Serious question: Why shouldn’t it be interpreted as a meaningless writing that, to the extent it accurately predicts anything in the future, does so by being so general that it can fit a variety of situations? Or does so accidentally, in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day?
The present prediction for Pope Francis predicts a persecution of the Catholic Church.
This is not an interpretation made after the fact, and it is not a "meaningless writing."
I believe that its mechanism will be by an ISIS assault on the Catholic hierarchy.
Prediction number 112 looks like this:
In psecutione. extre-
--ma S.R.E. sedebit.
If one looks closely, one notices something unusual in this motto which is not found in any of the others, and that is a spurious period following the Latin word "psecutione."
A period indicates an ending, and my interpretation is that here it indicates the premature end to the papacy of Pope Francis.
I have mentioned the (alleged) visions of Pope St. Pius X which are about some kind of disaster at Vatican City which forces both the present Pope and a retired Pope to flee that city.
If prediction number 112 turns out to be valid (let's hope that it does not), then that will be a confirmation of Wion's prophecy which should convince us to take prediction number 113 for the last Pope seriously.
You do realize that having seven continents is a purely artificial creation. The splitting of Europe and Asia makes no real sense which is why many geographers refer to the continent of Eurasia and quite a few geographers would combine the two Americas. Some would put Europe, Asia, and Africa as one continent.
Everyone is making fun of the undead rat's dire predilections for predictions but the undead rat remains a zealous harbinger of doom. This is a rodent who fails at reading a room.
Everyone is making fun of the undead rat's dire predilections for predictions but the undead rat remains a zealous harbinger of doom. This is a rodent who fails at reading a room.
You do realize that having seven continents is a purely artificial creation. The splitting of Europe and Asia makes no real sense which is why many geographers refer to the continent of Eurasia and quite a few geographers would combine the two Americas. Some would put Europe, Asia, and Africa as one continent.
A good point, of course. But if the prophecy is real, then its maker knew that we would have postulated seven continents.
You do realize that having seven continents is a purely artificial creation. The splitting of Europe and Asia makes no real sense which is why many geographers refer to the continent of Eurasia and quite a few geographers would combine the two Americas. Some would put Europe, Asia, and Africa as one continent.
A good point, of course. But if the prophecy is real, then its maker knew that we would have postulated seven continents.
And would have known that we no longer use that number.
You do realize that having seven continents is a purely artificial creation. The splitting of Europe and Asia makes no real sense which is why many geographers refer to the continent of Eurasia and quite a few geographers would combine the two Americas. Some would put Europe, Asia, and Africa as one continent.
And a lot of prescience to know of the great south land.
Why not Brussels, Moscow, Tehran, Jerusalem or..............Tallahassee?!
None of those, my friend.
The "city of the seven hills" is a cryptic reference to the earth and its seven continents which will be destroyed by the coming global nuclear war.
Your apocalypse is too small.
Nuclear war is not the elements dissolving by fire (2 Peter 3:10). Sure, it puts a crimp on everybody’s day, but it doesn’t require a complete rethink of the Periodic Table.
That’s what the end of all things really means. It isn’t just the end of life on the surface of the earth followed by a little light terraforming; it is the end of earth, solar system, galaxy, universe and four dimensional spacetime. All. Things.
Followed by: behold, I make all things new.
If you need a hand with the correct sense of scale, google the phrase: scale of the universe 2
Why not Brussels, Moscow, Tehran, Jerusalem or..............Tallahassee?!
None of those, my friend.
The "city of the seven hills" is a cryptic reference to the earth and its seven continents which will be destroyed by the coming global nuclear war.
Isn't it funny how if something doesn't literally match reality, you can declare that actually it's a cryptic reference to something else and hey presto, the prophecy becomes true again.
There is truly no limit to how much this can be done. It's basically the Kevin Bacon game but with facts and interpretation.
And I suspect you truly have no idea just how much you have in common with QAnon followers.
Isn't it funny how if something doesn't literally match reality, you can declare that actually it's a cryptic reference to something else and hey presto, the prophecy becomes true again.
There is truly no limit to how much this can be done. It's basically the Kevin Bacon game but with facts and interpretation.
And I suspect you truly have no idea just how much you have in common with QAnon followers.
In a world without order we all try to maintain the illusion of control.
