And what on earth is it supposed to mean that someone is “enforcing …disarmament”? I’m picturing the empty-handed agents of the new Disarmament Bureau confronting armed criminals, police and military
personnel: “Hand over those weapons or we will be forced to demonstrate the moral superiority of our satyagraha.”

Clearly Nicky’s government employs superpowered Wuxia martial artists as enforcers.

So, is this all still on page 404, or did Fred forget the page numbers for this week?

So many errors in such a small space in such a big book in such a long series.

Buck was all for it and had secretly studied the feasibility of producing an anti-Global Community Web site on the Internet. As soon as he could figure out a way to do it without its being traced back to his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue, he would do it.

Hey you know in some ironic way they were RIGHt about one thing: hello slacktivist

So many errors in such a small space in such a big book in such a long series.

Buck was all for it and had secretly studied the feasibility of producing an anti-Global Community Web site on the Internet. As soon as he could figure out a way to do it without its being traced back to his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue, he would do it.

Hey you know in some ironic way they were RIGHt about one thing: hello slacktivist

After nearly a decade and hundreds of billions of dollars,
Baghdad still lacks reliable electricity and water treatment. We now
know, from the hard-earned lessons of experience from the American-led
misadventure in Iraq, that what LaHaye and Jenkins describe here is
beyond implausible. It’s simply impossible.

You forgot to add “and purposeful mismanagement of said hundreds of billions”.

If the money had been managed properly with people not eager to get their fingies into the pork barrel, yes, an 18 month grandiose prestige project symbolizing world renewal would be possible.

The Manhattan Project in the USA cost $2 billion in the 1940s and in just three short years, took us from treating nuclear fission as a purely research-and-fundamental-but-not-practically-applicable method to one of destructive and terrible power.

$2 billion, by the way, back then? Would be like $20 billion plus today.

Also, Fred?

Constitutions are just pieces of paper when a strongman wants to ignore them. Nicky Ararat could easily use personal charisma and control over the military to institute martial law in North America and have the people love him for it.

Your dismissal of that likelihood is symptomatic of the over-reverence for your nation’s founding documents that I’ve seen among American politicians generally.

Next you’re going to tell me this “website on the internet” is online too. 

I’m not so sure that a Constitutional crisis would arise.  There are plenty of Americans today, including elected officials, who trumpet their fidelity to the Constitution while advocating (or even enacting or attempting to enact) policies that violate it.  In 1996, L&J couldn’t have predicted GWB’s administration, to a lesser extent Obama’s, or the rise of the Tea Party, but they certainly agree with the mindset.  (After all, they’ve proclaimed their fidelity to the Bible while violating it for years…) And after enough years of the Constitution being invoked as merely a symbol of patriotism, how many Americans would care about it being violated, as long as Fitzhugh can convincingly say these changes are Constitutional?

A good writer could make something of Buck’s delusions that he’s a brave freedom fighter while all the while sitting safely in his penthouse. But L&J don’t seem to realize these are delusions and that’s very, very sad. 

The antichrist’s armies of cloned atheist wuxia masters would make for one heck of an exciting series.

Which would neccessitate Bruce’s people learning wuxia themselves.  And there would be epic battles.

Oh, wait.  Won’t happen.  Wuxia is some sort of pagan atheist satanism.  Foo.

Psst, Fred:

The book of Daniel uses Babylon as a stand-in for Antiochus Epiphanes.
The book of Daniel uses Babylon as one of many elliptical references to
Rome.

Second “Daniel” should be “Revelation”.

I think this is the first time that Fred has actually referred to LeHaye as a false prophet.  I mean, directly, not suggesting, not intimating, but outright calling the guy out.

In 1996 the Drug Warriors were already busy trashing the Bill of Rights as witness things like The Exclusionary Rule Reform Act discussed here by Rack Jite (This was originally posted on his Journal of Hard Response in late 1996; I know because I was reading it back then).

So it’s not out of bounds to have imagined an extension of this sort of watering down of the Bill of Rights even in the 1990s.

“Oh, so they have internet on computers now!” — Homer Simpson

A bit of entomology I picked up recently: the surname Fitz[Name] means “[Name]‘s illegitimate child.” I find it more entertaining than I should that Ellenjay are calling their Guerilla Action President a bastard.

The antichrist’s armies of cloned atheist wuxia masters would make for one heck of an exciting series.

Which would neccessitate Bruce’s people learning wuxia themselves.  And there would be epic battles.

Oh, wait.  Won’t happen.  Wuxia is some sort of pagan atheist satanism.  Foo.

Couldn’t the Tribs learn the Moral Substitute(TM)? Considering DragonRaid, the Christian D&D, is a real thing that’s apparently not that bad, it shouldn’t be too hard to justify the Kung-Fu Action Jesus Force.

Not to be an ass, but entomology is the study of insects. I think you meant etymology, the study of the history of words.

I was getting caught up on the last three weeks of LB posts and I had to stop reading after getting to the “private study sessions” part because I had to laugh my ass off.  Then I reattached my ass, read some more, and had to stop because I was laughing it right back off all over again.

I still can’t get past Potentate.  Potentate?  Thanks to Ray Stevens, Nicky Appalachia is now a doofy guy in a fez.  (Okay, he was already pretty doofy.  Being the Illustrious Potentate doesn’t help.)

It would be so easy to rewrite this series as a wacky (slightly black at times) comedy.  You wouldn’t even have to rewrite much.  Just set the thing to Yakkity Sax.

Potentate

About the website on the internet, I’m trying to think of a good way to write it for 1996, when of course fewer people used the internet.  Maybe something like:

“Buck had considered opposing Nicolae via the internet.  He could, perhaps, start an anti-Global Community website, if only he could figure out a way to…” etc.

And writing that, I was imagining Buck–again, with a 1996 mindset–finally deciding not to bother because he’d only be reaching a relatively small handful of pitiful nerds.  To throw a second Simpsons quote into this discussion:

Milhouse: Let’s put it on the Internet!
Bart: No! We have to reach people whose opinions actually matter!

Also, for all that these books are the RTC equivalent of the James Bond-esque thriller movies written as novels, they do a rather poor job.

Surely Jenkins could have imagined that the WWW would grow by leaps and bounds? Movies like 1999 A.D. were astonishingly prescient about the use of computers to conduct everyday tasks using purely electronic methods of transmitting information. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine the Web or some other world-girdling network serving a similar function.

Also, readers don’t usually mind the details being hand-waved. Jenkins could have written, “Buck quietly talked to a few experts about how to get a website set up without it being traced back to him. A week later, it was up and running and he could clandestinely update it whenever he wanted.”

Not to be an ass, but entomology is the study of insects. I think you meant etymology, the study of the history of words.

Poot. I knew entymology wasn’t right, but Google corrected it to the wrong word.

Bruce had become famous, even popular. But many believers were growing tired of his dire warnings.
I read this as a direct “take that” to those who think maybe Christianity should be about more than studying prophecy seminars.  Just as in the book the coming prophecies are the most important thing but some people can’t see that.   Here is a quick question for L&J if you are sure you are a RTC and will be raptured why do you spend so much time studying something that will never ever effect you.  

Is there a big proportion of people reading this who think the are not RTC right now but once everything passes they will still have time to change.  In other words they can have their fun now but will know when it is time to say the “magic prayer”, you know Barnesites. If  there are maybe they need to hear about the theoretical bus.  One problem with telling people they can always be forgiven is that some will take this as an excuse to not ask for forgiveness tight now.

and where is the official Bruce Barnes death count.

Right said… and then you find etymology to be useful when studying entomology (it works for diptera, hemiptera, but not so much for lepidoptera)

I knew that was bugging me, but could gnat figure out why.

I knew that was bugging me, but could gnat figure out why.

I know that there’s Fake Christian Yoga (PraiseMoves – trademarked, of course), so presumably, someone’s going to invent Fake Christian Kung-Fu, where all animal stances are renamed after Bible quotes. 

Apparently, a preacher named Mark Driscoll has tried to make promote Christian MMA.  Which is kind of scary, considering his blatant intolerance and seeming approval of violence.

I’m reminded of…every martial artist in every fighting game ever, but especially the character Hak Foo from the animated Jackie Chan Adventures series, who had elaborate names for every move.

So, in that vein, I offer Bible-Fu techniques!
“Mighty Samson topples house!”
“Elisha summons bears!”
“Trumpets fell Jericho!”

And, of course,

“Pigs fall off cliff!”

terrible crime wave
Crime can only take place where there is order.  The disintegration of the social order that might well follow upon such an event as the rapturing away of much of the world’s adult population (and all of the children) would not be so much a crime wave as a descent into violent anarchy.  Rather than “terrible crime wave”, the term lawlessness would seem appropriate.  

terrible crime wave
Crime can only take place where there is order.  The disintegration of the social order that might well follow upon such an event as the rapturing away of much of the world’s adult population (and all of the children) would not be so much a crime wave as a descent into violent anarchy.  Rather than “terrible crime wave”, the term lawlessness would seem appropriate.  

I’m sorry to say, but a lot of things Fred is saying are impossible are, in fact, extremely possible and even quite plausible.

That city in the Iraqi desert? Sure, Baghdad may not have reliable power now, but I’ll bet the Green Zone does. The temporary set-ups in Baghdad were hugely expensive, but if you’re the Potentate of the World, and you know you only ever have to write a 7-year budget, who cares if it costs hundreds of millions each day?

Dismantling U.S. sovereignty? As long as Nicky Snake-Mountain-Action-Adventure-Playset keeps the Federal and State employees paid, no one would really care about the President or Congress being dismantled. Sure, there would be protests and people waving signs, but if the checks keep coming in the mail, and the water & power stay on, after a month, most folks would have forgotten it all. Oh, they might complain about the new leader, and object vocally to everything he tries to do, but they wouldn’t actually do anything to oppose it.

Some flash fiction,  Ella had become tired of Barnes’ “dire warnings” as he so pompously refereed to them. She had become tired of everything Barnes at fact. She’d swallowed the bitter pill that The Rapture had happened and the God behind it had won. She did not dare to think, or hope, that maybe it had only been for this round. 

