Nutball Alert

But they're politically powerful nutballs, so it's scary, as opposed to just kind of sad and funny.

I recommend going to the "raptureready" link. It's bizarre. There is, however, advertised to the left, a book that is quite interesting. "Do Our Pets Go to Heaven?" is the title. There's more than a little sympathy there, and sadness, and humanity. But that has to be put into context--it seems as if the people concerned about that are kind of like the Prioress in the Canterbury Tales:

She was so charitable and so pitous
She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous
Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel-breed.
But soore weep she if oon of hem were deed.

She's a hypocrite. She cares excessively for those things that are visible and pitiable, and she doesn't give a damn about things outside of her vision.

So those rapture-seekers can be filled with charity for their own cuddly pets, and ignore the real sufferings of people (Israelis and Palestinians) in the present, and actively look forward to the day when the angels bound in the River Euphrates will come forth and slay the third part of men, and to the seven-year Tribulation, when those on Earth will be beset with plagues and horrors, and, if I recall correctly, "In those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it." The faithful, of course, will be watching all from the safety and comfort of Paradise, enjoying the spectacle of the unrighteous finally getting their due.

Once again, it seems, the concept of cognitive dissonance, attractive though it may be, has been rendered useless with respect to explanatory power--apologies to Dr. Leon Festinger.