So what happens to the Fundies when they aren't Raptured?

When the coming shitstorm/eco-reckoning unfolds, and the Fundies are "stuck" going through it with the rest of us... What happens then? To their beliefs? Their faith? Collective meltdown? Viewing it as another "test" before they're whisked off to heaven?

How long will their patience hold during the "tribulations" when they realize they ain't going nowhere but here?

...same as they've been doing for decades now.

:eyes:

n/t

...the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists.

The bible says, "no man knows the day or the hour."

The only people who think that "dates" have been pushed back are people who have no clue what they are talking about.

You needed the crown of 12 stars (Revelation 12:1) and the revived Roman Empire in order to be in the end times and you just got that a few years ago.



If you must know, the antichrist will be over the European Union, which will be the superpower in a few years. That never could have happened "centuries" ago, and neither could "global control" by any individual or institution. How could "every eye" behold something happening in one location on the planet, "centuries'" ago, without the magic of television.

So by your logic anything that "didn't happen in the past cannot happen today," right? Your statement also must mean that because someone has been wrong before, that is, miscalculated, then that dismisses the overall belief? You know like, if I say that if you hit that dog, he will bite you, and you hit him and he doesn't bite you. I guess that means that if you hit him tomorrow, then he still won't bite you, just because he didn't the first time, right? So being wrong once or twice means that your overall case is wrong? Of course it does not, but it means that people who have to "see something to believe it," will be more skeptical the next time that you say something, like the boy who cried wolf, and I can understand that.

But I do know that the Bible predicts the Apocalypse.

The Rapture, however, is nowhere to be found and is an invention of wishful-thinking fundamentalists who want to think they get to avoid all the crap to come.

As I recall, the only people who get to miss it are the 1/3 of the population who die from the cataclysms.

It is the "name" assigned to this event:

1 Thessalonians 4:15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

------

That is the Rapture. If you use a biblical search engine and look for "rapture," you won't find it, but that is it, right there.

it is a reference to the end of time -- not to a separate earlier coming of Jesus before the final coming of Jesus. Many theologians see no reason to separate the return of Jesus into two separate events (a secret "rapture" for the believers, who are to spared the sort of suffering Jesus himself experienced; followed by a "tribulation" period of judgement before a public and final second coming of Jesus to begin his reign on Earth). The believers at Thessalonica were concerned about what happens to Christians who pass away before the return of Jesus versus Christians who are still alive; Paul was assuring them that the living and the dead would both share in the resurrection when the time comes.

The passage that to me suggests a rapture more than Thessalonians is Matthew 24, where Jesus describes two people in the field, one will be taken, the other will be left. But Jesus also says his return will be a dramatic thing, loud and noisy (like lightning in the sky); I'm not sure this fits the rapture scenario.

to be left. "Taken away" was a bad thing. Those in the flood were "taken away" ... Noah and family weren't.

Kinda ruins the ol' credibility.

Bush and the war bongos. How do ya know who's telling the truth? :shrug:

the whole "rapture" thing hasn't been around for too long, but people have always thought the end of the world was right around the corner, and they've always been wrong. sure, the world has often ended AS THEY KNEW IT, which is a great deal of difference from the end of the world "fire and brimstone cracks in the earth" deal.

...just because they have "thought" it does not mean that people who "think" it today are wrong.

I mean, as soon as Jesus, as the bible says, "went up on a cloud" and said that he would come back again. His disciples started waiting.

Of course people always think it's during "their time," just like the first ones did, but it wasn't even possible for the antichrist to do what he is supposed to do even decades ago without television and global institutions to facilitate it.

Some people thought "Hitler" was the antichrist.

Was Hitler loved and trusted, "globally"? The antichrist is supposed to be embraced by the world. Hitler's vision wasn't "embraced" by the world so anyone who claims that the rapture isn't going to happen today because people were wrong about Hilter, is overlooking the obvious. Hitler was obviously bad, people knew the antichrist was going bad, so they could see Hitler being the antichrist because he was "bad," and they knew he was. The antichrist is supposed to be "loved" by the world, but he will be deceitful. So, Bush can't be the antichrist, because the world "hates" him, but that doesn't mean that he can't be paving the way for him with his international policies. I don't believe that Bill Clinton is the antichrist, but the way that the world feels about Bill Clinton pales in comparison to how they will feel about the antichrist, but you get the point.

