In it till the Rapture!

[sphenisc]

Finally got round to asking my friend these questions...

1) One radio show nutcase I listen too always mentions (gleefully) how there will be planes flying and the pilot will suddenly disappear (having been raptured out). In those cases, will he be beamed out a la Star Trek, or will a hole be made in the side of the plane?

2) Likewise, will those who are in their cars or houses get a warning to go outside? Or are the trumpets supposed to alert all those who qualify?

No expectations of holes being required. Most likely they will pass through walls and other physical impediments.

3) Presumably, Jesus will appear in Israel first. Will it be something like Santa Clause, where he goes all around the world collecting people?

Didn't accept your first point. They will meet Jesus in the air, dynamics not specified.

4) When the raptured rise into the clouds to meet Jesus, what elevation will that be? It gets cold up there, and there is less oxygen - will they need coats and oxygen tanks? Won't it be inconvenient if they are naked?

Elevation unknown. Presumably at an altitude where oxygen and warmth are adequate, or they will be provided.

5) Why would be people be raptured naked when God is so prudish?

Doesn't think they'll be naked or God is prudish.

6) After the clouds/Jesus reunion, what next? Will everyone be zipped around the earth to some common cloud location? What about after that?

After the Rapture is the Bema Seat Judgement and then to the Father's House.

7) How do they get to the place with the gold streets and the wall with the gates and gemstones?

Mode of transport not specified.

8) Others have asked about the unborn - given the number of miscarriages and abortions already being direct admits, there must be a lot of unaccompanied minors in heaven. Who is raising all those children? Or do they just arrive as angels?

Didn't get round to this one.

 

[Stacyhs]

They've got an answer for everything. It may not be a logical or sensible answer, but it's an answer.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

After the Rapture is the Bema Seat Judgement and then to the Father's House.

So that's what they are calling it now.

Mode of transport not specified.

I heard it was DC-8's.

 

[Armitage72]

The first thing we need is a definable metric for pinheads.

It would also depend on the type of angel and whether they could even perform movement that would be defined as dancing. If you go back to before the medieval artists, a lot of depictions of angels wouldn't look out of place in a Lovecraft story. I figured that's why they always say "Be not afraid" when appearing to humans in the Bible. Seraphim or Ophanim would have trouble dancing for example, not having any limbs. One is a mass of wings and the other is a wheel or interlocking wheels.

 

[carlitos]

Finally got round to asking my friend these questions...

Thanks very much for doing this. I found the responses to be very informative.

 

[luchog]

It would also depend on the type of angel and whether they could even perform movement that would be defined as dancing. If you go back to before the medieval artists, a lot of depictions of angels wouldn't look out of place in a Lovecraft story. I figured that's why they always say "Be not afraid" when appearing to humans in the Bible. Seraphim or Ophanim would have trouble dancing for example, not having any limbs. One is a mass of wings and the other is a wheel or interlocking wheels.

Yeah, the majority of angels described in scripture can readily be categorized as eldritch abominations. Interlocking wheels covered in eyes, giant heads with multiple animal faces, masses of wings, and so on.

Even the humanoid ones still have enough of a decidedly non-human presence to cause those they appear to to fall down in fear, or treat them as gods. I can only think of two instances off the top of my head where that did not occur, and in one of those they were clearly disguised to some degree.

None of them are anything like the winged, effeminate, nonthreatening, gracile adult or chubby baby tropes common to art from the Middle Ages onward.

 

[Belz...]

In a global survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders, " Six-in-ten leaders (61%) also say they believe in the Rapture of the Church — the teaching that believers will be instantly caught up with Christ before the Great Tribulation, leaving non-believers behind to suffer on Earth."

Good ol' merciful God.

"A slight majority of leaders (52%) believe that Christ will either probably (44%) or definitely (8%) return in their lifetimes. "

You'd think they'd realise that people have been saying that for a hundred generations.

Apparently I've misunderstood what 'rapture' means. I always thought it simply meant the second coming of Christ and Judgment Day. Apparently they mean that they'll fly away in the stars with a bunch of zombies. Typical.

 

[Belz...]

Bottom line 60% is not a vast majority. And I suppose it's also not the small fringe of a group.

Yes, 60% is, indeed and surprisingly, not a small fringe group.

What happens to the placenta? And do the unborn babies get to grow to adulthood in the afterlife, or do they have to just flop around as fetuses forever? Or worse, do they get implanted into the wombs of heaven residents who just have to be pregnant for eternity? Or do they give birth to them, and then they age? The main problem I have with theories of the afterlife is that nobody ever seems to really sit down and think out the details. It all gets very silly very quickly when you get into the details.

Thanks for the laugh, and for pointing out how silly fiction can get when you try to apply logic to it.

If I were God I'd set everyone to reincarnation just to buy myself enough time to think what to do next.

I love how, under this theory, we each have a parameter that controls what happens after death and god can do a CTRL-H to search and replace it cosmos-wide.

