The revenge of the fundamentalists

Please note that I call them fundamentalists, not religious conservatives. I deliberatly use that term since it is insulting to truly religiously conservative folks like the Quakers and Menonites to confuse them with wingnuts like the followers of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Now I don't claim to be an expert in fundamentalist fetishes or mythology, but recently I have been hearing a lot about something called 'revelations'. Seems there is a myth out there that if certain things occur (or can be made to occur), then the so called 'good Christians' will bodily be transported to heaven while the rest of us will be subject to horrible plagues, torture, and grisly death. They call this the 'rapture' though it doesn't exactly sound very rapturous to me!

Naturally, all these folks want to be part of the rapture, so they follow all the rules, real and imagined, deny themselves, and dull their minds, so that they may sleep easily at night, confident that if the 'tribulation' arrives, they will be 'raptured' up to heaven before the fireworks start.

I don't have a problem with this. Hopefully they will have better luck then their brethren that waited to be 'raptured' up to comet kohoutek after selling all their worldly posessions. I think those guys are still sitting on top of a mesa waiting for its next pass.

But, and this is a big BUT, it seems that many of these looney tunes are actually trying to bring this situation about by influencing politics in hopes of bringing on the apocolypse. They are recruiting in the military (I don't know about you, but the idea of the person behind the button actually believing that pushing it is a good thing is a bit scary), trying to influence global politics, and generally involving themselves in areas well beyond the purview of religion. Now this is not only incredibly frightening, but incredibly selfish.

If they believe they are going to heaven anyway when they die, and if they believe they will be raptured out before the apocolypse begins, then what is the point of bringing it on? If they are in such a big hurry to get to heaven, why not just go mountain climbing in the Himalayas without cold weather gear, or try scuba diving without air tanks? Why try and get there in a manner that will cause the most pain and suffering to everyone else?

There is only one conclusion to be drawn.

REVENGE.

They want to be able to say "I TOLD YOU SO" to all the "unbelievers" who went blythly along living there lives and having a good time, while the 'True Christians' denied themselves any pleasure in life and learned to suffer.

Of course if what they believe really was true, they wouldn't be here to say it, and I am sure the rest of the world would have more on their minds then to pay attention to a fundamentalist saying "Nyah Nyah" from heaven, but you get the idea.

How incredibly mean spirited, and um, if I may say it... unchristian.