In the event of Rapture, this thread will be unmanned

Well, actually in this wretched hive of scum and villainy I imagine it will be well populated.

So in the event you haven't heard, some nut job pastor claims that the rapture will be this weekend, and a bunch of people are buying into it. I saw a news article about some people who have spent all their money because it won't matter once they are taken away. http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/

 

I took out the OP's FOCUSes, because they will turn the thread into a religion thread, and as we all know, those are not allowed.

This is a serious phenomenon, though: I drove out of town this weekend and saw several full-size billboards on relatively major highways talking about this. They were also advertising a radio station which I presume was set up to broadcast the news. I actually tuned in for a while. I was expecting to hear something like Woody Harrelson in 2012, but they were mostly just playing choral church music with occasional pre-recorded readings from the Bible. I cannot imagine how much money has been poured into this to buy billboards all over the country and a whole goddamn AM radio station in a major metropolitan area. It has to be much more than the $140K that the article quotes. I wonder where it's all coming from.

To avoid this becoming a religion thread, I will try to keep the focus wide of the general topic.

FOCUS: Talk about this particular end-of-the-world advertising campaign as a social and memetic phenomenon. Have you seen the billboards? Have people approached you about it? Do you think the world might actually end on the 21st?

RULE: Do not turn this into a discussion of Christian (or any other religion's) eschatology.

ALT FOCUS: What is the biggest waste of money you've ever seen perpetrated by an individual, a family, or a non-governmental organization (to avoid turning this into a politics thread instead).

 

A multi-millionaire business man of formerly very high regard in town, "Mr. Martin" has gone bat shit with the rapture ideas. His 3 kids pulled out of their private Catholic school because they weren't preaching judgement day scenarios? Check. Huge compound with high walls, farm land, pastures and live stock? Check. Rumored arsenal like the NRA fucko's in Tremors? Check. Chapel and prayer service multiple times daily? Yup that too. Guy has spent well over a million dollars on this real estate, in an area with average home being 2,500 sq/ft for $200,000. Sticks out like sore thumb and makes me laugh every time I see it.

I went to high school with one of his older kids, "D" and at the time the family seemed very normal, not any more zealot than anyone else at the said school. After I heard all the rumors of how paranoid the Martins were, I chatted with D and he confirmed that his dad will not let his daughters or wife leave the house with out him or one of his close friends accompany them while being armed. D has been asked to join the family compound for prayers and preparations but has so far politely declined his family's gracious offer.

Hope he's the crazy one after all.

 

Why would he need all that crap if he's going to be whisked away to heaven? Bad investment, broheim.

Fark had a lovely link to the other Rapture/Apocalypse events: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.trutv.com/conspiracy/phenomena/apocalypse-not/gallery.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.trutv.com/conspiracy/phenome ... llery.html</a>

I don't remember that 1994 thing at all. Anyone recall how modern media handled a recent scare? As for this one I saw something on CNN maybe yesterday, but it got buried quick. Obviously it's not a big deal to the baby killing liberrrrrruuuhhhlll media, but this isn't a sect as big as the Jehovahs (I guess). "Rapture watch 2011... everyone is still gone. Back to you in the studio."

This shit is kind of amusing, but gets under my skin having come from a deeply religious schooling. I wish people focused more on making life better than worrying when the world goes up in brimstone. Spooks me, like watching a horror movie. I'm going to have to check for Jesus under my bed, make sure no rapture is in the closet waiting.

Be hilarious if they're right though. Anyone planning a bbq that day? Which reminds me I need some mojito fixins just in case.

Edit: This would make an AWESOME drunk thread.

 

Yeah, at midnight.

I really think Jesus would want me to have this one. I mean, who doesn't love baked potatoes, smothered in butter, sour cream, bacon, and chives? Who could say no to roasted baby asparagus, picked from my own garden that day, tossed lightly in olive oil, salt and pepper, and grilled to perfection? Who could keep from drooling all over themselves when they see the masterpiece porterhouses I'm going to prep up on Saturday afternoon, to be lovingly brushed with Volo's own mango and sour cherry BBQ sauce? It'd be a sin not to let me get this going. Hell, I'll even send Jesus an invite if he puts off this rapture shit until Sunday when I'm so hungover I don't give a shit if the world ends.

FOCUS: We'll be fine, just like we were the times before, and all the times that will precariously loom ahead of us in the future.

