Question from M:
G’day!
After hearing your most recent podcast, I was inspired to inquire further about the Rapture that has been announced for May 21, 2011. I contacted the EBible Fellowship about their decree and asked the following:
“I was just wondering, if you are indeed certain that the world is coming to an end soon, would you have a problem with signing a contract that all your belongings be turned over someone else on that day. Surely, you won’t need any money or a home or furniture, or anything else for that matter, once you are raptured up to heaven. A few good beneficiaries that I would like to suggest for your possesions to be given to are: The Center for Inquiry, The James Randi Education Foundation, The Public Braodcasting Station or The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
God’s Law is absolute, and as such it would be an admission of lack of faith to have any doubts about this apocolyptic proclamation. Please do not insult God’s intellegence by hedging your bet. To keep ones earthly belongings in the off-chance that God may be wrong is the height of arrogance. The only possitive course of action would be to accept the end as a fact, and leave all possible resourses to those who chose to ignore God’s word in hope that they will then be better able to find the truth that is God in the time they will have left after the rapture and before the entire world ends. To deny the deniers an opportunity to repent and see the light would be, at best, unchristian.
Thank you for your concern on this highly important matter.”
I have been told for meny decades that God is the source of morality and that Christians are thus moral, so I don’t see any reason why they should object to my proposal. The only thing left to do now is sit back and wait for those bank accounts, property titles and other such stuff to get signed over. They wouldn’t be lying about the whole Rapture thing, surely.
Right?
Answer by SmartLX:
The thing about apocalyptic cults is that they portray the apocalypse in such a way that everything works out all right if they’ve got all the chips at crunch time.
Particularly in Christian eschatology (endtime mythology), the end of the world isn’t a quick process; there’s the Tribulation to get through, where the world goes almost literally to Hell before Jesus shows up (again). That’s what the Left Behind books are all about, and there are over a dozen of those so there’s a fair bit of chronological space to squeeze them all in. While it’s happening, the righteous will do what they can to help those who need or deserve it, but for that they need money.
Point is, there’s always a reason why they aren’t giving away their own resources other than that the world isn’t really ending. Whether the reason they give is a real reason or not, just keep in mind that doomsday cultists, whatever they may be, are not necessarily stupid. They have probably thought of the obvious questions people are going to ask them, especially questions which challenge their right to their own stuff.
Rapture in 2011!…?
“The thing about apocalyptic cults is that they portray the apocalypse in such a way that everything works out all right if they’ve got all the chips at crunch time.”