The Stupid Thread

[pipistrelle]

Speaking of stupid, 'member when Barr dressed up like Hitler for a photoshoot?

► Show Spoiler

Details: https://forward.com/fast-forward/397835 ... -for-heeb/

I couldn't figure out how that was Bill Barr.

[Whatever4]

And this is why some Maine State Senator doesn't know what the Nazis did that was bad... stay in school kids.

Context matters.

This was in Maine, about Neo-Nazis. She was discussing a bill to ban paramilitary activity. Some groups have been seeking to set up camps for pseudomilitia training in these here woods.

https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 11#p255211

[Dave from down under]

Protection of
Paramilitary…
Including Nazis…

Welcome to the last days of the Weimar Republic

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

Jeep thinks it needs some independant off-road adventure

[raison de arizona]

Woman Tipped 2 Servers $1077 Because The Rapture Was Coming — Returned After The Eclipse To Demand Her Money Back
Ah yes, berating employees for your own mistake, just as Christ would have done…

A server and her co-workers have been left shaking their heads after a series of interactions with a Christian woman who was convinced the world was ending on April 8, 2024 — and who is now hoppin' mad and behaving in a most un-Christian fashion.

The woman is furious the eclipse wasn't the rapture and is demanding refunds for her generous tips.

Of course, we live in deeply stupid times in which some 25% of Americans literally believe that the world is run by a cabal of baby-eating Satanists led by Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey. So naturally, social media was full of conspiracy theories about the eclipse for weeks, all of them ridiculous, some hilariously bizarre.

But the Rapture theory seemed to have had the truest believers — like, for instance, a woman who came into a Redditor's restaurant over the weekend and tipped like the world was about to end… and is now blaming her servers for the fact that she was duped.

The woman tipped two servers nearly $1100 because she was convinced the eclipse was the Rapture.

He was so startled by the amount that he had a manager verify the tip because he didn't want "to take money from this delusional woman." She confirmed it and then promptly left. How quickly her story changed on April 9.

But it didn't seem to have occurred to this woman that she'd been duped. Instead, she thought it was the other way around and returned to accuse the servers of fraud and having "tampered" with the tips — which the server said was "literally impossible."

Aside from the fact that her manager verified the $777 tip, the restaurant physically hands a credit card machine to each customer so they can either select a default tip or opt out and enter a custom tip themselves. "That's exactly what she did," the server wrote.

That didn't satisfy the woman, of course. When a manager explained all this, "she stormed out angrily to her Mercedes," just as Christ would have done, of course.

https://www.yourtango.com/self/woman-ti ... se-rapture

[bill_g]

She raptured her savings apparently.

So, why does she think *she* was going to be raptured, and is she sure it didn't happen? Maybe it did, and she was left behind because she wasn't worthy.

[Suranis]

I've actually had to mention to a few people on facebook this week that most Christians don't believe in "the Rapture," at least in the sense of the "get out of Jail free before all the Tribulations happen prior to the World's End." It seems to be pretty much an American Evangelical thing and that's it. Most that believe in Christ scooping up the faithful say that it's when the world actually ends. The rest will die with the Earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture

Doctrinal position

A pretribulational rapture view is most commonly found among American Fundamentalist Baptists, Bible churches, Brethren churches, certain Methodist denominations, Pentecostals, non-denominational evangelicals, and various other evangelical groups.The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and Reformed denominations have no tradition of a preliminary return of Christ. The Eastern Orthodox Church, for example, favors the amillennial interpretation of prophetic Scriptures and thus rejects a preliminary, premillennial return. Most Methodists do not adhere to the dispensationalist view of the rapture.

So, uh, hiring people to take care of your Cat after you are raptured is a waste of money.

[keith]

Protection of
Paramilitary…
Including Nazis…

Welcome to the last days of the Weimar Republic

TV show Babylon Berlin makes a pretty good stab describing the last days of the Weimar.

