Circle October 3 on your calendar, for I just know you’re going to watch the upcoming movie “Left Behind,” described by Wikipedia as “an apocalyptic thriller.” It is of course based on the hugely best-selling series of books about the Rapture (16 of them!) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
Here’s the official trailer. From this we can conclude four things: 1. Nick Cage is not a Chosen One, 2. People meet their maker completely nude, 3. all babies go to Heaven, and 4. Nicholas Cage’s career is on the skids.
The poster: note that the movie was originally supposed to star Ashley Tisdale, though she’s no longer in it. That’s how far the once-mighty Cage has fallen.
And the plot as described by Wikipedia:
Without warning, millions of people around the globe simply vanish. All that remains are their clothes and belongings. The vanishings cause unmanned vehicles to crash and burn. Emergency forces everywhere are devastated. Gridlock, riots and looting overrun the cities. And there is no one to help or provide answers. In an instant, the earth has been plunged into darkness.
Ray Steele, the pilot of a jumbo jet, tries to calm his hysterical passengers who saw loved ones vanish before their eyes. It also means trying to land his damaged plane when every airport is jammed with burning wrecks, all while wishing that he could talk to his family one last time.
Buck Williams, the world-renowned journalist, is trapped at 30,000 feet, and struggles to understand the incomprehensible, the most devastating event in history.
Chloe Steele, Ray’s daughter, tries to find her mother and brother. Lost in a post-apocalyptic landscape, she is forced to head home through a world where despair and rage rule the day
Apparently there was another “Left Behind” movie made in 2000, starring our favorite Christian loon-actor, Kirk Cameron.
The comments on the new movie’s trailer site are alternately funny and depressing. Here is but a small sample:
h/t: Rob
I continue to hold that this series should have been named ‘Right Ass’ instead of ‘Left Behind’.
My initial free association for “Left Behind” was a misplaced ass, perhaps the producer?
A small humanist press in the early 2000s published a book length parody of this series entitled “Kiss My Left Behind”
(In the grand tradition of “The Philistine Prophecy” and “The Ditches of Edison County”)
Then there’s the immortal Bored of the Rings.
Then there’s the immortal Bored of the Rings.
The publishing industry’s really weird about these things. Years ago I wrote the first three chapters of Da Easter Bunny Code and my agent hocked ’em around. She got about a half-dozen reactions from publishers along the lines of “This is the first parody I’ve read that has actually made me laugh out loud . . . but I don’t think we can publish it.” So we gave up.
The great breakthrough that Bored of the Rings made, I think, is in opening up the publishing biz to the fact that readers of genre fiction — and even of bestsellers — are willing to go out and buy parodies. And they’re willing to buy and adore funny fantasy: hello, Terry Pratchett, who for his first couple of books was essentially writing for nothing.
If you read Bored of the Rings now it seems, er, not entirely funny. But its influence is undeniable.
Maybe they thought you were treading too closely to the South Park episode…
Maybe they thought you were treading too closely to the South Park episode…
There was a South Park episode?
If the humor value of Bored of the Rings has waned, it’s probably because the references for the humor (e.g., Goodgulf, Serutan, Nixon Dirksen Nasahist) are only meaningful to people who were around and watching TV in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The description of the evil army emerging from the gates of Fordor still cracks me up, though.
because the references for the humor . . . are only meaningful to people who were around and watching TV in the late 1960s and early 1970s
There’s probably a lot of truth in that; also, that a lot of those references were very US-specific.
Was there ever an author for whom this was not true? OK, excepting JK Rowling, but I doubt that she’d never put pen to paper before her Tanya Grotter parodies.
Was there ever an author for whom this was not true?
Yes. 🙂
I’m not sure which was worse, the ‘special’ effects in the trailer (the flaming aircraft engines were a real treat), or the ‘acting’ from Cage.
It looks remarkably rubbish, I;m pleased to say. As we say in Manchester… absolutely bobbins!
