If there’s disco, you ain’t in heaven…
Disco is life*
Jesus is life
Jesus is in Heaven
Ergo, there is disco in Heaven.
- Thus spake Tony P.
But according to Jack Chick, The Roman Catholic Church IS the Whore of Babylon
FWIW, this tract inspired me to start this thread in GD.
You see, that’s one key difference between us. Years ago, I deeply, passionately and, I thought, permanently loved a gentleman who was as devout a Catholic as I am an Episcopalian. When I realized he loved me, I never thought anyone would love me, let alone want to marry me. Yet, I had enough integrity and faith to know that much as he meant to me, despite all the romantic twaddle we said and meant, even if he meant the world to me, I could not and would not give up my faith for him, or even the surface appearance of my faith. Also, if he had expected me to, lonely as I was before I loved him, and much as I did, genuinely love him, that would have ended the relationship. I know what priority God takes in my life.
Here’s another key difference. I can understand wanting to be taken from the care and toil of my life into an eternity of pure joy, bliss and, most importantly, the presence, no make that Presence of God. The regulars around here know my history. I’ve battled clinical depression all my life, and I’ve felt overwhelmed and wished for things to end more than once. The key difference between us, vanilla, and the reason I completely and utterly reject rapture theology, is my fantasies about being pulled out of the struggle and strife of this mortal world into perpetual joy does not have built into it the suffering of billions of others. I’m sure you are focused on the joy and bliss you as a good Christian will experience when you are taken into a world in which there is no more loneliness, fear, or hatred, and frankly, from what I know of your life, I don’t blame you. What I blame you for is your callousness and the way you would deny the very things you long for to those who don’t have the privilege of being like you.
What it looks like is it’s ok for you to deny your faith for the most superficial of reasons because you’ll still get into heaven because you’re a Christian, while those who have genuinely sought, and there are those who genuinely seek and do not find Christ – I know some in real life – are condemned to unspeakable suffering while you enjoy immeasurable bliss. Do you have any idea how hypocritical that looks?
CJ
Seriously?
So you are saying God takes the highest priority in your life and He doesn’t in mine?
That was one point of my life, I made a mistake, obviously you’ve never made any mistakes to speak like that about my faith.
It isn’t my choice to deny people Heaven, God makes that choice. SOme people WILL be denied. I have nothing to do with that.
Without the rapture, it would still be that way.
Like I said, God made the rules, not I.
I’m telling you what it looks like to an outsider, someone who hasn’t lived your life and faced your decisions. Some of those outsiders are atheists, and, whether you like it or not, the actions you’ve admitted to and the way you’ve admitted to them don’t look that good.
Sure, I’ve made mistakes. I’ve made tons of them, and, because I am a fallible human being, I’m sure I’ll make a bunch more in the future. Right now, I’ll settle for singing the alto line in Faure’s Requiem at church tomorrow night without getting any notes wrong, and I’m not sure I’ll pull that off! (O Lord, forgive me, for I should have practiced more. I confess I have sinned against Thee by what I have sung, and what I have not sung. That’s only half-joking by the way.)
Because I have made so many mistakes, I am dependent on, aware of, and focused on God’s mercy, not His judgement. Under the law of judgement, I have no righteousness within me, and I deserve to be condemned to the torments of hell, along with the worst of sinners. Under the law of mercy, perhaps I stand a chance. God has not given me your certainty. Then again, from what I’ve seen of those who have that gift, I’m not sure it’s one I want.
CJ
Hey hey, none of that 1928 stuff now. We’re in the new age. 
In all truthfullness, we’d like to see atheists understand, appreciate and adopt God’s love as their own. Which do you think an atheist would choose: someone telling them they’re damned to hell unless they accept Jesus right now, or someone else inviting them to come join a community and be a part of something wonderful? Jack, and the Rapture, are exclusive where only the elect get the prize. Hope is not apparent for those who don’t belong, which Vanilla is jumping up and down and saying “That’s my point!” The problem is that such an attitude is exclusionary to the point of running off those who need to hear it the most.
