Posted on 03/06/2006 11:29:39 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
The last Freeper Research Project on Freeper personality types is currently being compiled and will be posted soon.
Meanwhile, we are embarking on a new survey to determine what Freepers believe is the end of all that there is.:
Teleology is the study of final causes, the end results.
Freepers’ answers will no doubt be strongly related to personal religious beliefs - but this is not a religion thread!
Here we are simply doing a survey of Freeper views on the subject.
Please consider the following list of beliefs and end time scenarios and then post which of them would apply to you, or if you believe something else - then please give a short description of what you believe.
If you spot an error in my definitions, please let me know.
Thank you so much for your participation in this survey!!!
Christianity (paraphrased from this webpage)
Historical Premillennialism: The Antichrist appears on earth before the seven year Tribulation begins. Rapture follows tribulation. Christ and his Church return to earth to rule for a Millennium. The forces of evil are conquered. The faithful live during the thousand years in Jerusalem, while occupying spiritual bodies. After the millennium, all people are judged and the faithful spend eternity on a new earth (not in heaven).
Dispensational Premillennialism: (a.k.a. Dispensationalism) The Tribulation precedes the second coming of Christ, and the subsequent establishment of the millennial kingdom -- a thousand-year golden age on Earth under the authority of Christ. Afterwards, in a brief, final battle, Satan is permanently conquered. The Final Judgment follows the millennium.
Pre-Tribulation Rapture: (or "pre-trib") The Rapture happens just before the Tribulation, so that believers will not have to experience any of its disruption and pain.
Post-tribulation Rapture: (or "post-trib") The faithful experience the full horrors of the entire Tribulation and are raptured only at the end of the 7 years.
Mid-Tribulation Rapture: (or "mid-trib") The Rapture happens 42 months into the Tribulation. Up to that time, the Antichrist brings peace to the world. After 42 months, events take a sudden turn for the worse.
Pre-wrath Rapture: That the church must experience most of the Tribulation, and then be raptured towards the end of the Tribulation period.
Partial Rapture: The faithful born-again believers are raptured just before the Tribulation. Newly born again believers are raptured during or at the end of the Tribulation.
Amillennialism: (Also known as Nonmillennialism). The Kingdom of God is present in the world today through the presence of the heavenly reign of Christ, the Bible, the Holy Spirit and Christianity. Both good and evil will continue in the world until the current Church Age ends suddenly as Christ returns to the sky above the earth. The Rapture follows. The Redeemed are transported to heaven where they will adopt spiritual bodies. The majority of humanity will be sent to Hell at this time for eternal punishment. The world will be abandoned. History is no more.
Amillennialism, Roman Catholic: These anticipate Jesus coming to Earth and gathering the Church together. But they generally do not use the term "rapture."
Postmillennialism: (Also known as "Christian Reconstruction", "Kingdom Now Theology" and "Dominion Theology.") These believe “that the kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit, that the world eventually is to be Christianized, and that the return of Christ will occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace, commonly called the millennium.”
Preterism is a belief that the events prophesized in the New Testament have already happened. The great war of Armageddon in the book of Revelation occurred in the late 60's and early 70's CE when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, many Jews were killed and the rest were driven from Palestine. When Jesus talked about the end of the world, he did not mean that the physical world would be no more.
No Millennialism: These interpret the contents of the books of Daniel and Revelation as having no prophetic information for our future.
Islam - On a day of reckoning, God will resurrect and judge the dead, send the righteous to heaven and the evil to hell. This will be preceded by a Muhammed-like holy warrior, the Mahdi (twelfth imam) – who defends Islam from the antiChrist, beasts, etc.
Buddhism - Buddha’s teachings will disappear and all will fall into ruin to be replaced by Maitreya and his teachings.
Hinduism All will fall into ruin followed by the appearance of an avatar (Kalki Avatar)
Atheism:
Cyclic The universe expands by strictly naturalistic means, collapses, and then expands again etc. Endless Expansion The universe never quits expanding but reaches maximum entropy killing everything anyway
So, I don't know where that puts me. I think a great deal of what we are expecting may take place on two levels, spiritual and in th flesh.
