FINALLY I GET A SUGGESTED EDIT!!!

@El'endiaStarman Are they that uncommon? :P

@curiousdannii I don't check nearly often enough... >_> :P

@El'endiaStarman You're the top reviewer of all time! You can't complain!

.....[whistles].....

@El'endiaStarman What's the prognosis on this:

indeed

My pastor was guessing that the earthquakes would contribute to the economic collapse.

Given how big they're supposed to be, that'd probably happen.

So if global economic collapse was supposed to happen in September/October, then the earthquakes would probably happen around that time.

Facebook hasn't blown up about economic collapse, so apparently that part hasn't happened yet. :P

However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the described events will definitely not happen because this particular predicted date was missed. I think it's incredibly easy for humans to assign a date far earlier than what God set.

So, you're still holding out? When is the date that you decide the prophecy was bunk?

[shrug]

lol

Consider this also:

> David Wilkerson also prophesied that a smaller nation in Europe would fall, bringing down Germany, then in two weeks Mexico defaults and a few days later the US economy collapses. True (probably)

(From the Evaluation blog post.)

Germany is having a bit of a problem with the refugee crisis right now.

Greece was an obvious possibility because it was - and is - having trouble.

@fredsbend You're not supposed to pay any attention to those prophecies after the predicted date. Only before the predicted date. :-P

Here is my prophecy: Every single end-time prediction that involves physical, political, and financial catastrophes leading to the end of the world will be wrong. There may be an occasional lucky guess at a particular worldly event that actually happens, but no apocalypse will follow, and Jesus Christ will not physically return.

Those who think that the scriptural prophecies are going to be fulfilled literally will wait forever for it to happen, because the apocalypse is never going to happen physically.

Isn't 2,000 years of no literal, physical second coming long enough for us boneheads to figure it out?

@LeeWoofenden It took greater than 2000 years for the Messiah to show up. I don't think an argument on time since Jesus is very persuasive.

@ThaddeusB Jesus himself said, "Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened" (Matthew 24:34). So I would say that arguments based on time are very relevant. There have been a lot of attempts to argue that he meant something different, but I don't find those arguments persuasive.

However, the moment we recognize that he was speaking figuratively, not literally, the problems disappear.

@ThaddeusB Regardless, I stand by my prophecy. It ain't gonna happen the way literalist Christians think it's gonna happen.

@LeeWoofenden I would be interested in hearing a figurative fulfillment interpretation/argument... Does anyone know of an existing C.SE question that asks for that? (A quick search didn't find one, but it could be phrased many ways, so I'm not sure.) If not, I'll ask a new question.

@ThaddeusB There are many "figurative" ways to interpret prophecy, obviously, so keeping a narrow focus will be key. Do you want an idealist approach or a historicist approach? And within each of those I imagine there will be a wide range of differences, and probably some overlap between them.

@Nathaniel I want to give @LeeWoofenden a chance to explain his view in detail, so whatever allows that. :) Obviously, he'll have to let me know how to word the question.

@ThaddeusB Yeah, if Swedenborgians have a consistent view, then that would be a good scope for the question

agree with @LeeWoofenden, anyone predicting anything is a fool.

@LeeWoofenden That's my prediction too. ;)

@ThaddeusB For a general presentation, see my article, Is the World Coming to an End? What about the Second Coming?

Swedenborg wrote not one, but two massive commentaries on the book of Revelation. The first, Apocalypse Explained, he never finished or published. It takes up six volumes in English. The second, Apocalypse Revealed, was more "compact" at two volumes in English. That's the one he published. Obviously I could not provide that sort of detail in any answer here.

@LeeWoofenden If I restricted it to Matt 24, something like "What evidence\events do people who believe Matt 24 was completely fulfilled before the last of Jesus' disciples died out point to" (only more adequately explain since I wouldn't be restricted to 500 chars :) ) be answerable by you w/in a reasonable post length?

(reading your article now)

^reading your article, it seems you probably do not think "generation" meant ~50 years either, but ~1700 years which makes me wonder why you cited the passage earlier

and you also seem to be saying the second coming is happening now (implying it is a recent development), which is kind of the same thing you criticized fundamentalists for (thinking this must be referring to the present age) but just with a different take

@ThaddeusB If the prophecies of the end times are not taken literally, they can be applied both to the spiritual phase shift that took place in Jesus' era and to the spiritual phase shift that is now in progress.

@ThaddeusB My main criticism of the fundamentalist approach is not its timing, but its literalism. Having said that, looked at from the perspective of human spiritual history, I believe that the main event of the Second Coming has already happened. Its effects, however, are ongoing: the New Jerusalem is in the process of "coming down out of heaven from God."

@LeeWoofenden So would you say Matt 24 was fulfilled within a (human) generation? I can see some merit to say (for example) that the Temple cult (in the technical sense of the word) coming to an end marked the end of the old era, but I'm not sure if that fits into your interpretation or not... Early Christians did, of course, take the destruction of the Temple as proof that Judaism had been replaced.

@ThaddeusB Yes. And it was fulfilled again 1,700 years later, when the old Christian church lost its position of ascendancy in Western civilization so that it was no longer the primary influence, and no longer provided the primary worldview, of the population.

@ThaddeusB Incidentally, even within Judaism the destruction of the Temple is seen as an epoch- and religion-changing event. The Jewish leaders in the decades after 70 AD had the monumental task of re-thinking and re-shaping Judaism now that the core of its worship could no longer be practiced. Judaism itself has been a very different religion ever since. In many ways, Judaism and Christianity today are more similar to each other than modern Judaism is to ancient (Temple-based) Judaism.