Anyone who's ever spent any time debunking gibberish knows how fetid the "backwater" neurons of the human brain can be when it comes to actually believing six impossible things before breakfast. I've had my own experiences with the swamp of denial when it came to debunking more than 500 reports of "UFOs" made to me over the course of 4 decades. I finally became so exasperated by the process that I ended up writing a two-part article for the Barbados NATION on sifting wheat from chaff in terms of UFOs. As I pointed out in the article, most of those who claimed to observe these entities were actually mistaking known astronomical phenomena for actual spaceships (the biggest IFO responsible over the years was Venus near inferior conjunction, the next was Jupiter at opposition).
But in general, most reporters of "UFOs" could simply be forgiven, as they just lacked adequate background astronomical knowledge and observing skills (which include how to measure angular separation in the night sky, as well as angular speeds). Once we in the Barbados Astronomical Society held several basic astronomy courses, plus added newspaper articles to reinforce them - the problem of misreported UFOs more or less vanished.
Not so with the rapture bunkum, which originally caught fire with Hal Lindsey's book 'The Late, Great Planet Earth'. Lindsey actually predicted the Rapture would commence around the early months of 1988, since that was the year he forecast as the the begining of the Tribulation or the "reign of the Beast" (e.g. the "Antichrist" - another fundie fiction probably invented by the same joker that created the "Boogieman" to scare small children). As all Rapture insiders are supposed to know (see any of Tim LaHaye's fabled schlock in the "Left Behind" series) all goody two shoes Christianoids are supposed to be magically levitated off the face of the Earth before that evil, dastardly Antichrist stamps an electronic 666 on them.
Where did this insane crap come from? From which imbecilic shadows or rubbish parts of the human brain? Was it perhaps the same place as the idiotic "Satan" and "Hell" myths? Actually, it didn't have an American origin. (Much like witchcraft - which was imported from the Old World to Salem)
The Rapture actually began with a young, Scottish child's schizophrenic vision ca. 1830, in which she evidently "saw" numerous future horrors, flames and tarnation....and in the midst of it all, the "godly" and "just" being swept up into the heavenly arms by force or forces unknown. Her vision, however, was too raw, too lacking in detail and so had to be fleshed out. This was accomplished by John Nelson Darby, a British preacher of the late 19th century.
It was Darby to whom we owe the connection to assorted scripture passages, which the moronic fundies base their insipid claims on today. It was also Darby who devised the concept of "dispensations" or distant epochs in "God's time". Darby's genius was in rconciling his fulsome claptrap with scriptures and neatly skirting over all the inconsistencies and discrepancies. Indeed, he found a way (like most fundies) to rationalize all the inconsistencies, as well as any anomalies appearing in assorted prophecies.
Perhaps the first American theologian to thoroughly skewer this bunkum was Barbara R. Rossing, in her remarkable book, The Rapture Exposed. While only a few Catholic thinkers would touch this garbage with a ten foot pole (e.g. Andrew Greeley comes to mind), most backed out. Rossing in her very accessible book, bashes this stupidity in a straightforward way, exposing it not only as rubbish but as a multi-million dollar per year racket, designed to fleece the gullible and stupid. She's made an important contribution, since many of these gullible types are also bible-believing zealots and cranks who've actually adopted LaHaye's 'Left Behind' series as a kind of future history or blueprint. As Rossing puts it:
"The trouble is, the interpretation of the Bible on which these books are based is also fiction. Today's end times writings draw on a method for looking at prophecy that was invented less than 200 years ago and, by now, is a dominant American view - but not European. In this system, the Bible - particularly the Books of Daniel and Revelation- spell out in detail God's pre-ordained script of predictions for the end of the world".
To her credit, Rossing uses good old, standard Textual analysis (the type we were exposed to as young frosh at Loyola University in the 60s) which relies on the original texts and original languages (not dubious makeovers, as in the corrupted King James Bible - based on deformed mss. by Erasmus in the Latin Vulgate) to expose the nature of all the scriptural contortions needed to invest in any remote "rapture". This is why I've always endorsed a sound interpretational policy when one reads any scriptures, and why I've shown you can't just have a one to one unfiltered absorption of any given passage or page. When people fail to do this, for whatever reason, they fall into a hole of wild, intemperate bunkum - whether to do with Christ's alleged godhood, the existence of Hell, Satan or the "Antichrist" or the plausibility of a Rapture.
