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The Rapture: Sucker’s Paradise!
All this Rapture stuff seriously freaks me out. Not so much because I believe it’s gonna happen, but because so many people are actually looking forward to it. Which is more than a little creepy! Maybe you don’t have any copies of the hugely successful Christian end-times fiction series, Left Behind, but I guarantee your neighbor or somebody you know does. These books are everywhere you turn - and if not the books themselves, then the eerie ideas floating behind them.
The Rapture-ready take their cues from a weird little verse in the Bible (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) that says Jesus is eventually gonna come down like a giant vacuum cleaner and suck all the good people up into Heaven. The Bible of course doesn’t give details, but most people nowadays agree that when this happens people will be sucked out of their clothes, passing right through the roofs of their cars, planes, homes or wherever else they are. Though there’s some stupid squabbling over the particulars, most people think everybody who doesn’t get sucked up has to go through something called the Tribulation. This is when the Antichrist comes and “raises Hell” back here on Earth.
Meanwhile, the righteous Christians in Heaven get to sit around and goof off while the rest of us are stuck slogging through the end of the world. There’s even a neat little medieval idea called the “Abominable Fancy” which basically says that part of the joy of being in Heaven will be to look down and see the souls in Hell suffering. I wonder if they’ll try to apply this so they can watch gleefully while the rest of us experience the Tribulation. Just in case, remind me to stand outside after this happens and give them all the finger.
Besides any of the weird sadistic fantasy elements of the whole thing, the Rapture strikes me as sort of an Apocalyptic cop-out. It’s almost like everybody forgot the story of a little dude named Jesus. Remember him? Remember how just before he died on the Cross, he yelled out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Let’s be realistic. Do you think that if the Big Man let his own son suffer and die on the Cross, that he’s gonna magically save you without so much as a scratch on your head? That sure as shit wouldn’t be fair, would it? I know, I know: Jesus died for our sins, blah blah blah. That’s all well and good, but I’m not interested in arguing that (at the moment). But what I am trying to say here is that real spiritual development is not an easy thing. Just look at the freakin’ Son of God as an example! If you don’t believe in him, he still offers a potent symbol of the enormous challenges of a spiritual life. And for all you would-be Christians out there: just because some fat guy with a microphone and an ugly blue suit tells you you’re “saved” the story doesn’t end there. Like it or not, this stuff is hard work and you gotta keep going.
St. John of the Cross, a 16th century Spanish monk, called it the Dark Night of the Soul. Way back in the day, he wrote a poem and a big explanation about what happens to spiritual seekers on the path to mystical union with God. Everything seems to be going great for a while, and then POW! Everything sucks again! St. John said it happens to those who are
[…] too weak to have the fortitude and bear the trials of perfection. They resemble those who are softly nurtured and who run fretfully away from everything that is hard and take offense at the Cross, wherein consist the delights of the spirit.
What he’s saying is that if you’re a Christian, you better suck it up. This stuff isn’t supposed to be easy. You don’t just get a free pass one day and then you’re done. It’s intended to be a goddamned challenge. It’s absolutely necessary to go through this excruciating process in order to be purified spiritually. This type of message is of course never popular. In fact it might even be why they crucified the poor guy in the first place. Everybody would much rather hear: “Don’t worry! This isn’t gonna hurt at all!” and then just sit back on their porch and wait for God to turn on the celestial vacuum cleaner.
Remember that part in Fight Club where Brad Pitt says: “How much can you possibly know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?” This is exactly what St. John says the purpose of the Dark Night of the Soul is. Instead of a Hollywood actor though, he quotes St. Augustine who said: “Let me know myself, Lord, and I shall know Thee.” The point here is that if you’re only focusing on the positive side of things, your spiritual journey is going to be incomplete. Life’s not all flowers and rainbows, but that doesn’t mean it’s anything to run and hide from either. Standing up and facing the music is one of the most exhilarating experiences there is.
For me, it all boils down to one simple question. Which do you think is gonna be more exciting: laying on a cloud stroking a stupid old harp, or kicking the Antichrist in the balls, laughing and then running like hell? I certainly know which one I’d choose, but then that’s why I was going to get “Left Behind” to begin with.
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June 7th, 2005 at 2:45 am
Dude, that line in Fight Club is the one that has always haunted me.
