Today is the day when A Man Comes Around... Rapture 2011!

Well, according to very few, that is. Personally, I'd be looking forward to a little looting, but I haven't been getting enough sleep the last couple weeks to feel up for the zombies that many others are predicting for today. Knowing life, that means zombies, surely.

I mock a lot, but this is why shit like this is actually very dangerous...

Pets Seized From Sonoma Co. Man Planning Pre-Rapture Killings May 20, 2011 11:57 PM

BOYES HOT SPRINGS (CBS 5) – On Friday night, animal control officials in Sonoma County seized three animals belonging to a man who planned to euthanize the pets ahead of Saturday’s predicted “Judgment Day.”
...
“I plan to put my babies to sleep when the earthquake hits Denver,” said Tinker who thinks that a massive world-wide quake will signal the beginning of the end. “I don’t want them to suffer.”

Now, on with the mocking.

CNN.com's take: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/21/rapture-talk-prompts-confessions/.  They offer the best quote I've heard so far:

"The Bible tells us no man, not even Jesus, knows the day he will return," Harrelson said, and so those predicting the day are trying to elevate themselves to the status of God.

Anderson Cooper mocking, and Harold Camping explaining the math:



Here is how this all got started... Harold Camping: The Man Behind 'Judgment Day,' May 21, 2011 (VIDEO)



From the article:

He and his fringe group of churchless followers believe that at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, a massive earthquake will make its way around the earth, beginning in Fiji and New Zealand. Graves will open and two hundred million 'saved' individuals will float up to heaven. The doomed remainder will live on an unruly earth for five months before God annihilates it five months later.

Complex Biblical numerology partially based on a literal reading of the King James Bible and partially based and obscure interpretation of the book’s many symbols form the basis for Camping's warnings.

He says certain numbers repeat in the Bible along with particular themes. The number five means "atonement;" ten equals "completeness;" 17 is "heaven." Multiply those numbers by each other and multiply the result by itself. It equals 722,500.

"Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.," he says. "Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that's 1,978 years."

If you multiply that number by 365.2422 -- the number of days in the solar calendar -- it equals 722,449. And if you add 51 (the number of days between April 1 and May 21) to that number, it equals 722,500.

It gets more confusing.

Camping also believes that May 21 marks the 7,000 anniversary of Noah's flood and the end of a 33-year-year period of Tribulation, during which he claims Satan has ruled churches. He points to the increasing acceptance of gay clergy, for example, or the rise in charismatic and Pentecostal movements as signs that churches have gone astray. To him, rituals such as baptism and confession are worthless.

HuffPost Comedy: Rapture 2011: Apocalypse Now... No, Now! (LIVE BLOG)

Today 7:45 AM Photo Of The Missing?

Huff Post Comedy received the following photo from tipster @Chuck915 on Twitter. Is this shirt, pants, and shovel the remains of someone Raptured? Or are these items just left out on the grass for some other reason? If you see any naked devout Christians floating into the sky, please contact us immediately.

This is brilliant. Wish I'd though of it.  But they did first...

6:05 am ET: A note of caution: both Reddit and Gizmodo are hosting posts calling for people to punk the rapture by leaving piles of clothes around their neighborhoods. If you see such piles, but they don't look like the kinds of clothes worn by the kind of people who would get raptured, it's probably a prank.

This is from The Raw Story: Live-Blogging the Rapture (By Megan Carpentier Saturday, May 21st, 2011 -- 5:00 am)  There is plenty of mocking here, but also some more serious stuff as well.  Stealing some music suggestions from there as well.

A more entertaining live blog lives here:  HuffPost Comedy: Rapture 2011: Apocalypse Now... No, Now! (LIVE BLOG).  They found this, ettiquette for those believing that they are going "home" sometime today.



Now some more music...

And, of course, it is tired and overused, but if I can't use it today then I (hopefully) never can...

Well, that is more than enough for today.  There is plenty of good stuff out there, look for it.  We'll be picking this theme up again on December 21, 2012.  Can't wait.  Really.  This shit is just too funny.  Except for the dangerous crazies.  They're never funny.  Just dangerous.  And sad.

Heez'a comin' tomorraw?!? Really? The Rapture is on a Saturday? Naw.

Ah, shucks...  I've got nothing to wear.  Great quote from the billboard video: "This is how religion hurts people."

From the Facebook event Post rapture looting

Now I know I shouldn't be mocking people's deeply held spiritual beliefs, but I have a hard time seeing this as really being a deeply held spiritual belief for most sane Christians.

Anyway, unless some words I said back in Assembly of God Sunday School back when I was in elementary school really do get me out of jail, er, hell for free, then I suppose I will be available for a good bit of post rapture looting.

You know, just thinking...  Maybe people should put those "In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned" bumper stickers on their front bumpers?  If the car in front of me swerves suddenly and spiritually out of control, I can probably avoid it.  However, if the car behind me might suddenly not have a driver present in an earthly form to apply the brakes, I would like to know that I am at risk and that I should be prepared to be hit and possibly be killed by some unguided, out of control Jesusmobile!

Anyway...

Tick tock goes the doomsday clock (By Jessica Ravitz, CNN)

From the article:

May 21, 2011, according to loyal listeners of Family Radio, a Christian broadcasting network based in Oakland, California, will mark the Day of Rapture and the start of Judgment Day (which, they say, will last five months). Those who are saved will be taken up to heaven, and those who aren’t will endure unspeakable suffering. Dead bodies will be strewn about as earthquakes ravage the Earth, they say. And come October 21, they’ll tell you, the entire world will be kaput.

It’s the kind of belief that riles up churchgoers who insist no one can know when Judgment Day will come, and the sort that many say does a disservice to Christianity. And it’s the kind of message that delights the types who are planning tongue-in-cheek End of the World parties and are responding to a Facebook invitation to attend a post-rapture looting.

Billboard battle over Judgment Day (CNN)