May 21, 2011 is ...

[Mytical]

*groans and rolls eyes* Hmm maybe Christianity (and other religions) would do well with a disclaimer : Warning, may contain nuts.

Most Christians I know distance themselves from those people as far as possible.

[Ghel]

The crazies believe based on the Bible, the same as average Christians. In fact, the crazies tend to stick closer to their source material, so where does that put the average Christian?

[Gravekeeper]

The crazies believe based on the Bible, the same as average Christians.

I don't recall homosexual spirits in the Bible. <cough> Plus, the operative word here is crazy. It has fark all to do with being Christian. That was just the first book they were handed when they were young. Crazy is crazy, regardless of religion or politics, and is going to say or do something crazy. -.-

In fact, the crazies tend to stick closer to their source material, so where does that put the average Christian?

....in...a better more reasonable place as a decent human being?

[Ginger Tea]

OOOH OOOH OOOH floods on three different continents ELEBENTY

yeah yeah yeah if you know the signs you start seeing em everywhere

What gets me are the UK floods we had a spate of a few years ago, most would have been less catastrophic if land owners didn't build houses on wetlands and floodplanes, but never mind, insurance covers it and premiums go up ho hum.

[bunnyboy]

Not every Christian is obsessed with Rapture or the next time that God is going to "destroy" humans.

Hell the Rapture is something BRAND NEW in accepted Christian theology, I mean it's new in the sense that not much in theology came after it (the Fundamentals being one) but on a scale of major theological changes it's just below the Fundamentals (1800s) and The Apocalypse of St. John of Patmos AKA Revelations being an eschatological (end of the world) document (depending on church 1000s-1900s.)

Of course the reason it's so new is it has very little basis in scripture, mainly taking off of Electism (Calvinism and it's descendants) and boils down to reading literally the second most symbolic work in the entirety of the pan-Christian canon ( the first being Isaiah.)

Of course Millennialists conveniently ignore the whole I will come as a thief in the night quote.

[Teysa]

I finally had a chance to talk to my mom about this. Her opinion is that doomsday prophecies such as this need to be taken with an entire shaker of salt if not the entire mine. She also agreed with me on the whole what part of 'No one knows the day or the hour except the Father' don't you understand?

[Mytical]

Well, if people keep guessing..even a broken watch is right twice a day . Wait that doesn't work for digital does it?

[Dreamstalker]

Depends on if it's set for 12- or 24-hour time.

[Ladeeda]

This is gonna be the Great Disappointment all over again...

[Dreamstalker]

Oh good, more Rapture-nuts to make fun of downtown

[Mishi]

They've hired a billboard on one of our slighly busy roads and splashed their message over it. I'm surprised that it's actually made it over here (Australia). I wonder how many people will think they're serious versus the ones that will think that it's a viral marketing ploy for a new movie? Oh, and how long it will take before someone defaces it?

[derangedperson]

The more and more I've read about this, it's painfully clear that Camping just pulled the numbers out of his ass. Take a look at the Wikipedia page:

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

And here's another link advising people on how big of a nutcase this guy is:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Harold-C...ily-radio.html

By the by, one of those billboards got put up along the highway I take to work every day. Every time I pass it, I roll my eyes and just go "whatever."

[Andara Bledin]

I've got one of those things up not far from my house, on my route home from work. I want to take a picture of it in the background while holding a paper from May 22 in front of it. Even better, the 22nd is a Sunday, so it'll be extra-large.

^-.-^

[Mishi]

The billboard near us was removed because it was deemed offensive!

[FArchivist]

Man, I'm going to be rubbing my hands with glee on that day.

So they believe in predestination - that God has already decided who's going to be "saved," and nothing anyone does can change that. Then what's the point telling anybody when the end of the world will be? What good is a warning (even if true) if you can't do anything to prepare for it?

Ding! Also, there's that whole 'free will' thing that predestination obliterates...frickin' Calvin.

This board really needs the :rofl: smilie. Because decoding a code in the Bible, which may or may not actually be there,

Make that "not there at all". Man, I totes love Bible woo. Bible woo is hilarious. In fact, the only thing more hilarious is BibleMan.

As a Catholic, I am supposed to believe in the Rapture.

No, we're really supposed to not. Per the Church:

As Roman Catholics, we might ask, “Has the Church censured anything regarding the Rapture doctrine?” The answer would have to be yes.

As we have seen, the Rapture forms part of a particular millennial expectation based on a particular use of biblical texts. Yes, the Church has explicitly rejected both this kind of speculation and this way of interpreting the Scriptures.

The Council of Ephesus (431) denounced it as “a deviation and a fable.” It was denounced again in 1516 at the Fifth Lateran Council. In 1824, the work of Manuel Lacunza (noted above) was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. In 1941 and 1944, responding to questions from the Archbishop of Santiago, Chile, the Congregation of the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) again rejected this kind of millennial speculation with explicit reference to the work of Lacunza. As recently as April 22, 1998, with the turn of the millennium approaching, Pope John Paul II warned again against this way of thinking.

In interpreting biblical texts, the Church has stressed that it is essential that we take account of their literary genres since truth is expressed differently in different types of writing (Vatican II: Dei Verbum #12; Catechism of the Catholic Church #110).

In its 1993 document, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, the Pontifical Biblical Commission both reaffirmed this (Section I-A) and rejected as inadequate the so-called “fundamentalist” interpretation at play in the Rapture doctrine and scenario (Section I-F).

As John Paul II expressed it on April 22, 1998, “We know that the apocalyptic images of the eschatological discourse about the end of all things should be interpreted in light of their intense symbolism.” It is not language that should be taken literally.