The crazy can be fatal
Some folks who thought the apocalypse was coming:
A California woman named Lyn Benedetto was one of millions who heard Camping’s message, and became concerned that her daughters would suffer terribly in the coming apocalypse. She allegedly forced her daughters, 11 and 14, to lie on a bed and then cut their throats with a box cutter. She then tried to kill herself, though police arrested Benedetto and all three survived.
Others were not so lucky. An elderly man in Taiwan reportedly killed himself on May 5 ahead of the Rapture by jumping out of a building. He had heard that doomsday was imminent, and had taken recent earthquakes and tsunamis as early warning signs.
There were other unconfirmed reports of doomsday-related suicides around the world as well.
May 25th, 2011 at 9:41 am
Crazy. Also not to be a rules lawyer, but doesn’t killing yourself mean you don’t get to go to the big post-rapture party.
Hell (literally) doesn’t it mean you don’t even get to stick around for the Zombie and Demon fighting booby-prize?
BTW I got my heart on that Booby Prize!
May 25th, 2011 at 9:49 am
Crazy doesn’t help in the celebration either as a surviving Rapture celebration leds to drowning … http://www.examiner.com/missing-persons-in-national/harold-camping-s-rapture-prediction-ends-tragedy-teen-believed-dead
May 25th, 2011 at 9:59 am
Jesus Himself said he didn’t know when the Day would be. BayouRennaisanceMan, who is a Christian priest and ought to know, has written that there was no mention of this “Rapture” nonsense until some time in the 17th Century.
Fucking ignorant Baptists.
May 25th, 2011 at 10:01 am
ah, that’s bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com
May 25th, 2011 at 10:56 am
So more people died because of this Nut Job than were killed by the Open Carriers in Pittsburgh?
May 25th, 2011 at 10:58 am
As an “ignorant Baptist” I approach the scriptures with no preconceived notions. The word “rapture” may or may not appear, but the concept of believers being taken up to Heaven to meet the Lord is clearly spelled out in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
A lot of people like the moron making this prophesy, Phelps and others, claim to be baptists but the fruit of the spirit is not evident in them. Just a layman’s level of understanding would make it clear that there are other things that need to happen before the end times really begin. A big indicator is the Temple being rebuilt. Once you see that the final pieces are in place and the big surprise at the end is near.
May 25th, 2011 at 11:23 am
Well, Rignerd, as Uncle said, math error. Or failure to read the scripture right. There ARE non-ignorant Baptists! They don’t seem to shout as loudly as the ignorant ones, though.
May 25th, 2011 at 11:44 am
“Fucking ignorant Baptists.”
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=21495
Fucking ignorant commenters…
May 25th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Bubblehead…
Shhh…they’ll want permits for speech next…wait…there’s someone a the door
May 25th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
They should believe in the entirely scientifical doomsday cult that is global warmmongering.
Their predictions are always safely 5 years away so when they don’t come true, nobody really mentions it (or is the North Pole ice free and the oceans 8 feet higher and I missed it?), and they cost $trillions a year.
Gorequemada became a billionaire with his religion and won a Nobel BS prize and an Oscar.
But let’s spend all our time making fun of this tiny cult.
May 25th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Apcray, close tags fail.
May 25th, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Rignerd Says:
May 25th, 2011 at 10:58 am
“…I approach the scriptures with no preconceived notions.”
There is no such thing, none, as approaching Scripture free of any mental framework rooted in a received tradition: i.e., how others whom you trust have led you to approach it. The point is, you learn to read the Scriptures with “Baptist eyeglasses” just as others read them with “Catholic eyeglasses”. Both are received traditions that start from different assumptions, like what books belong in the Bible or even whether the Bible is intended to be the sole reference point of Christian belief and not equally-old apostolic tradition. Just believing you know that Ecclesiastes is Scripture while Maccabees is not, is one example of a preconceived notion.
The idea of a pre-tribulation “Rapture” was unknown to Christianity prior to the 19th century; now for many it’s “obviously” there in the text. Likewise, divorce and contraception were alien to Christianity prior to the 20th century, and now many Christians don’t see anything wrong with them. The only things that have changed are the preconceived notions.
May 25th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Daniel Chapter 12 indicates that there will be a greater understanding of the prophetic Scriptures as events unfold “at the time of the end”.
The “caught up” event (the Latin translation of which is the derviative of the word “rapture”) is mentioned in I Thessalonians 4 and, in sequential chronology, the next chapter I Thessalonians Chapter 5 goes into “the Day of the Lord”, another term for the tribulation, as described in Matthew 24 The objective chronolgy there has the “caught up” event or “rapture” prior to the tribulation and the promise is made to Chrisitans:
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ –I Thessalonians 5:9
That was written prior to the 19th Century so the concept of the “caught up” event or “rapture” before “the Day of the Lord”; i.e., pre-trib is clearly there in Scripture well before the 19th Century.
May 25th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
I’m sure that our blog host does not want this to turn into a 100-comment end times discussion. I will only point out something I think illustrates my earlier point.
You take it as a given that “God hath not appointed us to wrath” is a statement that believers are to be spared tribulation, in addition to final damnation. The statement itself is ambiguous (whose wrath — antichrist’s or God’s?), but your interpretation comes down unambiguously on one side. Passages in Revelation imply the exact opposite, that Christians certainly will endure persecutions. Matthew 24 describes a lengthy sequence of events comprising “tribulation” (the word is in 24:29), followed by the Second Coming itself (24:30).
My aim is not to convince you that you’re wrong; as above, my point is that it is impossible to read Scripture in a vacuum. There is always some interpretive tradition through which our readings are guided. If it were not so, there would be no need for Scriptural commentary, and no buyers for it either.
May 25th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Ladies, ladies, please – you’re ALL right! That’s the beauty of the Bible. One can find support for any position in it.
May 25th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Should I feel bad as a Baptist that I went into Saturday with the third worst hangover I can remember and decided to sleep through it?
😀
May 25th, 2011 at 9:51 pm
Rapture is defined as a euphoric feeling. The “Rapture Theory” was brought to the U.S. by a British preacher who got the idea from a young girl who had been delerious w/ fever. He came to America & started a whole new religious fad, & probably lived quite well from the proceeds. (19th century).
May 25th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
BTW, if I’d known there was as much money & pu$$y in preaching as there is, I’d have taken it up long ago.
May 25th, 2011 at 11:30 pm
I think you have hit the nail on the head hellferbreakfast. Too many people get into preaching that love money or power and all the trappings. When they say something stupid the world gives them equal weight to those who are truly called and moved by the Holy Spirit. I’m not sure who you read that told you the 19th century line, but in my Bible Paul wrote it to the Church in Thessalonica 1800 years before the 19th century.
Also there are at least 3 definitions of rapture, I think they all fit the scene outlined in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rapture
May 26th, 2011 at 2:40 am
I agree with Jerry Pournelle’s Dad, who said Jerry could affiliate with any religion he liked except Baptists, in which case he would be disowned. Jerry started out Unitarian, converted to Communist, then Episcopalian, and now seems to have stuck as a Roman.
I refuse to attend a church which doesn’t use actual wine for communion, so that leaves me with Anglican, Roman, Greek and (I think) Lutheran. I attend Anglican services.
May 26th, 2011 at 10:05 am
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin again?