Will You Be Raptured?
As you are no doubt already aware, a Christian preacher based in San Diego is predicting that the world will end at 6pm on Saturday, May 21st (not sure how he got the timing down so precise, but there you have it). As a public service, here’s a handy flowchart to help you determine if you’ll be among the saved or the damned:
H/T: The Pajama Pundit
Is it 6pm PST? I’m in Central Time and it’s gonna suck to lose those two extra hours.
WHO in Des Monies this morning was saying 5:00pm Central.
Matthew 24:36
A few years back I looked into past predictions of the rapture, end-times or just basic end of the world stuff. At least one main stream religions that exists today (I’m talking to you, Seventh Day Adventists) was founded around a prediction of rapture, with the whole selling off worldly possessions, quitting jobs, cutting yourself off from the family, etc. And after the date came and went with nothing special happening? Nothing. It did not significantly change the membership or outlook of the church. This has been repeated dozens, probably hundreds, of times over the past two thousand years.
On Sunday, May 22nd, there’s going to be a whole lot of people who can attempt to go back to their family, friends, employers, etc and humbly abase themselves, or they can rationalize some reason to continue to hang around with the people who are in the same boat as they are, i.e. all the other Rapture-heads. History tells us the majority will fall into this second category.
That chart could only be made by someone deeply ignorant of the subject, and the various types of Protestant theology.
The Iranian government is in turmoil over eschatological questions, too! This just can’t be coincidence!
See you all on Sunday, I hope…
I’ve got a question for the Biblical fundamentalists that read this blog. And although I personally find this belief system beyond unlikely, my question is a serious one and not meant to be a “gotcha”.
I just finished reading an interview with Tim LaHaye (“Left Behind”) and he actually quoted the New Testament statement in full wherein it is put out as fact that Christ returning and all the accompanying events will occur before “this current generation has passed.” Being an unbeliever myself, that Bible passage caught my eye a long time ago, but I’ve never seen a bilblical fundamentalist mention it, must less address it. Since, even interpreting that passage very generously, it seems to say that the second coming should have happened about 19 centuries ago, how does a fundamentalist reconcile this with the fact that it hasn’t happened yet?
I have a somewhat less important question: what’s the reference to grabbing the balls of somebody your husband is in a fight with?
Oh, and thank you Patrick T. McGuire for that key passage that these wannabelievers always overlook.
Ruptured? Possibly. Raptured? Not so much.
“Fundamentalists believe everything Genesis says is literally true. I, on the other hand, don’t think Phil Collins is even that good a drummer.”
@Franklin
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+25%3A11-12&version=NIV
FTFY
Thanks Scott O … very curious. I mean, you gotta wonder if that particular scenario came up a lot, or if it was a one-off, or maybe some bright lawmaker was really thinking ahead about every possible thing that could happen.
Franklin, There was a recent This American Life podcast wherein a member of the band They Might Be Giants talks about adding a clause to their contract. After a bad experience they put in a line that the crew that will be loading their truck must be sober. Later they realized that it made it sound like it’s ok for everyone but the loaders to be drunk.
So I imagine 4,000 years ago after a painful scuffle someone said “We gotta make a law against that”.
Mr. McGuire has the proper verse. I wonder why the preacher staged it at Natchez rather than Greenville, MS?