Your rapture beliefs

[AspenRose]

With all the talk on GD about 'rapture' this and 'rapture' that, what's your take as a liberal Christian regarding the rapture....I'm curious to see what folks here think.

Helpful link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_eschatology

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. You need way more categories

Gotta make room for the premillenial dispensationalist pretribulation futurists.

As well as the preterists, amillenialists, postmillennialists, allegorical idealists, partial preterists, and on and on and on and on and on...

[AspenRose]

7. Most of those I'm not familiar with

Sorry....I've only started getting into this stuff myself. One of the reasons why I started it is to see what I could glean from others.

So it could go under 'other' for now and you could explain more downthread.

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. I finally started getting into it, wanting to be able to speak with people

who were confused by the shit of "Left Behind" and have been amazed at just how many varieties of thinking there are (the majority of which are unbiblical heresies, IMO) about eschatology.

I grew up UCC, so pretty much grew up with the eschatology of "Hey - it's all gonna work out."

[AspenRose]

12. I like that way of thinking the best

Love God, serve others, and it'll all work out in the end.

[OnionPatch]

24. What a different world we might have

if only people followed that advice.

I think it's morbid and weird to be obsessed about rapture and the "end of the world." If it ends, it ends.

[gorbal]

25. I've been wanting to erect an anthill on the Temple Mount

I was considering ways to destroy that "Meme that is making itself happen" by constructing a small-scale Apocalypse with a bunch of ants and an evil vacuum cleaner with 666 written on it.


I feel that people are willing the Apocalypse into existence, and if we don't let it carry itself on some level they won't stop until it happens.

[RevCheesehead]

26. a rapture with a vacuum cleaner?

:rofl: It would have to be a Dirt Devil, right? :rofl:

[RevCheesehead]

2. I do not believe in millenialism, nor the rapture.

IMO, it's a bogus theology/eschatology. And that at least used to be the prevailing view among clergy.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. So, does that mean you're a covenantal idealist?

I find the whole eschatology thing fascinating.

I'm with you in that the majority of it is bullshit and crap theology having nothing to do with Scripture or historical church views - mostly just invented American assholery, with the pinnacle being the "Left Behind" series and that other asshole from the 70s whose name I always confuse with the guy who played Barney Miller.

But even though a lot of it's crap, it's the crapitude and the wide variety of wild views that these morons hold that's so fascinating, and, even some of the views themselves are fascinating.

[RevCheesehead]

4. Well yeah, but only on the same level as me watching TV.

Example #1: I'm fascinated with Charmed, Angel, and Buffy - but just because that stuff's out there, does that necessarily mean it's true? Of course not.

Example #2: FOX SNOOZE. :boring:

Fundies seem to forget that the "Left Behind" series (BTW, I call it the "Left Butt-Cheek" series), is categorized as FICTION - IN THEIR OWN BOOKSTORES!!

As for me, I'd rather use "The Chronicles of Narnia" as my guide to the end. At least there's a really big cat in it. :)

[okasha]

5. And the winner is . . .

BTW, I call it the "Left Butt-Cheek" series:applause:

I believe in the time of the White Buffalo, which is not an end but a beginning. Obviously there's some nasty stuff to get through first, but it's happening now, not following the whoosh of some cosmic Orek.

[RevCheesehead]

6. "...not following the whoosh of some cosmic Oreck."

Rabrrrrrr's way of saying "your God sucks." :rofl:

[AspenRose]

8. That would be Hal Lindsey

Hal Linden=Barney Miller :D

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. That's it! Thanks!

When I was a kid, and not really paying attention, is when the Hal Lindsey books started coming out and Barney Miller was on (I was maybe 10), and I remember thinking for a long time they were the same person (since I'm also rotten with names).

[AspenRose]

11. Thread on GD regarding the National Geographic special on rapture

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1650913

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. The passage on which the doctrine of the rapture is based

has long struck me as being similar to what actually happened at the bombing of Hiroshima. "One was taken and one was left" depending on where they stood in relation to the bomb. There was even a bank in which people attending an early morning meeting were "taken" or "left" depending on where they were sitting in relation to the windows. (I was in Japan on the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and NHK ran a docuementary on why people close to the epicenter lived or died.)

[realisticphish]

14. The whole idea of the rapture

strikes me as ridiculously egotistical and selfish. Christianity is, in its purest form, a religion of humility. Asserting that oneself will be chosen, and those other heathens will be cast into hell, seems just a tad too sure of your own status.

Not to mention that the whole business seems rather bizarre. Why in the world is there a delay after these "raptured" leave? Does God need time for them to go through customs?

If the world DOES end by God's will, I have no doubt that it will be pretty much instantaneous, him being omnipotent and all.

[RevCheesehead]

15. I think it's got something to do with Customs.

"Do you have anything to declare?" sounds an awful lot to me like "what is your quest?" :evilgrin:

[realisticphish]

16. What is the liturgical color of Easter?!

Blue! NO! YELLLOWWWW!

Two Monty Python references in one day... :D

[RevCheesehead]

17. *snort*

:rofl:

or, "what is the average air velocity of an unladen Holy Spirit?"
"What do you mean? A Pentecostal or an Anglican Holy Spirit?"
"I don't know that....aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!"

[realisticphish]

18. Heaven! Heaven!

Heaven!
(It's only a model)
Shh!


On second thought, let's NOT go to heaven... 'Tis a silly place :D

[RevCheesehead]

19. I want to do a DMin in Python movies.

Is not the Black Knight our innate struggle with original sin?
Does not Brave Sir Robin represent our good, if not misguided intentions, and the inability for us to free ourselves from sin?
Then there's dear Galahad.....

:rofl:

[realisticphish]

22. Methinks

you have yourself a sermon! :D

[nosillies]

20. Am I totally shallow?

'Cause I just don't worry my pretty little Methodist head over it? I know, it's so Scarlet O'Hara of me.

I'm honestly too worried about trying to take care of my day-to-day living and spiritual walk to think that far in advance (but of course, it may be tomorrow!!!!!). I'm like some others -- I think what happens, happens, and I'll deal. Is that wrong of me?

[RevCheesehead]

21. Not at all.

Unlike the fundies, you actually heed the words of Jesus. :hi:

[supernova]

23. Oh God! No!

What a load of 19th Century Codswollop! x(