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Title: Five Minutes After the Rapture
Source:
Unclebob's Treehouse
URL Source: [None]
Published: Aug 23, 2010
Author: Bob Wallace
Post Date: 2010-08-23 11:18:34 by Turtle
Keywords: None
Views: 931
Comments: 36
Ralph: Dum de dum dum, dum de dum dum. Sam: Hey Ralph, look at all this stuff lying all over the sidewalk. Ralph: Weird…clothes, shoes, socks, keys, wallets…some guy’s dental fillings…a glass eye… an artificial leg…somebody’s heart transplant flopping around in the street…a busted-open suitcase full of martial aids…what is going on here? Sam: Maybe it’s the Rapture. I heard about it from some guys used to go to tent revival meetings, fall over backwards and start twitching and babbling. One guy's cowboy boots flew off. Ralph: Yeah, speaking in tongues and “getting saved.” Hillbilly kitsch. Sam: Look, a brand-new Lamborghini! Ralph: Look at this in the front seat…a $2000 custom-made suit, a toupee with a pompadour…wallet, keys…damn, it is the Rapture, and now we get all this stuff! Sam: What ID is in the wallet? Ralph: Reverend Billy Joe Bob Hargis. Look what else is here…lots of condoms, a notebook with hundreds of call girls’ telephone numbers, some amyl nitrate, a copy of "Gay Boy Toys" magazine with the pages stuck together, a butt plug…I think he was sitting on it. Sam: I remember reading about this guy’s house in the newspaper. Cost $20 million, a pool, helicopter, all the trimmings. Ralph: Damn! And now it’s ours! Yahoo! Sam: I heard he’s got a safe there with millions of dollars in contributions he never reported to the government. Ralph: The sheeple sure are suckers. Sam: Buncha brain-dead zombies who believe in Jesus-the-Terminator, who’s going to bring slaughter and destruction to the world because they think that’s how he’s going to save it. That’s Christian? Ralph: I always remember Jesus putting down people like that. Ah, forget them, they’re all gone. Think of all the porn and guns and booze I’ve heard this riff-raff has in his mansion! Sam: You know those Evangelical preachers. Either he’s got videos of himself and two 12-year-old blonde girls, or else it’s meth and man ass! Ralph: This is great! God really did take those crap-for-brains Evangelicals, the ones trying to return us to the 7th Century. Thank you, God, even if you never did get me the pony and the bong I wanted for Christmas! Sam: All fanatics of whatever religion, they’ve done nothing but impede progress. They all think they’re right and anyone who disagrees with them is evil. That’s a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Ralph: Dibs on the driver’s seat! Vroom! Satan: For those left behind it is. You want an ice cube?
Reverend Billy Joe Bob Hargis: You call this the Rapture?
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 18.
#2. To: Turtle (#0)
(Edited)
You ever hear of "The Great Disappointment"? It's a rather funny title coined by people selling everything they own, sitting on a hill for hours waiting for the rapture, and getting nothing for it but dirty pantaloons. .
It relates to the Millerites. The day was October 22, 1844. Yes, there were many disappointed Millerites. No heaven for them, no hell on earth for everybody else. Their members were drawn from Presby, Baptist, and Campbellite churches though they tended to sever these ties as the Great Date approached. They did regroup somewhat and there were a few recalculations of their predictions which led to a few more Lesser Disappointments. Most of the remaining Millerites then formed the Seventh Day Adventist churches. A smaller number engaged in apocalyptic bible study groups and a dissident faction of these bible students (armed with Scofield bibles) separated and formed Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1930's. Later on, David Koresh gained fame from the Branch Davidians, a direct modern offshoot of the Millerite movement. Janet Reno murdered all of them on orders from Bill Xlinton.
As Robert Heinlein suggested in one of his novels, these wackos should be isolated from the rest of society.
Which wackos are we going to confine? And where? How about that empty private prison in Hardin MT? LOL. America is a pretty target-rich environment for wackos, morons and hucksters (and not just the religious kind).
"We"? I'm not confining anybody, my only wish is to leave this cursed country. In the novel the religious wackos are given part of the country and a impenetrable wall is built around it.
