Holy Ghost in the Machine

I never understood those "In case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned" bumper stickers. Truthfully I never understood anything about the Rapture. So, what, Jesus is going to suck all the True Believers up to Heaven, and leave all us sinners and unsaved down on Earth to get smacked around by Satan? And everyone Left Behind™ will, after seven years of the Tribulation, go to Hell? Except those who decide to become Christians in the meantime. Correct? They get to go to Heaven too, right? (That's the whole point of all those books, isn't it?)

See, it's that big exception that always gets me. Undermines the whole concept of faith. But nevermind: this post is no more about faith than it is about Dog the Bountyhunter's über-skanky mullet.

The other thing about the Rapture is how so many are conviced they're among the chosen getting vacuumed up by Jesus. Always makes me think about that old-timey spiritual "Everybody Talkin' 'Bout Heaven Ain't Goin' There." Which could be a serious flaw in this service:

For forty bucks a year the good folks at You've Been Left Behind will ensure your unrepentant loved ones and business contacts (and Facebook friends) will receive an email from you after the Rapture, just to let them know how fucked they are.

Aside from telling them to get right with God, you could also send them documents to grant them power of attorney, and give them domain over all your worldly goods. You know, so they can sell them and go on one last coke-and-cocksucking-binge before they're barcoded by the Lord of Lies.

(This could put you in a bind though, if you happen to be unlucky enough not to get the evite to God's Big Going Away Party. Imagine sitting there a week after the Rapture to find out you've turned over all your assets to your burnout brother Marty? Not only have you not been Rapturized you've also given your house the guy who picked a fistfight with your father two Thanksgivings ago before tearing ass down the street in his primered Z-28, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, neither on the steering wheel.)

Here's how the service works internally: Everyday four red-state dwellers scattered about God's Favorite Country™ (Take that, Israel!) must log into the You've Been Left Behind server. If three of the four fail to log in, the server assumes they've gone to heaven and (after another three day failsafe, just to be sure everyone's not at a Promise Keepers meeting) lets loose with its emails.

But what happens if, like the song says, everybody talkin' 'bout heaven ain't goin' there and all those righteous server guards are still sitting around Pensacola come R-Day because of that porn they downloaded back in 2002? What then? Who sends them emails saying they've been left behind?