"Rapture's Delight" is the ninth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series American Dad! It originally aired on the Fox TV network in the United States on Dec. 13, 2009 [and remains one of the funniest and most satirical takes the show dared to make]. This episode centers around CIA Agent Stan and his housewife Francine's life after the vast majority of the church, including their children Hayley and Steve, are raptured ("taken up"), leaving everyone else Left Behind. When Stan begins to blame Francine for not getting into heaven, Francine ends their relationship and befriends a man whom she later finds out to be Jesus Christ. Francine becomes his bride, leaving Stan behind to participate in the showdown at Armageddon. More
"The Rapture" is a Christian eschatological ("end-times") belief held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of a magic event when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, together with Christians who are still alive, will rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord [who might be in a spaceship] in the air" [1, 2].
I don't want to be left behind with all the sinners!
Many different timelines have been asserted that tie to ideas of a seven-year "Great Tribulation": pre-tribulation [3], mid-tribulation, pre-wrath, and post-tribulation raptures; and to a thousand-year age of Messianic rule: millennialism, pre-millennialism, post-millennialism, a-millennialism, and preterism [4, 5].
The origin of the term extends from translations of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Christian Bible, which uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek ἁρπάζω), meaning "to snatch away" or "to seize."
The idea of a rapture as it is defined in dispensational premillennialism is NOT found in historic Christianity. It is a relatively new doctrine, originating from the 1830s.
Why was I left behind, not good enough?
Most Christian denominations, and the numerically largest, do NOT believe or subscribe to "rapture theology" and have a different interpretation of the aerial gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4 [6].
They do NOT use "rapture" as a specific theological term, nor do they generally subscribe to the dispensational theology associated with its use [7].
Instead, most Christians typically interpret "rapture" in the sense of the elect (the saved) gathering with Christ in Heaven directly after the Second Coming. They reject outright the idea that a large portion of humanity will be "left behind" (like the very profitable, fearmongering book series depicts) on Earth for an extended tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 [6, 8]. More
Q: Wisdom Quarterly, what religion was Alan Watts?
A: While he speaks like a Hindu professing Advaita Vedanta at every turn, and often explains Zen and Mahayana concepts quite nicely, with a grasp of Theravada, by his own admission he seemed to love Taoism best of all, although born Christian and ordained as an Episcopalian priest rather than a Buddhist monk as was his early ambition in the Buddhist Society of London with Christmas Humphreys and other prominent Western Buddhists. He was an early voice in the West for explaining and interpreting Eastern philosophy for Western ears, particularly those of Beats and Hippies, remarkably ahead of his time, openminded, and quite a New Ager. We love him because he has been with us all of our adult lives through Berkeley's KPFA FM, KQED (TV), and he continues to inspire through KPFK FM in Los Angeles (Sunday mornings at 8:00 am and Thursdays at midnight) and the invaluable preservation work of Roy of Hollywood Tuckman.
Wu wei (無為, 无为, wúwéi) is a concept from ancient pre-Buddhist Chinese philosophy that literally means "not-acting" or "non-doing," variously interpreted and translated as "noninterference," "action-lessness," "inaction," or "effortless action" [1, 2].
In Taoism, it denotes the nature of Tao, meaning that while Tao (the Way, Path, or flow of nature, acting in accordance with the natural course of things), is the source of all existence and the manifestation of all phenomena, its intrinsic formless essence is that it acts or moves in a silent, invisible, ineffable, often-unnoticed manner that may even seem motionless and effortless [3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
It's all a matter of seeing the Suchness!
Accordingly, Taoists (and subsequently Zen Buddhist practitioners) aspire to live their lives in alignment with such a harmonious state of free flowing and unforced activity. In a political context, it also refers to an ideal form or principle of spontaneous and non-aggressive form of governing [8]. More
Tathātā (Sanskrit तथाता, Pali tathatā) is a Buddhist term variously translated as "Suchness," "Thusness," "True Thusness," or "True Suchness," referring to the Ultimate Reality, the intrinsic and essential nature of all existence, free of dualistic thinking, conceptualization, subject–object distinctions [1].
It is formless, uncreated, eternal, perfect, unchanging, indestructible, and is the true nature of all phenomena. It represents the genuine reality of existence, which transcends physical forms, physical senses, and intellectual comprehension, indicating a profound insight into the nature of things as they truly are [2, 3, 4].
