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Senate Christianity Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Community' started by Jabba-wocky, Aug 1, 2013.

  1. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    I'd say the rapture is significantly more credible. We do seem to have indication that there are is some group of people that will not experience physical death. The real controversy around the issue is the timing of this event, especially as it relates to the end of the world.
     
  2. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    that might be your opinion, but the theological concept of a rapture is only a few hundred years old. that makes it bible fan-fic in my book
     
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  3. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    The description you are offer is only really true if you define the "rapture" as being a specifically premillennial/"pre-tribulation" event. What people dispute is not whether The Lord will gather the saints, living and dead, to himself. The question is whether or not they might be removed from Earth before any final judgment takes place. That is why I was particular in offering the qualifiers to my statement that I did. The issue is largely one of timing, because the question is it's relation to other events.
     
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  4. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    yah dawg that's what "the rapture" refers to
     
  5. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    Most popularly. But in fact, the term predates that usage. More to the point, I am personally aware of debates in eschatology going back easily to the inter-war period about whether "the rapture" should be understood as a pre-, post-, or mid-tribulation event (You'll notice this reduplicates the whole debate that, according to you, this term is supposed to offer a single definitive position on.). This debate goes on even in the most conservative circles and is quite alive today. Suffice it to say, therefore, that I think there's healthy justification to say you read the term too narrowly, and thereby give simultaneously too much credit to one particular faction and too little historical credence to the idea.
     
  6. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    interwar period? i gave it "a few centuries". stop obfuscating.
     
  7. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    The major arguments in favor of the popularized concept are from about the opening of the 19th century, as I recall. If for a good 50% of a term's entire existence (by your counting) it is being used more broadly than you claim it should be, that's pretty reasonable evidence you may just have the definition wrong to begin with.
     
  8. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    the rapture is neither mentioned nor outlined in the bible. it is an extrapolation created many years after the fact. if you choose to be willfully ignorant on this point, that's your business. i hope it doesnt land you in Hell
     
  9. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    Incredibly poorly argued, Rogue Number Ten. I date something to the 1800s, and your rebuttal is to tell me that it came about after the Bible was written? I thought we were all aware that people had stopped adding to the Biblical canon centuries ago by that point.

    Our question was over how broad or narrow the meaning of the word "rapture" should be taken to be. I don't rightly see what your response has to do with that at all, nor do I know why you retreated into just reposting what you already did the first time.

    EDIT: Though since you've raised it (in what I assume was non-serious fashion, but anyway) I''ll answer that I find it pretty thoroughly unimportant. If those who do not believe in a pre-millenial rapture are wrong, they will simply have received a pleasant surprise. If they are, on the other hand, correct, then all Christians will receive either a normal death, for which everyone should be prepared, or martyrdom, for which everyone should be glad. All eventualities require things that Christians should be doing regardless of whether any particular scenario were true or not. It's the ultimate case of the destination trumping the journey.
     
  10. PRENNTACULAR

    PRENNTACULAR VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Dec 21, 2005
    yeah, i feel you. i'd say that you're completely correct in the assumption that one reaches this conclusion only when working backwards from the explanation that, generally, science is the best way to interact with the world. which, i think is a solid M.O. anyway (i.e., work backwards from what you know to figure out what you don't know), but in this instance obviously requires a willingness (or desire, i guess) to include some form of deity. which is completely unnecessary, but as I said earlier, personally compelling.

    wack, i don't think that emotions are as shallow as you're making them out to be. what i mean is, in my experience, hatred is generally the result of some deeper, more primary emotion (hurt, fear, insecurity) which then grows into what we know as hatred. even so, i don't think that emotions themselves can be considered evil or bad or good or whatever. the actions that come from emotions, certainly. you can control actions, but you can't control what you feel.
     
  11. TheChosenSolo

    TheChosenSolo Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Dec 9, 2011
    In Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, he most definitely describes the event commonly depicted as the rapture. From I Thessalonians 4:16-18: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." The timing is explained in his second letter to Timothy, chapter 2, verses 3 to 4: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." That man of sin, the son of perdition, is a description of the Antichrist that will arise in the last days. The Greek word translated as "falling away" is Apostasia. Much of the church is going to fall into apostasy, in fact, I would dare to say that it's already begun.
     