I have this little theory here about a "beneficial" consequence of the war in Iraq. Sunni Muslims will have a hard time falling for the antichrist's BS the way Shi'ites can when he comes on the scene because they are not waiting for the twelwth imam to show up. The shi'ites are. So, it is beneficial to the antichrist to have muslim regimes under shia rule, because they can be tricked into believing that he is that "imam" that they have been waiting for, when he claims to be God.

Anyway, the necessary technology and institutions were not in place centuries, even decades ago to claim to make that claim...

that the end days were near, and always they were wrong. life goes on. the world goes on.

when end days are really near, i don't think anybody will really realize it until it's already too late.

Puff the Magic Dragon lived in a land called Honalee!

you bet!

http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/

for the rest of their days waiting for it to happen. They will sing the praises of their white-bearded, Caucasian God while they vomit what remains of their stomach lining on the scorched, radioactive earth.

OK by you, Ape?
Will try to slip it into conversation at dinner party tonight.

:evilgrin:

Just make sure to slip it in BEFORE everyone's eaten. :)

Of course, they will not miss it all though.

Not sure what you're getting at here...

The starter said what happens when they "are not" raptured. I said what happens when they "are."

Can you "prove" that they won't be, or do you just believe that it is such a "wild idea" that it's definitely not going to happen, because it does not make sense?

if you're signing on to a literal interpration of one particular book of the New Testament.

Indeed, if you believe that's what's gonna happen -- and evidently, that you have a ticket to get on board, unlike the rest of us here -- why bother posting at a site like this at all?

Just wait to climb that Jacob's ladder!

It has a lot of different kinds of people in it.

I am not the only "believer" on this site, although they are definitely in the minority here. I'd say that in the greater Democratic party, "nonbelievers" are in the minority.

Independent is my political classification. I hate labels, but if I were classified, it would be a religious, progressive, populist.

What you don't think one can be a "Christian" and progressive and populist? How can you be a real follower of Jesus' teachings and not be?

I don't want to knock your faith. I just don't understand the literal parts. Or how you think that all of cosmology -- the entire mystery of the universe (or universes, since you have Einstein in your avatar) is all a run-up to a single prophet/rabbi, Jesus a.k.a. Joseph, and what his followers do.

Or I guess I will knock your faith, however, as it's used by the other practitioners of it who seek to destroy the planet, piss all over the environment, etc., because they actually think the rapture will save their asses.

For what it's worth to you, I'm a Sunday school teacher, and I believe in God (not a literal guy who will by yanking us on up the Stairway to Heaven, however). So don't be too quick with those "believer" and "non-believer" distinctions.

As long as you don't assume that policies of these fascists that are the GOP speak for Christians, who ignorantly vote for Bush because of wedge issues like gay marriage and abortion because they don't know any better, we can have a discussion.

Most people who voted for Bush don't want the economy destroyed, they don't want SS privatized as the polls clearly show, and they don't want the environment destroyed.

They are ignorant as to what is really going on, just like most people.

Why don't the democrats tell people what conservatism is all about instead of playing along?

Democrats allow the GOP to set the agenda, frame the issues, dictate the discussion, and they just play along with the labels that the GOP sets. The Democrats need to educate people. I'm not talking about using big words hoping they will go look them up.

I'm talking about education. The bible says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." That's Christians, non-Christians, anyone else. Ignorance can kill. Kill lives and institutions. The democrats need to informe people about what's really going on. Stop playing along with the Republicans and tell people what "conservatism" is all about. Tell them about PNAC and what it is really about and ask them if they want a country that will be a peaceful member of the international community, or one that uses its military to try and make others do what we want them to do through a series of theater wars.

I guarantee you that those "educated" citizens, those who have been told about PNAC, will side with the peaceful approach, but if you let the discussion be dictated by "terrorism," and we have to do this because of "terrorism," they are going to side with PNAC everytime.

The problem is not the religion. The problem is the overall ignorance in this country.

part. If "true believers" can be manipulated, based on their hopes/dreams for endtimes, what stake do they have in trying to save anything?

If people can be whipped up to hate each other because their particular face of God is the "true" one according to their self-appointed leaders, how can we assume that religious institutions have done anything but get in the way?

Further, if you truly believe you're going to be raptured (and therefore, the rest of us will not), what's your stake in doing "good works?" Karma, for when you get upstairs? Why would the here and now matter to you, if you're waiting for the Big Coda?

For me, I think the Here and Now are precisely where we enact what we learn on our spiritual paths. We don't "wait." We do. Now.

Hate is the same as murder, according to scripture.

Now, a lot of people are classified as "haters" if they don't agree with your opinions or your lifestyle.

I don't agree with that.
Shut you, you hate me.