Tathātā has a large number of synonyms found in different Buddhist schools, traditions, and scriptures, such as:
New research at Michael Pollan's laboratory at UC Berkeley confirms what Cambridge scientist J.C. Bose, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Peter Tompkins, Christopher Bird, Tel Aviv University researchers, dryads, sensitives, empaths like Dr. Doreen Virtue and Dr. Caroline Myss and gardeners everywhere have known and been telling us for a long time.
(Be Inspired) May 27, 2025: "We don't live in REAL time."
We’re always living 100 milliseconds in the past. This video shows the mind-bending science behind why the "present" doesn’t really exist. Dr. Bruce Lipton agrees?
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: There may be a few links in this description that, at no cost to buyer, will earn us a commission if one chooses to click them and make a purchase
Don’t worry. Be Inspired only recommends products it knows and trusts. This Man Discovered a Glitch in Reality
Whatcha eating there, Serj? - Suicide. - Is it vegan?
MOM (🤡Big Merla): Chop sui(cide) is a song about a lovely vegan Chinese food, mixed vegetables in a wok with a little soy sauce and lots of steaming white rice, right?
WQ: Are you f'n crazy? Of course that's what it's about, but I think now, at least in California and the groovier places like Tennessee and Oregon, we go with brown rice.
MOM: C'mon, I know the song must be about suicide somewhere. He [Serj Tankian] says it right in the song!
WQ: I think he's complaining about people trying to use teriyaki sauce in a stir-fry with tofu sticks.
MOM: Ha, ha, help me. I want to understand. I have my own new mom version of the song that's more suitable for young ears. I find myself singing a lot of System [of a Down] songs as I clean up kid toys.
WQ: You can catch the band live in San Francisco this summer. They're playing on August 11, 2024. You know, for a song that came out in 2009, it has the distinction of racking up 1.3+ billion views. And that's just the official video on YouTube. Add all the streaming services, the lyric videos, knock offs, and excerpts, and that's pretty darn good for Armenian alt-metal. The Turks never had a chance to take the other side of the argument.
MOM: Which argument?
WQ: The "genocide."
MOM: Oh, I think Israel is totally guilty.
What is he saying? Why doesn't he slow down?
WQ: True but this is a previous genocide the Ottoman Empire Turks are accused of, which was said to be laughed off as a genocide no one cares about by Hitler when he wanted to genocide all the Jews in Europe or at least the few in Germany because he said they were ruining his Reich's economy. And his previous best friend had been Jewish. Nobody talks too much about that.
MOM: How sad.
Maybe Baby likes Drowning Pool. Let the bodies hit the floor
WQ: People say he wasn't even mad at Jews themselves, just scapegoating them and sending them to work camps because they had in his view unfairly hoarded too much of the wealth in Germany. But Jews swear he hated them and wanted to exterminate them all because of his hate and nothing else, which is odd because a lot of Ashkenazi Jews in Germany looked exactly like Christian Germans, so exactly that a lot of Nazis couldn't tell the difference except for some cultural markers like gesticulation (moving hands and arms) gestures when talking or speaking Yiddish (which is gibberish German making fun of Christianity).
MOM: But aren't Jews the ultimate victims who say everyone hates them.
Vegan chop suey stir-fry (Keeping the Peas)
WQ: We have heard them say that. It seems like only Rich Forer and Prof. Norm Finkelstein, both of whom are Jewish, call them out for this victim mentality that aids their campaign to label everyone who disagrees "antisemites" and everyone who opposes their genocide in Palestine "Jew haters."
MOM: Is that what this song is about, genocide, first the Armenians then the Jews?
WQ: It seems to be about suicide.
MOM: Not chop suey?
WQ: Same thing.
System of a Down - "Chop Suey!" (official HD)
(System Of A Down) Uploaded Oct. 2, 2009, with 1,374,887,863 views as of June 17, 2024. #ChopSuey #SystemOfADown #Remastered. Official HD music video for "Chop Suey!” by System of a Down Listen to System of a Down: SystemOfADown.lnk.to/listenYD
The lost book of Adam and Eve has been found and reveals terrifying secret
(Nature Discoveries) May 15, 2024: For millennia, the story of Adam and Eve has been etched in our minds. The forbidden fruit (not an apple but a what?), the serpent's temptation (not a snake but a reptilian), their expulsion from paradise (more than a little garden).
But what if there's more to the story? What if a hidden chapter, a lost book, has been waiting in the shadows, whispering a truth far more terrifying than we ever imagined?
Scholars have spent years searching for this mythical text. Now whispers are becoming shouts as archaeologists claim to have unearthed the real deal. But what they've found isn't a comforting bedtime story.
Join this deeper dive into a story that will leave viewers questioning everything.