For some, it’s gardening, controlling a small plot of nature. Others build elaborate model railway layouts or put model ships into bottles. Others lift their hearts with a personal purchase. Others want to bring a sense of stability by modelling the future, trying to discern some plan and structure to hold onto. YEC enthusiasts do the same with the distant past. We escape into the world of books and films and music. Authors conjure alternative realities. QAnon just encourages individuals to do the same with the news. Everyone can be an author, a composer, an interpreter, an orchestrator.
If you do not like the world as it is, declare that it is “fake” and dive into a better one of your own making.
Even those with faith try to use the gospels (other texts are available) as an escape.
Obviously if model railway enthusiasts join forces, their internal differences don’t usually cause sedition. Their constructs are self-limiting and crucially, self-deprecating. Any delusions of grandeur stay in the attic or the basement.
Why not Brussels, Moscow, Tehran, Jerusalem or..............Tallahassee?!
None of those, my friend.
The "city of the seven hills" is a cryptic reference to the earth and its seven continents which will be destroyed by the coming global nuclear war.
No, it's not. It's definitely Sheffield.
ISIS will chase the next pope out of Rome and he'll move the papacy to Sheffield, and then Jesus will start a nuclear war there. Or maybe Rotherham. I thought everyone knew that.
Serious question: Why shouldn’t it be interpreted as a meaningless writing that, to the extent it accurately predicts anything in the future, does so by being so general that it can fit a variety of situations? Or does so accidentally, in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day?
The present prediction for Pope Francis predicts a persecution of the Catholic Church.
This is not an interpretation made after the fact, and it is not a "meaningless writing."
I believe that its mechanism will be by an ISIS assault on the Catholic hierarchy.
Prediction number 112 looks like this:
In psecutione. extre-
--ma S.R.E. sedebit.
If one looks closely, one notices something unusual in this motto which is not found in any of the others, and that is a spurious period following the Latin word "psecutione."
A period indicates an ending, and my interpretation is that here it indicates the premature end to the papacy of Pope Francis.
The period (or full stop) is surely a typographical error.
So is psecutione (AFAIK).
Please now also explain how an ISIS assault on the hierarchy equates to a persecution of the Church as a whole , world-wide.
Everyone is making fun of the undead rat's dire predilections for predictions but the undead rat remains a zealous harbinger of doom. This is a rodent who fails at reading a room.
Serious question: Why shouldn’t it be interpreted as a meaningless writing that, to the extent it accurately predicts anything in the future, does so by being so general that it can fit a variety of situations? Or does so accidentally, in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day?
The present prediction for Pope Francis predicts a persecution of the Catholic Church.
This is not an interpretation made after the fact, and it is not a "meaningless writing."
You keep side-stepping my question. What basis do we have for thinking it is not a meaningless writing. You seem to start with an assumption that the prophecy is reliable, but you offer no support for that assumption.
If prediction number 112 turns out to be valid (let's hope that it does not), then that will be a confirmation of Wion's prophecy which should convince us to take prediction number 113 for the last Pope seriously.
Why do we need to wait to see whether prediction 112 turns out to be true to take prediction 113 seriously? What about predictions 1–111? If they can’t establish the validity and reliability of the prophecy, then why should anyone waste their time with this?
The Vatican must be, for better or for worse, one of the most important cultural complexes in the world.
During the so-called Babylonian schism when the popes were removed for 100 years to Avignon, during the Sack of Rome just before the Protestant Reformation ,during the Napoleonic times when the pope was removed to Fontainebleau and during the period of 'the flight to Gaeta' when Pius IX fled from Rome,there was never any real attempt to destroy the Vatican complex.
It was suggested during WW2 that had anything happened to the Vatican there would have been lots of rich people who would have considered it an entrance ticket to Heaven to rebuild, exactly as it was before ,the Vatican.
Look at what happened with the partial destruction of the cathedral in Paris - not suggesting for one moment that the French government is trying to get into a Heaven which they are not allowed to acknowledge, but with such a cultural complex - of much less importance than the Vatican ,it simply has to be rebuilt.
It’s also just baffling to think that 1) ISIS would, or even is capable to, attack the Vatican; and 2) that attacking the Vatican would result in a nuclear war. There’s a lot of missing linkages in both of those propositions.
It’s also just baffling to think that 1) ISIS would, or even is capable to, attack the Vatican; and 2) that attacking the Vatican would result in a nuclear war. There’s a lot of missing linkages in both of those propositions.
There is a certain "underpants gnome" quality to this isn't there?