This past Sunday, we heard the Gospel reading from Luke 19:1-10, or the story of Zaccheus. It is one not read very often because of the way the Episcopal Church plans out biblical readings. The short version is that Jesus asks to stay the night at Zaccheus’ house - Zaccheus is a corrupt tax collector, making him an abject sinner. Instead of Jesus lecturing Zaccheus about what a horrible person he is and he needs to get his life straight, Zaccheus repents in the simple presence of Jesus. No lecture, no harangue, no hellfire. Just a simple, graceful Presence.
Vlad/Igor
I’ve never lectured anyone, nor told anyone theyre going to Hell.
You might also want to check out post 88 in this thread where this exchange took place:
There are also some things you said in this GD thread about the fate of non-Christians, although in the end you admitted you don’t know. You haven’t condemned anyone by name, and the only group I’ve seen you condemn at times are non-Christians, but nevertheless, you appear to be firmly convinced that some people will suffer unspeakable torment in hell for all eternity and that is just because it is God’s will.
Look, vanilla, I don’t expect you to give up your faith in rapture theology, and I wouldn’t want you to do so if it were at the expense of your Christian faith. Frankly, I don’t even expect you to acknowledge the cruelty and injustice in it. What I am doing, what I believe God expects me to do is to counter that horrendous set of beliefs with everything I’ve got in the hope that I might undo some of the damage it has done and expose it for the cruel, merciless lie I believe it is, just as you apparently feel compelled to proclaim it as truth.
Vlad/Igor, I was thinking of the story of Zacchaeus and this thread as well. There was one thing you omitted, though. The respectable people of the time didn’t exactly approve of Jesus going to stay with such a sinner. After all, didn’t the Messiah come for the respectable and Saved people? (The full story can be found here, in Luke 19.) As for the confession, come on, give me credit – I was working from memory at lunchtime.
Now for dinner!
CJ
So…God exists, but he won’t allow any evidence, we just have to have faith based on what other people and some archaic book (of which there are no original copies) tell us. THEN he’s gonna pull all the people who just so happen to have been taught the “one true” faith into the air and start a holy war, AND he’s gonna make all the rest of us deluded into thinking something else is happening so we don’t even have a chance when finally presented with conclusive evidence!!! Because then who would all the happy flying people have to kill and make suffer?
Apologies, but this particular God is a motherFUCKER!!!
Touche. That was in the sermon on Sunday, and I forgot it.
Vlad/Igor
From what I understand, God gave these people enough chances.
Also, He doesn’t start the holy war, nor do flying people kill anyone, christians are killed.
Yep. When they were handing out Deities, our Universe was out back taking a whizz.
The Porn Planet, on the other hand, was first in line.
vanilla: You say you love God, but that he’s going to do terrible, awful things to people who are neither violent nor particularly bad in any other way. You say his law is just and merciful when it is clearly neither. There is nothing to justify your love for someone who is, by your own account, a violent and vengeful murderer.
You will, no doubt, say that love does not need justification. However, some relationships are basically unhealthy, and it sounds like yours is one of them. Anyone who loved a person with such attributes would do well to seek mental help, or at least to get away from the other person before he kills her as well.
Don’t think for one minute that the gospel is popular.
People don’t want to hear it.
It must be modified to some mushy everyone is saved garbage.
Its like a child you yells Unfair! wheneve rhe is punished rightfully.
If I were preaching mercy I would be popular, anyone who preaches truth is vilified, we all know that on this board.
So I should thank you; you don’t like what I’m saying, I must be doing it right.
vanilla --take a look at THIS.
Give it some thought.
I would like to express my regrets for that post.
It is off topic.
Are we moving into Great Debates territory? 
This is what I don’t understand, what I’ve never understood. Vanilla, if you can make sense of it to me, I’d appreciate it. I’m HONESTLY asking, because I’ve had not so much a crisis of faith recently as a big pool of faith in my heart and nowhere to put it. I’m not shopping for a religion, but I do have a very nice relationship with God (he comes over on Friday evenings, I make him chicken fried rice, we talk. :p)
On the basis of nothing more than a book written two thousand years ago, we are to believe in a deity who has no actual proof of his existence other than the writings of men translated, retranslated, argued, and fractured like a broken mirror into numerous splinter groups believing that a man who was God incarnate walked the world and died for our sins. It’s a very beautiful story, but a person who runs across it has no reason to believe that it’s true apart from “We say so.”
