Friday, May 20, 2011

Doomsday

According to Baptist radio preacher Harold Camping, the Rapture will happen at 6 P.M. PST on May 21, 2011. At that time, 200 million saved will be raptured into Heaven, and the remaining 6.5 billion or so will be left behind.  Estimating roughly, that means that the average person has about a 3% chance of being taken up in the Rapture; and the other 97% are royally screwed, to be perfectly candid but less diplomatic.  And this cataclysmic event is supposed to happen tomorrow!

I don't know where Mr. Camping got his 200 million figure from, or what specific criteria places one on this A-list, but I assume it's the usual righteous criteria cited so often but even more often missed!

Obviously, claims of an impending Rapture or Doomsday have been intended by the claimants as a moral corrective: The idea is supposed to be that because the world is going to be in the soup pretty soon, people need to take this last-chance opportunity to clean up their acts. Who knows?  If you do so, you may slip into those Pearly Gates with the rest of the Elect; and beat out some other possibly deserving soul into being one of the 200 million!  Hard cheese, old buddy!

But -- whoa! Suppose your taking on last hour righteousness manages to make you beat out your Grandma? Or Nick Saban? Or Pippa Middleton? Or Oprah Winfrey? Remember, there's only 200 million slots available.  Your getting in means someone else is out in the cold.  Now that's an Ayn Rand scenario for you!  Except the old dear was atheistic, I think.  And she might eschew this Rapture deal, anyway.

I see my chances if this Rapture happens as slim to none; so the rational Plan B seems like a go.  Party, party!  Work on my bucket list.  Have that wild fling with that special person!  Run up the bill on the credit card!  Moon the legislature!  Declare this week to be The Ultimate Dessert Week!  

No, maybe I'll continue to play it as it lays.  But, just to be safe, I'll avoid going décollété with that red demibra and thong set underneath!  I believe in hedging my bets, within limits!   

1 comment:

Deena said...

Maybe Doomsday happened; and 200 million disappeared. But we're not, and Harold Camping, among that number.

Still, life seems to go on. So much for the Tribulation.