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MUST READ (To Be Believed): Are You Ready for the Rapture? (Disgusting Cynicism on Display)



Cross-posted from The Left Anchor.  If you agree with the sheer disgusting cynicism on display in this post, then help us share it with others with a recommendation. 

My
brother, whom I love dearly despite his conservatism and his religious
worldview (for the record, I'm an agnostic leaning toward atheism while
he is a devout Christian), showed me this website,
saying, "Some people will do anything to make a buck."  And I think
he's right.  The name of the site is "You've Been Left Behind," and the
service they offer is to retain certain personal letters of their
clients, which are to be released six days after the Rapture.  They
offer this service for the low price of only $40 a year.  Here are the
details:

We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the
addresses you provide, 6 days after the "Rapture" of the Church. This
occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to
log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any
false triggering of the system.


We give you 150mb of encrypted storage that can be sent to 12
possible email addresses, in Box #1. You up load any documents and
choose which documents go to who. You can edit these documents at any
time and change the addresses they will be sent to as needed. Box #1 is
for your personal private letters to your closest lost friends and
relatives.


We give you another 100mb. of unencrypted storage that can be sent
to up to 50 email addresses, in Box #2. You can edit the documents and
the addresses any time. Box #2 is for more generic documents to lost
family & friends.

Think
about that.  They have only five members who are designated to
determine when the Rapture has occured.  If three of those members fail
to log in for 72 hours at a stretch, then that triggers the site's
doomsday response.  Three people.  God forbid one of of them gets sick
and two get caught in a blackout or go camping.  If the system goes
off, the point seems to be that your loved ones' inboxes will be
flooded with emails you've written in advance to instruct them on how
to get through the Apocalypse.

If the Apocalypse really occurred, would any of us need our loved ones, already taken to Heaven, to try and convince us of the reality of God?  And why do they have to wait until after the Rapture to send these messages?  I mean, if someone sends me a bunch of voodoo garbage about what's going to happen when the world ends and how best to save my soul from eternal damnation, I can assure you that in the event the mouth of Hell opens up and we all start vomiting sulfur, I'll look that email up even if they sent it ahead of time.  But more likely, in the event of the Apocalypse, I probably won't be checking my email at all.  Moreover, if I had to take a guess, I'd guess that six days after the rapture, most communication systems won't be working.  I'm more likely to be screaming and dodging demonic beings from the sky than I am to be sitting at my computer.

They claim the site is "By Christians, For Christians."  My ass!  No true Christian would ever be this greedy and cynical even if many of the leaders are.  If I were the creator of YouveBeenLeftBehind.com, I'd be more concerned with how I was going to get my own ass out of hell.


Comments (9)

That is AWESOME and I wish I'd thought of it first.

The cynicism is only topped by their "Privacy Policy," which limits itself to these few words:

We won't give any information to anyone, period!

I'd love to find out what they're getting for selling the information!

They claim the site is "By Christians, For Christians." My ass! No true Christian would ever be this greedy and cynical even if many of the leaders are. If I were the creator of YouveBeenLeftBehind.com, I'd be more concerned with how I was going to get my own ass out of hell.

I think your definition of what a Christian is doesn't match the one used by the most prominent of them. In many evangelical churches, the measure of how good a Christian you are is how rich you can get. This guy's just going along with that way of thinking.

I heard the Webmaster interviewed on the radio this weekend, and he seems sincere about what he's doing. That doesn't make it reasonable to come up with a Website like this, but it doesn't necessarily make it cynical.

Yeah, if something like the Apocalypse occurs, I don't think email's going to be high on the list of priorities, especially if someone who's been "Raptured" is rubbing it in our faces with email notification.

Of course, the entire concept of the Rapture is only about 150 years old. A guy in New England came up with it, and it caught on in the US and England. There's no Biblical foundation for it.

Just like the whole "homosexuality is an abomination" thing. The Biblical references cited refer to customs of the periods. And Deuteronomy is full of some pretty wild stuff.

How about the stuff about slaves? From The New Jerusalem Bible, Deut. 15:

"If your fellow Hebrew , man or woman, is sold to you, he can serve you for six years. In the seventh year you must set him free ... But if he says to you 'I do not want to leave you,' if he loves you and your household and is happy with you, you are to take an awl and drive it through his ear into the door and he shall be your servant for all time. You are to do the same for your maidservant."

And from Deut 23:

"A man whose testicles have been crushed or whose male member has been cut off is not to be admitted into the assembly of Yahweh."

Harsh.

The great thing about every religion's scripture is that it can be interpreted however the reader wants to interpret it. It's best, however, for the reader to realize it's his interpretation and not tell everyone that it's the one and only interpretation.

So, when it comes to a Rapture Website, it's no more bizarre than most of the stuff in the Bible, if it's taken literally. And if it makes Christians feel better about leaving their heathen and apostate friends and relatives with some goodbye emails to comfort them before the anti-Christ takes over, it's their money to spend.

I think there are just some people who sincerely are worried that not everyone around them is saved and they have a very deep desire to say goodbye and express sorrow for their friends who didn't "make it." It takes a certain sort of person, but not every fundamentalist is the stereotypical Santorum or Parsley.

What gets me is that they figure the internet is still working 6 days into the Apocalypse.

The Rapture is basically early heaven without dying, I think it will only happen to the reeallly reeeaally worthy. Everyone else kicks it till the end of the world.

My question is when it occurs and you get left behind for looking at some chick's butt (totally innocent - I SWEAR!) ... don't your emails go out even though you are still here?

I say don't do it, sounds like a risky service!

The Rapture is basically early heaven without dying, I think it will only happen to the reeallly reeeaally worthy. Everyone else kicks it till the end of the world.
Hmm, maybe. There's supposed years of tribulation and the events of revelation unfolding -- demons, fires from heaven, the moon turned to blood, etc. I was raised Roman Catholic, so maybe the standard evangelical narrative is different.

I am SO ready for the rapture. I have a new crimson blouse from Macy's and oh-so-fine pumps I got for 75% off. WAIT FOR ME!

No true Christian would ever be this greedy and cynical even if many of the leaders are.

There's a standard for a 'true Christian' now? Cool! How does it work? I'd love to be able to tell the true ones from the false ones, but I haven't been able to come up with a standard of measurement. :-)

First thing I'm gonna do after the great flyaway to the sky haven is go and 'jack me a new Prius.

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