I’ve never been in a fight. I’ve protected people and have had to use violence. I even antagonized kids when I was younger — probably to take the focus off me. But a fight of any sort, such as being “chosen” by someone to go fisticuffs with? Nope, I always stood up to everybody and said fuck you, I don’t hate you, so why would I want to hit you. That always threw ‘em off.
Lately, I’ve come to some kind of an epiphany that looking back on the times I had to protect someone in a melee or an unfair advantage, that I absolutely enjoyed the release the wanton violence gave me. Throwing punches (landing few) and being hit in turn, even bleeding, was a huge sensational turn-on. The epiphany was: that is why I have always avoided fighting. I get emotional. I wouldn’t know when to quit.
Luckily my overriding powerful sense of conscience has always saved me. This is why Fight Club in general just freaked me out. It made so much sense, but yet my conscience made me artificially turn off the acts of violence as something that was natural.
My motto is: For without our Earthly shells, where are we then?
I don’t know because I simply don’t know enough about this realm of existence yet, that I am willing to throw away for a chance on another. Or for anybody else for that matter, no matter how apocalyptically delusional they may be.
Perhaps it is curiosity that killed the cat. We’re the cats. Let’s hope we’ve got some good one’s in the pride that can talk us all out of this mess.
June 7th, 2005 at 6:31 am
The way of love is not a subtle argument.
The door there is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.
–Rumi
I’ve never been involved in physical fighting myself but I’ve sure taken the dangerous plunge into conflicts of other sorts. I’ve not seen the Fight Club movie but I like the line from it.
June 7th, 2005 at 10:10 am
There’s also another line in the bible where it says something about meeting Christ in the air which televangelists say is about the Rapture.
What most people don’t know is that Jesus actually taught meditation and whatnot. But the modern Christian knows that meditation is evil and clearing your mind of all thoughts is just like putting on a sign that says “Come on in Devil!”
During spiritual development we pass through the stages of Earth, Water, Air, Fire and then are reborn into the ‘Christ’ consciousness.
Earth is where most people are but when they begin to meditate and clear away earthly thoughts and cares they enter Water, hence the baptism of water, not a literal dunking your head in water. When thoughts are overcome we meet Jesus in the Air, remember when Jesus was walking on water and that disciple met him on the side of the boat, the disciple got scared because thoughts crept back but Jesus caught him. Then comes the baptism of Fire, which every modern Christian is sure that God is going to flash fry every heathen, which won’t happen.
It’s not easy, and sure isn’t as easy as saying “I believe Jesus died for my salvation and bought my ticket to Heaven”
June 7th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Well, obviously I can only speak from my own experiences but from age 13-15 I was really into the whole Rapture-Desire. I’d found an old copy of Hal Lindsey’s book on how it was to all go down and was enthralled. Why? I think a large part of it was that should the Rapture happen it would bring an end to the annyoing doubt that perhaps Christianity isn’t all there. Religion, in any form, demands a lot of a person. Choices have to be made and there is no reset button to life. But in a pluralistic culture, like today and the Roman era around the end of the first century, where communication brings different and contrary versions of life to the attention of people, there is a hunger for some kind of indication that one is on the winning side. Particularly if one’s own religion is viewed as being unpopular. This could be why there is an appeal to the idea of a Rapture or Second Coming. I never once thought that I’d be actually “taken up”, but the Tribulation period was a time when heroic acts were possible. The Rapture would provide the necessary proof that the sacrifice of this one chance at life has cosmic significance. Its an Uber-Miracle. No excuses that its just the outcome of Chaladean magic (Roman era) or psychic powers/coincidence (today).
It might be significant that the first religion to really push the idea of an end to the world was Zoroasterism which was a religion with a tough start and essentially a call for people to turn away from Hindu-like religious beliefs and rituals. Located along the silk road in essentially the center of Asia, Zoroasterism was faced with competing ideologies, hostile prospective converts and little immediate gratification to offer. But once the idea of an End to the World came into play, nay-sayers with doubts about afterlife rewards took notice. Throw in some vague signs to indicate when the end is coming and you’ve got people looking forward to something to vindicate their present choices. Its much like telling kids that if they are good in July, then Santa will bring presents in December.
