Hacker News Reader

Comment by ethanbond | Hacker News Reader

80% of US Christians believe Jesus will return (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/04/09/christians-v...)

The mainstream Christian theology is that Jesus will return in order to wage war on non-believers and secure earth as the heavenly dominion of the believers (https://www.bibleref.com/Revelation/19/Revelation-19-11.html)

This grand battle and ultimate plundering of the spoils takes place in/near Jerusalem (https://www.bibleref.com/Zechariah/14/Zechariah-14-1.html)

One apparent prerequisite to this battle happening is the construction of The Third Temple which would, of course, require control over the region in which The Third Temple must be rebuilt -- Jerusalem. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_in_Jerusalem)

Also they need to find a red cow. Then Jesus can come with his flaming sword and slaughter ~billions of people.

View on HN

> The mainstream Christian theology is that Jesus will return in order to wage war on non-believers and secure earth as the heavenly dominion of the believers

That's really not the case, not in the literal sense anyway. Also pretty much all mainstream Christians do not spend any significant amount of time thinking about when will Jesus return and and what will happen then.

> Then Jesus can come with his flaming sword and slaughter ~billions of people.

I bet if you asked the pope what he thinks he'd say that's not what the Catholic faith teaches and he's literally infallible (well technically only in very specific cases but let's just ignore that since we're just saying stupid edgy stuff for no reason).

You must think you're deboonking by linking random Bible verses and obscure theory most people have never heard of?

I'm agnostic but I was raised Christian in different communities and on different continents and I have never been taught that Jesus's return is anything but a peaceful end-time where the just go to heaven (and yes, the wicked to hell). Zero mentions of Jesus waging war, if anything it's taught as the end of war and strife.

Not a single person I know associates Jesus with doing violence. I'm sure someone must believe this, but calling it "mainstream" is bad faith. What sort of "mainstream" theology is it if neither me nor anyone I know has been taught this?

> Jesus’s return is a peaceful end-time [when billions of people are sent to eternal torture]

This is why it seems like an obscure theory, because people don’t actually think about the words they’re saying.

Here’s Joel Olsteen, whose weekly sermon has 10,000,000 viewers, saying we should be happy about the bad things happening in the world because they’re a sign of the end times (after which he and his followers get to divide the spoils of the earth): https://www.charismanews.com/us/32276-joel-osteen-discusses-...

Peaceful end-time for good people, eternal damnation for bad people, yes. How many Christians do you think consider a good person of another religion to be going to hell? Jesus' main teachings were compassion and loving your neighbor.

When I read Wikipedia's page on the Second Coming, at no point does it mention Jesus waging war. So much for being "mainstream theology"...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com