My dad is a born-again Christian who believes in The Rapture, and ever since that fight he and I have gotten along great.

Speaking of The Rapture: there was a movie called The Rapture starring Mimi Rogers. A weird movie, but not a pro-Christian tract either.

That’s a great line from a good movie, but I wouldn’t take it completely literally.

I’ve never been in a physical fight (past, say, junior high school) but I will attest to the idea that you cannot really know yourself until you’ve faced extreme adversity. Having recently gone through a very tough year (partner undergoing cancer treatment) I know know some things about myself, good and bad, that I never would have known otherwise. This is a very important principle of which the shallow Rapturists are completely ignorant.

Guess I missed that little gem of medieval theology. That’s seriously fucked up. Totally rubs my natural Buddhist inclinations the wrong way.

But it also proves how erroneous (not to mention evil) the whole Rapture concept really is.

For those who believe in the Rapture, I have good news!

The Rapture is tomorrow!

That’s right, the Rapture is tomorrow!

…Funny thing about tomorrow…

You wake up in the morning, it’s today.

You go to bed at night, it’s today.

You wake up in the morning, it’s…TODAY!

Tomorrow is the day you die, or the day after, if you prefer.

So yes indeedy, the rapture, or whatever happens when we die, is tomorrow.

(Cue Annie…)

It might be significant that the first religion to really push the idea of an end to the world was Zoroasterism which was a religion with a tough start and essentially a call for people to turn away from Hindu-like religious beliefs and rituals. Located along the silk road in essentially the center of Asia, Zoroasterism was faced with competing ideologies, hostile prospective converts and little immediate gratification to offer. But once the idea of an End to the World came into play, nay-sayers with doubts about afterlife rewards took notice. Throw in some vague signs to indicate when the end is coming and you’ve got people looking forward to something to vindicate their present choices. Its much like telling kids that if they are good in July, then Santa will bring presents in December.

In the end, I fell away from looking forward to the Rapture and the End Times due to a misguided attempt by a religion teacher to shut me down before throwing a school room full of kids into a panic. Every Friday our Religion teacher (I went to a Catholic school) would open the class to discussions. One friday a girl brought up the topic of the Rapture and the End Times. I was happy because I’d just gotten through a book on the topic and knew the subject then up, down and side ways. I’d let the class start talking about vague notions they’d overheard and then I’d raise my hand and basically explain in detail what they’d obviously misunderstood. Interestingly, the mood went from nervous excitement to a sense of fear that, hey this stuff might be true. When the topic of the infamous 666 came up, I stepped in with Hal Lindsey’s notion that it was a mocking of the Trinity. 7 was the symbolic number of perfection. 777 was therefore the perfect trio, thus the Triune God. 666 was the evil trinity of Satan, the AntiChrist, and the False Prophet. At this point, the teacher was starting to grow concerned that things were not going the way she wanted. And who knows, given her optimistic cheerful Christian outlook, it might have seemed personally threatening to her. In any case, she took me to task for that interpretation since the Trinity hadn’t become Church doctrine until long after the Book of Revelations had been written. The class sighed with relief that I had been wrong and that therefore the whole notion that they might have to make a lifestyle change due to some coming End Times was probably not necessary afterall. Me? I just sat there in horror that the Trinity had just been admitted to be some later addition to Catholicism. And that road has led me down some far more skeptical and alternative views than that teacher ever imagined it would.

What most people don’t know is that Jesus actually taught meditation and whatnot. But the modern Christian knows that meditation is evil and clearing your mind of all thoughts is just like putting on a sign that says “Come on in Devil!”

During spiritual development we pass through the stages of Earth, Water, Air, Fire and then are reborn into the ‘Christ’ consciousness.

Earth is where most people are but when they begin to meditate and clear away earthly thoughts and cares they enter Water, hence the baptism of water, not a literal dunking your head in water. When thoughts are overcome we meet Jesus in the Air, remember when Jesus was walking on water and that disciple met him on the side of the boat, the disciple got scared because thoughts crept back but Jesus caught him. Then comes the baptism of Fire, which every modern Christian is sure that God is going to flash fry every heathen, which won’t happen.

It’s not easy, and sure isn’t as easy as saying “I believe Jesus died for my salvation and bought my ticket to Heaven”

I’ve never been involved in physical fighting myself but I’ve sure taken the dangerous plunge into conflicts of other sorts. I’ve not seen the Fight Club movie but I like the line from it.

I’ve never been in a fight. I’ve protected people and have had to use violence. I even antagonized kids when I was younger — probably to take the focus off me. But a fight of any sort, such as being “chosen” by someone to go fisticuffs with? Nope, I always stood up to everybody and said fuck you, I don’t hate you, so why would I want to hit you. That always threw ‘em off.

Lately, I’ve come to some kind of an epiphany that looking back on the times I had to protect someone in a melee or an unfair advantage, that I absolutely enjoyed the release the wanton violence gave me. Throwing punches (landing few) and being hit in turn, even bleeding, was a huge sensational turn-on. The epiphany was: that is why I have always avoided fighting. I get emotional. I wouldn’t know when to quit.

Luckily my overriding powerful sense of conscience has always saved me. This is why Fight Club in general just freaked me out. It made so much sense, but yet my conscience made me artificially turn off the acts of violence as something that was natural.

My motto is: For without our Earthly shells, where are we then?

I don’t know because I simply don’t know enough about this realm of existence yet, that I am willing to throw away for a chance on another. Or for anybody else for that matter, no matter how apocalyptically delusional they may be.

Perhaps it is curiosity that killed the cat. We’re the cats. Let’s hope we’ve got some good one’s in the pride that can talk us all out of this mess.