Might I remind some here that this is a thread expressly intended to discuss the personal qualities of Trump and whether those personal qualities expose them as a "prince of lies", and as "the beast". Their personal failures are germane to this. Their political actions (not their platform but their *actions*) are germane.
We are not talking about whether voters are stupid.
We are not talking about whether Trump represents the will of their constituents.
We are talking about whether someone has checked off very specific, religiously advertised boxes of personal qualities: blaspheming on the steps of a temple; lying a bunch; engaging with 'the whore'; enabling plagues to run rampant across the globe and in particular for their own followers; poisoning the waters; (etc...).
If you are not here to engage with that topic, but to instead run political theater talking about whether their policy is A or B when neither A nor B discuss *Antichrist prophecy*, is not germane.
I think people have varying ideas as to what the "antichrist" is supposed to be. I was not aware of the specific list you mention, I've always understood the antichrist to be the opposite of what Christ supposedly stands for. Think of the expression "what would Christ do?" (More often as "what would Jesus do?") The antichrist would typically do the opposite.
Kind of, but Revelation specifically talks about a number of discrete events and a specific singular beast, even if this beast is more a template than an individual.
It outlines a pattern of whole events that seems to happen in reality over and over and over again. I would almost bet that we have started evolving an intrinsic and biologically instinctive awareness of the cycle.
In these religions, there is an apocalyptic event that they claim is described by the story told in Revelation.
For more information on these sorts of beliefs look up the "Left Behind" series by LaHay. It's some bottom of the barrel sort of writing, but describes fairly well what a lot of apocalyptic Christians believe (and shows you the true extent of why it is a 'death cult').
These folks believe the earth is doomed, and so feel no responsibility to build it up here, now, today... thus reifying said doom. Personally, I think that the reality is the reverse: even if the earth is doomed, that doom must be looked away from and not acknowledged.
We ought instead work on the futile hope of building Heaven for everyone here in the world we have despite the fact others will burn it all down around us as we try. If there is a god, they will appreciate this much more than us merely giving up and hoping that God will build it for us.
en.m.wikipedia.org
The wiki article goes into more depth on the subject.
I rather agree with you (and much of the Bible) that the antichrist figure was more written as an archetype, and I reject Paul entirely and he is the primary source in 2 Thessalonians discussing the antichrist as a specific person, a scion of lawlessness or some such that fairly well parallelizes the description of the Beast of the Sea in revelation.
Honestly, before I was an atheist, that's what I myself had been taught to believe: that a real person would rise up as "Antichrist", not just satisfying the trope of being opposite of Christ, living a profane existence, but doing so
as the leader of the whole world and leading it to the apocalypse and subsequent triumphant return of 'jesus'.
