Sheesh. What difference would it make? How many people are so fucking stupid that if all the Buddhists in the world disappeared, they wouldn’t connect it to Buddhism without the further evidence of a flying statue?
And just by the way, having some 2 billion people suddenly and permanently disappear is more than enough “fancy” for any OP.
The Rapture exists in our popular culture, but outside the U.S., how widespread is the culture of “The Rapture”? Even if a large percentage of Americans left here decided to become Christian…that really wouldn’t be a large percentage of people overall, would it?
Agreed, which is why I didn’t muddy the waters with extraneous detail that would take away from the purpose of the OP.
I think that might depend on how much of the internet, TV, news media etc. still works.
So what? It doesn’t have to be the first thing they think of. But if there is any kind of mass communication left, it wouldn’t take long before that’s all anyone was talking about.
According to reports I’ve read, when Clinton was first told that a plane had hit the WTC, the first thing he said was “Bin Laden.” When Bush was first told that a plane had hit the WTC, the first thing he said was, “That’s one bad pilot.”
To be honest, I would have been closer to Bush than to Clinton on that particular IQ test. But I sure heard a lot about Bin Laden shortly after that.
Are you fucking kidding me? After you just responded to my post about how I thought people would convert if something similar happened with Buddhists, that wasn’t even predicted?
What you wrote wasn’t similar, was it?
You’d think the giant flying Buddha sucking up Buddhists would be a big tell as to what was happening, as opposed to what I described in the OP…but what do I know about accurate comparisons, right?
To me, all the Christians disappearing would seem to disincentivize converting to Christianity. Sure, maybe some people in Christian cultures would think everyone went to heaven, but from the outside? Maybe a handful of cults would spring up, but largely “converting to Christianity” would seem kind of suicidal.
I mean, everybody who meets a certain description suddenly and terrifyingly disappears with no trace or explanation. And you want to join these people? From the perspective of a culture that doesn’t buy the Christian afterlife, they basically just died. It seems somewhat loony from my perspective to suddenly convert, it feels more like “I want to commit suicide” than “I want to be raptured”.
Well, there’s your problem. THERE IS NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE. Who cares whether they disappeared into the sky, or simply disappeared? And who cares whether the statue of Jesus overlooking Rio went with them? The miracle is the people disappearing; anything else is insignificant by comparison. If it’s every Christian, and only Christians, what kind of dunce needs a statue of Jesus to drive home the point? It makes for a better visual, sure, but it would make no difference to any intelligent person’s reaction to the news.
You apparently don’t think two billion people disappearing, all of them professed Christians, is a tell. You apparently think that people will yawn when a third of the world’s population, including something like three of every four Americans, disappears, because if they weren’t seen to go up into the sky, then big deal. And you apparently think that they will just consider it a coincidence that they’re all (professed) Christians.
Your position truly defies belief.
And your description of my position defies what I have actually written in this thread. Whatever.
I’m really unsure what you wanted from this thread, Czarcasm - if you just wanted to explore the impact of the sudden nonexistence of Christianity, it might have been better to frame the scenario as being of known cause - something like mind-reading aliens appearing in orbit and announcing that they will painlessly and instantaneously disintigrate everyone who fits the criteria, then doing it.
That way, Christianity is gone, but it’s obviously not the Rapture.
I didn’t think something that simplistic was necessary, and I’m not sure your solution would dispel some from believing that GOD used aliens to bring his chosen people to Heaven because, after all, only those that professed to be Christian were taken…which means aliens=angels. Or something.
Next time, though, I’ll probably take your advice.
True, but you can always explicitly rule this out by stating “…and for whatever reason, the world does not significantly consider this to have been the Rapture” or something - and still explore, unpolluted, the bit you’re really interested in.
My, what a bizarre and twisted idea of Christianity you have. This is like five different kinds of wrong. But, hey, wrong thread for that.
IMO, only the dumber members of such a culture would hold that belief for very long, i.e. as long as it took to confirm that everything in the OP really happened. I don’t buy the Christian afterlife, but as I said before, I would have to admit I was wrong.
