And the sooner they all get taken up and crash into each other mid-air, the better: 

For the first time in my Christian walk, I have no doubts that the day of the Lords appearing is upon us. I have never felt this way before, I have a joy that bubbles up every-time I think of him, for I know this is truly the time I have waited for so long. Am I alone in feeling guilty about the human suffering like my joy at his appearing some how fuels the evil I see everywhere. If it were not for the souls that hang in the balance and the horror that stalks man daily on this earth, my joy would be complete.
For those of us who await his arrival know, somehow we just know it won’t be long now, the Bridegroom cometh rather (sic) man is ready are not.

Thanks, I think, to ***Dave and Stupid Evil Bastard for the heads up. As ***Dave says, ”

Yeah, a shame about all that collateral
suffering — but, glee! Disgusting.

(wonder if that little PvP link macro still works on that one particular word? We’ll see!) The “Raptor Ready” (intentional mis-spellings are our friends) site recently got a lot of attention in the “mainstream media,” with cites in Time and so forth. Apparently, up to 40% of Americans actually believe that “saved” Christians will be beamed up to heaven so they don’t have to stick around for the Big Bad End of the World before Jeebus comes back and kicks some ass.
They quote chapter and verse from all over the Bible (Hebrew and New Testament) in support of their view that the allegorical events in the Revelation of John will actually happen just as described. Thus, they are really taking literalism to extremes. Here’s what Thomas Paine had to say about the matter in The Age of Reason:

CHAPTER IX – IN WHAT THE TRUE REVELATION CONSISTS.

BUT some perhaps will say — Are we to have no word of God — no revelation? I answer yes. There is a Word of God; there is a revelation.

THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man.

Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable of being used as the means of unchangeable and universal information. The idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as they say, the glad tidings to all nations, from one end of the earth unto the other, is consistent only with the ignorance of those who know nothing of the extent of the world, and who believed, as those world-saviours believed, and continued to believe for several centuries, (and that in contradiction to the discoveries of
philosophers and the experience of navigators,) that the earth was flat like a trencher; and that a man might walk to the end of it.

But how was Jesus Christ to make anything known to all nations? He could speak but one language, which was Hebrew; and there are in the world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two nations speak the same language, or understand each other; and as to translations, every man who knows anything of languages, knows that it is impossible to translate from one language into another, not only without losing a great part of the original, but frequently of mistaking the sense; and besides all this, the art of printing
was wholly unknown at the time Christ lived.

It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any end be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end cannot be accomplished. It is in this that the difference between finite and infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man frequently fails in accomplishing his end, from a natural inability of the power to the purpose; and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply power properly. But it is impossible for infinite power and wisdom to fail as man faileth. The means it useth are always
equal to the end: but human language, more especially as there is not an universal language, is incapable of being used as an universal means of unchangeable and uniform information; and therefore it is not the means that God useth in manifesting himself universally to man.

It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth
to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God. Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible Whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding
that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the scripture, which any human hand might make, but the scripture called the Creation.

I disagree with Paine on his views regarding Christ elsewhere in the essay, but I agree wholeheartedly that no text written, translated, or preserved from the distant past to this day can possibly free of error, misinterpretation, or deliberate mishandling in order to support one or another point of dogma. Which makes it kind of interesting reading the “Events Speeding Up?” thread, because it seems to be a feature of Rapt believers that they pull in verses from just about anywhere in the Bible to
support their belief. Including any verse from, say, “Song of Solomon” that says anything like “Arise, my beloved.” Not to mention the stuff about the perfect red heifer that must be sacrificed, burned, and the ashes used to set the cornerstones of the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem. Which to a believer (either Jewish or Christian) is a very important, puzzling, but essential point – but anyone else will think it smacks a little
too much of

Raiders of the Lost Ark
.