A question for Atheist.

Gday,

Originally posted by Loken68
Actually it's mentioned a lot

You mean maybe once, and a few other vague references.

Originally posted by Loken68
Ok here we go:
1. "Rapture", in the context of eschatology, is an English word derived from the Latin rapio, "caught up" [1] as found in the Vulgate rendering of
1 Thessalonians 4:17.[2][3]-Wiki

The rapture is an event that will take place sometime in the near future. Jesus will come in the air, catch up all Christians from the earth, and then return to heaven with the Church. We believe this event will take place before the tribulation.

1 Thess 4:17ff :
"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be CAUGHT UP together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord."

Well, it's not clear WHETHER I would be among the risen; but assuming I was CAUGHT UP in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and be there for ever -

I would be surprised and amazed initially, then I might wonder if I would fall - eventually it would get boring - unless he did exciting and interesting stuff maybe.


K.

I'd just continue living as I am now...the whole question is a bit weird. You could also ask "what would you do if you were to get hit by a bus tomorrow and die"?

Living life in constant fear of dieing or suffering the wrath of God if you do or don't do this or that is a pretty sad existence imo. If the rapture really exists, and all the gays, non-believers, pot smokers, or other non-Christian-conformists are to suffer the wrath of God, I'd probably show him the finger and get more shotgun shells against those evil angels. There's no way I'd support a God condoning genocide against people who don't follow his way...so might just as well go out with a bang

I'm neither atheist, agnostic or believer. Still, faced with the Rapture as it's described, I'd feel profound disgust. The two choices are genuinely repellent.

#1 Eternity of torture etc and so forth

#2 Eternity with a creature whose behaviour wouldn't be tolerated by any culture on Earth. Y'know sadism, torture, spiteful killing. 'God's Love' in this case is like the love a pervert has for children...conditional, brutalising and cruel. That God, if human, would be in prison or executed.

I realise people have different concepts of God. The one I'm condemning in this thread is the one who'd supposedly endorse 'Rapture.'

reply to post by Loken68


Loken68,

Brave soul you are to create this thread. I hope you don't mind if I interject a little off topic info for all the skeptics...

God is cool. That’s all there is to it. I think you all would be surprised how much he loves us sinners. And yes, Christians do sin but we ask God to forgive us and then we move on. We try to improve ourselves because we want to please Him (because we love him) and not because we are afraid of him. We are drawn to love him because HE'S GOT THE POWER.

Please, for a moment, just assume the Bible is true.

Since God created the universe – HE GET’S TO MAKE THE RULES. You don’t like the rules? Go create your own universe and make your own rules.

I’m sure you can relate. If you buy or build a new home, you might have a big party and invite a lot of people. You have your own rules and expect people to follow them while they are in your home. For example – you don’t want fowl language spoken around your children. You warn them but they ignore you so you ask them to leave. If they refuse to leave you force them to leave – after all, it’s your house. You get to make the rules.

The Bible is true. I hear all this garbage about it being lies because it was written by men. That logic doesn’t fly. Everything we know from history was written by men. Your whole academic education came from information written by men.

Please don’t judge God by a bunch of immature Christians. We're all under construction.

Thank you.

Funny how so many christian's are on here defending their religion when the question is specifically asking what would an Atheist do, not a criticism, just an observation!

As an atheist I can say that if this "rapture" happened, as I consider myself to be a pretty decent person, along with many (atheists), never shot, stabbed, killed etc, etc, I don't think we deserve to die, and as we don't believe in God, we wouldn't enter Heaven, so if I am left on this planet with all this death and destruction,

I would never be out of work, I'd open a Funeral Parlor!


..... well what did you expect, "I will bow down to the almighty and admit I was wrong and beg for forgiveness"......... please, it's just to easy,...........'doh!

Peace



........ where do other faiths come into this rapture thing... specifically Islam?....

If and only if it happened according to the fable of the scriptures I would:

A. Feel pity for all the poor suckers who were taken up, because with no pain, no chance of annihilation and eternity of bliss with nothing to contrast it with, what a boring, boring existence it would soon (relatively) become.

B. I would feel great, because their would be far less hypocrisy in the world!

C. I would be thankful to your god, that I wasn't chosen to go up, for surely one who would kill his own son, and has the history of blood thirst that he has, would not be worth spending and eternity with.

D. I had an old friend, who knew more about the bible than 99% of people alive, and he believed the bible taught we would all be 33.5 year old sexless replica's of Jesus complete with flesh wounds. And he was fundamentalist Baptist!

[edit on 15-5-2010 by AABacon]

reply to post by AABacon


quote
"D. I had an old friend, who knew more about the bible than 99% of people alive, and he believed the bible taught we would all be 33.5 year old sexless replica's of Jesus complete with flesh wounds. And he was fundamentalist Baptist!"



If this is what christians are calling salvation, please let me spend eternity in bondage and torture!


great post btw, made me laugh,

Peace

Originally posted by slank
Obviously Deathshield & Loken68 are enamored of the idea of 'the Rapture'.

It would appear pivotal to your brains.

Oh, i am so sorry i forgot to be all terrified, scared & worried.

Please, next time tell me i am supposed to be all frightened & quaking in my boots. Otherwise i won't know what your religious psychobabble is all about.

I guess i am too worried about global warming & overpopulation,


pardon me please, NOT.

reply to post by slank


Go ahead, keep mocking me, You're only confirming preconceived notions i or other theists have about atheists, and as such are defaming an otherwise valid philosophy.


Especially after honestly answering an atheists question.

First off i am an agnostic-theist. I believe that there is a god, and from personal experience i believe it to be jesus christ/the holy father. However i am not Gnostic, i do not claim this belief that i hold to be factual/true, hence i am agnostic.

I never said you were going to hell or that you should be shaking in your boots. It's not my place to pass spiritual judgment on you, nor can i claim gnosis in regards to the judgment of god, regardless of said gods existence.

Just like you i care about the "real" things in the world as well. Be it global warming, oil spills or nuclear proliferation or whatever topic it is trendy to care about in hopes of boosting ones social status.

you know,

the REAL verifiable, scientific facts of life, not some superstitious fantasies.

I love it when atheists/anti-theists make faith based claims.

reply to post by Myrddin Wyllt


The muslims worship the same god as the jews and christians. Chances are they would be accepted into heaven because of their basic belief in the "one true god." In fact jesus is a very important prophet in islam. Islam itself is essentially a reboot of judeo-christianity.

... Depends on which side of the fence I was on... If I was " Left Behind "... I would start finding out who was still around ... If I was TAKEN then all would be well with me... Anyways I gotta go water the garden...

Originally posted by DeathShield
reply to post by Myrddin Wyllt

 

The muslims worship the same god as the jews and christians. Chances are they would be accepted into heaven because of their basic belief in the "one true god." In fact jesus is a very important prophet in islam. Islam itself is essentially a reboot of judeo-christianity.

I thought the muslims had virgins lined up for martyrs that kill people in the name of Islam. What does the "one true god" think of these? What part of heaven would they be in?

The Jew's would be chuffed to know the muslims will be up there with them when judgement day comes!

Would this not then lead to heavenly wars between Islam and everyone else, just like here on earth?

Peace

Hmmmmm....


Pray.

Originally posted by Myrddin Wyllt

........ where do other faiths come into this rapture thing

Dante Alighieri proposed in the divine comedy that there may be a section of hell for "Virtuous pagans" )I.E. members of other faiths or those who lack faith/beliefs) whose punishment would simply be not knowing the love of god. I've known a few christians who have said that there will be people who for all intents and purposes were good people, distinguishable from good christians simply for their lack of faith. My Mother and father have both argued that there will be non-believers and members of other faiths in heaven because they lead lives that we would find comparable to the lives of "good" Christians, but that for their lack or rejection of faith will not be granted equal access to god while in heaven. Through my own logical discourse i believe that god would allow non-believers in so long as they did not deliberately reject him out of hatred or arrogance. When trying to conceptualize gods judgement you must first understand that you are not capable of coming to a solid conclusion, regardless of what the bible may say. What god held true thousands of years ago when the books in the bible where being written he (or "it" since i think god is without form or gender)may no longer hold true today. So if you see me using the bible to defend a belief it is solely to show that there is biblical basis for a potential truth. Not a definitive statement of gnosis on gods judgement nor is the argument itself to be regarded as such. Now with that in mind...

Consider this.

You are god, and you have to pass judgement on two people so that they may be rejected from or granted access to heaven. On the left is a man who Truly believed in you, went to church and put money in the collection trays, even held some fundraisers for church charity work. But despite those positives he was an adulterer and by extension a pathological liar. He showed no mercy towards the less fortunate unless it was to boost his social-status within the church and community. He had committed acts of non-lethal violence towards his family and other people. He would only attend church and do "godly" deeds because he thought it was expected of him, and not out of the genuine kindness and generosity that potentially resided in his heart and soul. He would run around claiming to do acts in your name. He claimed to be your messenger, your soldier, a person who speaks on your behalf, though you had never openly consented to him carrying out these acts nor did you give him permission to make these claims. He just assumed that his judgment was on par with yours.

