I just followed this link from The New Atheist: The Troubling Worldview of the ‘Rapture-Ready’ Christian. If it doesn’t scare you at least a little, I don’t see what could.

The article is written by a Christian pastor, by the way. And even he is disturbed by the “Rapture-Ready” Christians.

I have never met any in person (it seems to be a mostly US-based phenomenon, and I live in Portugal), but I’ve read their writings, web pages and forums. And they’re a crazy bunch indeed – not really different from a “death cult” like Jim Jones’. The problem is that, unlike those cults, they’re not seen as obvious lunatics by other Christians; they see them as more devout, with different priorities, but, since they say the words “Jesus Christ” so often, people are reticent to say that they’re actually a problem.

And another problem is that, like the article above says, they have the ear of the White House, and influence foreign policy.

According to those people, the world is supposed to get worse and worse, until all Christians are “raptured”; then the real End Times will follow, according to Revelations; it will be pretty bad for those still on Earth, but eventually Jesus will come back.

So, if it’s supposed to get worse before it gets better, then trying to prevent things from getting worse is… going against God’s plan! After all, by trying to have any semblance of peace in the Middle East, or by fighting disease, pollution and global warming, you are simply delaying the Rapture.

Let me say it in another way: according to that kind of Christians, there is no reason to try and make the world a better place. Either for them, or for their children (actually, they tend to expect the Rapture during their lives, so there’s really no need to think of the future, since, to them, there isn’t one). There’s no point in peace talks, medicine, “green” power, and all that. The world is supposed to “go to hell”, but Christians are “raptured” to a safe place, and the ones who remain on Earth are mostly damned anyway.

And, if you disagree with them, you’re not a “real Christian”, of course.

Now, I don’t want to (re)start any conspiracy theories here, but just think about how conservatives have, for decades, denied the reality of global warming, for instance. Or how they’ve started a war in the Middle East, and are already talking about the next one (Iran). How they ban many promising avenues of medical research, due to their religious beliefs.

See what I mean?