Thank you for sharing your views!
Historic Premil with leanings toward prewrath rapture position.
Cap Huff
I had a different option:
Big Trinidadian Crunch: The universe expands by strictly naturalistic means and then collapses when the mother of the bride destroys the universe because the caterer has badly buggered the wedding by serving nothing but garlic bread and home fries.
You're welcome.
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-- William Ernest Henley
And This one...sums it up.
I Am Not Dead
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow;
I am diamond glints of snow;
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush;
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds encircled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.
Source unknown
You left Deism off your list.
Shall I tell you of the three classical arguments for the existence of God, as if such a thing were up to us? The teleological, the ontological, and my personal favorite the cosmological - these are mighty constructs of the mightiest gift of God, the human mind, and compared to that which they dare to measure they are dust on the floor. God has, I think, given us reason - it is unlikely that reason will give us God.
I'll see you there, I think, and together we will gape at it as children do at wonders beyond their imagination. That may be what we're made for. It isn't anything to be ashamed of.
'Night!
1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Amillennialism
kind regards
Nibbler: Garble garble garble, garble garble garble!
Leela: So every major religion is wrong!
Personally I like to think those who have earned it will spend eternity in Aslan's Country. : )
Put me down for A-Mil.
Dispensational
Pre-trib rapture
literal 7 year reign of the anti-Christ
literal 1000 year reign of Christ in the Millenium
Preterism for me, Revelations is history not prophecy.
I think my head would explode if I tried to wrap myself around this stuff.
I understand your idea that we should not escape trials through the rapture, but more and more I have been considering something
Us Christians here in the US are so spoiled, that for us to leave the Earth in the Rapture before the 7 year tribulation without any judgement for our sins, personal and national, would be unfair to other generations of believers.
Because of this, and because of the state of our nation and the Godlessness we all have here, I believe we are going to be judged before the rapture.
and judged hard.
I will exceed my authority and take 3 choices.
#1 (with a bullet) - Dispy Pre-Mil, Pre-Trib.
#2 Amil
#3 Post Mil
YES! :D
Postmillennialism:
(Also known as "Christian Reconstruction", "Kingdom Now Theology" and "Dominion Theology.") These believe “that the kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit, that the world eventually is to be Christianized, and that the return of Christ will occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace, commonly called the millennium.”
Preterism:
Belief that the events prophesized in the New Testament have already happened. The great war of Armageddon in the book of Revelation occurred in the late 60's and early 70's CE when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, many Jews were killed and the rest were driven from Palestine.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
These summaries are inadequate. There are degrees of Preterism, arguing that most (but not all) of Revelation (which was definitly mostly future when it was written) is now history rather than future events, and though the most vocal modern advocates of the Postmillenial view have indeed been the "reconstruction/dominionists", it has a long and prominent representation in earlier generations (e.g., William Carey), and other non-reconstructionist reformed representatives in the present.
One can find lots of pious billingsgate about these positions on pre-millenialist websites especially the pre-trib rapturists, but since their postion has NO history before about 1830, they are in a poor position to argue, especially since all the seminaries they founded in the past century to propagate their position have (sometimes quietly, sometimes more publicly) abandoned it.
For better summaries, see
http://www.biblelighthouse.com/eschatology/esc-postmillenial.htm
http://www.biblelighthouse.com/eschatology/esc-preterist.htm
and for some further information on the influence of the position, see
http://www.contra-mundum.org/schirrmacher/careypostmil.html
What do I think? Obviously, I'm sympathetic to the post-mil/partial preterist view, but still have a lot of unanswered questions. Details about "The End" are not the most important issue, though admittedly important. Serving in the areas that are more clearly lighted is pre-requisite for making further progress in these murkier matters, so that's where to devote limited resources.
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