L.B.: Care less

Left Behind, pp. 379-381

When Buck and Chloe reconnected with Hattie and Chloe's father, it was clear Hattie had been crying.

The Event occurred just over a week ago, so it shouldn't be out of the ordinary to see people red-faced and puffy-eyed from frequent crying jags. So soon after such an earth-shaking trauma, nobody would need a particular reason to break down crying. The two-thirds of the earth's people remaining would all be prone to sudden, irresistible waves of emotion. The slightest thing might set anyone off at any time. They would all be in Hamelin:

... citizens of a different town now. A place with its own special rules and its own special laws. A town of people living in the sweet hereafter.

Hattie might have seen someone's jacket draped over a chair, or one of the airport-terminal TVs may have shown one of those unsettling pre-Event ads with little kids in it. (They'd have stopped running most of those relics of a bygone world, but a few might still be shown, by accident.) Or she just might have seen that one more person walking by, shell-shocked, with the haunted look of the newly childless, and for a moment she'd been unable to maintain the thin line between soldiering on and the blind, screaming panic and anguish that lurked just below the surface for everyone, everywhere, all the time these days.

But of course the world of Left Behind isn't even a little bit like that. The Event -- the spontaneous disintegration of every child on Earth -- is regarded as little more than a curiosity. It is the subject of idle speculation at the water cooler, but no one seems affected by it in any meaningful way.

This is, again, an insurmountable, fatal failure for this book. It turns every scene in the novel into something monstrous and horrifying. Think again of the previous chapter's account of Buck and Chloe's giddy, flirtatious stroll through the airport terminal. Reread that scene set against a more realistic post-Event backdrop and our young lovers seem even more demented than the wretched dialogue makes them appear in L&J's context-less context. Their age difference shouldn't be nearly as big an obstacle for them as the crippling survivor's guilt that would accompany this kind of love among the ruins, but they, like the authors, never give the ruins a second thought.

In order to consider such scenes on their own terms -- in order to keep turning the pages without throwing this inhuman book against the wall -- we end up having to accept LB's premise that trauma does not traumatize and that human suffering is peripheral, inconsequential and meaningless. It's tempting to see this as the book's great moral theme, it's moral instruction. Read carelessly, this book will make you a worse human being.

Of course, if we accept the authors' terms here, then Buck has no idea why Hattie has been crying.

This seems like it should be an intensely awkward situation. He doesn't know whether her hour spent with Rayford was the cause of her crying, or if Rayford spent that time consoling her grief over some other, unknown cause. The latter would suggest something admirable about Rayford, but the former would suggest something disturbing. You'd think Buck would want to know which was the case. He is, after all, smitten with this man's daughter, and he's about to spend the evening hanging out with the guy, so it would seem to matter whether he's the kind of steadfast friend who offers a shoulder to cry on or else some kind of abusive, bullying jerk. We readers already know the answer is B,* but Buck has no idea. Yet, we're told, "Buck didn't feel close enough to ask what was wrong, and she never offered." After which he never gives it a second thought.

Second thoughts aren't Buck's, or the authors', forte.

Buck would run back to the office, then home to change, and meet them later at the Carlisle. Af the office he took a call from Stanton Bailey ...

Iit's refreshing that Jenkins spares us a blow-by-blow account of Buck's cab-ride from the airport back to Manhattan, but then he's on the phone again. He's on the phone with someone sitting in the next office.

Bailey updates him on "developments at the U.N." In LB, the disappearance of 2 billion people is scarcely noticed, but the possibility of a new secretary-general at the United Nations has everyone on the edge of their seats like they're watching the ninth inning of a perfect game. Bailey says:

"It's already starting to come down. Plank assumes his new position in the morning, denies Carpathia's interest, reiterates what it would take, and we all wait and see if anybody bites. I don't think they will."

"I wish they would," Buck said, still hoping he could trust Carpathia and eager to see what the man would do about Stonagal and Todd-Cothran.

One wonders how many friends and colleagues of his Carpathia has to kill before Buck starts thinking that maybe he shouldn't be given absolute, unchecked power over all the world. Bailey shares Buck's enthusiasm for Carpathia's give-me-all-your-weapons-because-I-asked plan for global conquest:

"I do too," Bailey said, "but what are the odds? He's a man for this time, but his global disarmament plans are too ambitious. It'll never happen."

"I know, but if you were deciding, wouldn't you go along with it?"

"Yeah," Bailey said, sighing. "I probably would. I'm so tired of war and violence ..."

