Are the Second Coming & Rapture the fevered dream of anxious immature

[patrice]

minds?

Many millions of Americans believe in the Rapture.

When is the Second Coming?

[getmeouttahere]

1. Hasn't it been predicted for centuries now....

and of course keeps getting moved up, for convenience sake.

[patrice]

6. But isn't it part ofthessence of Christianity that Jesus is still with us?

We just need to recognize that.

[htuttle]

10. The 'Rapture' was the drunken fantasy of a 19th century carnival preacher

It came from the fevered imagination of a guy named William Miller.

He thought it was going to happen in 1844, though.

[patrice]

15. In England, right?

during all of the social upheaval of late Industrial Revolution GB.

[grumpy old fart]

19. In the U.S. actually....

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/amprophesy.html

[Deep13]

2. not necessarily

A person is not immature or crazy because he sees real events through a religious point of view. The same thoughts have occured to me even though I gave up religion a long time ago. With Dumbass in office, with his psuedo-christo-fascist agenda, global warming, nuclear proliferation and a lot of other really bad stuff, it is natural to suppose some divine retribution is coming.

[patrice]

7. I do not equate The Second Coming with All religious viewpoints.

So my problem with it isn't necessarily about the others.

[Deep13]

9. If it is the Fundy rapture, ...

... it is the religious equivilent of putting ones fingers in his ears and saying "lalalalala I'm not listening!"

[patrice]

13. Drink The Kool-aid.

[tenshi816]

11. I know what you mean.

Last year I seriously started to wonder if Dumbass is the Antichrist, and normally that's not the way I think at all. I mostly see the Bible as metaphor, and it surprised me that such a thought would occur to me. I even googled "George W. Bush" and "Antichrist" together and discovered I wasn't alone in my thoughts (OK, to clarify, I don't really believe in it, but it's certainly food for thought when I can't sleep in the middle of the night and crazy things go dancing, unbidden, through my brain). }(

[rkc3]

3. By my calculations - August 14, 2005. Get your shit packed.

BTW, which is a crazier belief:

1. The Rapture
2. Being received by 72 virgins in heaven after you blow yourself up

Ask your favorite bible-thumper.

[Island Blue]

17. Damn, that's three days before my birthday

Do I still get presents?

[beam me up scottie]

18. If you're like me,

and you get left behind, you can have all the presents you want !
:evilgrin:

[Syncronaut Seven]

4. It's an easy out. it completly absolves

it's believers of any and all responsibility for the future. It is the MO of the coward, the unimaginative, the lazy and the weak.

[patrice]

8. Deus-ex-machina - Don't worry, obey, everything will be fine . . .

You will be taken care of etc.

[xynthee]

5. Not soon enough!! n/t

[sui generis]

12. adolescent destruction fantasy vs. deus ex machina

plus a dash of superiority that they're going to heaven and everyone else they don't like, unwed mothers, gays, minorities, welfare mothers, non-babtists, heathens and atheists, etc. are GWINE TO BARN IN HELL FOREVER!!!!!

Really. Personally, I can't wait. I think all the rest of that list are the only thing keeping this planet rotating on its axis in the plane of the ecliptic, and the sooner the self-proclaimed A-List is swoopitted out of here, the better for the rest of us.

[DinahMoeHum]

14. The "Rapture" is a fraud - according to a great book out

by Dr. Barbara K. Rossing
"The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation"

Link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0813391563/qid=1121103810/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8536683-4672823?v=glance&s=books

(snip)
From Publishers Weekly
Ordained minister Rossing is ready to do battle with evangelicals both within and outside of her Lutheran Church camp. Rossing, who teaches New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, begins her sparring by taking on the widely popular Left Behind series and all it presumes to communicate about the future of the world. Claiming that the Left Behind authors' interpretation of prophetic biblical verses is "fiction," Rossing firmly asserts that the Book of Revelation has a completely different purpose than to predict upcoming world uprisings and the eventual end of the earth. Instead, Rossing believes that this biblical vision is meant to inspire humanity to seek out "repentance and justice." Rossing also maintains, somewhat unfairly, that rapture enthusiasts extol a careless, abusive attitude toward God's created world, since rapture theology declares that the followers of Christ are soon to be removed from it. More significant is Rossing's belief that Revelation does not offer a prophetic look at Jerusalem as the inevitable battleground between good and evil, but rather extends the promise of a New Jerusalem that will open its arms to all nations in peace. While Rossing's scholarly work is well organized and obviously carefully thought out, evangelicals may take issue with the blanket statement that "most Christian churches and biblical scholars condemn Rapture theology as a distortion of Christian faith with little biblical basis." This book will likely upset Christian conservatives while appealing to many in mainline denominations.
(snip)


much more...


