Fundies are just waiting for the Rapture!

[hyphenate]

One of the groups I subscribe to is made of a very diverse group of people, and as we all know, we're bound to find whack fundies just about anywhere and everywhere. And so it is with this group I'm in, and I must say, I haven't said a single word at all about it, and that's getting to be a foregone conclusion for me nowadays, where I've just walked away because it isn't worth it to start up anything.

Anyhow, this woman posted into the group about a month or so ago on how "global warming" isn't true, and how the earth has gone through these periods on a cyclical basis where weather goes from one extreme to another.

And today, she posted something that almost made me gag--she is taking off a month (September) because she wants to immerse herself in "Xian prophecies" in the Bible during September, which coincides with a Jewish period called "Elul." She markedly points out she is a Xian (yes, she is a fundie!!) and not Jewish. In her own words:

Also, another reason I am doing this now is because I will be taking the entire month of Elul off, so to speak, (interestingly enough, this year Elul corresponds exactly with the month of September). Elul, in the Jewish calendar (and, no, I am Christian, not Jewish) is a time of repentance in preparation for Rosh haShana, aka Feast of Trumpets (judgment day for Gentiles) and Yom Kippur (judgment day for Jews). I plan to spend that month immersed in Bible prophecy as things are quickly coming to a head.

I've said this in the past, and I don't think much has changed, but this "new generation" of fundies is so intent on being "raptured" that they are going to enormous lengths to bring about the apocalypse on their own. It's part and parcel of being fanatics, and this administration has certainly done all it can to make biblical prophecy come around for real.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but the dinosaurs managed to live and prosper on earth for about 160 million years, while we barely have 10,000 years of recordable history. If I were just looking at length of existence, it is clear to me that the dinosaurs would have been a superior race.

Come to think of it, with Xians like the fundies, perhaps the dinosaurs actually WERE superior--at least in theory!

[scheming daemons]

1. We need to tell all the fundies that the rapture is November 4th, so there's no reason for them to

bother voting.

[Super Soaker Sniper]

2. Only God knows the day and time of the Rapture

so they would not fall for it. Fundies cannot bring on the Rapture by trying to domino a series of events so it will happen. God already knows the day. It is fixed and it will happen on that day.

[Hugabear]

11. Fundies will fall for it every single time, history proves this

I remember a couple of times during the 80s when some "prophecy nut" calculated the date of the Rapture. One of these was in 1982, when there was a planetary alignment that they thought would destroy the earth. Another one was in September, 1989 - I remember that one very well, I actually knew people who believed that shit. Then there was the whole Y2K, when many fundies expected the rapture to occur before the millennium.

So yes, give them a date, and throw a bunch of gobbledygook at them, and they'll buy it. Just make sure that you reference the books of Daniel and Ezekiel, and don't just rely on Revelations, since most prophecy nuts rely pretty heavily on the former two books.

[Super Soaker Sniper]

13. It is to their detriment that they fall for it

as only God knows the time.

[A HERETIC I AM]

23. So out of curiosity, do you actually believe people will be bodily swept up into the sky?

Do you actually believe that Christ will arrive in the sky?
Will the rapture look anything at all like this?


I'm just curious because people that hold this sort of literalist opinion absolutely fascinate me.

[Super Soaker Sniper]

36. No, I do not.

But if someone does believe in the Rapture, then they should know what it is they believe and that means that only God knows the day and the hour and no one will influence it in any way.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

39. I just had a flashback of being approached by a guy who said

"Er, you know, a friend of mine has this embarassing problem..."

[anigbrowl]

44. Rapture already happened

Your picture is prophecy. there's a plane crashing into a building. Therefore the Rapture took place on September 11th 2001.

[sakabatou]

3. Go to

FSTDT.com

It's hilarious.

[tired]

22. This site is great.

Thanks for the laugh!

[sakabatou]

28. No prob

I reply to the quotes every day.

[angrycarpenter]

4. If the rapture is so close

They should all give everything they own to charity and quit paying bills. That would be proof of their faith.

[malaise]

24. Fugg charity

send it my way :D

[mitchtv]

5. Tell them

when the rapture happens, can I have your car?

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hugabear]

12. I don't want them committing suicide - but I wouldn't mind if they separated themselves either

Why can't they be like the Amish, and just keep to themselves?

[guitar man]

7. I wish it would hurry up and get here

I can't wait to move into my new house....the damn Thomas Kinkaid paintings have to go though! :D

[lonestarnot]

14. What's wrong with Thomas Kinkaid paintings?

[MountainLaurel]

19. Other than the fact they are horrendous? n/t

[lonestarnot]

21. To each his own. I happen to like the Native Americans around the campfires in the mountains pics.

[keroro gunsou]

29. like i told one of my graphic design teachers...

"thomas kinkaid is to fine art what spam is to fine dining."

my teacher was a bit on the fundy side, but he agreed with my assesment.