Bailey is inconsistently drawn here because the authors can only imagine him as embodying two contradictory stereotypes of their Imaginary Liberal. (Bailey is a corporate tycoon, but he's a media corporate tycoon, so they think he must be a liberal.) They try to portray him both as a hardbitten, cynical pessimist and as a Kumbaya-singing hippy who thinks flowers and folk songs will bring about world peace.

LaHaye and Jenkins are led astray here by their disdainful ignorance about those who don't share their enthusiasm for war and blood. In any case, Carpathia's ridiculous scheme has nothing to do with disarmament, but with the consolidation of power. He's not asking the world to lay down its arms, but to hand those arms over to him. He is saying, essentially, "Hello, I am a megalomaniac. Please give me all of your weapons so I can rule the world. Hola, soy un megalomaniac ..."

That wouldn't work. Nobody -- not even a liberal media elite -- would ever agree to such a thing. Carpathia's plan to seize a global monopoly on military force would never happen because people are "so tired of war and violence." Such a plan might work, however, if people were sufficiently afraid of war and violence. "Give me absolute power and we'll all hold hands in unity" doesn't work, but "Give me absolute power and I'll protect you from the Evil Bad People" often does.

It would have made far more sense for Carpathia to have followed the classic demagogue's path, rising to power by promising stability amid the chaos, turmoil and trauma of the post-Event world. That would also have made more sense of the authors' obsession with the Antichrist's peace treaty with Israel, and of his eventual betrayal of that agreement. Israel, with its miraculous bounty and its sorcerous imperviousness to nuclear weaponry, would make an ideal candidate for the Threatening Other of Nicolae's demagoguery. (Demonizing the Jews may not be very original, but it's worked before.) But again, in LB the post-Event world shows a bizarre lack of chaos, turmoil and trauma. The people are freakishly not afraid, so more traditional forms of demagoguery aren't an option for Carpathia.

Bailey also wants to know when Buck will be going to Chicago "to get Lucinda Washington replaced." Lucinda, you'll remember, was the RTC head of Global Weekly's Chicago bureau. How a born-again RTC came to occupy such a position in the evil liberal elite media is never explained. Nor is it ever explained why the Weekly even has a "Chicago bureau" or why its personnel vacancies should be a top priority for the magazine's brand new executive editor.

They briefly discuss whether they should promote someone from inside, or do a wider search. This tangent does nothing to advance the plot, themes or characterization of the book, but it does raise -- for us, if not for the authors -- the interesting question of what the job market would be like post-Event. On the one hand you'd have millions of newly unemployed teachers, toymakers, nannies, pediatricians, etc. But on the other hand you'd have all those new job openings. We've already seen Bruce Barnes get himself promoted to senior pastor but, despite their suddenly vacant pulpits, most churches probably wouldn't be hiring at this point. Let's take a ballpark figure and assume that about 1/5 of Americans would meet L&J's criteria as Rapture-qualified RTCs. The sudden disappearance (the raptured don't put in two weeks' notice) of 1/5 of the work-force would have staggering macroeconomic effects, but it would also fundamentally change the terrain for individual job-seekers.

As always when we peek through one of these gaping holes in L&J's lazy, incompetent attempts world-creation, alps on alps arise. The authors have given almost no thought to any such questions, because the more they allowed themselves to think about such things, the more they would realize that this world could be nothing like they believe it is "prophesied" to be. The more they tried to flesh out what might realistically follow from the events they predict the more they would demonstrate that such events could never happen. So the lack of credible and realistic world-building in Left Behind isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Buck told his new boss he would fly to Chicago the next morning and get back to New York by Sunday night.

Bailey's not his "new boss," just his boss in a new capacity, but let that pass because remember who else is flying to Chicago the next morning? That's right:

Buck phoned Pan-Con Airlines, knowing Rayford Steele's flight left at eight the next morning. He told the reservation clerk his traveling companion was Chloe Steele. "Yes," she said, "Ms. Steele is flying complimentary in first class. There is a seat open next to her. ..."

He booked a cheap seat and charged it to the magazine, then upgraded to the seat next to Chloe. He would say nothing that night about going to Chicago.

The line between dating and stalking can be pretty thin here in Left Behind.

It had been ages since Buck had worn a tie, but this was, after all, the Carlisle Hotel dining room. He wouldn't have gotten in without one. ...

Jenkins' Mary Sue fantasy gets away from him here. His mental picture of Buck seems to be that of a war correspondent in the jungle, probably in one of those vests with all the pockets. But there's no reason for Buck to be dressed like that. Buck's job is interviewing people like Dr. Rosenzweig, President Fitzhugh and the visiting president of Romania. When you interview Nobel laureates and heads of state, you don't wear a T-shirt and jeans.

