Billions of people don’t actually believe that. Not even close. They might say they believe in a religion, they might even think they believe in it, but if the sky lit on fire and they started floating into the sky the vast majority of them wouldn’t think “yay I win the Rapture!” they’d think “oh God oh fuck what is happening?!”
Billions of people don’t actually believe that. Not even close. They might say they believe in a religion, they might even think they believe in it, but if the sky lit on fire and they started floating into the sky the vast majority of them wouldn’t think “yay I win the Rapture!” they’d think “oh God oh fuck what is happening?!”
If Betelgeuse goes supernova tomorrow, I wouldn’t believe my eyes either.
… you would if you genuinely believed it was supposed to happen tomorrow…
It could happen tomorrow. I would still initially react with “holy shit look at the sky”.
That’s not how belief works. “It could happen tomorrow” isn’t a belief, it’s just a vague, noncomittal thought.
“The rapture will happen in our lifetimes” is a belief, and the vast majority of people - religious or not - simply don’t believe that.