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Title: Internet 'Rapture Index' has been garnering major media attention during war in Lebanon
Source:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Rapture_Website_attracts_m
URL Source: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/R ... ajor_media_attention_0813.html
Published: Aug 13, 2006
Author: Ron Brynaert
Post Date: 2006-08-13 21:09:09 by Zipporah
Keywords: None
Views: 516
Comments: 24
"Last week, the forums at Rapture Ready, the site devoted to the notion that the endtimes are near, bizarrely atwitter with excitement when Israel and Hezbollah started trading blows," Tom Zeller Jr. reports in Monday's edition of The New York Times. "This week, posts on what the foiled London terror threat means," the article continues. Rapture Ready is a Website which features the Rapture Index, billed as sort of a "Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity," created by Todd Strandberg, "a night supervisor at the spare-parts store at Offutt Air Force base, Nebraska" according to a UK newspaper. "Mr Strandberg began the Rapture Index in the 1980s as an attempt to standardise signs that the end-time was a-coming," Christopher Howse wrote in a column for The Telegraph. "In 1997, he renamed his site Rapture Ready, but it still features the Rapture Index, adjusted weekly." According to Howse, each week Strandberg "picks a basketful of indicators of the end time." "These include False Christs, Nuclear Nations, Persia (high this week), Unemployment, Apostasy, Beast Government (moderate, with what he sees as the possibility of the EU splitting up), Wild weather (high), Anti-Semitism (also high this week) and Satanism (low)," Howse wrote. An archived>http://www.novia.net/%7Etodd/rap2.html">archived cache of Strandberg's Rapture Index from 1997 shows that it once contained a disclaimer of sorts. "The Rapture Index by no means is meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is meant to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture," the site said. The Website for Harper's Magazine also recently reported on the Rapture forum boards, in a post called "Silver Linings and a Cross of Gold." "This is the busiest I've ever seen this website in a few years!" wrote one Rapture board user, as noted by Harper's. "I have been having rapture dreams and I can't believe that this is really it! We are on the edge of eternity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" On July 24, CNN featured Rapture Ready in a report on how some evangelicals believe that the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict "is a sign that the Bible's final chapter, the Book of Revelation is unfolding before our eyes." "Take a look at the Rapture Index on the World Wide Web," Zahn reported. "It assigns numerical values to wars, earthquakes and disasters." "And tonight, it's at 156, which is in the 'fasten your seat belt' category," Zahn continued. "So are we really at the end of the world?" DEVELOPING...MORE TO COME FROM MONDAY'S TIMES COLUMN...
A Website devoted to "calculating" how long the world has until "endtimes" arrive has garnered a lot of media coverage since the war in Lebanon began a few weeks ago, RAW STORY has found.
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#1. To: Zipporah (#0)
I swear to Jeebus, somebody needs to start a "Religion as a mental illness" ping list.
#4. To: Esso (#1)
Go for it..!
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Replies to Comment # 1. I swear to Jeebus, somebody needs to start a "Religion as a mental illness" ping list.
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