Yes, a bit of cruelty underlies the laughter—as it should. Remember: the Rapture nuts were running around for months predicting that a tiny handful of them would ascend into heaven on Saturday night because God loves them so much. The rest of us—those whom God hates—would be left behind to watch our non-Raptured family members, friends, neighbors suffer and die for a few months before God finally got around to destroying the planet and everyone left on it.
This is bloodlust masquerading as piety—”So long, suckers! God doesn’t love you! Enjoy watching your kids die!”—and it’s crueler than any Rapture joke I’ve heard. Cruel people should be cruelly mocked.
I don’t think it’s fair to paint these folks with so broad a stroke. Sure, many of them are using this as a means of slaking their bloodlust, but as often as not they’re just people who want out of their shitty lives but lack the temerity to actually kill themselves.
Yet another sucky aspect of all this is that it’ll be about a week or so before most of the news media goes right back to taking folks like this seriously, and acting as if their concerns are worth listening to. We live in a world where the Pope is a world leader, and Pat Robertson’s thoughts are said to be of value.
Shit.
i wonder how this would have been portrayed if it was a muslim cleric predicting the end of the world
@Pangloss: I do. This is the fringe of the fringe. Ridicule is too good for them. Well stated, Dan!
ebaq: we would have dropped a bomb on him and killed his entire family. Why do you ask?