Fasten Your Seatbelts?

Through Buzzflash, I found Bill Moyer's essay, "Welcome to Doomsday" on the whole rapture business, and in turn I went to the Rapture Ready website just to see if it was time to blow my savings on the wildest binge in history. As of today, the Rapture Index stands at 152, which means, according to the site that we should "fasten our seatbelts," because Jesus is on his way.

It should be noted, however, that this is a good 30 points below the high of 182, which occurred 3 1/2 years ago, so I guess I'd best not book that flight to Gomorrah just yet. What isn't clear from the Rapture Index is exactly when the point of no return will be reached. Will it happen at 200? 205? 500? They aren't saying, which is clever, because God knows prophesies could never be wrong. Except for all the apocalyptic announcements that have preceded the current batch, of course. Somehow, the world's still here, sinners and saints alike.

Anyway, here's my favorite part of the Rapture Index site: photos with accompanying links to Bible verse, all meant to indicate the increasing velocity at which we are approaching Armageddon. And while it would be easy to laugh at any adult who really buys this poppycock rubbish, when one of them sits in the White House, sending our young men and women to kill others in faraway lands, his delusion becomes our nightmare.

Read Moyers' article, then visit the Rapture Index site, then take a long hard look at who is running the county. That son of a bitch is sitting on our gigantic arsenal of nukes, waiting for Jesus. Feel better? No? Then this should help. Come Armageddon, as Moyers' relates from the fundamentalist fantasy,

As the Jews who have not been converted are burned the Messiah will return for the Rapture. True believers will be transported to heaven where, seated at the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents writhe in the misery of plagues—boils, sores, locusts, and frogs—during the several years of tribulation that follow.

Note the "political and religious opponents"--that would be me for one, I suppose--and the fact that our torment will be the headlining act for the righteous. It's nice how this sadistic mythology synchronizes so nicely with the ravings of Scalia on the blessings of the death penalty and the torture memo of Tortureboy Incarnate Alberto Gonzalez, not to mention Bush's early predilection for blowing up frogs with firecrackers before he had access to the U.S. military.

Think about this the next time you see someone in a car with the bumper sticker that says, "In case of rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned." That would be a nice alternative to having it driven by someone who is unhinged and waiting for the end with a blood lust.

Oy!