Economy a Sign of ARMAGEDDON?

Until recently, we as a nation lived under a policy of fear. "Be afraid, be very afraid" could easily have become our national motto. What works out for politics also seems to be one line of attack in religion as well.

We know why. Because fear sells. It works on all of us at times, but some people seem to be masochists for it, dreaming up rich conspiracy theories that show they're out to get us! And religion--it claims--offers a solution. But the scary thing is, some religions seem to be eager for the scary stuff to happen. They're really itching for Armageddon, because it means paradise after. Or something.

Look, I've read the doomsday religious series, Left Behind. Nearly as scary as the terrible writing is the "tribulation," the nasty stuff those of us who aren't "raptured bodily into heaven" will have to live through before the "glorious appearing" of Jesus. And then it gets even worse.

Jesus isn't the warm, loving being we learned about in Sunday school, if you believe these stories (and way too many do). He's apparently a slaughterific, blood-n-guts, friggin' destroyer of souls! And you don't even have to be a bad person. You just have to not be a believer.

But it's trickier than it sounds. You have to be a particular kind of believer.

Being Catholic won't save you. Even being a protestant won't save you. You have to be a believer in the tribulation and rapture and all that comes with it. To make matters worse, there are at least three schisms even in that: Pretribulationism, Midtribulationism and Posttribulationism. Yikes!

I of course pick none of the above. It's all rather gruesome and hard to square with the rest of the religion. Plus, if I did throw in with them, the kind of people who are believers aren't the sorts of people I really want to hang around with anyway.

Which is a long way to go to show you these scans of an invitation I got in the mail from a group called "Creation to Revelation." They're having a big gig this week tying the current economic crisis with the end of the world!!! The creepiest part is the last photo of the jubilant children with the notice, "Bring the whole family!" Worse, the event is being held at the Boy Scouts Resource Center. Which is a whole 'nother level of creepy.