Tim LaHaye, author of the best-selling Left Behind series of novels, died yesterday at the age of 90. For those of you unfamiliar with his oeuvre, it deals with the Rapture.
If you want to know what the Rapture will be like, you could read the Book of Revelation in the Bible but that is pretty dreary and confusing stuff. Trust me on that. LaHaye livens it up and goes into graphic detail about what will happen and it is pretty wild. I wrote about the Rapture some years ago here, here, and here.
I personally cannot wait for the Rapture to arrive and regularly check the website Rapture Ready and its Rapture Index to see if it is pointing to an imminent date. The index reached an all-time high of 188 two days ago, so it means it could happen any minute, though there have been many false alarms in the past..
Why am I waiting for it? Because when the Rapture happens, all the true believers will be suddenly whisked away to heaven in an instant, leaving behind just piles of their clothing because presumably everyone in heaven is naked. I can’t think of anything better than to have all those pesky people disappear and leave the world to the rest of us. And if the Ayn Rand worshipping oligarchs also decide to leave us and ‘go Galt’ and move to an isolated part of the world because we do not fully appreciate them, my joy would be complete.
If readers are confused about the title of this post, it refers to the practice known as Rogeting, where people plagiarize other people’s work but in order to avoid being caught by software that searches through text databases, the plagiarist looks up a thesaurus and replaces words here and there with synonyms. If you do this thoughtlessly, you can end us with strange locutions like sinister (for left) and buttocks (for behind).
TV psychic Miss Cleo also died. Maybe it’s the rapture after all.
That second “s” in the headline seems misplaced -- LaHaye certainly was as half-assed as they come…
if the Ayn Rand worshipping oligarchs also decide to leave us and ‘go Galt’ and move to an isolated part of the world because we do not fully appreciate them, my joy would be complete.
That’d make SUCH A GREAT reality TV show. It’d be like Lord Of The Flies all over.
Peter Thiel, gay libertarian tech billionaire, tried to make it happen.
Peter Thiel’s Dream of a Lawless Utopia Floats On
The “Left Behind” series may rank as LaHaye’s most visible accomplishment, but since nobody else has brought it up I feel obliged to mention the Council for National Policy, always described as a “secretive conservative organization” comprised of assorted mover-&-shaker wingnuts & parafascists.
LaHaye had a big role in starting it (circa 1981), but it will surely continue without him. Other well-known members include Reagan’s Attorney General Ed Meese, rightwing email honcho Richard Viguerie, Pat Robertson, Rich (Amway) DeVos, Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson, Ralph Reed, Oliver North -- only the baddest need apply.
with character names like Rayford Steele and Buck Williams, “sinister buttocks” is pretty damn appropriate to use for LaHaye’s nonsense.
hmm, I wonder if there is slash fic for Left behind… I’m scared to even go look.
“Trust me on that.”
Don’t.
Instead trust me on that. Revelation is the only Bible Book I read in one go from beginning to end and it’s fantastic -- if you like absurdist humor not unlike Monty Python, but then more over the top. A random pick:
16:1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
16:2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
16:3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
16:4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
Now imagine John Cleese with his most serious and solemn face reading these words and tell me you don’t laugh.
Except the Rapture isn’t in there. The version of the Rapture common amongst American evangelicals is derived (in general concept) from a passage in 1 Thessalonians. AFAIK, most of the specifics have no scriptural basis at all.
Of course the end times are here. With Donald Trump as the anti-Christ, can rapture be far behind? 🙂
Surely this is no accident, but a masterful misuse of language.
mnbo@7: John Cleese does an incredible reading of Dante’s “Inferno”, and yes, you laugh.