BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 May 11 - 09:00 PM

Probably should have mentioned I was carrying a bottle of whiskey and a deck of marked cards....

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Bobert
Date: 21 May 11 - 09:32 PM

Well, I'm pissed off...

Ya' know all them holier than tho Christian Righters??? Well, if I have if correct these are the folks that Jesus was comin' for and leaving the rest of us bums here to sort it out but...

...seems that Jesus couldn't find no one righteous 'nuff to take and so we are still stuck with the holier that tho Christina Right...

I think we need to petition God to lower that standards for the next Rapture roundup...

I donno???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 May 11 - 09:59 PM

I tried to connect to one of those websites and got this message:

javascript:function() {return false;}

I suspect there is a Meaning contained in it, if we could only figure out what it is.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Bobert
Date: 21 May 11 - 10:02 PM

Maybe the website got raptured... Seems the Campin' guy ain't around, too... Yeah, maybe this was like a mini-rapture???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 May 11 - 11:25 PM

Campin's been reported by Al Jazerra in flight to Venezuela with all his ill-gotten gains.

I guess that's his idea of assending.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 May 11 - 12:42 AM

Important BTW

~Michael~ whose "pedantry is legendary" {friend on another forum} would point out, in case of confusion, that the word "RAPTURE" as used in Thessalonians &c, & in the context of this thread, does NOT mean "inordinate pleasure" in its current, developed, sense {though it has most probably become conflated with that} ~~

~~ but is used in the archaic, acc to Chambers, sense of "a seizing and carrying away" ~~

In other words, Jesus intends to KIDNAP the Good, for their own good, to his place in the firmament, there to join the virtuous simultaneously raised from the dead ~~ while the rest of us are left here to do the best we can.

Though acc to Mr Camping, only till next October.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 May 11 - 01:06 AM

Nah, Charley. Al Jazerra isn't reporting that on their English website, anyway. Maybe it's on their Arabic one...hmmm...what would happen if you had been in Mecca? Or Lourdes? Or Knock?

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 May 11 - 01:38 AM

Whaddya mean Jesus couldn't find anyone righteous enough to take, Bobert? He took my dog!

The part I can't figure out is...my dog is not particularly righteous. Self-righteous, maybe...but not righteous. I think the only God he truly worships is the one he sees in the mirror.

It's puzzling.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 22 May 11 - 05:04 AM

In order to get the numbers of saved up, then just the righteous would not be enough. So how many righteous have been passed by in favour of axe murders etc. yesterday?

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Musket
Date: 22 May 11 - 06:43 AM

Interesting how although we all seem to be taking the piss out of this rapture gig, how many actually believe the end is going to come at some point and it is because of predictions in the bible.

if society breaks down and we all kick our clogs, the cause will be man made. Same as religion is...

If we do lose 144,000 God botherers to a rapture, can the rest of us restore a bit of sanity? (UK - that means getting rid of the divisive faith schools and shops only allowed to open for a small number of hours on Sundays.) Not too sure religion affects me in any other way?

Wouldn't it be funny if I was raptured and the loser next door but one who goes to bible class every week and won't have the telly on during Sunday is left behind? Statistically, it has the chance of happening as him being the smug one.

Except Einstein, Feyman, Heisenberg Hawkin et al don't mention it in their predictions. You would think if it were true, those clever people would have mentioned it when they explain how the universe works?

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 22 May 11 - 07:27 AM

I'm glad it's all over so this particular bit of silliness can be retired and put behind us. We need the room for the next bit of silliness.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: bobad
Date: 22 May 11 - 07:40 AM

Somebody needs to re-calibrate his slide rule.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 May 11 - 07:59 AM

Dog in a mirror is God...

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 May 11 - 08:35 AM

As Elvis once pointed out to an astonished flight attendant, "dog" spelled backward is "god." (Upper case ad lib.)