Buck stashes his bag, and his luggage for Chicago, in a cloakroom and meets the Steeles and Hattie who are already seated.

Chloe was radiant, looking five years older in a classy evening dress. It was clear she and Hattie had spent the late afternoon in a beauty salon.

The portrayal of the women here is as unsurprising as it is appalling. The "beauty salon" holds a special place for the authors' conception of women because it is the one place they imagine that might be frequented by both madonnas and whores.

But think for a moment about any salon you've ever been in. You sit in that chair facing the mirrors. There are always pictures tucked into the sides or taped to the frame of the mirror (or, at a more upscale salon, arranged in frames on the counter below); pictures of the stylists' children. Here in our story, those kids are gone, but Chloe and Hattie and LaHaye and Jenkins don't care. And they don't want you to care either.

That's the lesson they wrote this book to teach you: Don't care.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* Hattie was crying, you'll recall, because Rayford told her he never loved her but was only interested in sex. It's worth noting that Rayford is also Hattie's coworker/supervisor, and that this entire one-sided conversation took place at the Pan-Con Club (Even ze orchestra is beautiful!), which is to say in the workplace, where it was likely captured on video from several angles. After Hattie's slam-dunk sexual harassment lawsuit, Rayford's career with Pan-Con will be over. He'll be lucky to get a job as a baggage carrier for Ken Ritz.

Comments

[aunursa]

Bailey updates him on "developments at the U.N." In LB, the disappearance of 2 billion people is scarcely noticed, but the possibility of a new secretary-general at the United Nations has everyone on the edge of their seats

L&J thinking: well, yeah, they're gone. What more is there to say? Anyway, we have to get back to the Endtimes Checklist.

[aunursa]

He's not asking the world to lay down its arms, but to hand those arms over to him.

IIRC, each nation is supposed to destroy 90% of its weaponry, and hand the final 10% over to St. Mtn Range.

[Froborr]

You know... there's probably an excellent doctoral thesis to be had in tracing the "Don't Care" attitude of RTCs back to the disillusionment triggered by World War I.

Also, I owe whoever it was defending Dawkins a couple of weeks ago an apology. I'm reading one of his books on biology for laymen, and it's really quite good. I still maintain the man metamorphoses into an ass whenever you put him in front of a camera, however.

[Zorya]

Woo-hoo! First comment!

Why is Hattie still hanging around? Any normal woman would have left. And going to the beauty salon with Chloe? Hanging around with the daughter of the man who just dumped you? Yet more evidence that L & J do not know how to write realistic characters.

[Zorya]

Well, there were no comments when I was typing the above...

[Victoria]

Though it's not without its faults, I thought the movie "Children of Men" did a very good job of portraying a world without children. The "Baby Diego" sequence at the beginning was leaps and bounds ahead of LB.

[aunursa]

How a born-again RTC came to occupy such a position in the evil liberal elite media is never explained.

Again IIRC, in one of the spinoff series, there is at least one RTC in the cabinet or other high position in the evil Democratic Fitzhugh administration.

Let's take a ballpark figure and assume that about 1/5 of Americans would meet L&J's criteria as Rapture-qualified RTCs.

I'd say that's a bit high. I expect that L&J would consider the overwhelming percentage of RTC's to be Evangelicals, but also that a large percentage of Evangelicals would not be RTC's (e.g. Bruce Barnes). Only a handful of RTC's would be Catholic or other faiths. I don't know what percentage that would make, but I can't imagine it being higher than 1/10. More like 1/50.

[Praline]

There's a pretty good reason why the authors can't suggest that the best way to get an anti-Christ dictator would be to tell the world that it's in terrible danger and we need to defend ourselves against the Mysterious Enemy: they support politicians who are already doing just that. Politicians who are, in fact, living proof that this particular line of talk is a rather reliable indication that your rule is going to be evil.

If L&J showed Nicky doing it, they might accidentally present such vicious demagoguery realistically; what with it being so close to the truth and all, they might not be able to help themselves. And, well, you can just imagine the consequences for a God-fearing, war-lovin society.

[A Texan in Bavaria]

Alright, Slackers, think good thoughts for me and the nice German Lutheran boy I'm taking to meet a whole bunch of people who take these books seriously...

[Richard Hershberger]

To Froborr: Dawkin's first (I believe) book for a general audience, The Selfish Gene, is a classic. His later books get wordier, and not to their benefit, but are still worth reading if you are interested in the subject. His problem is common to many specialists: outside of his specialty he is just some guy with opinions. If you read his religion stuff and forget his biology cred, he is just another bloviator: sort of like Christopher Hitchens. The difference is that so far as I can tell, there is no subject that Hitchens actually knows anything about.

