Are you Rapture Ready? (in praise of an index)

As if you needed any further reason to tread lightly on my blog, let me talk to you about religion.

God works in numbers.

We see it in the appearance of fibonacci sequences in nature, such as in the branching of tree limbs or the arrangement of a pine cone. A fibonacci sequence occurs after two starting numbers, where each following number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, as in 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 43, 55, 89, 144. Consider, for example, a bee population: If a female bee lays an unfertilized egg, it yields a male bee. If the egg is fertilized, it hatches a female. Therefore, a male bee (1) has one female parent (1), a female has (2) parents, the mother had two parents and the father had one parent (3), and the two grandmother bees each had two parents while the grandfather bee had one (5).

And you know about the Golden Ratio (1.618), which is the result of the ratio of the sum of two quantities to the larger of the quantities, over the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller. We find it everywhere in nature (from galaxies to the human form to crystals to sea shells) and in man's pursuit of the sublime through his art forms, leading the German intellectual Adolf Zeising to declare the Golden Ratio:

[A] universal law in which is contained the ground-principle of all formative striving for beauty and completeness in the realms of both nature and art, and which permeates, as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures, forms and proportions, whether cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or optical; which finds its fullest realization, however, in the human form.

And let's not forget how the physical constants that govern our existence, 26 in all, seem at least at first glance purposefully tweaked for the emergence of life forms with moral agency. Here's one of many examples: Want a universe populated with stars, the givers of life as we know it? Well, no such luck if the fine-structure constant (a function of electron charge relative to the Planck charge) were different, or if the strong nuclear force were 2% stronger. If that were the case, hydrogen would fuse too easily and diprotons would become stable, rendering the concept of a star unthinkable. While it is true that the argument is tautological and only suggests that life as we are able to imagine it would not have formed, you have to marvel at the precision with which our existence is fine-tuned.

I'm not an intelligent design fanatic. I do believe, however, that if you're going to follow evolution, as I do, then you have to come to terms with the fact that evolution itself is directional. And evolution is the only example in the known universe of a process leading to the emergence of new, more complex, more intelligent, and more organized arrangements of matter, that can increasingly cooperate for mutual benefit. Why the push toward higher levels of consciousness among living things? Is it random?

Something to think about the next time you align your phi-proportioned frame with the earth and hold the phi-proportioned veins in your hand to your phi-proportioned face so that you can gaze past the fibinacci-branching trees with their phi-proportioned leaves, up toward the (scarcely allowed under any circumstances other than our own) sun, and take in the phi-proportioned chemicals which lead all several trillion cells of your body to feel a slight calming effect, and wonder why you feel at home in the universe even though you're just lying on a tiny vessel spiraling endlessly according to the golden ratio in a galaxy of other improbable stars.

Then you can ask yourself why the great books of the creator, if there is such a being, were written in numeric languages such as Greek and Hebrew, and why among many other coincidences, the word for humankind, Adam, equals the number 46. And why 46, the number of Adam, or the number of humankind, equals the number of chromosomes that dwell within the nuclei of the trillions of cells of our bodies.

If there is a God (I lean toward yes as you can tell), and he does work on a universal tapestry with numeric paints, than I bet he's pretty pissed at those who distort numbers in His name for their benefit. Like the clowns over at RaptureReady.com. Nearly twenty years ago, they created a site whose purpose is to let us know that Jesus Christ will be returning soon, there's still time to repent, and that they (the creators of the site) have a good sense that the end times are upon us. Whether Jesus is coming, or even if the "rapture" that the site professes to believe in is real, fantasy, or indeterminate (it's doubtful whether it is even discussed in the Bible), is beyond the scope of my silly post. But the site is very popular (9.5 million hits!), mirroring the staggering popularity of the Left Behind book series, which with the help of Christian bookstores and Walmarts has sold more than 63 million copies. Its primary tool for scaring us into God's loving arms, so that we, too, can avoid being "left behind" when the rapture hits, is the Rapture Index. The index is the result of a crude scan of the week's events, which are translated into a numerical measurement of the confluence of Bible prophecies thought to be linked to the start of the next dispensation and the fulfillment of God's covenants with His chosen people.

The index contains many categories, which I provide for you, Dear Reader, just in case you wanted to be on the lookout (or as President Bush says, "vigilant"): False Christs, Occult, Satanism, Unemployment, Inflation, Interest Rates, The Economy, Oil Supply/Price, Debt and Trade, Financial unrest, Leadership, Drug abuse, Apostasy, Supernatural, Moral Standards, Anti-Christian, Crime Rate, Ecumenism, Globalism, Tribulation Temple, Anti-Semitism, Israel, Gog (Russia), Persia (Iran), The False Prophet, Nuclear Nations, Global Turmoil, Arms Proliferation, Liberalism, The Peace Process, Kings of the East, Mark of the Beast, Beast Government, The Antichrist, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Wild Weather, Civil Rights, Famine, Drought, Plagues, Climate, Food Supply, and Floods.

The numbers assigned to each category are adjusted frequently, accompanied by one-line explanations for each change. Examples include "Satanism: In England, Satanists are believed responsible for a series of sickening 'satanic rite' attacks on farm animals," "Debt and Trade: The US federal budget deficit has declined - minus 1," and "Mark of the Beast: The US Patriot Act has failed to get enough votes for extension."

What does the index number (presently holding steady at 154) mean? Dunno. We are told, though, that the index hit a record high on September 23, 2001 (hmm...) and was at a low on December 12, 1993. So I guess you could spend an afternoon googling events of those dates and come up with why the number hit 182 in September, 2001. How arbitrarily frightening! There isn't much of an explanation on the site for that date, other than a few hints, such as "Beast Government: With America knocked out for the week, the EU was left as the acting super state" and "The Antichrist: The major act of terrorism against the US creates perfect setting for the Antichrist to come in and work his magic."

But I do recommend the "frequently asked questions" page, which provides plenty of poorly-worded talking points (e.g., "Is the Pope the antichrist?" [unlikely, because "the antichrist will be accepted by the Jews as their messiah"]; "Will the antichrist be a homosexual?" [possibly; he will have no regard for the desire of women, for he shall magnify himself above all]; "I am afraid of the end of the world: What should I do?" [guess what the answer is?]; "Since Israel controls Jerusalem, is the "time of the Gentiles" over?" [not until the massing gentile armies are defeated]; "Do things like protecting endangered animals and the environment really matter?" [yes!]; and "what makes conspiracy theories so appealing to some folks?").

It's frightening how an evangelical, who must understand the Bible's warning not to place your trust in those who claim to know the time of Christ's return, could promote such an arbitrary and simple-minded tool for the ill-informed. Don't think that a measly index on a single website matters? Why don't you spend ten minutes on the site's Message Board. Read what people are saying every day in response to world events. Take in how intensely giddy or forlorn they get when violence flares or things don't seem to be progressing according to plan. There's an army of Christian soldiers out there, and many of them are already marching as to war to the beat of RaptureReady. And they love it when terror strikes, children die, and soldiers, both uniformed and civilian, mass on borders and in shantytowns across the Middle East. The site makes a mockery of God's work and should not be taken seriously.

At least the site explains why the index is not used to set a specific date for Christ's arrival: "A couple of years back, one participant [on the message board] threatened to kill himself after he thought he'd missed the rapture."

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence