It’s the END OF THE WORLD!!...again…

These people just never learn, do they? How many times has one über-Christian numbskull or another predicted the second coming of Christ and how many times has the dimbulb been wrong? Well, I can’t answer the first one…there are far too many to count. But the second one is easy…every single time without fail! (At least they are consistent…crazy, but consistent!)

Ok, so the Second Coming is coming up again, I am told, this time on 21 May 2011. Supposedly on that date Jesus will come back to trod the Earth again and The Rapture will begin. Now, there’s a case for locking people up as hopelessly insane…there is no such thing as The Rapture, except as a figment of a bunch of overheated imaginations. Nothing in the Bible, old or new testaments, even alludes to it. It is a complete fabrication originated by some overwrought 15-year-old girl in 1830! (What drama queens we can be when we are teens, especially in a repressive society that doesn’t value women!)

The sole verse in the Bible that might be construed to presage The Rapture specifically states “But of that days and hour no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son of Man but the Father alone (Matthew 24:36)” http://www.tribulationcentral.com/origins-ptr.html So, right off the bat, the nitwits who have nailed down this date are in direct conflict with their own holy book. Figures, doesn’t it?

But let’s just suppose…just for a second…that they are right and Jesus will touch down someplace on the planet on 21 May, 2011. What do you think is going to happen?

Well, first of all, Jesus was a Middle Easterner, so the blue-eyed blond Jesus of European fabrication just ain’t gonna show. This guy is going to look like an Arab, he is going to be dressed in a long white robe, he’s going to have long hair and facial hair…is anybody going to take him seriously?

Imagine you are sitting at Starbucks, sucking on a latte and girding your loins for the corporate wars, and in walks this swarthy, hairy guy in crude sandals and a long white dress. “Hello,” he says to you. “I’m Jesus and I’ve returned to fulfil the scripture.” You’re going to put down your coffee and get up and follow him? Or are you going to look for the manager and see if you can gently ease yourself away from the lunatic?

Or, maybe Jesus has done a crash course in contemporary culture and has managed to get himself some up-to-date threads. Oh, yah…jeans and Nikes, a rock Tshirt and a hoodie, right? Dreads or maybe one of those silly haircuts that comb to a peak in the middle of the head, some trendy facial hair and a pair of Oakleys. Jesus comes back cool, right? How many people are going to make him as an Arab terrorist?

If he puts on a suit and walks into a church service on Sunday and announces his presence, what do you want to bet the ushers will usher him to the door? And if he behaves true to his legend, he’ll dress like a homeless guy, and panhandle from Christian poseurs at the nearest church…or slip into a church and sit in the last row and listen and when he’s heard enough, step up and speak out against the hate speech against foreigners, gay people, and the poor and homeless, maybe even turning over a table or pew or collection plate or two in the process.

Even if people are inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, what do you want to bet they will demand that he prove his identity by performing a miracle or two? These self-same people who condemn those of us who scoff at their so-called faith, these people who tell us that proof is not necessary if you have faith…will they have faith in Christ when he walks among us again? I mean, we don’t have any accurate pictures of him (the Shroud of Turin doesn’t date back to his death, for those you who are thinking it might help), we don’t even have a good physical description to go by. OK, there are some scars…but it’s no secret what and where they are, so anybody intent on impersonating him could self-inflict wounds that would leave similar scars, ya know?

If I was a suspicious kind of person, I might be inclined to think this latest multitude of doomsday crazies were actually a bunch of con artists, setting up the gullible for a big sting. You know, get their panties all in a knot waiting the JC to walk among them, trot out a ringer at the right time and get people to divest themselves of their worldly possessions because The Rapture is coming and they're not going to need all that stuff in heaven, right?

Ugh, either way it goes, what a disappointment the 22nd of May is gonna be for them all!