[Praline]

...we end up having to accept LB's premise that trauma does not traumatize and that human suffering is peripheral, inconsequential and meaningless.

It seems like a useful premise for such authoritarian preachers. The gospel you're preaching encourages people to hate and hurt each other? Your social policies will lead to terrible human suffering? The inhuman strain you're putting on your parishioners' consciences is making them miserable?

Doesn't matter. You're right, and suffering means nothing.

I don't know whether to spit or cry.

[Praline]

And hang on. The beauty salon made Chloe look five years older?! I hope to goodness she didn't pay them a tip.

Nobody who uses the word 'classy' should be allowed to judge fashion. (I say this wearing ratty trousers and an old fleece, just in case anyone's imagining Wilhemina Slater here. I am scuffy, and even I know better than to call a dress 'classy'.)

And aren't make-up and beauty salons associated with vanity? Or is vanity okay when the results are pleasing to the alpha males?

[Ken]

You know... there's probably an excellent doctoral thesis to be had in tracing the "Don't Care" attitude of RTCs back to the disillusionment triggered by World War I. -- Froborr

There was definitely a sea change in End-of-the-World choreography.

Pre-WW1 eschatology was basically Post-Mil, with the Victorian idea that "History ended well; because it ended with the Victorians" (Chesterton). The Social Gospel (de-emphasizing personal salvation in favor of Social Improvement) was dominant, fitting in with the Post-Mil idea of Christianizing the world and handing it over to Christ at The End -- sort of a Christian version of Tikkun Olam.

Post-WW1, we see a change to PMD -- Pre-Mil Pre-Trib Dispensationalism -- and a Gospel of Personal Salvation and ONLY Personal Salvation. ("Who cares about anybody/anything else? "I'm SAVED!") Everything was going to shit, It was all over but the screaming, and Christians' only hope was for Christ to beam them up to Paradise before everything hit the fan. Sort of a Christianese "Beam me up, Scotty! There's no intelligent life here!"

I have seen similar sea changes in written science fiction around the 1960s. Before 1968, a lot of SF was (in the words of Disneyland's Carousel of Progress) "That Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow", adventure among the stars in a future Wonderland approximating in optimism the pre-WW1 Social Gospel eschatology. Then from about 1968 to Y2K, you saw a lot of dystopias -- Nixon-as-Fuehrer Dystopias, Race War Dystopias, Environmental Disaster Dystopias, Xian Theocracy Dystopias, Cyberpunk Dystopias, Y2K Dystopias, etc -- paralleling in pessimism the post-WW1 Pre-Mil eschatology. Then sometime around Y2K, another shift away from The Future into Parallel History or "Forward-into-the-Past" time travel, i.e. escaping from the previous Dark Future, especially the FotP time-travel Rapture analogs.

Note the pattern: Bright Future, followed by Dark Future, followed by No Future/Escape. Similar to the progression of Christian Eschatology between WW1 and now. The Post-Mils' Bright Future becomes the Pre-Mils' Seven Years of Antichrist Dystopia followed by The End.

Bright Future, then Dark Future, then No Future.

[Lax Tool]

The difference is that so far as I can tell, there is no subject that Hitchens actually knows anything about.

How about what gin is ideal for a dry martini?

The Dawkins book I'm reading is "Climbing Mount Improbable". The central thesis is more or less the idea of evolution as a highly efficient search algorithm through a solution space with a "spiky" landscape, a concept I'd already gotten (with immense difficulty and enormous help from a friend who understood biology AND a friend who understood theoretical computer science and math) from Kaufmann's brilliant but impenetrable Investigations. Dawkins, however, finds a clear and straightforward parable that is one of the best explanations of how natural selection works I've yet encountered, and along the way he tosses in a multitude of fun biology facts (I'm particularly fond of the four-eyed fish and the beetle that looks like a termite from above).

The difference is that so far as I can tell, there is no subject that Hitchens actually knows anything about.

I'm actually listening to God Is Not Great on tape the last couple of days -- a Muslim friend loaned it to me -- and it is truly abysmal. He habitually gets things flat-out wrong that ten seconds of research could have corrected. He claims, for example, that Jesus was born in A.D. 4, rather than 6-4 B.C. as is now generally agreed upon. He woefully misrepresents the ritual of the Hajj, and repeats as fact the utterly absurd myth that Orthodox Jews have "marital relations" through a hole cut in their sheets.

