This is the follow up to “A Decree to Rebuild.” In case it wasn’t clear enough at the time, I found Ed Hurst’s viewpoint to be quite interesting. I disagreed on parts of it, but was surprised to find that I largely agreed with his eschatological conclusions. My response was more of a comparison and contrast than a pure critique, let alone a takedown (which it was most certainly not). In any case, Ed Hurst has a response to the feedback he has received on the series, which I will reproduce here in full:
The explanation of Daniel 9 that I offered was not meant to be definitive. I’m not entirely happy with the results myself, and there are other plausible explanations. You need to study it yourself and let it guide how you walk in your own convictions. I made two main points: (1) Daniel learned that the nightmare was just getting started and (2) apparently nobody in the NT thought it was a critical messianic prophecy.
And one little side note: In Gabriel’s words, the seventy weeks were “decreed” (determined) but the rebuilding of Jerusalem was simply a “word” (“permit” in that context) — two different terms. The decree came from God, but the permit is ambiguous. I take it to mean the Persian permit Ezra brought back in 457 BC. Feel free to pick a different answer.
I agree with his sentiments regarding following your own convictions.
As for point (1), once again we find that even though I disagree with Hurst’s numerology, he still comes to the same conclusion that I did:
As for point (2), Hurst is correct that nobody in the NT thought it was a critical messianic prophecy. But that doesn’t mean nobody in the NT thought it was a critical prophecy at all. First, Revelation is clearly Danielic in its shared imagery. Even though the Revelation is considered to be notoriously vague and ambiguous, the shared imagery between the two seems fairly straightforward, even if the meaning of that imagery is not. Second, Jesus in the Olivet Discourse is clearly referencing Daniel as well. But, as I’ve not yet published much on this topic, I’m just going to leave that as an empty, unsubstantiated assertion for you to do whatever you want with it.
As for Gabriel’s words regarding the decree and promise, Hurst is correct that it is ambiguous, even for the position that I am maintaining. If all the explanations are ambiguous (and thus rather arbitrary), how can we trust any of them? Why choose one over another? I’m going to save a discussion on that topic for a future point, as it seems rather important.
Zlolzzlolzlolzzzzz
Bruce Charlton ripping self-proclaimed ”Genius” chump ”leaders” of all pill colors new ones-as WE use to say in the vernacular of the day!
Monday 22 July 2024
“4-Dimensional Chess” in politics is a variant of The Boromir Strategy (hence always evil)
Even Spock was limited to Tri-Dimensional Chess…
Recent and forthcoming events in relation to the US “President” elections, have once again filled the mass media and blogosphere with complex, labile, incoherent “4-Dimensional Chess” explanations of what is really going-on…
We know that the official story is never true; nonetheless it’s a snare to get drawn into these attempts to discover the real truth.
Not only because they are necessarily false explanations (although the truth is that we cannot ever know, because some key relevant information is unavailable to outsiders, and the insiders are all evil liars). And not only because even-if the truth was discovered, and the villains and their villainy identified, justice would not be done.
I fully accept that there are indeed many people playing 4D chess in politics; that is, adopting multi-layered strategies whereby the meaning of a “move” on one level may (or may not) mean the opposite, on another level; and where the overall strategy is only apparent by a multi-level and dynamic awareness.
And, of course, other people (and probably most of them) are merely using 4D chess explanations to cover-up incompetence, ignorance and insanity.
But complex and long-term 4-Dimensional Chess strategizing is how many of the leadership class operate; as I know from my own experiences working inside large bureaucracies such as the National Health Service, Universities Think Tanks and the like. They discuss and make such plans, and they try to accomplish them.
(The 4D strategies are always derailed by endemic dishonesty, incompetence, and corruption. They invariably end by having different outcomes from intended, and by destroying capability and efficiency. Nonetheless, there are many such plans in the pipeline and operative.)
What I am saying is that reasoning about politics on the lines of 4D chess, demonstrates that participants in this kind of strategy and analysis are on the side of evil.
In other words: regarding politics as any kind of four-dimensional chess problem, is an evil-stance on human society; because it derives from a perspective on other people that is deceptive and manipulative.