This short bit is actually more believable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0VYLFdhzZ8
Apparently there are a number of different posts like this.
Apocalyporn?
That’s my new favorite word!
Pornacalypse is easier to say.
Pornacalypse – does it have a beat? Can you dance to it? Do you wear costumes?
You wear costumes at the start. And not for long. Which part of Porno-calypse did you misunderstand?
Great word! I want it in the Oxford Dictionary right now before it’s too late!!
I watched the whole clip looking for empirical evidence of CC’s point 2 and didn’t see a thing. Bwaaah!
More fun watching a New Zealand rugby match (warning: NSFW)
http://www.rugbydump.com/2014/09/3869/female-streaker-has-no-regrets-after-high-shot-near-miss-in-napier
A remake??? But the Kirk Cameron movie was so good! /cough
If someone asked me if after the rapture I would then believe in a god I would have to answer no. I would have to tell them that I believe in a monster.
Superbly stated!
That was one of my thoughts reading the first two books. If all this death, destruction, and suffering were caused by Yahweh (well, in the first book, at least – by the second book it’s pretty much back to life as normal), you’d think that Satan wouldn’t have any problem finding recruits to attempt another revolution.
I don’t believe in the Rapture.. But I DO believe in the Rupture.
Yes, Cage’s career is on the skids. What a shame, and I will not see this movie (though you could probably pay me to see it).
First there was that really awful remake of The Wicker Man and now this.
Bill Maher did a bit a while back where he looked into the camera and told Nick Cage to just stop it. He then added, “is it because of the money? I’ll give you the money”. 🙂
I doubt it’s on the skids really. He’s been in a lot of rubbish films, but a fair number of really good to great ones, such as Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona and Adaptation. Rotten Tomatoes has 29 of his films rated as “fresh”, which is pretty impressive. I predict that his future career will be similarly chequered, and look forward to the good performances.
I agree some of his work has been fantastic, but two of those films are over 20 years old. It’s his recent choices that have been baffling. It’s one thing for an Oscar winner to have the occasional flop, it’s quite another to string this together with the Wicker Man and Drive Angry, I mean Amber Heard couldn’t even save that dumpster fire for me.
This year’s Joe was well received (I haven’t seen it yet), and there’s Bad Lieutenant from 2009 and Kickass from 2010. I actually quite liked Drive Angry (it was definitely trash, but enjoyable trash, for me at least).
I keep thinking that somebody should’ve turned Left Behind into a Raising Arizona type subversive romp. Do the whole movie completely tongue in cheek. Cage would’ve been fabulous at it.
Haven’t read the books, but did the authors give any thought to the fact that India and China would’ve been largely unaffected? We’re talking 2-3% of the population gone at most. Granted, that’s a lot of people. But in terms of government functionality and continuity in rule of law, I can’t see that as having any sort of apocalyptic effect.
I have never been a fan of Cage, some of the stuff he’s said has been really weird.
Clearly, the first thing Jesus is going to do when he comes back is grossly violate every safety protocol civilization has ever developed. And Christians trust this ass to adjudicate a parking violation, let alone the fate of all mankind?
b&
It’s what they call mercy.
It’s what Hollywood calls: let’s make pseudo apocalyptic crap up because that’s all feeble Christian minds can handle.
Christian mercy is sickness that only reason can cure.
Note the thinly disguised lust for vengeance. “Jesus is coming and he will inflict pain and suffering.”
What happened to the vaunted champion of peace and love?
The Christian God is patterned on a despotic Oriental monarch. Why should anyone in the 21st century regard that as an ideal?
You underestimate the number of sadists in the world. Moral indignation, revenge, and retaliation provide the ultimate covers for sadistic pleasures.
Christians like to be right.
I think you slightly misunderstand the version of sadism here. Very few Christians (including fans of the Left Behind series) would ever say “Jesus is coming and he will inflict pain and suffering.” No no no — the people who are ‘left behind’ will all bring it on themselves. Jesus comes in at the end to mop up.