There is no natural explanation for what happens in the OP, so no matter what you believed before, you now have to believe in the supernatural, and with all due respect to Czarcasm’s opinion, only an idiot would fail to “jump to the conclusion” that the supernatural events were inextricably linked to the Christian faith.
I guess you could assume that something bad happened to them, but why would you, when their Bible predicts something very similar, that’s very good for them? It would be a different premise if they were all burnt to cinders, or melted like candles, but if they are just gone, you would have to be an EXTREME skeptic to not conclude that it was the rapture.
Here is what it says in 1 Thessalonians 4 (KJV):
Nothing in that contradicts the OP. It doesn’t say where the Lord descends or how loud he shouts, so either it happened at a remote spot, or a spot where only Christians were around, and they’re no longer here to ask.
As for the dead in Christ, it doesn’t say the graves will open, so it’s apparently just their souls, so of course we didn’t see that.
Then it says the living will be caught up, but it doesn’t say how fast, so maybe it just took a millisecond, and nobody saw the ascents.
So you don’t have to work very hard to make it all fit. And as I said before, even if something didn’t fit, it’s still much easier to believe that there’s an error in the text than that there is a natural explanation for two billion people suddenly disappearing.
It all happened peacefully. There isn’t anything terrifying about the disappearance except that they are no longer there.
It coincides with religious beliefs about being taken up whole into heaven. So it would be natural to take this as proof of the existence of god since Czarcasm left no room for a rational explanation.
It’s the best proof of miracles anyone has had and it happened on a scale that can’t be ignored. Other explanations are less logical. The power of Christ compels you.
Matthew 12:31: Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
Argue with him. He says there is only one exception, and it doesn’t have much to do with being an asshole.
Judging from what you’ve written in some of your other posts, you seem to feel the United States is the source of most of the world’s problems and our absence would make the world a more peaceful place. I disagree with that assessment and I believe that the threat of American intervention is a major factor preventing some wars. Remove America from the picture and those wars become much more likely.
The US is the cause of many of the world’s problems, more than its fair share actually, but I wouldn’t say most. I am not convinced, however, that removal of the US makes wars more likely, but that’s a topic for a different thread.
Don’t get me wrong, the devastation of the US caused by the OP’s premise would be a very bad thing. A significant portion of the world would be thrust into economic and financial chaos because of it. Everyone would have a share of the pain, but it should surprise no one that in its midst there would be large pockets of jubilation around the world.
It is definitely not a fait-accompli that the world would be a more ‘peaceful’ place without the US, but I think it is well within the realm of possibility.
In the formerly Christian-majority countries, there would be overwhelming conversion among the atheists, and somewhat less overwhelming conversion among those of other faiths. I think in other parts of the world you’d see at least enough conversion to cause religious strife where previously there had been none: if 15% of Saudis now want to go to church every week, there’s going to be some civil unrest. There might be a new spate of religious wars as some countries/regions convert more fully than others, while the issue of faith in general is much more vital and urgent.
(And there *would *be mass conversion: most people are atheists precisely because this type of thing doesn’t happen.)
Except - there are no ‘Christians’ left to espouse this viewpoint - and many other religions have been ‘praying’ for their god to get rid of the oppressors - so - those that are left behind would (or at least could) see this as victory for their ‘god’.
Just because we don’t understand or know the ‘explanation’ does not mean that a rational explanation does not exist.
VarlosZ - As for atheists - they would continue to search (by and large) for a logical reason that the event happened - as the event itself is not proof of or even evidence for the supernatural.
Now - if a test was performed where a person left behind professed conversion to Christianity - and they suddenly disappeared - what would that ‘prove’?
Nothing at all - as you are still left with the question -
‘Which side took them because they professed it?’ (which in and of itself, is a false dichotomy, as there are countless other possibilities as for the disappearance - could be aliens that liked the historical records and just decided these sheep are the best slaves or most tasty or easily persuaded to believe in nonsense, or best dressed, the 2 white mice ended that aspect of the simulation, theres a glitch in the program, or or or )
and without evidence, you can argue with faith that either side did it, and be just as right as you are right now - which is not right at all.