Ask Slashdot: What To Do When the Rapture Comes? 673
Okian Warrior writes "Since the rapture is tomorrow (May 21) at 6:00 pm local time (everywhere), I was just wondering: what plans does everyone have? I've got no specific plans for what to do. What will you be doing around 6:00 pm tomorrow?" If you're on the IT staff, you might want to consult this checklist of things to do or not do in the interim.
I live in Vegas so (Score:4, Funny)
I live in Japan so... (Score:2)
Re:I live in Japan so... (Score:5, Funny)
Pfft... Everyone knows God calculates the rapture as a 32-bit unsigned int representing seconds since beginning of epoch UTC. So, sometime before 2038, obviously, but 'local time'? Please.
Re:I live in New Zealand so... (Score:5, Funny)
Ditto - I used the opportunity to rush out and buy packs of ciggies and condoms to stuff into my pockets. I'm guessing both are in short supply in heaven. ^^
Re:I live in New Zealand so... (Score:5, Funny)
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Don't be silly, he wouldn't Submit "Aaargghh", would he.
Re:I live in New Zealand so... (Score:5, Funny)
UPDATE: I didn't get raptured, but on the plus side - I now have party supplies. Ladies?
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I live in New Zealand so... (Score:4, Funny)
Tools and Utilities sounds like a folder for the male gangbangs... just saying.
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Too bad that guy on Usenet refused to sign the "You can have all my possessions after the rapture" contract with me.
Re:I live in Vegas so (Score:5, Funny)
Last Post!
Re: Why wait (Score:2)
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It's all in the question -- ask the right question and the answer is obvious.
It's not if something happened because you're in Vegas.
It's not what we should do.
It's who we can contact for help -- in other words, "Who ya gonna call?"
And that question pretty much tells us who should be dealing with this whole thing.
Re:I live in Vegas so (Score:4, Insightful)
The Rapture? I'd celebrate finally be rid of all of those self-righteous assholes. If only I could wake up one day and hear "all of the religious nut jobs disappeared today", I'd be a happy person.
Set piles of clothes out (Score:5, Funny)
I'm planning on setting piles of clothes out on the sidewalk. Should be good for a laugh :)
Re:Set piles of clothes out (Score:5, Funny)
The nasty plan I saw was spare shoes with dry ice in them. Or inflatable... dolls filled with helium let to float into the sky.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Add dry ice.
Re:Set piles of clothes out (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, yes, most fundamentalists believe you will be naked in Heaven. However, there will be no lascivious thoughts because that sort of nastiness just doesn't happen in Heaven.
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At work (Score:5, Funny)
Re:At work (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be at work, waiting for my shift to end in 3.5 hours. At that point, I would probably welcome an apocalyptic earthquake.
I'll be at work and an apocalypse would be just Business As Usual.
Killing zombies (Score:5, Funny)
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Been reading the Centers for Disease Control website [cdc.gov], have you?
I have bellsprouts planted outside my house (Score:3, Funny)
to shoot peas at any zombies that may approach.
Loaded question! (Score:5, Funny)
Going out on a limb here... (Score:5, Funny)
Even if the world does happen to end tomorrow, it's not because this kook knew it.
Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:5, Informative)
Then perhaps you missed the one two verses before that: "I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."
Perhaps even a little of: "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Matthew 16:28.
Or: "After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." I Thessalonians 4:17.
"Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour." I John 2:18
"This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none..." I Corinthians 7:29.
"They said to you, 'In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.' These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit." Jude 18-19.
I don't think Harold Camping was the first kook by a looong shot.
Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think Harold Camping was the first kook by a looong shot.
We can take some comfort in knowing that if he's right, he'll be the last kook.
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The implication I've always understood for "[they] shall not taste of death" was that some people present at that sermon would in fact be brought up to heaven without dying first. So either they're still alive, and really bloody old, or they got raptured long ago, and hence aren't our problem anymore. The bit about it being the last hour is that we don't live as long as we think we do, and we will run out of runway sooner than we think, so we'd better gun it and rotate.
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You missed the original question(s).
They asked him what they thought was one question (with several parts.) They thought these things would happen at the same time.
He gave an answer with several parts - because these things (didn't/wouldn't) happen at the same time.
Ever since then, people have let themselves be confused by that.
The important thing isn't when the world will end for everybody.
The end of the world for the individual is more significant.