It is said that a person who is exposed to the Word and rejects it has rejected the afterlife and will suffer a gruesome fate after they die. But what makes the Word from Christians any different from Hindu theology, from Shintoism, from Wicca? You say it’s true, and that you have faith in it, but why would someone who’d never heard of your God convert? The only thing I can think of is that the Word has some sort of supernatural pull to it, that if it’s the big-T-Truth it speaks to something deep within the person who hears about it. That they hear God.
So why are we not all Christian? I realize this may be a muddled argument, but bear with me. Why Christianity? What can you give me to tell me that this is the true way apart from ‘we have a book that says so’? The Mormons have a book. The Communists had a nice little red one. The Scientologists have a book. Why is the Bible more valid than theirs unless you take as assumed truth what is within?
And on reflection, that probably should go into GD…
I’m not persecuting you for preaching the gospel; I’m persecuting you for preaching the rapture. The two are two entirely different things in my book. Among other things, to me, rapture theology directly violates the Commandment Christ gave us, “love your neighbor as yourself” and doesn’t work well with “what you do for the least of My people, so you do also for Me” since, under rapture theology, the least of Christ’s people gets condemned to an eternity of suffering. Of course, I define “Christ’s people” as “all people” while I gather those who embrace rapture theology use a different definition.
Vanilla, please, stop for a few minutes and think. Remember what happened the last time you directly accused me of watering down the Gospel and seeking popularity. I may be obligated by my Christian faith to love my neighbor, but I am not obligated to be friends with her. Right now, if you continue what you’re doing, you will not enjoy what it does to our friendship. I have told you what I believe and what I must do out of faith which is every bit as strong and sure as yours is. I’ve even cited Scripture to show you why I believe these things. I have also not reviled you, made fun of you, or been cruel to you, although I have reviled rapture theology. Please, consider your actions.
I know rapture theology is a promise of hope, joy, and wonderous blessings to you, and I am glad there is something that brings you hope and joy. I know you have a tough life. Unfortunately, I cannot help being aware that the same belief which promises hope, joy, and life to you promises death, despair, and destruction to others. That is why I oppose rapture theology, even though I support “with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind” the Gospel and my belief in Jesus Christ. You told me earlier if I don’t like rapture theology to “take it up with God.” I have done so many times since I first heard of it. He’s aware of my views, and if I’m wrong, He knows I’ll accept the consequences, even if those consequences include an eternity spent suffering in hell, instead of the one I aspire to, one of bliss in heaven. He also knows that, if the rapture does happen, I swear by all I hold holy, by all the witnesses on this board, and by all the strength my mortal will can wield, I will not go, for, if the rapture happens, then all I believe God, Christ and the Holy Spirit to be is indeed a lie. Left Behind? No. If it comes to that, put me in the category of “Stayed Behind” for I will not worship any deity who would do such a thing to his people, regardless of what name he hangs on himself. If that means I’m not a Christian, then so be it.
Siege
Now maybe it’s just me, but the Rapture theory always struck me as cliqueish. It’s all about being exclusive and “It’s not who’s in, but who’s NOT in!”
One of my professors had a theory-that Christianity, as it began and as it was intended, was truly liberating with the downtrodden, and those who were being oppressed. But when it was adopted as the official religion of Rome, it became more about the higher ups, the status quo, the Haves vs. the Have Nots.
Go and read the Beattitudes. Blessed are those who show mercy; mercy shall be their’s.
And vanilla, people are not fucking persecuting you. That’s one thing that pisses me off about fundamentalism. When Jesus talked about persecution, he wasn’t talking about people disagreeing with you on a fucking message board. He was talking about being killed, maimed and tortured for your beliefs. Quite frankly, it’s fucking insulting to say that those who preach the rapture are being “persecuted.” And I’m not just talking about in Christ’s day, either. Look at Oscar Romero, for example. He preached MERCY and was killed for it!
Stop accusing people who have different beliefs of wanting to be “popular.” There are INDEED verses about showing love and mercy in the Bible. There is a long tradition of it! What about the Prayer of St. Francis?
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
While I am no longer a practicing Catholic, or really a Christian anymore, I still have a lot of the traditions and lessons from my upbringing as such.