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Goodbye Jesus

Dealing With Fear Of The Rapture


KT45

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I'm just ranting right now. But for the most part I would like to say that this part of christianity scared me the most. Even more than hell. Probably because I can visualize and imagine this happening in real life rather than a pit with people burning in it.

 

I used to listen to Jack Van Impe and other preachers talk about the end times and the mark of the beast. A time where they would put microchips in you hand or your head that would represent the mark of the Beast so you could buy and sell stuff. Of all the prophecies this seemed the most likely to actually happen in the electronic age. And because of this as well as other things I decided to stay in christianity because this seemed so real. To back my fears even more was the Left Behind movies and a live plays that I saw where people acted out the end times (which was very nicely done). I had little comic books about it and everything. Also revelation was my favorite book to read. But anyway

 

Even though I'm out of christianity now this still scares me. I need to get over my fear. Oh and if people started put microchips in peoples bodies I wouldn't do it because chance the mark of the beast might be real.

 

Here is some stuff I found

180px-RFID_hand_1.jpg180px-RFID_hand_2.jpg

Implantable RFID chips designed for animal tagging are now being used in humans as well. An early experiment with RFID implants was conducted by British professor of cybernetics Kevin Warwick, who implanted a chip in his arm in 1998. Applied Digital Solutions proposes their chip's "unique under-the-skin format" as a solution to identity fraud, secure building access, computer access, storage of medical records, anti-kidnapping initiatives and a variety of law-enforcement applications. Combined with sensors to monitor body functions, the Digital Angel device could provide monitoring for patients. The Baja Beach Club [4] in Barcelona, Spain uses an implantable Verichip to identify their VIP customers, who in turn use it to pay for drinks [5]. The Mexico City police department has implanted approximately 170 of their police officers with the Verichip, to allow access to police databases and possibly track them in case of kidnapping.

 

All this just freaks me out!!!

 

Would you be in line if they were implanting microchips in peoples hands or foreheads?

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All this just freaks me out!!!

 

Would you be in line if they were implanting microchips in peoples hands or foreheads?

 

Depends on what for.

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All this just freaks me out!!!

 

Would you be in line if they were implanting microchips in peoples hands or foreheads?

 

Depends on what for.

 

Would you get the chip if.......

 

If the chip became the standard means of buying things instead of the credit card. It'd be more convinent since it could be used as a personal ID so you could do things like start your car, access personal accounts or open your doors and never worry about using things you could lose like keys, credit cards etc. It can also be used as a solution to identity fraud, secure building access, computer access, storage of medical records, anti-kidnapping initiatives and a variety of law-enforcement applications.

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All this just freaks me out!!!

 

Would you be in line if they were implanting microchips in peoples hands or foreheads?

 

 

Nope. But it has nothing to do with ye olde religion.

 

Think how scary getting mugged would be. Because if you think for one second that drug addicts and other desperate criminals will stop their nasty ways....think again.

 

Getting mugged could come to mean losing your hand.

 

Is your $$$ worth getting your hand chopped off by an amateur cutter? Don't think so.

 

I prefer my $$$ to be nicely detachable from my person without risking loss of limb.

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Oh my god, those Left Behind Books and movies...Some of the worst Literature and screen writing, EVER! I can't believe I, and anyone else, ever bought into that garbage. I sold my DVD's of the movies the Blockbuster and I still have the books collecting dust on the shelf.

 

Anyway, Taylor, I understand where you are coming from. This was a very real fear for me. Infact, I am still coping with it. It is so sad how Christianity uses fear to keep people ensnared. This is exactly what it is, fear tactics.

It is no big coincidence that the pastors and everything tell us that the computer chips are the Mark of the beast. Why? Because it is easy and convenient. If people getting tatoos was the mark of the beast they would say the samething...

 

Anywho, to make a long story short I would not want a computer chip under my skin. It would just make me feel really weird.

 

The only future that I truly dread coming to fruition is the one in Terminator. Now that is actually possible with the advances in Artificial Intelligence. It is a long way off but possibly possible.

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This picture was just too funny to pass up

1979.jpg

 

But anyway I plan on ranting on this until most of my fears subside. Can anyone tell me what the mark of the beast really was or how this prophecy doesn' t make any sense? Just want to personally resolve this fear.

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Would you get the chip if.......

 

If the chip became the standard means of buying things instead of the credit card. It'd be more convinent since it could be used as a personal ID so you could do things like start your car, access personal accounts or open your doors and never worry about using things you could lose like keys, credit cards etc. It can also be used as a solution to identity fraud, secure building access, computer access, storage of medical records, anti-kidnapping initiatives and a variety of law-enforcement applications.

