Left Behind.

[Sullust]

Good morning fellow sinners.

[Dantius]

If this is what a post-rapture world is like, then wow, Left Behind got it wrong in addition to being a terrible book. I really should try and get my money back.

[A less presumptuous name.]

So the whole thing with the Rapture occurring at 6pm local time. Why would any sort of divinity respect our arbitrary lines and rules governing what we think is "time?" Also, have any of our Australian members noticed any extra bodies in the skies? No? Weird, I thought we'd finally get a doomsday prediction right! Unless, of course, no one in the Eastern Hemisphere is worth saving!*

 

*This is not meant to start any sort of race/nationalistic war. It just hasn't happened over here yet, so I can't rule any Western Hemisphere residents out.

[Sarachim]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Rapture is scheduled for 6:00 PM. We East Coast sinners have at least six hours to go before we inherit the Earth, though any SWers in Eastern Europe, Asia, or Australia are already living in the kingdom of the Antichrist. Can any of them weigh in on how things are going so far?

 

(I seriously did not make that part of the prediction up.)

[Jerakeen]

Here is my doomsday prediction:

 

Something very bad will happen to some people at some time.

 

When it does, you will all have to admit that I'm a prophet.

[Dintiradan]

Everyone knows that the world will end on January 19th, 2038, at 3:14 AM UTC.

 

EDIT: I love how the whole timezone thing introduces a loophole into the event. Someone could spend the morning in Vancouver, then catch an afternoon flight to Tokyo, crossing over the international date line.

 

Apparently there's a group of people who were planning on buying a bunch of second-hand clothes and laying them out on the sidewalks.

[Jerakeen]

A co-worker recently showed me a sum she apparently thought was deeply significant:

 

Quote:

09 11 01 date of 9/11

03 10 11 date of Japanese earthquake

12 21 12 date of the end of the world, according to the Mayan calendar.

 

Torn between pointing out the foolishness of trying to use to completely unrelated and dissimilar events to predict a third, and the absurdity of giving dates from the Gregorian calendar some kind of numerological significance, especially in relation to the Mayan calendar, I settled for correcting her sum:

 

Quote:

09 11 2001

03 10 2011

12 21 4012

 

In which case, no worries.

 

 

[Dintiradan]

2001 + 2011 = 4012 ( :-P )

[Niemand]

I hear that the rapture is supposed to arrive at 6 p.m. local time, but I'm unsure how this interacts with daylight savings time. This means that I don't know exactly when to check around for people vanishing, which is annoying since I'd rather not miss the event while eating dinner.

[Dantius]

I'm kind of unclear as to the difference between God "rapturing" people and god simply killing them and their souls going straight to heaven/Purgatory. If it's the latter case, why not simply kill everyone in one fell swoop, sort 'em into heaven and hell, and skip out on the whole tribulations bit entirely?

[Callie]

This guy predicted the world would end in 1994, so it's funny that anyone takes him seriously.

 

Edit: Actually, it's funny that anyone takes any doomsayer seriously.

 

 

[nikki.]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

I'm kind of unclear as to the difference between God "rapturing" people and god simply killing them and their souls going straight to heaven/Purgatory. If it's the latter case, why not simply kill everyone in one fell swoop, sort 'em into heaven and hell, and skip out on the whole tribulations bit entirely?

I guess by doing it through time zones, He's hoping to avoid unnecessary queues at the gates.

I don't see what the fuss is about though - everybody knows that Atomic is Blondie's best song.

[Randomizer]

I remember on the day of The Rapture in the 1980s when it was supposed to happen in Tucson, Arizona a friend telling us that he just thought of a great money making idea. It was too late to sell "I survived the Rapture" tee shirts.

 

Wake me up when it really happens.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

You're not the only one. It's supposed to be painless, and thus certainly beats out death by torture, cancer, etc. Nevertheless, it's in all meaningful ways identical to (quick, painless) death, and so I count myself pretty perplexed at people rhapsodizing about being raptured up to heaven "before they die."

 

@Randomizer: was that the furor over Edgar Whisenant's 88 Reasons the Rapture Will Be in 1988?