"Dog" in a mirror is unreadable gibberish. Unless you make allownces and spell it backwards instead.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 May 11 - 08:55 AM

"Has anyone seen the Pope this morning?"

There was a news report last night of him talking with the people on the space shuttle--not the Challenger.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Bobert
Date: 22 May 11 - 08:59 AM

Who knows, LH... I mean, God make take favor on repulsive beings who pee on the couch... I mean, what's to say that peeing on the couch is not virtuous??? It's a values kinda thing... I mean, kinda like body odor... Some folks think that body odor is the bees knees and others are disgusted by it???

Sorry about yer dog but reckon he's with his maker now...

("Maker", Boberdz??? What, now you calling God a dog???)

I didn't mean it that way...

Awwwww, never the heck mind...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 May 11 - 09:00 AM

Maybe the Pope was the only one raptured.

Think about it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 May 11 - 10:06 AM

My neighbors across the street are gone! So's their big camping trailer!

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 11 - 11:54 AM

Bobert:

"Who's to say peeing on the couch isn't virtuous??"

Have you asked PVine about this conundrum? I bet she will have a ready answer. If not feel free to submit it to BBW, or jacqui, or any of the thousand other home makers in this here forum or beyond. I dare say it will be a unanimous response.

Now, if you add in family pets, maybe not....

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 May 11 - 03:24 PM

We may joke about the rapture but the very idea that John Darby still has sway over the primitive minds of religious fundamentalism should be an issue of critical concern.
There are too many people in the US that still believe in the "Crapture".

It's almost a "State-Crapture" given the corporate financing of the religious faction of the Tea Party and its influence on Washington.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 May 11 - 04:08 PM

Hey, there are people who say we're all gonna die of global warming too! Or killer bees! Or fire ants! Or financial meltdown! Or nuclear war! Or air and water pollution! Or a terrible and incurable pandemic! Or overpopulation!

Seems like a similar psychological need for indulging in scary doom dramas to me, but couched in terms that arise from a whole different set of mental idols and distant authoritative voices, that's all. They all share this in common, though: they think they KNOW what's going to happen and why. Just ask them. ;-D They'll tell you all about it till you go deaf in the ear...and they enjoy being "in the know" just as much as the born-again Christians do.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 May 11 - 04:21 PM

And the chances that we'll dodge all the bullets just listed (plus an asteroid, plus other dangers that haven't yet developed) are what?

Get real.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 May 11 - 04:57 PM

I've no idea what the chances are, Lighter, and neither does anyone else here. My point was, however, that people in general, whether they are religious or NOT, love focusing their fears and fantasies on all-ecompassing doom scenarios where we "all go together when we go". It appeals to their sense of drama and completion (of the great story of life). It's much more exciting and somehow appealing to think that EVERYTHING is going to end than to imagine that you will just die in an unremarkable manner in an auto accident or lying in a hospital bed, and practically everyone else will survive you and things will go on in the usual fashion regardless.

But I bet that's how it will be for most of us. We'll die in an individual and quite unremarkable manner, leaving behind us a world that is still fascinated by dramatic "end of the world" predictions of all sorts, both "scientific" and "religious".

Chances are that if the world as we know it "ends", Lighter, neither you nor I will be there to witness the Great Event. We will already have checked out in a far more ordinary manner.

Get my point yet? I'm not attacking religion. I'm not attacking science. I'm saying that people prefer a BIG drama to a small one...and that's why an "end of the world" story gets lots of media coverage, no matter who it emanates from.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 May 11 - 06:46 PM

Most people think that when they die the World will end. It doesn't. The World doesn't care. To the World your atoms are simply returned to whence they came.

Each individual is the center of their own Universe, their own World. Perhaps death is simply the gateway to the fusion of all of these Worlds; I couldn't say because as of yet I haven't experienced it. An Omega Point, or the ending envisioned by Clarke in "Childhood's End" or an Eternity with or without God in Heaven or elsewhere. Perhaps it's the mead hall in Valhalla, or the Gardens of Paradise, or Jehenna, or....

