The rapture is finally here again!

[DeistPaladin]

Acts 1:15 relates the day of Pentacost when 120 were present when the Holy Spirit descended, not Jesus. I Cor.15:6 says 500 saw Jesus at once, but we do not know when.

According to the Bible, the 500 that saw Jesus fly up into the sky were "his bretheren" around Jerusalem at the time of his resurrection and ascension.

1Cor 15:4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: ...
1Cor 15:6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; ...

This means the event occurred prior to the meeting of the disciples where 120 believers were counted.

Acts 1:3 To whom (the apostles) also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
...
Acts 1:9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
...
Acts 1:15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)

So the order of events is:
1. Jesus resurrected
2. Jesus flew up into the sky in front of 500 bretheren
3. The bretheren met afterwords and their number mysteriously dropped to 120

I believe it was the gnostics that claimed Jesus was not human; that He was only a spirit that appeared to be human. John refutes this teaching. It was not Christians that denied Jesus.

It's sometimes assumed by apologists that the passage refers to the Docetic Christians, who were a sect of Christianity (at least they thought so). This isn't certain from the epistles, since these "antichrists" aren't named but let that go.

John lived allegedly within the lifetime of Jesus so one can assume that he was writing to people who also lived within his lifetime. One wonders why Christians would choose to believe that Jesus was a phantom when surely he had family and neighbors who could have testified that he was a real person. Jesus grew up in a small town where everyone would have known him. Could they not say that he was a baby born under mysterious circumstances through Mary? Did the gifts from the kings that made them so rich not become a famous event in such a small town?

Most importantly, why would Christians choose to ignore such a patently obvious and recent reality and instead invent some elaborate fantasy that he was but an illusion?

Paul did not flatly deny that Jesus lived in his life time. Here is the quote: 1 Corinthians 15:8 "And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." The last phrase "born out of due time" is the translation of the Greek word "ektroma". This word is only used once in the Bible and it means "miscarriage". Paul was stating that he was not worthy to have seen Jesus.

So Paul is saying he's a miscarriage and that's why he's not worthy to have been seen by Jesus? I don't follow you here.

Aside, one wonders where the chief prosecutor of the Jews, a man so obviously interested in persecuting Christians, was during the time that Jesus was allegedly driving the priests so nuts that they met on Passover Eve to conspire against him.

So much doesn't add up, even accepting Christian claims at face value.