What does revelations say about 2017

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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. RaptureAnxiety calls out evangelicals' toxic obsession with the end times. Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: RaptureAnxiety calls out evangelicals' toxic obsession with the end times. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email. Email required.

By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. For more newsletters, check out our newsletters page. The Latest. Why movies tilt the camera like this By Marie Cascione. Soul food and the stories it tells about America By Jamil Smith. The Taliban, explained By Sam Ellis. In the next 25 years, AI will evolve to the point where it will know more on an intellectual level than any human.

In the next 50 or years, an AI might know more than the entire population of the planet put together. At that point, there are serious questions to ask about whether this AI — which could design and program additional AI programs all on its own, read data from an almost infinite number of data sources, and control almost every connected device on the planet — will somehow rise in status to become more like a god, something that can write its own bible and draw humans to worship it.

Recently, reports surfaced that a controversy-plagued engineer who once worked at Uber has started a new religion. Anthony Levandowski filed paperwork for a nonprofit religious organization called The Way of the Future. Of course, this is nothing new.

The Singularity is another quasi-spiritual idea that believes an AI will become smarter than humans at some point. You might laugh at the notion of an AI being so powerful that humans bow down to worship it, but several experts who talked to VentureBeat argue that the idea is a lot more feasible than you might think.

One of the experts is Vince Lynch, who started a company called IV. AI that builds custom AI for the enterprise. Lynch explained how there are some similarities between organized religion and how an AI actually works. In the Bible used by Christians, for example, Lynch says there are many recurring themes, imagery, and metaphors. Indeed, Lynch even shared a simple AI model to make his point. If you type in multiple verses from the Christian Bible, you can have the AI write a new verse that seems eerily similar.

It might tell you what to do each day, or where to travel, or how to live your life. Robbee Minicola, who runs a digital agency and an AI services company in Seattle, agreed that an all-knowing AI could appear to be worthy of worship, especially since the AI has some correlations to how organized religion works today.

We need to put all this in perspective. These are six verses out of more than 31, verses or roughly 0. In other words, monitoring and proscribing human homo sexual activity is not a particular concern of the Bible when compared to the overarching demand for justice, economic equality, and the fair treatment of foreigners and strangers.

For certain Christian groups to make this the decisive Christian issue is simply a misreading of biblical values.

Lest readers think the Bible is against sexuality generally, there is an entire biblical book devoted to celebrating human sexual desire. Written in the style of a Mesopotamian love poem, the Song of Songs sometimes called Song of Solomon , speaks positively of both female and male sexual yearning. Serious Christians cannot ignore the Bible. They can, however, make sure that they interpret it with all the tools available to them, that they examine their own biases, and stop over-simplifying the issues.

The Bible offers a wide variety of marriage arrangements , many of which we no longer condone. It never condemns same-sex marriage, partly because it simply does not address the issue directly. It does, however, give us an ethic to guide how we treat one another: an ethic based upon God's generous love and a profound concern for justice.

Originally published in The Conversation. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. Yes, this verse clearly condemns adulterous homosexual sex in calling it an "abomination" to'ebah , but here are all the other things also called an "abomination" in the Bible: Egyptians eating with Hebrews; having an image of another god in your house; sacrificing your child to the god Molech; having sex with your wife when she is menstruating; taking your wife's sister as a second wife; and eating pork.

Paul is using a standard list of vices here to make a wider rhetorical point. As New Testament scholar Sean Winter summarises: "Paul shares a stereotypical Jewish distrust of Graeco-Roman same sex activity, but is simply not talking about loving partnerships between people with same sex orientation.

Posted 22 Aug 22 Aug Tue 22 Aug at pm. Turnbull pleads for 'love and support' at 'challenging time' in same-sex marriage debate. Note to Margaret Court: the Bible isn't meant to be read that literally. More on:. Top Stories Government releases its modelling underpinning the net zero emissions target. Celebrity cosmetic surgeon's 'barbaric' attempt to fix a tummy tuck under local anaesthetic. Court hears alleged murder victim's house was unusually clean and smelt like bleach.

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