Americans attacking the federal capitol is materially different from ISIS attacking the Vatican. There’s also simply almost no evidence that ISIS has any interest in the Vatican.
As for number two, which government is launching a nuclear attack because the Vatican got attacked? Which government cares so much about the Vatican that they’d willingly plunge the entire world into chaos because a city got attacked? None of this makes any sense; states don’t just willynilly throw nukes because a pretty city was spoiled.
I'm just a simple Episcopalian turned Unitarian. Info on the Holy Shroud I picked up from books......
The interpretation of the Prophecy of the Popes is of my own making as is the interpretation of the OT. I developed the conviction that the world would end in a global nuclear war in the early 1970s after smoking marijuana a little too often. Over the years I found some OT passages which seemed to support that idea (nuclear war, not smoking weed.)
....
Original post is on page 14 of the Turin Shroud thread.
Just wanted to make the observation that sometimes, using can be associated with great leaps of creativity: Philip K Dick is an obvious example.
@undead_rat have you thought of a self-published novel?
@Martin54 - is that the Japanese fillum about a cursed videotape, which results in the death (seven days later) of anyone watching it?
If so, it's a bit like this thread. After XXX, or 666, or 777 days of undead_rat's dire predictions, I wonder if all of us reading it are in Mortal Peril...
As far as #1: It baffled many people to think that Americans could and would take over the Capitol...
,
Not saying that any of these prophecies are at all accurate; but I don't think they're necessarily impossible, either.
Dear God no. It's contagious. It's The Grudge! Don't wa
LOL. Nope, not contagious. Just that the counter arguments, as stated, struck me as inaccurate at best. Like (paraphrase) "we don't have to worry about nuclear war anymore, it's just silly, and soooo 1950s". As I posted upthread, there's periodic news about this or that nation's nukes and what they might do with them, and we've got a current Purg thread about a brand-new nuclear disarmament agreement.
ISTM that countering an argument by being dismissive and inaccurate doesn't really help anyone.
Americans attacking the federal capitol is materially different from ISIS attacking the Vatican. There’s also simply almost no evidence that ISIS has any interest in the Vatican.
For years ISIS made threats against the Vatican, saying that Muslims would take over and be praying there. They have vowed retribution after the slaying of their leader.
As far as #1: It baffled many people to think that Americans could and would take over the Capitol...
,
Not saying that any of these prophecies are at all accurate; but I don't think they're necessarily impossible, either.
Dear God no. It's contagious. It's The Grudge! Don't wa
LOL. Nope, not contagious. Just that the counter arguments, as stated, struck me as inaccurate at best. Like (paraphrase) "we don't have to worry about nuclear war anymore, it's just silly, and soooo 1950s". As I posted upthread, there's periodic news about this or that nation's nukes and what they might do with them, and we've got a current Purg thread about a brand-new nuclear disarmament agreement.
ISTM that countering an argument by being dismissive and inaccurate doesn't really help anyone.
Yes, nukes are an ever-present danger in this crazy world, and being dismissive of them is indeed unhelpful.
However, why the Vatican? ISIS may well want to see Muslims praying there (BTW, are there any mosques in Rome?), but I wonder if perhaps they're more likely (God forbid) to target somewhere else - a western world capital, other than Rome - with a nuclear device, even a small one being capable of massive devastation.
About eight years ago I came across a realtor/estate agent called ISIS. I liked to imagine their team meetings: “ Ha! We will sell the houses of the infidels! They will never see it coming!”
No, no leader was killed by the Pope. I'm not sure how they expect attacking the Vatican would do anything to avenge their leader, and I don't know what leader undead_rat is referring to as they have had plenty of leaders killed by plenty of states.
Why do we need to wait to see whether prediction 112 turns out to be true to take prediction 113 seriously? What about predictions 1–111? If they can’t establish the validity and reliability of the prophecy, then why should anyone waste their time with this?
Some analysts refer to the mottoes "Religio depopulata" and "Aquila rapax," but find themselves accused of "cherry picking," etc.
I call attention to prediction 112 for Francis before the fact in order to avoid that criticism, but, if it comes true, the skeptics will just say it was luck or that it was too obvious.
As far as #1: It baffled many people to think that Americans could and would take over the Capitol...
,
Not saying that any of these prophecies are at all accurate; but I don't think they're necessarily impossible, either.
