everything, then he will know exactly why you don't believe and that he made you, and so would want you anyway.

I interpreted those bits of Revelations to mean that if Jesus was stood in front of you, doing so massive miracle that left you in no doubt whatsoever about who he was, and proved it to you beyond a shadow of a doubt (God knows how, literally, but apparently that's what Jesus will do when he comes back), if at that point, when it is absolutely obvious to you and you KNOW that it's true, then if you then turn away from him and say "Nah mate, not interested" then He can't make you follow him.

Sadly, those that don't, don't then get to go any further with him. They are left behind because that's what they have chosen, being fully aware of all the facts of exactly who Jesus is.

@ChestnutSmoothie Yep, it may well be twaddle. I wasn't there. A colleague who was very shaken up by it told me. Don't think they believed in anything up until then.

I have that example in response to a poster who wanted to believe that he dad had gone on to the afterlife. Hence it was tagged to her. I was telling her the incidents I had been told, and that has happened to me, in order to bring her comfort by explaining why most nurses believe in something.

I don't think saying the afterlife is twaddle would have brought any comfort somehow

Why are humans all "crap"? What a horriffic view of your species

Not really. I explained upthread that I think most of us that know we could do better in some areas, and that we don't act perfectly all the time. In my view, those weaknesses are just part of the human condition, and sometimes are what make us compassionate to one another.

Like when you meet someone and they have really annoying habits, because they aren't perfect, it may really get on our nerves because WE aren't perfect and don't have exemplary patience all the time.

I view low level crapness as a rather common trait to us all, and it's by not killing each other when X leaves the loo seat up for the millionth time, that love and tolerance grows. If we were perfect, the loo seat would never be left up, and if it was, it would never drive us bonkers.

SirChing

Rhetoric such as "weakness" or "perfect" are christian ideas.

I don't buy the Koolaid.

Imagine a herd of elephants- just another mammalian species like sapien- would you apply such terms as "weakness" or " perfect" to them?
Or would you accept that they- like us- have behavioural vagaries which impact others? Would you consider most elephants to have "imperfections" or "weaknesses".

I used to believe in the second coming , I don't really believe in anything anymore but I don't spend a huge amount of time thinking about it.

My religion was big on the second coming. It was pushed that it would be "soon" although often said in the same breath that soon to us and soon to God mean different things. I had believe who believe they had received revelation that they would be around to see this "momentous" day.

We were encouraged to pay tithes (a 10th of all our income) so they we wouldn't be burned at the second coming. It would be an event so big that all the world would look at and know at the same time. Yet, apparently even at this great sight, many would still not accept.

Although, despite this soon happening event there was lists of that needed to happen first, the world getting more evil and more confused and I guess there is a lot of hope in things when you consider all the bad things and the idea that there is light at the end of the tunnel.