Missing The Rapture

Well, folks, at 6:00 pm on this Saturday, May 21, in the year of our Lord 2011, I was not Raptured. Nor were Mrs. Smitty's especially Jesusly Aunt and Uncle (who mind you, have spent an entire 24 hours praying over a cup).

I can only assume this to mean one of two things:

1. Harold Camping is wrong and we truly cannot know God's divine will for ending creation


2. It's not going happen any time, anywhere, save for 3.5 billion years from now when our sun runs out of hydrogen, loses it's equilibrium, swells to a red giant, and consumes the Earth

Either way, Harold Camping is wrong. Hide your surprise.

Wait...Monk In Training...are...are you still with us?

I might have to reserve, erm, judgment until we know if Monk is still here. If anyone is going to be reputed out of our stock of lunatics who are a part of is blog, it's him.

By the way, my pint of choice for awaiting the rapture was a bottle of Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout. I could think of no better way to celebrate the end of the world or a simply beautiful Saturday afternoon than with that beer.

Read more...

After the Rapture Pet Care...Repent! The end is nigh!

After the Rapture Pet Care, a business in Lansing, has created a valuable service for Christians expecting to be raptured this weekend. For the low, low price of $10, a non-believer will collect a pet and care for them after it's owner has moved on to be with Jesus.




I am not sure how all the Jews, Muslims and Atheists will collect pets while simultaneously trying to extinguish the flames of hell, but if you are interested you might find the answer at their website. They also have some great merchandise. The doggie t-shirt is a nice item and is Made in the USA, which might be important to you if you think our economy might survive the end-of-days.

UPDATE: A second service has been located.

Read more...

Jesus Needs New PR, Part Deux

From The Atlantic Wire, Unicorns, Dinosaurs and Dragons were aboard Noah's Ark.

The $150 million Creationist Museum in Kentucky (of which roughly $40 million is in taxpayer-funded tax breaks, according to one angry blogger...not me...) will suggest that indeed, as supported in the bible, unicorns and dinos walked aboard the Ark.

From the article:

The Ark Encounter, will allow visitors to explore a literal interpretation of the Bible's story of Noah and the ark. But pseudonymous liberal Kentucky blogger Media Czech raises two important questions about that interpretation and how it will be manifest in theme park form. First, were there dinosaurs on the original ark? Second, what about unicorns?

Answers In Genesis, the official blog of the group behind The Ark Encounter...says "yes," to both, which implies that their creationist theme park will include dinosaurs and unicorns on the Ark. Here's Answers In Genesis explaining why dinosaurs were on the Ark, although the group prefers to call them "dragons":

Click the link. Their reasons are priceless.

Oh, but I just have to show you their unicorn reason.

The biblical unicorn was a real animal, not an imaginary creature. ...To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, which is true in every detail.

I am gonna laugh about this for a long time.

The punchline to the whole article makes me smile:

See??  Perfect!  Unicorns and Rainbows!

Kentucky will now be known as the state whose governor endorsed and gave $40 million in tax breaks to people who want to tell children that science and history explain that a 600 year old man herded dinosaurs, fire-breathing dragons and unicorns onto a big boat 4,000 years ago.

Read more...

Jesus Needs New PR

Related to the idiocy of yesterday's post is yet another example of why, if the ultimate heavenly goal is to assure there are more Christians in the world, God and Jesus really need better PR people; from a viral Facebook post of late (the screen capture has also gone viral, given the response, which is typical Facebook 1) total bullshit; 2) big pile of reasonable facts that show what bullshit your idiot claim is; 3) you insulted me, how dare you!):

FACT - if the earth were 10 ft closer to the sun we'd all burn up and if it were 10 ft further, we'd all freeze...God is great!

The answer is of course in the screen capture linked above, but just in case you're lazy (and the screen cap is slightly off):

1) If God put the planet here, and did it do perfectly, why would He allow for any variance? Wouldn't he make it exactly perfect with no allowance for variance? But let's escape the nonsensical argument of trying to guess God's motives, and instead just go with what we know.

2) The earth's orbit is, as people who wear big pants know, elliptical; decidedly not circular. Thus, at certain points in the year, the earth is 3,000,000 miles closer to the sun (or, conversely, at opposite times of the year, 3,000,000 miles further). This is, at last glance, significantly more than 10 feet. By a mere 15,839,999,990 feet.

3) Let's look at habitable zones. Habitable zones are self-serving to begin with, because they relay on the existence of liquid water, which sustains life as we know it. But our sun's habitable zone is between .95 AU (an AU, atronomical unit, is the mean distance of the earth from the sun, or about 93 million miles) to 1.35 AU. This is, roughly speaking, Venus to Mars. The earth, then, could be 88,350,000 miles from the sun or 125,550,000 miles from the sun and still sustain life (granted, life that would like a bit different than it does now, but who's to say it wouldn't be us, just dressed perpetually in parkas or bermuda shorts). That's a 37,200,000 mile variation (196.4 billion feet), or, from our current mean distance, a variation of 4,650,000 miles (24.5 billion feet) closer or 32,550,000 miles (171.8 billion feet) further...and life, as we know it, is sustainable.

But none of that matters, all those fancy facts, because these damn nerdy science atheists are fat.

Note: I started to read the article about atheist obesity in Conservapedia...but the sheer immensity of the stupid therein prevented a full reading. Perhaps someone with more intestinal fortitude than me should finish reading it).

Read more...

There Goes The Neighborhood

Well, great.

According Marie Exley, the world will apparently begin to end on May 21, 2011. On that day, true believers will be enraptured.

If there had been time, Marie Exley would have liked to start a family. Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has less than six months left, which she'll spend spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is almost here.

Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the Bible that the end of the world will begin on May 21, 2011.

I love the sanctimonious part of the article:

"A lot of people might think, 'The end's coming, let's go party,'" said Exley, a veteran of two deployments in Iraq. "But we're commanded by God to warn people. I wish I could just be like everybody else, but it's so much better to know that when the end comes, you'll be safe."

This all comes from Cult Leader minister Harold Camping. He has thus far convinced people to stop working and join RV caravans to drive around the country telling people just how screwed we are and they aren't, unless they believe Camping's prediction.

Camping, 89, believes the Bible essentially functions as a cosmic calendar explaining exactly when various prophecies will be fulfilled.

The retired civil engineer said all his calculations come from close readings of the Bible, but that external events like the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 are signs confirming the date.

"Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment," he said.

The doctrine known as the Rapture teaches that believers will be taken up to heaven, while everyone else will remain on earth for a period of torment, concluding with the end of time. Camping believes that will happen in October.

"If May 21 passes and I'm still here, that means I wasn't saved. Does that mean God's word is inaccurate or untrue? Not at all," Warden said.

I love that last paragraph above. Just because it looks like I'm wrong, I'm not wrong. I'm right.

For me, it'll mean Smitty Jr has a really really shitty 6th birthday 22 days later, which is total bullshit. It also means that I will certainly lose the deposit on whatever venue we choose for Smitty Jr's 6th, which is also bullshit.

But I do have hope. Rare ATK Contributor Joel got me this book for Christmas, so at least I can survive the apocalypse. I assume Joel will too, who will certainly demand I lend him back the book he gifted me. So the blog will live on, even if it's not in cyberspace. So we have that going for us. And that's nice. I wonder if Jesus reads this blog...

Read more...