And more importantly, how did the individual live his/her
Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:4, Informative)
You should probably read the section before that. At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus said in reference to the temple that not one stone would be left on another. The disciples then asked him when these things would happen, and he proceeded into a rather lengthy explanation with one "rabbit trail" into the end times to address/correct the idea that Jews thought the end of the world would come when the temple was destroyed. He then wrapped it up by answering their initial question of when the prophecy about the temple would come to pass. The structure of the passage makes a lot of sense when you think of the flow of a conversation. People tend to not really look at the surrounding text when talking about this verse and instead take it out of the context of the conversation, a dangerous practice albeit a common one on both sides.
FYI, destruction of the temple was around 70 A.D. Within the timing of the current generation prophecy.
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FYI, destruction of the temple was around 70 A.D. Within the timing of the current generation prophecy.
Except that the gospels, that contain the prophecy in question, where written a couple centuries later... Let me see... I can make a prophecy that civil war will break out on the united states, and the slavers will lose...
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Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, books that tell you how to live your life should always be written in such a way that they are unclear and require lots of interpretation, preferably by highly trained specialists. Because there's no way THAT system could be abused. God is so wise!
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The common raptors of the Middle East include the Golden Eagle, the Greater Spotted Eagle, the Imperial Eagle, and the Steppe Eagle (which winters in locations such as Oman but is a European bird in the summer.), All of these species are frequent carrion eaters, and historically existed in numbers much larger than the (more specialised) vultures. (for non-biblical reference, see Pliny or just about anyone commenting on what the Romans stocked for their games.).
So yes, in this particular case, the religious
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He has radio?
Seriously, as long as there is a negative correlation between intelligence and fecundity, there will not be a shortage of kooks and followers.
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I take my mortality advice from http://www.deathclock.com/ [deathclock.com]
He really should look into that site before making any rash judgments it tell ya!
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Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:4, Insightful)
This "nobody knows the day and hour" stuff is about your own death. People make it be about armageddon and rapture because that's more abstract, less personal, and hence easier to face.
Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, most people who are sure that tomorrow ISN'T the rapture have exactly the same amount of evidence behind them as those who think it IS.
Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm as sure that tomorrow isn't the rapture as I am that the Moon won't sponteneously turn into cheese tomorrow, and that my house won't become a monster and eat the local children tomorrow, and that the sun won't go supernova tomorrow, and that 1+1 will still equal 2 tomorrow.
Yes I could be wrong on any of those, but if you are going to say I can't be "sure", then the word is meaningless since no one can be sure of anything.
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Problem of induction aside, all the current evidence suggests such events are physically impossible, so I would say all the evidence suggests that tomorrow isn't the rapture.
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I have Occam's Razor, by which I mean the reasonable assumption is the null hypothesis, by which I mean that unless I had some reason to believe that some unprecedented phenomenon would occur, I shouldn't expect it to occur.
In addition, given the text that Harold Camping is supposedly basing his beliefs upon says, specifically, that neither he nor anyone else can know when the Rapture will occur, it's obvious that Camping is too stupid to think coherently even within the bounds of his own declared belief sy
Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:5, Informative)
The real problem isn't Harold Whacko. The problem is cognitive dissonance. Even though he will be proven wrong -- again -- in a little over three and a half hours (or less -- I would guess that the Bible doesn't account for EDT) will his followers, the ones who have showered him with money, go "Gee, were we dumb! We actually believed this crazy loon!"? No, instead they will find a way of making the non-event into the event, or they will start rumors of some people disappearing, and pretty soon all of them will "know" somebody that was taken up, and then there will be an after the last minute second chance or the good news that Jesus decided not to end the Universe after all because of the faith of Harold's followers.
Leon Festinger observed all of this, documented it, and named it way back in the 60's, and it is what keeps religion alive in spite of the lack of evidence, in spite of the positive evidence that they are wrong, that their predictions are false, that their theistic scripture is a collection of lies and myths, that many of those that preach it are con artists who suck the blood of the gullible.
rgb
Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:5, Informative)
For those who don't want/care to look this up, Matthew 24:36 states (in reference to the rapture) "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." - NIV translation
Unrelated note: For some reason, I mis-read the slashdot headline as "What To Do When the Raptors Come?"
what do you do when the raptors come?
Re:Going out on a limb here... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Brain (Score:5, Funny)
The same thing we do EVERY night, Pinky -- try to take over the world!
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I'm on a rampage!
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Dammit! You've been on that thing for two weeks. Give him a fucking name already!!!