  12. PRENNTACULAR

    PRENNTACULAR VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Dec 21, 2005
    when i look up 2 timothy 2:3-4, it reads this:

    3 Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.

    which is pretty different from what you posted. did you mean to post a different verse?

    also, i'm just gonna go ahead and say that all of 1 thesolonians 4 kind of sounds like a dude living in the arizona desert with a bunker full of canned meats and shotguns wrote it. just saying.
     
  13. epic

    epic Ex Mod star 8 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jul 4, 1999
    the end days talk is amusing because pretty much every generation since jesus has thought they were in the end days. i'm sure the year 999 they would have been going mental over it. i recall my church days leading up to 2k and the end days being a real hot topic (my church had dr hilton sutton over quite a few times).

    he used to say that there would be a first rapture, and then a second one after 3.5 years or something. so basically whenever a bunch of christian folk disappear, the unbelievers will have 3.5 years to repent. obviously this flies in the face of the whole faith thing, because millions of christians all simultaneously disappearing is the kind of miracle most atheists would acknowledge as being a pretty good one.

    obviously though, this is never going to happen. but hey, even if it does happen, i will have 3.5 years to say "ohhh ok. i believe". so i get to go to heaven then anyways. hurray.

    p.s. i just googled hilton sutton and found out he died in 2012. there ya go
     
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  14. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
    Did he disappear?
     
  15. TheChosenSolo

    TheChosenSolo Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Dec 9, 2011
    Apologies. Coffee hadn't hit my system, it was II Thessalonians, not II Timothy.
     
  16. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    This is precisely the reason I came to the edge of pedantry in my discussion with Rogue Number Ten (Rogue_Ten: Sorry about that, btw). It was important to define the nature of the disagreement about any rapture event in Christianity because non-believers need to understand that their objection, seen above, is hugely different than what Christians actually fight amongst themselves about. The part that non-Christians balk at--the idea that, at some point, a a bunch of living people will suddenly disappear to join God--is almost universally held as true within the religion itself, because the text is so plainly written that it's difficult to do much else with it.

    Since this whole point is actually addressed, and has some other relevance to our broader discussions, I will go ahead and give you the best response.

     
  17. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    The end times are always being threatened upon us. Someone should tell God to GTFO.
     
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  18. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    I did want to come back to this discussion, since it got lost in the big sort over tone and fundamentalism.

    This seems like bizarre logic. No new doctrines would ever arise just because three people agree on things? That's patently wrong. We know there was a huge diversity of beliefs that could be broadly classed as Christian from a historical perspective. Many have no apparent connection to any recognized apostle or senior leader within the community. Likewise, we see pretty frequent condemnations in the epistles of one or another person who has taken up a heresy that didn't come from any "official" source. Likewise, how did issues like the possibility of resurrection or Jesus's coming in flesh come to be so hotly debated that Paul and John (respectively) felt the need to dedicate whole sections of given epistles to the argument? Controversies arose because people offered ideas, some of which were simultaneously A)wrong and B)popular. Those in this category generally merited a big response. But nothing requires that any of the apostles--let alone one of these three in particular--had to endorse a belief for it to gain this sort of traction.

    I think your retelling of this account is a bit flawed. Critically, look at Paul's accounting of his rebuttal. He accuses Peter of "liv[ing] like a Gentle." That's a pretty explosive charge, and one that would seem to lie directly at odds with your charge that Peter was a serious Judaizer at this point. The only other commentary we have in this regard is the aforementioned issue in Acts 15, where Peter himself agrees that he (and everyone else) basically lives like Gentiles. It also points out the narrowness of Paul's complaint. Paul and Peter where interacting regularly with one another, leading a community of believers at Antioch. Out of all this, the only complaint Paul brings against, Peter despite the supposedly vast differences in doctrine, is who the man chooses to eat with. If he had actually held to the necessity of Jewish law or customs, one would've expected much greater variance with the things Paul was preaching. So why only a reprimand about personal behavior? Further still, look at how the text actually describes Peter's position. It never notes legitimate agreement of any sort. Instead, it only notes that Peter was "afraid" of the newcomers. That's hardly a ringing endorsement of their theology. So at what point do you see that Peter actually accepted their views, and how do you account for the fact (evidenced in both Paul's specific accusation that he continued to "live like a Gentile" and in the narrowness of his complaint about who he ate with) Peter was never really shown to have acted on these beliefs even if he did agree with them?

    I want to close by stepping back to a broad view. I never said that there were no differences. There are always slight differences, and within a given movement there is some intellectual diversity. Even if you discuss RFK and JFK serving together in the senior Kennedy's administration, you can perceive some differences in their approach. But recall that we started this because of a comment from you.

