The three young girls who have purportedly fled to Syria

The subject of discussion is extremists, not the mainstream.Try googling End of Days and different religions.

The End of Days and Rapture thing that so obsesses extreme Evangelist Christian cults in the US is the reason they are so supportive of Israel. It's not because they have any understanding about the Palestine/Israel political situation or give two figs about Jews, but because they believe that until Israel's historical boundaries [sic] are restored, the End of Days and Rapture cannot take place. This might be seen as fairly harmless, if wilful stupidity, but with the long-standing consensus on Israel between Republicans and Democrats beginning to to break down, particularly in the light of Mr Netanyahu's forthcoming visit to the USA, it is very likely to have a serious effect on the approaching presidential election – and the outcome of that will affect virtually everyone in the world.

You could be right absent. I didnt know that until you posted it, so I googled.

I am not sure if they are right or not, as in whether it is a prerequisite or not, but for what it is worth, and personally, I dont think that the End of Days is coming anytime soon.
The timing of it is down to Jesus. I never envisaged the historical boundaries being forced though.

End of Days and Rapture - heavens above, no wonder we are in such a state!

Could this be fear of science that leads people to believe and cling onto this utter nonsense? What is it about reason and rationality that pushes people in the direction of these primitive beliefs? It seems that the more we understand about how the world operates, the more people are drawn towards primitive superstition.

It is tragic that intelligent scientists have striven for hundreds of years to rid us of this stuff and yet here we are, heading back to square one.

Perhaps they feel that science and reason have failed because they have not yet come up with all the answers, so they are hedging their bets and clinging on to illusions.

It is all incomprehensible to me - and so very very dangerous.

Kindness, for goodness sake, is all that matters; and the best we can hope for.

A quick cheeky answer Mishap, could be that science never has all the answers. And is quite happy to be proved wrong the following week. So people cannot hold on to science.
Whereas God is a rock.

soon I will take that in the cheeky way it was meant. You surely do not believe that god has all the answers? Really? Bit tricky for those of us who don't even believe in a god and are frightened of where religious mania is leading the world, whether it be ISIS or the terrifying fundamentalist christians.

Science is looking for the bits where what is already know doesn't add up, and working to find out what fills those gaps. That is what causes the changes in the latest scientific knowledge - addition.

So the "latest" was once (for instance) that the sun and stars circled the earth on the inside of a hollow sphere of the sky. We now know a lot more about the movement of the stars, and that our magnificent sun is only another star, not a very significant one at that. We trust that new knowledge because we can read the accounts of how it was all acquired, and redo the experiments that revealed it.

We can't go back to a state of non-knowledge. We hold on to the results of their work.

Yes I believe that God has all the answers.

I think I have been slow to realise that those that dont believe in God at all, are finding religious mania, as you call it, frightening.

But also Elegran, sometimes eg a piece of work that was done in say 1950 can become partly discredited. Which is not merely an add on, but some take aways as well.

Neither god nor science have all the answers and that is probably why some people cling on to their superstitions because they regard them as being fundamental truths, and nothing can either prove or disprove them. Faith simply is, and it cannot be disputed or challenged.

Science sometimes gets it wrong, as do religions. At least science takes a hard look at itself and acknowledges subsequent advances and new discoveries.

Luckily most people with a religious belief also have doubts and questions and are tolerant of other beliefs. It is those who do not that we need to fear, and they appear to be on the increase.

I notice soon that my fundamental point about kindness was ignored! It is the basis of all religions and prophets' pronouncements, but the human-imposed trappings are what has led religion astray.

Scientists are as imperfect as any human being, but their training is to apply their minds to find the best answer they can, and to document all the moves they make in finding that answer so that they can be reproduced by someone confirming the findings - or not, as often happens.

Discredited research is research that could not be replicated. Usually it means that there is some detail that has been missed, or the research was not rigorous enough. Subsequent investigations reveal this, and other scientists learn from the mistakes.

Experts even do research into the Bible, and have done for centuries. They know when and where many things were written, what was going in historically at the time, who the characters were who are mentioned. The Bible is a document, and has characteristics that can be studied.

I only ignored it Mishap because I have seen you say it before on other threads, so thought I wouldnt comment this time.

I agree that human-imposed trappings have indeed led lots of religion in general astray.

Soon - do YOU not find religious mania frightening?!

In general, no.
If it was advancing, and got to within about 50 miles of me personally, that would probably be enough to frighten me.

50 miles soontobe! You must have nerves of steel!

A good essay on what draws jihadis to Isis by Omar Waraich in the Guardian.

Thought provoking, especially the questioning para. at the end.

If you are only frightened of religious extremism and its associated terrorism when it gets within 50 miles of you, could you not try and have empathy and share the fear of all those poor souls for whom it is a daily terror?! I fear for them - not just myself.

It is within 50 miles of you soon - ask Lee Rigby's parents.

Or do you see all this as part of god's plan?

An interesting article bags - I still puzzle over why disaffected young people might be drawn to this particular way of finding some sort of solidarity.

surely soon you should be worried about the fate of the Coptic Christians who were kidnapped in Egypt? They are the original believers, not these recent frightening evangelists with their anti-women, anti-gay, anti- abortion anti- science rants.

Of course I have empathy for those who have the daily terror!

There is no way I am going to "share the fear" though. Fearing solves nothing. It only makes the person with the fears, feel awful. That is much more harm than good.

IS is the opposite of God's plan.

I try not to do worry either GillT57. That doesnt help anyone either.
I pray, and give the burden to God.

Good job we don't all do that soon or the world would be in a disastrous state. Thankfully there are people like Medicins sans frontiers and Save the Children and others who get in there and help while your God is looking the other way.

But the extremists believe that it is god's plan; how do we pick and choose amongst those views? Is your view of what god's plan is the right one? How do you know that? Assuming the existence of a deity, theirs might be right for all we know. They think yours is the opposite of god's plan. They will have recourse to their holy book to answer the question just as you will. Whose book is right?

Or are neither maybe?

I was watching an interview with Mark Rylance and his director about Wolf Hall. The Director (forgotten his name) remarked that five hundred years ago Christians burned, tortured and beheaded others at the drop of a hat because of the tiniest detail of difference in their beliefs. Public executions of the goriest nature were attended by huge crowds. In fact, the beheading of Ann Boleyn scene in Wolf Hall was very reminiscent of the awful recent beheadings carried out by Isis.

He said Islam started as a religion about 500 years after Christianity and so there was reason to hope that in time Islam would also become as civilised as we are now.

I thought that was an interesting opinion.