[MountainLaurel]

30. All of the graphic designers I've worked with

(and I'm an editor, so that's a lot) have HATED TK and the attention he draws with a passion.

[lonestarnot]

37. Is TK a fundie?

[MountainLaurel]

42. All of his children have the middle name Christian

What do you think?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_kinkade

(I actually hadn't known that fact, which is creepy, but I had known that his stuff is all over the "Christian bookstores" you see in the mall.

[lonestarnot]

43. Hmmm. didn't know that, but Christian does not necessarily designate fundie.

:)

[China_cat]

8. The end of the world has been prophecied for thousands

of years. However, today those who want to see it happen have the means to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[loveable liberal]

9. Jim Jones and Major Applewhite had solutions for them...

simple really; why wait.

[gratuitous]

45. Marshall Applewhite, not Major

Major was a quarterback for the University of Texas and retired after a stellar 10 year career.

[JuniperLea]

10. Egad! These Fundies forget the basics...

I'm a recovering Fundy... and I know more scripture than I really care to at this point.

To hit them with their own gospels... pardon me whilst I channel my great grandmother...

Jesus told us "no man knows the day or hour" and he said that specifically because he didn't want us to stop living our lives every time some yahoo said "The End is NEAR"! Jesus will come when he is ready and nothing we can do is going to change that. If you believe Jesus is coming back, then you need to do what he told you to do, and you need to remember what his job is and what yours is.

Ugh... I'm so sick of this nonsense.

I have a Christian Missionary cousin, and thankfully, she and her husband are "truth seekers" in that they are fluent in Hebrew (as well as Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish... I'm sure I'm missing a few) and do their own translations for the most part. They don't believe in the rapture either. I know! Weird, huh? Well, it just ain't Biblical enough for them. And all those Jewish holidays? Well, they feel the Jews got a lot of dates and meanings wrong... so did the Christians, for that matter. And this is coming from a couple who used to swear on the Bible that the Bible and all its translations and editions were absolute fact, as inspired by God hisownself. Seems too many self-serving humans got their dirty fingers into the mix... as I had always suspected, but would never voice to my Fundy family.

Pray for Fundies... they are the most mislead of us all, imho. Tell them to read the Bible... especially and specifically the "red" words... you know, the stuff Jesus supposedly actually said. Not much of what goes on now is actually Christ-like.

[Snarkoleptic]

15. My mother was attending a wedding recently when my Uncle

"Rev. Bob" herded a bunch of female wedding guests into a small kitchen area and began scaring the shit out of them with tales of imminent rapture. You should have seen the look on their faces as they exited the kitchen. Some were visibly shaken and sobbing while others just looked annoyed. Sad to see someone take someone's wedding day (and rare family gathering) and turn it into a fundie freakshow.

[notadmblnd]

16. Tell them, if they hold their breath while doing this; they will be raptured sooner.

[old mark]

17. My jewish wife tells me that Yom Kippur has nothing to do

with the idea of "judgement day", but is a day of attonement for wrongs you have done against other people over the past year. Observant Jews don't eat, may limit activities, spend the day in quiet contemplation.
The fundies have not only stolen a lot of Jewish ideas, they have usually
gotten them completely wrong.
I find most fundies really don't understand much about the basics of their own religion. They encourage ignorance, and do not seek any real knowledge or any dialogue with other more established groups.
They know what they know, and they don't want to know anything else.
FWIW, there were a lot of these groups in the late 19th century US, several groups that did sell off their property and homes, went to live in the wilderness for the great event, which, of course, never took place.


mark

[KatyaR]

18. Fundies don't know anything about any other religions, either.

I love how they adopt practices from other faiths that sound "cool," like the Jewish observances. There's a (Methodist?) offshoot church here called Acts II that, when it was first formed, decided to have their services on Saturday evenings, since that was the "real" sabbath (such as Jewish and some Orthodox Christians observe). It was a big deal, made the front page of the local paper, them and their kneeling and incense and all. After less than a year, they went back to Sunday morning services because they weren't getting the attendance they wanted--it was interferring too much with their congregants' weekends. Now I think they're like every other megachurch with the big screens and the orchestras and such.

[Clark2008]

32. You're not kidding!

They think Jihad is a bad thing.

Trust me, most Muslims think it's a wonderful, spiritual and cleansing thing (since, by and large, it has nothing to do with terrorism. It's about introspection).

[Fuzz]

20. When their 'heros' on earth fail them, they have to look somewhere.

I guess.

[fascisthunter]

25. What Happens When Nothing Happens?

oh yes people... we have human time bombs ticking. After all, most crazy shit is self-fulfilling. Millions of brainwashed whack jobs find out their word was bullshit... yeah, I'm sure that's gonna go over real well!