[MikhailBorg]

Fred: Let's take a ballpark figure and assume that about 1/5 of Americans would meet L&J's criteria as Rapture-qualified RTCs.

aunursa: I'd say that's a bit high. I expect that L&J would consider the overwhelming percentage of RTC's to be Evangelicals, but also that a large percentage of Evangelicals would not be RTC's (e.g. Bruce Barnes). Only a handful of RTC's would be Catholic or other faiths. I don't know what percentage that would make, but I can't imagine it being higher than 1/10. More like 1/50.

We know that around 2 billion people have disappeared. Even discounting children and furriners, that's going to be a lot of Americans. Maybe the RTC's recruitment had been picking up before The Event.

[Vermic]

Once again, in reading about Nicky's global-peace scheme, I find myself subject to unpleasant Superman IV: The Quest for Peace flashbacks. In that film, Superman holds a press conference to announce that he's going to seize everyone's nuclear weapons and pitch them into the sun, and the world cheers. (!) The film, like LB, holds the simplistic belief that none of the nations of Earth really want their weapons, and would be thrilled to give them all up and never make any more, if only they could ... if only there were some trustworthy peace-loving savior to take them off our hands.

The interesting thing is that LB and Superman IV are about as far apart on the policial spectrum as you can get, but they both share this specific misconception. Bad Writing makes strange bedfellows, I guess.

[Lax Tool]

It seems like a useful premise for such authoritarian preachers. The gospel you're preaching encourages people to hate and hurt each other? Your social policies will lead to terrible human suffering? The inhuman strain you're putting on your parishioners' consciences is making them miserable?

Doesn't matter. You're right, and suffering means nothing.

In college, I was approached by an evangelizing student (student evangelist?) while walking between buildings. Since I had time to kill, I figured I'd hear his pitch on Christianity. While he was telling me about how great it was to believe since I'd get to go to heaven. When I asked about all those people who didn't believe and how they'd suffer for eternity in hell, his response was something along the lines of, "Don't worry about them. Think about how great it'll be to know you're going to heaven."

It was creepy.

That Superman IV trope is completely turned inside out in JMS' Rising Stars series. I highly recommend it, not just for that bit but overall (though its treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is pathetically naive).

[Gabriel]

"But on the other hand you'd have all those new job openings."
----

Well, Planned Parenthood is hiring studs to knock some women up in order to jumpstart the abortion business.

Sorry, I still can't get over that part of the book.

As for the 1/5th the population bit, I think it's an overestimation too, but I'm actually surprised to see the suggested number of raptured so low. The RTCs I've had the displeasure of associating with are universally of the opinion that everyone else shares their belief systems and their state of delusion. "Moral Majority" is a truism for these folks, not a quaint and inaccurate label.

I guess this is borne of their political motivations. "Everyone else thinks like us," they say, "so let's make it law."

Yet, there is their unstated doubt and desire. The doubt that maybe not everyone is a RTC, and the desire that other people aren't REALLY true to the beliefs so they have others in their circle to look down upon and despise.

"Think you're really righteous? Think you're pure in heart?
Well, I know I'm a million times as humble as thou art
I'm the pious guy the little Amlettes wanna be like
On my knees day and night scorin' points for the afterlife
So don't be vain and don't be whiny
Or else, my brother, I might have to get medieval on your heinie"

[aunursa]

We know that around 2 billion people have disappeared. Even discounting children and furriners, that's going to be a lot of Americans. Maybe the RTC's recruitment had been picking up before The Event.

If so, I stand corrected. Where did we get the 2 billion figure from?

[aunursa]

1.5 billion children. If the 2 billion figure is correct, that would leave 500 million adults out of 4.5 billion. Which would be 1/9. But I'd still like to how the 2 billion figure is derived.

[Mabus]

Very good summary, Ken. I guess the question is, what happens after the "No Future" stage? The new "bright future" that emerged in the '60s was the product of a new generation that favored social change away from the older ideas of what was "bright", but I can't see anyone imagining life after the Great Oil Collapse (whether from Peak Oil, global warming, or both at once) as anything but misery. Unless they're the type that think the world will be better off without all us grubby intelligent humans messing things up by trying to make our lives worth living.

[Geds]

That's the lesson they wrote this book to teach you: Don't care.

Yeah. It seems the fundies got that lesson loud and clear.

Any time you hear a RTC telling you that "god loves you" or they're going to show you "the love of Christ," be aware of the fact that what they actually mean is, "I don't give a flying crap about you." It's this rote response to things that doesn't actually require much in the way of follow-up. As far as I can tell it's based on one of two thoughts: 1.) I love you because god told me to (which is the most genuine love of all) or 2.) I'm given to understand that the assertion of god's love is the same thing as actually loving, so we're all good, right?