On right you have an atheist. The atheist never saw a logical reason to believe in god. He had studied religions and tried to build a relationship with you but due to his personal experiences and honest flaws in judgment could not find an honest reason to believe. But he is a good man. He volunteers at his local soup kitchen because it genuinely saddens him that people go hungry. He donates money and holds fundraisers to give food,clothing and shelter to those who are needy. He adheres to many of the tenets you had laid down in order to promote a harmonious society. When he would speak with christians or members of other faiths he would respectfully disagree and was happy enough to let people believe in what they wanted. He never argued viciously to convince people to reject you because he was agnostic-atheist. He didn't feel it was his place to tell people what they should and should not believe in. The only thing he is guilty of is rejecting or lacking belief in you.

Who would you choose?
Who do you think god might choose when confronted with a scenario like this?

Personally i would choose the atheist, because the atheist had embodied my ideals the most. He may not have advocated me but he carried out my will better than many of my own believers did. Even if he was gnostic-atheist, and openly declared that i did not exist he still carried out my work better than my own believers. For that alone he should be rewarded with something.

If i am capable of drawing that conclusion then i think it would be possible for god to do the same, or at least come to a similar conclusion. But remember, I am not god, so i can not truly say what is or is not gods judgment. I just feel that that god would be able to draw the same conclusions since it is said that we were created in gods image and that we ourselves are gods.



At the end of the day there is not much difference between a good christian and a good atheist. If god is a truly loving and fair god, despite what our notions may be in regards to his nature and actions, then it would stand to reason that he would reward those who do not praise him so long as they lead a life that would embody or be similar to his virtues.



At the end of the day a good person is a good person, regardless of faith or creed. That is what i feel at least.

Originally posted by slank

I wasn't going to even bother replying to this thread until I saw this rather awful little oversight.

Maybe *you* were drunk when you wrote this reply?

The OP, Loken68, asks this: "What would you do if in the morning if the Biblical account of the rapture happened?"

You then bash him by saying this: ""So in other words you started a thread postulating authority over a subject that you don't seem to have the slightest clue about?"

By using this as a means of attack: "I would really like to know what the Biblical account of the rapture actually is - it's not something I've looked into much."

Which was asked by Kapyong link

Perhaps you need remedial reading comprehension classes? link of which I will gladly provide a link so we can avoid such oversights in the future.

@Loken68

I would personally side with Satan in the war against terror. From all accounts of God in the bible, he's a pretty awful deity to want to be around. He only give's us two choices, worship him or be damned for an eternity whilst claiming to be a loving and forgiving deity.

I don't personally see that as being given much of a choice, what if I don't want to worship him? I understand that he lays claim to creating the universe and all, but did he bother to ask if I wanted to be a participant of such a creation? No, he didn't. Had I known before hand that I would have those two choices as my *only* possible choices, I would have said no thanks, I don't want to be created.

bible / koran / mahabharata / book of death / Epic of Gilgamesh / and so on...

pick youre choise of book...and see if it all comes out wat they tell you...
all of them are books thousends of years old...with bible and koran as youngest...
the actual bible was made in year 831 on the big conferance rome held with lot of other religions...they also dated the year in 365 days and 12 months....

of the old testamony i would say... nothing to discuss about it...
the new testamony however is made by the writhings of the apostels..
but the romain church excluded all the data that they considerd politicly no in favor of there thoughts... book of judas was banned... book of maria magdalena also... she was even humilited to an hooker...to make the story of jesus sacret and divined...in favor of the romain church

conclusion the new testamony as we read it now was modern man made
for purpose to make a new system of religion....with the pope as gate to god...and the rest of the world population was forced to feed and protect the beliefs that they were told to be the only one in the world...
based on misinformation ...creating the perfect slaves for the church...

no one will denied that the romain church was and is one of blood...we know the inquisitsion time centuries long...
and the effords the romain church did to erase oure history from thousend maybe millions years ago...

you tell me ... wat the antichrist is...! perhaps this one...

The Fifth Bowl
"The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done." (Revelation 16:10-11)

www.keyway.ca...

I would say... Rome you have an situation now..........
with after the fall of the pope...my guess is that italy's volcano's will finish the job...

The Seventh Bowl
"The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of The Temple came a loud voice from The Throne, saying, "It is done!" Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of His wrath. Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible." (Revelation 16:17-21)



[edit on 15-5-2010 by ressiv]

[edit on 15-5-2010 by ressiv]

[edit on 15-5-2010 by ressiv]

Originally posted by Myrddin Wyllt


I thought the muslims had virgins lined up for martyrs that kill people in the name of Islam. What does the "one true god" think of these? What part of heaven would they be in?


Peace

Sigh...

Islam does not promise 72 virgins, or any forms of reward whatsoever for anyone who commits suicide or murders people. It is a totally absurd lie.

The punishment that Islam/ Allah (god) bestows upon its followers who commit murder and suicide has been made clear in the Quran:

But let there be amongst you Traffic and trade by mutual good-will: Nor kill (or destroy) yourselves: for verily God hath been to you Most Merciful! If any do that in rancor and injustice, soon shall We cast them into the Fire: And easy it is for God.