[Edweird]

34. nah, there'll be some last minute miracle bullshit... I remember the same thing in the 80's

It was BIG news until it didn't happen, and then suddenly nobody talked about it. This was in the buckle of the bible belt.

[MiniMe]

26. Good. Lets tell them the rapture will be on election day and if they aren't sitting at home,

or in church, they'll miss it.

[hootinholler]

27. Putting the mental in fundamentalist!

:crazy:

-Hoot

[LanternWaste]

31. The unfortunate thing is that we have our own...

The unfortunate thing is that we appear to have our own DU end-timers--'secular end-timers' if you will, who advertise the end of world through the guise of armed revolt against a fictional but perceived fascist government, the Peak Oil Apocalyptic Scenario which spells the end of civilized government and the formation of smaller, regional governments; and our run of the mill 'every-thing's-going-to-hell-in-hand basket' cases who advocate stockpiling arms, ammunition and food-- just in case *nudge, nuge, wink, wink*



"...perhaps the dinosaurs actually WERE superior--at least in theory!"
As I'm just a simple Australopithecus (and not a very bright one at that), I have no clue...

[hyphenate]

40. What I've always failed to comprehend

is that for a group that is so desirous of the "simplicity" of the bible, they sure make things WAY too complicated for all of us to understand. Let's face it: if someone comes into an argument for creationism, and you try to cite all the scientific data, the fossils, the carbon dating, even the "simple" logic of evolution, and they try to cover up the science by saying the devil planted it all to trick people into believing that it's truth, and not "god's way," which makes more sense at that point--a book that was re-written by more than enough writers to fill a football stadium and which was never intended as anything greater than allusion and parables, or what has been observed and reliable over and over again? It is a point where Occam's Razor proves that the complexity of science is indeed more simple than the concocted responses of a whacked, crazy bunch of fanatics. (Yes, that's redundant. But it's the way of the fundies. :))

[LanternWaste]

41. Mid-evening ramblings on my part, take no heed and take no offence...

I think that there are as many different ways to look at a thing as there are people who look at that thing-- and I'm not really in a position to say "you're wrong" or "you're right".

I see a piece of paper with the color red on it and say "Ohhh look! Red!". Someone else comes along as says with just as much validity, "that's not red, that's simply your visual perception of a particular spectrum of light". Yet another person comes along and says (again, with just as much validity), "that's the artists perception of rage and anger on a canvas medium". I think that to a degree, each person is fundamentally correct-- we're simply looking at that same thing through different eyes based on different experiences.

Sure-- I'm pretty certain that no one person has any great insight as to how or where or when the rapture will take place (assuming one believes in it all)-- and to blow one;s mind-- one only need read a few classical tracts on just *what* the rapture really means in contemporary Christian philosophy and religion; 'The Particulars of Rapture by Avivah Zornberg is completely and fundamentally different than David G. Winfrey's 'The Great Tribulation'-- then bring in classical pre-determinists and we're left with a mish mash of competing and conflicting ideologies-- enough to make anyone's head spin.

But I also believe that very, very few people in this world have any great insight into the near-, medium-, or long term future of our civilization. But that doesn't stop our own prognostications on DU as to whether Fascism will soon ne a reality, that Peak Oil will cause the collapse of civilization, that a civil war is about to happen between "them" and "us".

The whacked out Fundies salivating over the end of the world inhabit (in a secular sense) our own DU, Free republic-- the entire world at large. It seems to have been that way since time immemorial and I imagine that all other things being equal, they will continue wearing sandwich boards with "the End Is Near!" written on the sides.

The Religious ones are easy to spot, frustrating to talk to, and tempt even me (MR. Patient and Gentle) to bang my forehead against the wall. On the other hand, the secular end timers are precisely the same with one notable exception-- they are not as easy to spot.

As for me, I happen to think that science, philosophy, art and religion all edify one another-- they are merely different ways at looking at a piece of paper with the color red on it... :shrug" And as with religion-- science, philosophy and art all have a few Screamers in addition to the vast majority of moderates. And just like in religion, it's the whack jobs that seem to get the most air play and ad copy on the evening news.

Mid-evening ramblings on my part, take no heed and take no offence...

[anigbrowl]

46. Fake liberal! To the guillotine! .nt

[Vinca]

33. Why don't they all rapture themselves and go meet their maker?

There's no need to wait. If they want to go . . . go.

[LeftyMom]

35. Death cultists excited about death?!? You don't say.

:rofl:

[kevinbgoode]

38. I find them particularly annoying. . .

with their innate selfishness and their outrageous bragging about how they will be saved. Their only intention for embracing "religion" is this devotion to self-centered preservation, as if God bribes humanity with promises of everlasting life for running around telling everyone how faithful and devoted they are. It is, in my opinion, shameful in its public display.

[and-justice-for-all]

47. And how long have the been waiting??

for a very loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg time.