We don't live in a culture of hate, we live in a culture of fear.

Afraid of tan-skinned people who believe that allah is God.
Afraid of Sodom and Gomorrah taking place in the United States, i.e., gay marriage.
Afraid that this country will lose God's favor, because they believe that we have it.

Stop approaching the discussion in terms of "hate," and try to ease those fears.

Like I said, the problem is ignorance, and ignorance breeds fear. Fear leads to actions to "protect" that can appear to be or even be hateful, but it all stems from ignorance and fear.

If all of these Christians who voted for Bush during the last election specifically because of gay marriage and abortion were actually informed, they wouldn't have ran to the polls trying to "protect" life and "protect" the institution of marriage, so they saw it.

The Democrats waiting until after the election to start hitting on the fact that abortions are actually up, per capita, under Bush. They should have been saying that since the primaries to head off the "values" debate.

Bill Clinton was President for eight years. Do you think it's just a "coincidence" that during the second half of Bush's second term, right before the campaigns began, all of a sudden, gays started getting married? I don't. I don't for one second believe that all of these judges, who we surprisingly rarely ever see interviewed or on television, were "liberal, activist judges legislating from the bench." I think they were deliberately passing these rulings to allow gays to get married in an attempt to make it an issue for Bush's favor. All of these Christians running around saying, "If you elect Kerry, you're going to get gay marriage." That's not "hate," that's a fearful mindest, but the fact of the matter is, Kerry was not proposing an amendment to legalize gay marriage across thsi country, and the Democrats should have been saying that. They should have said, "Clinton was President for eight years, gays were not getting married until Bush got into office." Now, you may not agree with that statement, but it would have made people think, and that's what's needed. It would have made them "question" Bush, and that's what was needed. You think it's just a coincidence? The same thing that we are getting under Bush, "leaving it up to the states," is the exact same thing Kerry/Edwards were saying, but they didn't educate the people in order to override their fears.

For the Democrats they need to educate. If Democrats are the education party, then start by educating the public politically, then you'll get rid of ignorance, and with it fear, and with it any hatred that forms because of long-term fear.

it's just that I can't figure out what a literal belief in Rapture does to your view of the "non-saved" -- spouses who are "non-believers," children -- yours, other people's, etc.

I mean, you can do good works, but all the time there's that thought that hellfire awaits all these otherwise good people?

whether a Christian will be raptured or not, in their lifetime, is a moot point. What is certain, is that they will die. 'No one here gets out alive'.
Also, a Christian should be doing good works because they are a good person, not doing good works based on some selfish calculation that it will pay off for them.

entails that a Xian cannot be a bad person, and suggests that a bad person can never become a Xian.

I always took a different tack: A Xian does well because s/he loves God and that's what God expects and wants (with doing well out of fear the fall-back position). I.e., a child-like attitude.

however, doing what God wants still sound like a person sucking up to a parent, which may be better than some alternatives and a first step. But if you move beyond that, you are a good child not in order to please a parent, but because you, yourself, have accepted 'the good of the family' (the family being the human race) as your own standard. Yes, you may have accepted that standard because you love God and love the family.

I should have said 'trying' to be a good person, since people are not set in stone as either 'good' or 'bad'. So yes, a Christian can mess up, or backslide, and also atheists and followers of any religion can be just as good or better. Of course, any 'bad' person can decide to try to be better, just like the Winter Warlock. In the Santa cartoon, the young Santa says 'turning from bad to good is as easy as putting one foot in front of the other'.

And a big AMEN to that!

...over the centuries and nothing happened. They end up sticking their tails between their legs in embarasment and bewilderment and slink off back to quiet prayer until another false prophet comes along to whip them up into a frenzy over nothing again. This pattern will likely continue for centuries more.

just like they've been doing for the last 2000 years.

Zealots typically aren't renowned for thier logic...

They'll simply retrofit their coloring book folklore to perpetuate the fantasy. It's been something like standard operating procedure for 2000 years of christian crowd control so far, I'd say.

This is not to disparage those who try to live the spirit of jesus' teaching as they know it by the way (i.e. real religion).

I've been looking forward to the rapture, but for a very different reason then the fundies

Youze is interesting....

...Or re-edit the old one.

It's all been tribulation since then. Relatively few people noticed the change.

n/t

...then it will no longer be my concern and if I am left behind along with most of the fundies nothing much will have changed from the way it is now, so I'll manage somehow.

no social services. Oh, and with all us nonbelievers too!

Those stupid fucking superstitious infantalized fuckers are ruining it for everyone.

