The rapture index, now at 156, has been trending lower recently which is great because I’m not ready for Old Pitch to start ruling the world just yet. Of course there is another upside. If the rapture happens tomorrow then those of us left behind can just walk around and take our pick of nice cars. So at least in the post-nuclear Mad Max apocalypse we’ll be driving around in style. I can just see some Christian looking down from his cloud saying “Hey! Look at those bullet holes in my car! I only had two payments left!”

Ok maybe this is a bit silly. But what can be more absurd than the rapture index anyway? It utterly fails to measure anything since the indices reflect nothing more than the morbid biases of its author. For instance, one category is Liberalism, which is a code word for the Democratic Party in the US. Shortly after Sep 2001, the Liberalism index shot up to 3 because “The Democratic [sic] in the US congress are ending their pledge to work in a spirit of bipartisanism.” Wow, God must really be ready to end the world on that bit of trivia. The author also recently increased his Supernatural rating because the Sep 2001 attack was “demonic” in nature. No explanation or evidence is given for that non sequitur. Other categories like Apostasy, Leadership, and Moral Standards are so subjective as to be utterly worthless. My favorites are the geology categories like Earthquakes, Drought, Floods, and one called “Wild Weather.” Occam’s Razor suggests that extreme weather patterns have more to do with global climate change than God’s wrath but maybe that’s being too practical and draining all the fun out of it. And of course what rapture index could be complete without a category on Satan himself? Satanism is on the rise in Russia, the author claims. A quick searth on Pravda reveals this article in which an orthodox priest essentially complains about those darned kids and their rock and roll music. Not exactly fire and brimstone. I wonder how many Christians out there fail to live this life fully because they’re too busy waiting for the world to end? After all, why plan or do anything if it’s all for nothing? Now who’s the nihilist?