** My co-blogger on The S-Train Canvass, T-Steel, helped contribute to this entry. Thanks T! :)

To me, religion is a personal thing. It's one of the reasons why I don't discuss religion much with people unless it infringes on people's rights and/or uses violent means to spread its doctrine. But I came upon a website called Rapture Ready that, while not violent or right-infringing, preaches ideas that concern me greatly about how we do thing here on Earth.

They make broad assumptions and guarantee many things. But one thing they heavily concentrate on are these three principles:

1. The rapture is going to strike without warning.

2. The rapture is going to happen suddenly.

3. The rapture is going to be one of the most astonishing events to ever occur.

For anyone that doesn't know what the rapture is, it is the mass transporting of believers of Christ to heaven. Rapture Ready then tells us this:

I realize this web page will be addressing two audiences: those of you who read this page before the rapture and those of you who read it after the rapture. My focus here will be on those who have found this page after the rapture of the Church. For anyone reading this material before the pre-trib rapture, I highly recommend that you ponder the negative consequences of being left behind and seriously consider committing your life to Jesus if you have not done so already.

They then proceed to tell us who "weren't ready for the rapture" what will befall us and what we can do. Wow! As I mentioned before, I am a futurist. I am open to many different ideas and statements. One thing about religion is that it can be deeply felt by people. So when I see sites like Rapture Ready and the cataclysmic event they are describing, I just wonder:

One year, planet Earth will look like the biggest 4th of July celebration with all these cataclysmic events upcoming...

Ok, I'm having a little fun. But the point is that why is it so easy for us (in general) to preach the "great end-all" but have much difficulty with say, race relations, poverty, and job creation? Hey, I'm down for the great gettin' up morning but shouldn't we be busting are collective asses to make this place better than better? I mean, we have the rapture and other grand events upcoming from other faiths. Shouldn't we make this place, our planet Earth, like heaven? In heaven, according to the experts, there is no hunger, no race problems, we all get along, and we're happy. But what about here? Why not here? I think we should start practicing harder, you know?

Let's make Earth like heaven and then we'll be ready for the greatest of the grandest of all time world event to happen.

What say you?