Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?

by scotoma 26 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  scotoma

  What's the problem with prophecy?
  Prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy NOT an analytical strategy. Prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers. Even the name of the Messiah - Yeshua -wasn't foretold. Instead, the focus of prophecy is on events and actions of the significant players in a prophetic structure. This requires an adaptive approach that can accommodate a best fit. The basic criteria for a fit is the sequence of the events and after that a fit determined by the significance of the event and the relationship of the actors.

  
  End time prophecy requires a high tolerance for ambiguity. There is a temptation for an interpreter of prophecy to become seduced by their understanding, jumping to premature closure. A misidentification of a single event, or action can lead a person way off the track. Practical minds that have a strong executive capacity for action quickly lose patience and look for ways of dismissing prophecy as just wishful thinking - like seeing objects in cloud formations.

  One type of premature closure is preterism. Preterists go for closure by simply saying all the prophecies have been fulfilled. Daniel’s prophecies are interpreted as being fulfilled during the time of the Maccabeans. Revelation was completely fulfilled in the succession of Roman emperors. If you are one of those impatient people that want to wrap everything up in a nice package so you don’t have to tolerate the tension of waiting for something to happen you probably have something else that is more important that you feel the need of accomplishing. There is no need for you to feel guilty as you proceed to some other thread.

  Others who have gone through major life changes to accommodate some theoretical prophetic date decide they have wasted enough time on prophecy and the Bible. These may migrate to religions that don’t emphasize prophecy or become agnostics and even atheists. Many choose not to give up, but to stay alert to world conditions as you accumulate associations between the prophetic structure of events and actions that may fit the prophecy.

  One cop out is to say that people have always felt the end of the world is near. That may be true of people’s wishful anticipation of deliverance but the actual facts show that we are living in the most serious time for human civilization. That’s why the doomsday clock appears on the cover of the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists. The Bulletin started in 1947 with a clock set to 7minutes to midnight. Look up the timeline of the Bulletin http://thebulletin.org/timeline Since1947 the most optimistic estimate of time until doomsday was 17 minutes when the Soviet Union fell and the cold war was declared over.The Bulletin describes the situation in 1991: “With the Cold War officially over, the United States and Russia begin making deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty greatly reduces the number of strategic nuclearweapons deployed by the two former adversaries. Better still, a series of unilateral initiatives remove most of the intercontinental ballistic missiles and bombers in both countries from hair-trigger alert. "The illusion that tens of thousands of nuclear weapons are a guarantor of national security has been stripped away," the Bulletin declares”.

  Just 4 years later the clock is moved up to 14 minutes to doomsday. Why? “1995: Hopes for a large post-Cold War peace dividend and a renouncing of nuclear weapons fade. Particularly in the United States, hard-liners seem reluctant to soften their rhetoric or actions, as they claim that a resurgent Russia could provide as much of a threat as the Soviet Union.”

  • 1998 9 minutes
  • 2002 7 minutes
  • 2007 5 minutes
  • 2010 6 minutes (the famous Russian reset)
  • 2012 5 minutes (the reset didn’t work)
  • 2015 3 minutes "The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because internationalleaders are failing to perform their most important duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization."

  You can brush this off as mere opinion. But if you don’t believe in the Bible you aren’t going to find a more educated opinion of the world’s situation. The biggest players in this scenario are the United States and Russia. So, let’s look at end time prophecy to see if the USA and Russia really figure in.
  

  The prophesies I will address briefly later in this thread are as follows:
  

  1. The immense image with the head of gold and feet of clay and iron.
  2. The four beast of Daniel 7
  3. The blasphemous horn that emerges from the last of the four beasts.
  4. The horn that arises after the Ram and Goat struggle
  5. The King of the North vs The King of the South.
  6. Revelation The Wild Beast vs. Babylon the Great.

  
  
• 

  smiddy

  Four books that come to mind are :

  1 . Your Will Be Done On Earth

  2. Babylon The Great Has Fallen Gods Kingdom Rules .

  3 . The revelation Book

  Not forgetting of course the failed predictions ,expectations,evident realities,that the Watchtower has promoted for the past 140 years , and their constant changing of scripture interpretations .

  And worst of all is their re-interpreting their recent history omitting what they do not want people to see.

  smiddy
• 

  The Searcher

  From the viewpoint of end-times forecasters in general, and Jehovah's Witnesses in particular, the "boy who cried wolf" springs to mind.