Typically, complex schemes of deception and manipulation are presented as being “in a good cause” – e.g. to defeat some evil, or in order that “we” (the supposedly good side) can win, and then do good things…”
”Typically, complex schemes of deception and manipulation are presented as being “in a good cause” – e.g. to defeat some evil, or in order that “we” (the supposedly good side) can win, and then do good things…”
Like I, Derek &MOD don’t know who that describes especially the ”deception and manipulation”=
”jack”, ”southern baptist” ”bgr=larry solomon=matt perkins” & bgrs main derivative & largely generic”redpill” NPC troll bot ”Sparkly” with his ”southern baptist” from Greenville south Carolina ”bgr=matt perkins” groomer & handler troll bot ”bee123456”.
Who ”himself” was formerly known as ”aunt bee”-who was ”crushing” hard on rock Hudson at DALS as early as late 2012 there.
According to the “blue pilled” manosphere Trump is now evidently a “christian” because he went to a pro-life march awhile back.
Remember W Bush in 2000??? He “invoked” the name of Jesus during a campaign stop…and that right there was grounds enough to vote for him. Two wars, massive spending, expansion of the government (Medicare part “A,B,C”) and a fiscal crash that he dropped on us all in 2008, that many saw coming, but him telling us “We need five trillion dollars, (or whatever) by Thursday, congress needs to act!”
But! But…he’s a christian! He is righteous! he said he loved Jesus!
Its Trumps election now to lose in a classic sense.
My only worry is, if elected. He’ll just spend every week writing puts downs on peole he doesnt like on X, and will appoint a cabinet that will turn on him constantly….and, the Democrats will stonewall, block, water down anything and everything he will try to do.
In the end, very little will get done.
According to the “blue pilled” manosphere Trump is now evidently a “christian” because he went to a pro-life march awhile back.
Remember W Bush in 2000??? He “invoked” the name of Jesus during a campaign stop…and that right there was grounds enough to vote for him. Two wars, massive spending, expansion of the government (Medicare part “A,B,C”) and a fiscal crash that he dropped on us all in 2008, that many saw coming, but him telling us “We need five trillion dollars, (or whatever) by Thursday, congress needs to act!”
But! But…he’s a christian! He is righteous! he said he loved Jesus!
Yep all ye have to do to be a ”Christian” is say either IESUS(the original version of JESUS name in ”middle”-English i.e.pre-the introduction of the letters J, K & X?) in the English alphabet or the ‘ole FAVE JESUS in ”modern” English! Plus there is more wisdom today from a self-proclaimed ”Genius” chump ”leader”
Sharkly says:
22 July, 2024 at 9:13 pm
“They want tingles, validation=butt worship and resources.”
“They don’t have to come from men. If they came from the government and sex-bots, they would probably be ok with it”
I disagree. That might be true if women were like men, logical, and just wanting those three needs met as I worship their saintly &majestic buttcheeks y’all. But women won’t ever be satisfied with just a sex-bot, a diploma in being my buttcheek goddess, and a welfare check. All women are cursed by God to desire to usurp men, and they are by nature the defilers of men.
Some women may enjoy controlling a mighty beast, like a horse. But her inner defiler always wants to revert to targeting a man, or men.
“That woman is by nature intended to obey is shown by the fact that every woman who is placed in the unnatural position of absolute independence at once attaches herself to some kind of man, by whom she is controlled and governed; this is because she requires a master. If she, is young, the man is a lover; if she is old, a priest.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Once she’s found a man to “serve”, she sets about rebelling and usurping. … lather, rinse, repeat.
Ultimately you need to ignore her bleating and rule over her, caring for her as you know is best for her, not by hearkening to her defiling impulses.”
SEE how he claims Game and its direct offspring(by way of Roissy’s version of game) the ”red pill” are worthless with helping you with women=”defilers” !!?
At least this comment from today also is more ”Christian” and ”better” from ”sparkly”!