It’s a mastubatory fantasy for the pious. First, they gleefully imagine how horrible a world without any really good people (Christians) would soon become. Chaos, riots, all sorts of wickedness. And then they imagine, over and over, all the halfway decent people who are still left moaning over how sorry they are that they scoffed and sneered at Christians. “The Christians were right all along and now we know it. Boo hoo.”
A while back an atheist writer (sorry, I forget who it was) nobly read through the entire series in order to review it and get a handle on the sorts of ideas going on in the heads of the people who think Left Behind is a weird cross between fiction and ‘what it will really be like some day soon.’ Iirc he thought a major appeal of the series seemed to be this common theme where the formerly-rational now express regret over how they once foolishly thought the Born Again Christians were silly. Scenes like this pop up over and over, even if they stop the action.
The sort of thing people who believe in something silly would want to imagine.
You are incorrect sir…its not disguised at all.
The rapture is a business opportunity. LaHaye and Jenkins cashed in, the movie makers are trying to, but the best opportunism I’ve seen is this:
http://www.aftertherapturepetcare.com
“pay us now and we will look after your pets when you are gone”
If I can’t take my mutt, I’m not going.
I thought All Dogs Go To Heaven.
Where as moggies go to Basement Cat!
I imagine if we parceled them up and sent them to professor ceiling cat he’d be less than amused
Only Bad kittens go to basement cat where they have only mummified mice to eat. And spiders. Forever.
If you’re a Good kitten then you go to ceiling cat where you can live out your favourite experiences in life. Like that time you shit on the cashmere sweater. You can shit on cashmere sweaters forever! That’s the difference.
No no no, moggies go to Basement Cat and become part of the Basement Cat Army To Torment D*gs. Basement Cat is about tormenting people and d*gs, not moggies.
I hope the remake is as exciting as Kirk Cameron’s non-kiss with his film-wife. Apparently it’s immoral for an actor to kiss anyone other than his wife, ever.
Yeah.
To be fair, I am sure I speak for all of humanity that we are all very happy not to see KC kiss anyone.
It was seeing Kirk Cameron squeezing the lower part of the shaft of Ray Comfort’s banana before enveloping the head with his mouth that made me realize he probably doesn’t do the kissing thing with his real wife either.
I would like to echo Lord Sogal’s sentiment. This movie being labeled a thriller is entirely appropriate. I would find it quite thrilling to wake up one day and find the most vocal, closed-minded, and hate-spewing religious people all disappeared.
Maybe we could luck out and all those ISIS folks’ll get raptured too.
oooohh such ceap
ooops I mean crap
I would have seen it if Ashley Tisdale was in it… no not really.
Seriously, all the religious wackos are taken to heaven. Where’s the downside for the people left behind?
I would guess that Tru Christians ™ would say that Muslim’s stay behind. OK, fine, whatever. That’s dealable with. Once they realize that they aren’t the one Tru religion, maybe they will calm down.
Still, given that people of reason are left in charge… I’m fairly certain that without religion impeding progress, the US would be a near utopia in a decade or two.
That’s not how it would happen. Instead, Muslims would say it is Allah ridding the planet of infidels to give it to Muslims.
For many of us*, the sudden loss of a sizable percentage of the people we hold most dear, family and friends.
Not to mention the sudden revelation that there is some entity, or entities, out there that have, in comparison to us, god-like powers, and that it/they make the most monstrous humans known to history look infantile in comparison.
*Atheists (presumably former), presuming that since the god in question is monstrous enough to have perpetrated the Rapture that it is perfectly willing to consign people to grief and misery merely for not believing in it, even though it never gave any good reason to do so.
What would be funny is if there were a rapture and all devout mooslims were taken. The christinsanians would go instantly insane . . . more than they are now.
Apparently there was another “Left Behind” movie made in 2000, starring our favorite Christian loon-actor, Kirk Cameron.