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Yeah, pouring the astroglide on the linoleum and locking a cat in with the German Shepherd *IS* pretty amusing...
That's what you were talking about right?
Money (Score:2)
You still have time to mail me a check. I promise not to bank it until the 23rd :)
You have nothing to lose!
No sense holding back. (Score:2, Funny)
I'm going to turn my virus scanner off and just enjoy the shit out of the extra speed.
Do Over in 2012 (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:2)
I can't handle the crazy porn you get tricked into already... Hell on earth versions will be horrifying!!
trust no one
Lol. See yall in december 2012, worried about the same babble.
nt (Score:2)
I'm going short on holy water.
HR gets in the way of planning (Score:5, Funny)
My HR department vetoed my plan to survey the IT staff to see if they were expecting to be raptured. Some crap about religious discrimination or something.
Not that I'm worried, I think we're only going to lose one IT guy to Rapture, and no one wants to hang out with him anyway.
Finding people... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finding people... (Score:4, Funny)
Finding People ...who thought the rapture would come, and asking them the obvious question, "Where is your god now?"
Or even better... ask them why they didn't ascend when some of your other Christian friends did.
Re:Finding people... (Score:5, Funny)
Finding People ...who thought the rapture would come, and asking them the obvious question, "Where is your god now?"
Or even better... ask them why they didn't ascend when some of your other Christian friends did.
Or even bester, ask them why they're still here and your Hindu friends aren't.
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Visiting rapturefail.org (Score:5, Insightful)
Visiting and/or updating rapturefail.org [rapturefail.org], and hoping that Harold Camping's followers take to heart the open letter [rapturefail.org] on that site:
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Its good to know an Atheist (Score:5, Funny)
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The specifics aren't really spelled out, the general understanding is that we will ascend to meet Jesus 'in the clouds', so ducking airliners here and there... From there we go to be with Him in heaven.
The exact location of heaven isn't spelled out. My personal theory is that it is actually outside the universe, outside of space-time (one easy way to get a human body to live forever). However that is mostly personal speculation, I'm sure there are theologists who would better answer your question.
And yes, I
Interesting (Score:2)
6 pm local time is when we've scheduled to end our maintenance time at work tomorrow, replacing the core switch. Huh. I guess it's not going to go so well.
Sorry, everyone. If I'd have known that my work network was in actuality running a virtual instance of the known universe, I wouldn't have ignored all those Kerberos errors. Although in retrospect, a half-ass, thrown together Active Directory environment does explain a lot about the world we live in.
Staying home, avoiding morons. (Score:2)
Not withstanding the lack of internal support for such a foolish thing as the rapture from within the insular and circular reasoning of biblical scriptures, nor the aburd levels of improbability that such a thing is even remotely possible--- coupled with the infinite capacity for human stupidity-- I have decided that tomorrow I will stay home, do laundry, and get my house ready for a friend of mine who intends to come visit me over Memorial Day week.
By evening time, If I havent been hoover vaccuum cleanered
I'll be toasting an absent friend... (Score:2)
At 6pm local Saturday, my wife and I will be hoisting a glass (or six [ or ten]) with many others in celebration of a friend and next-door neighbor who died in February. I doubt very much the Rapture will haul me off to an encounter with said departed (he was rather a rascal as well as an atheist, and as I understand it the Rapture is a tramway to Heaven, which is unlikely to be my friend's abode in the mythical afterlife...) but I'll play along until sunset, at which time I'll look about for evidence of th
Googling "Pre-Rapture Suicide Methods" (Score:5, Funny)
Jetpack gogogo (Score:3)
I am obviously going to build my jetpack. It should give me enough altitude incase you know i dont get caught up in the clouds myself (and looking at my pron collection its not likely). So I am going to jetpack up and grab on to one of those bible thumpers legs (hopefully it'll have a skirt on it which would be a great inflight movie) and totally get into like... heaven or whatever.
No Backups (Score:2)
Getting Laid (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Kool Aide (Score:3, Funny)
I will be investing a ton in Kool Aide stocks. Should be a killer Monday on the stock market.
Goin' fishin' (Score:5, Funny)
This time, no size limits, and screw the limit.
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Thank you. That's [pitt.edu] one of my favorites.
Hmmm... thousands of "missing" people... (Score:3)
So, any one who gets crossed off the hit list becomes known as a "true believer" afterwards...