[Randomizer]

I think it was an earlier one since it was a local group.

[Dantius]

Ah, apparently the Rapture's time has been moved to midnight in Jerusalem. The one fixed date and time does make more sense, but the switching doesn't exactly lend credibility to them.

 

Besides, don't the PMD's think that there's going to be some big nuclear exchange between Israel and Russia a few years before the Rapture happens? You'd think that's not the kind of thing that we would miss...

[Niemand]

Quote:

Besides, don't the PMD's think that there's going to be some big nuclear exchange between Israel and Russia a few years before the Rapture happens? You'd think that's not the kind of thing that we would miss...

Different sect of PMDs, clearly. With a different completely literal reading of the bible.

Let's not forget that Russia is supposed to be supported by its powerful ally, Ethiopia.

[Lilith]

at least ethiopia has delicious food going for it

 

i mean, when they have food at all

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Niemand

Let's not forget that Russia is supposed to be supported by its powerful ally, Ethiopia.

When I read that bit in the book, I got this odd feeling like the authors initially wanted to put something in about voodoo magic or pagan rites or some other racist nonsense as a justification, but the editor just put his food down there. I really can't understand why else they would include Ethiopia in it at all, since the other pairing I've heard of outside of Left Behind is Russia and Germany, which makes much more sense. Well, more sense than Russia and Ethiopia, that is.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

If this is what a post-rapture world is like, then wow, Left Behind got it wrong in addition to being a terrible book. I really should try and get my money back.

Then I guess it's a good thing I never read that book. Also, good luck getting a refund.

Originally Posted By: Excalibur

This guy predicted the world would end in 1994, so it's funny that anyone takes him seriously.

Edit: Actually, it's funny that anyone takes any doomsayer seriously.

Yeah, I don't think the world ended in 1994. Or, for that matter, any other predicted date that's now in the past.

What really amazes me is that it's usually not just one or two people that take a doomsayer seriously; sometimes it's a cult.

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves

A co-worker recently showed me a sum she apparently thought was deeply significant:

Quote:

09 11 01 date of 9/11
03 10 11 date of Japanese earthquake
12 21 12 date of the end of the world, according to the Mayan calendar.

Torn between pointing out the foolishness of trying to use to completely unrelated and dissimilar events to predict a third, and the absurdity of giving dates from the Gregorian calendar some kind of numerological significance, especially in relation to the Mayan calendar, I settled for correcting her sum:

Quote:

09 11 2001
03 10 2011
12 21 4012

In which case, no worries.

That reminds me of a prediction that the world was going to end in 1998, because it's a multiple of 666 (666 * 3 = 1998).

[Ceiling Durkheim]

I question your assumption that Left Behind had editors. Anyway, the inclusion of Ethiopia (and this whole Russian attack narrative) comes from Ezekiel 38 & 39. "Persia, Cush, and Put will be with them, all with shields and helmets." -Ezekiel 38:5, NIV. "Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet." -Ezekiel 38:5, KJV.

 

There are a bunch of nations, probably including Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and a few in Sub-Saharan Africa. Russia is actually one of the more controversial and questionable members, since there's no direct reference to it, unlike some of the others. It's the nation usually associated with 'Gog,' for various reasons that I can elaborate on if it interests people.

 

@Niemand: I'm not sure these ones even qualify as PMDs anymore. PMDs seem pretty locked into the 7 years of tribulation, whereas these guys think the tribulation lasts 23 years, and that the antichrist is largely symbolic.

 

Also, who here reads Fred Clark's LB commentaries on Slacktivist/Patheos? They're pretty excellent.

[Dantius]

The Slactivist commentaries on LB are several times longer than the book itself. They are also filled with win- I read them a couple years after I read the book itself, and the criticisms were spot-on.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

He's most of the way through Tribulation Force at this point.

[Niemand]

Quote:

Also, who here reads Fred Clark's LB commentaries on Slacktivist/Patheos?

This is the source of all my knowledge of the dreck that is LB. It's been a while though, so some of my recollections of details are a bit fuzzy.