Dear God no. It's contagious. It's The Grudge! Don't wa
LOL. Nope, not contagious. Just that the counter arguments, as stated, struck me as inaccurate at best. Like (paraphrase) "we don't have to worry about nuclear war anymore, it's just silly, and soooo 1950s". As I posted upthread, there's periodic news about this or that nation's nukes and what they might do with them, and we've got a current Purg thread about a brand-new nuclear disarmament agreement.
ISTM that countering an argument by being dismissive and inaccurate doesn't really help anyone.
Entertaining half-cocked crackpot Internet theories because "we don't know" [shrug] is essentially how QAnon developed. I doubt undead_rat has any kind of following, but at this point I think it's best to put these kinds of inanities down. A theory concerning the major actions of states with little evidence to support it other than a spurious writing from the 17th century and the usual political tensions of the Middle East counts as half-cocked and crackpot.
"Religio depopulata" is "religion destroyed." Oddly enough, religion appears to still be around.
"Aquila Rapax" is "rapacious [or seizing] eagle" supposedly referring to Napoleon because his flags were emblazoned with such during the reign of Pius VII. How that is a prophecy related to the Papacy I have no idea. Furthermore, even if these two were absolutely spot-on, two vague statements out of a collection of 112 doesn't prove anything.
"Religio depopulata" is "religion destroyed." Oddly enough, religion appears to still be around.
"Aquila Rapax" is "rapacious [or seizing] eagle" supposedly referring to Napoleon because his flags were emblazoned with such during the reign of Pius VII. How that is a prophecy related to the Papacy I have no idea. Furthermore, even if these two were absolutely spot-on, two vague statements out of a collection of 112 doesn't prove anything.
@Martin54 - is that the Japanese fillum about a cursed videotape, which results in the death (seven days later) of anyone watching it?
If so, it's a bit like this thread. After XXX, or 666, or 777 days of undead_rat's dire predictions, I wonder if all of us reading it are in Mortal Peril...
But...but...the World is terrifying and chaotic already, no?
I haven't seen the films of Dan Brown's books, but I have read them all. I still think they're fun, and I don't see anything blasphemous in (for example) the thought that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have been a *ahem* couple...
Well, he was human, and AIUI it was unusual for a Rabbi to be a single chap...by the age of 30, he could have been married for some years, with a family.
Apollo Gees for the tangent, BTW. As you were, and please carry on discussing sensible things.
@Martin54 - is that the Japanese fillum about a cursed videotape, which results in the death (seven days later) of anyone watching it?
Yep, that's Ringu. Re-made in America as The Ring.
I was impressed with the first few films I saw in that turn toward "Asian" horror, but after awhile they started beating the motifs to death with a sledgehammer.
aquila rapax (rapacious eagle ) - in the order of the 'prophecy of the popes' refers to Pius VII. If one is to make sense of the title it is seen as referring to Napoleon Bonaparte. Pius VII's pontificate was a long one from 1800 to 1823 and much of his pontifical life was taken up in dealing,from a Church point of view, with the aftermath of the French Revolution - first of all in reaching an agreement with Napoleon to re-establish Christianity as 'the religion of the majority of French people' and re-establish Sunday as a day of rest. Later on Pius held prisoner in Fontainebleau by Napoleon who installed his little son as King of Rome. If,as I think, undead rat said that Pius was eternally grateful to Napoleon I think it would be in the same way that the hapless Aung San Siu Kyi supported the work of the Burmese generals.
But...but...the World is terrifying and chaotic already, no?
I haven't seen the films of Dan Brown's books, but I have read them all. I still think they're fun, and I don't see anything blasphemous in (for example) the thought that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have been a *ahem* couple...
Agreed, not blasphemous, just silly.
As for current terror and chaos, that depends on your choice of news provider 😉.
Comments
The "city of the seven hills" is a cryptic reference to the earth and its seven continents which will be destroyed by the coming global nuclear war.
This is not an interpretation made after the fact, and it is not a "meaningless writing."
I believe that its mechanism will be by an ISIS assault on the Catholic hierarchy.
Prediction number 112 looks like this:
In psecutione. extre-
--ma S.R.E. sedebit.
If one looks closely, one notices something unusual in this motto which is not found in any of the others, and that is a spurious period following the Latin word "psecutione."
A period indicates an ending, and my interpretation is that here it indicates the premature end to the papacy of Pope Francis.
