Do Buddhists Go to Heaven?

Can Buddhists Rapture Up...Inquiring minds want to know? Or must we wait outside the pearlie gates until it's time for us to emigrate back to earth, or whatever the planet-plane-existence will be called when we get back.

I'm only asking because tomorrow, Friday October 21st, is supposed to be REAL Rapture combined with the REAL end of the world as we know it (can never think of EOTW unless I sing that damn song, then it rumbles through my brain for days and days and days afterward).

Reverend Harold Camping, the man with the plan, says Rapture Day back in May was a practice run for the REAL thing, which is happening tomorrow. Tomorrow we get two birds for one stone...snatched up to heaven in plenty of time to watch the sinners die on earth, along with the earth of course.

Which leads me to another question-if the world ends tomorrow, will there be anything for us Buddhists to come back to, assuming we have not finished our spiritual work and therefore need to come back in the first place? Just Askin'.

Decisions, decisions...

Rev says he is going to wait it out at home, which is understandable since back in June he suffered a stroke after he didn't get pulled up to heaven by Jesus in May (of course that very short evangelical hair style that he wears, may have had something to do with it). Maybe he should have grown dreds like a Rastafarian so Jesus could have gotten a better grip (that's why they grow em, ya know).

The fact that he's still here with the rest of us nearly took him out of here. But he says, he is recovering slowly and it will take a long time to get better...but why should he care, if his prediction is finally correct...he will be trading in his old worn out body for a new one, complete with snazzy new pair of wings, right?

Old Harold is hedging his bets this time, since Jesus surprised him in May by not pulling him up, Camping says salvation and destruction will “probably” happen like he predicts.

Probably!? Oh man, c'mon! You really talking to god? Who is that voice inside your head, for real?

Anyway, I'm packin' my fave duffel bag, laptop and camera just in case...I've been growing my hair lately, so no “grip” issues for the SOG... and if I am raptured I will have my pick of spots in the pearlie gates waiting room by being first in line...otherwise...I'll just go visit my sister in South Carolina... shucks...guess I better pack my golf clubs, too.

Just in case...

The Poxy-clipse, Harold Camping and the Canonization of Oprah

Good thing I didn't cancel my gas and electric and HBO subscription, because now Harold Camping, the self proclaimed doomsday prophet says The Rapture isn't going to happen until October 21st, some five months from now.  Of course he came to this conclusion when it didn't happen as he predicted on May 21st, which was this past Saturday.

Camping didn't offer any new mathematical equations to back up his newest suppositions either.  Just stuck with the old erroneous ones. Personally, I'm thinking maybe Dude should take a remedial math course since his calculations have twice been shown  to be sadly lacking. He admitted his mistake back in 1994 when zombies didn't bust out of their graves and start walking again, but hasn't expressed anything other than bewilderment about his more recent algebraic attempts.

Maybe he should just admit what most of us know about ourselves...we hate math...we were lousy at it...and most of us haven't figured out why we need to learn algebra in the first place...let alone use it to figure out when Jesus is coming back.

All he has to do is turn on his microphone at the beginning of his next radio program and say, "Hello, I'm Harold and I suck at math!"  I'm sure his sheeple will forgive him again and start preparing for October.

Of course, Camping's attempt to tap into the machinations of the cosmic universe may have been obscured by his fixation on King James. Maybe what Camping really saw in his egotistical attempts to second guess god was the ending of the Oprah Winfrey Show instead.

 Maybe what old Harold saw when he looked into his crystal ball was not a David Bowie thin white guy with long flowing brown locks and blue eyes, wearing a pale Boy George frock snatching people up to heaven, but a well endowed, medium tall brown woman with flawless makeup, all her own hair, no extensions necessary, clad in designer togs from head to toe.

  Maybe he simply saw Oprah.

 Talk about fireworks and revelatory realignments, in between the finales of Dancing with the Stars, Glee and American Idol, the universe has literally come to a stand still as Miz O makes her transition from mega talk show host to network magnate. Maybe that's what he prognosticated.

You want to see Jesus in action...look at Oprah...she was primed from birth...look at the name of her network....OWN...the Oprah Winfrey Network....didn't even have to change her name to get to it...she had it from birth....everybody say "Amen!"

Now I've lived through other transitions in the past....Kookla Fran and Ollie... Howdy Doody....Bill Cosby...Hill Street Blues...Gunsmoke...Dark Shadows, but I have to tell you Oprah's transition makes me feel like I'm watching the making of a new saint, or even the death of one.