An obvious question that might arise in some Christianoids' hollowed skulls is : Why should any unbeliever fret over it, if he doesn't believe in it? Rossing delivers on this issue too, noting
that a sinister political subtext is also at work. Thus, subscribers to this codswallop believe that the Jews absolutely MUST control all of their original territory - before the Temple can be rebuilt and Jesus returns. This belief isn't predicated on any assurance of Jewish safety for its settlements, etc. but rather on using the hapless Jews as fodder for its end times' fantasies. Once the ridiculous "end times" prophecies are supposedly fulfilled, the fundies are happy to allow nearly all Jews (except for 144,000) to roast in Hell as their Hell- porn cartoons make out.
Rossing warns that all unbelievers (as well as normal believers) ought to pay attention to this unfolding nonsense. They (fundies) mark a raw brand of Christian Zionism with an 'all or nothing' template that scripts Israel as a player in an ongoing dispensionalist Christian drama that most Israelis even have a hard time understanding.
The tragedy of the foul and stupid "rapture" ideology is that in a given critical scenario and with the wrong kind of President in power (e.g. a nut believer fundie- think Martin Sheen's "Greg Stiles" in the scifi flick 'The Dead Zone') it could pave the way for an actual Armageddon becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In the movie alluded to, Stiles was merely a wannabe Senator on the stump but he was an ardent fundie and dreamed of "sending the missiles forth" to launch Armageddon once in power. Fortunately, Chris Walken's character (a crippled teacher) makes an unsuccessful assassination attempt on him at film's end. Yes, Stiles survives, but only by snatching an infant from a supporter- which he holds in front of his head. In the next instant the would-be assassin is felled by bullets from bodyguards, and Stiles leaves- shaken. However, Newsweek and others are there with cameras at the ready and catch him using the infant as a shield. He (baby held up in front) makes the cover of all the major news magazines the following week.
The day after, he blows his own brains out, his Armageddon dreams unfulfilled.
Alas, no unbeliever should count on any such fictional unfolding if a real fundie zealot gets into power and gains access to the "football". Which is exactly why we need to pay attention to this idiocy now, and use every byte we can to skewer it for the insane offal it is, which merits no serious attention whatever. And certainly far less than UFOs!
But in general, most reporters of "UFOs" could simply be forgiven, as they just lacked adequate background astronomical knowledge and observing skills (which include how to measure angular separation in the night sky, as well as angular speeds). Once we in the Barbados Astronomical Society held several basic astronomy courses, plus added newspaper articles to reinforce them - the problem of misreported UFOs more or less vanished.
Not so with the rapture bunkum, which originally caught fire with Hal Lindsey's book 'The Late, Great Planet Earth'. Lindsey actually predicted the Rapture would commence around the early months of 1988, since that was the year he forecast as the the begining of the Tribulation or the "reign of the Beast" (e.g. the "Antichrist" - another fundie fiction probably invented by the same joker that created the "Boogieman" to scare small children). As all Rapture insiders are supposed to know (see any of Tim LaHaye's fabled schlock in the "Left Behind" series) all goody two shoes Christianoids are supposed to be magically levitated off the face of the Earth before that evil, dastardly Antichrist stamps an electronic 666 on them.
Where did this insane crap come from? From which imbecilic shadows or rubbish parts of the human brain? Was it perhaps the same place as the idiotic "Satan" and "Hell" myths? Actually, it didn't have an American origin. (Much like witchcraft - which was imported from the Old World to Salem)
The Rapture actually began with a young, Scottish child's schizophrenic vision ca. 1830, in which she evidently "saw" numerous future horrors, flames and tarnation....and in the midst of it all, the "godly" and "just" being swept up into the heavenly arms by force or forces unknown. Her vision, however, was too raw, too lacking in detail and so had to be fleshed out. This was accomplished by John Nelson Darby, a British preacher of the late 19th century.
