There are roughly 30 million self-professed fundamentalist Christians in the United States. How many of them really believe what they say they do? New evidence suggests that the number is somewhere around 100. Either that or fundamentalism breeds exceptional callousness toward ones’ pets:
Many people in the U.S.—perhaps 20 million to 40 million—believe there will be a Second Coming in their lifetimes, followed by the Rapture. In this event, they say, the righteous will be spirited away to a better place while the godless remain on Earth. But what will become of all the pets?
Bart Centre, 61, a retired retail executive in New Hampshire, says many people are troubled by this question, and he wants to help. He started a service called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets that promises to rescue and care for animals left behind by the saved.
Promoted on the Web as “the next best thing to pet salvation in a Post Rapture World,” the service has attracted more than 100 clients, who pay $110 for a 10-year contract ($15 for each additional pet.) If the Rapture happens in that time, the pets left behind will have homes—with atheists. Centre has set up a national network of godless humans to carry out the mission. “If you love your pets, I can’t understand how you could not consider this,” he says.
Here is the full article by Mike Di Paola, writing in Business Week.
Edited to add: I shouldn’t have said 30 million fundamentalist Christians; I should have said (at least according to the Business Week article) 30 million who expect the Second Coming and the Rapture in their lifetimes.
P.T. Barnum was absolutely correct in his observations.
Of course, few Christians are Premillennial Dispensationalists (the sort who buy into the Rapture theory of the second coming).
Most fundamentalist Christians claim to believe that everything in the bible is literally true, yet there isn’t a word in the bible to support this “rapture” nonsense, which came from a series of novels. Perhaps a belief in the literal truth of a book that often contradicts itself is best accompanied by a lack of interest in and knowledge of what that book says. I have noticed a somewhat similar pair of beliefs among lawyers; those who say statutes should always be applied literally tend not to read those statutes very carefully. If they did, they’d find considerable absurdity.
Maybe they’d prefer Rover to fend for himself and starve to death over leaving him alone with a bunch of godless atheists who might drag him down to hell with him?
“Most fundamentalist Christians claim to believe that everything in the bible is literally true”
Hogwash. A few might say that, but if so, they’re not using “literally” literally.
” there isn’t a word in the bible to support this “rapture” nonsense”
Hogwash. It’s poor interpretation, but it’s based on biblical text.
“which came from a series of novels.”
Hogwash. It was around long before the Left Behind series.
But if you spout hogwash confidently enough, maybe you’ll sound like you know something.
I found some advice for those left behind. It includes-
“Unfortunately, very soon the Antichrist will be requiring everyone to receive a mark in his or her right hand or forehead. This electronic implant will be the means by which everyone will buy and sell goods and services.” How do they know it is an electronic implant?.
Harold – because they have faith.
Don’t question it.
Many believe they will live the full extent of their lives (80 years). Many theists will not adopt an animal late in life because they believe the probability of them not being able to take care of it is sufficient. Maybe the 100 out of 20-40 million should be adjusted to 100 out of those within a certain interval of life—near death, who still have young pets (pets with a younger interval of their life)
LOL. Truly hilarious.
But this guy is a genious. The market potential is huge. The Left Behind series alone (books, movies, TV series, etc.) has generated more than $1 billion over the past 15 years. Time to get on the bandwagon!
But then I have the unhappy thought that…
* fundamentalist Christians make up about 15-20% of the population
* they have become increasingly active and effective politically over the past 20 years
* they were a major reason the Christian wingnut GWB was elected
And by join up with the Tea Baggers and the conservative corporates with their campaign money bags untied now that they’ve been humanized by the CU decision and the knee-jerk conservatives of many stripes, and of course, the laissez faire ideologues who hate all “socialists” (i.e., Democrats), they’re in position to nominate the likes of Sarah Palin in 2012.
The Business Week article dismisses out of hand the possibility that pets go to heaven too, but doesn’t their position (and Steve’s) fly in the face of popular wisdom? Based on a quick Google search for “Rainbow Bridge,” I’d have to characterize Pet Heaven as a respectable minority doctrine.
Oddly enough, the rainbowbridge.com website greeted me by playing John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” although without the Marxist atheist lyrics.
@Jeff:
The Rapture as portrayed by the Left Behind folk (Tim LaHaye’s books and associated movie) does not include pets being raptured. Children tend to disappear, but there are various references to pets on the end of unattended leashes / near their human’s empty clothes.
Admittedly I’m getting this from Slactivist’s exhaustive reviews of the movie version: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/page/6/
(The footnote on the December 14 post may well be the inspiration for the Athiest Pet Adoption Service)
Steve, I can’t tell if you really think this means something or you’re just illustrating your general point with a funny example.
I do believe in the rapture, and my wild-ass guess is 50% chance of happening in my lifetime (assuming I live 50 more years — that’s around 13% per decade). Let’s say an average dog or cat lifespan is a decade. So for any given pet I give it a 13% chance of getting left behind. I therefore judge the pet as having a net-positive expected life value by existing in my home (as opposed to not existing at all, which is the real alternative).
jj: For the most part I am just illustrating my general point with a funny example.