It feels like she is being measured for a constellation spelling out Harpo Productions to be hung up next to the Milky Way in the near future, for all to seek comfort from before going to bed at night.

She ain't going nowhere. She's changing hats within the same industry...getting more powerful and making more money. She will still be heard from. She will still be doing great things. It's a great opportunity for a party...but damn! You'd think the chile was dying from one of those incurable diseases that Dr. Oz likes to talk about when he's on.

So get over it...the world didn't end on Saturday....and it's not gonna end today either when Oprah says goodbye.

Her, leaving talk show heaven, is simply a signal that the rest of us should turn off the TV, go outside, smell the fresh air, and then go find our own lives because the daily peeks into hers are now over.

 Come to think of it, that will be an apocalypse for some people.

Preparing for A Raptured Lift Off

 Hey God, Is it too late to say I'm sorry?

Dear G,

You and I have been on a first name basis since my pastor told me to go read the bible after one too many questions that he couldn't or wouldn't answer. I was 11, but you already know that.  My grandmother gave me a bible later that year for my birthday, and in it you made it clear that if I wanted my questions answered all I had to do was to ask you. So I fired my Pastor and started reading and talking to you directly.

Well,  now I've got a big one...Some of your followers say The Rapture is coming on Saturday. That's the day when you start snatchin' people up to heaven, leaving the rest  to suffer and eventually go to hell on October 21st when you destroy earth.

By most common definitions that I've heard, I'm not one of those who will be snatched up by you, even if you can get a good grasp on my bald head.  I don't fit the general description of a rapturite. Ain't married. Don't have kids (don't even like em most of the time), and happen to be an avowed lover of women...I mean I luv me some women in every carnel sense of the word, okay.

 But you know that. You made me. I didn't know the word for it back in the day, but I knew what "it" was by the time I started kindergarten, when I fell in lust for the sixth grader who, my mother paid to walk me to school everyday.  I haven't looked back from that day. I've never even questioned the fact that you don't love me. I was told you do, and you have said  so repeatedly that you love all your creations.

So me and you are cool, right?

But by all standard man made definitions I'm doomed. After all this man's world is pretty clear about its definition of what is heavenly and what is not. Face it, I've never been tall, blond haired nor blue eyed. My people aren't Aryan..some of them are..but that angel apparently missed me... Well, that's my question to you, the boss of bosses....Am I going to hell? Am I going to be left here on Saturday to suffer for the next five months and then be obliterated by lightening bolt on October 21st?

Because if I am not on the Rapture list, I need to know if I should apologize to some people and maybe get on the pull up list, or at least get my ish together-settle a few scores, give away my stuff and all that happy horse pucky.

While you're checkin' your list and making up your mind, I'm going to start settlin' up,  clean up my slate, so to speak, okay?

Cool...I'd like to apologize for....

Giving my sister that Shirley Temple album of greatest hits for Christmas.

And for...

Cussing at my fire truck within hearing of my dad who was out of sight but close enough to take issue with my behind and my choice of adjectives..

Also for...

Helping to lock my other sister in the bathroom, causing her to break the big bathroom mirror as she tried to escape and lying to our mother that the mirror just fell off the back of the door..

Hanging my Huey P Newton poster on the wall  of my bedroom for the sole purpose of pissing off my dad and his white friends when  they came to the house for a sunday social....

Threatening to kill my younger sister if she lost my baseball glove...only to have our other sister steal the glove and bring it home without telling the one who borrowed it....kid wouldn't come home...we had to go find her...

Helping two friends steal 33 watermelons...we left them on the doorsteps of our neighbors like early christmas presents in September....

Walking thru my mother's Thursday card game...having one of her friends ask me "Jo-when you gonna get married?" and me saying "Oh-hasn't mom told you I'm gay yet?" My mother was totally mortified..I kept walking..

And I need to apologize to David my photog....
While driving through Kentucky doing some tornado chasing when I worked news...saw three abandoned black lab puppies on the side of the road...there were four by the time I made my photog turn around and go back...I took the puppies back to channel 12 but not before they barfed all over the news car...the smell was awful...Dave the photog didn't want to work with me anymore since car cleanliness was his responsibility...he cleaned it while I found homes for all the dogs ...

