Could America Survive 'The Rapture' (Rar?)

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok, so lets say "It" actually happens. Every self professed evangelical, baptist, christian, etc etc... Everyone who truly believes in a day when DA LORDA will come and sweep away all the good God fearing people, actually are taken up. If Tomorrow morning we woke up and everyone world wide who believed in the rapture was simply vanished from the Earth, how well could civilization withsatnd it? I ask because a significant portion of the US population would vanish overnight as well as large amounts in Africa and Europe.

Would Panic and fear sweep the world? Would we just move on?

[Jawawithagun]

Large parts of Christianity are not rapture-believers.
And don't worry, you can just import Mexicans and Muslim to cover what you lose.

[Chardok]

IIRC, isn't it supposed to be 1/3rd of the world's population?

[wautd]

Survive? It'll be a fucking win for society if all the fundies suddenly vanish.

[HSRTG]

It'll hurt for a while as we fill the holes in employment they leave in various places, but unemployment will drop like a meteor and we won't have those lunatics fucking things up for the rest of us. Also, they got to be raptured together into heaven or wherever so they're probably happy too. Win/win.

[darthdavid]

Maybe we'll actually be able to get some real progressives in office without those fuckers around...

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Survive? It'll be a fucking win for society if all the fundies suddenly vanish.

Think before you type. A quick Google search indicates that somewhere between 30 - 60% of Americans believe that there will be a Rapture, and about half of them believe that the Bible can be taken to be literal truth. Furthermore, over 75% of Americans self-identify as Christians; though that doesn't give any indication of devoutness. If we assume that the same percentage of American adults who keep voting for people like Dubya are devout Christians who'd be raptured up to Republican Heaven, that gives you about 25% of the overall population as an upper limit.

Losing 25% of the population in one go would likely destroy the economy. Yes, that percentage will not be evenly distributed. Fewer scientists would be raptured; but more engineers, and quite a few factory workers would be among those to go. You'd suffer heavy losses in the agricultural and service sectors of the economy, and the government and military would be expected to have higher-than-average losses. You'd almost certainly have a breakdown in order and massive food riots. Markets would implode and banks would almost certainly have to take a holiday as millions of debtors, account holders, business owners, and even bankers, vanish overnight.

Survive? Sure, America and the world would survive. But it'd be surviving in the sense that civilization would survive, say, an equally calamitous disease pandemic.

[Simon_Jester]

Large parts of Christianity are not rapture-believers.
And don't worry, you can just import Mexicans and Muslim to cover what you lose.

Why wouldn't some Catholics get caught up in the Rapture? Or, heck, a lot of Catholics? The Mexicans might be looking to import us to cover the population loss, not the other way round.

Of course, you know who really wins in this scenario?

The Far East. Negligible number of Rapture-believers, modern economy- sure things would be thrown into chaos by their export markets being thrown into chaos, but that's a second-order effect- for them, it'd probably be a net positive.

For everyone else? Not so much.

Also, a huge amount depends on the percentage of people who really do get Raptured. If everyone who professes a belief in Christ of any kind gets swept up, the US is practically finished as a major institution, because of the sheer number of people who are missing- as Terwynn said, something like 75%.

If it's some function of how devout you are or what sect you adhere to, that's a different question- but still a huge crisis.

[Rabid]

I will here ass-pull the following prediction :

Day 0 to approximately Day 25 :

* Europe, US, Russia, Africa (even moreso than usual) - Society "collapse" : food riots ; chaos ; outbreak of apocalyptic cult's nutters
* Philippines, Indonesia : is there anybody left there ?
* Egypt, Israel and Middle-East : I think Muslims and Jews are also subject to the Rapture, I don't know. Anyway, even if they aren't raptured, their reaction is a BIG unknown. Here, I will assume that Muslims and Jews are also raptured - for the fun of it, I'd say.