She’d devoted herself to learning all she could about what was to come, and she had, but Barnes hadn’t moved on. Where were the lessons on canning food, building water filters, how to counterfeit Global Community transit papers? Where was the stockpiling of bandages and being taught how to staunch wounds, what plants had medicinal properties when they finally had to flee into the wilderness from the great cities? 

It’d been almost three months of this when she finally broached the subject. Bruce frowned at her raised hand but let her speak. The man at his side looked nonplussed he had to stop speaking about himself. It was the notorious Buck Williams, the joke of the congregation, who somehow thought growing a paunch dining on takeout in his penthouse gave him a direct line to the experiences of early Christians facing persecution. Loretta had made Ella laugh out loud for the first time in months when she calmly told her one afternoon “Oh honey, a man like that thinks his thousand dollar suits make him smart when he doesn’t have the brains or the balls of the mannequin that was wearing it before him.” 

Ella hesitantly spoke, “I appreciate all you’ve told us Pastor Barnes” -Ella knew better than to call him by his first name in front of Buck- “, but shouldn’t we be learning some skills, like food preserving to get us through these next few years? At the Mosque in Morton Grove they’ve turned their kitchen in a food pantry and maybe…” She trailed off, now she’d done it, she kicked herself mentally for mentioning the Mosque as Bruce’s frown deepened, while Buck looked liked he had just smelled something bad. 

Bruce swallowed whatever he was about to say at first and in his soft, paternal, patronizing ”Pastor voice” said “Now Ella, I would hope that the word of Christ would be enough nourishment for you. As children of the Lord we don’t concern ourselves with unbelievers here.” Ella flushed scarlet and was silent as Buck began to prattle about himself for the next 20 minutes. 

After the meeting broke up, Bruce retreating as always to his office with his “inner circle” Ella went to help Loretta serve the coffee and the donuts. “Strange how these are going to be luxuries,” Loretta said, to take her mind off what Bruce had said. “Yeah,” said Ella and warily watched Chloe cross the room for a cup. 

“I think what you said was good.” 
Ella stared in mild shock, “really?” 
“Yeah, we do need to learn about that stuff. And um, I think I’m going to teach myself and then give some classes on how. Look, this is good ‘womanly’ stuff right?” a odd, bitter tone came into Chloe’s voice, “Canning peaches and rolling bandages like in the good old days. I don’t see anybody making a big deal about it. I’ll put a notice up on the board when I’m ready to start.” And with that she took her cup of coffee and went into Bruce’s office. 

“That…was unexpected,” Ella said. 
Loretta snorted, “Not to me, it wasn’t.” Ella looked to ask her more but Loretta busied herself with another woman standing nearby and Ella knew to not press the subject. 

Jimmy Bats shyly walked up and Ella smiled and handed him a bear claw, his favorite. Jimmy Bats’ story had been one of the few fragments of hope after The Rapture. He’d “found Jesus in an E.R. room” in the form of the nurse who’d saved his life after a bad fight and who’d helped him get off the drugs that had ravaged his body. Bruce wasn’t too fond of him because he still had some of his sticky fingered ways which Jimmy just said was his way of “plundering the Egyptians.” And, Ella considered this Bruce’s real sticking point, Jimmy’s habit of cooking up a big pot of stew and walking it down to old daycare center which now served as shelter for homeless teens. Bruce had tried to press the subject that of course the teens were more than welcome at New Hope. Jimmy had shrugged and said “They didn’t want to go but they still got to eat so I guess that means the food has to go to them and that’s that.” 

Jimmy munched on his bear claw, “I liked what you said too.”  
“Thanks.” 
“Seems like we could use some food dehydrators, water tablets, sleeping bags, the whole bit.” 
“Yeah, we’ll have to think about how to raise the money, or barter for what we need.” 
“Well I know the Target is open 24 hours.” Ella looked at him quizzically, and Jimmy smiled, like a magician flourishing a card he produced a black American Express card, CAMERON WILLIAMS stamped on it in gold lettering. 
“You brought your car right?” 
“You bet I did.” 

I think what Fred is trying to say is that Americans tend to treat the constitution like (no pun intended) it’s their freakin’ Bible.Especially today where people are always arguing over “what the founding fathers REALLY meant” and all that.People could definately manipulate and twist the words in it to suit their purposes (most politician do that here already) but outright giving up the constitution just wouldn’t happen.Most American’s just have to much respect for it (regardless of whether it’s because of actual respect of blind nationalism).

Is it bad that I think “New Babylon” is kind of a cool name for a city?Not really original but kind cool >.<

That reminds me of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

GIGA DRILL BREAKER!

On a lighter note, I do love how Bruce has been at best a tangential character thusfar, but with his imminent death approaching, the authors choose to talk him up. Why not just say he only has one day to retirement?

New Babylon is a nifty name for a city, or a night club, “Let’s go to New Babylon it’s two for one drink night.” “You mean Enigma Babylon?” “Nah, Enigma Babylon finally got closed down by the cops, shame really, I saw Potentate play their first gig there.” 

Carpathia had used it to sway public opinion and get the populace behind the idea that the North American ambassador to the Global Community should supplant the sitting president.

Isn’t this redundant? I thought Nicky Boy hammered all this out in the first book.  
And if our President has already gotten talked into handing over all our weapons in the middle of an unprecedented crime wave, then he’s about as useful as tits on a boar hog. Why all the rigamarole in replacing the doofus?

And with regards to Iraq – yeah, a couple hundred billion might be able to get you a fancy palace in the desert if run correctly. 
But we’ve seen that Nicky Boy can’t even keep a couple of penniless prophets from setting up a concert, let alone run a halfway decent media outlet (he put Buck in charge, for Hell’s sake, a man who clearly cannot run a decent salad bar). 
Why do we think he’d be able to build a palace in the middle of a desert full of pissed off Iraqis?

Jimmy Bats yeah, the dude that robbed Rayford’s House in Fred’s fan fiction right.

I actually recently got the idea to start a Call of Cthulhu game based on the Left Behind Darbyist heresies.  Have the players meet up, solve an average adventure, and then end session one with the Rapture happening.  Ultimately, it would turn out that it wasn’t the Christian God but rather Yog-Sothoth who was behind the whole thing.  If and when I do this, I’ll definitely post here about how it goes.

Tybult:

Gotta remember – L&J purposely wrote Nicky Atlas to conform to their notion of an Antichrist who looks threatening, but actually isn’t.

Here’s about where the Schadenfreude was discussed regarding what TurboJesus does to the GC armies and then Nicky Bossdude and his sidekick Leon.

Tybult:

Gotta remember – L&J purposely wrote Nicky Atlas to conform to their notion of an Antichrist who looks threatening, but actually isn’t.

Here’s about where the Schadenfreude was discussed regarding what TurboJesus does to the GC armies and then Nicky Bossdude and his sidekick Leon.

Building a city In Iraq could be done by a Bond level big bad.  This guy is supposed to be a villain  lets have him do some grade A villainy.
I’ll show you how to be a world class despot using the checklist.
One world language.  English or  Esperanto or what ever.  The Official language all laws are written in it the only language that can used in a court of law if you don’t speak the language a translator will be appointed for you of course he can say you are saying whatever he wants. The only language taught in school, the only one broadcast etc.  In these  terrible times we must stand together against our enemies and a common language will allow to do that.  Why can’t they learn the language of the dominant culture,  so many of our ancestors did.

One world currency  sorry your money is worthless if you want to buy anything you must use our currency.  Since your money is worthless your banks are closed.  You are hungry here sign this mortgage for your property and you will be able to buy some food, you can pay us back in the new currency your boss will pay you in.  One currency will bring people together why should we allow the bankers and money changers to profit on the sweat of the working man.

One world religion.  Your marriage is only legal and binding if you are married in our church and you must be members in good standing to be married.  Want to be in government or be able to vote that right only extends to those with the same culture and religion as the majority.  We need to make sure you have the right morals and you can’t be moral if you are praying to the wrong God/Gods.

All weapons should be under control of a central authority so that we can defend ourselves from the common enemy.  In this time of turmoil we can not allow ourselves to sink back into fighting our brothers, give me the power and we can all be equals.

Either I am a super villain or I just put more thought in this than did L&J.  Or they just have an arbitrary list that they put together.

So after more than a year and a half, this is what the Tribulation Force
has accomplished in their task “to stand and fight the enemies of God”: A feasibility study

Well, that’s to be expected, since these “enemies” are implementing God’s plan, aren’t they? So by setting themselves up to oppose these enemies, they’re opposing God’s plan, and therefore opposing God himself.

And since mere mortals should be unable to effectively counter the Grand Plan of an omniscient and omnipotent being, the fact that all they’ve managed to do in eighteen months is produce a feasibility study seems perfectly reasonable.

Oh, hey! We had a chat about that webzine thing here. Ruby snarked it best.

Sounds like fun!

Chiding Jenkins for “Web site on the Internet” may be unfair, but it’s fun to do regardless.

Now, I’m not saying that I support Nicolae or his regime. But if he really did come to power because the American people wanted him there, particularly if the transfer was done lawfully (somehow) … well then, Fitz sort of comes across as a bad guy with his schemes of armed revolution. He’s not a saved Christian either, so he doesn’t even have the excuse that he knows DJ Po10t8 is the Antichrist. At the very least this calls Fitz’s personal motives into question. At the moment he seems less like a patriot than a dangerously sore loser. Either way, his insurgency sure isn’t going to help with the crime situation.

Well, back a few centuries, mostly, it did. The most recent usage, that I can recall, of ‘Fitz’ in that sense is from the first half of the 19th century.

No, the US Constitution isn’t sacred. But L&J don’t discuss it being overthrown, that Fitzhugh had been impeached, just that “public opinion” had been “swayed” to “get the populace behind
the idea that the North American ambassador to the Global Community
should supplant the sitting president.”

Huh the what WHO? 

