Thu, February 24, 2005
I just hope my TiVo is Left Behind—12:02 PM
I was catching up on some of this week's Daily Show last night, and Ed Helms delivered a brilliant report about a website named Rapture Letters, at which you can sign up your loved ones to receive automated e-mail after you and millions of other believers have disappeared simultaneously from around the globe and ascended to heaven in the Rapture.
For more details, follow the link on the homepage to read the text of the letter which will be sent. Unsurprisingly, it includes some sanctimonious language through which the True Believers will continue annoying their Left Behind friends with their preaching even after they're gone. I think it's kind of silly to believe that if something like this were ever to happen, the rest of us would be hanging around checking e-mail. Also, this Rapture might still be a while off – with no way to update your friends' e-mail addresses on the site as they change over the years, I have a feeling the Mail Delivery Subsystem is going to be hearing a lot about the glorious kingdom of heaven.
What's interesting is the way it works: each week, the creator, Scott Butcher, logs onto the website and resets a countdown. If he's not around to do it, then the e-mail goes out once the week is through. I've thought of doing something like this a few times: there are plenty of things I'd like to say to friends and family in the event of my demise, and I thought of setting up automated e-mail in a very similar way. But I've never done it, for the same reason Ed Helms brings up: what if I forget to reset it, or I can't get around to it? I like Ed's idea: a disclaimer reading, "Either the Rapture has occurred, or Scott Butcher is trapped under something heavy."
I'm definitely signing myself up, just so I'll know when something heavy falls on this guy.
Joe Mulder — Fri, 2/25/05 9:48am
You know me; I'm happy to let people believe whatever they want. Rapture letters? Fine.
But, the way the thing is set up, it actually sounds like this dude considers it more likely that the Rapture will occur in his own lifetime than that he might either forget to update his website or be rendered incapacitated.
And, of course, the whole concept is sort of shot if the Rapture Letters go out early, with no actual rapture accompanyhing them. Then, what if the rapture actually happens a few months later? Who wants to be The Boy Who Cried Rapture?
"Secret Rapture" — Mon, 2/13/06 4:57am
My Inaugural Address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions!
At: http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman
Your jaw will drop!