Do you personally believe in the 'Rapture' and if so on what grounds?

[Deicide]

I am curious...

[OneBigMan]

Since you are so curious, then I'll tell you this.

The Rapture, as you call it, is something that would have happened in 1962 before the end of October during that very dangerous "Cold War" driven world. WHY?

Basically because that whole Cuban Missile conflict situation came so close to becoming a full scale thermo nuclear world war in the whole western hemisphere and across the atlantic in europe and the eastern hemisphere. I hate to put it to you with that kind of sensitive way of describing what would have most certainly been the extreme event that would have basically burned and incinerated everything in society except for a old-fashioned generation of people that may or may not have been spared by being underground in fall-out shelters or the unthinkable option of sewers.

[Deicide]

Since you are so curious, then I'll tell you this.

The Rapture, as you call it, is something that would have happened in 1962 before the end of October during that very dangerous "Cold War" driven world. WHY?

Basically because that whole Cuban Missile conflict situation came so close to becoming a full scale thermo nuclear world war in the whole western hemisphere and across the atlantic in europe and the eastern hemisphere. I hate to put it to you with that kind of sensitive way of describing what would have most certainly been the extreme event that would have basically burned and incinerated everything in society except for a old-fashioned generation of people that may or may not have been spared by being underground in fall-out shelters or the unthinkable option of sewers.

No, this seems to be the Rapture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture

In fundamentalist Christian eschatology, the Rapture is the name given to the future event in which it is believed that Jesus Christ will descend from Heaven, accompanied by the spirits of all the saints of God, both from the pre-incarnation period and after, who have passed on prior to the rapture, and then the bodies of the saints are joined with their spirits in a resurrection - the First Resurrection - to meet the Lord. Immediately after this, all true Christians alive on the earth are simultaneously transported to meet the Lord and those who have preceded them in the air as well, all, having been transformed into immortal bodies like Jesus' body, often referred to as the "resurrection body".

This doctrine gained popularity in the 1830s, and more recently in the 1970s, with proponents of the premillennialist, and in particular the dispensationalist, interpretations of scripture. However, proponents of the doctrine have argued that it can be found in the early Church fathers and the New Testament.

There is much disagreement amongst rapture proponents over when the rapture will occur in relation to the Tribulation, a seven-year period preceding the second coming of Christ to the earth, or indeed, if the duration of the Tribulation will be seven years or only a 3 1/2 year period. Some understand the tribulation of Matthew 24 as having already taken place in 70 AD at the destruction of Jerusalem. (see Preterism). Three different views predominate. The first is that it will take place sometime prior to the Tribulation. The second is that it will take place mid-way through the Tribulation. The third is that it will take place after the Tribulation, when Christ comes to earth to establish His kingdom, the Kingdom of God, taking over rulership of the world for 1,000 years. (see Millennialism). A fourth view has recently developed, called the Pre-Wrath view.

[loco]

I'm indifferent about "The Rapture".  I do personally believe that Jesus is coming back for sure, and that we all must be ready.  I also know that if I die before that happens, then that's the end for me anyway and the rapture doesn't matter to me at that point.  But there is scripture that seems to point to a "Rapture" of the church:

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 (New International Version)
Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

1 Corinthians 15:51-53
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

Revelation 4:1
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this."

Note from loco:  Up until the end of chapter 3 of Revelation, the church is mentioned time and time again, but after a voice from heaven like a trumpet says "Come up here" at the beginning of chapter 4, the church is not mentioned again in Revelation until the last chapter, chapter 22, where it is mentioned one last time.

[OneBigMan]

From what I was once taught, the 'Rapture' as it is quoted and known to be would have been basically this. The souls of those that earned their place to be in the heavens would have all flown into the sky and all the layers of the earths atmosphere to the point of leaving this planet by departing to some destination in outer space beyond the solar system.

That would have been the religious ramifications of that situation which went into late October 1962. The missile conflict with Cuba and the greatfully gone USSR.

[Hustle Man]

Premillennialism
In Christian eschatology is the belief that Christ will literally reign on the earth for 1,000 years at his second coming. The doctrine is called premillennialism because it views the current age as prior to Christ’s kingdom. It is distinct from the other forms of Christian eschatology such as amillennialism or postmillennialism, which view the millennial rule as either figurative and non-temporal, or as occurring prior to the second coming. Premillennialism is largely based upon a literal interpretation of Revelation 20:1-6 in the New Testament which describes Christ’s coming to the earth and subsequent reign at the end of an apocalyptic period of tribulation. It views this future age as a time of fulfillment for the prophetic hope of God’s people as given in the Old Testament.

Postmillennialism
Is an interpretation of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation which sees Christ's second coming as occurring after (Latin post-) the "Millennium", a Golden Age or era of Christian prosperity and dominance. The term subsumes several similar views of the end times, and it stands in contrast to premillennialism and, to a lesser extent, amillennialism.

Amillennialism (Latin: a- "not" + mille "thousand" + annum "year")
Is a view in Christian eschatology named for its denial of a future, thousand-year, physical reign of Jesus Christ on the earth, as espoused in the premillennial and some postmillennial views of the Book of Revelation, chapter 20. By contrast, the amillennial view holds that the number of years in Revelation 20 is a symbolic number, not a literal description; that the millennium has already begun and is identical with the church age (or more rarely, that it ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70; and that while Christ's reign is spiritual in nature during the millennium, at the end of the church age, Christ will return in final judgment and establish permanent physical reign.

BTW I am Amillennial.

HMIC