Dumb All Over, pt. 2

I don't need to say too much about this one, the Rapture Ready site. More than anything else I've seen, this site sums up the loony far-right U.S. fundamentalists in a nutshell, with an emphasis on nut. For those of you not in the know, many hardcore fundies believe in the Rapture, the crazy dispensationalist belief that when Jesus returns, Christians will be lifted to heaven, right out of their clothes, leaving us heathens here to tough it out with the Antichrist. This is the basis for the insanely popular and stupid 'Left Behind' series of books so popular with the Wal-mart literary crowd. The hardest thing for me with that is not the idea of sticking behind to fight the devil, it's the notion of seeing millions of fundamentalists Christians flying through the air, sans clothing, from below, nonetheless. I mean, have you seen how some of these people eat?

Funny thing about the rapture is there's nothing about it in the Bible. It comes from some mid-19th century hack preacher named John Nelson Darby, back in the day when the whole fire-and-brimstone b.s. was captivating parts of the U.S. I'm sure most fundies probably do think it's in the Bible. As much as they love to quote scripture, they always seem to not have a clue about other parts of their book.

The Rapture Index, on the aforementioned site, is a list of numerical factors that take into acount various world events, telling us how close we are to the Rapture (they also seem to have forgotten that line in the Bible that says something about 'no one knows the day or hour when I shall return'). Right now it's hovering at about 156, which, according to the site, means "fasten your seat belts." Whatever. It hit a high of 182 shortly after 9-11, and in the times I've checked it occasionally since, it's stayed in the 'fasten your seat belts' range, as I suspect it will still be 100 years from now. The whole website is really quite entertaining because of the sheer, jaw-dropping stupidity of its adherents. Lots of ridiculous articles everwhere, even a section for people who end up getting left behind (it's good to know that after the Rapture, the internet will still be working so I can check my e-mail and continue to blog). You really could spend a good hour there, being entertained. And don't forget to read the letters section for a real hoot.