And, apparently, if you say that you're doing something out of love, it gives you the go-ahead to do all kinds of really crappy things. I'm looking at you, InterVarsity. When I can't tell the difference between the "love" offered by your organization and the "love" of that ex of mine who told me she cheated on me because, "[She] loved both of [us] and didn't know what to do," you're in a lot of trouble.

[Froborr]

The Rising Stars post was me.

Lax: At some point in high school, I started questioning which was the greater sacrifice: dying and going to Heaven that another might live, or dying and going to Hell that another might go to Heaven? I was able to come up with a number of scenarios where one might sin, and in so doing so prevent others from sinning. I have yet to encounter anyone who believes in Hell and can give a satisfactory answer (I do not consider "salvation is by faith alone" satisfactory).

[cjmr]

The beauty salon made Chloe look five years older?! I hope to goodness she didn't pay them a tip.

I haven't heard anyone call it a 'beauty salon' in near 20 years, they probably went to a 'hair salon' or 'hairdresser'. (I admit that may be a dialectal thing, maybe they do still call them 'beauty salons' somewhere.)

But I do remember that when I was 19 (and still with a face full of acne) I did want to look about five years older. No one believed I was as old as I was.

[MikhailBorg]

But I'd still like to how the 2 billion figure is derived.

That I can't tell you, as I am getting it from Fred. (He mentions "The two-thirds of the earth's people remaining" in the second paragraph of this post, for example.)

I know I should fact-check this against the actual L.B. books, but I can't bring myself to. I have so many things of more importance to do: finish the first season of Torchwood in time for the second, read The Dresden Files, get my WoW mage to level 70... heck, cleaning the cat box sounds more worthwhile.

[Froborr]

P.S.: In high school I was kind of a dick. I leave the question of whether I am currently a dick as an exercise for the reader.

[Mabus]

Wonderful song, Gabriel! :) Weird Al is da boss....Or whatever slang they use for "cool" nowadays.

My understanding of the RTC thing is that evangelicals believe a lot of people agree with them but few are actually faithful believers. Many expect that there are lots of good moral Republicans out there who vote for the right candidates but have never actually gotten saved (like Bruce Barnes, basically).

[aunursa]

I was able to come up with a number of scenarios where one might sin, and in so doing so prevent others from sinning.

For example, if you kill children, then their souls will automatically go to heaven. Take the infamous case of John List.

[Mabus]

Froborr, I came to the conclusion long ago that I intended to do precisely that if it were possible. I'm just not sure that it actually is.

[Praline]

Buck didn't feel close enough to ask what was wrong, and she never offered.

Do you think their ministers take that attitude as well? If so, God help the new parishioners.

[aunursa]

This website quotes LaHaye, indicating that his guess would actually be much greater than 1/5, at least in terms of Americans raptured:

"Last month I cited the December 2002 Gallup Poll that found 46 percent of the American people have had a "born again experience with Jesus Christ." I hope and pray that is true! ...

"So how many would that make who will be raptured? Only God knows, of course, but we should not be surprised if it is well over fifty percent.

"Think about it. If 50 or more percent of the doctors, nurses, teachers, craftsmen and workers from all walks of life including military personnel from every branch of service were suddenly missing - that would be a devastating blow to the American economy and way of life. Into that leadership vacuum that the rapture may cause, the world would be vulnerable to domination by Germany and France, both socialist forms of government with weak leaders or a globalist organization that would propose equality of nations. A perfect setup for the Man of Sin to move in and take over."

[Lax Tool]

Froborr & Mabus: I don't remember if I told this story in a previous LB thread or merely thought about it. One of my friends in college was a lapsed Jehovah's Witness, so he had spent a good part of his childhood doing the door-to-door thing. According to him, per JW theology everyone who dies before the end times gets resurrected around the time when the eschaton hits the fan and would be able to decide whether or not to believe at that time.

At some point, probably shortly prior to giving up the faith, he asked his parents if it wouldn't make more sense to go door-to-door with a shotgun, murdering everyone who answered. After all, being resurrected in time to witness the moon turn to blood and the sun turn to sackcloth was bound to be more persuasive than some measly copies of The Watchtower.

Needless to say, they were not amused.

(This was the same friend who figured out the $6.66 at the convenience store.)

[Vermic]

It seems like a useful premise for such authoritarian preachers. The gospel you're preaching encourages people to hate and hurt each other? Your social policies will lead to terrible human suffering? The inhuman strain you're putting on your parishioners' consciences is making them miserable?

