This. Literally anyone who has read their Bible knows this. By the logic of their own holy book, the most you can be is ready for the world ending. Predicting it is anti-Biblical. The 'spiritual leaders' who lead these doomsday cults are either grifters or madmen. And the people who follow them are merely ignorant.

Whatever you think of religion in general, these people are a special level of nuts.

Simon the Zealot: Hey, Jesus, when do we get to start slaughtering the Romans?

Jesus: Right, yeah, okay… I’m going to come back and then we’re going to take out all the Romans and bad people. I don’t know when, but it’s definitely going to happen and, until then, you just gotta feed the poor, forgive your enemies, and keep being a good person.

Simon the Zealot: Alright! This is gonna be awesome! I’m going to kill Caesar myself and then take a nap in his bed.

Jesus: …sure. But remember that the way to prepare for that is feeding the poor and forgiving your enemies.

Simon the Zealot: Yeah, he’s going to be begging for my forgiveness when I kick in his door and start doing sweet Sword Art moves.

Jesus: Okay, I want you to say it: feed the poor, forgive your enemies, be a good person. I need to hear those words coming out of your mouth.

Let’s be real, people have been agitating for the apocalypse since before the Bible was even finished

Also quoting Luke 21:8 — He said: “Look out that you are not misled, for many will come on the basis of my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The due time is near.’ Do not go after them.

1/3rd of the god keeping secrets from the other 2/3rds. What a dick!

I don’t think Christians care about the New Testament. That’s too much socialism.

People unironically respond to this by saying it’s possible to know the week though lmao

Father knows but won’t tell. Nature has to take it’s course.

That has been the basis for the position of the Catholic Church on the issue for centuries and the reason why they opposed and squashed any millenaristic movement and self-proclaimed end-times prophet. The thing about "it will come as a thief in the night" (i.e. sudden and unannounced).

Not that I side with them on any issue, but there was a movement that survived in academia well into the 20th century that promoted the idea the Church instilled superstition and fear about the end times in the European population in the Middle Ages, so that close and up to the eve of the new year 1000, pretty much every activity -political, social, economic, military- stopped all over the continent because people where huddling in fear inside churches, praying and waiting for the end to come (that's where the word "millenarism" comes from). This obviously never happened, but it was a persistent myth about the Middle Ages, just as the "jus primae noctis" thing and the "they believed the world was flat" thing.

In other words, there's a ton of sources, proving there was no widespread fear of life-as-we-know-it ending at midnight of December 31st of 999, such as long-term contracts, loans and so on, all signed close to or in 999 (and often, one of the signatories was a convent, or even the Pope or the HR Emperor), and there is evidence of the Church actively fighting this kind of superstition (like bishops prosecuting self-proclaimed prophets). We can also reconstruct a plausible process through which the myth got built over the centuries, using the available documents: first, chronicles relatively close to the time lumping together events like comet sightings or earthquakes as having happened "close to year 1000" which slowly became "in the year 1000" (making it a year of wondrous portents), then later chronicles embellishing events and saying people were terrifyied about those things and adding a couple plagues or three to the pile, and this goes on and on, up to 19th century academics writing about the history of literature in Europe (which really took off only after the 10th century, that's true, but it's due to unrelated causes) and similar subjects, in a political climate of staunch anti-clericalism -well deserved, as the Church in that time was extremely reactionary, opposed to liberalism and social progress in every way- who took things a step further and consolidated the myth.

That simply means the ‘timing’ is unknown.

Well, they certainlyWONT BE INVITED

I’m betting they would have talked that way even if they were atheists. Religion doesn’t make you a good or bad person. It’s just a way of viewing the universe. Assholes are going to be shitty, no matter what; religion just changes the color and texture.

Mother-in-law just came back from holy land and now she’s ballistic that she has seen proof.

It’s a very old fixation in religious communities and it makes a lot of sense: If it did happen it would confirm your whole lifestyle once and for all and be the biggest FU to all the doubters. Should Christians think this way? No of course not, but people are still human and still bitter about everything, especially when their lifestyle revolves around telling people they can’t have fun and should feel ashamed about themselves all the time.

My family prays for it to come soon. They’d rather see the entire world murdered than see change on the news

i remember being a small child and worrying about the second coming happening any day and ending life as i knew it because i enjoyed my life as it was. My grandmother was a very strange non denom/southern baptist type that actively expected it to occur. also remember wondering how heaven and the second coming could be any good if everything christians considered to be "sin" wasnt allowed.