I have mentioned the (alleged) visions of Pope St. Pius X which are about some kind of disaster at Vatican City which forces both the present Pope and a retired Pope to flee that city.
If prediction number 112 turns out to be valid (let's hope that it does not), then that will be a confirmation of Wion's prophecy which should convince us to take prediction number 113 for the last Pope seriously.
We rodents suck at that.
A good point, of course. But if the prophecy is real, then its maker knew that we would have postulated seven continents.
And would have known that we no longer use that number.
And a lot of prescience to know of the great south land.
Hmmm. That's a new one to me.
Your apocalypse is too small.
Nuclear war is not the elements dissolving by fire (2 Peter 3:10). Sure, it puts a crimp on everybody’s day, but it doesn’t require a complete rethink of the Periodic Table.
That’s what the end of all things really means. It isn’t just the end of life on the surface of the earth followed by a little light terraforming; it is the end of earth, solar system, galaxy, universe and four dimensional spacetime. All. Things.
Followed by: behold, I make all things new.
If you need a hand with the correct sense of scale, google the phrase: scale of the universe 2
Isn't it funny how if something doesn't literally match reality, you can declare that actually it's a cryptic reference to something else and hey presto, the prophecy becomes true again.
There is truly no limit to how much this can be done. It's basically the Kevin Bacon game but with facts and interpretation.
And I suspect you truly have no idea just how much you have in common with QAnon followers.
In a world without order we all try to maintain the illusion of control.
For some, it’s gardening, controlling a small plot of nature. Others build elaborate model railway layouts or put model ships into bottles. Others lift their hearts with a personal purchase. Others want to bring a sense of stability by modelling the future, trying to discern some plan and structure to hold onto. YEC enthusiasts do the same with the distant past. We escape into the world of books and films and music. Authors conjure alternative realities. QAnon just encourages individuals to do the same with the news. Everyone can be an author, a composer, an interpreter, an orchestrator.
If you do not like the world as it is, declare that it is “fake” and dive into a better one of your own making.
Even those with faith try to use the gospels (other texts are available) as an escape.
Obviously if model railway enthusiasts join forces, their internal differences don’t usually cause sedition. Their constructs are self-limiting and crucially, self-deprecating. Any delusions of grandeur stay in the attic or the basement.
No, it's not. It's definitely Sheffield.
ISIS will chase the next pope out of Rome and he'll move the papacy to Sheffield, and then Jesus will start a nuclear war there. Or maybe Rotherham. I thought everyone knew that.
The period (or full stop) is surely a typographical error.
So is psecutione (AFAIK).
Please now also explain how an ISIS assault on the hierarchy equates to a persecution of the Church as a whole , world-wide.
"psecutione" is an abbreviation as is noted by the slash going through the lower arm of the letter "p" (not reproduced here.)
And I am just guessing at "hierarchy." Let's see how the Catholics regard that event if (God forbid) it should happen.
Yeah, I flunked out of Tech and University also.
Why do we need to wait to see whether prediction 112 turns out to be true to take prediction 113 seriously? What about predictions 1–111? If they can’t establish the validity and reliability of the prophecy, then why should anyone waste their time with this?
During the so-called Babylonian schism when the popes were removed for 100 years to Avignon, during the Sack of Rome just before the Protestant Reformation ,during the Napoleonic times when the pope was removed to Fontainebleau and during the period of 'the flight to Gaeta' when Pius IX fled from Rome,there was never any real attempt to destroy the Vatican complex.
It was suggested during WW2 that had anything happened to the Vatican there would have been lots of rich people who would have considered it an entrance ticket to Heaven to rebuild, exactly as it was before ,the Vatican.
Look at what happened with the partial destruction of the cathedral in Paris - not suggesting for one moment that the French government is trying to get into a Heaven which they are not allowed to acknowledge, but with such a cultural complex - of much less importance than the Vatican ,it simply has to be rebuilt.
There is a certain "underpants gnome" quality to this isn't there?
As far as #1: It baffled many people to think that Americans could and would take over the Capitol...
#2 might be a tipping point, catalyst, etc.
Not saying that any of these prophecies are at all accurate; but I don't think they're necessarily impossible, either.
Dear God no. It's contagious. It's The Grudge! Don't wa
As for number two, which government is launching a nuclear attack because the Vatican got attacked? Which government cares so much about the Vatican that they’d willingly plunge the entire world into chaos because a city got attacked? None of this makes any sense; states don’t just willynilly throw nukes because a pretty city was spoiled.