Doesn't matter. You're right, and suffering means nothing.

Praline nails it again! The most important thing for these people is to be right. Once you're right (and therefore good), then everyone outside your group must be wrong (and therefore bad). And so any suffering or horror they receive is simply their just deserts.

I've mentioned my fundy/wacko co-worker a few times, and in him I see exactly the same sort of attitude. He knows he's saved, and that's all that matters. He's outraged when Christian missionaries are harassed or imprisoned in foreign countries; but when those same countries are struck by a tsunami or earthquake, causing death and misery to thousands, well, that's great! Justice has been served! That'll teach 'em to be heathen foreign countries!

See, if you're wrong on the whole "following Christ" issue, then you are not merely incorrect, you're morally wrong. And therefore anything that happens to you is well deserved and just.

[MikhailBorg]

"Think about it. If 50 or more percent of the doctors, nurses, teachers, craftsmen and workers from all walks of life including military personnel from every branch of service were suddenly missing - that would be a devastating blow to the American economy and way of life. Into that leadership vacuum that the rapture may cause, the world would be vulnerable to domination by Germany and France, both socialist forms of government with weak leaders or a globalist organization that would propose equality of nations. A perfect setup for the Man of Sin to move in and take over."

And doesn't he sound thrilled! Oh, boy, oh boy, they'll be sorry! Hee hee hee hee!

Secondly: "the world would be vulnerable to domination by ... France"

*snerk*

*choke*

*splutter*

Bwaaaaah, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah! Oh, my. Thank you, LaHaye. Heh.

[Tonio]

The Event -- the spontaneous disintegration of every child on Earth -- is regarded as little more than a curiosity.

I've gone back and forth on a specific reason for this. Obviously the general reason is that L&J are bad writers with an agenda. But would this be enough to explain the book's cold disregard for human suffering? Sometimes I believe the answer is as simply as L&J not caring about anything but their PMD timetable. Other times I believe it has to more complex, with L&J deliberately choosing to portray non-RTCs as uncaring. That this choice would betray the authors' own lack of caring is irrelevant.

[Praline]

@Anursa: Hang on - 'equality of nations' is a bad thing? Agh! Should I spit? Cry? Spit? Cry? I still can't decide...

Thank you Vermic! :-)

[Blackadder]

Jesus WAS born in 4 A.D., based on the date of the Roman census being taken at the time of his birth.

Of course, he was also born BEFORE 6 B.C., based on the date of the death of Herod the Great.

This is a bigger miracle than the virgin birth, if you ask me.

[aunursa]

He's outraged when Christian missionaries are harassed or imprisoned in foreign countries; but when those same countries are struck by a tsunami or earthquake, causing death and misery to thousands, well, that's great! Justice has been served! That'll teach 'em to be heathen foreign countries!

Yes, I've noticed this paradoxical response from both fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims. The latter consider any catastrophe to hit America (Space Shuttle Columbia, Hurrican Katrina, Minnesota bridge collapse, etc) to be a demonstration of Allah's wrath on infidels, while they ignore the fact that a disaster like the earthquake in Iran or the Asian Tsunami could be considered a sign of divine wrath against the Islamic world.

[Technomad]

The whole "born again" phenomenon really, really irritates me---I'll never, ever forgive Jimmy Carter for bringing them out of the closet.

When I was in college, I was pestered by a guy on my dorm hall who was "born again" and wanted me to be, as well. I finally shut him up by snarling:

"Despair thy charm!
And tell the angel that thou long hast served
That (Technomad) was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd."

When I told my mom about that (she was the one who'd introduced me to Macbeth in the first place) she laughed and laughed and laughed. Then she said: "But, (Technomad), you weren't a Caesarian birth."

"I know that, and you know that," I responded, "but he doesn't know that---and I shut him up good!"

[RickRS]

Re: Don't Care

RTCs KNOW, as LaHaye believes, that all the Raptured are living on easy street (paved with gold, those streets are!). So there is no reason for the RTC to be concerned over the disappearance of all the world's children. The Left Behind authors, proving their complete failure of imagination, then can't step into the shoes of a real person to imagine the grief, pain, and suffering he/she would feel, yes, even a RTC, over the loss of a loved one because of God's plan.