  Having worked in the scientific field, I was initially dismayed at the overt rivalry amongst fellow scientists who strove to be "first" by reaching the goal before all others.

  It burst a little bubble in my mind.

  Religions are no different; their leaders want to appear as if they, and they alone, have inside information on God's timetable, thereby dismissing all of Christ's words which warned, "no man knows the day or the hour", "it doesn't belong to you to get to know the times or the seasons", "at a time that you don't think to be it", and "I shall come as a thief, and you will not know at all what hour I shall come upon you."

  Pretty clear!
• 

  Vidiot

  Scotoma - "Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?"

  About as much as any other empire or superpower that's existed.
• 

  Viviane

  End time prophecy requires a high tolerance for ambiguity.

  So, prophecy is nothing more than vague hand waving with everyone left the guess and fill in the blanks because it said nothing at all, actually? Seems about right. So, not a single prophecy has ever, nor does is, have the possibility of coming true since it doesn't actually say anything.

  You can brush this off as mere opinion. But if you don’t believe in the Bible you aren’t going to find a more educated opinion of the world’s situation.

  You yourself said it is mere opinion. No prophecy actually says anything. You are the one filling in the blanks since the prophecy never says any of this and we've no proof of you having a hotline to Jesus, so it MUST only be opinion.
• 

  scotoma

  Smiddy,

  JW's have not been very insightful. In many ways they have put their own spin on some traditional protestant anti-catholic obsessions. For example their belief that Babylon the Great is some World Empire of False Religion. Originally, they felt that BTG was the Catholic Church as the protestant reformists believed. Then they decided that in keeping with their claim to being the only true religion they were obligated to group ALL religions under the same title. They built their narrative around the idea that survival depended on "Getting out of Babylon the Great". So, to flee Babylon the Great all you really had to do is renounce your membership in any religious organization. This expanded to forbidding (under threat of excommunication) JW's from working, even in non religious functions, for religious organizations whether under contract or as a direct employee.

  This is a serious error on their part. They completely miss the fact that Babylon the Great is actually a political entity described by it's wealth and controlling the economic activities of all nations. The traveling merchants who have become rich due to her habits of consumption ("shameless luxury") beat themselves when they see her destruction by the revived wild beast. So far JW's have been unable to imagine that the destruction of Babylon the Great might require their physical flight. It's very convenient that the JW interpretations don't require any real inconvenience to their headquarters.
• 

  OrphanCrow

  scotoma: You can brush this off as mere opinion. But if you don’t believe in the Bible you aren’t going to find a more educated opinion of the world’s situation.

  Lol!

  Can you define "more educated"?

  I don't "believe in" the bible. I can think of many far more 'educated' opinions than what the bible has to offer.

  Have you ever read Jean Baudrillard's writings?
• 

  DJS

  The batting average for the following prophetic methodology is 0.0000.

  “ . . . analytical strategy.”

  While the batting average for the following prophetic methodology is 0.000000.

  “Prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy, not analytical strategy. The focus of prophecy is on events and actions of the significant players in a prophetic structure. This requires an adaptive approach that can accommodate a best fit. The basic criteria for a fit is are the sequence of the events and after that a fit determined by the significance of the event and the relationship of the actors.”
• 

  scotoma

  Orphan & Viviane

  I should have worded this better.

  When I said "You won't find a more educated opinion" I was talking about the Doomsday clock on the cover of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

  I think the doomsday clock is an educated opinion.

  In other words if you are an atheist and you want an opinion the Bible is already not your focus. However, the danger humans are in because of their possessing nuclear weapons is quite real. You don't need the Bible at this point in time to understand that man has the power to bring his species to extinction. This is an intrinsic problem from the time the first pathetic protoplasm discovered the protection provided by a cell wall. Some organisms discovered toxins that would drive off other predatory organisms. The arms race has continued. This intrinsic selfishness has created an arms race. At the point of nation states with nuclear weapons it could all end.

  The fluctuating minute hand on the Doomsday clock is a testimony to the certainty of catastrophic failure. It moves slightly back and there is a moment of hope to be followed by some tragic failure in international relations. This has long been the case. However, Nagasaki and Hiroshima is an example of what an enlightened democracy will do when benefit of use exceeds the cost.
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  insidetheKH

  the doomsday clock is not based on nuclear threats only since 2007 it also reflects climate change and new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity

  The most recent officially announced setting—three minutes to midnight (11:57 pm)—was made on January 22, 2015 due to climate change, the modernization of nuclear weapons in the U.S and Russia, and the problem of nuclear waste.