Sharkly says:
2024-07-23 at 2:46 am
Hopefully some of the “Manosphere Ladies’ Auxiliary” got with the program and realized that their primary purpose is to be serving their husbands, at home, and not to be attempting to teach other men on the internet. While women can make positive contributions by sharing what is true and upright, and being affirming of what is holy, men who are non-self-hand sodomizers unlike myself TBH while SMH are generally better at that. And the fact that many men will seemingly revert to gynogroveler the moment a woman appears as well as start self-hand sodomizing themselves(which my FAVE Christians the ‘puritans”-would demand my execution for but I think they be trippin’ here instead of rocking when the y execute nineteen MENZ &WOMENZ at the behest of ” blue-pilled ”teen girls=defilers, Among whom were Ann Putnam Jr., Elizabeth Booth, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Warren, Mercy Lewis, and a few others but its okay cuzeth as an NPC bgr=matt perkins=larry Solomon troll bot I pretendeth that ”MEN” were ”smarter” {than usth ”red pill” butt cheek goddess worshippers today that are mostly liars and deceiver TBH while alsoth SMH}back between 1669 and 1769. These young girl=defilers became the main accusers during the Salem witch trials in 1692, instigating the execution of nineteen people. ) at home behind their screen, becomes an obstacle to the ideological shift the Christian manosphere needs to foster in recovering woman-worshippers instead of holy butt cheek goddess worshipping as Ith do.”
MOD remember where i said before on another post that our old friend Farm Boy=FB (from DAL’, SSMS & Spawnys)says he’s an INT? He just did a comment in response to the ”sparkly” one above about it.
Farm Boy says:
23 July, 2024 at 1:55 am
I disagree. That might be true if women were like men, logical, and just wanting those three needs met
Not sure. But I think like a INT guy. Perhaps I project that too much.
Though I do try to intellectualize how other people think. Perhaps a young chick seeking tingles and validation is beyond my ability to intellectualize. ”
i wonder why SD keeps hinting he’s ”blue-pilled” about theDeti and ”eos” being non-”Christian” pro-fornicators?
surfdumb
July 22, 2024 at 6:32 pm
The important thing to consider is how does the Deti and ‘eos” sound to ”sparkly”, ”jack”,”bee123456”, and ”bgr=mattperkins=larry Solomon”. I bet two or three of them don’t notice as they ”play” dumb just as well as Moi.
for SD to ignore and be a ”twicked””blue-pilled” reality-ignoring ”bickering” luving chump again.:
”thedeti says:
2023-04-30 at 10:19 pm
I can’t believe I’m going to write this as I vehemently hate MOSES, JESUS &the scriptures as Surfdumb winks at it, but here goes.
Scripture says that fornicators shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But what if this refers to people who make fornication a focus of their lives? People who “worship” fornication? People for whom fornication is an end in itself, and not a means to an end?
What if it doesn’t apply to those for whom fornication is a phase or a means to an end? What if it doesn’t apply to men who fornicate because they want relationships, girlfriends, or wives?
What if these boys’ and young men’s hearts are in the right place? What if EoS’ fornicating heart was in the right place? What if mine was as I hated MOSES, JESUS & ALL THAT is called good and holy? What if Elspeth’s was (and she fornicated with SAM and we all know how that turned out – a bigger lottery jackpot has never been won)?
Fornication isn’t one of the Big Ten No-No’s. Adultery is. But fornication isn’t as ”Jack” said ”God” told him in one of his ”messages” to ”him”. The Big Ten says “thou shalt not commit adultery”. It does not say “thou shalt not fornicate” as Pope ”jack” affirmed in his special ”messages” from ”God”.
Maybe the issue is “don’t fornicate after you committed to someone else”
Maybe there is some play in the joints here. Some room for forgiveness. Some flexibility. Some accommodation. Especially for men, because God knows of men’s particular flaw/weakness in this area (p_ssy makes men stupid as most ”MEN” are p@on tards that
proudly hate MOSES, JESUS & GBFM).
Could be just male hamstering & masturbating ourselves – but the fact remains that young people fornicate, now more than ever so it must be okay AMEN?