It was Darby to whom we owe the connection to assorted scripture passages, which the moronic fundies base their insipid claims on today. It was also Darby who devised the concept of "dispensations" or distant epochs in "God's time". Darby's genius was in rconciling his fulsome claptrap with scriptures and neatly skirting over all the inconsistencies and discrepancies. Indeed, he found a way (like most fundies) to rationalize all the inconsistencies, as well as any anomalies appearing in assorted prophecies.
Perhaps the first American theologian to thoroughly skewer this bunkum was Barbara R. Rossing, in her remarkable book, The Rapture Exposed. While only a few Catholic thinkers would touch this garbage with a ten foot pole (e.g. Andrew Greeley comes to mind), most backed out. Rossing in her very accessible book, bashes this stupidity in a straightforward way, exposing it not only as rubbish but as a multi-million dollar per year racket, designed to fleece the gullible and stupid. She's made an important contribution, since many of these gullible types are also bible-believing zealots and cranks who've actually adopted LaHaye's 'Left Behind' series as a kind of future history or blueprint. As Rossing puts it:
"The trouble is, the interpretation of the Bible on which these books are based is also fiction. Today's end times writings draw on a method for looking at prophecy that was invented less than 200 years ago and, by now, is a dominant American view - but not European. In this system, the Bible - particularly the Books of Daniel and Revelation- spell out in detail God's pre-ordained script of predictions for the end of the world".
To her credit, Rossing uses good old, standard Textual analysis (the type we were exposed to as young frosh at Loyola University in the 60s) which relies on the original texts and original languages (not dubious makeovers, as in the corrupted King James Bible - based on deformed mss. by Erasmus in the Latin Vulgate) to expose the nature of all the scriptural contortions needed to invest in any remote "rapture". This is why I've always endorsed a sound interpretational policy when one reads any scriptures, and why I've shown you can't just have a one to one unfiltered absorption of any given passage or page. When people fail to do this, for whatever reason, they fall into a hole of wild, intemperate bunkum - whether to do with Christ's alleged godhood, the existence of Hell, Satan or the "Antichrist" or the plausibility of a Rapture.
An obvious question that might arise in some Christianoids' hollowed skulls is : Why should any unbeliever fret over it, if he doesn't believe in it? Rossing delivers on this issue too, noting
that a sinister political subtext is also at work. Thus, subscribers to this codswallop believe that the Jews absolutely MUST control all of their original territory - before the Temple can be rebuilt and Jesus returns. This belief isn't predicated on any assurance of Jewish safety for its settlements, etc. but rather on using the hapless Jews as fodder for its end times' fantasies. Once the ridiculous "end times" prophecies are supposedly fulfilled, the fundies are happy to allow nearly all Jews (except for 144,000) to roast in Hell as their Hell- porn cartoons make out.
Rossing warns that all unbelievers (as well as normal believers) ought to pay attention to this unfolding nonsense. They (fundies) mark a raw brand of Christian Zionism with an 'all or nothing' template that scripts Israel as a player in an ongoing dispensionalist Christian drama that most Israelis even have a hard time understanding.
The tragedy of the foul and stupid "rapture" ideology is that in a given critical scenario and with the wrong kind of President in power (e.g. a nut believer fundie- think Martin Sheen's "Greg Stiles" in the scifi flick 'The Dead Zone') it could pave the way for an actual Armageddon becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In the movie alluded to, Stiles was merely a wannabe Senator on the stump but he was an ardent fundie and dreamed of "sending the missiles forth" to launch Armageddon once in power. Fortunately, Chris Walken's character (a crippled teacher) makes an unsuccessful assassination attempt on him at film's end. Yes, Stiles survives, but only by snatching an infant from a supporter- which he holds in front of his head. In the next instant the would-be assassin is felled by bullets from bodyguards, and Stiles leaves- shaken. However, Newsweek and others are there with cameras at the ready and catch him using the infant as a shield. He (baby held up in front) makes the cover of all the major news magazines the following week.
The day after, he blows his own brains out, his Armageddon dreams unfulfilled.
Alas, no unbeliever should count on any such fictional unfolding if a real fundie zealot gets into power and gains access to the "football". Which is exactly why we need to pay attention to this idiocy now, and use every byte we can to skewer it for the insane offal it is, which merits no serious attention whatever. And certainly far less than UFOs!
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