The Pastor Who Cried Rapture
We've all made predictions that didn't come off, and we've been left with egg on our faces. I remember being so sure that David Davis would win the last Tory leadership election that I advised a couple of friends to put money on that outcome. I was wrong, they lost their cash, life went on. Which is the way it goes.
Unless, of course, you predict that life won't go on, and that the world will end. Because there's no wiggle room when you predict something like the Rapture and it doesn't happen. It's pretty absolute. When you're wrong, everyone can see you're wrong, and people are either laughing at you or hating you, depending on how they treated your really rather ludricrous claim about the end of everything.
Perhaps this pastor truly believed that yesterday was the end of days. Perhaps it was a more cynical ploy to to increase the profile of his radio station - in which case it worked a treat. Except that it can only ever be a short-term win for the pastor and his organisation. After all, this is the second time he has said the Rapture is coming only for nothing to happen. You'd have thought that his credibility would have been shot to shit after the first time, but no. Many still seem to have believed him. Surely, though, even the most devout of people - those who believe that the Rapture is something more than the final fiction in a fictional book - must be at the very least doubting this pastor's predictive ability when it comes to the Rapture?
No doubt that if this pastor shows his face in public again it will be to spout a whole host of excuses about why the Rapture didn't happen. I just hope that the law of diminishing returns kicks in, and the next time he decides he's a-going to ascend to heaven, even fewer people treat his mad ramblings with anything other than the utter scorn they deserve.
Labels: Christian Fundamentalism, Religion, The Rapture, Witless Morons
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 5:02 pm
2 Comments
2 Comments:
'even the most devout of people...must be at the very least doubting this pastor's predictive ability'
It takes a sight more than a failed ascension to part a fanatic from his beliefs.
I gather the faithful are explaining this as a divine test, as if the Almighty were a sort of Chief Examiner in the sky - the same argument that surfaces whenever scientific evidence contradicts religious doctrine.
The real hook is that even the disappointment and 'testing' is proof that they have been singled out for special attention.
Actually there are a lot of people schooled in the Bible who say that there is very little if any emphasis placed on a "rapture" and that in reality, the emphasis is placed on everyone forced to go through the tribulation and making the decision, either to go along with satan's deception or else refuse and have one of two options if they disagree with satan's deception. The one alternative is to literally head for the hills the day the abomination of the desecration occurs in the temple, stop everything and go, don't look back, like Lot's wife looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah and was frozen into a pillar of salt, became a lost soul, because she was unable to make her decision on what was truth and what was a lie, instantaneously, on the spot. Or else then do not make the decision on the spot, lack faith, but then have to endure the most major tribulation the world has ever seen, with the consequence of not obeying the earthly ruler of the world being one will be beheaded for not adoring and worshipping the anti-Christ spirit, represented by the earthly one world ruler who of course requires all subjects take the mark in their right hand or forehead. Rapture, it's not even mentioned or hardly, but in one short sentence that talks about some people being saved early on - but makes no outright promise they will be whisked away like someone special, better than everyone else, and not forced to demonstrate their decision between accepting either the lying deception or else the true spirit of God - the same as everyone else. So this preacher hell bent and determined on constantly predicting raptures is out of step with scripture on two counts - one being one shouldn't sit around worrying about predicting it, it's not for men to know - and two, it's not even something the Bible says will occur in the first place. It's more of an interpretation of man, not of God, made after the fact, as if to pack the churches with more luke-warm "believers" just by putting fear of hell in them and then saying they'll be saved through magical rapture if they attend, donate tithings and do as they are told. These false rapture predictors are displaying a superiority complex over that of the very Bible and God they claim they represent and are just more false prophets warned about in the Bible.
That is my opinion on the matter.
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