Every time I read about this kind of doomsday bullshit, I can't help but feel pity for the religious folk out there who keep their shit level-headed and reasonable. They spend their lives just trying to abide by the laws of their religion, and a great many of them do good things, but in the end they get the shaft because no one sees the good in people with a story like this. Fuckin' shame.

That being said, it certainly makes for some good reading in the days leading up, and for a couple afterwards.

Let's the funny keep flowing!

 

One of the most psychologically unsettling movies I've ever seen was Last Night, which is on this theme. It's a uniquely Canadian apocalypse, which is to say that the characters have that very British sense of stoicism and reservedness, but lack the Brits' sense of Noblesse Oblige.

It opens with a radio DJ counting down the top 500 songs of all time. While such lists are made all the time, this one is unusual in that it will never require revision.

 

I really can't believe that this is even a topic. For all that Australia is full of morons, we have substantially more effort being spent on addressing the serious problem of 'Planking' than on preparing for the rapture.

Alt Focus: There are actually people spending time and effort trying to have the act of 'Planking' criminalized. Apparently there are really people who think it would be a good idea to make the act of laying on something 'like a plank' for purposes of a photo to be posted on the intarwebs, illegal. I despair for my nation and weep for my species.

 

Like I said before, when God wisks his naked people up to Cloudsville to listen to lute and harp music for the rest of their lives, I'll be here:



....because I think it would be to much of a risk to double down on any religion only to find out when you get to the "pearly gates", you get told:

"Oops! Sorry, dickweed. It turned out that the Jews were right all along. Your room is in the basement."

The bible is black-white wrong about how the world will end. WE will end the world, when WE all kill each other, which WILL happen once the right people are in charge.

 

I don't know what I will be doing on the day of the Rapture. However, I am fairly certain I will not be brought up, which makes me mad as hell I didn't come up with either one of these brilliant ideas.

<a class="postlink" href="http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/</a>

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youvebeenleftbehind.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youvebeenleftbehind.com/</a>

 

<a class="postlink" href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/05/rapture_looting_judgement_day.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninsca ... nt_day.php</a>

The Facebook page for the post-rapture looting party has 100k people attending. I think people will be disappointed though. It's not going to be a free-for-all of grabbing booze and plasma TVs. The elect are a small number, so you really have to know which house to loot if you're going to get anything good.

 

Every time you can't get a parking space, think of these assholes.

 

I'm way more interested in the aftermath of how the zealots will act after this turns out to be false. I am guessing that it will be quickly swept under the rug with a neat yet pretty foolish rationalization, but I hope it turns into a big spectacle in which the people who bought into this and spent their life savings publicly challenge those that pushed them to do it.

Basically, I want to see some internal conflict within this group. Political debate between two groups trying to have a rational debate yet also falling prey to the same cognitive dissonance is amusing and revealing of both groups

 

With all the rain we've getting in the midwest, I feel like this may be true. Or maybe I wish it was because rain is so depressing.

 

If all this Rapture mumbo-jumbo is true, that's really going to suck because my birthday is on Sunday the 22nd. Oh well, I plan on starting early on Saturday and drinking all day, just hope that the weather holds up so I can sit in the sun on a patio somewhere and drink cold beer.

 

I wouldn't worry, Oklahoma is such a shit pile that god will think he already hit it.

 

The pastor got it wrong. the Snoop Dog Rap Tour hits the States next week. Though for some, I imagine that will be much like the Rapture.

 

This could be a set up for the world's greatest troll. Just say the rapture happened, and we saw it. One or two of our good friends, who were just genuinely good people, floated on up to heaven right before our eyes. Tell the religious zealots that they must not have been faithful enough to make it up to heaven through the rapture. Via the internet, get a group of like-minded individuals around the world to leak separate but similar stories to their news agencies so that they have to cover it. All over the world, people are telling tales of their friends being taken to heaven by the rapture; the news agencies will have to cover it somehow. Sure, it's all bullshit and will be exposed as bullshit eventually, but as fast as the news networks move, I'm betting there would be at least 24 hours where people believed it was true, and even after it was exposed as bullshit, there would still be conspiracy theorists that believed it.

 

Or do what has been making the rounds on the intertubes:

Get a bunch of blow up dolls, fill them with helium, and release them into the sky near a gathering of these people.

I really don't get the whole joy people have when it comes to their idea of the rapture. Are they really that excited to die?

 

Friday is my birthday, and I can't think of a better way to spend the day after my birthday (rapture pending) on looting everyones stuff after being left behind.