[John Thomas8]

Protection of
Paramilitary…
Including Nazis…

Welcome to the last days of the Weimar Republic

TV show Babylon Berlin makes a pretty good stab describing the last days of the Weimar.

Tiktok is documenting the end of ours in real time.

[Sam the Centipede]

Woman Tipped 2 Servers $1077 Because The Rapture Was Coming — Returned After The Eclipse To Demand Her Money Back

I'm not an idiot so I don't have a deep understanding of Rapture crap: I get that these idiots believe that the faithful – which always includes themselves – will rise to a heaven, but what do they imagine will happen to those of us left behind in The Real World? Are we left alone, free to go about our business as before, just happily without those nutters, or is the post-rapture world imagined to be some sort of hellscape?

If it's the hellscape scenario then it's not much of a gift to give a huge tip, which can only be enjoyed in the next day or so.

Perhaps though, if we sane folk are to be left behind, the tip was originally generous, not that she believed that money had any future value for herself.

Anyway, better that her cash goes to people who will spend it on normal things than to a ranging pastor funding a gold-plated lifestyle.

Off Topic

I once asked a door-knocking Jehovah's Witness to describe their view of the Post-End Times world, and it seemed to be – as far as I understood it – that those blessed (cursed?) to be part of it would spend eternity singing the praises of their god. He seemed surprised when I said that sounded like a description of a perfectly calibrated hell, sitting in an eternal church service of dreary hymns and sanctimonious lectures.

[neonzx]

[bill_g]

Perfect!

[Suranis]

I'm not an idiot so I don't have a deep understanding of Rapture crap: I get that these idiots believe that the faithful – which always includes themselves – will rise to a heaven, but what do they imagine will happen to those of us left behind in The Real World? Are we left alone, free to go about our business as before, just happily without those nutters, or is the post-rapture world imagined to be some sort of hellscape?[/offtopic]

Firstly, if you have to tell people you are not an idiot, you probably are.

Anyway, to answer your question; The Period before the end of the world is generally seen as when, as described in Revelation, "The Beast" will be unchained and allowed rule the world as it sees fit. This will result in it persecuting Christians and other good people as the world falls apart under it's bad leadership. This is known as the time of Tribulation, traditionally regarded as lasting for 7 years.

The problem with this is that the evangelicals found it kinda scary and means that they will be on the wrong side of getting killed by what would be now termed Fascists. So they basically invented an out, interpreting some parts of the letters in the New Testament as saying that they, the only people to be "truly saved," will be raised from the dead and taken up to Heaven with the other alive saved Christians just before the Tribulations begin. And thus the persecution will only affect unsaved Christians and non Christian good people. It's an idea that only emerged in the early 1800s in the USA. Before that it was only a vague notion in some Puritan writings. A man called John Nelson Darby, in a book published in 1827, put it into a Wider Theological Framework and popularized the term Rapture.

Of course, Catholics and other people will ask why the heck would God save them when he didn't save his Son from being persecuted. But then we aren't Christians anyway.

[Rolodex]

I've actually had to mention to a few people on facebook this week that most Christians don't believe in "the Rapture," at least in the sense of the "get out of Jail free before all the Tribulations happen prior to the World's End." It seems to be pretty much an American Evangelical thing and that's it. Most that believe in Christ scooping up the faithful say that it's when the world actually ends. The rest will die with the Earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture

Doctrinal position

A pretribulational rapture view is most commonly found among American Fundamentalist Baptists, Bible churches, Brethren churches, certain Methodist denominations, Pentecostals, non-denominational evangelicals, and various other evangelical groups.The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and Reformed denominations have no tradition of a preliminary return of Christ. The Eastern Orthodox Church, for example, favors the amillennial interpretation of prophetic Scriptures and thus rejects a preliminary, premillennial return. Most Methodists do not adhere to the dispensationalist view of the rapture.

So, uh, hiring people to take care of your Cat after you are raptured is a waste of money.

