(Hugh Kramer, examiner.com) While Christian media tycoon Harold Camping is prophesying worldwide devastation and the bodily lifting into heaven of true believers for May 21, the group "American Atheists" is prophesying something quite different: a good time.
Here's the blurb from the biggest party AA is sponsoring; the two day (May 21-22) West Coast Rapture Ram in Oakland, CA:
We'll be there organized and ready to pick up theclutter left behind when the Christian Rapture begins that Saturday, as promised by "God" Himself at wecanknow.com. Since God has chosen to reveal this vital fact to his prophet in Oakland, we thought Oakland would provide the best venue fo an intimate view of the event. More
Eels "Lucky Day in H*ll"
According to FamilyRadio.com, only 3 percent of the world's population will be "raptured" on Saturday, about 6:00 pm. Although (.03 x 6.5B = not good odds), it may be our lucky day in h*ll.
(Patt Morrison) Not God, but recognizably holy, oftentimes a martyr, and always a miracle worker, how does one become a saint? The earliest form of the canonization process was more or less a popularity contest. But over the centuries, it became more stringent.
[Then it became much less stringent with the closing of the Vatican's Office of the Devil's Advocate," which used to vet claims of sanctity and miracles.]
Sometime after the year 400, bishops decided who would be declared a saint. This went on until around the year 1100, when a priest got into a bar fight in Scandinavia and was killed. When his bishop friends began to revere him as a saint, the pope reserved the saint-making process for himself. It’s been in the hands of Rome ever since.
Today, the process is a complex affair involving formal [but no so stringent] investigations and witness testimonies, of sometimes up to 1,000 pages. In addition to the Virgin Mary and St. Patrick, there are as many as 40,000 Catholic saints [which to many simply means one got into heaven[. Now some southlanders are petitioning to canonize a local Basque Claretian Missionary priest buried at the San Gabriel Mission [in Los Angeles' east valley].
Patt Morrison gets the latest on the story of Father Aloysius Ellacuria and a brief history of sainthood.