“Ass’s jawbone strike!”
“Parting the Red Sea!”

The dreaded “Tenth plague blow,” said to hit its victims so hard their kids will feel it!

Well, back a few centuries, mostly, it did. The most recent usage, that I
can recall, of ‘Fitz’ in that sense is from the first half of the 19th
century.

I didn’t mean that he literally got that name for being illegitimate. It’s just that Fitz is a fictional character, so his name was deliberately chosen for him to evoke his character, just like Ray Steele and Buck Williams were given manly names instead of being called, say, Percy Meeks. Names have meaning in Fictionland, and I’m amused that Fitz’s has one that was definitely not intended.

Buck could become like the Max Headroom or the Eyes Only of the Great Tribulation.

I was thinking of Adam Selene, but that was a MUCH better book.

I know that there’s Fake Christian Yoga (PraiseMoves – trademarked, of course), so presumably, someone’s going to invent Fake Christian Kung-Fu, where all animal stances are renamed after Bible quotes.

The fake Jewish martial art is Abir, now called Abir/Qesheth.

The guy who founded it is so full of it I had to sign up for his mailing list, so I could go on laughing at length.

I know that there’s Fake Christian Yoga (PraiseMoves – trademarked, of course), so presumably, someone’s going to invent Fake Christian Kung-Fu, where all animal stances are renamed after Bible quotes.

The fake Jewish martial art is Abir, now called Abir/Qesheth.

The guy who founded it is so full of it I had to sign up for his mailing list, so I could go on laughing at length.

That’s why it’s ultimately useless to talk about whether or not these stories would ever be possible (and I fell for it this week too).

I’m declaring that real-world Iraqis and real-world incompetence would stymie a straw-man Antichrist who was written by men who inexplicably have no concept of history, geography, economics, theology, psychology, or politics.

Is Abir/Qesheth better or worse than Llap goch?

Of course, the main problem with that interpretation is that it would be giving LaJenkins a liiiiitle too much credit.  Remember, these are the men who couldn’t be assed to find out how deep the Jordan River is, and named their church New Hope; research and subtlety are foreign concepts.

Nicky Snake-Mountain-Action-Adventure-Playset

That is beautiful. I’m picturing Nicky sounding like he’s using the echoing-voice mic when reciting lists, and that’s why people get excited.

DJ Po10t8

There is Dr. Pepper in my sinuses now, dangit!

Is Abir/Qesheth better or worse than Llap goch?

Well, the inventor of Abir is not as funny as the Llap goch man. Except unintentionally.

And he claims that the word ‘sumo’ derives from the ‘Sumer’, home of the earliest practitioners of the Jewish people’s ancient martial art. (Obviously we had a martial art. Israel is in Asia, after all. “And aren’t we as Asian as other Asians?” asks the Abir Aluf. Dude, I didn’t realize there was some special rule that all Asian ethnic groups got a martial art.)

Fred’s idea for Buck is pretty good, but L&J would probably not be for it. As far as they’re concerned, any news article about the Rapture that does not drop to it’s knees and prays to TurboJesus is doing the exact same thing: Mocking L&J’s warnings of all the obvious signs of the end times right now, and writing that their future predictions still haven’t happened. And those magazines are persecuting them, obviously, so Buck can’t be allowed to copy that.

My idea was that Buck can use his position in the magazine to hire a few of Bruce’s fanboys (not girls, they shouldn’t work), make sure they are manning all the critical positions around the printing on a day he knows Nicky is otherwise busy, print and publish a complete RTC exposition, then run like hell before it hits the news stands. A lot of magazines will be spread before the GC catches up to it. But of course, then Buck has to go in hiding in some shack in the woods. And we couldn’t have that, now could we? No, best stick to forms of resistance that can’t be “traced back to his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue”, otherwise he’d have to *gasp* leave it!

Also, for all that these books are the RTC equivalent of the James Bond-esque thriller movies written as novels, they do a rather poor job.

Bond would have done something by now, this far into the book.

In 1996, I was a university student. There were Internet cafes, maybe not quite on every street corner, but certainly you didn’t have to walk far in a major city to find one. All the public libraries and university libraries had free Internet-access terminals. Heathrow Airport had pay-per-use terminals. The university gossip network, to say nothing of the popular press, were rife with scare stories about how people could use all these free, public computer terminals to anonymously hack/infect/subvert various important computer networks. And yet Buck can’t see any way to set up a Website on the Internet that can’t be traced back to his fracking penthouse. From all of this I conclude that in 1996, LaHaye and Jenkins never cracked a book or newspaper, spoke to anyone, or so much as opened a *window.*

My brain balked so hard I felt it slosh against the front of my skull at hearing “The only positive factor about Buck’s new position was that he now had the means to isolate himself somewhat against the terrible crime wave that had broken all records in North America”, not that I should be surprised by this.  Really? The ONLY positive is that you get to feel safe & warm in a penthouse while the rabble live in abject terror? Great witnessing there Paul. Way to be Christlike while dining with the princes and ignoring/avoiding the tax collectors & prostitutes.

It shouldn’t make me as angry as it does to read that. I’m not a paragon of charity by any means, but I hope that in a situation where there was general lawlessness I would be motivated by my very humanity (and nonRTC beliefs) to not just say “I got mine, screw you”.

of topic

A while ago I asked the atheist/agnostic people on this blog what they learned from slacktivist.

Now I am going to ask the Christians what did you learn from slacktivist and how did it change how you looked at the world.

I dunno . . . “Parting the Red Sea” sound like a sex act to me . . .

“Dead Sea Strike!” That’s your deadly move.

But while the idea of an anti-Nicolae outlet has promise, it might not be anywhere as effective or damaging as what Global Community Weekly could become as a sneakily subversive official GC outlet.

Maybe he could make himself into a Glenn Beck-style TV personality.  Buck’s not saying that our beloved Supreme Potentate is the Antichrist!  He’s just asking questions!  Good Global Community citizens ask questions.

it IS Llap Goch, only … predating it (surprise!)

He’s claiming the Sumerians were Jewish? thats so beyond bizarre as to be … wait, it’s Tim LaHaye’s illegitimate son FitzHaye, isn’t it?

And he claims that the word ‘sumo’ derives from the ‘Sumer’, home of the
earliest practitioners of the Jewish people’s ancient martial art.
(Obviously we had a martial art. Israel is in Asia, after all

I thought that was Krav Maga?

Although obviously the *really* ancient Israeli martial art is “Flamethrower Breath”.

Oh, this far in Bond would have done more than ‘something’. If this was a new Bond film (Licence to Rapture? The man with the golden thunderbolt? The world is not good enough? Tomorrow dies in seven years?) it’d be like this.

Opening scene: Bomb infiltrates a Russian air base, knocks out a pilot and tries to board a strategic bomber. He’s discovered however, and a chase and fight scene ensues, that leads Bond into the cockpit of a Mig, that he drives around the airbase while firing it’s cannons, starting a fire in the fuel storage tanks. He takes of while the base explodes behind him, flies it into the formation of bombers (shooting down 3 other fighters in the process, takes out his smartphone (courtesy of whichever technology company bid the most for the product placement) and uses it to send a signal to the triggers of the nukes still on board the bombers. They explode in the sky over Israel, just as the ICBMs re-enter the atmosphere, blowing them up to0, as bond narrowly escapes by flying through a narrow canyon. Cut to Bond intro music.

Over the course of the movie Bond will be sent out to investigate the death of 006 (seriously, the job of 006 is about as safe as teaching Defense against the Dark Arts) who was investigating Stonegal. This investigation leads him to the United Nations building where he has a tense face-to-face with Nicolae. By now Bond would have seduced Hattie away from Nicolae, killed Stonegal, infiltrated Nicolae’s secret base in Babylon, been captured, had Nicolae explain his entire plan to him (we’d sure like to hear it), and woul by now be escaping from the elaborate death trap (what would be fitting? So far Nicky’s only kills were very mundane. It’d have to involve a pit of fire at least). During the last few pages, he’d have a climactic fight while New Babylon explodes around him.

Uh… dude… can I play?

Uh… dude… can I play?

1996 was when the internet protests against the Church of Scientology were reaching their first peak, when anonymous remailers were used to post secret documents, and Usenet was open to anyone with a computer. It was also the time when the Co$ was flooding Usenet with forged spam sent from throwaway accounts, purchased with cash and discarded the same day. Someone living in a Fifth Avenue penthouse could buy a lot of redirection.

(Yeah, I know. L&J have no idea what a server is or how unlikely it would be to have a personal one in 1996, or how IP addresses work; they think it’s as traceable as a phone number.)

There was a Livejournal comm set up for a RightBehind-inspired RPG, but it never took off.

At least he would’ve gotten laid.

It also would be a lot better if there was any indication of a crime wave at all.

In 1996 the Drug Warriors were already busy trashing the Bill of Rights 

1996?  Try back during the Glorious Reign of Ronald I.

I’m willing to call him out on the cell phone thing. By the mid 1990s about one in every 20 or so people had a cell phone and the number was clearly growing. Given how much they care about phone calls, that makes all the more reason they should have paid attention. 

Bificommander: Now that has meat to the action! none of this silly-assed wait-around-for-stuff-to-happen business.

Bificommander: Now that has meat to the action! none of this silly-assed wait-around-for-stuff-to-happen business.

Not Jewjitsu?

Buck was all for it and had secretly studied the feasibility of producing an anti-Global Community Web site on the Internet. As soon as he could figure out a way to do it without its being traced back to his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue, he would do it.

And this was written in 1996, you say?  I can see Buck’s GeoCities anti-OWG website now, with a sparkling banner, crawling headers, and animated DancingJesus.GIF images punctuating every neon-green paragraph yelling at the reader to wake up and see the truth.  

