I dunno why my posts to this thread keep coming up unposted – maybe the hamsters are protecting some Secret of the Universe that only they know that my random thoughts are inadvertently giving clues to!
Anyway:
Clair, I have absolutely no intellectual reason for the presumption that an event that will be seen in hindsight as the Second Coming will occur soon, aside from a few random hunches about the who, what, how, and when that may not be borne out by events.
However, I base my thinking on an emotional, non-rational feeling that social events are gradually moving towards a eucatastrophe, and accelerating that movement. And on the conviction, which I’ve had for nearly 40 years, that just as every sincere and learned Jew could cite numerous reasons why that itinerant rabbi who tried to refocus the Law with a humanist perspective and got executed by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish leaders for his heresies could not possibly be the promised Messiah, yet every evangelical Christian can give you proof positive that His coming was prophesied a hundred places in the Jewish Bible, so the events that will be seen as fulfilling the prophecies of the Second Coming will be seen by a lot of sincere Christians as having nothing to do with His return, but rather as just another heresy, and a particularly abominable one in their eyes.
But that’s discount theology, the kind you can get at a markdown at Wal-Mart.
SDMB Historians, make a note. Polycarp and I disagree on something. I don’t believe the Second Coming will occur during my lifetime, but then again, I may have spent a bit too much time on Y2K work a couple of years ago. What we agree on is whether we expect to experience the Second Coming or not, the expectation should not affect the way we live our daily lives.
Getting back to the OP, regardless of what happens at the end, whether it’s Revelation or Ragnarok, we should get out of bed because there is still work to be done in this world. There are still hungry people who need to be fed and wounded people who need to be healed. There are even bus drivers, shop clerks, and waiters who need a smile and kind word. Having done my time in customer service, I can tell you that a smile from a customer can make a lot of difference on a bad day. I’ve said elsewhere that we’re given grace not so that we can brag about it, but so that we can quit worrying about it, get out in the world, and do something! Every time we encounter another human being, we have a chance to do God’s work. I can’t speak for Peepers, but I don’t encounter a lot of people lying in bed. Then again, maybe I’m in the wrong profession.
By the way, did anyone else hear the story about the stalls in one bathroom in a theological institute? It seems that the door on the last of four stalls was missing, so one day signs appeared above them reading, “1st John”, “2nd John”, “3rd John”, and “Revelation”.
Actually, CJ, something I posted on the last “Is Jesus Coming Soon” sort of thread said, in essence, that it doesn’t matter when – He said we wouldn’t know, and left strict instructions about what to be doing pending His return – the stuff you and I have been jumping up and down screaming and hollering are the duty and privilege of Christians to do instead of distributing Jack Chick tracts or publishing a novel series about the Rapture, or indicting theologians for heresy.
But I wanted a platform for the idea that maybe, just maybe, just as the Messiah didn’t come as the expected war leader for the Jews to throw off Roman oppression and establish a Kingdom of Righteousness in the objective, external world last time, but rather as a humble teacher of the Way of overcoming by love, maybe the people who expect Him to do that stuff this time are equally out to lunch.
I don’t see it as that big a deal. Even without Revelation, we know that we’re all going to eventually die. Humanity as a species will not last forever. Neither will this planet.
If anything, Revelation adds hope to that fatalism. It says that, even though it’ll be bad for a while, Jesus will return and make things right. Dead people are even brought back to life for judgment, meaning even they have a chance to enjoy the better future outlined in the last two chapters.
Remember, Revelation does not have a downer ending.
Because getting up on time is important. We survived “the 2000s”. Get up whenever. Don’t hold it against the masses, though, they didn’t know what to do. Some of them are finally having their mad tea party. They’re like the citizens of Springfield. And the end times of revelation - we’ll catch millennial hysteria next time. Then again, maybe not.
This may be a zombie, but this thread is for SDMB Historians!
The answer I was leaning towards would be “because God will torture you if you don’t”; suicide is typically regarded as a sin in Christianity as I understand. So, the worldview I see from a lot of Christians boils down to “Life is nothing but suffering and misery, ending in apocalyptic disaster for all humanity. All hope is in what comes after life. But if you try to get there faster, you’ll burn forever! You have to suffer to make God happy, and if you try to skip out of your allotted ration, he’ll make sure you suffer infinitely worse for trying to cheat him!”