I figure I'll know soon enough; no need to hurry the process along.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 May 11 - 10:39 PM

The mead hall in Valhalla sounds like a real snort. I'll drink to that!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 May 11 - 11:04 PM

The Pope doesn't buy that American born-again rapture stuff - so, if he DOES get raptured, he's in real trouble...

So am I.

I see that there have been no changes in the Rapture Website. Maybe they all got wafted away to that "Meeting in the Air.". When that day happens, IF that day happens, I want to hear Helen Schneyer sing that song. I never had the chance to hear her live, but I have all of her wonderful recordings.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 May 11 - 12:53 AM

For the real skinny, check out raptureready.com
Your question will be answqered

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 23 May 11 - 07:22 AM

NPR has contacted a believer who explains that while an actual Rapture didn't happen, May 21 was the day that God cut off chances for salvation:

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136560695/doomsday-believers-cope-with-an-intact-world

So look for Doomsday October 21 as predicted. But if you repent now, it's too late. You've made your bed.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: alanabit
Date: 23 May 11 - 08:49 AM

Peter Cook's take on the end of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 May 11 - 01:06 PM

What really happened to the dinosaurs.... CLICK!

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 23 May 11 - 01:14 PM

I raptured the seat of my trousers bending down. Does that count?

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: gnu
Date: 23 May 11 - 01:23 PM

"Mead Hall"? I may convert.

Buddy says... "Judgment Day has come and passed, but it was a spiritual judgment on the world," he explains. "There is no more salvation. Salvation is over with. The fact is we have 153 days, and on the 21st of October, the world will end."

Stunned as me arse.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 May 11 - 03:19 PM

Here's the problem. This fear mongering is a manipulative device to control your brain.
It has ramifications in political posturing and influence, a Tea Party device, a means of scaring people into accepting ideas that they don't need to entertain.

It's not really a joke because it involves a more sinister takeover of people's minds, very much like what a cult does. It can be argued that fundamental Christianity is a cult.

The evangelicals that proselytize this rapture nonsense are dangerous and not funny.

The idea that a man-created god could be so punishing and sadistic as to select a few to torment and reject others is really sick and should be recognized for the psychopathy
that it is.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 May 11 - 03:59 PM

I was talking to my son, and we both suddenly realised we'd actually seen some of those "Judgement Day May 21" posters in passing. We'd both just assumed they were for some Video Game that was due to be published on that day.

I suspect most people who saw them probably thought the same. Well, maybe not in the USA...

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 May 11 - 04:42 PM

So they've gone to Plan B, huh? Instead of Rapture followed by Tribulation followed by Judgment Day, it's gonna all be lumped together on October 21. Does that mean there won't be a Tribulation? Surely it wouldn't be fair to have the saved endure the same tortures as us heathens. Maybe it'll be toned down a bit. Tribulation Lite. Instead of plagues, famines and cataclysms it'll be stubbed toes, a rash of SPAM emails and a few cars with broken fuel pumps.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: gnu
Date: 23 May 11 - 05:59 PM

"a few cars with broken fuel pumps."?

You pissed at the neighbours?

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Joe Offer at the Women's Center
Date: 23 May 11 - 09:41 PM

I saw those billboards here in Northern California, McGrath.

I thought they were predicting a movie.....

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 May 11 - 09:54 PM

"The idea that a man-created god could be so punishing and sadistic as to select a few to torment and reject others is really sick and should be recognized for the psychopathy
that it is."

Frank - I couldn't agree more.

"The evangelicals that proselytize this rapture nonsense are dangerous and not funny."

