07 Oct 2018

A Difference in Worldviews

Religious 12 Comments

At church today that pastor was introducing our series on the Book of Revelation. I was talking with my son afterwards, and I mentioned that–among other things–it dealt with “the end of the world,” quite literally. It details the Apocalypse.

That explains why so many movies are based on it: the end of the world is quite a gripping and dramatic topic.

But from the perspective of those who believe in Jesus, it is actually a relief. The suffering of this world finally comes to an end:

The New Heaven and the New Earth

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place[a] of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,[b] and God himself will be with them as their God.[c] He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

12 Responses to “A Difference in Worldviews”

  1. Steve Maughan says:

    It’s clear why we need a new Earth but as a Christian I’ve always been puzzled as to why we need a new Heaven. Doesn’t this imply the first Heaven is in some way lacking?

    Steve

  2. Marc Cohen says:

    And, the joy of this world.

    No idea how anyone could believe this claptrap.

    • Roger Federer says:

      Deep thoughts from Marc!

  3. Andrew says:

    OT: Bob, This article claims, “If emissions continue at the current rate, it’ll be 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit hotter by [2040].” Is that consistent with your reading of the relevant research?

    • Harold says:

      ” This is according to a United Nations report by 91 scientists and based on more than 6,000 scientific studies.”

      Bob is an economist, so I doubt he has read the relevant articles. His strength is assessing economic principles of the physical outcomes postulated by IPCC. It would be a brave economist to take on climatologists in the area of climatology. The problem is that climatologists (and all too often medics) do stray into the realm of economics. I am happy for medics to tell me that obesity is a health problem, not so much of they insist a sugar tax (or whatever) is the best solution.

      • Andrew says:

        Right. I don’t expect him to have done any original research with regards to climate. I just know that he has gotten familiar with various climate models in order to conduct his research into the economic impacts of various climate policies.

        A temperature increase of 2.7 degrees by 2040 seems very scary to me and I don’t remember being scared when Bob was discussing the potential impact of the Paris Agreement, for example. So I’m hoping that that number is an outlier or a worst case scenario or based on a long term extrapolation from a short term set of data. I thought of Bob because he’s looked at a few of these climate models in the recent past.

        • Harold says:

          Possible reasons why this sounds alarming are that this is 1.5C, which seems to be the usual unit. and increase since pre-industrial times, not increase from now.

          • Andrew says:

            Ah okay thanks Harold. That “since pre-industrial times” is an important piece of context that I was missing. This makes me a little warier than I already was about taking FiveThirtyEight at face value.

            • Harold says:

              The relevant quote is:
              “A1. Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global warming is likely to
              reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. (high confidence)”

              Full report here:
              https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

      • Major_Freedom says:

        lol, “UN STUDY”.

        Not as credible as the Soviet Bureau of Make Think Science

  4. Giovanni P says:

    > And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

    So many happy-ending movies end in a wedding.

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