    The way you balked at the term "openly embraced" suggests you think they were opposed to one another. But I just don't see how you can sustain that case. From very early in Paul's conversion, the book of Acts notes that he was basically shunned until after he was introduced to the apostles, at which point people were more willing to receive him. In Galatians 2, just before the incident we were discussing, Paul again records how the other apostles like Peter condoned his work, and were happy to send him out to teach to the Gentiles. Earlier in the same book, he makes an argument for his own credibility out of the fact that he only conferred with Jesus and James in learning things early on. There are multiple points were Paul refers to his warm reception by people you designate Judaizers. Likewise, there are points where they make fond mention of Paul om their own writings.

    I can't see how to reconcile this with your position. The tendency of religions, even when small, is to schism when they experience major disagreements. Or even relatively minor ones. At the very least, the camps tend to distance themselves from one another. Yet we have a record of people not only going out of their way to legitimize Paul in the first place, but to collaborate with him pretty continuously after the fact. It seems at the least strange to me that each side would, respectively, expend so much effort helping to propagate a message that they deeply disagree with. I think, instead, we have to characterize this as "embracing" one another. I think that, further, you may be over-extrapolating the positions of various sides to conclude there was some sharper disagreement than actually existed. In fact, a similar intellectual maneuver might have been responsible for the creation of things like the "circumcision" group in the first place, who could be inspired by various figures without it actually representing what those figures taught or believed personally.
     
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  19. Sarge

    Sarge Chosen One star 10

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    Oct 4, 1998
    There were some differences, but I'm not sure they could be characterized as "distinct camps." Eventually Paul and Peter sat down, talked about their theological differences, and were able to come to agreement.
     
  20. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    This reminds me that I used to have this graphic novel of the Bible called Heroes of the Bible. It was so laughably terrible. Unfortunately, I can't find any pics of the cover.
     
  21. TheChosenSolo

    TheChosenSolo Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Dec 9, 2011
    I agree. The idea of turning the Bible into graphic novels (The Action Bible, as well) is patently ridiculous, IMO.
     
  22. slightly_unhinged

    slightly_unhinged Jedi Master star 4

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    Jan 28, 2014
    It would be more interesting if we had the Raptor instead of the Rapture.

    All those who've led a good and holy life singing hallelujah - in mimicry of the cherubim and seraphim that constantly serenade the godhead with their obsequious warblings - get hunted down and eaten to death by the Raptor, essentially a Utahraptor like the thingies on Jurassic Park but wearing the crimson of the Spanish Inquisition and a comedy moustache. When the Raptor poops out the remains of all the jesusbotherers god smears it all over himself.

    That could make a half-decent graphic novel.
     
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  23. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    "They should all be created."
     
  24. Skywalker8921

    Skywalker8921 Jedi Knight star 4

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    Jun 9, 2011
    Bumping to discuss something I've been thinking about the last few days after my rant on Facebook. (See the "Maleficent" thread if you don't know what I'm talking about.) I'm addressing this mainly to the Christians on the boards, though everyone is welcome to chime in.

    The question: when it comes to movies that warp the story of Christianity or focus primarily on evil characters (I'm talking "Maleficent" in this instance), should Christian parents completely avoid them or allow children to watch them after discussing the story?

    Dad and Mom let me read "The Da Vinci Code" and watch the movie, but they discussed it with me both before and after to make sure I understood that it was not the truth. I even own both book and movie, but I asked Dad first to see if it was OK before I bought them.

    Ditto The Mists of Avalon. I own the book and enjoy it, but I understand that Bradley emphasized paganism over Christianity.

    In regards to "Maleficent," I find parents not taking their children to see it because it is 'demonic' a bit of a stretch. Sure, it's a dark film and the main character has horns, but she had the horns in the animated version too. She is evil, but she's meant to be. Personally, I think Disney erred in branding it PG and it would be too intense for young children, but I don't see why older children couldn't go see it as long as their parents discuss it with them and stress that it is not a real story. If such films might cause a child to obsess with witchcraft or such, then yes, I would not take a kid to see it, but if they are mature enough to understand that it is fiction, then I see no problem.
     
  25. Moviefan2k4

    Moviefan2k4 Jedi Master star 4

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    Dec 29, 2009
    That sums up my view fairly well, but I also think the opposite extreme of "dark spirituality doesn't exist" is foolish. I really enjoy how Brad Stine addressed this...