Revelation 20:1-6 tells of 1000 years in which Christ will reign. I've heard there are different views on this 1000 years, mainly premillenialism, postmillenialism, and amillenialism. What are the differences between these views of the millenium in Rev 20:1-6? (Especially concerning the differ...
@a_hardin I haven't been very happy with my bounties either... I think we have too few visitors and too many new questions for bounties to matter to users.
@a_hardin I started to work on an answer last night. I'll see if I can get something in before the timeout, but it's a freaking pain to try to outline eschatology views.
@dancek Good question. (I mean about whether we can recover the question, not the question). I"ll think about it. It might be worth a meta post because its' a general class of question that is bound to come up again and it would be useful to know if we should just be killing them or if there is an edit-path that can turn them into useful questions.
Something I want to mention and I think it deserves its own answer. Users have a lot of power on SE. The burden to find and delete bad posts is not completely on the moderators. Here are the things you can do to control content on this site (and any SE site.)
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@a_hardin Thanks. It actually pretty rough and doesn't do any of the different views justice. Someday it should properly tie in those views with HOW they manage to read the same verse(s) so differently, but maybe that's the subject of other questions anyways. If anybody would pitch on my NT Israel question some of the premises about the nature of the church that lead to such different eschatologies might start become more apparent.
The Israel talked about throughout the Old Testament is fairly clearly a specific people group and later a country. The New Testament also makes references to Israel. Are these references comparable? Are they still talking about the Jewish people group and modern nation of Israel?
Is there any r...
That I don't know, but the rep seems to flow pretty freely here. We've had outright trolls pick up a couple hundred rep for no good reason. Any regular activity seems to translate to rep pretty easily. I'm more puzzled why a few of our low-ish rep users that give awesome answers aren't getting more upvotes. We have a couple guys who always give A+ answers but since they only have a handful of posts they don't seem to get much attention.
Also I've noticed more on this site than any other that effort/quality doesn't directly scale to rep. On tech site if you put out some effort to do research and give full examples etc, that get's you noticed. Here that means people skip over your post looking for the one they understand without having to think too much. My best answers are definitely not my most-upvoted ones.
@Caleb Well, as I say in my profile, and as you're probably guessed from my contributions, I'm far more interested in the interplay of religion with culture than I am in theology, so I'm unlikely to vote at all on theological answers.
(Interaction would probably be a better word. Interaction ... with; interplay ... and.)
@dancek I think that's pretty common among "separatist" movements. (FLDS, Amish, etc.) Plus, it just makes sense. If you're separating your group from the world and one of your own goes off and joins the world, they have chosen to separate themselves from the group. It would be their choice, not the family's.
@Richard I know that's what they say, and I understand how it makes sense. But if my dad turned Muslim, I couldn't sever ties with him even if my church taught I should.
@TRiG not very, if you know much about them already. It did give me new insight, and I respect the Witnesses more now than before.
Especially how they stood up against the regime in Nazi Germany even though that meant going to death camps made an impression. And even in the death camps they did what they could to help others.
@dancek There's certainly a lot of misinformation about Witnesses out there. In some ways, both culturally and theologically, they're very much standard Protestant Biblical literalists. In other ways, both culturally and theologically, they're very different.
@dancek And yes, their history in Nazi Germany is certainly special. They have a documentary about that. Purple Triangles.
@TRiG yeah... people always fear the unknown. My main problems with JWs are the non-Trinity with non-divine Jesus doctrines -- that's very dangerous heresy in my book. I also rather dislike the centrally lead system (similar to Catholicism), but that's not such a major point.
@dancek Of course, growing up in the Republic of Ireland, I never really met any "standard Protestant Biblical literalists", so my assertion that the Witnesses are in some ways similar should be taken with a pinch of salt.
We have some happy clappy churches now. They never used to exist in Ireland, but we have loads of Nigerian immigrants.
@dancek I would hope you wouldn't, but a non-separatist view of Christianity leads us to believe that the very best thing for the one leaving is to stay in a close relationship with them as possible (without compromising your own faith).
@TRiG sure. I've been waiting for five years now for them to come knocking on the door, but they haven't :) (I've moved 4 times). I know where to find their contact info, and I could actually hint them to come over. Though my intentions aren't very pure, as I'd question their faith and try to get them to honestly think about some issues.
@dancek Oh, so'd I. But I still live in the same town, so the local Witnesses know me. I believe some have moved in since I left, so it's possible I could meet someone who wouldn't know they shouldn't be talking to me.
@ElendiaStarman What the flip is "the Roman road"?
@TRiG It's an outline of the gospel using just a few verses from Romans. Kind of a popular explanation tool among Evangelical Christians in the states these days.
@dancek. Or maybe not. But you don't have to call them to your house. You can express a genuine interest in information on the Witnesses' history in Nazi Germany. They'll supply you with relevant, non-prostelysing literature. If they also try to convert you, that's their lookout, isn't it?
