Raptured.

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

Jesus Christ, Matthew 24:36

(Although this is a marginal entry in terms of blog suitability, I consider the end of the world to be one of the standard science fiction topics, and as such I'm willing to extend my mandate a bit for the purposes of discussion.)

As probably everyone knows, the Rapture was scheduled for this weekend, May 21st, and the popular media has been full of commentary regarding the failure of Harold Camping's predication regarding the start of the End Days, with the end of the world coming five months later on October 21st.

In the wake of his apparent mistake, Camping has gone back to the drawing board and announced that the day of Judgement will coincide with the end of the world in October as per the original schedule.

But what if he was right in the first place?  There's another interpretation here, and it's possible that we've all been guilty of overlooking the obvious.  As I understand the concept, the Rapture is the moment when God takes the righteous to Heaven still in their own bodies - ergo the common* bumper sticker, "IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL BE UNMANNED."

The righteous...the righteous...okay, let's define our terms.  What if the strictures applied by the Lord are so stern that no one, not one person on the planet, can be considered to be righteous?  What if the reason that no one is missing is because no one qualified - because even the slightest deviation from the code of conduct laid down in the Bible gets you crossed off the list?

By extension, it's possible that no one has ever met the standard.  Imagine the forlorn streets of the Heavenly City, unmarked by the passage of even a single soul.  And, worse, imagine a Hell which contains the tortured souls of every human being ever born, a Hell in which, ironically, eternal torment has to take place in shifts as overworked hordes of demons attempt to keep up with the demand.

Actually, come to think of it, this isn't a bad idea for a fantasy story - maybe this was a suitable blog topic after all.

- Sid

* Common in the more fundamentalist regions of the United States, anyway, I doubt that you would see a lot of them in British Columbia.