Kevin Marshall's America » Religion and Spirituality

Rev. Alan Rudnick and the math behind this Saturday’s Rapture

kevinmarshall — Fri, 20 May 2011 13:37:52 +0000

Fellow blogger (and all-around good guy, seriously) Reverend Alan Rudnick was interviewed by WTEN for their piece on the Rapture:

His point is that the math being used to justify the Rapture is wholly fictitious, and that the Bible was not written as a complex mathematical formula. On this point, the Reverend and I will have to agree to disagree.

The Old Testament has 39 books, while the New Testament has 27 books. This makes a total of 66 books. That means the Old Testament accounts for 59% of the Christian Bible. In the King James version of the Bible, The Book of Revelations is placed as the final book in the New Testament and has 22 chapters.

27 (number of books in the New Testament) – 22 (number of chapters in Revelations) = 5

May is the 5th month of the year.

To determine the exact day of the month of Judgment Day is a lot easier: Judges, in the Old Testament, has 21 chapters.

May 21st

The total number of verses in the Bible = 31,102. That number, reversed, is 20,113

May 21st, 2011 at 3pm.

It’s science, Alan.

What will happen to our cats and dogs after the Rapture?

kevinmarshall — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:14:42 +0000

One of the questions often asked is what happens to our pets after the rapture? With Judgment Day quickly approaching (this Saturday, May 21st 2011 – ‘CAUSE THE BUMPER STICKER TELLS US SO), it’s important for us to know that those of us deemed worthy will ascend to Heaven while our kitties, puppies, and even pet birds will be left behind.

But don’t fret! My friend Maeve this morning made me aware of an actual, honest to God service: After the Rapture Pet Care. These folks have set up a nation-wide (not global because screw those people I guess?) network of caretakers to collect and care for your pets after the Rapture, right up until the actual end of our world on October 21st.

Not that it matters. Even though I love cats, I’ll be the first to admit that they’re all going to Hell. Because c’mon, they’re cats, and cats are jerks.

My favorite part of the introductory video is the following image:

Typical cats, just sitting there watching us while we die.

The video itself is wrought with heartbreaking images of our beloved pets looking forlorn at the loss of their owners:

…Hallelujah?

What happens when the world doesn’t end?

kevinmarshall — Mon, 16 May 2011 18:15:04 +0000

James Frederick, regular reader and official Kevin Marshall’s American Songwriter (a distinction I just bestowed upon him now) asked in the comments to my previous post about the forthcoming Judgement Day forecasted for Saturday, May 21st:

What do these people do after they discover that the world didn’t actually end? (Did I ruin the surprise?) Seriously? How do “followers” of this particular religion continue to buy into the validity of the faith when the world doesn’t end on the date that the faith claims it will?

As much fun as I had with those folks in the previous post, there have been some really fascinating dissections of denial and how, specifically, doomsday cults and believers like those who say the world will end on Saturday justify their continued existence.

From “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science” by Chris Mooney for Mother Jones:

Festinger and several of his colleagues had infiltrated the Seekers, a small Chicago-area cult whose members thought they were communicating with aliens—including one, “Sananda,” who they believed was the astral incarnation of Jesus Christ. … Through her, the aliens had given the precise date of an Earth-rending cataclysm: December 21, 1954.

…

Festinger and his team were with the cult when the prophecy failed. First, the “boys upstairs” (as the aliens were sometimes called) did not show up and rescue the Seekers. Then December 21 arrived without incident. It was the moment Festinger had been waiting for: How would people so emotionally invested in a belief system react, now that it had been soundly refuted?

At first, the group struggled for an explanation. But then rationalization set in. A new message arrived, announcing that they’d all been spared at the last minute. Festinger summarized the extraterrestrials’ new pronouncement: “The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction.” Their willingness to believe in the prophecy had saved Earth from the prophecy!

From that day forward, the Seekers, previously shy of the press and indifferent toward evangelizing, began to proselytize. “Their sense of urgency was enormous,” wrote Festinger. The devastation of all they had believed had made them even more certain of their beliefs.

So what happens when the world doesn’t end? Well, barring the organization of a mass suicide, they keep on believing and re-affirm their beliefs. Like the Seekers and so many blog comments, delusion will set in if reality and facts don’t fit the projection or world view of the deluded. Judgement Day won’t come on Saturday. In response, leaders and followers alike will rationalize reasons as to why that is; ultimately, they’ll decide, it was their preparation for the end and other extenuating circumstances that postponed the apocalypse and allowed God to bestow upon us a second chance.