In the end, I fell away from looking forward to the Rapture and the End Times due to a misguided attempt by a religion teacher to shut me down before throwing a school room full of kids into a panic. Every Friday our Religion teacher (I went to a Catholic school) would open the class to discussions. One friday a girl brought up the topic of the Rapture and the End Times. I was happy because I’d just gotten through a book on the topic and knew the subject then up, down and side ways. I’d let the class start talking about vague notions they’d overheard and then I’d raise my hand and basically explain in detail what they’d obviously misunderstood. Interestingly, the mood went from nervous excitement to a sense of fear that, hey this stuff might be true. When the topic of the infamous 666 came up, I stepped in with Hal Lindsey’s notion that it was a mocking of the Trinity. 7 was the symbolic number of perfection. 777 was therefore the perfect trio, thus the Triune God. 666 was the evil trinity of Satan, the AntiChrist, and the False Prophet. At this point, the teacher was starting to grow concerned that things were not going the way she wanted. And who knows, given her optimistic cheerful Christian outlook, it might have seemed personally threatening to her. In any case, she took me to task for that interpretation since the Trinity hadn’t become Church doctrine until long after the Book of Revelations had been written. The class sighed with relief that I had been wrong and that therefore the whole notion that they might have to make a lifestyle change due to some coming End Times was probably not necessary afterall. Me? I just sat there in horror that the Trinity had just been admitted to be some later addition to Catholicism. And that road has led me down some far more skeptical and alternative views than that teacher ever imagined it would.
June 7th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
http://www.datarefuge.com/archives/200...piracy-theories-about-the-papal-arms/
June 7th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
I’ve posted this before, maybe here, maybe not. But here goes, anyway…
For those who believe in the Rapture, I have good news!
The Rapture is tomorrow!
That’s right, the Rapture is tomorrow!
…Funny thing about tomorrow…
You wake up in the morning, it’s today.
You go to bed at night, it’s today.
You wake up in the morning, it’s…TODAY!
Tomorrow is the day you die, or the day after, if you prefer.
So yes indeedy, the rapture, or whatever happens when we die, is tomorrow.
(Cue Annie…)
June 7th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
steven, thats awesome stuff. and andrew, you mentioned something similar before, but its worth repeating. in fact, i plan to write another essay just on that very topic
June 7th, 2005 at 5:58 pm
I’ll help ‘em pack
June 7th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
There’s even a neat little medieval idea called the “Abominable Fancy” which basically says that part of the joy of being in Heaven will be to look down and see the souls in Hell suffering.
Guess I missed that little gem of medieval theology. That’s seriously fucked up. Totally rubs my natural Buddhist inclinations the wrong way.
But it also proves how erroneous (not to mention evil) the whole Rapture concept really is.
June 7th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
Remember that part in Fight Club where Brad Pitt says: “How much can you possibly know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?”
That’s a great line from a good movie, but I wouldn’t take it completely literally.
I’ve never been in a physical fight (past, say, junior high school) but I will attest to the idea that you cannot really know yourself until you’ve faced extreme adversity. Having recently gone through a very tough year (partner undergoing cancer treatment) I know know some things about myself, good and bad, that I never would have known otherwise. This is a very important principle of which the shallow Rapturists are completely ignorant.
June 7th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
I fought with my dad in 2003, after years of not getting along with him. It was cathartic, and I likened it to a rite of passage in Freudian terms. Usurping the father and all that… (btw: the name James is a variation on Jacob, which means “the usurper”, thanks to the story of Jacob & Esau)
My dad is a born-again Christian who believes in The Rapture, and ever since that fight he and I have gotten along great.
Speaking of The Rapture: there was a movie called The Rapture starring Mimi Rogers. A weird movie, but not a pro-Christian tract either.
June 8th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
I AM NOT A JERK.
June 9th, 2005 at 12:28 am
i think the rapture is a story meant to scare children of all ages.
June 9th, 2005 at 11:34 pm
An Orthodox Jewish friend told me once that in Jewish messianic beliefs, people would also vanish suddendly- but that they would be the evil doers, getting vaporized so that conditions would be right for the messiah to appear.
June 11th, 2005 at 11:58 am
history is rich with traditions of belief.believing that people would vanish suddenly is something we`ve all wished for,on occasion.it`s interesting that somebody theologised the concept.of course the catholics at one time forewent the magic and just built fires for those they didn`t like.so did sir issac newton.