the Rapture Index currently stands at 144
That’s just one point below the critical threshold. One point from the second coming. And when that’ll happen:
[A]ll “true believers” will be lifted out of their clothes and wafted up to heaven […] Not only do the worthy get to sit at the right hand of God, but they will be able to watch, from the best seats, their political and religious opponents being devoured by boils, sores, locusts and frogs, during the seven years of Tribulation which follow.
Pollsters estimate that 15-18% of US voters belong to churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings; a survey in 1999 suggests that this figure means 33% of the Republicans.
The teachings, by the way, are a “fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative.”
The rapture only occurs when certain conditions are met: when Israel has been established as a state; when Israel then occupies the rest of its “biblical lands;” when the third temple has been rebuilt on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosques; and, then, when legions of the Antichrist attack Israel. This will trigger a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon during which all the Jews who have not converted will be burned. Then the Messiah returns to earth. The Rapture occurs once the big battle begins.
And that’s why so many Americans continue to declare their solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and back up their support financially.
Bush’s Middle East policy is driven by US Christian fundamentalists.
[x]#777 fan vrijdag 17 september 2004 @ 23:48:56