Day 26 to Month 3

* Worldwide : With no oil coming from the Middle-East, Venezuela or Africa anymore, agricultural methods and outputs are forced back into the XIXth century.
* Europe, US, Russia : The remnants of the local Governments and the various Nations' Army begin to regain control of their Nation. Depending on the countries, 10 to 60% of the population post-rapture have died from hunger, disease or social disorders.
* US, Russia, India, Indonesia : China and their South-Eastern Asian "friends" mobilize their army and send troops to help the US, Russia, India and other affected neighboring countries to rebuild their infrastructure and food supply ; mainly to limit the flow of refugees at their borders. The rest of the troops that aren't affected to peace-maintaining jobs are affected to work on agricultural work (there is no more petroleum coming from the middle-east, which mean that the work that was being done with machines has now to be done by hand).
* Europe : Between The Rapture and the Great Famine, Europe pass from more than 500 million people to only barely 250 million, mainly in Western Europe, as Eastern Europe is now almost a no-man's land (Poland, between other nations, has lost more than 70% of its population, the rest is migrating to the West). Turkey feels really empty. France, because of its very high percentage of Atheist and Agnostic, has lost "only" 40% of its population. The various European military forces agree to be commanded by Bruxelle - The European Union take over Europe.
As the Union cannot count on foreign help coming from either China or Russia, the Common Agricultural Policy, which before The Rapture represented half of the EU's spending, is now the main driving force behind the politic of the Union.
Russia "politely" asked to join its forces to those of the Union. Russia consider its own 60 millions people (a figure going down daily), and accept.
* America (north, Central, South) : [ I don't know. A shitload of people are raptured, and another shitload of people die ? ]

Month 4 to Month 10 :

* Europe : The Federal European Union conscript its population to work in the fields, and what is left available is used to send the (weakened) European Navy in Egypt and the Red Sea and a very important part of the remnants of its Army to seize control of : Egypt, the Suez Canal and the Arabic Peninsula. The rest of the Army is sent to annex Ukraine and its rich soils. The petrol and gaz of the North Sea, Norway and the rest of Europe is used in priority to produce fertilizer for the fields and diesel for the army and the trucks used to move goods around the Union.
The civilian population is coerced to concentrate itself in two different region : The majority of the population is relocated in Western Europe, in France, Benelux, Germany and Northern Italy ; and the rest in eastern Europe, mainly in Ukraine (for the soils, ore and coal) and the Balkans. Everywhere, the Colons are trained and armed to fight local insurgents, under the supervision of the Federal Army.
* US : The remnants of the United States are flooded with a great proportion of what remain of the rest of America - the lucky ones, or unlucky if you want to be cynic, who didn't die during their trip to the Land of the Free. Los Angeles and San Diego, with the explicit approval of the US-Government, has seen a quarter million Asian Soldiers taking their quarter, using the place as a bridge-head to distribute food and supplies to the rest the US.
The Federal Government move a great part of the population to the rural states of the Midwest, in order to put them to work in the fields. [joke : Afro-Americans refuses to go work in the Southern States. White-trash sent instead - feels at home]
Alaskan, Canadian, Californian and Texan oil are used to produce fertilizer, diesel and kerosene. Plans are drafted to greatly improve the railroad infrastructure.
* Asia : China and Japan conjointly seize the Eastern Siberia's resources. Russia demand reparation - the rest of the Union tell her to shut the fuck up and to concentrate on its European side. Russia resent this "double-backstabbing" - from its Asian neighbors and from its allies. A part of the Russian part of the Federal Army retaliate in anger and launch around one hundred nuclear warheads on Chinese soil. The rest of Europe watch in horror as their plead for mercy are ignored and Moscow is nuked back. Russia surrender and is annexed to China (at least the part East of the Ural). The rest of the Union is relieved that they haven't been nuked themselves and begin peaceful talks with the Asian power to be provided some kind of aid - a Plan Marshall, for Asia to later benefit from the Western Market. China is still very wary after the Russian Incident and the nuking of much of its northern cities, but as it is weakened, accept, in sign of good will - there is not the time nor the resources or the manpower to spend on a war with europe, when clearly the nuking was the feat of only the Russian Government.

