I guess my point is that I don't get the psychological state of wanting it to happen ASAP. If you're going to heaven you're going to heaven anyway right? Who cares how long it takes for everything else down here to end?

If you're going to heaven you're going to heaven anyway right?

The logic goes that life in heaven is perfect and complete happiness, a reunion with everyone you've ever loved and closeness with the true essence of God. It so far exceeds any paltry pathetic thing you think of as Earthbound happiness that you can't possibly choose life on earth over life in heaven eternally, with God, starting now. Don't lay up treasures on this earth. Don't attach yourselves to life on earth. It's a painful, small, pale, miserable shadow, shot through with death, sin, misery, loss, imperfection, sorrow, and grief, next to life with God in heaven.

So goes the thinking.

Well, Miko, the thing is, Biblically, we are supposed to be about our Father's business here on Earth. We Christians aren't going to Hell but we will have a judgement-kinda like rewards day at school, only there will be some correction going on as well. It's when you get the truth told to you by Someone who both loves you very much and who WILL tell the absolute truth.

As to Armageddon and all that stuff, see, you gotta remember a lot of Christians have gotten suckered in to that pretrib Rapture stuff. I personally do not believe in it. I do think that there will be a "rapture" but not after every thing goes, pardon the expression, to Hell first.

We are supposed, here, to be transformed, slowly but surely, into the image of Christ. We are supposed to be spending time here getting to know Him on this side. You can. Too many people don't know that.

But at the same time we are not to "love the World." I look at it like, well, the military would call it deployment. We are deployed on Earth till we are done with our purpose. We all have one. This is not my home, but while I am here, I am to accomplish what I was sent for. Jesus did, when He was here.

The Rapture is a pretty interesting film about this. The wanting, that is.

I guess I would say that you can't think of it in a "good deeds and works" sort of way, which is a very European Protestant approach. The evangelicals believe that living on earth is an unnatural state for a soul that has been saved. The goal of a saved person is to prepare themselves (and as many others as can be persuaded) for the rapture, which will end their suffering and give them one of the select, limited slots in heaven (yes) next to Jesus. You need to be in a state of readiness, though. Cleansed of sin, penitent, and tellin' it on the mountain.

Wait wait. Whatever happened to death?

It's not just material attachment vs. rapture right? You can die in between.

(I understand that when I refer to people who want to "hurry up the rapture" I'm talking actually about a very very small subset of believers.)

Yeah wall to wall
door to door
hall to hall,
He's gonna eat 'em all!

Rapture
Be pure
Take a tour through the sewer
Don't strain your brain
paint a train
or you'll be singing in the rain!

Said don't stop to the punk rock!

So, this discussion is about determining the 'logic' behind 'christians' who believe in a rapture?

Yeah, good luck with that.

This is complete and utter bullshit.

It's not about logic, just emotional state. Like if I was one of them, why would I prefer that the tribulations/rapture/whatever happen on my watch rather than you know, after I die? That's what I was trying to figure out (although I'm not THAT interested.)

Why wouldn't you want the rapture to happen on your watch, especially if you think your actions would cause it? That's the reason these people should be seen as dangerous fanatics. They literally wish for the biblical apocalypse so they can attain eternal happiness in heaven.

I always figured it was like wishing that the school burnt down before your midterm exams. If you think that the rapture is coming then you don't actually have to plan for the future or pay off your debts or save the environment or any of that hard stuff in life. It's a pretty attractive delusion as delusions go.

Well, for people who are sufficiently confident that they, personally, will be assumed bodily into heaven, it's easy to see the appeal. What, you wouldn't want to eat ambrosia and nectar all day, and be reunited with your dead pets, and have seventy-seven virgins waiting for you? Oops--scratch that last one.

I personally agree with bunnyfire's take on the rationale for life on earth as a forge in which to become more Christlike.

I'm merely explaining how people who believe in/look forward to the Rapture imagine it. But it is a fairly recent belief and not founded in Biblical scholarship.

But I also object to the language, again, of "we Christians." There is no such thing as "we Christians," there are thousands of varieties of Christian and many individual shadings within those denominations. It would make more sense to speak objectively, or if speaking about your own demonination, to speak in specifics about your own denomination or say "my belief is" as a preface. Because I feel excluded when someone says "we Christians believe..." and then says something I don't, as a Christian, believe - and it creates a false idea of a monolithic Christianity or a single 'true' Christianity.

I always figured it was like wishing that the school burnt down before your midterm exams.

I think that's it. The world is a scary and cruel place. I think most people are working on some sort of escape fantasy, though maybe ones not quite as developed.