[car]

The "don't care" and "things haven't changed" aspects of the book is really right in line with LaJenkins' thinking. I mean, so few people are RTCs that it wouldn't be a huge blip on the economy or anything, from their point of view. Wide is the path and narrow is the gate and all. Everyone would know "someone" who vanished, but it would be only one or two acquaintances per person, tops, because all of those non-RTCers don't hang around with RTCs, you know. And the kids, well, two possibilities: either they actually think that non-RTCers don't care about their children all that much, or LaJenkins don't have children of their own. I've noticed that a lot of people who don't have kids are frightfully unaware of the role children play in, well, life. Not that it's a stain on their morality or anything, it's just outside their field of knowledge and therefore kind of invisible. A lot of them might not notice if every child disappeared from the planet, or think there would be many consequences if they did.

And Buck's description of Chloe's dress as "classy"? I got an instant vibe of Steve Martin in a plaid suit and beret when I read that. Ooo, classy babe!

"Hello, I am a megalomaniac. Please give me all of your weapons so I can rule the world. Hola, soy un megalomaniac ..
Those are the little touches that make me laugh my head off and beg for more. Thinking of him repeating that in every damned language is so, so much funnier than the statement by itself.

[Praline]

The most important thing for these people is to be right. Once you're right (and therefore good), then everyone outside your group must be wrong (and therefore bad). And so any suffering or horror they receive is simply their just deserts.

Further thought, Vermic: I have the feeling that the suffering-doesn't-matter attitude is equally useful when wanting to keep their parishioners in line.

To begin with, it enables you to ignore the consequence of impractical teaching. Bad sex ed, for example, whether it's Catholic anti-contraception or fundie abstinence-only lessons, gets proved over and over to have disastrous consequences for the thousands of people, young and mature, single or married, who find the rules impossible to follow. (Married couples being barred from using contraception being a particularly hard one.) But if the fact that people suffer doesn't matter to you, you don't have to reconsider whether your teaching is realistic or reasonable. It would have worked if people just did what you said. They didn't or couldn't, and they're suffering now? That's their problem.

But more subtly, I suspect it also has a painful effect even on the obedient believers who do do what they're told. As Fred mentioned in the previous 'Road to Ruin' post, some of the awful things these guys ask their well-meaning flock to do are things that would go against any nice person's conscience. So what happens? The nice parishioner suffers as long as the preacher is preaching his hateful teachings.

In those circumstances, not caring about people suffering saves you a world of trouble.

Blackadder: This is a bigger miracle than the virgin birth, if you ask me.

That has never struck me as a very good miracle. "Congratulations! You get to go through nine months of pregnancy and then labor in a barn without benefit of painkillers or midwife, and all without the fun part that usually leads to that result!" A far better miracle would have been for Jesus to just show up in the manger, without putting his mother through that torture at all.

[Cyllan]

Admittedly, I haven't paid a great deal of attention to the response of Islamic fundamentalists to disasters in the Islamic world, but I would not be surprised to discover that it is similar to the response that many Christian fundamentalists have to disasters in the U.S. They are strikes against the faithless in the country and signs that they must strive ever harder to purify the nation of whatever brand of evil subscribed to by the fundamentalist. If Katrina was a strike against the debauchery of New Orleans, and the drought in the Southeast is God's way of telling us to conserve better, then surely a tsunami could be seen as a sign that Allah is displeased because of some trespass.

[Mabus]

Interesting story, Lax.

Praline, I'm not thrilled with any system that puts democracies and dictatorships on an equal footing. The latter have governments that don't actually represent the wants or needs of their people, after all.

Blackadder: Because, of course, we have perfect records of everything that happened 2000 years ago, including every census taken.

[MikhailBorg]

Actually, it's a pretty impressive miracle for Jesus to have born male without any Y chromosomes supplied.

I have this mental picture of the Holy Ghost (I'd have gotten away with it, too, were it not for those danged kids!) tediously stitching together amino acids in Mary's womb from an instruction sheet Jehovah sent along.

[Froborr]

A lot of them might not notice if every child disappeared from the planet, or think there would be many consequences if they did.

I find myself mildly offended by this. I do not have children and intend never to have children, on the grounds that the world already has too many people and I would be a mediocre parent at best. Nonetheless, I dearly and fiercely love my nephew, and would be utterly devestated if anything happened to him.

One does not need to be a parent to *know* parents and children, and to have an idea of how much the loss of a child would tear a parent apart. All one needs is a sense of empathy. It is this -- not children -- that LaJenkins lack.

[Froborr]

The schtick about not being impressed with the virgin birth was also me.

We actually *do* have excellent records of the censuses performed by the Roman government. The Romans were very meticulous about such matters. Indeed, a hundred years from now the records of their censuses will probably be more readily available than the records of the most recent American one, because the enormous number of copies of the American census are virtually all printed on cheap paper or stored electronically, neither of which are good long-term media.