Second coming...

[Javaman]

Personally, I'm not a religious person at all, but I find the concept of a second coming ridiculous.

I was just thinking the other day about, "what if there was a second coming?:

Think about it.

In the first coming, jesus basically popped out of nowhere, did a whole bunch of stuff, people latched on, and the rest is history. It was only afterwards that a chronicle of his life was created: the new testament.

What they didn't have back then was: the repuke hate machine and the mass media.

What they did have was: poor communication.

If there is a "second coming", don't you think that the repukes would go ape shit to try and defame whom ever it is? Because, I would think, that a jesus like character would be preaching peace, etc. And if this person doesn't have a PR machine, who will listen to he or she?

If in fact there is such a thing as a supreme being that feels compelled to send down another relative to help us out, don't you think that that person would have to demand some major washington influence? And how is that person supposed to get that, when it's known that the washington crowd feed on their young? (metaphorically speaking)

And could you imagine the outrage by the religious right white group if this person was black? Or Hispanic? Or Native American? Or anyone other than their wasp typical profile?

Basic fact is: I have never been a believer in the concept, but more over, I just don't see it happening with the PR spin machine that has so gripped the US and the World.

I don't think a jesus type would have a snow balls chance in hell.

Just my two cents.

[mzmolly]

1. LOL, I was sort of thinking the same thing.

I don't subscribe to the second coming mentality either, but if JC did come "again" he'd surely set em straight. Then of course, they'd run a smear campaign (probably involving John O'Neill) and call him a magician and a fraud. ;)

[Javaman]

2. swift boat vets against jesus LOL

[mzmolly]

11. Heh.

:hi:

[lutherj]

3. Jesus would have to perform some pretty serious miracles just to get

a little attention, and then the religious right would call him the anti-christ. We'd just get another religion, a whole new church, more dogma.

Jesus should have stayed home the first time.

[SteveIrving1]

4. The Repubs get left behind

For the fake Christians they'll be left behind while the truly good Christians get raptured and spared from the Apocalypse.
The Fake Christians get 1000 years of hell. While the Good Christians get saved.

[elehhhhna]

5. It's the height of arrogance to think it'll happen one one's watch...

Really.

[journalist3072]

14. No one knows when it will happen, but the Father

Mark 13:32:

"But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

There is no one here on earth who can help "speed up" the Second Coming of Christ, or the Rapture. Those are events which have been pre-ordained by our precious Father in Heaven, and we have no control over the timing of those events.

What we do have control over, is whether or not we are ready for them.

[texastoast]

6. We always kill the messengers

It's our job. We are primitive.

[Az]

7. Jesus Christ, Superstar

Ev'ry time I look at you
I don't understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
You'd have managed better
If you'd had it planned
Now why'd you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you'd come today
You could have reached a whole nation
Isreal in 4 BC
Had no mass communication
(Don't you get me wrong)
Don't you get me wrong
(Don't you get me wrong, now)
Don't you get me wrong
(Don't you get me wrong)
Don't you get me wrong
(Don't you get me wrong, now)
Don't you get me wrong
(Only want to know)
Only want to know
(Only want to know, now)
Only want to know
(Only want to know)
Only want to know
(Only want to know, now)
Only want to know
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Tell me what you think
About your friends at the top
Now who d'you think besides yourself
Was the pick of the crop?
Buddah was he where it's at?
Is he where you are?
Could Mahomet move a mountain
Or was that just PR?
Did you mean to die like that?
Was that a mistake or
Did you know your messy death
Would be a record breaker?
(Don't you get me wrong) Don't you get me wrong
(Don't you get me wrong, now) Don't you get me wrong
(Don't you get me wrong) Don't you get me wrong
(Don't you get me wrong, now) Don't you get me wrong
(Only want to know) Only want to know
(Only want to know, now) Only want to know
(Only want to know) Only want to know
(Only want to know, now) I only want to know
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Jesus Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?

[EVDebs]

8. Preconditions lead the way...

Remember, the "Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye are big sellers.

