Apocalypse? No.

[mdlbear]

Baffled is more like it. Baffled, and biting my tongue. I mean, people carrying signs that say "The End Is Nigh" have been a cartoon staple for as long as I can remember, and presumably long before that. I guess the only reason I'm not making fun of them beyond the occasional wry comment is that I find other people embarrassing themselves acutely painful rather than funny.

How can anyone possibly believe that crap?

Just like every other time, some people have wrecked their lives, in the mistaken belief that tomorrow really wasn't coming. It's sad.

It's also rather horrifying, to realize that these are the kind of people who overwhelmingly vote Republican, or the equivalent in other countries. You'd think that blind acceptance of total nonsense was something that the conservatives are actively trying to encourage.

Oh. Right.

These are the kind of people who are going to go right back to wrecking the educational system, the health care system (what little there was of it), and the federal and state budgets so that the 500 richest people can keep getting richer, and the 500 biggest corporations can keep getting bigger. It's enough to make me wish they were right about Judgement Day.

OK, so maybe I'm not baffled. Or sad. Maybe I'm just angry.

Comments

[kayshapero]

That and it says specifically that nobody knows when He's coming back and so a designated date was going to be WronG...

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

36 "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (New Int'l Version)

Therefore (ISTM) anyone claiming to know is committing blasphemy of the highest order.

[mdlbear]

Thanks for clarifying.

OTOH, 34 "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." -- so wouldn't it have already happened some 1950 years ago? That would tend to render speculation about when it's going to happen kind of moot.

[kayshapero]

Rather a lot of what was predicted seems to have had more to do with the fact that Jerusalem was going to get clobbered but good after which everybody got dispersed far and wide. Which makes sense - do YOU write detailed instructions as to what people 2000 years later are supposed to do? As a preacher friend of mine once pointed out, most of Revelation, read in that light, comes across rather like political cartoons, full of symbols which if you don't know what they mean make the thing unreadable.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

What a pity the bible wasn't really the word of God. It would apparently have benefited enormously from a competent editor who understood what it was trying to say.

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Bible is purported to be "the inspired word of God," which means that the Holy spirit inspired, but did not dictate, the words that the human authors wrote down.
As for actual dictation by God, it is my understanding that that is a claim surrounding the Koran, but not the Bible or Torah.

[elf]

They had a specific explanation getting around that, involving (of course) other bible verses.

Ecclesiastes 8:5: Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man’s heart discerneth [better translation: will know] both time and judgment.

In the Bible a wise man is a true believer, to whom God has given a profound trust in the authority of the Bible. True believers have been in existence since the beginning of time. But the timeline of history as it is revealed in the Bible was never revealed to the hearts of the true believers. ...

However, it was not until a very few years ago that the accurate knowledge of the entire timeline of history was revealed to true believers by God from the Bible.

(He places creation at 11,013 B.C.)

There's also much explaining why the verse in Matthew means something else and only applies to unbelievers, or something like that. Earth logic, he has it not.