Month 11 to Month 14 :

* Europe, Asia : after much heated debates in both sides' "Parliaments" and around the negotiation table, the Federal European Union and the Asiatic Alliance (China, India, Japan and their respective satellites countries) join their forces under the flag of the Eurasian Union.
* Africa, Middle-East : The Eurasian Union launch the Re-Colonization, with the goal to create an integrated, peaceful and stable Union going from the Atlantic to the Pacific to South-Africa - The Old-World's Union, or the Great Union, as some already call it. Every male aged over 16 is trained to hold a rifle and to follow orders, every male over 21 and under 40 who isn't needed anywhere else is conscripted into the Federal Army and dispatched all around the Union to maintain Peace, Order, and Good Government.
The long Unification Campaign begin.
* America : 300 of the 400 remaining million people in America are now in the remnants of the United States. With the aid of the Eurasian Union, and the motivation offered by the "loss" to US interests of the Middle East and Africa, the American Union switch to renewable power sources (thermal solar, wind, etc...) and begin the electrification of its major transcontinental railroads. Is also launched the project of a giant transcontinental high speed railroad : Los Angeles - Mexico City - Panama - Caracas - Cayenne - Belem - Recife - Rio de Janeiro - Sao Paulo - Buenos Aires.
Because of its high oil output, superior to its internal demand, the American Union quickly re-industrialize, and in the purest American "Can Do !" tradition, launch several Big Projects to free its agriculture and transportation infrastructure from its dependency on petroleum-derived products.

First to Fifth Year :

* America : The situation is beginning to stabilize, and in the fourth year after the Rapture the food rations for one day are now 3 time superior to what you would need to live.
The steel coming from the Blast Furnaces is used to create an extensive railroad network, planned to be almost fully electrified and to reach every corner of the American Union.
The Continental Electrical Grid is standardized, and Long Distance / High Voltage lines are being erected to links all parts of the Union.
Cuba invaded. Island found almost empty.
* Great Union : 7% of the population is now serving either in the Federal Army or in the various local "police" forces. Population now extremely mixed. More than 200 officially recognized language in the Parliament. A special commission is created with the goal of creating a usable form of "Esperanto" (quickly learned and "modular" [neologism friendly] language) and to design the means to spread and promote its usage by the population.

Sixth to Fifteenth year :

* Year 6 : The American Union and the Eurasian Union decide to join to form a World Government
* Year 14 : Global standard of living goes up near Pre-Rapture Europe level as peace, order and good government is now enforced worldwide.
Nobody suffer of hunger anymore.
Global Healthcare and Social Security instituted.
World population reduced to less than 3.5 billion people. Demography controlled to make this number fall under 2.5 by Year 100 After The Rapture (ATR), and around 1.5 billion (On Earth) by year 200 ATR.
Second Green Revolution : China offer to the World several rice variety that doesn't need fertilizer to grow.
Robotic to be greatly developed to counter-act the decline in population.
* Year 15 : More than 80% of the world's population is now able to communicate in New Esperanto, a language designed to allow an easy communication between people coming from different culture, different backgrounds.

[hongi]

* Asia : China and Japan conjointly seize the Eastern Siberia's resources. Russia demand reparation - the rest of the Union tell her to shut the fuck up and to concentrate on its European side. Russia resent this "double-backstabbing" - from its Asian neighbors and from its allies. A part of the Russian part of the Federal Army retaliate in anger and launch around one hundred nuclear warheads on Chinese soil. The rest of Europe watch in horror as their plead for mercy are ignored and Moscow is nuked back. Russia surrender and is annexed to China (at least the part East of the Ural). The rest of the Union is relieved that they haven't been nuked themselves and begin peaceful talks with the Asian power to be provided some kind of aid - a Plan Marshall, for Asia to later benefit from the Western Market. China is still very wary after the Russian Incident and the nuking of much of its northern cities, but as it is weakened, accept, in sign of good will - there is not the time nor the resources or the manpower to spend on a war with europe, when clearly the nuking was the feat of only the Russian Government.

Why wouldn't Russia nuke China to the ground in retaliation?

Also, disappointed you stopped there. Rapture -> World government -> Antichrist becomes ruler of the world -> Jeebus comes back. I'd like to see raptured believers fitted out in angelic biomecha spitting out holy vengeance.

