Rapture = End of the Universe? Aliens?
Offline What do Christians think will happen to the UNIVERSE after the Rapture?
1. Will the Universe cease to exist? Will the good people go to heaven, the bad to hell, and then God will erase the existence of the physical universe?
2. Carl Sagan, based on what I've read, is very confident that intelligent life exists somewhere else in the universe. What happens to THOSE intelligent beings? Do they die with the end of the universe? And while the good people are in heaven, what do they do considering that other intelligent beings STILL exist in other parts of the existent physical universe? Seems like a big head scratcher to me.
3. Christianity is geocentric and anthropocentric. That is, Christianity is entirely focused on the Earth and humans as if nothing else exists in the rest of the universe, or that it's all for us. Perhaps this is why a flat-Earth society still exists. Why create the rest of the universe, the stars, and all this other nonsense stuff everywhere that composes 99.999999999% of the matter in the universe? (probably a higher percent) Why create 97% of the genetic material in the human body to serve no purpose? (Introns / "junk DNA") If everything is purposeful and about humanity, why so much nonsense and uselessness to the purpose of humanity throughout the universe?
Believing in the concept of the rapture and "Judgment Day" supposes that EVERYTHING will end. And if everything ends, alien civilizations will be obliterated due to the rapture of human beings. Does God not love all his creation? Would aliens have their own rapture? And why doesn't God tell us about his master plan for other intelligent beings?
Granted, this all seems weird, but I encourage you to read some of Carl Sagan's discussions on intelligent life with probability calculations. It seems almost impossible that there is not intelligent life somewhere else -- or at least that it will develop somewhere else in the history of the universe.
Do you guys think that Genesis is written from the standpoint that humans are the ONLY intelligent beings in the universe?
REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM.
- Login to post comments
Probably. When the Bible was written, people didn't know Earth was a planet (God should have known this, though!) So the idea of life on other planets wouldn't really have come up - people knew next to nothing about the universe.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
But what about Mr. Spock? If God's real, Mr. Spock must be too, right?
(Well, actually, they didn't know "next to nothing." They knew nothing at all).
And this is what's so weird: those who believe the Bible to be the product of divine revelation persuade themselves that an omniscient deity could tell mankind no-more than was known by Bronze-Age goat herders.
What was this "omniscient" deity playing at?
Well, the same game it's always played: it's the stuffed teddy bear on little Emma's bed.
Emma invests Teddy with thoughts - her thoughts. Oh yes - Teddy knows things (but only as much as she knows.)
Teddy can "tell Emma" to go to the candy jar and take out a candy for him and one for her. But Teddy can't tell Emma who "thicks man's blood with cold" because Emma has never read the Rime of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and doesn't know. Teddy can't tell Emma what Saturn's rings consists of because Emma doesn't know.
Teddy can go downstairs - if Emma carries him. Teddy can go out for a walk, provided Emma's holding him. Teddy can "help mummy in the kitchen" - if Emma does the helping.
Teddy will eat his candy - provided Emma eats it for him.
When Emma grew up, Teddy got put away.
When Emma grew up, she swapped her Teddy for God.
God had no time to create time.
Duh, if you've read the back covers of those Rapture books in the Inspirational section of the book stores, you'd know that everyone who's saved will just vanish from the earth, leaving everyone else behind on earth, free of all the annoying Christians for all eternity.