The true believers think "The Rapture," war, chaos, misery, and environmental destruction are good

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.lifecoach4vip.com/trp80r-rapture.html

Is the Rapture real? Perhaps, but the evidence, outside of the picture painted by conservative Christian leaders, points to the conclusion that it's actually nothing more than a heavily distorted interpretation of several significantly separated Christian Bible passages.

Because it's also a huge, money-making, belief-altering drug, some religious leaders are using it to pump their egos and to rake in large amounts of money. What those leaders fail to mention to their followers is that the story about the return of Jesus and the immanent-end-of-the-world has been around for about nineteen hundred years.

As a result of this story, conservative Christian leaders are responsible for amplifying the severity of already existing problems such as war, poverty, environmental destruction, pollution, massive species extinction, etc.

What Is "The Rapture?"

According to the fundamentalist, Christian religious leaders, any day now, the world, as we know it, is going to end in a major disaster, and when that day arrives, God will lift all the born-again Christians (and only the born-again Christians) directly up into heaven. Graves will open, the dead will be alive again, and all true believers will ascend into heaven to be with Jesus. Everybody else will be left in the garbage dump that humans have made of planet Earth.

What's Bad is Good:

For the true believer in "The Rapture," war, chaos, misery, and environmental destruction are good things because they mean that they (the true believers) will soon be in heaven with Jesus. They consider that taking any action to stop the wars, and the environmental destruction is interfering with God's plan, so they either standby and allow the problems to get worse or they join, endorse and/or support the people who engage in problem-creating behavior. They justify their attitude and their behavior by saying that since the world is about to end, environmental destruction, pollution, wars and the like are good things. They are all part of God's plan to get us into heaven. The more the destruction, the sooner we get to heaven.

Are you aware of how perfectly the behavior of "Resident" Bush fits this pattern? If he's not a rapture believer, he's giving a good imitation of somebody who is. Obviously he can't publicly say he's a rapture believer , but he is a self-proclaimed "born-gain Christian." If he's a rapture believer, he unfit for the office he holds. If he isn't, his "born-again" claims are a fraud.

A Cash Cow:

Those who think that "The Rapture" is the word of God, and that it's going to save them from tragedy have been misinformed. "The Rapture" is actually a heavily distorted interpretation of several widely separated Christian Bible passages. Unfortunately, it's also a huge cash cow. ' It's a money-making, mind-altering belief-drug. It's psychological morphine that dulls the brain and inhibits physical action.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Evangelicals are miserable sobs who want to live in some kind of shit world of their imagination....

... and in the process they vote for a-holes that merely enrich the rich and destroy everyone else.

[Glorfindel]

2. Yep, and their interpretation keeps changing according to current events

this has been going on since (at least) the 1830's and will probably never end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites

[Hydra]

3. Bush is simply taking advantage of those idiots

his bosses are big on eugenics- what better form could be found than letting the sheep slaughter each other?

That would be the ultimate proof that the "elite" really are smarter than us- if they tricked us into wiping ourselves out.

[thunder rising]

5. I humbly correct that statement: Bush IS one of those idiots being take advatage of.

[Hydra]

7. When he gets to snooze in the WH in the afternoon

and share his bed with Jeff Gannon every night, and will get a golden parachute the size of NY for his role in f***ing us over?

He's SURE being taken advantage of, yup.

[thunder rising]

4. Are they tring to cheat me out of the "final battle" were I can get a little revenge?

'cause I'm definitely joining the side that does not have the evangelicals on it.

[gratuitous]

6. It's the money

It's the money, and has been in this latest eschatological spasm lasting more than 30 years. All kinds of passages are cited, cross-referenced, twisted and cobbled together to present some kind of belief-drug. Curiously overlooked is the passage from Amos 5, that begins with "Why do you desire the Day of the Lord, for it is darkness and not light," and concludes with "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream."

Too often this End Times nonsense provides an excuse not to do anything to bring about justice, to defend the orphan and the widow, and to do those other quaint things Jesus was talking about in Matthew 25. One of the real attractions to the Rapture is that all the good guys skitter away from the mess they've made while all the bad guys get theirs. As Jesus rhetorically asked in Luke, "What credit is that to you? How does this sort of behavior and belief distinguish you from the bad guys?"

[Sam Ervin jret]

8. Bush? Check out Huck!

[kineneb]

9. battle(s) of Har Megiddo already happened, get over it

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Armageddon.htm

Armageddon is a corruption of the Hebrew Har Megiddo and means literally "the mount of Megiddo." During the past 4000 years, at least 34 bloody conflicts have already been fought at the ancient site of Megiddo and adjacent areas of the Jezreel Valley. Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Midianites, Amalekites, Philistines, Hasmonaeans, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Crusaders, Mamlukes, Mongols, French, Ottomans, British, Australians, Germans, Arabs and Israelis have all fought and died here. The names of the warring generals and leaders reverberate throughout history: Thutmose III, Deborah and Barak, Sisera, Gideon, Saul and Jonathan, Shishak, Jehu, Joram, Jezebel, Josiah, Antiochus, Ptolemy, Vespasian, Saladin, Napoleon, and Allenby, to name but a few of the most famous.
-snip-
Megiddo, a fascinating site of twenty cities built directly on top of one another and inhabited continuously from 3000 to 300 BC, lies at a strategic junction of roads running north-south and east-west. Whoever had control of Megiddo had control of one of the major trade routes of antiquity, the Via Maris (the "Way of the Sea") Wending its way directly through Israel, right past Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, this strategically placed road ran between Egypt in the south and Mesopotamia (modern Iran/Iraq) or Anatolia (modern Turkey) in the north. Virtually every invading army that came through this region during the past 4000 years fought battles for control of Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley. The only exception was the army of Alexander the Great, who didn't have to fight because the area surrendered to him first.