Where do you begin when you talk about “The Rapture?” Vague references in the Bible? 
A 15 year old Scottish girl’s epileptic visions? It is so odd and such a stretch of the imagination it’s hard to imagine as many people believing it as they do.
Just because a lot of people believe something, it doesn’t mean it’s true. For example: there are millions of Muslim men who believe when they die (apparently if they have killed enough infidels) they will be given 72 virgins (everyone knows it would be impossible to find that many virgins.) There are also a lot of people who actually believe the world governments are controlled by alien, reptilian, humanoids. Just because a lot of people believe this conspiracy, it does not mean it is anything but an idiotic idea from a deranged mind.
Most doctrine of past and present religious beliefs are not only in complete conflict with what we currently know about science and the world around us, but are completely out of the realm of possibility. There is a quote that goes something like this: “If one person believes something weird they call it insanity…..if a lot of people believe it, they call it religion.”
The Rapture is one of those beliefs. It has morphed into a cult following over the years because people are so desperate to have something warm and fuzzy to believe in, they have created this fantasy. Not only that, but like the followers of L. Ron Hubbard or the John Gor fantasy books, the Christians who are waiting for The Rapture have incorporated the fictional “Left Behind” series into their beliefs. Many Christians simply do not realize that the Tim LaHaye series was FICTION (how scary is that.) Tim LaHaye no more knows what is going to happen than I do….I do know that what even happens in the future will not be the storyline in his science fiction novels.
Here are some brief facts (and I use the word “facts” very loosly) in a nutshell (literally) as to what The Rapture is all about.
(1.) The legend says that the Second Coming of Christ will occur in stages and that the first stage is that he will remove all Christians from the Earth to protect them……..This should be interesting since most denominations believe they are the only “true Christians” and that the other “Christians” are incorrect. Mormons believe they are “Christians” since they believe in Christ but according to Evangelical Christians, Mormons are not “real Christians.” If there WAS a Rapture involving the removal of all of the “Christians” off the face of the Earth, there would have to be an interesting sorting out process to make sure that only the “Real Christians” were snatched up.
(the interpretation depends on the agenda you have.) Here are some you can check out yourself because I am too lazy to copy them.
1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
1 Corinthians 15: 51-55
Job 19:26-27
What takes place after the Rapture?
During this time on the Earth when all of the “Christians” are gone there is supposed to be the “Great Tribulation” (actually it will be great because with all of the Christians gone we will not have to listen to their bullshit any longer.)
According to this Christian myth, during the Great Tribulation God will execute his judgement against unbelievers (or Christians who did not make the cut?) Then all nations will attack Israel and Jesus will come down from the sky with his army and distroy everyone who is not a believer (which apparently God was not able to take care of earlier.) Satan will be bound and the new Kingdom will be headquartered in Jerusalem. (although the Mormons believe the new Kingdom headquarters will be in Jackson County, Mississippi…..but that is a whole other story)
Then……Jesus and the good “Christians”will rule the Earth in peace for 1,000 years and then God will release Satan again to try and tempt everyone…….then, Satan and the gang will take up arms again and be defeated by the Lord. Then Christ will begin to judge everyone who has lived giving rewards to some and tossing the rest into a lake of fire.
Wow, I am absolutely amazed at the imagination of those who concocted this baloney and at the supposed God who came up with such a long, drawn out, consusing bunch of crap. I guess my feeling is that IF there was an all knowing and loving God…..and he was able to make the whole world and everything in it……could he not have come up with something less gory and idiotic than nailing his son to a cross? IF there was this loving God, why would he have a confusing, poorly worded, guide book like the Bible that was so devisive and filled with misinformation? And why would he want to put the people he made and supposedly loved (who were misguided by a book full of errors and idiocy) into an eternal lake of fire?
Last but not least, why would he come up with the whole Rapture thing….snatch people up in the air……judge people….bind Satan….. fight for Israel…..let Satan loose again…..fight again….judge people again senario? Does this sound like reality to you?
(2.) Where in the Bible does it talk about The End Times?
The two books that talk about it the most are Revelation and Daniel. Revelation, the book most often referred to, was written by a man named John who had been exhiled and had probably gone mad. Really, monsters coming from the sea and the four horsemen, it is bizarre at best. Most knowledgeable scholars know that John was writing in code about Roman oppression. He also, as did most of the writers about end times, believe the end would come in his lifetime. (More on the wild tales of Revelation and Daniel later.)
From then on and down through the ages, there have been numerous doomsday cults who even go so far as to predict the exact day of the “end.” Only to have is pass by as uneventful as Y2K. The Cambellites in 1866 came up with an exact day Christ would come to the Earth and the whole congregation sold everything they had and waited on a hill to be “Raptured” but guess what? It didn’t happen and from then on it was known as “The Great Disappointment.”
(3.) Most Christians do not know that some of the whole Rapture broohaha started in Scottland around 1830 when an epileptic 15 years old girl named Margaret McDonald had a “prophetic vision.” She then allegedly gave this information to a theologian named John Darby. So, the first and only question I want to ask about this is, why on Earth would anyone believe a strange and imaginative tale from a girls prone to seizures? I love my 13 year old and for the most part I believe what she says (unless she is telling me she is all caught up on her assigned reading) but…..if she comes to me and says she had vision about the end of the world I will give her a kiss and a hug and make her go back to bed.
Why was or is this taken seriously?
So here we are, people waiting for the Rapture. Waiting to be taken up into Heaven anytime, anywhere. You see the bumper stickers saying “In Case of Rapture This Car Will be Unmanned.” You have a multi-million dollar business (and religion) based around The “Left Behind” series. You have websites teaching how to be ready for the Rapture, hell, there are even sites offering to deliver messages to loved ones during the Tribulation when you are Raptured. Think about it, really, does this sound even plausible? Does this sound rational?
I guess what scares me about End Times Christianity (and even Muslim doctrine which I will touch on later) and their “hope to be Raptured,” is that rather than trying to find a solution to problems here on Earth, they seem to glory and revel in the impending doom and distruction. They WANT Israel to be in conflict because to them, this is just one step closer to the anialiation of the Earth and their fictious journey to Heaven. This world and life is the only one we have and they want wish it distroyed to meet their twisted end. They thrive in conspiracies, conflict, and self fullfilling prophesies. They use the fantasy of the Bible, written by unknown men who were often unbalanced and certainly ignorant, to base potential fate of the world on. That’s what scares me. They hide behind seemingly moderate family values while at the same time, hoping for distruction.
Perhaps what we can do it just hope they DO get Raptured, maybe, if there is a God, he will recognize that taking the believers…..all of them and their varieties, off the Earth, will give the rest of us a chance to get it right. After all of the horror and distruction religion has caused down through the ages, perhaps the so called Rapture is really to give a little breathing room to all of us who have stopped believing in fiction and fairy tales.
This one I like a lot. I have always wondered how people can take John’s little ramblings from Patmos and some pseudo-egyptian scribblings from the Old Testament so seriously. It blows my mind.
Good to find out you back. And again having an interesting posting.