That said: I agree with your calculation about your pet being better off in your home than not existing at all. But wouldn’t it be even MORE better off if you eliminated that 13% chance of disaster by buying into the earthbound pets plan? It seems to me that if you really care about the pet, $100 or so is not an unreasonable price to pay for that extra security.
val: Thanks for the pointer to the slacktivist post. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve read the first Left Behind book. As a Christian, I think the book’s scenario is unlikely. However, it’s a moot point for me: my wife and I have no pets. (The children are our pet substitutes.)
Are all 30 million pet owners?
And, maybe most of those who are haven’t heard of this service, or have made their own private arrangements for their pets.
Maybe they’re using craigslist.
Opportunity cost — that $100 can keep a human alive today, rather than a pet in the hypothetical future. So the real question to judge my beliefs is, what did I end up doing with the $100? That’s one I grapple with all the time. And it is (arguably) a lot more complicated than “so give all your money to the poor” — and even once that question is answered, there’s still the fact that “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”.
In short I think the revealed preferences case is thought-provoking but far from conclusive.
Hmm, I wonder if this is a real adverse selection/unenforceable contract problem. I mean, if you made this offer, would you have any intention of fulfilling it? (By definition no, right?) And if I thought I was about to be Raptured (is that the verb), wouldn’t it also follow that I also think that post-Rapture, you’ll have enough problems on your hands? And it’s not like I can sue you for breach of contract if you don’t do what you promised.
Which is to say: no matter how funny the joke, I will take every opportunity to ruin it :-)
jj: Accepting for the purpose of discussion the Left Behind theology, I am curious as to why you assign a subjective probability of 50 percent that the rapture will happen in your lifetime. After all, it’s been 2000 years since Christ came; why not 2000 more?
Did you borrow any logic from the classic Doomsday hypothesis?
As Gil says above. MAybe they just haven’t heard of this service. I don’t think I had before reading this post? Any idea how well this service is being marketed?
Gil-
Great idea. I’m going to put an ad on craigslist today offering to pay someone to care for my pet after the Rapture. I’ll report back on responses.
Jeff – I’m really not firm on the 50%, but it’s my best guess. I don’t find the Doomsday logic very convincing. But here are a few reasons:
1) Just a failure of my imagination — I can’t imagine the world going on forever, especially with the drastic and accelerating pace of change. I just can’t see God waiting until humanity lives 99% of the time in a virtual world, for example.
2) I’d expect the rapture before any earthwide calamity, which I don’t know if we can avoid forever — nuclear war, 12-monkeys type biological warfare, etc.
3) Supposedly mankind will become more sinful towards the end — it’s kind of hard to judge if that’s happening now, so I won’t try. But I think medical technology presents the opportunity for a lot more kinds of sins (say, cloning yourself just to harvest organs — that might be wrong, I can’t even say for sure).
4) Most importantly, prophecy says that the end will come within the generation that sees the jews restored to Israel, as happened in 1948. There’s still enough ambiguity here that I’m not taking this event as 100% fulfilled, though.
jj-
Re: #1: No need to worry about the world going on forever. Either we’ll make it inhabitable, a collision with an asteroid will destroy it, or eventually the termination of the sun with a bang or a whimper will finish us off.
I grew up in the church, listened to Garner Ted Armstrong on the radio (taking seriously his derision of evolution by mocking the idea that ground squirrels could evolve into flying squirrels by jumping from trees until one sprouted wings and survived the fall), watched Billy Graham on TV (even met him), was saved and witnessed from the pulpit, and heard a great deal about the end times from my parents’ prayer groups.
If I recall the sequence of events correctly, the Jews return to Israel and build the new temple, the anti-christ appears and gathers an army, desecrates the temple and is defeated by the army of God. Then follows the first rapture of the 144,000 designated Jews. The great tribulation then occurs and lasts for several years followed by the resurrection of the dead believers, the second coming and the great rapture of believers. More follows.
This series of events always reassured me because I figured I had plenty of time to “get right with God” since I had a couple years after 144,000 Jews disappeared and the tribulations transpired. Even if the tribulations weren’t bad enough to be recognizable because of all the sinfulness that preceded it, I figured 144,000 Jews disappearing wasn’t going to be missed for long. (This is probably the root of my subsequent fall from grace when I went to college.)
It’s plausible that all these events preceding the second rapture could occur within 50 years but it seems improbable.
A lot of people seem very attached to one End Times interpretation or another, but I don’t find the bible to be crystal clear on this matter — at the very least, I don’t have the discernment to see one obvious correct interpretation.
In fact, in light of that, I’ll have to cut my 50% estimate in half to 25%, and I’ll add caveat 5) My preferred interpretation is wrong.
(Philip – I’d never heard your church’s interpretation before, and I’ve heard a few… what kind of church?)
Yes, there are lots of variations on this theme. I was raised in a conservative Presbyterian church with an evangelical pastor, but we also attended a big non-denomiational church when I was in high school.