I have to wonder who Yog-Sothoth has set up for his Four Horsemen. Extrapolating from the bits and pieces I know beforehand, I’m going to guess…

Conquest: Nyarlathotep
War: Cthulhu (well, his goal IS to amplify Earthly chaos to infinite levels…)
Famine: Hastur?
Death/Plague: Eihort
The Beast: Chaugnar Faugn (with its siblings standing in for its images)
The False Prophet: Y’Golonac (there must be SOME perversions that require getting Yog-Sothoth’s magickal aid…)

Although this in part depends on who Yog-Sothoth can boss around. I know Cthulhu is his high priest, and Nyarlathotep is an avatar of Yog’s soul, but beyond that, no real idea…

(Note: It’s a little strange that Firefox DOESN’T highlight “Cthulhu” as something that might need respelling…I didn’t think he entered common culture THAT thoroughly.)

The antichrist’s armies of cloned atheist wuxia masters would make for one heck of an exciting series.Which would neccessitate Bruce’s people learning wuxia themselves.  And there would be epic battles.

I can see the battle’s now, with the TF fighters yelling “Jesus’Trib!” into their weirding modules as they charge into battle, and Christ will look upon them and lament, “My name has become death.”  

Oh, wait.  Won’t happen.  Wuxia is some sort of pagan atheist satanism.  Foo.

I recall there being something of an upset among “family values” parents over their children watching Avatar: The Last Airbender.  Were they bothered by the violence?  The offscreen death?  The sly implications of teenage sexual activity?  

Nope.  They were bothered that the show made the mysticism surrounding eastern martial arts look too cool, and it would distract their children from the Goodly Christian Values they were trying to instill.  

I think that the reason we see so many of these “moral substitute” products prop up is not so much because the version they try to imitate is necessarily “immoral”, but because they are afraid that exposure to even the idea that alternative forms of spiritual expression exist will tempt them away from the faith of their families.  I have always seen this quite unwise and liable to backfire.  Children cannot be sheltered from the real world forever, sooner or later they will find out about the wider world.  This tends to produce one of two results: either their existing belief structure breaks down catastrophically (by the standards of their family) or they become ever more extreme and deny what reality sets before them.  Neither outcome is desirable.  Better to have a child exposed to ideas early, so that the “parallax” of it gives them valuable perspective and a more stable worldview.  

I’ve always thought of Nyarlathotep as part of the Outer God anti-Trinity – you know, the third that takes a personal interest in humans.  Azathoth’s the creator, obviously, and Yog-Sothoth is the immaterial one who suffuses all of space and time and connects it to the Outer Gods.

Also remember to an RTC “Crime Wave” includes such things as clerks saying Happy Holidays, women in comfortable shoes in positions of authority, and Muslim community centers opening without protest or threats. It’s a jungle out there in Buck’s world, just the other day he had to walk by his neighbor and his husband, husband!, as they were on their way to donate their car to a relief group ferrying the new crop of children and their families to safehouses in the country. He had to walk past *a man married to another man*, it took an entire day of prayer and hungrily ordering from the Eddie Bauer catalog with the money he hates so much to get over that horrifying brush with a Godless world. I bet you liberal ninnies couldn’t withstand such a spiritual attack, humph!. 

Bond prowled stealthily up to the command room. Using the access code he got from Hattie, he quickly opened up the network to remote access by Chloe, linking up the mine-activation codes and the naval autopilots to the GPS network. He was preparing to upload the virus when the screen went black, and he hear the door open behind him.

Nicolae Carpathia strode into the room with his entourage. His personal pilot, a tall, beefy fellow that looked soft but might not be, stood to his right, while his Media Director (a young, scrawny, twitchy nerd) flanked his left. Behind him and to the side was Hattie, his personal secretary.

“Mr Bond,” Nicolae walked forward, drawing a small pistol from his jacket, “I’ve heard a lot about you. Enough to know you think you can stand in my way. I had all executable functions disabled from that computer the moment you entered the room; no running virus programs! Though I am curious what you thought you’d accomplish.”

Bond stepped away from the console, ready to act. “I was going to scramble all your tracking systems so I could escape. That’s the only thing left to do, now that I’ve extensively mined the Gulf ahead of all of those tankers carrying all that explosive ordinance.”

Nicolae nodded calmly as the first fireball roared over the distan ocean. “I see. And tell me, how did you get access to my computer systems in the first place?”

Bond smirked. “Why, I slept with one of your inner circle, of course!”

Nicolae’s face flushed with anger, and he spun, firing the pistol and yelling “Traitor!”

Rayford fell to the ground, a single bullet hole in his forehead.

“Ah, no, not that one…”

Nicolae’s voice became anguished as tears ran down his face. “How could you?” he cried as he shot Buck four times in the chest.

“You know, I’m just going to leave now…”

Again with the potentate. For some reason it reminds me of the Animaniacs episode where they meet The Dictator: “I am the dictator!” “OK, Dick, or is it Mr. Tator? Mind if we call you Richard?”

And whenever I read TurboJesus I will now think of this: http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4011

It’s still so weird to me that of all the myriad possible “Antichrist takes over the United States” scenarios, of all the calamities, upheavals and collapses in post-Rapture America that might plausibly be leveraged toward the establishment of a foreign tyranny, the one LaHaye and Jenkins go with is: a crime wave.  Crime is just not that dire a threat, L&J.  America has had crime problems in the past, and we’ve gotten through them without once being tempted to wad up the Constitution and hand the keys over to a Romanian pacifist.  It’s really not a big deal: you just light the Bat-signal, and go back to watching your stories.

You know, this Sinfest strip is surprisingly apropos.

Not Jewjitsu?

Jewjitsu is the flamethrower breath art. You don’t think they would have invented two separate Jewish martial arts without using that name if it was up for grabs, do you?

Not Jewjitsu?

Jewjitsu is the flamethrower breath art. You don’t think they would have invented two separate Jewish martial arts without using that name if it was up for grabs, do you?

Not Jewjitsu?

Jewjitsu is the flamethrower breath art. You don’t think they would have invented two separate Jewish martial arts without using that name if it was up for grabs, do you?

I dunno . . . “Parting the Red Sea” sound like a sex act to me . . .

Lovely. I was thinking of it more as a “fighting multiple enemies” thing.

Now that my mind’s going dark places anyway, the Tenth Plague Blow could just be hitting the opponent in the groin so hard they’re rendered infertile. Yes, it works on both sexes.

Oh no, now my mind’s stuck on Biblically named sex acts, like the Burning Bush, or the Land of Milk and Honey.

I dunno . . . “Parting the Red Sea” sound like a sex act to me . . .

Lovely. I was thinking of it more as a “fighting multiple enemies” thing.

Now that my mind’s going dark places anyway, the Tenth Plague Blow could just be hitting the opponent in the groin so hard they’re rendered infertile. Yes, it works on both sexes.

Oh no, now my mind’s stuck on Biblically named sex acts, like the Burning Bush, or the Land of Milk and Honey.

“He’s claiming the Sumerians were Jewish?”

I think what he’s claiming is that the art originated among ancient Semites, and Jews inherited it, but given that this is the same man who thinks “Jew” is an unpleasant foreign word, possibly derived from “Jeweler”, and not at all appropriate to the Yehudim (etyomology is not his strongest suit), I honestly could not tell you WHAT he’s claiming. 

“He’s claiming the Sumerians were Jewish?”

I think what he’s claiming is that the art originated among ancient Semites, and Jews inherited it, but given that this is the same man who thinks “Jew” is an unpleasant foreign word, possibly derived from “Jeweler”, and not at all appropriate to the Yehudim (etyomology is not his strongest suit), I honestly could not tell you WHAT he’s claiming. 

“I thought that was Krav Maga?”

Ah, but Krav Maga is modern, and prosaic. Abir is ANCIENT. And TRIBAL. And was passed down as SECRET for generations.

I’ve been trying to think of phrases that had that “cheesy Kung-Fu move” appeal, but they all fall flat…

“Turning the other cheek!”
“Mote in my eye becomes beam in your eye!”
“Camel seeks the eye of a needle!”
“Render unto Ceaser!”

The work equally well as martial-arts strikes as they do sex acts: poorly.

I’ve been trying to think of phrases that had that “cheesy Kung-Fu move” appeal, but they all fall flat…

“Turning the other cheek!”
“Mote in my eye becomes beam in your eye!”
“Camel seeks the eye of a needle!”
“Render unto Ceaser!”

The work equally well as martial-arts strikes as they do sex acts: poorly.

Is Sumerian even a Semitic language?

Hey you know Amon from the legend of korra is already a better evil overlord than nicky and that series hasn’t even got started yet

The thing I’m having trouble figuring out is what sorts of crimes would be common.  I was thinking of writing another fic for Right Behind (and btw, I’m amazed that there haven’t been any new stories since March!  What happened?) and considered having a conversation between a couple of the characters take place in a coffee shop.

Then I thought about how the story would be affected if there were a holdup.  Because of both the crime wave being mentioned once again in the final part of TF, and also that I remembered Jessica’s (I think it was her who said this) tip about having somebody pull out a gun if you weren’t sure where the story should go next.

Anyway, then I thought “Wait, why is this guy raiding the cash register at a small business?  There has to be a lot of abandoned crap he can just pick up and walk away with without having to threaten anybody.  Oh my god, this guy with the gun would be like Jimmy Bats!”

So robbery and burglary are unlikely.  You’ve gotta figure that murder and rape would stay about the same, unless perhaps the trauma of the Event caused some people to snap and become mentally unstable enough to do things they wouldn’t have before.  Or maybe the stress of the Event made people more short-tempered and increased the frequency of assaults.  But still, I don’t see the connection between “lots of people die” and “people all across America start doing terrible things to one another afterwards”.  To compare the Event to 9/11 only much moreso once more, we didn’t see everybody victimizing one another in the aftermath of 9/11.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

Is there a reason for this crime wave happening that I’m just not seeing?  Or is this yet another case of Ellenjay putting something that simply does not make sense into the story?

Some more flash fiction. “Oh Jesus,” Sam muttered under his breath and Ben had to hide his smile. That could only mean Sam had spotted Buck. Ben looked to see Buck walking towards the elevator trying not to make eye contact. “I’m feeling punchy enough to go in the elevator with him and talk about my favorite Lady Gaga remix, but it doesn’t seem right to do that when we’re on our way to do a good deed.” 