The Discovery
The books of Adam and Eve were discovered in the Egyptian tomb of Tuk-and-Amen and subsequently published in 1926. This book discusses the experiences of the well-known characters from Genesis following their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Christian, motivation, sermon, sermons, Christian motivation, inspiration, Christian inspiration, Jesus, inspirational, motivation, worship, Jesus eternal light, Jesus Christ, Bible, Lion of Judah, The Lost Book of Adam and Eve has been found, revealing surprising things
Dr. Fran, Ryan Kohls, Aug. 25, 2023; Ashley Wells, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
DR. FRANCESCA STAVRAKOPOULOU on the Bible, Jesus, death threats, God's wife Asherah (Queen of Heaven?), New Atheism, and that guy Jordan Peterson
(Ryan Kohls) This is an in-depth interview with atheist Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at Exeter University, England, author of God: An Anatomy. For a transcript and more go to: whatiwannaknow.com/francesca-stavrakapoulou.
Timecodes
0:00 - Intro
0:50 - Stavrakopoulou: An Anatomy
2:04 - Being an atheist Biblical scholar & response to critics
5:35 - What is the Bible?
7:47 - What is the most misunderstood thing about the Bible?
9:15 - Contradictions in the Bible
12:00 - How are is an atheist biblical scholar?
12:53 - Biases of Christian biblical scholars
15:03 - Probability of Moses/Abraham/Noah's existence
18:00 - Did people in biblical times believe in existence of Abraham/Moses?
21:02 - Did Jesus Christ really exist?
23:00 - Other Jesus-esque figures who existed at the same time
24:22 - Why/how did Christianity become a global phenomenon?
27:14 - Death threats and why some Christians are afraid to study biblical history
29:51 - Antisemitic tropes about God of Old Testament vs. New Testament
33:53 - When did Christians start believing the Bible was infallible?
37:50 - Role of Enlightenment in biblical infallibility theory
40:31 - God's forgotten body and the book God: An Anatomy
47:13 - God's wife Asherah and roots of patriarchy/sexism
51:30 - New Atheists (Dawkins, Harris) and their perspective on the Bible/religion
54:52 - Jordan Peterson, modernity, and Judeo-Christian values
56:55 - Humanism and Prof. Stavrakopoulou's worldview
Author Suwanda H. J. Sugunasiri in Dhamma Aboard Evolution [The Buddha's Dharma or Teachings aboard the Theory of Evolution] seeks to establish that Section 10-16 of the
Aggañña Sutta ["A Buddhist Genesis" or "On Beginnings"] of the "Long Discourses of the Buddha" (Dīgha Nikāya) is no "satire" or "parody," as interpreted by some Buddhist scholars.
Drawing on Buddhist cosmology, Darwinism, psychology (e.g., Freud, Piaget), and linguistics, the book paints a historically and scientifically accurate picture of devolution and evolution, going beyond the Big Bang, in which sentient beings emerge along with their latent defilements of craving and passion, nourished by evolving [adapting] plant life.
What if this sutra actually agrees with science?
Compatible with Western science, the breakthrough comes when âbhassarabrahma beings ("divinities" or supreme "shining ones") are taken to be PHOTONS, interpreting the Dharmic religion word âbhassara in a literal etymological sense of "hither-come-shining-arrow."
As accurate as the picture may be, the Buddha’s point, however, is that knowledge of the Dharma (Pali Dhamma) overrides it all, explaining the title.
Resolved in the study are a "chronological paradox" relating to lingua [tongue or language] appearing in earthling beings before linga [phalluses] and a "spiritual paradox" of meditative absorption (jhāna) level âbhassara beings still indulging in sex.
[EDITORIAL COMMENT: These are neither paradoxes nor contradictions. The light body "shining" beings that alighted on the planet, which may have been photons, could speak. Only later did they develop a desire or need for sexual organs such as the lingam or yoni. And while it is true that for a being to be reborn in the (celestial) âbhassara plane of existence,proficiency in one of the jhanas ("meditative absorptions") is necessary, it is not the case that a being stays in that absorptions throughout the lifespan there or even necessarily has the ability to again attain that absorption or at what depth and duration. It seems as if the author is making bad assumptions or simply enjoying his clever alliteration.]
Among other topics treated are the Vediccreation myth, the intended audience for the discourse (two former Brahmins who are now Buddhist monk wandering ascetics), and the structure of the full sutra (discourse) – which is not a Jātaka ("Rebirth Tale") but the Beast fable of Pañcatantra fame.
The Appendix shows the Buddha as the originator of this story within a literary genre.