It was a direct-to-video jobbie of apparently quite unparalleled dreadfulness, although rivaled by its two sequels. I was vaguely moved to get hold of the first in the series (the 2000 movie) for the sake of completeness, as it were, but soon realized I couldn’t face it.
According to the Wikipedia entry on the movie, Owing to dissatisfaction with the quality of this movie and its sequels, LaHaye filed suit against Namesake Entertainment and Cloud Ten Pictures in July 1999, claiming breach of contract.
Having begun my wait for the rapture/2nd coming as a teenager in the 1970s (inspired by Hal Lindsay’s Late Great Planet Earth), I can speak with personal authority that the book series and all they have spawned are not just entertainment or exciting fiction. For many Americans, perhaps the majority depending on how you phrase the question, these stories are accurate depictions of what is to come, soon. We might laugh it all off as just another cult fetish if it weren’t so widespread, and if it weren’t an idea with such profound implications for critical aspects of modern life. How does the belief that the end of the world is almost here affect, for example, your feelings about the environment, personal debt, governance, foreign affairs and the treatment of non-believers? And if you’re a politician and believe this, how does it affect the way you govern? Supposedly, George W. Bush tried to justify his invasion of Iraq to the French premier by quoting Revelations.
“Hal Lindsay’s Late Great Planet Earth”
Yeah, I read that too as a kid. I guess I found it plausible then.
When I was a teenager I felt a bit guilty about not reading The Late Great Planet Earth. Not being religious myself and living in the fairly liberal Chicago suburb of Evanston I completely misunderstood what it was about (and so did my friends.) We all assumed it was an environmentalist book concerned about pollution — sort of like Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring (which I didn’t read either.) “Oh, look what we have done to poor Mother Earth…” That sort of thing.
I wonder now if Lindsay’s title wasn’t a sly attempt to sucker in the young pro-environment movement, which in 1970 was becoming the new teenage standard (pollution is BAD!!!)
And I would propose that the book has done the opposite of fostering ecological concern. If Jesus is coming back any day now, who cares about global warming, pollution, acidic oceans, rampant extinction? I wish the news media put just a little effort into identifying politicians guided by end-times theology. Imagine: “Senator Faithblinkers, you were recorded saying at church last year you believe the rapture is about to happen — does that belief affect the way you vote in Congress?”
The problem is that when Senator Faithblinkers says “yes,” it’s likely to improve his popularity in his district.
I have a soft spot for over-the-top apocalyptic movies and tv shows, so I can understand that an after-rapture movie might be good. But not this one. And I never liked N. Cage. He always played the same character in all of his movies.
My sentiments exactly. There is no reason why this could not have been a perfectly good movie of its genre, but Nick Cage was never going to be much of a help. If they’d got Chris Pratt, now that would be a movie worth watching!
What a disgusting fantasies those christians have!
I was raised in a predominantly Catholic culture. I swear that I didn’t come across this rapture thing till I came to the US, well into my adulthood. It never ceases to amaze me how mainstream this crap is among American Christians. Of course everything is BS in Christianity, but this particular thing has to have been made up in the USA in recent times, completely unknown elsewhere.
Adding to the pitiful hilarity is that Rapture Theology was basically invented in the 1800’s by a fellow who may have been smoking the same stuff as John of Patmos.
From the title I assumed it was a film set in a near future England or Wales after Scotland secedes.
🙂
Robert M. Price has a good book about this genre of fiction , the history of such novels; ” The paper back apocalypse , How the Christian church was left behind”. One of his comments is that it isn’t clear from the Bible whether it isn’t the one left behind who was ok whereas the one taken was vulture food. ( Luke 17v37 )
Interesting if the ” Left Behind ” movie has people disappear in the film, as if to another dimension or universe, which could make some sort of sense. In contrast Acts 1v9 has Jesus flying up into the sky. This doesn’t make sense with our modern understanding of Earth’s atmosphere and space beyond. There would be no point flying up, Jesus would have just run out of oxygen and anyway where would he go; to the moon or Mars or somewhere out in the Milky Way? Even in 2000 years at light speed he wouldn’t get far across our galaxy. There are many ideas in the N.T which have a God just above the sky e.g the voice from heaven in Matthew 3v17. They imagined a solid firmament in the sky with heaven lying just behind it.