With any luck they'll get fed up and "rapture" themselves.

God didn't want any of those self-righteous, self-centered, right-wing "Christians." They would ruin the ambiance in Heaven.

So, He raptured 144,000 innocent Islamic people, mostly children, up to Heaven.

And nobody noticed.

wish i'd said that.

now they can't declare bankruptcy. There truly is a god. :evilgrin:

See, we're taught in Sunday School that there are no marriages in heaven because we will not have earthly bodies. No eating, no drinking, no singing, certainly no dancing, no hugging, kissing, etc.

Yet we are told the streets are paved with gold, that we'll live in mansions, that when Rapture rolls around our bodies will be caught up leaving our clothes behind. What, naked in heaven? Seems to me when the Ratpure happens only our spirits will go up and the body gets left behind. But the media will say it's a deadly epidemic and doctors won't know what killed them.

which some will term a "rapture." What about the fundies who didn't make the cut? Got left behind at the station, etc.? What are they gonna think about themselves, their faith, etc.? I mean, will their theology be tenable, will they be anxious to "self-rapture?" I'm trying to understand this...

is no ones idea of heaven...so you might be right

the rapture happened, and nobody went.

They'll sorta freeze for eternity and then used for display...

So remember, when see a mannequin, there's a fundie inside...and knock that fucker over!

They'll move on to the next crutch for the seriously disillusioned..probably the porn industry.

Wait -- that's the "escort industry!"

I guess you mean they'll just come out -- so to speak -- about the porn thing, instead of the current secret hypocritical stuff they do...

I'm not sure I want to see those people naked and having sex.

They'll start Rapturing themselves.

(what a mean thing to say)

:P

take that to the bank, as it were.

sporting bumper stickers that say "The Rapture was last Tuesday. You got left behind".

Or just mocking Christians on this board today? Maybe a little mocking or my religion/no religion is better than yours. Take your hate speech somewhere else, please, (said please)

However, I am not sure if you are saying that some fundies will not be raptured while others are, or that nobody is going to be raptured and yet we are going to face the tribulations that they expect. For one thing, most churches I have been to are unsure of whether the rapture happens pre-tribulation or post-tribulation.
Although I call myself a Christian, I do not like to listen to or discuss such things because I think it is all a bunch of nonsense (the 2nd coming dogma). It is kinda irrelevant, although I appreciate the way the mormons plan for it. That kind of planning would be useful for any major social disruption.
Hal Lindsey wrote a book in the 1970s called "The Late Great Planet Earth" and althoug he did not give an exact date, he made is sound like it would be a matter of years, not decades. You would think he would be discredited, but he is still there on TBN. I am cynical about it because I heard this stuff in my teens, so 30 years later it definitely holds no water. Every generation brings a new batch of rubes though, who have no idea what has been said decades past, but to me sifting Daniel, Revelations, and Isaiah for information about these events is about as productive as studying the combustive properties of phlogiston. I do not believe in fortune telling, I believe in ethics.

Same old same old. Some of the really crazy doomsday cultists will get crazier and kill themselves somehow.
The rest will continue to live in crazy-world, looking for signs they will always find. Same as its ever been.
Individual, not collective breakdowns usually.

Note: If the rapture DOES come to pass, then, YES, I will take their stuff.

:eyes:

When you've invested so much for so long in a delusion, adjusting to "actuality" may be too difficult for some of them.

The reason konservative fundies have this love affair with messianic jews is their need to convert those of the jewish faith to the kristian side. Those jews and other Christisans not converted at the time of the rapture will have been killed, with their souls sent to hell. This according to the konservative fundies.

Its not as if this is a scheduled event.

...the Rapture already happened and we are the left behind.

And what happens to the Fundies that aren't raptured? The same as the rest of us. 8 years of George Walker Bush. One or two more unnecessary and illegal wars, based on lies, and that rip more of our children to shreds. Theft of what security is left of social. A coming dog-eat-dog free-for-all amongst the trash dumpsters behind every Walmart. Collapse of the dollar. Collapse of America. The rise of corporate feudalism. Not the Life of a Saint, but the lives of the serfs.

All fun stuff.

my dog is missing.

Anyone heard about fundies suddenly disappearing? There was nothing on the news about it.;)

...from the lack of hate!

they'll decide that somehow satan has gained the upper hand and that they need to slaughter all godless sinners en masse to insure jesus' safe return.

you know, the one with all the fish on the back hatch.

which is why we must demand Jesus get his ass back here and take these fools at once.