The Rapture... bring it on... I mean TODAY
Posted on: April 4, 2008 - 6:58pm
Offline
The Rapture... bring it on... I mean TODAY
I posted this as a joke on another atheism web site. It'd be cool to cherry pick the bible the choose the parts you would want to be true. For me, let's bring on the rapture. It's a win-win for everybody. They want to be in heaven and we want them to just go away. As for the propheized Tribulation... give me a break... give me more cowbell... anything but some non-sense that we would all be lost without every Christian's moralizing BS.
teeoh
- Login to post comments
Sorry, this is going to be a wee bit tangential:
Were the rapture to happen, that's 144,000 people scooped up off the face of the earth out of 6.5 billion. That's 0.002215% of the world population. I think it could easily happen and no one would notice until the "tribulation".
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Is it really just 144,000? I remember that number, but it's been so long since I read about the rapture, I don't recall it being just those chosen few. But thanks playing, anyway.
teeoh
Only certain sects believe it's the 144,00. I think it might be a Jehovahs Witness thing.Most christians believe that all christians will be taken up at the time of the rapture.So there's still hope.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
However, as long as we're supposed to be cherry-picking the bibble, then: I vote for all Christians getting scooped up into heaven. Soon. Very soon. =^_^=
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
I went back and read a couple of things on the rapture, and it seems Christians can't get on board with one interpretation when it comes to the book of Revelation. Personally, I think it should be titled the Book of Momumental Gibberish... or should that be the entire bible's name?
Anyway, it seems the Catholic, Orthodox and some Reformed denominations reject the rapture (if Wikipedia is to be believed). Still, it's a lovely idea... a win-win as I said before.
I did some reading on the rapture and forgot how much disagreement there was among Christians when it comes to the notion of the rapture. Apparently the Catholic, Orthodox and some Reformed churches reject the doctrine (that's a wiki source, but I think I remember reading that elsewhere too)
Personally, I think the bible should be called the Book of Momumental Gibberish... a title that holds especially fitting for the Book of Revelation. I suppose the bishops at the Council of Nicaea thought they were finishing on a strong note. But I guess if you're starting a new religion, then be as vague as possible and pass it off as "mystery."
My vote is for an all-encompassing scoop, but I think we all know that won't happen. Still, it's fun to dream, and like I said before, it's a win-win deal for everybody.
teeoh
Depends on who you ask (about the 144,000). If you go from the point of view of Tim LeHay and his ilk (they of the 60 million copies sold), the 144,000 are not raptured at all but are male virgin Jews (12,000 from each tribe) who survive the seven years of tribulation after the Rapture. So you have the Rapture, which takes up no more than a few hundred million Christians, then the Rise of the Antichrist, who brokers a false peace between the Muslims and the Jews and rebuilds Solomon's Temple. The 144,000 hole up in Petra (in modern day Jordan), reading the Bible and keeping themselves ritually clean while the Antichrist uses the International Banking system to take control of the world's food supply. Soon enough he defiles the Temple, gets mortally wounded, comes back to life, declares himself a God and is finally destroyed along with his army in the Valley of Meggido by a sword coming out of Jesus's mouth. Sometimes the Rapture gets stuck in the middle of the seven year tribulation period, sometimes at the end of it, but the success of Left Behind has really bulked up the numbers of pre-tribbers.
Now the Jehovah's Witnesses have another conception of this. In their mythology, the 144,000 are people (not necessarily Jews) from throughout the history of Christianity who will be raised from the dead to reign in Heaven, while the remainder of those saved are treated to a reconstituted Edenic Earth (I've seen artist's representations--It looks like Pickens County, South Carolina). The Rapture happened way back in 1918, so we've actually been in the Tribulation for 90 years already.
Classically, the Catholics and other mainstream denominations (though I'm loathe to use the term "mainstream"
do not have any expectation of the Rapture, preferring to believe in a vague conception of Christ's Second Coming. Attempting to be as attentive a student of mythology as I can, I always find myself confused with this terminology. Did not Christ come once in a manger and once from the tomb? That seems like the classical definition of "two" to me, but I've spent too long on this clarification already.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell