Isn't apocalyptic obsessions really a suicidal desire?

[Just Me]

I mean, aren't all these "end of the world" and "revelations" and "second coming" and whatnot obsessions REALLY a desire to END THE LIFE that these folks are living?

:shrug:

Is all the armageddon stuff really a projection of people's desire to escape, to end an oppressed and miserable life via an "acceptable" religious edict?

:shrug:

[niyad]

1. believe you are quite right--they want to end it, but don't have the guts

[david_vincent]

2. Of course!

these are, fundamentally, people who have not come to terms with life and living, and the fact that things exist that deeply threaten and disturb them. Listen to the lyrics of that Los Lonely Boys song. They hate living and can't wait to die, to get away from all the terrible people they're forced to share the planet with. "How far is heaven?"

[Just Me]

7. They haven't come to terms with their own life,....

,...and project their desire to just make "that life" go away by destoying others who have absolutely NOTHING to do with their misery.

Meanwhile, they engage in "hero-worship" of an ICON that exploits their pain.

If only they realized that, Jesus Christ would advise them to REJECT the very ICON they worship, to have NO WORRIES about the rumors and propaganda pertaining to "the end",...because that shit makes the spirit weak and a human powerless.

Of course, these folks aren't taught about such real strengths 'cause,...the assholes are still in charge, are still exploiting folks, are so self-indulged that they impose the lowest common demoninator of human potential to PUSH THE REST OF US INTO ACTION.

That is life,...human life.

[tmooses]

3. You may be right about the desire of the "end of lifers" to end a life

they feel oppressed and miserable in, but that is exactly the reason
many of the suicide bombers give for their acts.

[shenmue]

4. I always thought...

it was homicide, drugs or sexual repression. Self-loathing often comes from the latter. Orwell said something like, violence is sexual frustration.

Could also be mental illness. (Obviously.)

[C_U_L8R]

5. Of course it is... except

except the freepie-fundies are just
too chickenshit to meet their maker
by their own hands. Perhaps one day
they will find the courage and end it
all in bold cinematic style like
lemmings running off a cliff.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

6. It is a desire for vengeance.

They want to show they have the inside track and prove they have the most powerful god.

In the rapturist's fantasy, he is lifted bodily into a glorious afterlife where he worships at the foot of the throne of the creator. Meanwhile the unsaved are left to suffer horribly, and die only to be cast into everlasting fire. It's nothing but vengeance, the ultimate nyah-nyah.

I consider anyone who harbors the desire to see Americans suffer and die, and the country destroyed, to be nothing but a traitor. Rapturists are terrorists.

[Just Me]

8. Not everyone is into "vengeance"; not even the "rapturous".

I don't think they even THINK about the losses, the real losses, because they are not FED information or taught facts about current events. But, rather, they are FED what they get from their "preachers" and FAUX UNFAIR AND UNBALANCED. Those sources REINFORCE their need to END THEIR MISERABLE LIVES via a fiction of "the final war".

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

12. I don't think their lives are miserable.

Not yet.

I have seen nothing that suggests the Rapture-ready are living in poverty, or that they are more heavily impacted by the travails of life than any other group.

However, the number of Americans living in poverty has grown by a million in the last year alone. If things continue as they've been going, I agree that more of these end-timers will have more reasons to wish for Rapture.

But IMO they will interpret the growing misery as part of God's Plan. They live in a different universe, where cause is God and effect is godly. They are not force-fed this point of view, they crave it. They gorge on it. They eschew anything else. There is no convincing them they are suffering intellectual malnutrition any more than we can be convinced that we are dupes and pawns of the godless liberal agenda.

[AlphaCat]

9. Where has Bush said...

...that he believes in the rapture? I've got to read about this crap--I had no idea!

[nofurylike]

10. exactly. and just like the 29% who thought they were in the "top 1%,"

millions of them are sure they are in the "chosen" who will be raptured.

psychopathic.

and, yes, wishing vile suffering for all the rest of us, sociopathic.


peace

[gumby]

11. Excuse me, but...

Whenever life get you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough.
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite enu-hu-hu-huuuuff!
Just - re-member that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
and revolving at 900 miles an hour,.....

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
because there's bugger all down here on Earth.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/lyrics/62656//Galaxy_Song

[Tsiyu]

13. People are afraid of dying, actually

They want to believe they will live forever. But how?

Well, you have to be special to live forever.

God has to REALLY love you, which means you have to be REALLY good.

And then, when you are REALLY good for a long time, and you have to schlep around working and running errands like everyone else, and nobody likes you because you're obsessed with what sins everyone commits and you gossip about everyone's troubles, you have to find a reason for all that being REALLY good. You have to justify your need to pick everybody else's "sins" apart.

And it all boils down to your being special.

So you want the end to come so that everyone can see that YOU will live forever and they won't. Your fear of death is replaced by an obsession with the "afterlife."

You fail to live with integrity in this life, however.

(That's the way I view those acquaintances and relatives who are enraptured with the Rapture.)

bhg

[Withywindle]

14. Word.

I tried to read "Left Behind" and I just couldn't get through it, it was so offensive on every level (it didn't even work as pulp airport fiction, the writing was SO bad).

What gave me chills was the utter lack of compassion and empathy in it. Even among the people "left behind" it was so obviously and tastelessly divided into "sinners" and those with some hope, and the former group was just written off as less than human. And that included the usual suspects: sexually active single women, liberals, etcetera

Excuse me--I'm not even Christian, but I have read the Gospels, and IIRC, Jesus had a lot of things to say about people who set themselves up as more pious and superior to others.

That whole Rapture doctrine dates from the 19th century, BTW. I see no good reason to take it seriously even within the framework of Christianity. Personally, I think Jesus would puke at that version.

Imagine if the Rapture came and all the public housing projects and public and charity hospitals and po'folks' storefront churches and trailer parks emptied out. Imagine 10,000 people rising to Glory out of the Superdome in New Orleans. Imagine a Rapture that's all burned and maimed Iraqi and Afghani civilians.

Because if it had any Biblical basis at all (which it doesn't) that IS how it would be. That's who Jesus loved most. Grain of salt, I'm not a Christian, but that's what I believe.

[Tsiyu]

20. And Word Again

Yes, that is how it would be.

In Jesus' "Great Banquet" parable, there is this:

"Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame." Luke 14:21

If the bible is true, as fundies claim, what CAN this parable mean?

[H2O Man]

15. "How to acquire death

in the morning show.
TV death which the child absorbs.
Deathwell mystery which makes me write ....."
-- The World on Fire; James Douglas Morrison

[Skidmore]

16. It comes from feeling as though you have no control in this world

over your circumstances or events. The hope then becomes a better life once this world ceases to exist and a more perfect one created to your liking comes into existence. Christianity was always the religion of slaves--people who had no control and only the hope of a better afterlife or a world better than the one in which they existed. There is a historical context for this belief system.

[mitchum]

17. It's a COWARDLY suicidal desire...

from those who don't have the "guts" to end their miserable lives.
Therefore, they want their magical skygod to take EVERYONE out with them.

[Deja Q]

18. Not any more.

* peak oil
* overpopulation
* our core reliance on centralized corporate farms, turning every remaining acre into overpriced homes
* environmental problems
* greed (self before others)
* the amount of energy it takes to grow, harvest, transport, and store crops
* developing countries like China needing more and more oil.

A huge paradigm shift is about to occur.

We can either go for armageddon where everybody fairly gets the same treatment.

Or we can use the usual dog-eat-dog anti-christian stuff.

Either way, a point will come where the survivors will be far worse off than the dead.

[Hubert Flottz]

19. It's called SPUFFIT'S Disease!

When One's Face looks so much like their @$$, they don't know which way to turn! It's a VERY common GOP malady!