Luke 17v34 says~” two people will be in bed, one will be taken, the other left behind.” Depending on the moment this could be a bit embarrassing if the man is taken and a moment later finds himself in all his glory, looking for a fig leaf, in front of a God. One would hope that a God who knew the hairs on each persons head would take people away at a more suitable, appropriate & safe moment.
And of course Hell was just down stairs.
I used to anticipate the rapture for access to so much free stuff but, then I realized it would only be Rich assholes and republicans left in the US, thus I’d be hunted down for slave labor or food by them.
For anyone interested, the blog, Slacktivist, has a pretty good series of reviews of the book. It’s pretty in depth, taking something like 200 posts to get through the first book (the writer is a Christian himself, so the readers here probably won’t agree with all of his comments).
I’ve read the first two books myself, and I suppose one bright point of the movie is that it looks better than the first book. Granted, that’s not huge praise, but it could have been worse and followed the book faithfully.
One of these could be fun if they set it in a universe where All Myths Are Real, and those left behind fight off the various horrors of the end times with the aid of every god but Jesus. But that wouldn’t really be a revenge fantasy for those craving a front row seat to the death and torture of millions so they can squeal “I was right!”
Like Supernatural. They have never found a myth that wasn’t true. God has wandered off somewhere in a fit of absent-mindedness but otherwise it’s all there. The rapture is one of the few things they haven’t done, maybe in the final series they will get there.
Any way I think about it Jesus keeps coming off as the bad guy for setting everything off, which means my totally awesome superhero end of the world bash won’t be a commercial success. At the same time I can’t stop thinking that in and All Myths Are True universe that I’d want Odin, Buddha and Quetzalcoatl as my wingmen while facing down the beast of apocalypse.
Left Behind is a natural disaster movie where God is the supernatural disaster.
The Jewish version of Left Behind is where all the comics leave, and you’re stuck with nothing but Christian comedians.
OK, that’s all I’ve thought of right now after watching that trailer.
Christnado?
Syfy has to do it.
Followed quickly by Christopus vs. Mohammidile.
Shh, you’ll give Kevin Sorbo ideas.
Actually somebody should send “Christnado” to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They *would* do it.
the names of the characters in Left Behind always strike me as great porn movie names.
and you can always tell when a actor has failed. They go right for the Christian garbage. Mr. Cage and Mr. Sorbo can play opposite each other.
Megachrist vs. Mechachrist
I once watched a Pat Robertson program in which
he talked about “The Rapture” and how believer pilots would disappear out of airplanes, and the planes would crash with their unbelieving
passengers. Monsters looking like preying mantises (he had some artists drawings) would
roam the streets and eat people up. He and his cohorts on the show seemed to enjoy the prospects. What a bunch of wackos!!
Clearly, if the Rapture is true, Christians should be banned from flying aeroplanes – or driving cars. The fact that they aren’t and that they don’t voluntarily keep away from operating heavy machinery means that either a) they have a reckless disregard for human life or b) they don’t really believe it.
I don’t want to be left behind with Cage’s oeuvre. That would be a condemnation worse than hell.
I never liked Cage much, but I agree that this seems a foolish gambit for his career. Surely he doesn’t need to work? Is he a fundie Christian of some sort?
The nutbag is SO financially in the hole it’s not even funny. Look up his tax troubles… having to sell his pyramid tomb he had commissioned. He’s a class-A fruitcake, and will accept anything. Witness most of the vehicles he’s been in for the last 10 years. It’s embarrassing, considering the earlier Cage career.
