Sci-fi novel about people missing the rapture

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I remember hearing about a "science" fiction story about how a group of people missed the rapture because of being on an interstellar ship or something of the sort, but it would seem to me that whoever the author of the story was that they probably had only heard various teachings about eschatology but had never read the passages related - particularly:

"And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven." Mark 13:27

Hence the author of that novel wrote a story about a theological subject without reading the material about it.

Well then we should see a hastily made movie version on SyFy channel any day now.

Last edited by shrox on 11 Feb 2012, 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

How do you know the kool-aid cult wasn't the rapture, and you already missed it?

I hope the rapture is real. That would be very nice to live in a world without fundamentalist Christians.

Great...when you kick them, you inadvertently kick me...

If such a novel was actually published then it did have a dumb premise.Even dumber than the concept of the Rapture itsself.

If the rapture happened then astronauts in space (it they happened to be of the elect) would obviously be raptured as well.
Why would being off-earth effect it?

Captian Kirk suddenly vanishes off the bridge. Then the starship Enterprise careens into a planet killing everyone on board. Just like all of those airlines on earth that start crashing because the pilots get raptured! BFD!

The whole "rapture" concept is preposterous.
But if the preposterous actually happened it would happen whereever God has jusistiction which is the whole universe.

What would be interesing would be if the Raptured happened, and only the Romulans in the crew get raptured. The humans all remain.

The theological consequences of a non human race being shown favor by God would be catastrophic. We would have to face the fact that 'God made Reptilians in his image gave them souls" and didnt really think much of his primate expirament on Earth!

It's just a story guys... no more illogical than Star Trek or Star Wars.


As long as fantasy isn't passed off as reality, why get uptight about it?

Its more illogical than star trek because atleast Startrek and other fantasies usually maintain atleast an internal logic. The premise isnt even internally logical.

again, an interesting perspective. i completely forgot to get back to your comment in the anarchy thread, incidentally.

well i think that given the fact it is a fictional story, it's not particularly important. although, given that you apparently haven't read it, perhaps the author included some catch in the plot to get around this?


my favourite sci-fi story that relates to religion would have to be michael moorcock's behold the man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behold_the_Man

it was years ago i read it, but it's always stuck in my mind. it centres around an interesting paradox and he adds a few interesting twists to the story. i'd recommend it.

also,

this seems to suggest that you believe that space is, in fact, heaven. is this generally what christians believe? serious question, since i've never been particularly religious myself nor have i really spent time around the religious.

How?

You're in the group 'Christians', but not the subgroup 'fundamentalist Christians', but the subgroup 'Quakers', instead. Think of it as being like Rodentia. You are chinchillidae (chinchillas) and they are anomaluridae (scaly-tailed squirrels). If anomaluridae go extinct, chinchillidae still survive. There are less members of Rodentia, but your family in particular are unharmed.

Yah, I actually hold Christian beliefs myself. I just don't like the brand of Christianity that posits you have to interpret everything literalistically, as it takes away from the poetry element. I also think there's something really backward about believing the earth is only 6000 years old simply because you think the lineages in the Bible trump Potassium-Argon dating. I resent all of that crap. I remember in sunday school, my teacher was talking about how wonderful it was gonna be to wave to all the people who didn't believe her or her interpretation of the Bible when she was being raptured up into heaven. Oh that's very loving and high minded of you, gloating to a bunch of people how you're going to be safe and comfortable while they all die horribly in the apocalypse.

I'm not saying I want them all to die horribly, like some of them subconsciously want to see happen to me. I just think it would be nice if they did get taken off to heaven where they could strum harps in their heavenly utopia, instead of br left on the planet they seem to despise so much that they want to see it destroyed.

I think they may have also missed that the whole rapture and end of times stuff is utter BS.

The author could have been working from a different translation.



No mention of Heaven there--so one might be drawn to conclude that the non-Earth-bound would be missed.

Also note the verse is not about rapture (no Bible verses about the rapture actually exists).