Ben chuckled, one of the things he loved the most about Sammy is how he could always make him laugh. Even at the end of the world. Ben who had never really known hurt or want, who’d went to the best schools, who’d become a top architect, who’d inherited his uncle’s penthouse had had a charmed time of it. And Sam had just been one more wonderful part of it. He didn’t know what he’d do without Sam, without his courage or his generosity. Sam who made him go out everyday, who was always looking for ways to help. Sam who insisted they give their car to The Reeds and delay fleeing to Ben’s summer cabin just a little while yet. 

Ben had refused to jump on board with the Global Community’s rebuilding plans and had found his client list mysteriously dwindling. Taking the hint he’d closed his office and began to make plans to run with Sam. Sam said not yet. Sam worked in a bookstore, he wouldn’t hear of leaving his job when he married Ben, and he heard from customers and what could only be called now, sources, what was going on and about to go down. It’s how he’d found out about The Reeds and The Rushes Project. 

One of Sam’s regulars was an old woman with bright brown eyes and an air of Hollywood glamour she carried even into her seventies. She was always smartly dressed in bold colors and rich fabrics, with a different brooch every day on her lapel. She had told Sam that she and some of the other volunteers had not liked how the new Global Community Monitors had been treating the children and families at Global Community Hudson Family Center. The questions the Monitors asked the parents, the way they treated the children not as people but future followers of “Potato” Nicolae. Sam smirked at that, he’d thought he’d been the only one to think that work when he heard Nicolae’s title. 

The woman, Lenora Daniels, had quietly made inquiries into the possibilities for setting up refuges, the first had been readied, and her group was ready to start bundling families out of the city. They just needed vehicles, sturdy ones, that they could put dummy license plates on and ones that could be abandoned or dumped as the driver switched off into another vehicle to blur their trail. Sam said he’d ask Ben about their car, and after just 15 minutes of making his case Ben gave in and today was the day they were to drop off their Mercedes with one of Lenora’s Helpers. 

Ben sighed as they rode the elevator, “You know I loved Alias and all that cloak and dagger stuff, but this is scary as Hell, I’ll admit it.” Sam kissed his cheek, “I know Benny, but I’m proud of you. And if things keep going on like this, we should start looking into going too, or least moving someplace where they won’t find us.” 
“Good luck with that.” 
“Yeah, I know but ‘Nora’s got connections, it’s not just The Reeds, there’s a lot more…” Sam trailed off, Ben knew Sam was involved a lot more than he let on, and was trying to protect him, well that could be a fight to have when they returned. 

They exited into the garage to see Buck still fussing trying to get the cover off his ungainly SUV, it seemed to have gotten snagged on a corner. Both clutched each others arm to keep from laughing. “Need some help?” Sam asked innocently. Buck spun around like a startled deer, and stared at them wide eyed in terror, he gulped, “Um, no. Thank you for asking…” he struggled to save face, “…Jesus loves you, have blessed day.” And he turned back to fighting with his car. 

Inside their car Sam muttered “What a fucking tool.” 
“Yup.” 

Sam drove towards the park and stopped their car near the entrance closest to the Angel of the Waters fountain. A beautiful young woman with braids falling down her back was reading on a nearby bench. Sam got out of the car and linked his arm through Ben’s. “We’re just on a stroll in the park.” Ben nodded, his heart hammering in his ears. Sam casually walked by the girl, and without missing a beat slipped the keys into a purse open at her side, he didn’t even break his stride. They kept walking until they reached the fountain. 

“Jesus Christ, I don’t think I can do something like that again.”
“I think you can, I know you can…and you’re going to have to.”
Ben stared at Sam, “You’re part of The Reeds aren’t you?”
“I told Lenora she could hold a meeting in the shop after we closed, I stayed to listen and that was that.” Sam looked down, “I take back that last part about you having to do stuff like that, if you want out now, I’ll go.” 
Ben up at the angel, this was still one of his favorite places in the city. The sound of the water, the musicians busking for change, and that strange, enigmatic smile on the face of the angel that had tantalized and comforted so many times over the years. He almost thought to ask her out loud what he should do. He kissed Sam gently, “You’re non negotiable, I guess this means I’m in too. We better get a cab home.” 
“Maxie is waiting in hers for us.”
“Maxie?” ”You’ll love her, Lenora met her two years ago when she was coming home from some party, they started talking and ended up closing a bar together.”"Oh Sam, if you didn’t exist I’d have to invent you.”
“Damn straight.” 

Also, since all the RTCs are gone to heaven, the only people left in the US are godless communists who hate America, and can’t wait for the UN to take over the country.

Buck has essentially two options about how he can run his paper.

1) He can print the Truth. This will almost certainly get him killed. He could possibly go with a tiny fraction of the Truth, and hope no one notices.
2) He can subversively constantly ‘disprove’ rumors that are, in fact, the Truth, along with constant hints that he is under government control and can’t print the Truth. Those crazy lying kooks he’s constantly having to disprove. He can do that by, as
someone else above pointed out, pointing to their absurd predictions of earthquakes
and whatnot.

He can even make a huge joke out of it, like everyone did
in the real world with the recent predicted (non-)apocalypse. (This, of
course, pretends that Buck was smart enough to keep his connection to
the Church secret…he really hasn’t been.)

And these can even be combined…slip tiny parts of the Truth in there, and then have massive over-corrections saying that was incorrect. Or even ‘We have been told that that was incorrect.’, which is an interesting phrase when read carefully. Do that along with weird underreactions like not printing news of the earthquakes when they do happen.

Yes, a fairly hilarious way of getting the news out there, to signal there is something else going one, would be to overcensor the paper, well past what the government actually requires.

Week 1: Haha, these idiots thinks there’s going to be an earthquake, along with a bunch of other wacky beliefs.
Week 2: We have been told that those people are known traitors. Disregard what we said.
Week 3: *Earthquake happens*
Week 4: Earthquake? What earthquake? That was a very minor earthquake, and we don’t know what you’re talking about with people having predicted it?

If you control a newspaper, if you control all the news, you can make it look like a schizophrenic and paranoid and outright evil government is attempting to censor you to cover things up, and the funny thing is, it would be really hard for Nicky to fix.

Buck, of course, take the third option and decides he’s just going to print antichrist sanctioned lies. Way to go, hero of the story.

Jessica_R Today 02:11 PM: It’s good except for this part, which is not credible …

Buck spun around like a startled deer, and stared at them wide eyed in terror, he gulped, “Um, no. Thank you for asking…” he struggled to save face, “…Jesus loves you, have blessed day.” And he turned back to fighting with his car.

Our hero would never blow his cover by divulging that he’s a Christian or attempt to share a message of salvation with sinners who — according to his theology – deserve eternal torment.

edited (damn Discus)

DavidCheatham: If you control a newspaper, if you control all the news, you can make it look like a schizophrenic and paranoid and outright evil government is attempting to censor you to cover things up, and the funny thing is, it would be really hard for Nicky to fix.

I think that would be an extremely difficult and challenging thing for a journalist to do in order to make his readers understand his real message – and certainly far beyond the ability of our hero.

One really nice detail in the V for Vendetta movie is when Natalie Portman’s character and V are watching a news broadcast and Natalie mentions you can tell the story is a government sanctioned lie, because the newscaster is blinking rapidly, she always does that when the story is bullshit. A nice way to show how people try to survive and still preserve the truth in totalitarian environment. And an idea utterly lost in today’s Liars for Christ atmosphere. 

The thing I’m having trouble figuring out is what sorts of crimes would be common. 

I wrote something over at that other place that hinted at some of this, but I’ll spell it out here.

1.) Drugs. Lots & lots of drugs. And drinking. You have an entire planet in mourning for its lost children, a massive economic, personal, spiritual Depression on a global scale. Some will turn to God for succor, and sometimes, the opiate of the masses is just opium.

1a.) Because people are drinking more to numb the pain, expect more auto accidents, especially hit-and-runs. (I imagine more than a few elementry school playgrounds would have drunken drivers plowing through them in half-blind rage)

1b.) You’re grieving, you’re self-medicating with alcohol and drugs, and so is your spouse/partner/baby’s daddy/baby’s momma, along with your mother-who-used-to-be-a-grandma, your father-who-used-to-be-a-grandpa, and your brohter-who-used-to-be-an-uncle. I’d expect an uptick in domestic violence. Not just assault, but murder as well.

1c.) Every industry that sells to children or families has gone belly-up, and there’s massive unemployment as every grade school teacher and day care worker is out of a job. But drug dealers don’t take unemployment checks or credit, so expect a rise in property crime. At first, it’s looting of the Raptured folks, but very quickly it would shift to property crimes like theft and mugging.

1d.) With empty houses, and economic collapse driving folks into foreclosure, expect to see more people squatting in houses with unclear ownership. In those conditions, money that was going to homeowner’s insurance is now spent on a different kind of “insurance”; squatters would be well armed, and post a lot of “no trespassing” signs.

2.) If you really want to believe the whole “God is no longer present” stuff, one reasonable consequence is that people would be more self-absorbed, and much more likely to look the other way. Today, if you smashed a car window and stole the stereo, if someone saw you, they would probably call the police, maybe even take your picture. Post-Rapture, between the absence of God and the general grief, they’d just shrug that it’s not their car and move on. So personal crimes like assault and rape would probably slowly creep up, as the “good samaritan” factor dropped off.

The thing I’m having trouble figuring out is what sorts of crimes would be common. 

I wrote something over at that other place that hinted at some of this, but I’ll spell it out here.

1.) Drugs. Lots & lots of drugs. And drinking. You have an entire planet in mourning for its lost children, a massive economic, personal, spiritual Depression on a global scale. Some will turn to God for succor, and sometimes, the opiate of the masses is just opium.

