After The Rapture Email Service

[Lightkeeper]

Stupid Business Watch: After-the-Rapture E-mail Service Debuts
May 27, 2008 3:36 PM , By Ken Magill
Online and Off-line Strategies for Large Scale Customer Acquisition

From the comically flawed-business-model file comes the recent launch of the “You’ve Been Left Behind” after-the-rapture e-mail service.

Ostensibly, the service allows Christians who are saved and whisked off to heaven just before Armageddon arrives to send e-mail messages to friends and family who aren’t.

Note: Lightheartedly poking fun at the business model behind an after-the-rapture e-mail service should not be construed as disrespect for anyone’s religious beliefs. Magilla has the utmost respect for all people of faith whose beliefs do not advocate or translate into violence.

However, this business model was just too goofy to pass up.

According to various online sources, those who believe in the Rapture contend that before Armageddon and the second coming of Christ, God will take all those who are saved into heaven, leaving the rest of us down here on earth wondering what happened to them as the fireworks to follow begin.

For an initial fee of $40 for one year—the following years’ fees will be determined by the number of members—You’ve Been Left Behind’s after-the-rapture e-mail service allows subscribers to set up documents that can be sent to up to 62 e-mail addresses automatically just after they disappear to explain what happened.

Stupid Business Watch: After-the-Rapture E-mail Service Debuts
You've Been Left Behind | Services

Have you signed up for this service?

[Rev. Kelly]

Nope, haven't signed up for this service and most likely won't since I don't believe that there will be a rapture. But, if I am wrong, I might get alot of email on that day.

[RevKathyV]

Can't say that I have!

[sendy47]

Signing check...ummm...now who do i make this out to again.......

[octavius]

Despite the fact that I'm not a Christian, I hop the rapture comes. Then the rest of us can get on with our lives...cheap shot? Yeah.

[shaw-n]

Wow.
It it truly amazing what people will believe.
The sad thing is our whole planet is infested with utterly idiotic beliefs which people will argue, fight and kill over.

[evangelicalhumanist]

Originally Posted by shaw-n

Wow.
It it truly amazing what people will believe.
The sad thing is our whole planet is infested with utterly idiotic beliefs which people will argue, fight and kill over.

HALLELUJAH!!!

Somebody finally got it!

[RevKathyV]

"HALLELUJAH!!!

Somebody finally got it!
__________________
evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism. "
EH, there are a lot of people who kill for their beliefs...on the other hand there are a lot of people who's spiritual teachings which some would call idiotic which promote peace and loving kindness and will not kill to promote their beliefs. These people realize there is a fundamental human ethics and their beliefs support that in stead of viewing their church as the the all in all they view the beliefs which stared their church as important which are based on the fundamental human ethics....anything contray to the fundamental ethics which all religious groups originally started with are man made additions built on negative feelings and emotions and that is what is destructive...not the core teachings that started it all

[evangelicalhumanist]

Originally Posted by RevKathyV

"HALLELUJAH!!!

Somebody finally got it!
__________________
evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism. "
EH, there are a lot of people who kill for their beliefs...on the other hand there are a lot of people who's spiritual teachings which some would call idiotic which promote peace and loving kindness and will not kill to promote their beliefs. These people realize there is a fundamental human ethics and their beliefs support that in stead of viewing their church as the the all in all they view the beliefs which stared their church as important which are based on the fundamental human ethics....anything contray to the fundamental ethics which all religious groups originally started with are man made additions built on negative feelings and emotions and that is what is destructive...not the core teachings that started it all

Of course, you are correct, but I think you may have mistaken my meaning. I am not a foe of religious belief. I am, however, a foe of dogma.

Do you know this quotation?

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Steven Weinberg (1933 - ),
quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999

Frankly, I think Weinberg is not quite correct on this. It is not religion that can cause good people to do bad things, but it is dogma. Now, there are many kinds of dogma, not all of them religious. Anything which must be held to be true in spite of appearances to the contrary is dogma. Most human organizations have dogma of some kind, but so-called utopian societies (communist, national socialist, fascist), and many religions.

Now, here's where the danger comes -- when the dogma that must be believed is placed at higher value than the humans that they should be meant to serve, it then becomes possible to do great evil.

How could the Nazis tear children away from their parents, knowing that they would soon be killed? Because they accepted the Reich's dogma that Jews were less-than-human, and would cause irreparable harm to the state. That is dogma and it is manifestly untrue. But as long as it is the dogma that must be adhered to, the Nazi soldiers could not only do it, but they could smile and joke about it while they were doing it.

How can Muslim's bury someone up to the neck and stone them to death, using small stones at the beginning to make the torment last longer? Because they place the "dictates of God" higher than the value of human life.

My point is, finally, no belief that allows for no independent verification, can be accepted as dogma and used as decision-making tools that will have negative effect upon the lives of individual humans. Those individual humans are always of more value than unverifiable dogma.

• The religious belief that apostates should be stoned to death? No, never.
• The religious belief that homosexuals should not be allowed to live their lives in the open, with the same rights and responsibilities as others? No, never.
• The belief that savages must be brought into one's "true religion" no matter what the cost to the lives and heritage of those savages? No, never. (Tomorrow, the Prime Minister of Canada will stand in the House of Commons and apologize to the aboriginal Canadians who were snatched away from their families and communities and brought up in residential schools to take away their "indian-ness." He is right to do so, but it doesn't change the horrible wrong that was done to them).

I could type that list forever, and still not be finished. But at the end of the day, nobody, not one single, solitary person who has ever lived upon this planet has the unvarnished truth about the will of God, or what the future holds, or what is the ultimate right and wrong. And therefore no religious or other belief, based upon any person's unverifialbe viewpoint or opinion or even purported revelation, can serve as an acceptable excuse for the ill-treatment of other human beings.

And I will stand by that until the moment of my death.

[Lightkeeper]

But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Is or was Osama Bin Laden ever a good person? I question that dogma can make a good person do an evil thing. I think we can find many good people who have been caught up in dogma, but have not done evil things. It's more likely that a person who is questionable might choose to use dogma as an excuse for evil. If the dogma hadn't been there, they would find another reason.