[FTeik]

Wait a moment, isn't everybody who isn't taken away to heaven supposed to die at rapture-time? So that there is no surviving at all?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Wait a moment, isn't everybody who isn't taken away to heaven supposed to die at rapture-time? So that there is no surviving at all?

No...

Because this isn't "Really" the Bible Rapture. This is more "Everyone who BELIEVES in the Rapture is removed from Earth.
Earth goes on the same way it always does, no plagues, no antichrist, no "End TImes"

I will say Rabid's break down is very interesting, rather surprised at how much effort went into that and find myself agree to much of it.
The one thing I would say is I really can't see, after all this time, China OR RUssia using Nukes, even in a situation like this,

[Rabid]

Why wouldn't Russia nuke China to the ground in retaliation?

Because even before the nuking (which was launched by Russian Nationalist who mutined from the regular army - think a schism in the Army, like between Republican and Nationalist Spain during the Spanish Civil War), Russia had lost more than 60% of its population, and after the nuking it lost its major urban center, which held 20% of the remaining Russian population, and almost all its scientific, technical and industrial infrastructure : the country already ceased to exist. There was no point in continuing the slaughter. Plus, civilian reaction, morale dropping to 0%, author fiat, things like that...

Also, disappointed you stopped there. Rapture -> World government -> Antichrist becomes ruler of the world -> Jeebus comes back. I'd like to see raptured believers fitted out in angelic biomecha spitting out holy vengeance.

Well, that's a potential idea for a short fic. Maybe someday...

The one thing I would say is I really can't see, after all this time, China OR RUssia using Nukes, even in a situation like this,

Me neither, but there is nothing like counting the casualties of a military operation in megadeath to spice up an otherwise boring story. At least that's what I learned from reading The Big One.

[FaxModem1]

I thought the whole 'Rapture' thing was supposed to take all children under the age of 12, that's including fetuses in pregnant women. Yes, that means a lot of pregnant women will suddenly feel the effects of having quite a few pounds on them disappear and die.

[Rabid]

Ghetto edit :

And I just noticed I forgot to touch the subject of North Korea, here...

Well, I think it would be left there to rot, until it began another phase of murderous trolling ; at which point an army of more than 10 million well-fed and well equipped soldiers would fall on them from their North AND their South border.



Concerning the rapture... Wikipedia seems to say that it is destined "to all christians", whatever that mean.

Concerning the fate of the muslims. It seems, from what I understand, that they have their own version of the End of Time.

[Jawawithagun]

There seems to be some confusion here as to who will be taken. There are quite a few versions of what the "End of Days" will consist of. And the Second Coming does not equal the Last Judgment does not equal the Yawm al-Qiyāmah does not equal the Rapture.

The OP doesn't make it any easier, switching from saying anybody believing in some kind of End Times will be taken to saying specifically those believing in the "Rapture" version will leave us.

It gives quite a wide variety of scenarios.

As to Simon_jester's question to me, why no Mexican Catholics? Because they don't believe in the Rapture, their version of the Last Judgment is distinctly different from it and so they will not be covered by it, as I interpreted the OP's question.

[fgalkin]

Okay, here's the deal. The bit about Christians rising up in the air to meet their Lord is in the Bible, but it is never really specified when and how it will come to pass. The current brand of "fly up to meet Jeebus, then the Antichrist comes" (also known as dispensationalist premillenialism) only originated in the early 20th century with the Scofield Reference Bible, and is limited to "fundies" residing in the US. Being sane and not believing in the literal bible, most Christian denominations, including Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc are amillenialists and won't get raptured.

Wikipedia has a handy reference chart:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _views.svg

US fundies are number two. You can see how retarded their version is, even when compared to other Christians.

So, in other words, the US and South Korea lose a chunk of the population and suffer a long depression. The rest of the world is not affected directly, but there will be mass religious hysteria with all sorts of unpredictable consequences.


Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Simon_Jester]

Wait a moment, isn't everybody who isn't taken away to heaven supposed to die at rapture-time? So that there is no surviving at all?

