yet another from the "crap you can't make up" department...

[acroyear]

Caring for Pets Left Behind by the Rapture - BusinessWeek:

Many people in the U.S.—perhaps 20 million to 40 million—believe there will be a Second Coming in their lifetimes, followed by the Rapture . In this event, they say, the righteous will be spirited away to a better place while the godless remain on Earth. But what will become of all the pets?

Bart Centre, 61, a retired retail executive in New Hampshire, says many people are troubled by this question, and he wants to help. He started a service called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets that promises to rescue and care for animals left behind by the saved.

Promoted on the Web as "the next best thing to pet salvation in a Post Rapture World," the service has attracted more than 100 clients, who pay $110 for a 10-year contract ($15 for each additional pet.) If the Rapture happens in that time, the pets left behind will have homes—with atheists. Centre has set up a national network of godless humans to carry out the mission. "If you love your pets, I can't understand how you could not consider this," he says.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Can I join the network of godless humans? Because this seems like easy money.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

heh - i just forwarded that to Ed Brayton with the comment that I've mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I hate people getting milked for an obvious scam...but on the other hand, i like it when the religiously stupid get milked in a way that doesn't feed the coffers of the religiously powerful.

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they could expand their market to people who think they will be abducted by aliens.

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

How are they getting milked for a scam? The people who sign up know exactly what they're paying for.

I'm only mad I didn't think of it myself. That's some easy money right there.

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

I've gotta agree. They *are* providing a service. So long as all criteria are met.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I was all "Bother, why didn't we think of that?!"

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

How are they so sure that it won't be particularly the atheists who get swept up in the Rapture, on the grounds that, as God/dess/es put it, "They weren't BUGGING me all the time?"

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

But they are The Chosen People who Will Be Saved. How can you even suggest that They Might Not Be Chosen.

And if the Rapture picks up the others; they can take care of their pets themselves and use their Christian Charity to take care of the pets left behind.

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

Funny, given that the Bible verse involved goes out of its way to point out how unpredictable the Rapture will be. (Assuming it's predicting a Rapture at all - it's not clear.)

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder how much of the Bible some of these people actually read (as opposed to the texts that they are given to read and quote at every opportunity).

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

Actually, though, if I were God, the pets would be the first to be swept up into bliss. Then the atheists. Then everyone else but the fundies. Just to mess with the fundamentalists' minds, really. I wouldn't condemn ANYONE to hell, at least not forever.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

I suspect that for some Fundamentalists, being in any non-Fundamental afterlive would be hell.

If I were god, pets and the people who have treated them with dignity and love would be swept up first (there are a lot of animals out there that would probably be happier with their people). The people who don't have pets but have treated animals and the environment well will be in the second wave. Most politicians wouldn't have a chance.

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

Since atheists don't believe in the rapture two things will happen:

1. They will not "ascend".
2. They will laugh their asses off while playing with the pets of those who drank the Kool-Aid.

[mandrakan.livejournal.com]

Isn't this just a very narrow form of life insurance? As long as EEBP actually maintains reserves to fulfil its obligations, I don't think its a scam. (Although the buyer would want to name a legal representative to represent the interests of the pet beneficiaries).

It's the equivalent of Allstate selling you insurance against the risk of your house being destroyed by a plague of locusts.

[dawntreader]

it may not be a scam, but i think it's skirting the line. however, as stated above, they are not hiding what they are selling. the people buying it know what they are buying.

the problem with what you point out is that if it DOES happen, how will they know they got their money's worth? they have to name AND trust in the good-will of a NON-saved heathen to be the legal representative. they also have to hope that person never converts.

wouldn't that all be a conflict of interest? (i.e., "damn. i've just worked all this time to convert you and save your soul. now i'll have to find another executor to save my pet!") *g*

in any case, i think it sounds like an article belonging to The Onion.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

we call it "Poe's Law" - the Religious Right has gotten so ridiculous that it is impossible to tell the difference between a parody of them and the real thing.

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

When the Rapture comes (bwhahahahah!) I'll be happy to stay behind and play fetch with all of the puppies and skritch all the kitties. Besides, you'll be there, right?

[uncle-possum.livejournal.com]

Aarrgh: Grant the rapture (which I am not willing to do)--if God can haul millions of "saved" into heaven at one time, I'm willing to bet that S/he has worked out what to do with the pets. Just sayin'

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

ah, but a true literalist interpretation of the bible in the end times can not read more into the bible than it actually says, so if your beasts can not be baptized and proclaim the Word (and not being able to talk, they can't), they must remain to the ends of the Earth, whatever they may be.

on the other hand, it does make one wonder if someone trains a talking parrot into being able to repeat the lord's prayer and nicene creed, will the parrot be saved?

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

See, I think that animals are innocent of all sin (since sin is only possible when one knows the meaning and consequences of sin) so *should* something like that happen, they get a free trip.

[dawntreader]

i loaded an icon i had just for this.

*sniffle*

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

'nuff said.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

trouble is, if you actually follow the mental logic of the AIG (Answers in Genesis, who made the $27 million Creation "Museum" in Kentucky), that's not true: our fall was the animal's fall. When "sin" entered the world through Eve, that was the point when the animals too lost their innocence. Until then, T-Rex's and other mean, nasty meat-eaters were actually all happy little vegetarians. (acknowledging, of course, that T-Rex's and other dinos existed alongside humans, 6000 years ago)

really. they actually think that.

as a result: yes, their carnivorous doggies and kitties are all sinful and doomed.

[uncle-possum.livejournal.com]

OK--but carrying out this logic--since the Nicene Creed includes Roman Catholic doctrine (or, depending on that "homousion vs homoiousion" issue, Orthodox doctrine)--your parrot would not be among the saved. That's given the tendency of many fundamentalist Protestants to argue that Catholics (of all kinds) aren't really "Christians". So the parrot is stuck.

But the point is well taken.

This whole discussion is getting too close to the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" but that's another issue entirely.

(Reminded of a conversation I overhead once which pretty much ended when one person said "Well, the King James Bible was good enough for St. Paul, and it's good enough for me".

(But, am going to have to reread Mark Twain's "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" again. )

[uncle-possum.livejournal.com]

Ok I quit--I thought we had established that we can only use the literal words of the Bible. I've read several versions and don't recall any statement that pre-Fall animals were vegetarians. (Of course, this discussion would never have started if we had required logic on the part of the insurance customers). Now I'm going to have to visit that musuem.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

well, now you see the heart of the problem - nothing exists without interpretation, and all literal interpretations of works that were intended to be poetic (that is, metaphorical) in the first place require an interpretation to fill in missing meanings.

it is in this way that the fundies can claim that animals didn't kill each other before sin entered the garden and still claim to be literalist.

a similar stretch of (il)logic allows the Jehovas Witnesses to claim that blood transfusions will keep them from salvation - the passage (Acts: 15:29) is clearly obvious to you and me that it is about blood sacrifice and/or drinking blood (a practice that, like the meat sacrifice, was in Paul's eyes meant to be replaced with the more civilized, symbolic Mass as we know it today - hence his adding of the words "Do this in remembrance of Me" (words which are NOT in the Gospels' version of the last supper).

Paul was being very specific about stopping his followers from "pagan" practices, by replacing literal sacrifices of the living with the symbolic. In no way was he ordering people to refuse medicine in this work - and that is ME being literalist about it.

In short: if someone doesn't like something, chances are they can twist the words of the bible out of historical, poetical, and semantic context in order to justify it and still call themselves "literalists".

As for the museum: save your money, and your mind. there are plenty of reviews (some less "are they really that stupid" than others) online already.

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

face. meet desk.