The Rapture is a popular belief among Christians. This belief states that Jesus Christ will come back to Earth from heaven and send the devout, deserving Christians directly to Heaven just before the Tribulation or Armageddon occurs.
Rapture Letters is an extremely popular website where Christians can set up automated letter e-mailings to their friends and loved ones upon their ascension to Heaven, informing them of their departure. And the Rapture Ready Message Board is a place for Christians to discuss rapture-related issues.
If you spend some time reading posts on the Rapture Ready Message Board, you will quickly see that these Christians are obsessed with the rapture. They want it to happen, and they want it soon. For example, I as I am writing this article, I went to this post and found a registered user with the username "Can't Wait!". It doesn't take a genius to realize what it is that this person can't wait for. This user literally wants to leave this existence and go to the afterlife ASAP. The people on this message board want Jesus to come to Earth, swoop them up, and initiate a deadly Armageddon among those who are "not saved". I have even seen on numerous occasions people writing prayers on this message board, asking Jesus to come quickly; to come now. These people literally want to leave this life and pass on to the afterlife. They worship death in that they pray for this life to end.
This comes back to primacy assignment. These Rapture-obsessed Christians assign primacy to the afterlife, and therefore pray to have this life sacrificed to serve their afterlife desires. This current life plays second fiddle to them, and they only care about their deeds in this life to the point that it serves their position in the afterlife. What can be more inhumane than the sacrificing of their own current lives and the lives of their peers?
This is what happens when someone holds afterlife-belief as true. Christians have been praying for Jesus’ second coming, and the end of life as we know it, for over a thousand years. Of course, to the Christian, their actions are not inhumane. They think that getting more people to pray for the ushering in of the end of life is a good, humane, caring thing. Christians are not willfully evil, it is simply the afterlife-belief that distorts their views into thinking that death-worship is moral. They don't even see death as death, but as an ascension to a better place. Funny that whenever a Christian's life is threatened, instinct kicks in and they fight to preserve their life. When a car is about to run them over, they jump out of the way. When a criminal tries to kill them, they attempt to flee or defend themselves. Is that the sign of a true believer? Is there a good reason that the self-preservation instinct kicks in if they really desire to leave this life? Chief Justice Scalia even once said that it's no big deal if people get wrongly put to death, as God makes things right in the afterlife. Who wants to put their life in the hands of someone like that? Not even many Christians would want to have their life in his hands.
The person that does not believe in the afterlife will not likely wish for this world to end, or for their life to end. I know I sure don't. I am very happy with this life, and I wish to protect it. I value this existence, and my life in it, more than anything else. The Rapture-worshipping Christians do not; they worship death.
20 comments:
Holy Crap - literally. Those "rapture ready" freaks are amazing.
thanks for pointing that site out! some of that shit is hilarious!
"I am tossing that Scooby Doo movie I have, I noticed they aren't 'cute' anymore. The newer ones glamorize the occult, the older ones always had that old guy pretending to be a ghost or monster. The newer ones, have 'real' witches and ghosts. Be careful of what your little ones watch." LMAO now Scooby Doo is the servant of Satan!
"My daughter was into [witchcraft] big time for awhile. Says she's out of it I'm told but she still isn't too crazy about christianity. Though she's saved...baptized 9-11-01 of all days." Um, so she's not bothered about Jesus, but she's 'saved' anyway because you sprinkled some water over her. Right. And if she went out pillaging and murdering, she would still be saved, right?
"so many people act like yoga is OK, as long as they do it for non-occultic reasons." Thou shalt not stretch.
"Men submit to the Lord, Women submit to Men, giving them authority ... so is it shameful for women to be preachers?" This one is said by a woman :(
Outstanding post (as usual). You really bring up some good points that are essential to understand the mentality of these Christian fundamentalists. Their stance on life becomes more understandable when one realizes that they are focused on their imaginary afterlife.
Thank you for all the comments everyone. One of the important things I think we need to remember is that, while Christians do believe in an afterlife that is supposed to be better than this current life, there is a barrier or threshold of DEATH that first must be reached to get to this imaginary afterlife. Even while a Christian has good intentions with their afterlife belief, they must usher in DEATH to acheive it. So, regardless of whether you are coming from an atheist or theist perspective, DEATH is key component.
I disagree that they "worship" death, in a sense. They definately view death as more important than life, but I don't think that worship is the right word.
I put myself on the Rapture Letters list. That way I'll be informed when the Rapture happens. Right after I added my name, they asked for some money... figures. What's more likely is they'll forget to reset the deadman's switch, and all the letters will be sent. THAT would be something to talk about. :D
I am being raptured right now!
Bwahahaha ! Yea, some Republicans are not Bible-thumping zealots, they're just gullible followers of Bible-thumping idiots.
As for death, why worship that which doesn't exist ? To die is for the self to cease to exist. But when the self ceases to exist, perception ceases to exist. So we can never perceive it. So what's the big deal ?