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: FnordCola

Also, who here reads Fred Clark's LB commentaries on Slacktivist/Patheos? They're pretty excellent.

*raises hand* Extremely excellent, even, but my family wonders how I know so much about the subject.

Quote:

I question your assumption that Left Behind had editors.

IIRC, according to those commentaries, Jerry Jenkins writes each book in about a month, so even if they had editors there would be no time for any major revision.

[keira]

I had a weird rapture-related dream in which Saint Peter was actually Gandolf, and he kept shouting "You Shall Not Pass!"

[Rowen]

Oh, was that today?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Sarachim

Jerry Jenkins writes each book in about a month

daaaaaaang

even Mills and Boon give their authors 6 weeks

[Balladeer]

Yeah, what Rowen said. Not worth the time it took to read this thread. Doomsday predictions are dumb and always wrong. When the world does end, there will be no countdown for it.

[Randomizer]

Doomsday predictions go back millenia. At least for this one there was a fee service that would retrieve and take care of your pets within 24 hours in the event you weren't Left Behind. In the 1800s, the Millerites slaughtered their farm animals to "save them" when they thought the End was coming.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

But we can learn so many interesting things about social systems and individual psychology from people's beliefs about the end of the world!

 

Then again, I wrote my thesis on Dispensationalism, so I may have somewhat odd tastes.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

In the 1800s, the Millerites slaughtered their farm animals to "save them" when they thought the End was coming.

I remember hearing about that one. They believed that since there would be no one left on earth, their livestock would all die from starvation and neglect, so they killed the animals as an act of mercy.

When the end of the world failed to materialize, had I been one of Miller's followers, I would've demanded, among other things, compensation for the loss of the animals. I also would've locked Miller in the nearest nuthouse, welded the door shut, and melted all copies of the key.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

I don't think that's fair. William Miller didn't coerce anyone into believing in his eschatology, and he certainly didn't force them to slaughter their livestock. I'm sympathetic to the idea that apocalyptic preachers ought to be held accountable for their statements, but there also seems to have been very little malice or selfishness in Miller's preaching. From what I've read, he seemed genuinely to believe that he'd calculated the time of the end, and those who believed him did so basically because they accepted (whether based on reason or fiat) his argument. If a scientist or other public intellectual makes a visible and seriously faulty prediction, said person should be named and shamed for doing so, and their credibility diminish accordingly, but that doesn't mean they're a lunatic or a charlatan. And many Millerites did see this as a basically scientific endeavor: an attempt to derive a set of predictive principles from a body of evidence. I don't agree that the Bible is a valid body of scientific evidence, and don't even get me started on this numerology silliness, but I can't fault their intentions.

 

Or, to put it another way: if the sole basis for getting a public maker of predictions committed was to show that they had been wrong in harmful ways, the fields of economics, political punditry, and popular psychology would be entirely empty, and research psychology and the natural sciences greatly reduced.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: FnordCola

if the sole basis for getting a public maker of predictions committed was to show that they had been wrong in harmful ways, the fields of economics, political punditry, and popular psychology would be entirely empty

not really seeing the down side here

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: FnordCola

if the sole basis for getting a public maker of predictions committed was to show that they had been wrong in harmful ways, the fields of economics, political punditry, and popular psychology would be entirely empty

not really seeing the down side here

First they came for the Austrian economists, and people were like "Okay, cool."?

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: FnordCola

if the sole basis for getting a public maker of predictions committed was to show that they had been wrong in harmful ways, the fields of economics, political punditry, and popular psychology would be entirely empty

not really seeing the down side here

First they came for the Austrian economists, and people were like "Okay, cool."?

Still not seeing the downside. Consider it "Evolution in Action" or cleasing the gene pool for all those that haven't won Darwin Awards.

[Venom]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Lilith

if the sole basis for getting a public maker of predictions committed was to show that they had been wrong in harmful ways, the fields of economics, political punditry, and popular psychology would be entirely empty

not really seeing the down side here

First they came for the Austrian economists, and people were like "Okay, cool."?

