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You know, this is a really bleak time for the world, and my anxiety keeps telling me this is the End Times. It probably isn't...but I'm scared.

All of human history has had bad parts. It's just that we can know more about bad stuff happening all over the world and not just in our small area of day to day life. I think I saw somewhere that the Second Coming was compared to a Benevolent Alien Invasion (probably on that very page). I guess one can just pray for Heel–Face Turn of all the people doing bad things.

edited 15th Jun '16 6:08:17 PM by bookworm6390

Yeah, I've actually sometimes seen things like that before. Really the one bit of "proof" I could find about something like that is that "Wormwood" in Ukrainian is "Chernobyl."

People have been claiming that it's been the End Times for centuries, but the Bible specifically says we can't know. People have invoked the supposed proximity of the End Times/the Rapture/the Tribulation/whatever else to avoid things like environmental and humanitarian issues and to grab the money of the gullible. Maybe we need to live as though the end isn't around the corner instead. It would certainly be more meaningful, especially if you believe in free will.

One thing I remember hearing regarding the end times is that the world may not end within your lifetime, but your world certainly will, which is probably what we should concern ourselves with more.

Indeed. Are some people trying to make a Self Fufilling Prophecy by endangering our species? Not that they could do anything that would kill 99.9% of the population, but hopefully some death cult doesn't try to do that.

Some Assembly Required.

I'm both terrified and hoping for the Second Coming one day. Terrified because of all of the things that will happen in it (though my opinion's been colored by the Left Behind series), hopeful because it means confirmation that what we've been worshipping is in fact true.

It's the fact that people are left behind that scares me about the usual view of the Second Coming. Partially because I don't want to find out that I'm out of chances and partially because I don't want to leave the people I care about behind.

I've actually heard that the Rapture is just a thing people thought up in the 1800s. Not sure though.

Oh, the Rapture is stupid. Why would Jesus come back, leave for a bit while everything burns, then come back again and get the rest of the people? Because I think he'd do it in one go.

Well he would everyone that could be considered actual Christians, I imagine, not just those sorts of people that go to church every Easter or something but never do anything like it otherwise. The entire reasoning behind the Rapture is because he takes all of the Christians so that they don't have to endure everything that will be coming.

All the same yeah, it's just something apparently thought up as reassurance.

Jesus doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would grab the "best" Christains real quick and leave everyone else to suffer.

Indeed.

The 'Left Behind' concept of Rapture is not a thing in the Catholic Church (nor in the Orthodox), so, I can't connect to that idea of the Second Coming.

edited 16th Jun '16 12:56:43 PM by Quag15

Yeah pretty much.

Someone mentioned "Left Behind."

Shadsie searches for obligatory link.

Here you go: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2003/10/18/left-behind-pretrib-porno/

Left Behind isn't something you should let color your worldview.

Marathon Reading.

Yeah, I know that it's subject to interpretation, but it did make me really scared.

Well, the orthodox preterist view can get rid of the Left Behind nightmare fuel by having the scary prophecies be fulfilled circa 70 A.D., and I don't think Jesus would kill people as graphically as the Left Behind books have it. For one, He wouldn't have to, He could just will that the enemy falls unconscious. If He did need to kill them, He could make it clean and painless.

To be frank, the thought of the Rapture just scares me. I'm a worrying kind of person, and I'm not really looking forward to the idea of The End of the World as We Know It, even if, as my mom assures me, I'm going to be Raptured out of the situation. I feel kind of bad for thinking like this, mostly since I have scrupulosity, but that's how I feel.

edited 17th Jun '16 9:44:15 PM by DreamCord

I gotta say, I'm really glad I don't have to worry about the rapture. It seems... Anxiety inducing.

Defeat or Victory.

Yeah it really does.