Rapture Ready (www.raptureready.com) is a gigantic site about everything to do with the supposed "rapture": the Protestant idea that Christians (i.e. born again Protestants) will be taken up to heaven, body and soul,  in an instant, without warning and without anyone else knowing what is going on.  Meanwhile everyone else will be left on Earth to suffer great tribulation.  It's a big deal among North American Protestants, and there are hundreds of sites dedicated to trying to prove this doctrine using very complicated but unsound scriptural exegesis.  Of course,  the Catholic doctrine is that at the end of time Christ will come in a very obvious way and everybody will be judged at the same time.

Anyway, the highlights of Rapture Ready include:

The Rapture Index

The author of the site explains it like this: "You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture." As of July 22nd, the Index was at 173 (at such a high level of speed, you are instructed to "fasten your seatbelt"). There are forty five factors which are monitored daily and given a rating.  These include: Russian involvement on the world stage, the price of oil, ecumenism (the Pope talking to the Orthodox is a clear sign of the end), and the Peace Process (if the Israeli's stop fighting the Palestinians, this is a bad thing).  Of course, the Index doesn't claim to know the exact date of the Second Coming (as other sites do) because the Bible says that we can't know.  However, those writing the Index clearly want to know the date and are anxious about it, and that is a problem.  It does not benefit us to know the day and the hour of the final judgement and I think that spending much of our time speculating about leads us to forget our own personal judgement, which could happen when you are unexpectedly hit by a rhinoceros on the way to work tomorrow.

The Mr. Antichrist Evil Pageant

This collection of candidates for the position of antichrist can be found in the "Photorama" section.  Although it's authour may not intend for it to be taken fully seriously its existence remains far from justified.  The candidates for antichrist are as follows: Bill Gates, Muammar Qaddaffi, Mikhail Gorbachov, King Juan Carlos, Kofi Annan, Prince Charles, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Uday Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Tony Blair. To cut them some slack, Tony Blair is considered a "light weight contender", but that somehow doesn't make it any less ridiculous.  Lesson of the day: don't become a public figure or some Protestant somewhere will accuse you of being the antichrist.

Mansions in Heaven

"The Bible says each believer will be rewarded according to what good deeds he performs here on earth. I thought I'd speculated on what type of abode many Christians might find when they walked up to their heavenly mansion."

I was previously unaware of this particular biblical teaching, but thanks again to the "Photorama" section of Rapture Ready we can all find out what our houses are going to look like.  Will you be in the colonial mansion, the trailer, or the outhouse?  I am heartened to find out that in heaven we will all be living out the American dream.