

Caring for Pets Left Behind by the Rapture - Joakal
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_08/b4167070046047.htm

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MikeTaylor
You don't have to be an atheist to not buy the Rapture. You could be agnostic,
Jewish, Hindu or indeed (like me) Christian. Please remember that Camping and
his like are a tiny crazy fringe on the edge of a tiny crazy fringe.

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StavrosK
Are atheists going to stay on earth, or just go to hell? If it's the former,
an earth with no fundamentalists sounds like my idea of heaven...

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stcredzero
From my understanding of "good," a lot of atheists will be taken and a lot of
fundamentalists are going to get left behind.

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sixtofour
That would be a heck of a surprise for a "good" atheist to wake up to.

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stcredzero
What would he say? "HA! Fooled You!"

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ck2
Forget the "rapture" - instead I would just love a respected service that
guaranteed to look after my pets if I got hit by a bus, etc.

So maybe a spoof business like this could be turned into a really good thing?

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ars
It would be especially interesting if this was in the form of an auction.
Based on the eventual price we could gauge belief in the rapture.

Extra points for figuring out how to extend this to other aspects of religion
since (I think) the rapture is somewhat fringe. The challenge is coming up
with something where both parties actually have the ability to collect upon
showing their belief is the correct one.

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leif
Every time I see this, I can't decide whether to cackle in sadistic delight,
or grimace in empathetic disgust. It's quite a workout for my face.

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stcredzero
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdEOB8Uv3UY&NR=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdEOB8Uv3UY&NR=1)

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arethuza
Perhaps some enterprising fundamentalist Christian will start offering a
similar service for the pets of nerds after the Singularity? (Uploading cats
might be a bit risky).

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benwerd
Although this trips a few ethical flags for me (should we be taking advantage
of the deluded?) I kind of love it. It makes me wonder if there are other
services atheists are particularly suited to offering to fundamentalists.

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wyclif
It's only an service for a tiny subset of fundamentalists. While all
dispensational premillenialists and members of the small Millerite sect are
fundamentalists, not all fundamentalists are advocates of Millerism.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerism>

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mv
If you want to link it probably would have been better to use
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture>

Miller was a date setter, but not an advocate of the traditional
fundamentalist 'rapture'. He was waiting for the second coming which would
have been very public and would have taken the righteous up to heaven before
Armageddon/judgement.

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wyclif
I'd grant that to the extent that the modern followers of Harold Camping, et.
al. are not Millerites, but Camping and his contemporary date-setters are
definitely influenced by Miller.

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benwerd
And all are deeply influenced by The Crazy.

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robertk
This puts "make something people want" on a whole new level.

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Confusion
Isn't "Make something people believe they need, even if you don't believe they
need it" as old as the road to Rome?

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r00fus
This could be extended... not everyone who believes in the Rapture will be
taken (due to the many potential disqualifying clauses)... what about that
adulterous, shrimp-eating brother-in-law... surely your mother-in-law would
want him cared for in a land of unbelievers, non?

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khafra
A supermajority of the population cares more about the suffering of cute
animals than the suffering of adult humans.

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stcredzero
If an intellectual/conceptual framework has bad income demographics, it's time
to question the wisdom of adhering to it. (Which is also not to say that a
high average income is any kind of validation. It's not!)

However, if an heretofore obscure genre of music has bad income demographics,
it might be a good choice to go long on it. (Blues, Country, various roots
musics, etc... Also, if the genre has already achieved mainstream sales, go
short!)

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RK
This is essentially a variation on the "post-rapture post office service",
like this one, also run by a non-believer:

<http://www.postrapturepost.com/about.html>

There are several others.

