Oh. My. God

I've seen some geeky things in my life. Stupidity abounds in the human cosmos, and it's all catalogued on the web. Why we feel, nay, are compelled to share our complete lack of real life with the rest of the world, I have no idea. The people at www.raptureme.com take the cake.

You'd think, from an evolutionary standpoint, that outing yourself to the world as a complete nutjob would hurt your chances of procreating, wouldn't you? I mean, Grog is a caveman, he's really into his cave paintings, but he's only into cave paintings depicting bison taking antelopes against their will... you have to figure that the women Grog hangs out with would figure that "something's a little off with this guy" and wouldn't choose him as a father for their children. Similarly, foaming at the mouth over the statistical probability of Jesus' second coming like Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters has got to put a little cramp in your swingin' single lifestyle... But apparently not.

So where do people like this come from? I mean, their very existence could potentially shatter the whole evolution thing... Answer me these questions:

1) If evolution kills off the weaker members of the species, and Man has survived since the beginning through his mind alone [we clearly don't have many other attributes that would give us an evolutionary edge, save for the opposable thumb], then why have these fuckers survived? Shouldn't there be a strong evolutionary pressure to pull these people out of the gene pool?

Take a look around you. I'm generalizing here, and being a horrific elitist snob bastard (yeah, your point is?), but who has the most kids these days? It ain't the PhD's.

Is there a built-in evolutionary mechanism to produce lots of dumb people?

2) Was Darwin wrong, does God take care of these people, and is that why they continue to exist? Is God's kind of person a narrowminded, mouth-frothing idiot with just enough education to put together a quasi -scientific website about the coming rapture with phrases like "Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts "

Say what? Was this in the Release Notes of the Bible somewhere? (Bible 3.55.1, Release notes, section 7: How to calculate the Rapture Index.) Is this poor bugger who runs the site like Moses? Every day, he gets an email from God:

Day 1: Thou shalt build a website
Day 2: No, a blog doesn't count
Day 3: Use Apache, for Christ's sake. You're not going to use Microsoft products to spread my word... don't you know which side he's on?
Day 4: Okay, okay, enough with the cute flash animations. Bandwidth isn't free, even here in Heaven. The Cherubim are bitching at me that we need another T1 line. Cut it back a bit.

Haven't these people heard of the "watched pot will never boil" idea? Maybe Jesus *hasn't* come back because they're tracking his every move. He's sitting up there on a cloud, smoking a cigarette... he flicks it off into the distance and shakes his head in disgust. Then he notices God standing next to him.

"You going down anytime soon?" asks God, looking guardedly hopeful.

"Naah, look at 'em. Got their panties in a bunch over the number of porn newsgroups, and for some reason they think that the stock price of Microsoft has statistical significance related to the likelihood of me coming back."

"I mean, fuckin' look at what they're doing. They're trying to predict when I'm returning. Haven't they read the books, don't they get it? Predictable is not my thing. I didn't go down there and spend thirty odd years putting up with... with... that... Look, I didn't get famous down there and spread your word by being predictable. Predictable would have been to stay a carpenter, have kids, and retire."

"You miss the wood, don't you?"

"You have no idea, Dad. You should see what they've come up with now. I mean, I was pretty good with the hand tools, but the shit you can do now... If I *DID* go back, and I'm not saying I would, but if I *DID*, first place I'd go is Home Depot. Routers and rotozips and... " Jesus stares off into the distance. "Moses would have had an easier time of it these days, with the tools they have now."

God smiles wryly. "No he wouldn't. He'd never have got planning permission, and he wasn't a certified professional engineer. They'd have crucified him."

Jesus winces.

"Sorry, figure of speech."

Jesus nods. "I'd love to go back, but I know how it would be. CNN and Fox News wouldn't leave me alone. Talk shows. There'd probably be a reality show on me. Hell, the History channel people wouldn't leave me alone for years... candid interviews about Mary Magdalene..."

...

Have a nice day. Hope the rapture comes soon, statistically speaking.