No...
Because this isn't "Really" the Bible Rapture. This is more "Everyone who BELIEVES in the Rapture is removed from Earth.
Earth goes on the same way it always does, no plagues, no antichrist, no "End TImes"
I will say Rabid's break down is very interesting, rather surprised at how much effort went into that and find myself agree to much of it.
The one thing I would say is I really can't see, after all this time, China OR RUssia using Nukes, even in a situation like this,

But to nail this down- is it "everyone who believes in the "everyone who believes in the Rapture goes soaring up into the air to meet Jesus, then the Apocalypse happens" gets Raptured?"

Or does every person on Earth who believes, however lightly, in a Christian version of the End Times get Raptured?

Or something in between?

It makes a huge difference, Crossroads.

[fgalkin]

The Rapture is not really a part of the Biblical End Times. As I've pointed out, it's a 20th century invention.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Crossroads Inc.]

But to nail this down- is it "everyone who believes in the "everyone who believes in the Rapture goes soaring up into the air to meet Jesus, then the Apocalypse happens" gets Raptured?"

Or does every person on Earth who believes, however lightly, in a Christian version of the End Times get Raptured?

Or something in between?

It makes a huge difference, Crossroads.

Its more number one and what fgalkin said.
Its all the people who really REALLY believe in the 'fundi' version of the Rapture. Thats why I initially titled it "America" instead of "the world" because I figured only America would really be changed that much by this. Hope that helps

[Darth Tedious]

But is it Rapture believers who get taken up, or only those who actually follow God's word to the letter? If it's the latter, there's a chance almost nobody will even notice that it happened, with only one or two people disappearing...

[Coyote]

There is no Rapture mentality to Judaism and Islam, so again, they'd only get vacuumed up if it was "all Believers" (a wide net to cast). But if it is only "those who believe in the Rapture, will get Raptured", then the vast majority of Jews and Muslims are out.

Judaism does have a belief that "someday" a Messiah will come and bring peace and justice to the world, but we actually don't fixate on it like the Christian groups do. It will happen, and when it does, we roll with it, and that's that. According to popular belief among the more orthodox, it won't even be a issue for another 2 or 3 hundred years. So I don't know if that would count as a "Rapture belief" since it is nothing like the Christian version as described by the wild-eyed ones.

The Muslims have a belief that God/Allah will finally reach the limit of his patience with humanity at some point, and there will be a cleansing war of some sort with angels coming to fight, and Jesus will be a man in armor who smashes all crosses (actually sounds kinda like Norse Ragnarok, really) but again, I don't know how much they fixate on it or how much it coincides with the Evangelical version from Revelations.

[Big Phil]

Survive? It'll be a fucking win for society if all the fundies suddenly vanish.

Think before you type. A quick Google search indicates that somewhere between 30 - 60% of Americans believe that there will be a Rapture, and about half of them believe that the Bible can be taken to be literal truth. Furthermore, over 75% of Americans self-identify as Christians; though that doesn't give any indication of devoutness. If we assume that the same percentage of American adults who keep voting for people like Dubya are devout Christians who'd be raptured up to Republican Heaven, that gives you about 25% of the overall population as an upper limit.

Losing 25% of the population in one go would likely destroy the economy. Yes, that percentage will not be evenly distributed. Fewer scientists would be raptured; but more engineers, and quite a few factory workers would be among those to go. You'd suffer heavy losses in the agricultural and service sectors of the economy, and the government and military would be expected to have higher-than-average losses. You'd almost certainly have a breakdown in order and massive food riots. Markets would implode and banks would almost certainly have to take a holiday as millions of debtors, account holders, business owners, and even bankers, vanish overnight.

Survive? Sure, America and the world would survive. But it'd be surviving in the sense that civilization would survive, say, an equally calamitous disease pandemic.

Your numbers are a little skewed:

It's really only fundamentalists who believe in a literal rapture, which amounts to less than 10% of the US population. The only way you're going to get large numbers of people raptured is if you assume that anyone who is even vaguely Christian gets raptured, in which case you might get up to 50% of the US population... but that's including Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, etc., most of whom don't believe the same crazy shit as fundamentalists (although some believe other crazy shit).