And I guess walking around naked on All Hallows may have been fun...but not what a traditionally raised gal should do..but did....I went to a Halloween party as a flasher...complete with funky hat...long red tie to cover strategic places...big overcoat and brogans...and nothing else on and it was cold that night...I  only flashed on request..

And to Arnold (pronounced Arn-no)...Driving to a friend's party in the south of France on a scooter...gave him a lift...he kept trying to grab my breasts as I drove..so I left his ass on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere...between villages....made him walk...he still refuses to speak to me even though we're on separate continents now..

Laughing at the three guys who actually proposed marriage to me...one because I couldn't handle having part of  my name as "Orange".....the second one because he was looking for a power couple business arrangement and proposed on our first date..it was a good date, excellent wine and a five star restaurant....I loved the repast..and the third because he was flat out crazy...Number 3 ended up in jail on a life sentence for killing the woman he did marry after me and her boyfriend after they divorced...saw it on TV...nobody told me about it when it happened...I was gone...I don't keep track of the broken hearts in my wake...

You know what G, on second thought,  this is going to be an helaciously long list...sooooooooo if you don't mind,  just surprise me come the weekend...

I'll be here...bet!

Forget the Mayan Calendar-The World Ends This Year

Okay, the picture is becoming clearer. The end of the world is not gonna happen on May 21st. It's gonna happen on October 21, 2011, later this year. So that gives you five more months to get yourself ready.

What is gonna happen on May 21st is The Rapture according to those in the know. The Rapture aka Judgment Day is when god reaches down and snatches the chosen folk up by their hair and takes them into heaven or into the clouds and out of harm's way in order to keep them from getting swallowed up when the world ends. Based on current hair trends, I would say Rastfarians have the edge, here.

So, if you think you're one of the chosen ones, then you might want to consider forgoing that Christian-Mormon-evangelical buzz cut and grow dreds, so god can get a good grip on your head when he starts snatching folks up to heaven.

It is also safe to say that if you don't get snatched up on May 21st, then you're not one of the chosen ones and are probably going to hell with the rest of us.

These dates have been carved in stone by one Harold Camping, an evangelical radio broadcaster, who claims he has figured out the celestial biblical calendar that governs all our lives and is spelled out in the Book of Genesis in the bible. Back in 1994 Camping said Jesus would come back and the rapture would happen, and the world would end, but he didn't and it didn't. Camping said at the time, on May 22nd, I would guess, that he made a mistake in his mathematical end of the world calculations.

He remains undeterred in his predictions, however. This time around he's put up billboards and has many of his followers driving RV's around the country proclaiming coming events.

What makes Camping think that judgment day is upon us this time around? Well, according to his biblical math, the year 2011 is exactly 7000 years after god flooded the world saving only Noah, his wife and three sons and their families as well as two animals from every species on earth. 2011 marks the end of the time that god has apparently given to man to get himself right with the lord, so to speak.

May 21st also corresponds, according to Camping to the day that god shut the door on Noah's ark, forcing everybody on the outside of the big boat to swim or tread water for 40 days and 40 nights. What is taking place on May 21st is a  symbolical door shutting on those who have not been chosen to ascend during The Rapture.

So, what's gonna happen between May 22nd and October 21st for those of us not chosen? Well, it ain't gonna be pretty. Those five months are going to be pure hell, so to speak. You can read about it in Revelation in more detail. But expect locusts with the power of scorpions to hunt down and kill the billions of people without god's seal of approval on their heads, which is everybody left over following The Rapture, according to Camping.

The dead are going to rise up (think Sean of the Dead), earthquakes will happen all over the world (think Japan), and those who died before May 21st and were saved will be resurrected and taken up with the raptured ones (think Easter Sunday). Those who died without being saved will stay dead and scattered all over.

Then, according to Camping's reading of the biblical calendar the final act on earth will be the great feast (Tabernacles) and when the feast is over, there will be a great fire that consumes the earth. The end.

Camping says our collective goose is cooked unless we get right in the next couple of weeks. However there is a slim possibility that you can save yourself like the good people of Nineveh saved by Jonah. God told the city he was going to destroy it, so the king and all his people shucked off their good clothes and started dressing in sack cloth and poured ashes on the floor from their fires and sat on the ashes and fasted and god had a change of heart and didn't destroy the city, that time.

Camping also says god never destroys the world until after he warns the people, so consider yourself warned.
Judgment Day is May 21, 2011

The world ends on October 21, 2011

Forget the Mayan Calendar...the world will be gone by the time the Mayan Calendar ends on December 21, 2012.