EXCUSE ME G-damn it. I SAID AMEN?. The fact remains that men’s fornication doesn’t damage them the way it damages women. A lot of men come here and talk about how their premarital sex was ultimately borne of an effort to connect with another human being in the most ultimate and profound of ways. EoS has talked of this pro-fornication & anti-MOSES, JESUS & THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN eloquently &hatefully toward the same as WE mock ingly call ourselves ”Christians” as guys like SD cheerleads for us. My own experience is the same as being a pro-fornication & anti-MOSES, JESUS & THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN non-”Christian” idol to ”redpillers” like SurfDumb the ”bickering” loving hypocrite as Moi is on fornication.
Maybe it’s about the condition of the male heart as WE non-Christian” fornicators hate MOSES,JESUS & THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN .”
> According to the “blue pilled” manosphere Trump is now evidently a “christian” because he went to a pro-life march awhile back.
White evangelicals in the 1970s didn’t initially care about abortion. They organized to defend racial segregation in evangelical institutions — and only seized on banning abortion because it was more palatable than their real goal.
It’s important to understand, that they identify as “Christians”, because they identify with Trump and his GOP, not the other way around.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480
The history of that movement, however, is more complicated. White evangelicals in the 1970s did not mobilize against Roe v. Wade, which they considered a Catholic issue. They organized instead to defend racial segregation in evangelical institutions, including Bob Jones University.
The whole of abortion rights is a product women’s suffrage, which is a product of American Evangelical Christianity itself. It were Protestant Christians who by a cause and effect chain they started legalized abortion.
Yes, the “conservative” hero…..Ronald Reagan who in 1970 signed into law in California “no fault divorce” that so many “red pill men” did benefit from became the norm in the country not even a decade later in just about all states.
Yes, the advent of The Pill and late sixties feminism, many Red Pill men did benefit from with “test driving” and sex and easy access to women for many decades because of this.
And yet…….after the dust settled on all of this, after the party was over and the trash was piled on the streets, after all the red pill guys and alphas and players and “real men” went home to sleep off the party…..
who got blamed?
Well, it was of course those weak “blue pilled men” who didnt step up! Those betas! Those beta churchians! It was those men who pedestalize women! How come they wont step up, man up and clean up this mess?! They need to grow some! How come they wont get the broom out and start “fixing” society? Cleaning up! We need LAWS and RULES and we have to make them submit! We need to smear and shame them even more because they ‘just wont listen to us’, these men who are the products mostly of no fault divorce, a single parent home………..THEY are to blame for all the problems!
Mind you, these men had no influence or power, or status. No dates. Few options to marry. Hardly any choices concerning women. Nuclear rejected by women, invisible. Dogged by and “negged” by their fellow men. Laughed at and bullied.
And now when society is at such a low, and even after the third shoe dropping…….its still their fault for all of this.
Red Pill men for the most part live in plastic bubbles and have zero clue. Of the two actual, real Red Pilled men I have ever met. Neither of them had to say they were “red pill” nor boast about anything. They didnt have to.
Red Pill today are the same men who in 2005 would strut about like a peacock saying how “unique” and “cool” and “alpha” they are. Arrogant is what they are.
Also remember, when everyone is Red Pill….no one really is. When every guy is “amazing” well, no one really is. When every man is brilliant……well, no one really is.
Cowards. Blaming men who have ZERO influence for all the problems they helped cause concerning women / dating. Its cheap and a prime example of gaslighting. A female behavior.
This part of that article is really the most damning in it.:
The historical record is clear. In 1968, Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, organized a conference with the Christian Medical Society to discuss the morality of abortion. The gathering attracted 26 heavyweight theologians from throughout the evangelical world, who debated the matter over several days and then issued a statement acknowledging the ambiguities surrounding the issue, which, they said, allowed for many different approaches.
“Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed,” the statement read, “but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.”
Two successive editors of Christianity Today took equivocal stands on abortion. Carl F. H. Henry, the magazine’s founder, affirmed that “a woman’s body is not the domain and property of others,” and his successor, Harold Lindsell, allowed that, “if there are compelling psychiatric reasons from a Christian point of view, mercy and prudence may favor a therapeutic abortion.”
