Posthuman Blues

Columnist Jon Carroll on the "Rapture Index":

"Let us consider the Rapture Index. This is a real thing prepared by serious people. If it makes you laugh, you have not gotten the memo. You probably have not read any of the 12 volumes of the 'Left Behind' series, the best-selling books in America today.

"Those Left Behind are those who did not experience the Rapture, which is an instant in time when all the truly holy people are taken directly to heaven, leaving their clothes in small neat piles behind them. The rest of the ungodly losers are left to deal with natural disasters and wars and the armies of the Antichrist, after which they die in various colorful ways while the ranks of the saved watch with compassion tempered with an understandable sense of satisfaction."

I wonder if a time traveler from 2005 could convince someone living in, say, 1955 that the above story is an accurate reflection of the 21st century American zeitgeist . . .

I doubt it.