Still not seeing the downside. Consider it "Evolution in Action" or cleasing the gene pool for all those that haven't won Darwin Awards.

Oh, how pathetically short-sighted. Basically what Randomizer and Lilith are saying here is to remove anyone who makes a publicly known mistake. That is foolish. Because people are imperfect, they WILL make mistakes. No matter how genius you think you are, you too will make them. This is just a more publicized one.

Additionally, if you removed those people who made the publicized mistakes, you would be left with a crevasse filled in with spineless, cowardly, let's-play-it-safe-so-we-don't-get-fired people who would stagnate the sciences they were in. Critical analysis is a key way to achieve greater understanding. That's where the phrase "learning from one's mistakes comes from". If everybody just shied away because they were too afraid to be wrong, we'd never get anywhere. Almost all of the greatest minds of history were eventually proven "wrong". Take Newton and Aristotle for example. Are they laughed at because they didn't grasp quantum physics and general relativity? Because their systems of reasoning were eventually shown to be flawed? No. Instead, they were building blocks for the next generations of thinkers to analyze and correct.

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Originally Posted By: Dantius

First they came for the Austrian economists, and people were like "Okay, cool."?

cleasing the gene pool

Not okay.

—Alorael, who is much more okay with there being no economists and psychologists than he is with there being no ex-economists and ex-psychologists. And hey, even chemistry had to have its alchemists.

[Student of Trinity]

The first thing we do, let's disbar all the lawyers.

[Randomizer]

We're just getting rid of the junk scientists.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Quote:

Additionally, if you removed those people who made the publicized mistakes, you would be left with a crevasse filled in with spineless, cowardly, let's-play-it-safe-so-we-don't-get-fired people who would stagnate the sciences they were in.

In fact, the history of Christian eschatology since the Millerites bears out what you say here. It's not that people have stopped believing in the second coming, the tribulation, all of that. Tens of millions do in the US alone. The main change is that the great majority of leaders in apocalyptic-focused Christian groups have become canny enough to not make falsifiable claims. Harold Camping is one of the few major exceptions in recent years (Edgar Whisenant is another), but the big names always avoid this. People like Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye are no less wrong than William Miller, their biblical hermeneutics are scarcely less messy and bizarre, but they've gotten very good at avoiding being called on it. Well, avoiding being called on it by anyone they can't dismiss as a godless liberal or a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Venom

Oh, how pathetically short-sighted. Basically what Randomizer and Lilith are saying here is to remove anyone who makes a publicly known mistake. That is foolish. Because people are imperfect, they WILL make mistakes. No matter how genius you think you are, you too will make them. This is just a more publicized one.

Additionally, if you removed those people who made the publicized mistakes, you would be left with a crevasse filled in with spineless, cowardly, let's-play-it-safe-so-we-don't-get-fired people who would stagnate the sciences they were in. Critical analysis is a key way to achieve greater understanding. That's where the phrase "learning from one's mistakes comes from". If everybody just shied away because they were too afraid to be wrong, we'd never get anywhere. Almost all of the greatest minds of history were eventually proven "wrong". Take Newton and Aristotle for example. Are they laughed at because they didn't grasp quantum physics and general relativity? Because their systems of reasoning were eventually shown to be flawed? No. Instead, they were building blocks for the next generations of thinkers to analyze and correct.

look who doesn't get jokes

[Dintiradan]

@*****Cola: There's also the "like a thief in the night" camp, which I would hope would be the largest one. What am I going to trust? The section of the Bible that explicitly deals with the end times, or fragments derived from Equidistant Letter Sequence methods?

 

This reminds me of one intro psych class I had. We were talking about the possibility of subliminal messages, and we were looking at one ad for an alcoholic drink. If you squinted at the ice cubes, you could see the letters S-E-X on them. Was this intentional? Was the company trying to subconsciously link their product to sex? Not bloody likely, said my prof, since they were perfectly capable of explicitly linking their product to sex.