Chapter 4 (Surah An-Nisa): Verse 29 - 30

Besides that, suicide has also been highlighted as a major sin with dire consequences in several Hadith, or sayings of the Prophet. Here are two of the more commonly quoted sayings.

Narrated Jundab the Prophet said, “A man was inflicted with wounds and he committed suicide, and so Allah said: My slave has caused death on himself hurriedly, so I forbid Paradise for him.” (Bukhari Volume 2, Book 23, Number 445)

Narrated Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak:”And if somebody commits suicide with anything in this world, he will be tortured with that very thing on the Day of Resurrection. (Bukhari Volume 8, Book 73, Number 73)

Also, it wouldn't lead to heavenly wars because it would prove that both sides were right. They would have nothing to fight over. In fact many of us Jews, christians and muslims are fed up with the divide and conquer ideological tactics being used to justify violence or hatred, be it from jews, christians, atheists, hindus and whoever else seeks to incite hatred against people for their religious beliefs.

The muslims are my brothers and sisters. And more importantly they are children of god, and as such them and any other human are worthy of the same love and compassion that i would show to a member of my own faith. And believe it or not you too are my brother or sister. Though i may disagree with you i will defend to the death your right to live and your right to believe or disbelieve. In my world you are a child of god, and it is your divine right to Choose between belief or disbelief. The most i can do is encourage you to believe. I believe that The second i take away your ability to honestly choose between the two i will have committed a grave sin against god and man because i will have usurped gods authority. This is why religion has been corrupt for the past hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Because man has been so vain as to assume that their word is equal to gods word, hence why religion has been used to control people.

My old friend also told me that the rapture would easily be explained away by the fact it was a mass alien abduction. TPTB are preparing us for this with all the alien movies, like Close Encounters and ET. Spielberg and Lucas were in on it, you know, in the illuminati!

If you woke up one day on the otherside of the world and it was rapture then Id still be asleep on the otherside of the world so I think I would miss it all
However I dont think rapture is meant to happen in a day.
Therefore by the time it end it will be anarchy and Id be doing the same thing as everyone else, whatever it takes to survive then beg for forgiveness.

reply to post by Loken68


seek evidence immediately, because outrageous claims need outrageous evidence. Just drop god ffs, you'll get on with your life without any hassle.

reply to post by DeathShield


Is this a Lie?

quote

"What of the rewards in paradise? The Islamic paradise is described in great sensual detail in the Koran and the Traditions; for instance, Koran sura 56 verses 12 -40 ; sura 55 verses 54-56 ; sura 76 verses 12-22. I shall quote the celebrated Penguin translation by NJ Dawood of sura 56 verses 12- 39: "They shall recline on jewelled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine (that will neither pain their heads nor take away their reason); with fruits of their own choice and flesh of fowls that they relish. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed houris, chaste as hidden pearls: a guerdon for their deeds... We created the houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those on the right hand..."

One should note that most translations, even those by Muslims themselves such as A Yusuf Ali, and the British Muslim Marmaduke Pickthall, translate the Arabic (plural) word Abkarun as virgins, as do well-known lexicons such the one by John Penrice. I emphasise this fact since many pudic and embarrassed Muslims claim there has been a mistranslation, that "virgins" should be replaced by "angels". In sura 55 verses 72-74, Dawood translates the Arabic word " hur " as "virgins", and the context makes clear that virgin is the appropriate translation: "Dark-eyed virgins sheltered in their tents (which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?) whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched before." The word hur occurs four times in the Koran and is usually translated as a "maiden with dark eyes".

Two points need to be noted. First, there is no mention anywhere in the Koran of the actual number of virgins available in paradise, and second, the dark-eyed damsels are available for all Muslims, not just martyrs. It is in the Islamic Traditions that we find the 72 virgins in heaven specified: in a Hadith (Islamic Tradition) collected by Al-Tirmidhi (died 892 CE [common era*]) in the Book of Sunan (volume IV, chapters on The Features of Paradise as described by the Messenger of Allah [Prophet Muhammad], chapter 21, About the Smallest Reward for the People of Paradise, (Hadith 2687). The same hadith is also quoted by Ibn Kathir (died 1373 CE ) in his Koranic commentary (Tafsir) of Surah Al-Rahman (55), verse 72: "The Prophet Muhammad was heard saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a [Yemen]'."


www.guardian.co.uk...

I did not state 72 virgins, I said virgins, which it does say in the Koran, but the virgins are available to all, not just Martyrs, the number 72 comes from Islamic Tradition, how is this a lie?

Whilst not religious myself, I respect others beliefs as long as they are peaceful, humanitarian and not forced on others.


Peace