1a.) Because people are drinking more to numb the pain, expect more auto accidents, especially hit-and-runs. (I imagine more than a few elementry school playgrounds would have drunken drivers plowing through them in half-blind rage)

1b.) You’re grieving, you’re self-medicating with alcohol and drugs, and so is your spouse/partner/baby’s daddy/baby’s momma, along with your mother-who-used-to-be-a-grandma, your father-who-used-to-be-a-grandpa, and your brohter-who-used-to-be-an-uncle. I’d expect an uptick in domestic violence. Not just assault, but murder as well.

1c.) Every industry that sells to children or families has gone belly-up, and there’s massive unemployment as every grade school teacher and day care worker is out of a job. But drug dealers don’t take unemployment checks or credit, so expect a rise in property crime. At first, it’s looting of the Raptured folks, but very quickly it would shift to property crimes like theft and mugging.

1d.) With empty houses, and economic collapse driving folks into foreclosure, expect to see more people squatting in houses with unclear ownership. In those conditions, money that was going to homeowner’s insurance is now spent on a different kind of “insurance”; squatters would be well armed, and post a lot of “no trespassing” signs.

2.) If you really want to believe the whole “God is no longer present” stuff, one reasonable consequence is that people would be more self-absorbed, and much more likely to look the other way. Today, if you smashed a car window and stole the stereo, if someone saw you, they would probably call the police, maybe even take your picture. Post-Rapture, between the absence of God and the general grief, they’d just shrug that it’s not their car and move on. So personal crimes like assault and rape would probably slowly creep up, as the “good samaritan” factor dropped off.

After I reply to a comment, my comment is not connected to the initial comment.  Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

After I reply to a comment, my comment is not connected to the initial comment.  Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

After I reply to a comment, my comment is not connected to the initial comment.  Is anyone else experiencing this problem? Yes. It’s why I’ve been using blockquote and/or italics and quoting the post I’m responding to.

After I reply to a comment, my comment is not connected to the initial comment.  Is anyone else experiencing this problem? Yes. It’s why I’ve been using blockquote and/or italics and quoting the post I’m responding to.

After I reply to a comment, my comment is not connected to the initial comment.  Is anyone else experiencing this problem? Yes. It’s why I’ve been using blockquote and/or italics and quoting the post I’m responding to.

I wrote something over at that other place that hinted at some of this, but I’ll spell it out here.

All of these are waaaay beyond the mental capabilities of L&J. And they spent 16 books proving it.

I wrote something over at that other place that hinted at some of this, but I’ll spell it out here.

All of these are waaaay beyond the mental capabilities of L&J. And they spent 16 books proving it.

 As soon as he could figure out a way to do it without its being traced back to his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue, he would do it.This would be a good generic excuse.  When will x accomplish y?   As soon as x could figure out a way to do it without its being traced back to x‘s penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue . . .

 As soon as he could figure out a way to do it without its being traced back to his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue, he would do it.This would be a good generic excuse.  When will x accomplish y?   As soon as x could figure out a way to do it without its being traced back to x‘s penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue . . .

Can you make it to Charleston?

Good catch annursa, next time I should try to find a way to say that Ben and Sam were baffled by Buck standing there looking alternately terrified and smug and go into Buck’s traditional Sheriff of Nottingham’s “Oh if only I could get at him!” inner monologue about by golly how he wished he could be a courageous Christian warrior but you know, he’s got dry cleaning to pick up. 

An Online Web site on the Internet?  Nonsense.

-

When I try to think of how I would do Buck’s website thing it sort of breaks down because if I were doing this Carolyn Miller would have already started the most trusted source in anti regime news.

It would have worked like this:

When Miller tried to get Buck to look into the story her husband had been working on when he was murdered, Buck would have hung his head and confessed that he swore never to report on that story to save himself.  Carolyn would have decided to pursue the story herself in spite of the risks. Buck would have helped her get started by connecting her with relevant sources, mostly out of guilt and shame.  She would have proven herself a braver person and a better reporter than Buck without, you know, being a reporter.

Anyway, at this point Buck wouldn’t be trying to figure out how to set up an anti-GC web site, that would have been around for quite a while now.  Instead he’d be trying to figure out how much sensitive information he could funnel to Carolyn without having GC realize he was the one doing it, he’d be trying to let the truth bleed through and intentionally doing any cover ups or PR spin less than well.  Not so badly it was clear he was doing it on purpose, but bad enough those who were paying attention would be able to tell there was more to the story.  He’d be trying to seed his articles with specific words or phrases that, when put into a search engine, would steer people to Carolyn’s website.  He’d be trying to say as much of the truth as he could without getting caught.

And all the while he’d be constantly unsure whether he was doing too much, to the point Nicolae would execute him (Nicolae has dealt with reporters he doesn’t like before) or not enough.  He’d have the decency to agonize over the possibility he wasn’t doing enough.  Being a spy shouldn’t be easy.  (Every time Cameron heard and ambulance he wondered whether another soul was being sent to Hell because he had lacked the courage to openly proclaim the truth.  Was it true that he did more good undercover in the Antichrist’s employ, or was that just what he told himself because it was more comfortable than the alternative?)

-

New Babylon is difficult to work with.  The various Antichrists I imagine deal with it in different ways.

Nick Andes sees it as bothersome chore.  He has to build his capital there because if he doesn’t keep up his end then God might start improvising and it’s hard enough to prepare when he knows what’s coming.  (Do you have any idea how hard it is to build underground shelters enough to protect all humans and livestock from a sun that would scorch them to death in seconds?  Well, do you?  What about preparing for a global earthquake?)  He’d rather be using the resources to help people or prepare for what is to come, but if he has to build a city in the desert then he will.

New Babylon will be built well (Nick doesn’t believe in shoddy work) but it will be built to the minimum acceptable specifications because he has more important things to do than building a lavish a city in the desert.  It will be solidly built, but as spartan as he can get away with because he doesn’t have time for frills.

The Antichrist from A World Without God would have built the city himself, because he’s magic.  He would have pulled building materials from the bedrock and shaped them to his whim.  (I picture them bursting through the desert sand while he makes motions like a conductor.)  And he’d probably melt the sand, just because.  New Babylon would be an imposing city marked by twisting jet black stone spires.  It would be disturbing to behold and follow no recognizable pattern.  Any human being viewing it would find it deeply unsettling.

The unmapped labyrinth beneath the city would have a different structure, as if the various passages were created by being gnawed out by some unknown creature.

It wouldn’t fit with his PR, but entrance into New Babylon is by invitation only.

You wonder why there’s never any video or still photos of what the city looks like?  Well I’m sure the secret police would be interested to know that.  Remember, they know exactly where you are, they know when you are sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know when you’ve been bad or good.  No, there’s nothing sinister about that at all.  This is what you wanted.  You remember the lawless times.  You remember what it was like before the secret police.  Isn’t life so much better now?

The Antichrist from the story where that involves air conditioners where he orders his entire army to walk away from the last battle because they never wanted to fight in the first place wouldn’t know he was the Antichrist yet and would be confused why his former boss (one of the disappeared) had built an entire city in the Iraqi desert.  (The whole temple thing he gets, boss was a Christian who wanted to further what he saw as his God’s plan which apparently required a temple, but why rebuild Babylon?)  But if that location works well for directing recovery efforts (being, as it is, closer to the center of the world’s population) he’s got no problem working from there.

There are probably others, but those are the ones that come to mind.

-

Something else does occur to me, New Jerusalem is supposed to drop from Heaven preassembled.  Perhaps the forces of Hell have preassembled their favorite city and it will burst fully formed from the sands.  Possibly looking like a Hellish Borg Cube (New Jerusalem was to be a cube) though I’d actually prefer something with a pyramid or two in it.

I think that would be an extremely difficult and
challenging thing for a journalist to do in order to make his readers
understand his real message – and certainly far beyond the ability of
our hero.

I am confused by this. Who are you referring to as ‘our hero’?

However, I must point out that ‘extremely difficult and
challenging things’ are sorta kinda what stories are _supposed_ to require of people. I know this story has lowered our standards a bit and we just wish the ‘heros’ would do _anything at all_, but in actual fact, they’re supposed to be doing _difficult_ things.

But that requires a story with actual protagonists, which I think an argument can be made that these novels do not actually have. We have viewpoint characters, but not actually a protagonist.

This is because we do not have a ‘Conflict’ of any sort. Sure, we’ve got someone conquering the world, and eventually we might have natural disasters, but as of yet, we have no conflict. Of course, to quote TV Tropes, ‘If you don’t have conflict, you don’t have a story.’.

So we ended up with a fictional non-story, like a Star Trek Technical Manual or a copy of Heinlein’s Future History timeline, with a very thin framing device of people living through it. (As I took the tour of the warp engine, I noticed that there were force field emitters around the base of the tower. I asked the guide what this were for, and he explained…)

I think that would be an extremely difficult and
challenging thing for a journalist to do in order to make his readers
understand his real message – and certainly far beyond the ability of
our hero.

I am confused by this. Who are you referring to as ‘our hero’?

However, I must point out that ‘extremely difficult and
challenging things’ are sorta kinda what stories are _supposed_ to require of people. I know this story has lowered our standards a bit and we just wish the ‘heros’ would do _anything at all_, but in actual fact, they’re supposed to be doing _difficult_ things.

But that requires a story with actual protagonists, which I think an argument can be made that these novels do not actually have. We have viewpoint characters, but not actually a protagonist.

This is because we do not have a ‘Conflict’ of any sort. Sure, we’ve got someone conquering the world, and eventually we might have natural disasters, but as of yet, we have no conflict. Of course, to quote TV Tropes, ‘If you don’t have conflict, you don’t have a story.’.

So we ended up with a fictional non-story, like a Star Trek Technical Manual or a copy of Heinlein’s Future History timeline, with a very thin framing device of people living through it. (As I took the tour of the warp engine, I noticed that there were force field emitters around the base of the tower. I asked the guide what this were for, and he explained…)

I’m not entirely sure how far I’m going to go with it- I’ll probably use the four horsemen in some form, perhaps as Great Old Ones but maybe just as lesser demons.  The reason I picked Yog is that one can supposedly gain knowledge of other times by sacrificing to him, so it makes sense that he’d be behind prophecies of that sort (though Nyarlathotep was probably involved somehow, as he does most of the Outer Gods’ dirty work for them).  I haven’t read that much of Lovecraft’s original work, so most of what I know is from the descriptions in the RPG rulebook.

