FTT Off-Topic: Rapture Without Laughs

So I don't know about you, Dear Reader, but I haven't been Raptured, and after a weekend of yardwork, hanging out with my kids, watching hoop and riding a bicycle while the world seemed to avoid anything beyond the usual calamities. And I've spent a few electrons on Facebook and snarky moments at work discussing the End of Days, as I'm sure you have as well.

There is, of course, a dark side, even to a failed Apocalypse. And the New York Times has it, in a profile of a family where the teenaged kids don't just have the usual problem of being embarrassed of their parents, but being, well, mortified by them. With the full experience of having your flesh and blood being convinced that you are going to the lake of fire.

Now, one assumes that the family has had a considerable conversation by now, or maybe even a double-down moment of how the calculation is just off. Or it's just the moment for full reboot, as the 'rents have the scales fall off their eyes and get back to what the rest of us regard as reality.

But the two key points for me are as follows.

1) Any religious faith that gets between you and your seemingly well-adjusted kids, and causes you to abandon their souls to eternal damnation... can't be the one. I'm sorry, it just can't. And if it can, then the state of the cosmos is even more misaligned than even the most misanthropic human being could imagine.

2) In any great con -- and there can be no doubt about it, this has been a spectacular con, given that you've got millions of people listening to this guy, and a bunch of people who've ponied up money for ads and swag -- there are victims. And the victims have victims, and as soon as you hear about them, the caveat of never give a sucker an even break goes out the window.

Because well, these kids don't deserve to be this estranged from their parents, or to have their inheritance and college dreams ripped away, for the sheer effectiveness of a con, or the willing nature of the duped. There really isn't any such thing as a victimless crime.