It's not even a thing in the Bible. It's a misrepresentation of some stuff in Revelation that a guy in the 1830s or so decided was how things were going to work. A certain sect of Christians latched onto it (evangelicals, primarily) and it's stuck ever since.

[Suranis]

It's not even a thing in the Bible. It's a misrepresentation of some stuff in Revelation that a guy in the 1830s or so decided was how things were going to work. A certain sect of Christians latched onto it (evangelicals, primarily) and it's stuck ever since.

Its not Revelation as there is nothing like a pre-Tribilation Rapture in Revelation. Instead John Nelson Darby misinterpreted 2 passages, which have been the center of discussion ever since

1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 ASV
15According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord (παρουσίαν, parousia),[49] will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Matthew 24:37–40 ASV
37And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming (παρουσία, parousia)[50] of the Son of man. 38For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming (παρουσία parousia)[51] of the Son of man. 40Then shall two men be in the field; one is taken, and one is left. s something in Thessalonians, which wasn't even pretending to be prophetic work

As you can guess, there's nothing about the timing in that, and it's clearly not saying what they want it to say.

Which is why no-one outside the USA had heard or cared about the Rapture till the age of the Internet.

[Dave from down under]

[John Thomas8]

Those passages were written by folks that fully expected the events to occur while they were still alive, that they would be saved by this rapturing.

And the scam has been continuing ever since.

[neonzx]

I've seen all the Left Behind movies starring Kirk Cameron he is a terrible actor but the movies arel funny stupid.
Saw the Nicholas Cage Left Behind movie too it's not as preachy as Kirk's movies.

[Foggy]

We have to remember that the Bible was written by people so primitive, they didn't even have toilet paper. We just know a lot more about the Earth and the Universe than those folks did.

[Sam the Centipede]

We have to remember that the Bible was written by people so primitive, they didn't even have toilet paper. We just know a lot more about the Earth and the Universe than those folks did.

But the big chap revised the patchy and pedestrian first edition of My Big Holey Book about 2000 years ago and lots of people (especially in the Roman Empire) started using the second edition, although many continued to use the first edition. About 600 years later the third edition was produced and some people started using that, but many people continued with the first and second editions. Adherents of all three editions of My Big Holey Book disagree (often violently) about which is best.

A special variation of the third edition with many bonus texts was produced in 1830 but is not popular due to the parochial nature of its stories.

No date has been released yet for the fourth edition. Perhaps it will include science, phones and indoor plumbing?

[Foggy]

My KJV is a beautifully written work of art. I just don't believe it is an accurate description of reality. But it influenced my family for countless generations, mostly (I think) for the better. My father's faith is undeniably strong, and he uses it only for good.

I wonder, when we have true Artificial Intelligences, who can make their own choices and decisions and think for themselves, what religion will they choose? Or will they invent one of their own?

[pipistrelle]

I wonder, when we have true Artificial Intelligences, who can make their own choices and decisions and think for themselves, what religion will they choose? Or will they invent one of their own?

Clearly you've never seen Star Trek, Doctor Who, or 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[Suranis]

Personally, I think the overall message was "don't worry about the future, deal with what's going on right here and now, and let the future take care of itself."

Arguing about what might happen at the end of the World is just an excuse to avoid dealing with what's going on right now. Jesus flat out said not to believe anyone who says where and when it will happen, as when it DOES happen it will be totally out of the blue.

The Sun could stop shining, and we wouldn't know anything about it for 8 minutes.

Thing is, when you actually study old cultures, you find they are very, very intelligent people. They performed fantastic feats of Mathematics, Astronomy and Engineering without the aid of Computers. But people prefer to sneer and think people thought the Earth was flat therefore they idiots and me smert.

Surprisingly, around the same time as this guy was making up the Rapture, Atheists were making up the lie that people thought the Earth was flat in the Middle ages, and Columbus was a Hero. There must have been a lot of lying in the air in the first half of the 19th century.

[pipistrelle]

Later 19th century (Victorian) was weird in many ways too (also).