:smoke:

[patrice]

16. Didn't it turn into a BUSINESS Lobbying Cartel?

[Stevepol]

28. I think the best interpretation of Revelation is mystical.

It's about John's personal revelation as his 7 chakras, the 7 seals are opened. The various events in the book are the symbolic echoes or radiations of those levels of consciousness.

Each person who follows the "spirit" of Christianity can expect to have a similar kind of revelation: seeing yourself as you are seen. We connect the various feelings and thoughts we have had and have about the world to our own inner state, our own reflection of those outer events.

Edgar Cayce said the chakras are all related to the glands as well, so for example the third seal is associated with the adrenals and the last three seals are associated with the thyroid, the pineal, and the pituitary.

If you read the whole things as symbolic of an inner opening up, finally seeing the world in its entirety AS YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED IT, it becomes much more understandable I think. Otherwise, you end up just interpreting it any way you want and anything is possible. Thw Whore of Babylon could be Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton depending on your politics I suppose, or Madonna maybe if you're non-political.

[Zorbuddha]

29. The Whore of Babylon is unlikely a person,

more likely a culture.

[catbert836]

30. The Whore of Babylon

represents Rome, I think. A city on 7 hills, etc., etc.

[Zorbuddha]

31. Some say it is modern western culture.

Modern Rome, so to speak.

Comprehensive.

I think it is either pop culture, or Ann Coulter.

[More Than A Feeling]

20. The rapture is for those who want to go to heaven without dying first

and want to have the last laugh on those who said they were loony.

The Slackivist is a great blog that is taking apart rapture theology in a deconstruction of the first book of the "Left Behind" series. I highly recommend it

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/

[enki23]

21. 1. yes

2. sometime after the first coming, i would assume. till then, i won't get too worked up over it.

[Igel]

22. The idea of a 2nd coming has been around for quite a while.

Nearly 2k years, in fact.

"The rapture" for not nearly as long, as has been pointed out. Although I will say that I think it's not based on Revelations, but on a botched reading of some Pauline writings, completely missing the point.

The idea is that we don't know when Jesus returns; Xians are to act as though it's tomorrow, the idea is a source of hope and motivation.

Some schools of Xian thought have dispensed with the second coming in all but name, and others, even in name.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. The Rapture is not Biblical

The Second Coming is, but Jesus explicitly warns not to trust anyone who predicts his return, since he will return when we least expect it "like a thief in the night."

[NAO]

24. They've been expecting it "any day" since 34 AD.

The people who followed Jesus while he was alive expected his second coming in their lifetimes. In Acts, it is reported that they were selling all their stuff and giving it to the Church, expecting "the rapture" any day, just like cranks and crackpots do nowadays.

In early Rome, before Christianity caused the decline and fall of the Empire and the collapse of Western Civilization, the Christians were see as particularly offensive to the Romans because they refused to serve in the military. They figured it did not matter that the barbarians were at the gates, because Jesus was coming back any day and the world was going to be destroyed by fire.

[unschooler]

25. Maybe it happened in 33 A.D..

Jesus came once in zero A.D. (approximately) and, according to Christian orthodoxy, came back from the dead 2 days after his execution.

Aren't we waiting for the third coming?

:popcorn:

[Astarho]

26. No, just very unhappy people

People who feel so beat down/confused/bored/etc. by life and the society around them they just want to escape and look forward to its end, either by the Rapture or its secular equivilents: Y2K, Peak Oil (I understand oil production will peak and decline but to hear some people talk about it, they make it sound like a Secular Rapture), and so on.

[catbert836]

27. Definitely the Rapture

To me, all of Revelations is about how the Roman Empire will "get it" for messing with God's people combined with a hope that someday, things are going to be a lot better than they are.
As for the Second Coming, I wouldn't rule it out, even though I'm not a Christian. It could happen, and I think the fundies would be the most suprised by it if it does come. Jesus won't like them bullying their fellow people and using his name to kill and estrange people much. But, even if the Second Coming doesn't come, what does it matter? As long as we follow Jesus and his teachings, I don't think it's really important that he comes back.

[whyverne]

32. O Lord, please take them,

they're driving me crazy!