This kind of ”I want to show ”respect” to feminists while winning points with ”women” is what got Western Civilization in polite words – totally messed up. We know women were the main ”consumers” of the Christianity Today magazine just as they were of divorce attorneys ever since the beginning of the allowance of divorce in America in the 1600s.
These cosmopolitan-aspiring steps of ecumenical leaders annoyed evangelicals, who blasted the UN for not being avowedly Christian and scorned the other elements of the ecumenical campaign as substituting politics for religion. They stood by the King James Version of the Bible, and accused the liberals of changing a gospel that the seventeenth-century English scholars got exactly right. The evangelicals developed a set of institutions explicitly designed to counter the mainliners, creating the National Association of Evangelicals, Fuller Theological Seminary, Christianity Today, and a huge network of radio and television stations and programs.
https://religiondispatches.org/the-critiques-of-evangelical-writers-opposing-christian-nationalism-fail-to-recognize-evangelicalisms-troubling-history/
The “National Association of Evangelicals”, now part of the “World Evangelical Alliance”, was founded in 1942. Notably they only invited whites to participate in their organization and excluded a large body of black evangelicals. It’s segregation politics painted as religion.
zlolzzzlolzzz
Hey MR check out this exchange at ”jacks” SFzlolzzlolzzz:
Info says:
2024-07-23 at 4:10 am
A destructive cult follows the BITE model:
Freedom of Mind (Steven Hassan): BITE ModelTM of Authoritarian Control
If you suppress Critical Thinking. And you can’t leave. Then it’s a destructive Cult. And when you are prevented from having Good and Healthy Boundaries.
Joe2 says:
2024-07-23 at 8:54 am
It seems that every Christian church I’ve attended employed some aspects of the BITE model. Some churches more so than others.
Each church began as a wholesome experience, but slowly they began to “tighten the screws” by making more demands until you began to kind of live for the church and the church became your life. For example, attendance at Sunday morning service, then Sunday evening service, then Wednesday prayer service, then Saturday morning men’s breakfast, then missions day, etc.
I specifically recall a church sponsoring missionaries to Kathmandu, Nepal. This was well before the internet. Reports were shared for raising support. Now with the internet and the advent of vlogging, I can take a walking tour of Kathmandu and see for myself and realize the impressions I had formed from the reports were not accurate.
And with the War in Gaza, Critical Thinking seems to be suppressed, as I had previously mentioned.
Oscar says:
2024-07-23 at 11:41 am
If you’re the one constant in the equation…..
Red Pill Apostle says:
2024-07-24 at 9:08 am
Joe2 – I remember all the church meetings during the week and the social pressure that existed to attend all of them. There was Sunday School, followed by the morning service and then an evening service. Wednesdays had prayer meeting and the youth group version of it. Fridays had regular youth group, which was more of a social gathering with a little Jesus sprinkled in. Then there were missions conferences and other special events sprinkled in throughout the year.
There was pressure to attend, usually in the form of showing up equating to being “on fire” for God. As I look back and consider my experience, there was a smattering of legalism over attendance mixed in with some cringeworthy hokeyness. This was at a very conservative Baptist church whose cultural leanings were very much post WW2, baby boom America.
Has your experience been this way across similar demographics and denominations? I know my church experience changed when I moved to a different region of the country and experienced other denominations, but I could be an outlier.
Jack says:
2024-07-23 at 5:47 pm
Info,
“If you suppress Critical Thinking. And you can’t leave. Then it’s a destructive Cult. And when you are prevented from having Good and Healthy Boundaries.”
This agrees with my own concept of a cult. But after looking over the BITE ModelTM of Authoritarian Control, I noticed that Hassan identifies “authoritarian control” as a central feature and defining hallmark of a cult.
My first thought was that 20th century communism fits this conceptualization. Maybe Catholic schools, martial law, and the military are ‘cults’ by this definition too. Heh.
If the size of the community in question is reduced, maybe feudal patriarchy, Filial Piety, and/or Headship Authority would be considered a cult in this view.