The main antagonist, though, would be a human.  Here’s my thinking:

            A spell,
calling Yog-Sothoth, is cast from a stone tower in the Colorado Rockies, near
Colorado Springs.  It allows Yog to take children from all over the world and any others he deems worthy.  A preacher who’s a big
wheel in the movement (think Dobson, Haggard, etc.) would compile lists of respectable members from all over and use his daughter as a
sacrifice to bring on the Rapture. 
However, he volunteers to stay behind so that he can lead others to salvation.  He should emphasize that he
misses daughter greatly, but is also proud of her for what she’s done and
believes she will receive great glory, though he didn’t tell her in advance
what was happening (parallel with Isaac?).  The spell is
taken from the Necronomicon, a copy of which is held in their archives in
Colorado, but they believe it to be a Gnostic text written by early
Christians, and see the spell as a prophecy regarding the End Times.  He casts the spell to bring about the Rapture, seeing it as helping along the world’s salvation (think Fred’s references to the Hellmouth).

Session 1: Girl gone missing in
Charleston.  Daughter of major
religious figure from Colorado, staying with family in Charleston.  Reported to police, but one member of
the church (deacon, a Bruce Barnes character who will wonder why he was left behind, and face a lot of internal conflict over it- hopefully one of the players will agree to play this character) contacts the other PC’s for help.  He has to do this privately, b/c the
church leaders wouldn’t approve of outsiders getting involved.  He wants a back-up in case the police
can’t do it.  Of course, PC’s find
her being held by a Serpent Man and kill him, then take her home.  She is put on a plane back to Colorado,
but it takes them several hours to figure out who was behind the Serpent
Man.  Eventually, they find out one
of the pastors ordered it.  They go
to confront him, but show up to find an unattended lawnmower (yes, I’m stealing from A Thief in the Night- sue me).  Spot Hidden check or specifically
stated request finds pile of clothes. 
Dodge roll to avoid car crashing into them- notice Jesus fish and
various religious bumper stickers. 
Woman asks for her child, says she was playing jump rope.  Spot hidden sees jump rope with
children’s clothes in a pile.  At
this point, end session 1.  Where
to go next is up to the players.

            The
villains, meanwhile, are regrouping. 
The preacher summons demons to protect him (four horsemen of the
apocalypse?) and begin gathering followers, converting them to his brand of
Christianity.  He becomes a warlord
throughout the Rockies and spreading into the Great Plains.  There are other gangs, but none can
compete with his demons.  Obviously, though, that is limited, so his reach has boundaries.  On the other hand, the extremely magical events may have broken seals on various Great Old Ones, but they’d more likely be rampaging, and not part of an organized hierarchy.  The PC’s are in Charleston (my hometown- it’s fun to play in your hometown), and must
contend with the chaos.  They may
try to build their own gang, get in with another, or simply stockpile and hide
out.  Being Investigators, however,
they should eventually start looking into the cause of the Rapture.  At some point, they find a list of all the members of the
church in good standing was sent to Colorado Springs, and it matches exactly
the people disappeared, save for children.  Other churches have the same thing.  This is Death Note-ish.  Once they realize the connection, they
should eventually head for Colorado Springs.  They have to go there to find the prophecy and realize what
happened.  One of them will take or
copy the book, and eventually find it is from Yog-Sothoth.  After that?  Maybe raise an army, maybe try to assassinate the leader,
maybe go after the Horsemen.  It’s
the players’ decision.Any feedback?

Which Charleston?

SC.  We’re already playing one game set there, and it seems to help with immersion.

I’ll add that the ‘insane zealot’ version I wrote of Nicky would build a massive city of gleaming stone, steel, and glass. The city has to be built quickly, so why not hire every laborer in the region, even make arrangements to have many more brought in? The mythical man-month? Why not test it in real life? New Babylon would be known as much for the slaves who died in the desert to build it as it would be renowned for it’s glorious, first-world splendor. He would drain Arabia and beyond of it’s people, grind them into dust, and use it as mortar for his glorious city.

Is Sumerian even a Semitic language?

You have tickled my current Wikipedia obsession-of-the-week. No, Sumerian has not been plausibly shown to be a member of any known language group. It’s an isolate. When the later Akkadians rose into power, their language wound up blending with Sumerian. Their language was Semitic, but that’s the closest you get.

However, there is a definite cultural link between the Sumerians and the ancient Israelites, shown in the earlier parts of Genesis. Things like the story of Noah, and dropping many Sumerian place names in the origins of Nimrod and Abram. Probably filtered through later Semitic peoples like the Akkadians – compare the birth stories of Sargon and Moses, for a start.

Some good points there and ones I hadn’t thought of, obviously.  Thanks.  While I don’t consider drugs to be causes of bad behaviour in and of themselves, being under the influence isn’t going to make you behave more responsibly by any means, and of course there are plenty of deaths and violence caused by people who drive drunk or who turn mean when they drink even WITHOUT a Rapture/Event driving them to it.

I have another question about 2.), though.  Are you saying that people would be apathetic because they wouldn’t believe there was a God (any more)?  Even having seen how rotten humans can be time and again, I’ve gotta believe that the people who are good would behave that way regardless of whether they had the carrot of heaven and/or the stick of hell pushing them in that direction.

Perhaps the forces of Hell have preassembled their favorite city and it
will burst fully formed from the sands.  Possibly looking like a Hellish
Borg Cube (New Jerusalem was to be a cube) though I’d actually prefer
something with a pyramid or two in it.

My first thought was a New Las Vegas.

Also remember to an RTC “Crime Wave” includes such things as clerks saying Happy Holidays, women in comfortable shoes in positions of authority, and Muslim community centers opening without protest or threats.

I have some degree of professional authority and my shoes are comfortable.

Wait…oh shit, the Rapture happened already, didn’t it?

Of course, all of this involves thought and empathy, which is probably why we haven’t seen it in Tribulation Force.

I would wonder if some of the Christians-in-name-only would act out because the rote phrases they said in Church didn’t save them, and the thought of God not existing would push some people toward apathy. It’s not pretty, but in the wake of such massive trauma, it’s certainly possible.

However, I must point out that ‘extremely difficult and challenging challenging things’ are sorta kinda what stories are _supposed_ to require of people. I know this story has lowered our standards a bit and we just wish the ‘heros’ would do _anything at all_, but in actual fact, they’re supposed to be doing _difficult_ things.

I’m thinking about satire that is so good that people think that it’s for real, real stories that are so bizarre that readers think they are from The Onion, and opinion pieces written such that readers cannot tell whether the writer is serious or sarcastic.  Any piece designed to feign censorship could be easily misinterpreted by the intended audience. In some cases that’s not a swipe at the writer’s ability.

However, I must point out that ‘extremely difficult and challenging challenging things’ are sorta kinda what stories are _supposed_ to require of people. I know this story has lowered our standards a bit and we just wish the ‘heros’ would do _anything at all_, but in actual fact, they’re supposed to be doing _difficult_ things.

I’m thinking about satire that is so good that people think that it’s for real, real stories that are so bizarre that readers think they are from The Onion, and opinion pieces written such that readers cannot tell whether the writer is serious or sarcastic.  Any piece designed to feign censorship could be easily misinterpreted by the intended audience. In some cases that’s not a swipe at the writer’s ability.

Also remember to an RTC “Crime Wave” includes such things as clerks saying Happy Holidays, women in comfortable shoes in positions of authority, and Muslim community centers opening without protest or threats.

This, I like a lot – the idea of Buck as unreliable observer.  There actually is no “terrible crime wave”, just happy and free people going about their lives, but through Buck’s newly RTC’d eyes he sees only a hellish anarchy teeming with permissiveness and sin.  (As a bonus, this also explains why no “real” crimes are ever shown on-screen, as it were.)  It’s all he can do to shut out the horrid, horrid debauchery by locking himself in his Fifth Avenue penthouse 18 hours a day.

Are you saying that people would be apathetic because they wouldn’t believe there was a God (any more)?  Even having seen how rotten humans can be time and again, I’ve gotta believe that the people who are good would behave that way regardless of whether they had the carrot of heaven and/or the stick of hell pushing them in that direction.

I think that an event like the Rapture can cause that kind of apathy in both religious and atheist people.  Millions of adults world-wide were made to disappear, and every single child was whisked away instantly with nary a trace.  Divine intervention is the only thing that could explain such an event, it provides very strong evidence for the existence of God (or sufficiently advanced aliens with teleporters.)  

But the crux of it is, not only does God exist, but God is also a contemptible asshole.  He hates you and he took your children away.  Prayed all your life, did many good deeds, and felt that you were secure in your spiritual destiny?  Sorry, God still hates you and nothing you can do will change that.  Athiest, never believed in God, never saw any reason to?  Well, God has just announced himself to you in the most dickish way possible, and if you ever hated the idea that you were at the mercy of a big bully in the sky, that belief was just validated.

In any case, it is enough to drive people to lash out.  Who cares anymore?  The universe is all one big joke, and all our lives exist only at the whim of some sick bastard of a deity.  When you get to that point, a lot of people will just go “What’s the use?” and just stop caring what happens to them or what happens to others.

“Is Sumerian even a Semitic language?”

I don’t know–I don’t know much about Sumer. I DO know that ‘sumo’ is not a Semitic word, and that ‘qesheth’ means ‘bow’, so that when in 2 Samuel there is reference to teaching ‘qesheth’ to the sons of Judah, this means teaching them to shoot, not some reference to a secret martial art.

This, I like a lot — the idea of Buck as unreliable observer. There actually is no “terrible crime wave”, just happy and free people going about their lives, but through Buck’s newly RTC’d eyes he sees only a hellish anarchy teeming with permissiveness and sin. (As a bonus, this also explains why no “real” crimes are ever shown on-screen, as it were.)