Maybe he saw that Russell Crowe did Noah and thought hey, it must be cool now.
I watched the trailer and noticed only a few references to Christianity: a quick shot of a church, a momentary focus on the word “pray.” They’re keeping the overt religious message pretty low key here. If you knew nothing about the Left Behind series you might watch it and just think it was yet another movie about The End of the World. Maybe there’ll be zombis.
Christians apparently complained that there wasn’t enough God or religion in Noah. I bet they won’t make the same complaint here, since Left Behind is not some well-known literary trope which you can play around with allegorically. It’s Pious Porn.
Nope, Nicholas Cage is going to find himself in the same class as Kevin Sorbo and Kirk Cameron.
“Kevin Sorbo”
Well, Sorbo wasn’t much of a high flyer in the first place.
I can’t seem to find the post of the cartoon of the rabbi, priest and cleric arriving in heaven and greeted by Ra. Any help??
http://www.couldbeworse-comic.com/_2paneltales/051.html
Thanks kps – I did eventually find it, but appreciate your response.
Are we there yet… Are we there yet… Are we there yet…
2000 years of asking.
perfect.
“Christ almighty, you idiots. Shut up! One group of idiots on ergot, and I gotta hear this.”
The comments on the film’s facebook page are pretty scary/hilarious too: https://www.facebook.com/leftbehindthemovie
Oh, well, then you might also have missed this recent release: “Heaven Is for Real” (based on the book of the same title) about the little boy’s “near death experience” several years ago.
I invoked the Lord’s name loudly several times when I saw the first commercial for that one.
So a few million people leave and airplanes catch fire? I don’t see the connection. And what could possibly cause Ray Steele’s plane to become damaged?
For what it’s worth, Cage’s first name is spelled “Nicolas”.
Let’s all have a big WEIT movie party and watch Left Behind and the atheist snuff film God Is Not Dead. I’ll bring the Nachos!
Someone had better bring the weed, we’re gonna need plenty.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
That one literally made me laugh out loud to the point where I scared the dogs.
I read the first 2 or 3 books several years ago just to see what all the hoopla was about. Such trash & I soon got very bored! It was very evident that the authors were just milking this gravy train for all its worth and dragging it out to sell more books. Now a movie to cash in on, too! Those fundie Christians are such suckers for this crap!
Sadly, in my area of rural America, I know many people who devoutly believe the rapture is going to happen in their lifetime, and they look forward to it longingly. Eeek.
read the first 2 or 3 books several years ago just to see what all the hoopla was about. Such trash & I soon got very bored!
I’m not surprised! It amazes me that yourself and at least one other person here got so far into the series. I tried the first one but abandoned it perhaps 100 pages in, not because of the content but because the writing was so drearily mediocre.
Probably haven’t put as much thought into this as the authors, but why would planes crash? Do we suddenly lose every pilot, copilot and ground support as well as the autopilot functions?
Potentially great ads for Air India, El Al, Japan Airlines.
Fly Rapture Free!
Apparently airline pilots are particularly pious. :-/
Do the flight attendants disappear too?
And it isn’t just planes. I’ve seen bumper stickers that say “WARNING: In event of Rapture, this car will be driverless.”
I would think those bumper stickers should say, “In case of Rapture, this car will be reduced to rubble from the force of the driver being extracted at a speed exceeding escape velocity.”
Then again, they might need a bigger bumper for that.
I was tricked into seeing the 2000 Left Behind by my girlfriend at the time. I was an athiest and she was an on-again/off-again believer, raised Pentecostal. I had no idea it was a Christian movie. Boy, was I mad.
Afterward, I expressed my feelings about how she misrepresented the film to me and she apologized and I thought that was that. But she still looked more anxious than usual. After some coaxing she admitted, “well… it’s just that you look a lot like the guy that played the devil!” This was hilarious to me. I couldn’t stop cackling. Needless to say, we didn’t last.