  

Forget the Nuke Meltdowns. Jesus is Coming on the 21st

The end of the world is less than two months away, give or take a few days, according to some preacher out in California. He's told his followers and everyone else who'll listen that the Son of God will once again walk the earth starting May 21, 2011. Shortly after that, he says, the fire and brimstone will fall from the sky.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

No need to prepare for the ending as predicted by the Mayan Calendar, which says the world will end on December 21, 2012. Now in full disclosure, the Calendar doesn't predict the end of the world. It just ends, period. Doesn't necessarily mean the world may end. Nobody knows for sure why the calendar stops at December 21, 2012. It just does and since there aren't any Mayans around, any explanations about the abrupt ending are coming from scientists, sky watchers, and the superstitiously deranged who keep track of this kind of stuff.

The guy out in California, meanwhile, is so sure of his prediction that he's put up billboards so that even the non believers will know the day of reckoning and be ready.

Of course, he's done this before. He's prepared at least four other times for Jesus' return. But I guess somebody forgot to tell Jesus. Or maybe JC just wasn't ready. Or maybe JC is a diva who loves keeping folks waiting breathlessly for his big entrance.

Don't know. But preach says JC is really, really coming this time. Really.

End days predictions have become a cottage industry since Barack Obama was elected president. The first Black man to occupy the White House has prompted comparisons to the anti christ and as a first sign that the end as talked about in Revelation is nigh. Some churches have seen their ranks swell as sometime Christians start planning for their future in heaven, like they're part of the chosen few who will actually be raptured and  see heaven.

Rapture occurs when the chosen few are snatched away into the afterlife, while the rest of the uncivilized fall into chaos and ruin down here on earth. Rapture people point to all the natural disasters and wars currently plaguing earth as a sign that end days are upon us.

Maybe it's time to grow dreads so JC can get a good hold, the better to snatch folks up to heaven.

Honestly, I can't wrap my head around the world ending suddenly...just like I can't imagine committing suicide, simply because there is no reason that I would deprive this world of me... Ya'll don't deserve that.

I can' t really conceive that one morning I'm gonna wake up and by noon the earth is going to be torn apart, taking all of humanity with it.

Until I'm dodging asteroids, earthquakes, radiation from a Japanese nuke meltdown,  or looking out my window and see  Jesus walking down Victory Parkway, I'm not going to believe it.

It's one of those things that will happen, when it happens...but not yet...I don't plan on worrying about it until it happens.

Besides, Christians have been predicting the end of the world since they became Christian. There are so many end of times signs and predictions, including one involving the current Pope Benedict. Ya'll better hope the Pope lives an extra long time and he's already really old, now.

What? You say...

St. Malachy, an Irish priest made some end of world predictions back in his day circa 1590. These prophecies are sometimes attributed to Nostradamous, and that Malachy was simply an alter ego of the great prognosticator. Gossips back in the day claimed "NO" passed this one off on Malachy because he didn't want to be blamed for bringing down the Catholic Church.

Whatever...

According to Malachy/NO...This one says there will be 112 Popes and then The Holy See (Catholic Church) will end. It reads like it's talking about Rome and the Catholic Church and not the rest of us, primarily because the rest of us didn't exist. In 1590 there wasn't much to the world at that time.

In fact, the world  was flat according to most...is still flat according to Sherri Shepard, despite the wayward Chris Columbus and the other ancient explorers.

My point is that according to St Malachy, the world is presently seeing it's 111th Pope, Benedict who will reign through the ultimate persecution of the Holy Church.

Benedict will then be followed by the last Pope, referred to as Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep through many tribulations, and when he's done, the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed and the fearsome Judge will Judge his people. The End.

Hmmmm....Cincinnati is built on seven hills, just like Rome...Maybe I should just leave Ohio.

Maybe JC is coming back to earth to be Oprah's last interview. She's set her last show date as May 25th. Maybe that's what California preach is reading in the signs.... not the end of the world.

Maybe it's the end of  the Oprah show as we know it....Don't know.

So, who are you going to believe....The California billboard preacher or St Malachy/Nostradamous?

Me, I'm going to do what I always do on a Sunday, which is what the day after May 21st is...I'm going to watch CBS This Morning with Charles Osgood...do some exercise...some meditation....walk my dogs and maybe pick up a hoe to work my garden.