Going beyond the sutra is an invitation to an "Academically Engaged Buddhism," taking "trust in the Buddha" as a methodological imperative, just as "trust in God" was for Western science from Ancient Greek times up until Einstein.
WHO were the celestial beings who alighted on ancient earth?
The ābhassara brahmas may well refer to photons as the author argues, but generally the word is understood to refer to a class of brahmas (divinities, gods, supremos, superior to ordinary "shining ones" or devas). More
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare [or the guy who really wrote it, namely, Edward de Vere*] runs at 7:00 pm Sunday, Sept. 3, 2023.
Join the Independent Shakespeare Company at Griffith Park (near the old zoo, above the old merry-go-round) for a wild and joyous night of laughs that features live music and more than a few surprises.
The mortal and the magical (human and fairy) are intertwined in Shakespeare’s most intoxicating comedy. As the fairy king and queen battle, four young Athenian lovers go on the run, and a group of hilarious amateur actors (including Bottom) prepare for the biggest performance of their lives.
Free Shakespeare in the Park, under the rare Super Blue Moon, enjoy the classic source of all sitcom humor, the ancient and poetic "A Midsummer Night's Dream.
"It's a play-within-a-play in two worlds, as four star crossed human lovers struggle to be with the person they love, while mystic fairies in the forest create mischief, mirth, and amusements for themselves toying with mortals and their youthful lust and romantic pursuits.
WHAT'S THIS PLAY ABOUT? One prince loves a princess, but he's Black, so the Latino dad doesn't want him to marry his white daughter. He wants her to marry the Latin guy. But that Latin lover had sex with another princess, the first princess' best friend, and now she's all whipped on the handsome Latin guy. Meanwhile, working class British dummies are rehearsing to do a play, but this one guy named Bottom (the ass), keeps stealing the show. He gets the most laughs. The fairy people are doing magic, spells, love potions, and witchcraft, messing up the humans' plans. The play inside the play is about two hot young people, Pyramus and Thisbe, in love trying to hook up but separated by a wall until they decide to run off together. But there's a misunderstanding and some suicide, though it's just a play. There's still a real world a dreamy world of spirits, who are also very real in their own kingdom.
The fairies have troubles of their own. The Fairy King Oberon wants a Buddhist/Hindu boy from India, who's in the care of the Fairy Queen Titania and will do anything to get him, even use his fairy servant Puck (played by this funny young punk rock girl with a mohawk) to get him some flower potion, which placed in the eye causes any person to fall in love with the next person one sees.
What to bring to the park for a good time
So the fairy queen is made to fall in love with a transformed human turned into an ass (one of the players rehearsing in the forest), and one lover falls in love with another's love by the misuse of the love potion.
Meanwhile, the King of Athens Theseus prepares to wed a foreign princess, Hippolyta, who's unhappy as he sides with a father trying to boss his beautiful daughter around and telling her who to marry. That's as good a summary as any. RSVP FREE:
British Alan Watts became an Episcopal priest for a time then Eastern philosophy saved him.
The Bizarre Life of Alan Watts
(Asangoham) Alan Watts, the spiritual entertainer, was born in England, living most of his life in California as a writer, speaker, and East-West philosopher.
"Man is a Hoax" (Being in the Way, Ep. 20) with his son Mark Watts
Young Alan became a Buddhist
Watts was best known for making Indian, Japanese, and Chinese spiritual
traditions in the form of Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, Hinduism, Sufism, Esoteric Christianity, and other mystical traditions entertainingly
accessible to a wide and popular audience throughout the world.
Alan Watts also played a pivotal role in the spiritual revolution that
shook the religious status quo of the United States during the 1960s.
This change in the spiritual and religious consciousness of the West brought to the public ancient Eastern philosophical teachings and other mystical religious traditions.
The square looking freak arrived in the US
This spiritual revolution changed the United States in ways that are still felt
today.
Yoga, meditation, vegan/vegetarian diets, chanting, nonviolent protests, therapies
of all kinds, feminism, equal rights, herbal and alternative medicines and treatments, and much more were all first introduced to Americans in
the 1960s. They were products of this spiritual revolution.
For many spiritual seekers in the United States and other parts of the Western
world, Alan Watts was a trusted guide through this incredible spiritual
change.
Alan Watts' greatness got him a TV show (KQED) and radio show (KPFA)
Spiritual speaker, radio philosopher, writer
Watts introduced listeners to religious practices that would
help to improve and intensify the spiritual lives of hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of people.
Watts treated these sometimes extremely unfamiliar
religious traditions, paths, and practices in a very accessible speaking and writing style for speakers of English.
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