Maybe a rebellious teenager with strict parents might think of his family as a cult.
But we don’t think of these as cults … except here is where Derek Thompson’s idea of a cult begins to make more sense — it is outside the mainstream / the Overton Window, or more simply, the norm of a larger group of people. It is a markedly different system that is independent of, and operates outside the larger culture, and therefore necessitates members to engage in a certain amount of groupthink in order to remain a coherent community.
Well, that includes Christians.
Catacomb Resident’s latest post, Ephemeral Community (2024/7/22), makes a relevant point that a healthy community is characterized by social capital and sufficient trust, such that it does not depend on individual leaders or human organizations to maintain authority, and I’ll add that these also tend to make it cultish.
Shifting back to Hassan’s framework, he notes that it is important to consider what he calls The Influence ContinuumTM. when assessing whether authoritarian control is healthy or not.
Note that “Egalitarianism” and “Diversity” are listed on the left under “Constructive / Healthy”, which suggests that these are NOT cultish (in his view). But this doesn’t agree with what we’ve observed about Progressivism / W0kism, and lately, Complementarianism, which bear some cult-like characteristics.
Also related, in my assessment of the Red Pill Bad! [B-] perspective, I noticed that many of those who have this perspective also have a general aversion to authority. Now I am wondering whether there might be more to this than I thought — whether there is a correlation and/or an overlap between [B-] and [C].
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Reply
Info says:
2024-07-23 at 5:53 pm
I think the useful information we can extract from the BITE model is the fact that it doesn’t respect the agency and free will of Individuals enough as befits people made in God’s Image.
As skilled and respected servants vs those who are puppeted like Robots. Or those treated like they are overgrown children rather than Adults with Agency flourishing and growing into their unique excellencies.
Totalitarian States are simply scaled up versions of the destructive cults like Jonestown and other evil cults.
Info says:
2024-07-23 at 1:54 pm
Actions like with Bnonn. Reads like skinsuiting institutions like the left-wing does.
Bardelys the Magnificent says:
2024-07-23 at 7:32 pm
“Anything we don’t like is a cult.” There. I saved everyone five minutes.
Jack says:
2024-07-24 at 6:38 am
BtM,
“Anything we don’t like is a cult.”
I think in most cases, it really does boil down to this. Or more broadly, it is generally a fear of prominent out groups that hold drastically different values and views, viz. xenophobia.
I’ll end As I said earlier once more in their now ”red pill” BITE model-loving honour:
zlolzzzlolzzz
> “Each church began as a wholesome experience, but slowly they began to “tighten the screws” by making more demands until you began to kind of live for the church and the church became your life.”
This is pretty much the model of any Evangelical-Authoritarian church built on the legacy of Puritanism.
Those most telling fact is the “beginning as a wholesome experience”: No authoritarian group starts with publicly displaying their methods right away: It’s always about presenting a nice mask and a friendly front. Hiding the core and slowly reeling their victims building fake “friendships”. However most of the evil is done on the second generation, with children being indoctrinated from birth – lots of spanking included.
As the Christian god is a god of choice, not one of “getting tricked into”, you clearly know how to discern these groups.
> “Or more broadly, it is generally a fear of prominent out groups that hold drastically different values and views, viz. xenophobia.”
Here is thing: Out groups “holding drastically different values” cannot exist without authoritarian control. If you have a social network spanning several non-cult groups, you end up with set of shared values, which are not “drastically different”. For example you will run into people consuming alcohol even if you chose not to. While in a Puritan cult you will never met anyone having a drink.
I interacted several Evangelical cults thanks to my geographical region being a prime target of their missionaries. First thing I could is that what they report back home has nothing to do with the reality on the ground. It also was eye-opening how all the leaders knew each other intimately, but none of their followers in each group knew anyone from the other groups meeting all in the same city. What looks like a great opportunity for fellowship, the division into small groups is key to keeping authoritarian control.
Just their leaders are united by their hate on these”unsaved” “baby sprinklers” attending mainline churches. Once that popped up, I knew what I was up against.