Guys this is just like the 2012 nonsense. He also cherry picks numbers to get his answer.

Guys this is just like the 2012 nonsense. He also cherry picks numbers to get his answer.

He does? lol.

Hurr. This will go on Wikipedia's ever growing list of crazy people failing at predicting the end of the world.

The guy's a charlatan.

No one will know the hour in which the Lord will come. Not man. Not angels. Not even the Son, but only the Father.

Besides, the whole idea of a Rapture - in particular the pre-Tribulation view, where the 'chosen' are whisked away by Christ before the world undergoes a tremendous time of chaos and discord before the events of Revelation occur - is foreign to Scripture. There is only ONE Second Coming.

/no matter what Left Behind would have you believe
//the particular verse is Matthew 24:36

...it surprises me that you can quote the verse that says no-one knows when it will happen and then totally miss the part a scant few verses later where it describes the rapture that is supposed to happen.

37 “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. 38 In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. 39 People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.

40 “Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.

And that's even before you go into Revelation. Certainly the idea that there'll be any sort of rapture prior to the events of Revelation would be daft, but to say that there won't be anything like that at all after reading the above verses, and then also if you actually read carefully through Revelation (specifically the parts about God gathering together his people, and I don't refer to the 144,000 here), would certainly be equally if not more silly.

If you want to say an idea's foreign to Scripture, read the Scripture through thoroughly first 😉

Guys I'm having trouble coming up with a joke about the apocalypse.

Oh well. I suppose it's not the end of the world.

Guys this is just like the 2012 nonsense. He also cherry picks numbers to get his answer.

Yeah, it being a Friday, our actuaries were amusing themselves by picking many holes in the maths (whatever it actually was, I understand it was some way of working out how many days it had been since Noah's Ark - which doesn't really give the sceptics any more reasons to give this guy the time of day).

I guess tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999 🙂

DW

Guys I'm having trouble coming up with a joke about the apocalypse.

Oh well. I suppose it's not the end of the world.

Arma-geddon sick of this puns.

...it surprises me that you can quote the verse that says no-one knows when it will happen and then totally miss the part a scant few verses later where it describes the rapture that is supposed to happen.

37 “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. 38 In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. 39 People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.

40 “Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.

And that's even before you go into Revelation. Certainly the idea that there'll be any sort of rapture prior to the events of Revelation would be daft, but to say that there won't be anything like that at all after reading the above verses, and then also if you actually read carefully through Revelation (specifically the parts about God gathering together his people, and I don't refer to the 144,000 here), would certainly be equally if not more silly.

If you want to say an idea's foreign to Scripture, read the Scripture through thoroughly first 😉

Jesus taking people away before His Second Coming (as is commonly prescribed to the popular conception of the Rapture, where the chosen are whisked away before a great tribulation)? That IS foreign to Scripture. He is referring to His Second Coming. There is no Third.

The overall premise (of people suddenly disappearing in the end times) has some support if you read it in that manner (but how literal was Jesus being? Was He using figurative language as he often did when speaking with His followers?), but the premise that Jesus takes away the saved and leaves behind everyone else before coming back later has no support. Even the other bit you quoted from Matthew 24 can be taken in a different context; after all, in the time of Noah, it was Noah and his family that were left behind, while the others were taken away. So to speak.

If any sort of Rapture event occurs (aka the elect are just yoinked away), it will be on the last day, where all are judged.

Besides, the whole beef I have with the concept of the Rapture (as seen by the Left Behind view) is the viewpoint it carries. What view of the world is encouraged by a Rapture/Left Behind ideology? One that's extremely pessimistic: an 'outsider mentality.' It feels 'left out' of the world and of society, so it eagerly anticipates leaving all of that behind. In fact, God shares their disgust, and the signs are clear: God is coming soon to put an end to it. The world itself is doomed to destruction, so there is obviously no point in caring for it or protecting it now. Everyone left behind on the earth at the time of the Rapture will be subject to the sufferings of the tribulation. The violence described is horrific, and the extreme anguish endured by those who are left behind reeks of vengeance upon those who are 'lesser' than the elect in the eyes of this ideology. The hope that the earth and most of its inhabitants will soon be destroyed is a cause of happiness and rejoicing among those who are eager to be separated from sinners and 'raptured' out of the world because then they will be with the Lord.