 

Maybe. I don't know for sure right now. I'm a geek and a technophile but there are limits.

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story.braingate.jpg

 

Brain Chip http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/02/22/brain.gate/index.html

The device is a 4 by 4 millimeter arrangement of 100 electrodes. It is surgically implanted in the motor cortex, the part of the brain responsible for creating movement in the limbs.

 

The implanted chip connects to a small platform protruding from the patient's skull that is linked to an external processor.

 

If the system works as hoped, the chip detects and sends signals from the motor cortex to the processor, which interprets them and feeds them into a computer.

also look at http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/10/20/explore...gate/index.html

 

 

Hand Chips http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/

HSmall_VeriChip_Penny.widec.jpg

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that Applied Digital Solutions of Delray Beach, Fla., could market the VeriChip, an implantable computer chip about the size of a grain of rice, for medical purposes.

 

With the pinch of a syringe, the microchip is inserted under the skin in a procedure that takes less than 20 minutes and leaves no stitches. Silently and invisibly, the dormant chip stores a code that releases patient-specific information when a scanner passes over it.

 

The VeriChip itself contains no medical records, just codes that can be scanned, and revealed, in a doctor’s office or hospital. With that code, the health providers can unlock that portion of a secure database that holds that person’s medical information, including allergies and prior treatment. The electronic database, not the chip, would be updated with each medical visit.

 

Because the VeriChip is invisible, it’s also unclear how health care workers would know which unconscious patients to scan. Company officials say if the chip use becomes routine, scanning triceps for hidden chips would become second nature at hospitals.

 

Nope. But it has nothing to do with ye olde religion.

 

Think how scary getting mugged would be. Because if you think for one second that drug addicts and other desperate criminals will stop their nasty ways....think again.

 

Getting mugged could come to mean losing your hand.

 

Is your $$$ worth getting your hand chopped off by an amateur cutter? Don't think so.

 

I prefer my $$$ to be nicely detachable from my person without risking loss of limb.

Well there is always the forehead, but you probably wouldn't want to go that route either

:brutal_01:

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can anyone give me some brief explaination of the history of the book of revelations to clear my head of this brain washing?!

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It really worries me just thinking about how that chip techonology could be abused.

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I feel a little bit better about reading the mark of the beast stuff after reading this article. I'm think I'm almost fully over my fear now. Hmm... wasn't that hard after a little bit of study

 

Beast's real mark devalued to '616' http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11134

 

Where more conventional versions of the Bible give 666 as the "number of the beast," or the sign of the anti-Christ whose coming is predicted in the book's apocalyptic verses, the older version uses the Greek letters signifying 616

………

 

The book is thought to have been written by the disciple John and according to the King James Bible, the traditional translation of the passage reads: "Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

 

But Dr. Aitken said that translation was drawn from much later versions of the New Testament than the fragment found in Oxyrhynchus. "When we're talking about the early biblical texts, we're always talking about copies and they are copies made, at best, 150 to 200 years after [the original] was written," she said.

 

"They can have mistakes in the copying, changes for political or theological reasons ... it's like a detective story piecing it all together."

 

Dr. Aitken said, however, that scholars now believe the number in question has very little to do the devil. It was actually a complicated numerical riddle in Greek, meant to represent someone's name, she said.

 

"It's a number puzzle -- the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero."

 

Revelation was actually a thinly disguised political tract, with the names of those being criticized changed to numbers to protect the authors and early Christians from reprisals. "It's a very political document," Dr. Aitken said. "It's a critique of the politics and society of the Roman empire, but it's written in coded language and riddles."

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Hey man when i was christian i would brefly read a book about revelations. The author was christian but he believed the end times already happened as was prophecised. Like when it was written, it was written for events very near. I dont remember much now or the name of the book sorry, but heres a few leads. The author believed the 'beast' or 'antichrist' was some emporer called nemo. He also had a bunch of evidence including the currency of the roman empire and how NEMO actually =666. But i woudlnt take that as fact okay lol. I was 2 depressed to really take it all in at the time. But theirs a few leads. Emporer Nemo (could have been more then 1 nemo)

 

Fuk sorry its NERO not nemo

 

 

 

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=1006052900488

 

He was an emperor of Rome. He started the great fire of Rome and blamed it on the early Christians (or was it the Catholics?) so they would be persecuted. Also, his name written in either Latin or Greek resemble the letters 666. 666 is said to stand for the devil, but it actually just "stands" for Nero, whom destroyed about one fourth of Rome just so the Catholics could be persecuted.