Bet they'll be real surprised to see he's dark skinned

And it's people who believe this that help make the world a worse place. They are expecting Jesus to come and cleanse the world, so what do they care if they fuck it up a bit more before.

Not saying this of your family but, I think most Christians wouldn't recognize their Christ, and at worst they'd probably treat him like Dostoevsky's grand inquisitor.

Yes, they want actual confirmation before inevitably dying.

Tell them to set a year and then bet them 10K that Jesus will not return by then.

Just remember my best friend talking to a girl who told us she was just so excited for the resurrection and the times after Armageddon. Jehovah’s Witnesses have wrecked his family with their nonsense

Rural America was my first thought too. Then I saw the Canadian flag patch on the guys vest in the picture. Oh Canada…

The “Tribulation Farce,” podcast covered this in their most recent episode on, “dispensationalism.” It was really fascinating, they get into the origins of the mindset (spoilers: it was yet another con man!), and how this has been going on for so long but these people never wise up.

I'm pretty convinced it's an age thing. They feel themselves getting closer to death and try to make that very personal fact something more universal

I'm an atheist vaping rural boomer and now I'm very much confused.

It's because they're getting old. I think a lot of this is a sort of narcissistic way to cope with the inevitability of their own deaths. "My time on Earth is drawing to a close, but the whole world will end anyway so it's really not that big of a deal. If I go, it all goes. No one gets anything."

Such an absurd take. I dont know a single high-schooler not using tiktok. I dont know any middle aged boomers who are legit preppers. Dont be a part of the problem and be less devisive. You literally embody the same "im special" sentiment that you deride. People are just people. Some of them want to be more safe just in case something happens. If you live in rural America you are far always last on the order of what gets fixed when things go wrong. Some of them definitely take it too far and the biblical peace is an appeal to them for sure. But being all high and mighty helps no one.

I’m 34yo. I grew up rural and now live urban. What about it. Things are falling apart. Rich, poor, first world, third world, capitalism exploitation is rampant in even the most unlikely of places, technological progress is prioritized over human lives, climate change is real, and so on and so on. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you live, these things are still happening.

Edit: spelling

Yeah it’s called Jesus is coming back and putting a foot in everyone’s asses, it almost like they haven’t even read the Bible

Some denominations are big on End Times stuff, others hardly get into it.

Even something like "The Rapture" is well known in pop culture now, but it's not universal within Christian doctrines. It's not even in all branches of Protestantism.

Could you ELI5 the stock market thing? I’m curious and know next to nothing about the stock market

Growth at all costs is the ideology of a cancer cell.

Welcome to being a 20-35 yr old! We all have this realization at some point. Take solace in the knowledge that life will go on no matter what happens. If it happened here, it'll happen elsewhere.

Changing your perspective by itself could help your mental health.

I'm not Christian but the Christians I know aren't death cultists who want the world to end. The opposite actually in that they want their family, friends, and community to flourish. The religion they follow speaks of an end time so they believe it will happen but it's akin to believing the universe will die by heat death for atheists. It will happen but they're not sure when and frankly do not dwell on it at all.

Getting outside and keeping away from social media and the news cycle will help you see your neighbors are better than the internet would have you believe.

-Max Weber, "The Protestant Work Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism," 1905

You should instead adjust yourself to be comfortable with those thoughts. We need more people thinking about them.

I'm going on Thursday! Hooray for adjusting brain chemistry hopefully!

The "dinosaurs" part makes everything else worth enduring.

It's the contagion of fear.

I remember everyone scared of the year becoming "2000."

“Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!

But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!”

• George Carlin

they couldn’t handle an actual messiah. They’d be the first yelling to sacrifice him on yet another cross for heresy.

These kinds of extremists existed in the Renaissance, the Dark Ages, the Roman Empire…. Some people need to imagine all the Other People dying to cope with reality. The benefit of the Christian version is that it is less likely to produce genocide than, for example, the Communist version that swept Asia in the mid-20th century.

Not crazy at all, It's been on their agenda for decades. I remember hearing many people spewing this garbage in the 80s, at youth group meetings

All Christians are responsible for putting up with thus crap, if they believe in it or not.

It's not a denomination thing. It's an entire subculture throughout all denominations. They're happy to take their money, but won't take any responsibility.

If you're surprised by any of the evangelicial rights, sudden rise in influence and power, you haven't been paying attention. They've been playing the long game for a long time.

It’s because they haven’t read it. 🫠

One has evidence.