@TRiG I don't really think so. Only God can give faith. I think man can deconvert someone that doesn't have a true relationship with Jesus, but man cannot bring anyone to the Christian faith.
If you think the phrase “a witnessing tool” refers to something that’s good to have rather than someone it’s bad to *be*, then you might be an evangelical.
@Atheist it is, sort of, but that doesn't really come from someone else trying to get you to question your beliefs
I mean, I'm very happy as a Christian. If an atheist told me to question Christianity, why would I? I'd only have things to lose!
But now I know of this thing called intellectual honesty, so I question my own beliefs of my own accord. (And that's probably one reason I am happy as a Christian.)
@Atheist peace of mind, things like that... A change of worldview has potential to be very wearing, and there's no guarantee you'll ever be happy again :)
@Atheist depends on the Christian, right? How often does an atheist genuinely question their beliefs?
@Atheist you're misreading me. I said probably a reason for me being happy is that I do question my beliefs, and thus am quite positive that what I believe is reasonable, good and true. But in the scenario I present, the comfort is in status quo. It's easier not to change anything when you don't need to.
@Atheist someone else showing you is a good start, but that's not the same as personally questioning your own beliefs.
@Atheist I don't think there's any set of beliefs that's "beyond reasonable doubt"
@Atheist we all do. What we currently believe in, we use as a prioris, and thus end up with different believabilities, and thus end up believing stuff that makes our belief system stronger. (this is possible to show with bayesian belief networks)
@dancek If the Witnesses still work the way they used to, if you ask them for literature they won't post it out to you. The central office will get back to the local congregation in your area, that congregation will order the literature requested (which will take a few weeks to get through), and then send someone out to personally deliver it. Not the most efficient, but it'll come through eventually.
That means that (a) you've made a genuine request for non-preaching literature; you haven't sneakily called people to your house to deconvert them; and (b) you still get people calling to your house so you can deconvert them.
@Atheist Everyone has biases. It's part of the human condition. The important thing is to be aware of your biases.
@Atheist the scientific method is useful for finding the best theories. That's not the same as "beyond reasonable doubt". That's not what science even tries to be. Truth can sometimes be reasonably doubted, don't you agree?
@TRiG ok, so that'd be an interesting way to get the documentaries :)
@dancek I'm not sure what your meaning is. I think the germ theory of disease, for example, is beyond reasonable doubt. If amazing new information is found, then maybe it'll be overturned, but it'll take time. And effort. And stunning new discoveries. I when I say I don't expect that to happen, I think I'm being reasonable.
@Atheist yeah. I'm just commenting on requiring things to be "beyond reasonable doubt".
@Atheist theists? surely you mean creationists?
@Atheist I know what a scientific theory is, and I know a lot about the scientific method(s)
many atheists, too, only read popular-level science at best, and don't really know very much anything about science. I don't think it makes much sense to presume the worst of all people representing a certain group
@Atheist do I think science is valid? I certainly do!
@Atheist I'm not an expert on evolution nor creationism. I can see it being either way, I don't wanna be guessing.
I really wouldn't want to turn every discussion with nonbelievers to a discussion of origins of life.
Atheists can live their life just fine without knowing the mechanism of abiogenesis. I can live my life just fine knowing at least three different theories of how we came to be, but not knowing which one to believe in.
@Atheist the Bible doesn't very strictly tell what you should think of it. I do believe it's the word of God, and it won't be wrong. But I can see why irrelevant things might be explained in a way that the people who heard them could somehow understand, instead of being technically accurate down to all fine details.
@Atheist it's interesting how our discussion of questioning one's own personal beliefs turned into you questioning my beliefs.
@Atheist it's just that none of us is going to change our mind because someone else questions what we think. I've been a Christian for 25 years in a secular country, and have studied for 5 years in a university full of atheists. If I were to retreat under pressure, I would have done that a long time ago.
My personal experience is that to live as a Christian in these surroundings, you really have to know both Christianity and naturalism, and preferably other major religions in and out. Seems to me atheists often only know naturalism, and seem to think it's the only reasonable worldview.
@dancek I think honest self reflection/questioning is more likely to change someones beliefs than being put under pressure. It's a rarity, but people can change.
@Atheist I'm sorry not to understand how the difficulty of evaluating many possibilities is an argument for choosing the one you prefer. But it's good night for me right now. I'm around the site most days, so we can continue if you want to.
Revelation 20:1-6 tells of 1000 years in which Christ will reign. I've heard there are different views on this 1000 years, mainly premillenialism, postmillenialism, and amillenialism. What are the differences between these views of the millenium in Rev 20:1-6? (Especially concerning the differ...
Something I want to mention and I think it deserves its own answer. Users have a lot of power on SE. The burden to find and delete bad posts is not completely on the moderators. Here are the things you can do to control content on this site (and any SE site.)
At 1 reputation and as an anonymous...
