Or does it?
I know we were once nothing, but it is still terrifying and depressing to me to think about returning to this. In fact, as of late, I’ve been unable to not think about it: the loss of all experience and all memories of everything, forever. All the good times we had, and will have, with anyone or anything ever will totally annihilate into nothingness. All our efforts will amount to nothing because the thoughtless void is ultimately what awaits everything in the end.
The only argument against this would have to be supernatural, like another cause of the Big Bang or somehow proof of reincarnation, but if my consciousness won’t exist for me to experience it, then what does it matter either way?
There is no comfort in Hell, either. The anvil of death weighing down, infinitely, on all values and passions is becoming unbearable for me, so I could really use any potentially helpful thoughts about this matter.
There is no Messiah. Do you not see what community you’re in?
What I do is try to explain what a small remnant of scholars believe (400 years before Christianity) as a means to let people understand what the Scriptures say, even if people won’t be going back due to horrible experiences of being forced to take the Mark of the Beast.
Myself, for instance, is when I took the Mark on the right hand (by obeying the Pope) for my entire life until I figured out how to stop doing so.
The mark was obedience to the papacy? Who said that? I’ve never heard of that.
Historicists (non-Futurists, non-Idealists, and non-Preterists) believe that the Mark of the Beast was, and still is, reverence (forehead) and obeisance (right hand) to Papal Rome, the Roman Catholic Church. I know that many people left Christianity because they realized this, whether they knew it or not. Authors like Wylie, H.G. Guinness, E.B. Eliot and even modern authors like David Nikao Wilcoxson are not that well known nowadays.
Why is the mark being (effectively) Catholic that bad as to crush one’s entire lifelong beliefs? That seems shallow, as opposed to a holistic exploration of everything that Christianity presents as a belief system, from the origin of humanity to the afterlife, definitions of “good,” “evil,” and supernatural; its prophecies are just one aspect of many.
Anyway, you are right; I haven’t heard of any of those people, haha.
I’d be happy to DM you a few teachers I’ve been listening to who are historicists witnessing against the RCC (Roman Catholic Church).
Why DM? Out them publicly!