Buck and Rayford may also be creating a crime wave the same way people create kidnapping epidemics–by selective reading of the news. If you think the world around you is pretty stable, a double homicide in your city, say, may be tragic, but doesn’t reflect a world in breakdown. If someone (BRUCE) has told you that one consquence of the post-Rapture situation will be rampant crime, that homicide, combined with every other crime that’s reported on, will build up into your mind to proof of complete societal collapse.

I have to say, though, that given the complete flux society finds itself in, plus no kids, I wouldn’t be surprised if people were acting out more than strictly usual. 

I don’t consider drugs to be causes of bad behaviour in and of themselves, being under the influence isn’t going to make you behave more responsibly by any means‘

I tried to make the point that the uptick in drinking and drug use was self-medication for grief. When you’re drowning your sorrows in alcohol, sometimes that’s numbing the pain but a side-effect is lowered inhibitions, which can lead to acting out your grief in a variety of ways otherwise unimaginable when sober. Like plowing the family Volvo through a set of monkey bars…

Are you saying that people would be apathetic because they wouldn’t believe there was a God (any more)? 

No, I’m saying if you accept the presumption that there was a presence of God on Earth before the rapture, and after the Rapture that presence withdrew, then there ought to be some effect related to what we might call “Godly” behavior. The most plausible effect, the one that fits in best with most folks view, is that the presence of God is felt when we act according to “the better angels of our nature”. Or, in cartoon terms, imagine that everyone’s shoulder-angels vanished, leaving behind a sign saying “vacant, post no bills”.

If we accept Fred’s “Jesus in a funny hat” perspective, the noble (Christian?) spirit that gives us cause to act with mercy, kindness, and love toward strangers would be absent, withdrawn by its creator. The spirit that told us “Love Thy Neighbor” has left the building; the inspiration behind “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” has packed up and taken all that thought and sentiment with him. People could still choose to love their neighbors, but it would be a choice of reason, not faith, a decision couched in the practical, not the spiritual.

I still can’t figure out why, if there is supposed to be an unprecedented crime wave, anyone would move into a 5th Avenue penthouse. It would seem to me to be the least safe place to live if you didn’t want to get mugged, shot, or robbed. I would expect Bucky’s penthouse to have been robbed and possibly burnt down by the time he came back from his Middle East excursion.   

“Llap Goch”… I keep thinking “lip gloss”. That can’t be right, can it?

Fred has talked before about the idea of total depravity vs the idea of utter depravity.

Total depravity being the idea no part of a human being is untouched by sin so let’s forget about trying to figure out which part is the sinful part.  There’s good and bad in everything, moving on.

Utter depravity being what people like L&J seem to believe in, where people are horrible horrible inhuman creatures and if they didn’t have the holy spirit in them holding back their wicked fallen natures there would be no good.  God is like some kind of a dam holding back all of the really bad parts of your personality.  When the rapture comes and God skips town that dam breaks down, the darkness floods into your being, and then you succumb to your satanic baby killer nature.  Sure, you’ve never had a desire to be a serial killer before, but that was because God was there to protect you from yourself.

One area where I think it would be great to play this up would be in the reaction to the event. L&J portray the event as if it didn’t change people’s lives at all.  What if it didn’t?  What if people responded to the disappearances by just ignoring them and going on with their lives?  It wouldn’t work for everyone, teachers for example, but what if those whose lives were changed considered the event only in the most callous selfish terms of how it affected them.  Not, “Oh my god the children are gone!” but instead, “Now I have to find a new job.  Fuck.”

What if instead of the lack of grieving parents being something largely ignored it had been played up as a sign of how far humanity had fallen.  Formerly loving parents didn’t care that their children had apparently vaporized.  And those who still had (older) children showed the same lack of concern for them.

If that had happened you’d be convinced that the godless world was horrible before the authors had a chance to mention the crime wave.

-

I lost the internet for a few hours.  This was on topic when I started writing.

Jenkins and Buck can’t resist the glamor of wealth and all of its trappings. It’s sort of like how Buck keeps taking gifts, rides, and perks from someone he knows is the Antichrist; sure, it might make more sense not to take money and favors from someone that you’re afraid is going to corrupt your soul and damn you to Hell forever, but if he didn’t do that he would have to scale back his jetsetting rich boy lifestyle.

[blockquote]What if instead of the lack of grieving parents being something largely
ignored it had been played up as a sign of how far humanity had fallen.
 Formerly loving parents didn’t care that their children had apparently
vaporized.  And those who still had (older) children showed the same
lack of concern for them.[/blockquote]

Then these books, and by extension the authors, would be a hundred and fifty times better and far less absurd than they actually ARE. 

My HTML skeelz are teh suckz.  

Use angle brackets, not square brackets. Square brackets are typically used in examples because not everyone knows the secret codes to getting < and > characters to appear in an HTML page.

Really not surprised. Look at LaHaye and Parshall’s book, Edge of Apocalypse. Joshua Jordan is an extremely well-off man and L & P go to some lengths to get the reader to identify with him.

Oh, say, folks?

I was going through some of Fred’s old entries, and way back at the very beginning he notes that LaHaye and Jenkins aren’t even original hack writers; the character of Buck Williams seems to have been a pale copy of a much better version.

sure, it might make more sense not to take money and favors from someone that you’re afraid is going to corrupt your soul and damn you to Hell forever, but if he didn’t do that he would have to scale back his jetsetting rich boy lifestyle.

Well, technically L&J would say that Buck’s acceptance of Jesus saved him from Hell forevermore.  I don’t believe there is a single character in the series who accepts Jesus and then later retracts or is otherwise ”corrupted”.

Which is easier: spending three years to build two portable bombs with highly motivated scientists having an implicit sword to their throats (… or Germany will build one first), or spending eighteen months to turn an archaeological site in an emerging economy into the thriving center of world administration after an apocalypse takes at 1/6 of the world population, probably mostly to be overseen by people who’d rather not have to live there?

The King Abdullah Education City project was announced in 2005, and the first phase was completed in 2010. This should give you an idea of how hard it is to do: it takes an strict, authoritarian government with way too much money at least 5 years to build the initial stage of a brand new city in normal logistic scenarios. I doubt that the OWG could do any better in terms of moving things along; furthermore, you have to account for the bureaucratic hassles needed to actually move headquarters halfway around the world. I also doubt that many of these bureaucrats actually want to make the move, so there would be a lot of obsessive bureaucrats to slow it down.

But the crux of it is, not only does God exist, but God is also a contemptible asshole.  He hates you and he took your children away.  Prayed all your life, did many good deeds, and felt that you were secure in your spiritual destiny?  Sorry, God still hates you and nothing you can do will change that.  Athiest, never believed in God, never saw any reason to?  Well, God has just announced himself to you in the most dickish way possible, and if you ever hated the idea that you were at the mercy of a big bully in the sky, that belief was just validated.

In any case, it is enough to drive people to lash out.  Who cares anymore?  The universe is all one big joke, and all our lives exist only at the whim of some sick bastard of a deity.  When you get to that point, a lot of people will just go “What’s the use?” and just stop caring what happens to them or what happens to others.

I suppose that’s one possible reaction.  I think that another one, though, is that rather than going all nihilist, other–saner–people would think “Well, we obviously can’t count on God, so we’ve got to be there for each other.”  Leading to them treating their fellow human beings better rather than worse.

No, I’m saying if you accept the presumption that there was a presence of God on Earth before the rapture, and after the Rapture that presence withdrew, then there ought to be some effect related to what we might call “Godly” behavior. The most plausible effect, the one that fits in best with most folks view, is that the presence of God is felt when we act according to “the better angels of our nature”. Or, in cartoon terms, imagine that everyone’s shoulder-angels vanished, leaving behind a sign saying “vacant, post no bills”.

If we accept Fred’s “Jesus in a funny hat” perspective, the noble (Christian?) spirit that gives us cause to act with mercy, kindness, and love toward strangers would be absent, withdrawn by its creator. The spirit that told us “Love Thy Neighbor” has left the building; the inspiration behind “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” has packed up and taken all that thought and sentiment with him. People could still choose to love their neighbors, but it would be a choice of reason, not faith, a decision couched in the practical, not the spiritual.

Ah I see.  Sorry for misunderstanding, and also taking a day plus to look at the comments again and respond.

That’s certainly a possibility.  But again, it brings another possibility to my mind.  As we both know, but newer readers of this blog may not know, there’s been much written so far by both Fred and the Slacktivites about how the sort of God who does such terrible things like Rapturing everybody the way he did (as opposed to the way chris the cynic wrote about in his story “The Rapture” over on Right Behind, in which God safeguarded everybody who would have otherwise died in plane crashes and such) has to be evil.

That seems to beg the question of whether whatever it is that makes us do good things came from a God or a TurboJesus like that.  It doesn’t seem likely; even though previous excerpts of future books posted in the comments have shown Rayford having at least one Pet The Dog moment, ultimately he doesn’t seem to have become a much better person as a result of the influence of this God.

So in the warped version of Earth created by Jenkins & LaHaye, I think it’s far more likely that all the good done by humans has been despite any divine influence, whereas a lot of evil done by humans could very well be because of it.

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As we both know, but newer readers of this blog may not know, there’s been much written so far by both Fred and the Slacktivites about how the sort of God who does such terrible things …has to be evil.
That seems to beg the question of whether whatever it is that makes us do good things came from a God or a TurboJesus like that. 

I always try to consider the author’s perspective, their intended message, when I write these things. And most PMD rapture stuff, whether it’s L&J or Hal Lindsay or even Jack Chick all seem to think that once everyone “good” has been raptured away, the world gets mean and ugly. It’s seems like a given to them, but the closest you get to an answer is that “God/Jesus has withdrawn his protection/presence from the world”. But we don’t really know what that means, so I just made my best guess.

In reality, disasters tend to bring out both the best and the worst in people; a “record crime wave” demand some supernatural phenomenon keeping people from reaching out to one another, IMNSHO.