I took my seven year old to DC as a back-to-school treat. We did touristy stuff: looked at the Washington Monument, hit a couple of the Smithsonian museums. The 3D IMAX film about dinosaurs at the natural history museum was a big hit, followed by the Hope diamond.
But who cares about my day? I am writing this because the nice people handing out literature at the Mall informed me that the Rapture is going to be on October 7. I though y’all should know.
Richard Hershberger
Richard Hershberger is a paralegal working in Maryland. When he isn't doing whatever it is that paralegals do, or taking his daughters to Girl Scouts, he is dedicated to the collection and analysis of useless and unremunerative information.
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Duly noted on my calendar. Thanks!Report
Hmmm, about 6 weeks away yet. Still time to stock up on, uhhh, …
Still time. Lots of time.Report
The Rapture? Not the return?
It’s the stuff that happens after the rapture you don’t want to be around for, that’s vile; hell on earth.
But the Rapture itself? Pure bliss.Report
Well, the rapture includes all the hell on earth stuff too, no? So not entirely pure bliss. 🙂Report
My early-childhood experiences with Calvinists suggests that some chosen few will be bodily lifted up; you want to be in that number, When The Saints Go Marching In. That’s the Rapture; and as it’s commencing, the dark side of the force takes hold here on Earth, but those who are Raptured are already gone to Heaven.Report
Good questions. Often I happily take the literature proffered for later enjoyment, but in this case I had my kid with me. In a few years I will explain this stuff to her, but seven is a bit young. So under the circumstances I just shook my head and kept walking.Report
Lock your cars, or the man from Mars will eat them.Report
At least the managed to schedule the Rapture for after the Holidays.Report
This is good news! The Democrats will definitely win the election now!Report
I didn’t even know Blondie still toured.Report
First dibs on the Oral Roberts University campus!Report
It might be waterfront property.Report
First dibs on the Oral Roberts University campus!
You’ll have a fight on yer hands. Those folks aren’t going anywhere.Report
In the tradition of me doing self-promotion, I’ll say I wrote about this type of thing before.
tl;dr: It’s amusing and maybe given some assumptions even necessary, to make fun of these people. But maybe we’re not as superior to the rapturists as some of us think we are.Report
I always think about the day after.
You’re still here. Nothing’s really changed (unless a bunch of crazy people got themselves killed). If you nobody you know got to go, what does that tell you? That it was this teeny tiny group nobody knows of and the rest of us are now duking it out in Armageddon?
I’d love to read a book about people’s thoughts the day after it didn’t happen; but without the Kimmie Schmidt bunker of time.Report
I don’t know about the day after, either.* For full disclosure, I used to believe in that stuff, about the rapture, etc. I never had an exact date in mind, but the idea that the rapture, or if not the rapture, at least the period of tribulations, would come at some time (“no one knows the day or the hour” and “like a thief in the night”) really had me scared as a child.
So….
….I don’t think we should scare children, or adults. But I do have mixed feelings about the way “we” (a generic “we” that may or may not include actual people) talk about these things. I tend to get on my high horse and scold others, and that’s probably wrong. But I think the way “we” talk about others’ beliefs (when they non-conform to “our” beliefs) shakes out wrong, too.
I admit, none of this really answers your comment, Zic.
*However, if there were people telling us 10 years ago that the world would become unlivable in 10 years because of global warming, I suspect it would be another day after event. Not that I really know of an example that explicit from 10 years ago. But “An Inconvenient Truth,” if I recall, warned that things were be very dire if we didn’t do what Gore urged us to do, and we haven’t done it yet.Report
Someone wrote a great science fiction story about the one that didn’t happen. (it was about nuclear war not happening…)Report
Have you read The Infinity Concerto?
It’s Iain Bank’s Culture view of Rapture, a real thing that species do. There is definitely something there in another dimension. It doesn’t seem to make jack-shit sense, and some people who’ve raptured seem to wish they hadn’t, though it’s difficult to tell for sure. The main character has four arms, two grafted on, so that she can master a musical instrument; it’s her species that raptures.Report
No, I haven’t read that. Do you recommend it? It seems difficult (for someone like me) to get through.Report
I loved it while it lasted. I’d read it again someday. It would probably help a little bit to read some background on the Culture if you’re not familiar with it. It wasn’t as violent as many of the others, and there were incredible scenes of ship-minds and their avatars doing incredible things to minimize loss of life.
So yes, I think it’s worth reading; but I like those sorts of books, and I really like Iain Banks writing, so I’m biased.Report
Thanks. I might take a look into it. I’m not familiar with Iain Banks’s writing.Report
The Infinity Concerto appears to be a book by Greg Bear, but @zic is pretty clearly describing The Hydrogen Sonata, by the excellent Mr Banks.Report
Yes I am.
Now that’s a senior moment on my part that I’ll be spending some long hours un-tinkering; how did I connect those two books so?Report
You made a mistake?
{{The fact that there are so many smart people here at the OT is one reason I make a concerted effort to never (NEVER!) make any claims based on facts or true statements.}}Report
I swim in a sea of mistakes and mis-matched perceptions. We all do, I just have enough low-level chronic brain inflammation to have it be in-my-face more than most folk.Report
The titles are pretty similar.Report
I’m going to need some supporting evidence that that guy knows what he’s talking about…since so many came before promising the rapture and it ain’t happened yet. Although I swear the dead are walking the earth…well..driving…least by evidence of how well they are driving.Report
Although I swear the dead are walking the earth…well..driving…least by evidence of how well they are driving.
I think so, too.Sometimes, when I’m driving down Main St., somebody I know who died 10 years ago will be driving up the street; my mind’s eye puts them at the wheel. Usually, it’s some sort of pattern matching; similar colored and shaped car is most common, but glasses or hair, sometimes a gesture can also be the pattern.
But I know this isn’t what you’re saying, too.Report
Yes, people can post remarks skirting all around the issue of original post, and chat about reading (or not reading) books that do not address the subject, but if people would actually want to find the information about The End of God’s Judgment, they could visit and/or because, in God’s mercy, there is still some time, just not very much time, until The End of Judgment Day which we hope may be October 07, 2015 when the dead know not any thing, as foretold by God in Ecclesiastes 9:5 KJV”For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.”Report
40×40=1600,
since the other websites were filtered out of my post, maybe the link below will be allowed – We did not stop at May 21,2011 because that was only the beginning of the end – and the end which might be October 07, 2015 is now very close at hand but only the wise will seek after knowledge and truth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction#eBible_FellowshipReport
No loss, the Giants aren’t making the postseason this year anyway.Report