I wouldn't be surprised to find out years later that all the disappeared folk were the outspoken freedom advocates that had actually just been permanently silenced by a coordinated global conspiracy...Perfect opportunity for a cover up, just sayin'.
Hey, that's more believable than a Super Sky Zombie, coming back after thousands of years to take his followers to a magical utopia, where he'll finally marry them all, then subjugate them in service to his father for 1000 years of constant worship...
You know -- If the aliens arrive tomorrow and abscond with a shit load of gullible "volunteers" as their "chosen people", I'll be skipping the ride to eternal slavery camp, no matter how hellish they promise to make our world afterwards. -- Life Free or Die is what I believe in.
P.S. Didn't they make a movie about this already [imdb.com]? IIRC: the aliens finally arrived at their destination, Earth. Their purpose: To retrieve the long lost secrets of the most flavorful food in the universe. All the Hispanics were abducted, mind-reamed to discover their collective recipes for Authentic Mexican Cuisine, then returned, unharmed. The world wept without knowing why -- There was a great disturbance in the force due to the psionic-emotive resonances of the aliens, who all joyously celebrated after finally having achieved their holy quest.
It's really the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! (Score:4, Funny)
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Prepare accordingly
Um, did he factor in the Gregorian Adjustment? (Score:3)
According to The Origins of our Modern Calendar" [faeriefaith.net], in 1582 10 days were dropped from the calendar to account for a centuries-long accumulation of a rounding error in calculating the length of a year (Caesar calculated a year to be 365.25 days long, but it's actually 365.2422 days.) Ever since then, we've been adjusting one day every 4 years, but that has it's own rounding problems too, resulting in 1 day of error every 3,000 years.
No rapture: What will Harold Camping do? (Score:3)
So, it comes to pass that it is "about" 6PM in the timezone where Harold Camping is, and nothing happens to him. What will Harold Camping do?
Things he's likely to do:
(a) Figure he got his calculations wrong and start over on his math.
(b) Worry a little that perhaps he wasn't as Christian as he thought he was supposed to be, but then dismiss the idea immediately.
(c) More steadfastly ignore all naysayers, insisting that his beliefs are sound and that there WILL be a rapture.
(d) Shove his head further into the sand.
Rational things he ought to do but won't:
(a) Take seriously the idea that he wasn't as Christian as he was supposed to be.
(b) Take seriously the idea that the Rapture was a mythological idea to begin with and isn't going to happen.
Things he's probably not smart enough to do, right or wrong:
(a) Reinterpret the Rapture in a more philosophical light, suggesting that the rapture did indeed happen; it just doesn't LOOK like it did to the untrained eye. In fact, all raptured people have been transformed in some way and are now "in heaven", which happens to be a parallel dimension to Earth, and raptured people are straddling that dimensional boundary.
(b) Reinterpret his entire belief system and consider that perhaps he was taking certain Christian scriptures or traditions too seriously.
(c) Take seriously the works of scholars that have suggested that Revelations describes events that already happened before the book was written.
What else will Harold Camping do?
Re:How can it be tied to local time zone? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How can it be tied to local time zone? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is by far and away the single most hilarious thing about this prediction. Time zones are established by man's laws, yet this heavenly event is supposed to follow them. So let me get this straight:
-- If I live on the border of the Eastern and Central time zones, and see my friends floating into the air, and I don't want to go yet (because I want to tweet to everybody about what I saw), I can run a few feet to the east, and God will grant me 60 more minutes on Earth?
-- Will God start the Rapture in Venezuela 30 minutes before the rest of South America?
-- What about the International Date Line? Will some islands have to wait a full day to be raptured?
-- And God respects Daylight Savings Time too?
That last one makes me think... Y'know, if God is bound to obey the local time set by the local laws of the local humans, what's to stop a government from passing a law turning the clocks ahead one hour precisely one minute after 5:59 PM? No rapture for you, comades!
------RM
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This is by far and away the single most hilarious thing about this prediction. Time zones are established by man's laws, yet this heavenly event is supposed to follow them. So let me get this straight:
Timezones were created so everyone sees the sun rise and set at the same (approximate) time. Timezones don't obey Man's law, they obey God's law.
Re:How can it be tied to local time zone? (Score:5, Interesting)
But Camping's prediction is that the earthquakes will follow the sun... just as man's timezones do:
Harold Camping: Beginning at about 6:00p May 21st in New Zealand there will be a great earthquake. This earthquake will actually follow the Sun and as each timezone reaches 6:00p it too will experience this earthquake.