The Catholic worldview is somewhat different. The world of God’s creation is basically good, though it is marred and broken by sin and death. Even so, it is still created in, through and for Jesus Christ. The world shares in the redemption of God and even now is awaiting the fullness of redemption, which will be manifested as a (re)new(ed) heavens and (re)new(ed) earth. God sent the Son into this world out of love to show us the way to life. Jesus did not separate Himself from sinners but, on the contrary, they seem to have been His preferred company. If we want to be with the Lord, we should be together with sinners. In all the Gospels, He is criticized by the self-righteous, ("Why is he associating with sinners?"), but, as He assures us, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just (after all, healthy people don't need a doctor). The day of the Lord’s second coming is delayed, in fact, precisely because “ [the Lord] is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance”. Jesus’ harshest words are reserved for those who think they are secure and look down on others.

So yeah.

/there is a distinct smell of marble in the air
//since my father's in France right now, I'll know if the world ends within an hour-and-a-half

Jesus taking people away before His Second Coming (as is commonly prescribed to the popular conception of the Rapture, where the chosen are whisked away before a great tribulation)? That IS foreign to Scripture. He is referring to His Second Coming. There is no Third.

Read my post again, you'll see I didn't disagree with you on that point. The point I disagree with you on is the idea of any sort of rapture being foreign to Scripture when it's obviously not.

If any sort of Rapture event occurs (aka the elect are just yoinked away), it will be on the last day, where all are judged.

Pretty much. That is after all what Jesus goes on to teach in the next verses directly afterward.

I don't subscribe to the view popularised by the Left Behind series, and I'm saddened that you seem to be under the impression that I do. Nor am I under the misconception that people will just vanish into thin air before all the stuff that's outlined in Revelation occurs. It's even explicitly stated in Revelation 7:14 about the "vast crowd" that "“These are the ones who died in the great tribulation. They have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white...”"

My whole point in all of this was to point out to you that there is nevertheless Scriptural support for some sort of rapture. Not necessarily that which is depicted in popular fiction, but definitely there is Scriptural support for the idea of Jesus arriving suddenly to separate out "the goats from the sheep". If we take the verses I presented as literal, then we can think of it as a warning that, when Jesus returns, it will be sudden and unexpected - people will still be living their way through all the judgements God is going to send on the Earth, and it will come to a sudden end when the final judgement is passed, with people suddenly being whisked away.
However, looking at it figuratively (or perhaps even literally) we can derive another meaning: when the end comes, the ones who will still be left standing will be the ones not obliterated by God's wrath, and the ones that are destroyed by the judgements to come will be taken away by them suddenly and unexpectedly. After all, the verses don't say specifically which will be taken and which will be left.

Tangential to this, I'm wondering where your idea of the viewpoint presented by the Left Behind books comes from - although I suppose this is an example of how many books can appear to present one thing to one person and another to a different one. But as I say, this is tangential.

Another minor niggle... Catholics aren't the only ones with that sort of worldview. Although in this regard I expect you only wrote that as you are probably Catholic yourself, hence you may well not have explored the viewpoints of all the other denominations much.

So the world has ended hmmm, Much more normal then what I would have expected. Can't wait to see a video of the outcries ect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction

This Wiki gives his reasoning and the scripture passages that he used as a source. Tomorrow's going to be an awkward day for him.

1.The number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".
2.Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.
3.If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449.
4.The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days.
5.51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.
6.(5 × 10 × 17)2 or (atonement × completeness × heaven)2 also equals 722,500.

I just LOVE this. Yeah, I'm sure that's EXACTLY how God decided upon Rapture. It makes me think of God pacing around and saying "Hmmm... When should I schedule the rapture for?" Maybe he played a round of darts to get a date instead.

Earthquakes would begin on May 21 on Kiritimati Island (Christmas Island), Kiribati at 6 p.m. LINT (0400 UTC).

Few more hours left.

40 “Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.

And that's even before you go into Revelation. Certainly the idea that there'll be any sort of rapture prior to the events of Revelation would be daft, but to say that there won't be anything like that at all after reading the above verses, and then also if you actually read carefully through Revelation (specifically the parts about God gathering together his people, and I don't refer to the 144,000 here), would certainly be equally if not more silly.

If you want to say an idea's foreign to Scripture, read the Scripture through thoroughly first 😉

There are a ton of ways to read that and I know of no other support for the idea of people suddenly disappearing off the planet, which is what I understand the meaning of rapture to be.

1.The number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".
2.Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.
3.If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449.
4.The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days.
5.51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.
6.(5 × 10 × 17)2 or (atonement × completeness × heaven)2 also equals 722,500.

I just LOVE this. Yeah, I'm sure that's EXACTLY how God decided upon Rapture. It makes me think of God pacing around and saying "Hmmm... When should I schedule the rapture for?" Maybe he played a round of darts to get a date instead.

Wut LOL

So basically he thinks it is a number crunching OCD thing way beyond anything I would do and God is going around counting switches.

People being taken = people dropping dead obviously