Damn, I didn’t know they actually showed the devil in it. Now I “almost” want to see it.
I’m going to have to see this at some point. It has the potential to be one of those movies that is so terrible, you can just laugh at it the whole time.
How about if Jesus and Mo get together and agree to rapture the xian fundies and ISIS and leave the rest of us alone?
Nirvana.
I’m figuring that, when the Rapture comes, there should be a lot Rolexes and other bling just lying there, waiting for the unsaved to grab.
The whole camel-needle thing says you’re wrong. 🙂
In fact if you believe Matt 19, the US is pretty much going to be a rapture-free zone. Our poverty line is above the average global income, which means that even poor Americans are rich by global standards. Make more than about $10k/year? Then prepare for the needle squeeze.
If you haven’t seen the famous old “The Rapture” painting by Charles Anderson, here’s a link to a page where it’s presented in a negative light: http://emilypothast.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/its-not-easy-being-green/
It’s got to be #4. Why any formerly A rated actor would lend his name to this tripe is utterly beyond me. Unless he’s really hard up for cash.
I hope that when people see the movie they will finally see the light, that is, how crazy Christians’ beliefs really are!
Listen to the entire series on tape while driving. Never got *why* anyone would be happy to be raptured, and get to look down on all their (supposed) loved ones destined for hell.
That’s a feature, not a bug. You get to scream “I told you so, ha ha heathens, take that!” for eternity!
Christian writers have discussed this issue through the ages:
“That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly, they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in Hell.”
–Thomas Aquinas
“The happiness of the elect will consist in part of witnessing the torments of the damned in Hell, among whom may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives and friends, but instead of taking part in their miserable being they will say ‘Amen!”Hallelujah!’ and ‘Praise the Lord!'”
–Rev. Nathanial Emmons (1745-1840)
“What bliss will fill the ransomed souls
When they in glory dwell
To see the sinner as he rolls
in quenchless flames of Hell!”
–Isaac Watts
If you want even more quotes on this subject, here is a 140 [!] page essay devoted to the subject:
https:www.rts.edu/Site/Virtual/Resources/Student_Theses/Johnson-Seeing-Hell.pdf
As Darwin said, I find it very strange that anyone would want Christianity to be true.
I would actually enjoy seeing my sister (and her evil brood) fry, but not so much that I’m willing to embrace religion.
I think it would get old after an eternity of it though. But I don’t know your sister. 😉
You are lucky you don’t know her. I make a joke of her because if I didn’t, it would cause problems for me. I won’t bore you, but as an example, she scheduled our mother’s funeral for a day when I was scheduled for surgery and didn’t inform me until the night before. That alone is worth a few eons of torment.
as an example, she scheduled our mother’s funeral for a day when I was scheduled for surgery and didn’t inform me until the night before
Oh, jeez, your sister isn’t related to my family, is she? When my mum died I told my siblings there was just one weekend we couldn’t get from New Jersey to Edinburgh, Scotland, for the funeral: we had people arriving on the Thursday from as far away as Slovakia and Australia, their air tickets already brought, to join us in going up to Boston where I and they had inescapable appointments on the Saturday.
So my siblings arranged it for that weekend.
My wife, who loved my mum very dearly, just had to write off attending the funeral. As for me, thanks to a clever travel agent and the expenditure of thousands of dollars we couldn’t afford, I made it there. I returned in time for the Boston appointment solely because of (a) the cleverness of that travel agent in booking connections and (b) the fact that, having been delayed at Edinburgh by a bomb hoax, on the return trip I managed to cross Heathrow in 28 minutes rather than the predicted two-plus hours. (“It’s impossible for you to have got here from the Edinburgh flight,” said the guy at the Lufthansa gate. “Look at me,” I said, dripping. “I see your point,” he told me.)
Later I discovered my siblings had slanged me off to the extended family because I’d slipped away midway through the funeral tea.
Indeed, you have my sympathy.
Thanks for providing the citations. The first two were what I was referring to, but I was too lazy to go looking for them.