 

 

AND HERE http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/666.htm

 

I havent read thru any of that tho lol got no time...its basically some shit about it...alternativwe view of revelations im guessing

 

 

Sorry man i just rememberd. apprently 666 si no longer number of the beast. It is actually translated as 616 BUT

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero

 

Alternative spellings of Nero include Neron which calculates to 666. The name Nero without the last n calculates to 616

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Thanks Matt!!! the more info the better. It's really helping me

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Pfft! As long as they put the chips in the left hand and somewhere in the back side of the head, the so called "prophecy" remains "unfulfilled". :scratch:

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you guys I would not recomend getting the chip after visiting a variety of websites(non-christian) and learning about mind control. you should do some research. i'm not just being paranoid-research alternative news websites just once please.

keep in mind that some of those prophecys could be true-I mean there are people who make true predictions. not saying that the prophecy makers were christian-but the stories have been changed throughout history to serve a christian agenda........okay I can't explain what i'm trying to say.

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........okay I can't explain what i'm trying to say.

:Duivel7::pureevil::Duivel7:

That's because they already have control over you and they won't let you explain yourself.

:Duivel7::pureevil::Duivel7:

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No problem. When i was a christian and read that book i was kinda hopin that it proved no hell. Dont remember what conclusion i made from it tho. If anyone has anymore input on it, its appreciated. By the way from what i recall the person who wrote revelations was infact not the diciple John a completely other John...Maybe you should look it up. Im not very resourceful im just going on what i remember from what i flicked thru. Kinda interesting tho...666=Nerom 616=Nero etc

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By the way from what i recall the person who wrote revelations was infact not the diciple John a completely other John...Maybe you should look it up. Im not very resourceful im just going on what i remember from what i flicked thru.

 

I found this information here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelations

 

Traditional views held that John the Apostle —

 

considered to have written the Gospel and epistles by the same name — was exiled on Patmos off the coast of southwest Turkey during the reign of Emperor Domitian, and that he wrote the Revelation there. Those in favor of a single common author point to similarities between the Gospel and Revelation. For example, both works are soteriological (e.g. referring to Jesus as a lamb) and possess a high christology (e.g. Jesus as "Lord of lords", God's son, etc.). What is most telling, however, is that only in the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse is Jesus referred to as "the Word of God" (Ő λογος του θεου).

 

Authorship - modern views

 

Although the traditional view still has many adherences, many modern scholars believe that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist, and John of Patmos refer to three separate individuals. Certain lines of evidence suggest that John of Patmos wrote only Revelation, not the Gospel of John or the Epistles of John. For one, the author of Revelation identifies himself as "John" several times, but the author of the Gospel of John never identifies himself directly. While both works liken Jesus to a lamb, they consistently use different words for lamb — the Gospel uses amno, Revelation uses arnion.

 

Lastly, the Gospel is written in nearly flawless Greek, but Revelation contains grammatical errors and stylistic abnormalities which indicate its author may not have been as familiar with the Greek language as the Gospel's author. Proponents of the single-author view explain these differences in various ways, including but not limited to factoring in underlying motifs and purposes, authorial target audience and the author's collaboration with and/or utilization of different scribes. A natural reading of the text would reveal that John is writing literally as he sees the vision (Rev 1:11; 10:4; 14:3; 19:9; 21:5) and that he is warned by an angel not to alter the text through a subsequent edit (Rev 22:18-19), in order to maintain the textual integrity of the book.

 

This information shows that the disciple John wrote revelations. So what I found isn't really comforting

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You can give numerical values to a few names and you can get 666.

 

"In English, another example is the case of Adolf Hitler, where numbering the letters A=100, B=101, etc, produces H+I+T+L+E+R=666. Another numerological candidate is Henry Kissinger. Letting A=6, B=12, C=18, etc, produces K+I+S+S+I+N+G+E+R=666. Many people can be proved to be the Antichrist using this method. For example, Jesus himself is the Antichrist by letting A=9, B=18, C=27, D=36, and so forth: J+E+S+U+S = 90 + 45 + 171 + 189 + 171 = 666. In fact, getting someone's name to add up to 666 involves solving a very simple linear diophantine equation."

 

If anyone has the mark of the beast, it would be my newborn baby cousin, born today :P

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You can give numerical values to a few names and you can get 666.

 

"In English, another example is the case of Adolf Hitler, where numbering the letters A=100, B=101, etc, produces H+I+T+L+E+R=666. Another numerological candidate is Henry Kissinger. Letting A=6, B=12, C=18, etc, produces K+I+S+S+I+N+G+E+R=666. Many people can be proved to be the Antichrist using this method. For example, Jesus himself is the Antichrist by letting A=9, B=18, C=27, D=36, and so forth: J+E+S+U+S = 90 + 45 + 171 + 189 + 171 = 666. In fact, getting someone's name to add up to 666 involves solving a very simple linear diophantine equation."

