wildernesse

What I think is fascinating is that some Christians focus more on spreading this fervor than on living a Christ-centered life. Especially since leading that life is the only way to survive the tribulations and trials--well according to me. However, the end of the world kind of freaks me out and always has. So I try to focus on living my life NOW, and I'll meet what comes when it comes.

--tiba

Tristan Scott

Many Christians don't believe that Armegeddon is a future event. I think some of them are a sect called "Preterists". They believe, like many biblical scholars, that the Book of Revellation is referring, allegorically, to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70.

disbeliever

Well....my very Xian wife was thinking the end was very near about the time I met her! She had run up a 30K credit card debt, and truely thought that she could pay the minimums until the end, then she'd be debt free and in heaven. Several years before I met her, she used to stand in front of bars in a seaside town she lived in, bible in hand. She was doing her best to save as many of us heathens as she could. (no that's not where I met her. I met her inside a totally different bar!)
I have since enlightened her, we have done away with the debt and most of the credit cards, she no longer thinks or acts like the end is near. Come to think of it, she no longer goes to church. I really havn't discussed my viewpoints with her since we got married 3 years ago. The few times I tried to have discussions with her, it was always "I can't talk to you!", but what she really meant was "I can't come up with a good enough argument and couldn't even conceive of questioning my faith". We respect each others "opinions" on the matter of religion. She still has a dream of converting me before the end, whenever that may be. And we are, for the most part, living very happily together as if this is all there is, which of course, it is.

disbeliever

Jobar

A good discussion here- but I think it belongs in MRD.

fando

In a way, these doomsayers are correct. The world is ending, but only their version of it. I strongly hope that the Christian world ends and leaves a nice godless world in its wake.

philechat

The scary thing is, whether they would ACT ON the belief...What if they therefore think they could murder all nonbelievers because the world is going to end anyways?

wildernesse

Why bother murdering the unbelievers--tribulation will take care of them! bwhaha. I don't think that the end of the world negates my moral responsibility though. I don't think that Christianity calls for murdering those different from yourself.

--tiba

Edited because I clicked on the wrong smiley.

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: wildernesse ]</p>

David Bowden

Cue Nietzsche:

They actually hope for the worst (subconsciously, if not overtly), because the worst, in the twisted doctrine of the apocalypse, means that the best (in their worldview) is about to begin.

I Thess. 5:3
(Of course, they'll claim that they don't look forward to our destruction as much as they look forward to their reward, but it's all the same to them, for they can't have the latter if we don't get the former. All in God's love, surely.)

Today, as in so many cases in the past, when fundamentalcases decide that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, they're right there, practically applauding the demise, full of the hope that all their inconveniences (including, let's remember, us pesky unbelievers) will soon be wiped away by God the divine fixer-upper.

Rather than pitching in to solve humanity's problems in our times of greatest need, they get on their knees and commit it all to God, and wait for their ride home.

Meanwhile, the end doesn't come; disasters either play themselves out naturally or people with non-apocalyptic motives work things out. And the writers of popular apocalyptic works laugh all the way to the bank. (Fundamentalists are such an easy sell. They were buying this stuff in the 1840s and they're still buying it today... it's like snake oil for the soul.)

I remember as a child listening to preachers try to put all the world's ills into perspective: "It just means God is coming soon, so rejoice!" A relative of mine isn't preparing at all for her retirement "because let's just say I don't think I'll have to worry about it then." As if Matt. 6:25-34 wasn't bad enough, these fundamentalists live according to the delusions of Revelation as well.

The "Jesus is coming soon" doctrine inspires false hopes in each generation of such believers. This hope leads them to act foolishly and irresponsibly. I suppose we should be happy that not all Christians are as committed to this hope as others. I really have no patience for end-of-the-world types.

-Wanderer

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: wide-eyed wanderer ]</p>

atheist_in_foxhole

Has anyone else heard those bizarre "Left Behind" ads on radio? They've been broadcast here in WA for the past month or so, and it seems like the fundies are actually looking forward to all the death and destruction that's supposedly just around the corner. It's sickening to know that so many people actually believe that crap about magical dragons, lakes of fire, stars falling to earth etc. Have they all lost their f-----g minds?

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: atheist_in_foxhole ]</p>

Kosh

You hit it on the head. I've always noted that the intensity of end-of-the-world believers is directly related to the amount of debt or financial misfortune they have.