Original post is on page 14 of the Turin Shroud thread.
Just wanted to make the observation that sometimes, using can be associated with great leaps of creativity: Philip K Dick is an obvious example.
@undead_rat have you thought of a self-published novel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exegesis_of_Philip_K._Dick
If so, it's a bit like this thread. After XXX, or 666, or 777 days of undead_rat's dire predictions, I wonder if all of us reading it are in Mortal Peril...
LOL. Nope, not contagious. Just that the counter arguments, as stated, struck me as inaccurate at best. Like (paraphrase) "we don't have to worry about nuclear war anymore, it's just silly, and soooo 1950s". As I posted upthread, there's periodic news about this or that nation's nukes and what they might do with them, and we've got a current Purg thread about a brand-new nuclear disarmament agreement.
ISTM that countering an argument by being dismissive and inaccurate doesn't really help anyone.
that might make a great user name . .. .
Yes, nukes are an ever-present danger in this crazy world, and being dismissive of them is indeed unhelpful.
However, why the Vatican? ISIS may well want to see Muslims praying there (BTW, are there any mosques in Rome?), but I wonder if perhaps they're more likely (God forbid) to target somewhere else - a western world capital, other than Rome - with a nuclear device, even a small one being capable of massive devastation.
Needless to say, they changed their name.
.......or did they?
I call attention to prediction 112 for Francis before the fact in order to avoid that criticism, but, if it comes true, the skeptics will just say it was luck or that it was too obvious.
Thank you.
Entertaining half-cocked crackpot Internet theories because "we don't know" [shrug] is essentially how QAnon developed. I doubt undead_rat has any kind of following, but at this point I think it's best to put these kinds of inanities down. A theory concerning the major actions of states with little evidence to support it other than a spurious writing from the 17th century and the usual political tensions of the Middle East counts as half-cocked and crackpot.
"Aquila Rapax" is "rapacious [or seizing] eagle" supposedly referring to Napoleon because his flags were emblazoned with such during the reign of Pius VII. How that is a prophecy related to the Papacy I have no idea. Furthermore, even if these two were absolutely spot-on, two vague statements out of a collection of 112 doesn't prove anything.
Religion destroyed and the other one seems to be a species of eagle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes
It’s all pick n mix eschatology. Dan Brown loves this sort of endless hall of mirrors stuff. Hence my earlier suggestion.
Thank you, both. I didn't see why undead_rat should set me Latin homework at my advanced age!
I agree - Tosh™...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Arnoldo_Wion_1595_Lignum_Vitae_p311.png
A list of over one hundred portentous Latin phrases which you can parse and order as you wish while you are under the influence of whatever helps.
For me, the Dan Brown vibe is so strong @undead_rat, I feel it necessary to share a word from the good church of wittertainment:
https://youtu.be/kF0261rG04k
(Film critic Mark Kermode reviews Inferno from 2016)
I did speculate on whether undead_rat is channelling Dan Brown, Jack Chick, Nostradamus, or a combination of various members of that unholy trinity...
FWIW, I quite enjoy Dan Brown's books. You never know - he might be right, at least about some things...
Quite.
That the End Of The World is going to be terrifying and chaotic? Thanks for the insight, Dan. We never would have grasped that from the title.
(Okay, I’m still irritated that the Da Vinci Code film is 90 minutes of my life I’m never getting back 😤)
I haven't seen the films of Dan Brown's books, but I have read them all. I still think they're fun, and I don't see anything blasphemous in (for example) the thought that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have been a *ahem* couple...
Well, he was human, and AIUI it was unusual for a Rabbi to be a single chap...by the age of 30, he could have been married for some years, with a family.
Apollo Gees for the tangent, BTW. As you were, and please carry on discussing sensible things.
Yep, that's Ringu. Re-made in America as The Ring.
I was impressed with the first few films I saw in that turn toward "Asian" horror, but after awhile they started beating the motifs to death with a sledgehammer.
I daresay I'm not alone, however, in wondering what Pius VII and His Imperial Majesty Napoleon I have to do with The End Times...
Agreed, not blasphemous, just silly.
As for current terror and chaos, that depends on your choice of news provider 😉.
Even so, apparently 26% of all people live in fragile states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragile_state
So it is sobering to realise that there is still plenty of scope for greater chaos.