Also,

see "Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power
US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1195568,00.html

Then, once you realize they are Third Temple dispensationalists, see
"Christian Zionism, Evangelicals and Israel", by Gary M. Burge, Ph.D.
Paying special attention to the part about Acts 7:

""But the most important critique - and here I think we discover the Achilles' heel - is that Christian Zionism is committed to what I term a "territorial religion." It assumes that God's interests are focused on a land, a locale, a place. From a NT perspective, the land is holy by reference to what transpired there in history. But it no longer has an intrinsic part to play in God's program for the world. This is what Stephen pointed to in his speech in Acts 7. The land and the temple are now secondary. God's wishes to reveal himself to the entire world. And this insight cost Stephen his life. Such an understanding is a far cry from the views of Christian Zionists like Ed McAteer who recently commented, "Every grain of sand, every grain of sand between the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, and the Mediterranean Sea belongs to the Jews." Stephen would be alarmed.""

See Grace Halsells' book "Forcing God's Hand" for even more on this topic.

Finally, even PBS's Religion and Ethics newsweekly showing what these groups have planned for a Third Temple: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week319/cover.html

If Jesus returns even in a 'symbolic' fashion to peoples hearts that would satisfy me personally.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. Except this time Jesus is the Jesus of the "Left Behind" books....

[AlienGirl]

10. The Second Coming

The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[DemoTex]

16. One of my favorites, AlienGirl.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Did Yeats foresee Bu$h?

[Anakin Skywalker]

12. I'm Confoozed.

"In the first coming, jesus basically popped out of nowhere"

Huh? I thought he popped out of Mary? :)

[superconnected]

20. The old testament foretold a prophet would come

Issiah and Moses and a few others fortold of him coming.

The Jews believe this prophet is still coming and was not Jesus.

The Christians believe Jesus is the one they spoke about.

The 2nd coming thing is usually pulled from Revelations and it's sketchy and all you know of it, is a popular interpretion you'd be hard pressed to find even hints of. When you do find hints you still have to ask where they arrive at what they're saying though - all this detail and rules of what will happen. Easy, it aint in revelations, they made it up. It's hollywood. The fundies in their hate for hollywood still grasped it.

From what I read, Jesus doesn't come back. We're supposed to die and have salvation with God through Jesus. He's the salvation Vehicle. His point was be good to each other on Earth, not spend your time killing each other and doing things in the name of God. He even speaks against doing the God worship rituals. The fundies are exactly opposite of what Jesus said.

[Bandit]

21. From no mans seed

So basically out of nowhere.

[journalist3072]

13. Second Coming

The Bible teaches us that there will be a glorious Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It teaches us that when He physically returns to Earth, his feet will be planted on the Mount of Olives, which is East of Jerusalem. And then there will be an earthquake there, and the Mount of Olives (also referred to as Mount Olivet) will be split.

Zechariah 14:4 "And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south."

And it should also be noted that the Mount of Olives had a lot of meaning to Christ during his first time on Earth. He spent a lot of time there praying and teaching the disciples.

In the book of Acts, we are told that Jesus will return to Earth in the same manner in which he left it:

Acts 1:8-11 "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Sammaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? THIS SAME JESUS, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

[EVDebs]

15. Third Temple again...

So why is a Third Temple necessary, unless just for a place for the Anti-christ to fulfill Daniel 9 prophesy ? Wasn't that already fulfilled during the Maccabbean revolt ?

[superconnected]

17. If you read the bible you would discover it's not.

The temple thing and even the 2nd coming are peoples interpretations of Johns I had a dream chapter called revelations. You can interpret that a lot of ways. Many Bible scholars interpret it as the Fall of Rome. I couldn't get much of anything out of it.

The rules you're quoting are 20th century made up rules. Revelations is supposed to be metaphorical, if you take it literally this stuff still isn't there and you can read it as simply a mans dream. Metaphorically it's hard to draw the metaphors to even be what the fundies and hollywood are saying.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

18. could you imagine the outrage

if it turned out he was a Jew from the general area of Palestine...oh wait, he already tried that and they nailed him to a tree...

theProdigal

[nascarblue]

19. Right on...falwell would call him a fake!

These Evangelicals are so self serving and so pompous, if Jesus came back as he's described in the bible, they'd call him a loser homeless guy who needed some Haldol. Thats the truth.

YOu know how I always stump them? They say you "absolutely go to hell" if you don't ask to be "saved" in their specific way? That means all babies and toddlers are going to hell. That makes alot of sense huh?