 

If anyone has the mark of the beast, it would be my newborn baby cousin, born today :P

 

Good find. But new documents show that the mark of the Beast is 616 not 666. Sorry your baby cousin will never be the antichrist.

 

EDIT-

 

Wait never mind I forgot that everyone here is an antichrist anyway. Since your little baby cousin hasn't believed in Jesus yet he is an antichrist!!!!

 

1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

 

2 John 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

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Well. I was born on June 6, 1966 - living through the first "Omen" release was real fun... :vent:

 

As far as the book of Revelation goes, according to Christian tradition, it was written by the Apostle John on the island of Patmos, (part of Greece). Though the aerliest copies of the book extant make it impossible for him to have written it.

 

The Catholic bible I have had a preface that it was written as resistance literature at a time when Christians were being persecuted and it was meant to encourage the community by telling them that Jesus would return and punish the sinners and reward the faithful. According to that bible (I was raised Catholic), it is *not* meant to be taken literally. (After all it depicts Christ as having a sword coming out of his mouth, along with other grotesque images.)

 

Personally, for anyone to have come up with those images, I think they had to be mentally unstable.

 

Folks have been predicting the "end times" since we've had "times" :scratch: they've all been wrong so far, and there's nothing for me to think they're right this time :wicked:

 

I've heard about how "all the signs are there". Okay... When was the last time there wre NO wars, NO earthquakes, NO violent storms, NO starvation, NO drought, and NO disease? With modern media, you just hear about it faster.

 

Hope this helped.

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Yeh Buzz. Pretty sure john the apostle didnt write it. I think Vortex pretty much got the context right around it being written. I might do a lil research on it for oright mate?

 

Protestant founder Martin Luther considered Revelation to be "neither apostolic nor prophetic" and stated that "Christ is neither taught nor known in it"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

 

 

 

In the 4th century, St. John Chrysostom and other bishops argued against including this book in the New Testament canon, chiefly because of the difficulties of interpreting it and the danger for abuse.

 

.....how right they were about the abuse bit.

 

Although the traditional view still has many adherents, many modern scholars believe that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist, and John of Patmos refer to three separate individuals. Certain lines of evidence suggest that John of Patmos wrote only Revelation, not the Gospel of John nor the Epistles of John. For one, the author of Revelation identifies himself as "John" several times, but the author of the Gospel of John never identifies himself directly. While both works liken Jesus to a lamb, they consistently use different words for lamb — the Gospel uses amno, Revelation uses arnion. Lastly, the Gospel is written in nearly flawless Greek, but Revelation contains grammatical errors and stylistic abnormalities which indicate its author may not have been as familiar with the Greek language as the Gospel's author. Proponents of the single-author view explain these differences in various ways, including but not limited to factoring in underlying motifs and purposes, authorial target audience and the author's collaboration with and/or utilization of different scribes. A natural reading of the text would reveal that John is writing literally as he sees the vision (Rev 1:11; 10:4; 14:3; 19:9; 21:5) and that he is warned by an angel not to alter the text through a subsequent edit (Rev 22:18-19), in order to maintain the textual integrity of the book.

 

Ill have another look later....

 

The Greek literary styles of John Patmos and John Apostle were examined in very early Christianity to prove these are two different writers. Eighteen hundred years ago, Dionysius (Bishop of the Patriarchy of Alexandria) stated that "Revelation" was not written by the same person who wrote John's Gospel and Letters. (Eusebius' History of the Church, 7.25) His opinion came from his comparing their two writing styles and found John Patmos to be entirely different from John Apostle and any other New Testament writer.

 

But now we should remember that "Revelation" was doubted in Eastern Christianity and not generally accepted into the New Testament until AD 508. Some ancient Christian branches still do not include it in their Bibles. Therefore discussion and criticism of "Revelation" is not a new and is not a disrespectful activity.

 

Those bits were from http://www.christian-community.org/library/revelheresy.html Im aware its a christian site and quite bias. But maybe their is some factual information in it. Wish somebody a lot more informed would write something also lol...I dont want to mislead ya or anything. Im doing pure 'googling'

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Pfft! As long as they put the chips in the left hand and somewhere in the back side of the head, the so called "prophecy" remains "unfulfilled". :scratch:

 

 

 

A lot of Christians also don't know that the hand and forehead is in Jewish Oral Law as well written as one of the 613 commandments. Of course the New Testament corrupts what the hand and forehead is suppose to mean, and turns this into the sign of the devil. Conspiracies exist that the church did this deliberately to create anti-Semitism.. It is said by some this is the case. I'll leave it up to the reader to decide.