 

Or what about when Judas Priest was put on trial, because they were linked to a couple of kids trying to commit suicide? Was it because the song they were listening to contained the lyrics "My mind is dead", or "Tell her the world's not much living for", or "Guess I'll learn to fight and kill / They'll find my blood upon her windowsill"? Nooo. It's because when you play the song backwards, you can sorta almost kinda hear the words "Do it".

 

People just love the idea of secret knowledge that only a privileged few can know. It makes for great fiction. But it doesn't really belong in a religion that explicitly states that "no one knows the day or hour".

 

But there's another possibility.

 

What if God's a fan of cryptograms?

 

What if the entire cosmos is a test, and the only people who are allowed in heaven are those who are willing to spend the time and effort in finding the correct ELS that will grant them entry into life eternal?

 

I wouldn't make it into such a heaven, which is probably for the best. It would only consist of word puzzles anyway.

 

EDIT: Billboard win.

[Slawbug]

HERMENEUTICS FTWZQ123FTW

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

People just love the idea of secret knowledge that only a privileged few can know. It makes for great fiction. But it doesn't really belong in a religion that explicitly states that "no one knows the day or hour".

Unfortunately, that doesn't stop people from trying. There will always be someone who insist on finding a hidden message, even when you give them ample proof that no such thing exists.

Quote:

But there's another possibility.

What if God's a fan of cryptograms?

Considering the way people try to interpret the Bible, I'd say He's more a fan of anagrams, obscure number puzzles, and funky date math.

Quote:

EDIT: Epic Billboard win.

FYT

Come to think of it, that's probably the only true end-of-the-world prophecy to come from the Bible.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Yeah, the None May Know The Day Or The Hour camp has more biblical support than the others. That certainly hasn't stopped people through history from predicting dates, though. I especially like the "we can't know the day or the hour, but the bible doesn't say anything about the month or the year" loophole.

 

It bears noting that dispensationalism and similar apocalyptic beliefs already appeal to the Bible As Cryptogram school of thought. For all of its "all there in the book of Revelation" front, dispensationalism actually draws extensively but selectively on passages from the gospels, 2 Thessalonians, Daniel, Ezekiel, and several other books. Dispenational narrative is not something that people can figure out just from reading the Bible cover to cover, in its usual order. It's already a cryptic interpretation limited to a privileged few, so increases in the degree of hermetic and esoteric interpretation like Miller's and Camping's don't seem too surprising.

[Rowen]

If we are getting rid of people my vote goes for getting rid of country and rap singers.

[Sudanna]

I pick people that like Pokemon. Screw them.

[Sullust]

Originally Posted By: Lier Beneath the Silent Skies

I pick people that like Pokemon. Screw them.

They are actually quite good games. At any rate, if people were being 'saved' I doubt that it would be people you don't like. Well unless you're he-who-must-not-be-named...

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

I believe in the premillenial reign of Christ, his sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus' imminent return (Rapture), Jesus' Virgin Birth and many other fundamentals of the Christian faith.

I don't know all of the answers to why or how things in the Bible happen the way they happen. There are some out there who have way more knowledge about this than me.

I know that some of you scoff at us Christians for being 'close-minded' or 'believing in fairytales'.

You scoff at us when we say that we have faith in what we believe in.

What do you believe in? Do you believe that the entire universe (of its own accord) blasted into existence by the Big Bang? Do you believe that we are living in a multiverse instead of a universe. No matter how you think the universe came to be, you have to take it on faith.

Specifically, let's talk about the Rapture. We get the word Rapture from the latin word raptus. Why Latin? From the Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate mostly written by St. Jerome around 400 AD. This version was very popular and widely used during its first millenia.

The word is found in First Thessalonians 4:17. In the King James version we see the words 'caught up'. The Rapture is people being caught (lifted) up from the ground and rising into the air where we will meet Jesus. We don't have to do anything, we will rise at His presence.

About the timing of the Rapture, no one knows. It has been mentioned several times in this forum about the timing or our lack of knowing the timing so I won't go into that one.

I'm sorry if I talked too much. There seems to be a lot of confusion about the Rapture and I want to help clarify if I'm able.

Somehow I believe I'll catch some flack for this.

 

Post #512