The Post-Rapture Emails

Ya gotta hand it to those Fundo-Xian folks. They're nothing if not thoughtful -- downright thoughty, as my old Granny used to say. They even have a website where the faithful can have a post-Rapture email sent to their friends and family who are "left behind".

Here's the URL: http://raptureletters.com/letter.html -- I didn't make it a clickable link because I don't want to drive up their Google stats. In it you will see the following:

This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world. The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you and would like you to know the truth about where they went.
This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken up to heaven.
Etc etc etc blah blah blah

They promise to send out this letter on the first Friday following the Rapture, and every Friday thereafter until...well, I guess until Hell freezes over. Or whatever. And, of course, "free will donations" to the cause are gladly accepted (checks, cash, major credit card or PayPal).

I'm pretty sure I won't be needing to add the email addresses of my friends and family to that list. I'm also pretty sure I won't be getting any post-Rapture emails myself.

But look on the bright side. The vast majority of those self-designated Rapture-ites have oodles of money that they suddenly won't be needing, some plush luxury cars they won't be driving, and some fancy cribs that they won't be living in. For those of us who are "left behind" there ought to be a huge post-Rapture dividend.

Except that the Xian Bible does say that only 144,000 souls are going to get into heaven, so maybe that dividend won't be so big after all.

BTW, the whole concept of The Rapture is a fairly recent one, as these things go, the first usage of the word having been invented for the world's enlightenment no earlier than 1738.

The word "rapture" itself occurs nowhere in the Xian Bible, in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. Not in the "regular" King James Version, and not in any of the modern translations. Nowhere. And that in itself is pretty odd, since it seems to be an English transliteration of the Latin raptus, "borne up, taken away" (hence raptor).

But I digress. It must be the former English teacher in me.

Anyway, the fact that "The Rapture" is mentioned nowhere in the Xian Bible is a handy comeback for that IBIL* of yours who tells you that the phrase "separation of church and state" occurs nowhere in the US Constitution.

Besides all this, I much prefer the Blondie version of "Rapture"...

[*IBIL = Idiot Brother-in-Law]