6) After the clouds/Jesus reunion, what next? Will everyone be zipped around the earth to some common cloud location? What about after that??

Also, if we're all in the cloud, what measures does God have in place to prevent hacking?

 

[Belz...]

However, without going into the various permutations of Pre-, Mid-, and Post-Tribulation theology, the big debate is when it will occur, and how predictable its occurrence will be. When one believes it to occur will depend on how one interprets the "signs and wonders" passages of scripture.

The Apocalypse is just about as boring as Ragnarok, but with more acid on the brain. Who wants to know exactly what's going to happen? I prefer open-ended mythologies where you have to work for your happy ending, thank you very much!

There is a huge faction that quite seriously believes it will happen within their lifetime, or at least within their childrens' lifetimes, and therefore issues like pollution, climate change, etc. are non-issues for them. They won't be around long enough to care, and those who remain after they've been "called up" are evil sinners destined for hellm so anything that happens to their world is irrelevant to the Raptured Christian.

That'll suck to be them when they come back to Earth after 1000 years and have to clean up, while the rest of you sip pina coladas with Me.

 

[Belz...]

Doesn't think they'll be naked or God is prudish.

Of course he's prudish. Adam and Eve had to cover up once they got the knowledge of good and evil, which is presumably an objective truth known to God and made by God. So God thinks not wearing clothes is a no-no, which makes the first two Humans not wear clothes in their ignorance kind of a dick move. I say he was setting humans up to fail.

 

[Hellbound]

OI say he was setting humans up to fail.

Well, duh!

"Hey, I've created you without any knowledge of good or evil. Now There's a tree that will give you that knowledge, but don't you touch it! I mean, I created the whole universe, so I could've just as easily put the tree on Mars, or Omicron Persei VIII, but instead I'm going to put it right here next to you..."

 

[AnonyMoose]

In it till the Rapture!

Under the Trump administration, the rupture will take down all the Trumpettes long before that rapture thing does....

 

[jimbob]

Well, duh!

"Hey, I've created you without any knowledge of good or evil. Now There's a tree that will give you that knowledge, but don't you touch it! I mean, I created the whole universe, so I could've just as easily put the tree on Mars, or Omicron Persei VIII, but instead I'm going to put it right here next to you..."

Other versions have more internal consistency.

Stephen Oppenheimer says that in South East Asia, local myths describe the creator wanting to give the secret of immortality to manking, but the snake stole it for itself by tricking man to not eat the tree of life or indeed not the "tree of knowledge" but from the "tree of death".

This is why the snake sheds its skin, which is how it achieves eternal youth.

 

[Belz...]

Well, duh!

"Hey, I've created you without any knowledge of good or evil. Now There's a tree that will give you that knowledge, but don't you touch it! I mean, I created the whole universe, so I could've just as easily put the tree on Mars, or Omicron Persei VIII, but instead I'm going to put it right here next to you..."

To be fair, he couldn't very well put it on Omicron Persei VIII, as the Perseians would've definitely burnt it down at the first opportunity. These guys are ********.

 

[Belz...]

Other versions have more internal consistency.

Stephen Oppenheimer says that in South East Asia, local myths describe the creator wanting to give the secret of immortality to manking, but the snake stole it for itself by tricking man to not eat the tree of life or indeed not the "tree of knowledge" but from the "tree of death".

This is why the snake sheds its skin, which is how it achieves eternal youth.

That is indeed a lot more coherent.

 

[jimbob]

That is indeed a lot more coherent.

And indeed, many of the early Old Testament stories make more sense if the god of the Israelites was part of a pantheon, maybe more powerful than their neighbours gods.

 

[autumn1971]

And indeed, many of the early Old Testament stories make more sense if the god of the Israelites was part of a pantheon, maybe more powerful than their neighbours gods.

In the first part of the OT it is explicit that other gods exist, they are just weaker than Yahweh. Moses has a miracle contest with the Egyptian priests and they keep up with his Yahweh miracles for a bit.

 

[Firestone]

Sorry for bumping, but Trump saying it out loud:

“And we moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. That’s for the Evangelicals. You know, it’s amazing with that: the Evangelicals are more excited by that than Jewish people.” (Trump yesterday in Wisconsin)


"What Trump is saying here is that he modified an important US foreign policy stance toward Israel in service of an end-of-days biblical prophecy credited by Evangelical Christians that features the great battle at Armageddon and ends with the Jewish people in hell."

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1295493803277778945

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Sorry for bumping, but Trump saying it out loud:

“And we moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. That’s for the Evangelicals.

Too late! The Rapture occurred centuries ago. We are actually all in Hell now.

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"

And Jesus answered them..."when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place."

 

[Venom]

Too late! The Rapture occurred centuries ago. We are actually all in Hell now.

It happened centuries ago, yes.

But it happened in the hearts of believers everywhere, not as a tangible event. You're taking it too literally.