You seem to be referring to the short story, Coventry, which was published in pulp magazines initially and then in the collection of stories called Revolt In 2100. I'm not the biggest Heinlein fan. He was more than a bit of a fascist and flagwaving jingoist. And some of his late sci-fi was downright embarrassing drivel; it should not have been published.
You seem to be referring to the short story, Coventry, which was published in pulp magazines initially and then in the collection of stories called Revolt In 2100. I'm not the biggest Heinlein fan. He was more than a bit of a fascist and flagwaving jingoist. And some of his late sci-fi was downright embarrassing drivel; it should not have been published. I grew up reading him. While I did not care for a lot of his later stuff the novels up to and including "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" were great. He was just the medicine this, fatherless after 14, boy needed. I would have to say that he set a lot of my attitudes on morality and honor. I would not describe him as "jingoistic" although he was very much a patriot and if you read his nonfiction he became more and more libertarian as the years went by. He was however, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. He was released on a medical disability from Malaria if I recall - picked up when he was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. Much of his stuff is still readable although some of the technology has begun to pass by some of his 1950's stories. Just as with some of the great writers of the "Golden Age" of Science Fiction in the 1930's. Some however is still quite readable - Jack Williamson and the Legion of Space Novels, E.E. Doc Smith (a friend of Heinlein's - and he continue writing into the 60's before his death), Edmond Hamilton (Star Wolf), and others. It was visionary fiction and we are on the cusp of doing much of what they talked and wrote about - no doubt in part because they talked and wrote about it. Oh, and Flintlock - you seem to have run two Heinlein Stories together - "Revolt in 2100" which is about a religious dictatorship which is overthrown, and Coventry which takes place in the same setting some number of years after the revolt. Coventry is where they put all the people who couldn't behave and insisted upon violating the rights of others.
Not at all. I think we're disagreeing on the packaging, not the content. I read this exact book which contained two full books Revolt in 2100 & Methuselah's Children. If you look at the index, you'll see "Revolt" was actually 3 short stories, which are: "If This Goes On - " I haven't read all his books yet, but I have them all. I do most my reading while traveling outside of the USA and I haven't been out for 3 years but that's about to change. Moon was awesome, I've read it more than once
#21. To: Flintlock (#18)
The story "If This Goes On ..." is the one I was thinking of. The other two showed up in other collections, and although they have characters in common they had previously only been printed as parts of larger collections. I have to wonder if Heinlein was a Mason because the rebels in "If This Goes On ..." had all of the trappings of a Masonic Lodge. Methuselah's children has one of the characters from "Misfit" (the central character - "Libby") in a minor role in "Methuselah's Children".
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#4. To: PSUSA (#2)
You ever hear of "The Great Disappointment"?
#5. To: TooConservative (#4)
They did regroup somewhat and there were a few recalculations of their predictions which led to a few more Lesser Disappointments. Most of the remaining Millerites then formed the Seventh Day Adventist churches. A smaller number engaged in apocalyptic bible study groups and a dissident faction of these bible students (armed with Scofield bibles) separated and formed Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1930's.
#6. To: Flintlock (#5)
As Robert Heinlein suggested in one of his novels, these wackos should be isolated from the rest of society.
#7. To: TooConservative (#6)
Which wackos are we going to confine? And where?
#8. To: Flintlock (#7)
"We"? I'm not confining anybody, my only wish is to leave this cursed country. In the novel the religious wackos are given part of the country and a impenetrable wall is built around it.
#14. To: TooConservative, Flintlock (#8)
"We"? I'm not confining anybody, my only wish is to leave this cursed country. In the novel the religious wackos are given part of the country and a impenetrable wall is built around it.
#18. To: Original_Intent (#14)
Oh, and Flintlock - you seem to have run two Heinlein Stories together - "Revolt in 2100" which is about a religious dictatorship which is overthrown, and Coventry which takes place in the same setting some number of years after the revolt. Coventry is where they put all the people who couldn't behave and insisted upon violating the rights of others.
Coventry
Misfit
Replies to Comment # 18.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 18.