 

Anyways, I'll just post this for informational purposes and also because I find it interesting, Searching out this stuff helped me immensely on my road to deconversion as I had no prior knowledge that these verses even existed or what they were suppose to mean.

 

I think there are a total of 4 verses in the first 5 books of the bible that talk about either the hand or the Forehead.. I'm not sure about this but if anyone wants to know for sure, I'll be happy to do the leg work. anyways.. I'll list one below and give the Jewish interpretations as to what they are suppose to mean.

 

"Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead."

Deuteronomy 6:8

Judaism 101

First, the Written Torah says in "Devarim" /Deuteronomy 5:8, "Bind them as a 'sign' on your hand, and as a 'totafot' between your eyes." What should be written? What kind of sign? What part of your hand (or is the hand not meant at all)? What in the world is a 'totafot?' Does the Torah mean literally 'between your eyes'? The Oral Torah explains that we have here references to the "Tefilin," the Phylacteries (that's a pretty non-helpful translation); anyway, black "boxes" made of hardened skin, containing parchments upon which are written verses, including the "Kriat Shema" Prayer, "Hear O Israel, the L-rd our G-d; the L-rd is One" ("Devarim"/Deuteronomy 6:4), worn on the biceps (opposite the heart ) and on the forehead (opposite the brain), to unite heart and mind in the Service of G-d.

 

 

 

Tefillin

Source

The Shema also commands us to bind the words to our hands and between our eyes. We do this by laying tefillin, that is, by binding to our arms and foreheads a leather pouch containing scrolls of Torah passages.

 

The word "tefillin" is usually translated "phylacteries", although we do not much care for that term, partly because it is not very enlightening if you do not already know what tefillin are, and partly because it means amulet, and suggests that tefillin are some kind of protective charm, which they clearly are not. On the contrary, the word "tefillin" is etymologically related to the word "tefillah" (prayer) and the root Pe-Lamed-Lamed (judgment).

 

Like the mezuzah, tefillin are meant to remind us of God's commandments. At weekday morning services, one case is tied to the arm, with the scrolls at the biceps and leather straps extending down the arm to the hand, then another case is tied to the head, with the case on the forehead and the straps hanging down over the shoulders. Appropriate blessings are recited during this process. The tefillin are customarily removed at the conclusion of the morning services, though they should be worn all day long.

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Well I just saw the movie the Omen today and I got reminded of something that scares me as well. One of the prophecies was that Jerusalem would come back. Before WWII no one thought that it would happen ever! But it did come back. Meh I don't know just still a little freaked out about it

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I definately agree with you, Vortex. Many people bitch n' moan about the modern days being the end times. "Oh no!! there are wars!! earthquakes!! ungodly behavior everywhere!" Yeah, show me a time in history when there has NOT been wars, earthquakes, and ungodly behavior.

 

This obsession with the endtimes reminds me of something from an old history class of mine. The subject regarded the rise of Imperialism in Japan. Basically, during the 1800's, Japan tried to modernize itself, and even begain moving away from Shintoism, and mostly abolishing the fuedal system. Problem was, after the great depression (yes, they were affected by it) people started to romanticise the "old days", when the emporer was worshiped like a god, and the feudal system was in. "Things were "better" then, there was no great depression then...Japan was strong!" This type of thinking resulted in Japan going back to the old, corrupt system that it had tried to abolish.

 

The moral of the story is, people have a nasty tendancy to romantasize the past; The whole idea that the world is getting worse has been so ingrained into our heads. How many sci-fi movies/stories show a really positive future? Yeah, Star Trek. Thats about it.

 

"back in the bible days, the world was better! people were moral and just! they obeyed god!

Yeah fucking right. You really wanna live in Europe 500 BC? Where superstition is rampant? Where at least half of all children never make it to adulthood? Where only the wealthy/clergy are literate? Where your life is absolutely worthless to every vicious warlord who goes on a killing spree?

Hell, in some parts of the world, its STILL like that.

 

"OOO, the 50's were sooo much better, there were wholesome family values. kids respected their elders. There was no teenage promiscuity"

 

The whole 50's perfection crap only appeared on TV and movies. And we all know how utterly realistic TV and movies are. In the 50's, racial minorites where viewed as slightly above dogshit. Husbands could abuse thier wives and kids without worry of legal action. The disabled were hidden away like mutants. And only upper middle class white kids had any chance of going to college.

 

The End times stem from the gloryfication of the past. And if you think about it, the past isn't really that great.

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