Here we're going to have to disagree. I'm sure that very few people actually believed this yahoo when he said that the rapture was going to take place last Saturday. And that particular group of people can be convinced of anything. Tell them that the sun is going to rise in the west tomorrow moring and they'll be up at the crack of dawn to watch it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 24 May 11 - 06:49 AM

Just to stir the pot -

That would mean that billions of otherwise normal people who profoundly believe in Christianity are cruel, sadistic (and/or wretched, masochistic) psychopaths.

What you see as punishing and sadistic, they see as kind and loving because it's so easy to escape punishment.

Just sayin'.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 24 May 11 - 07:11 AM

Agreed, Lighter.

The idea of a man-created god is of stringsinger's creation, not one of Christians.

Also, the Christian belief is it is personal choice to accept or reject Christ and punishment or salvation is based on this personal choice.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Wesley S
Date: 24 May 11 - 07:32 AM

"The idea of a man-created god is of stringsinger's creation, not one of Christians."

I'll have to disagree there too. If God did create man in his image then we Christians have done a pretty good job of recreating him in our image. To suit our whims and agendas.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 24 May 11 - 07:35 AM

I'm afraid there is some truth in that Wesley...

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 24 May 11 - 07:52 AM

But Jon, God Himself set things up in the first place to force each person to choose. Whoever chooses wrong - on the basis of a failure of reason and/or faith (both of which were given by God in the first place)- gets punished beyond anything imaginable.

Add to that the fact that God has designed God-given reason (as well as free will) so that it easily leads man astray, and that being omniscient He must have known that Adam and Eve would sin but put them in the Garden anyway -and it all starts to seem rather like a very strange game indeed.

If one is prepared to accept the bible as correct, why not the Quran? As we know, there are frighteningly contradictory (and more or less popular) ways of interpreting both. Strange.

But just to avoid any misunderstanding - I can't even understand my income tax, so I don't claim to know the workings of the Cosmos any better.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 24 May 11 - 07:57 AM

Almost forgot. Camping has admitted his error in interpretation, but promises the Apocalypse, the End of Time, without a doubt and for sure, for October 21. Like he said before:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/preacher-says-saturday-was-a-spiritual-judgment-day-world-will-actually-end-in-october/20

And yes, it is now too late to repent.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 24 May 11 - 08:11 AM

I don't understand it all by any means Lighter but I think the "being forced to choose" is part of being given free will. Personally, I don't know about you but personally, I'd rather have free will that (I suppose) be some form of robot.

As for the punishment, while I believe it is for real, I do not understand the severity. That said, according to my belief, there is forgiveness and one can escape through Christ.

For the next part, I would suggest it's Satan (coupled with man's stupidity - OK, I don't know why we are so good at stupidity...) that leads us astray. Eve was persuaded by the serpent but again I realise one could ask why inflict Satan and his minions on us...

Why select Quarn or Bible or atheism for that matter. I think you gave it with personal belief and (attempts at) reasoning leading to our choice.

Anyway, I'm sure that's not complete, etc. but it's the best shot I can give at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 May 11 - 02:00 AM

(What follows is from a fundamentalist's perspective, far more simplistic than a view I currently share.)

I grew up believing in a literal, endless, physical hell.

Eventually it made no sense to me at all. For one good reason: Assumng we are created beings, it is deeply instilled in us that torture is bad, it is evil.

The created is not better than the creator. If we, the created, recognize the evil of torture we must have got that information from the creator.

Thus: God does not torture.

Extinguishment, perhaps. Torture, no.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 25 May 11 - 04:46 PM

GUEST,Joe Offer at the Women's Center ...

Oh tell us...it isn't true!!
wink

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: gnu
Date: 25 May 11 - 06:14 PM

Ebbie... "Thus: God does not torture."

How basic and true... and irrefutable by all, especially the twits that prey upon the gullible.

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 25 May 11 - 09:06 PM

But what about the Lake of Fire?

Subject: RE: BS: The Rapture: Saturday May 21st 2011
From: gnu
Date: 25 May 11 - 09:44 PM

If yer buddy jumped in a lake.....