The obvious response to these people is to try to convince them (deviously) that the rapture IS actually happening already. But there's no engraved invitation from Jesus, they have to have enough faith to take the action necessary to send themselves on their way. NOW--BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
It's not very nice, I know. But anyone who falls for it might be better off. Those of us left behind certainly would be.
It truly is scary in a world with weapons of mass destruction that large sections of the population are looking forward to the end of the world. I hope that people will come to their senses before it's too late.
Abandon faith, all ye who enter. It's easy to see why faith in one's fellow man will never be an acceptable replacement for faith in faith-based religions. What a weird perversion of elitism: "Just you wait! You'll get yours! Not us though, we're 'saved'! Just all you 'thems'!"
To me, its just another example of the sad fact that you can find some people to believe anything. Makes me want to run out and start a saucer cult. The enttrance to the tabernacle will be conveniently located over an old mine shaft. "Right this way, mind the first step!"
bleedingisaac, good job! Nice move.
LOL u nutjob.
September 21, 2012...what does that mean to you?
It means another day on another year. On closer inspection, I see alot of 1s and 2s in that date. But otherwise, not much.
How many end of the world predictions have come and gone? Hey nutjob, will you care to wager a bet with me regarding 9/12/2012? I bet $1K that the world will NOT end on that date.
What will you do if the world continues as normal on that date? Will you do what other prophets do and just revise the date to another future moment?
Is this your first end of the world prediction, or were you wearing tinfoil on your head on 12/31/1999?
hashishan prophet asked:
September 21, 2012...what does that mean to you?
Is that the day when the Mayan calendar comes to an end? I guess the reasoning is supposed to go like this: Since the creators of the calendar ended it with this day, then time will therefore end on that day as a result. Classic primacy of consciousness there.
"Whenever the earth is supposed to end, it does. Within a month and a day of the end the Aztecs were expecting, came Cortez." - Ingram Marshall, Cortez
How would you guys and gals respond to this?:
I told my christian friend about Luke 19:27 [paraphrasing, Those who would not follow me, bring them in front of me and kill them]. Several verses back it mentions these verses to be a parable. He told me this Luke 19:27 is a parable of the end of days when Jesus is supposed to return. He said Jesus will have non-believers lined up and killed. I don't want to hurt my friend's feelings, but what can you say to that? It seems he will believe anything to keep the bible coherent. I don't want to tell him Jesus is an asshole if he says I love you and then kills everyone who he thinks doesn't love him back, but what other recourse do I have?
I've read the entire Left Behind series. Not because I'm Christian (I'm not, in fact I have a satan t-shirt just for fun.) but because I like the idea of re-interpreting a work of fiction. Did you know? It's all based on this one book. And by all, I mean Judeo-Christiandom and spiraled outwards. One book has given us billions of crazy people. Crusades. Hate Crimes. Death worship. It's almost too unbelievable a phenomenon to be real.
"The person that does not believe in the afterlife will not likely wish for this world to end, or for their life to end."
i beg to differ. While on a general level, that may be true, there are always the exceptions. Locally there are quite a few persons of whom do not believe in an afterlife. Roughly half of them are eagerly awaiting death. Weird, perhaps they just want an end to it i suppose.
I have been wondering about why atheists don't convert to Christianity when the following reasons come up (besides "I don't have time for that").
If there is a God and you are a Christian, you go to heaven.
If there is a God and you are an atheist, you go to hell and get your worst fears repeated on you for eternity.
Right there that is a plus for Christianity and a minus for atheism.
To continue this, if there is no God, and you are a Christian, you go nowhere when you die.
If there is no God when you die and you are an atheist then you go nowhere as well.
But that is zero and zero for this last part. Totaled up it is Plus for Christians and Minus for Atheists.
So...would you rather go to Heaven or go to Hell or would you rather gamble that choice away to find out whether or not there is a God?
I understand your argument as this: If when I die I go to heaven, and heaven is enormously better than this life, I best die as soon as possible. If when I die I cease to exist, I best hang on as long as this life is worth still living. Hence, you argue, belief in the afterlife has negative consequences.
But what about reincarnation? If I believe when I die, I'm just going to come back, there seems little rush to die. If this life ain't that great, what reason do I have to think another one would be any better? So, if you belief in reincarnation as an afterlife, there seems little reason to approach the world much differently than someone who believes that death is the end. I suppose, the believer in reincarnation might be more willing to give up their life (given they'll get another one), but only it seems if doing so has great enough benefit to justify.
>The person that does not believe in the afterlife will not likely wish for this world to end, or for their life to end.
Rather wrong really, there's many atheist misanthropes in the world, I know if I could I'd wipe out all of humanity myself included hoping that there is no afterlife for humanity to wallow in.
Nietzsche's "The Antichrist" is largely constructed upon such lines, as is some of Stirner's critique of the 'spiritual' orientation of Christians and philosophers. Ayn Rand's views (probably influenced by Nietzsche) are similar: Christianity is essentially anti-life: they fear sex, food, anger, money and everything that makes life work. You say they're not evil? Well, 'evil' is nonsense, but they certainly are psychological cripples. I wish they would hurry up and join their Lord.
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