The timezone is just a convenience to describe when the earthquake will start -- as he says, it will be about 6:00pm, so someone on East side of the timezone will feel it before someone on the West side. Since the earthquakes will follow the sun, then man's definition of "timezone" doesn't matter - whether there are 24 timezones or 36 timezones, the earthquake would still appear to follow the timezones.
There may be many reasons to discredit his prediction, but timezones aren't one of them.
Re:How can it be tied to local time zone? (Score:5, Funny)
Time zones are established by man's laws, yet this heavenly event is supposed to follow them. So let me get this straight
Our product follows proper internationalization guidelines. We do also have full Unicode support.
-- If I live on the border of the Eastern and Central time zones, and see my friends floating into the air, and I don't want to go yet (because I want to tweet to everybody about what I saw), I can run a few feet to the east, and God will grant me 60 more minutes on Earth?
Yes. You can actually can get a full day if you're fast. Think of it like a consolation prize.
-- Will God start the Rapture in Venezuela 30 minutes before the rest of South America?
Yes, if there's a Christian Anglo Saxon expat there. Otherwise it'll be skipped like the rest.
-- What about the International Date Line? Will some islands have to wait a full day to be raptured?
Yes.
-- And God respects Daylight Savings Time too?
Unfortunately this feature is not supported on this version.
Y'know, if God is bound to obey the local time set by the local laws of the local humans, what's to stop a government from passing a law turning the clocks ahead one hour precisely one minute after 5:59 PM? No rapture for you, comades!
This will show up as a bug in our issue tracking system and the responsible will be sent to hell manually. Also, additional charges will be billed against your account.
Hope this helps,
Vijay
Heaven Customer Service Representative.
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Any time you see something that doesn't make sense... ...a wizard did it.
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The problem I have with this Mayan and other silly calendar based EOD prophecies. Since I was indoctrinated by Roman Catholic values (thanks mom and dad!) one thing I know is that the Caesar occupation of Rome lead to the butchering of our 10month calendar ... October is the 10th month of the year FFS and July and August was introduced out of some need to satisfy a bunch of ancient egotistical usurpers.
I never really did the math but if you were to ever use our contemporary calendar to predict anything that
Re:How can it be tied to local time zone? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem I have with this Mayan and other silly calendar based EOD prophecies. Since I was indoctrinated by Roman Catholic values (thanks mom and dad!) one thing I know is that the Caesar occupation of Rome lead to the butchering of our 10month calendar ... October is the 10th month of the year FFS and July and August was introduced out of some need to satisfy a bunch of ancient egotistical usurpers.
Actually January and February were the late additions. The early Roman agricultural year started in March (named after the God of war, of course - this is Rome we're talking about). The Sept- Oct- Nov- Dec- are off because we start our year at (approximately) the solstice rather than the beginning of spring.
July and August were merely renamed.
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Re:So if this doesn't happen... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, just that some dude and his followers are whack-jobs.
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It's the Rapture. I don't know, it just seems like we should do something out of the ordinary for once.
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Get a life everyone.
I see what you did there....
Re:Make the story end (Score:4, Informative)
The sad thing is some people *are* arranging their finances on such a decision...
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136053462/is-the-end-nigh-well-know-soon-enough [npr.org] (Search for "Martinez", about 1/2 way down)
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I think I'll be left behind. I certainly don't want to be 'raptured' with the kind of assholes that believe in that nonsense! So does this mean I shouldn't bother buying new shoes tomorrow?
Isn't there supposed to be 5 months of pain and suffering after the Rapture and before the end of the world? If that's the case, you may as well buy those shoes - after all, there may be plenty of suffering in the post rapture world, but that's no reason you should have to suffer in worn out shoes.
Look for something that's brimstone resistant.
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No, My kids will inherit it.
Re:prediction (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Christian, I say mod parent up.
The problem with these people is that they won't stop believing, because this really won't prove the Bible untrue. Which would mean that this isn't unambiguously predicted by the Bible. So then, what's this all about... fame? Money?
My beliefs have nothing to do with attempting to gain fame or money by (ab)using my faith or my position. My evangelism starts and ends with my telling you my beliefs, and my hope that you'll at least entertain the ideas... but there is no expectation that you must listen or change your mind on the spot. For these people, though, they need more... they need to convince the world of their views using scare tactics.