People keep making Rapture jokes like there's no tomorrow, so I figured I'd join 'em.

If you do believe it's happening today and you expect to be leaving us at 6pm local time, have you already rapture farewell gifts?

AWESOME!

Maybe lame but I just made this up-

God need your money so make sure you rapture extra change in rolls so it's easy to deposit.

Not as good as yours, Peter; but I tried .

One of the best environments in video game history.

Agreed, Doc.

An atheist and entrepreneur from New Hampshire, Bart Centre, is enjoying a boost in business for Eternal Earth-bound Pets, which he set up to look after the pets of those who believe they will be raptured.

He has more than 250 clients who are paying up to $135 (£83) to have their pets picked up and cared for after the rapture.

They would be disappointed twice, he told the Wall Street Journal. "Once because they weren't raptured and again because I don't do refunds."

Dang it. I've been disappointing people for free all of these years.

Warning: F-bombs dropping at the following link.

FY, Rapture

Sorry, just trying out that site, so I had to do something topical.

The rapture in modern Christianity was invented by Hal Linsey, a self proclaimed prophet and fiction writer, who kept setting dates of Christ's return in the later part of the last century. Totally non-biblical using out of context quotes. Yet most of the Christian world believes in this.

Agreed, CatBrat.

I think you mean, "Agreed, CatBrat."

Cat, are you saying it's only a modern Christianity invention? I thought that there are a couple biblical passages that MOST Christian's use as justification for their belief in the rapture.

Please don't say most. Of course there are parts in the Bible, but as a concept and word, it's a modern invention.

This news article says 79% of Christians believe in the rapture, and here's another where a Pastor says that he "knows that each Christian church does have varying viewpoints on the end times, he is certain that each church believes Jesus Christ is coming back.". The reason I said most is because I postulate that the majority of Christians adhere to the passages in their book rather than some made up day by a Zionist nutcase.

I read through many discussions online to find statistics and more info, and there were either responses by Christians that don't believe in the rapture, or ones that do and they refer to the Bible. There's absolutely no mention of Hal Linsey.

Just an observation, that's all.

See, I'm not sure what the question on that survey was. If it was "do you believe that Jesus will return?" sure, I'm sure you'd see 79% (or more). If it was "do you believe in the rapture (a la heaven opening up and people floating up to the sky while everyone else dies in flame)" I suspect the answer would be quite a bit fewer.

why am I doing this?

I tried clicking on that sentence to find out, but there must be a broken link because no answer popped up!

Ken, I just enjoy the conversation, that's all.

Clarification:

Rapture, meaning Christ's return and meeting Him in the air, absolutely.

Rapture: meaning Christian's disappearing and leaving everyone else behind while still living, no. I never heard about it until Hal Lindsey wrote about it in his book "Late Great Planet Earth". Just because he isn't mentioned as the founder of the modern version of it, doesn't mean he didn't make it up. (He may have been using some one else's interpretation, but he was the first that I know of to make it popular.)

I find in the religious documentation on the net, that there is a LOT of miss-information. People's wrong opinion many times comes across as fact.

I remember a booklet one time that spoke out against one particular denomination written by a different denomination. After much study of it, I had to come to the conclusion that this booklet used another similar booklet as it's source. Yet, the other booklet stopped being published long ago and no copy of it could be found. Since I knew the subject matter at hand was false, it had to be clear cut case of intentional slander.

ATTENTION
Due to technical difficulties... The scheduled END OF THE WORLD event has been postponed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. If you have already quit your job, given away your life savings or liquidated all of your assets... Ooopps... Our bad! We will attempt another doomsday event in December, 2012. Please stay tuned.
Oh, & Have a nice day