Jesus is going to come again while taking me? No thanks. Though, I suppose the Holy Spirit shouldn’t be the only one to get some earthly action and it’s been a couple of millennia since any of the God heads got down…
Err, I think part of the concept is that Jesus isn’t going to be taking _you_ anywhere. Or me. Or most others on this site, actually. 🙂
Well, that’s a relief!
Jesus is going to come again while taking me? No thanks. Though, I suppose the Holy Spirit shouldn’t be the only one to get some earthly action and it’s been a couple of millennia since any of the God heads got down…
I just Googled this film and found that Willie Robertson of duck dynasty fame is encouraging people to take their nonbeliever friends to see this. To present it as a documentary I suppose…
Mention of duck shooting leads inevitably to this classic Tim Kreider cartoon…
http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly110518.htm
I just Googled this film and found that Willie Robertson of duck dynasty fame is encouraging people to take their nonbeliever friends to see this. To present it as a documentary I suppose…
Either I’m inebriated and don’t know it, or WordPress is posting everything I say twice.
“Ray Steele?” Why not “Rip Strongthigh?”
Like it! Get writing that move screenplay!
Let’s face it, most of the world would carry on functioning as usual – only the US would be post-apocalyptic (as it is chock full of godliness!) but then from what I hear it already is! The islamic countries, China, most of northern Europe, being non-christian, would survive.
Didn’t he already make this film, Knowing?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448011/
This film gives ample space for parody. As it is Cage always looks like a sad horse…
By the way, this whole ‘rapture’ idea is not one that the Church of England has ever held. I had never heard of it until about 10 years ago. It is broadly a modern & US phenomenon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture
I was raised Catholic, spent twelve years in Catholic schools, and never heard of this until I was a long-lapsed Catholic. It doesn’t loom large in the Vatican’s catechism, either.
Yay! God revealed it to Americans! Yet more proof (if any were needed) of American exceptionalism.
Not braggin’, just sayin’.
Returning to the “What Would Jerry Do” trope, and the way people keep on spelling “Jerry” wrongly, it is plain that the loving ghod of the cannibal vampires will carefully time his rapture to get the maximum number of planes on the very last stages of approach. Probably doing it literally as the plane is over the end of the runway.
30 seconds earlier, and the plane would probably miss the runway. Still crash, but somewhere else – into fuel tanks or terminal buildings. But the runway would be clear.
Ditto for 30 seconds later. And there is a good reason for having two flyboys at the pointed end.
Sorry, but my disbelief is not so much suspended as beggared.
“all babies go to Heaven”
And the unbaptized ones straight to the purgatory, right?
😉
They used to go to Limbo, but the Catholic Church shut that down. I’m not sure where they’re sent now.
Denver.
I wish I could find the bit where Robert M. Price suggests, ” If Jehovah’s Witnesses come to the door and you can’t be bothered speaking to them then you could tell them, ” I wish that the rapture would happen right now & whisk you away ” It might have been, ” The paperback apocalypse ” but my paper version has no search feature.
In, ” The Reason Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For? “(Kindle Locations 3778-3779). Robert Price writes :
“I’ve got news for you: it’s not hostility toward the gospel that makes outsiders wish born-again Christians would suddenly vanish in the Rapture!”
“2. People meet their maker completely nude”
Doubtless using the same transport mechanism as Skynet, if you recall the Terminators arrived nude and had to acquire clothes on arrival…
Ha ha!
I’ll admit that when I discovered this series I loved the books. By the time I was three quarters the way through I started struggling and the final book. Twelve or thirteen was a relief that I’d made it. I bought the original movies, might even still have them.
Those creationist days are over now so it’s hard to say how I would react now. I certainly lived them then. I’ll probably watch this for the amusement and nostalgia 🙂
The reviews have started coming in:
God only knows how they made a worse version of Left Behind.
Let’s see if I got that coding right . . .