Should Fundamentalists Be Denied Drivers Licenses?

[Polycarp]

@bouv

There is a very fundamental flaw with your logic. As I understand it, not only do the True Believers get called to Heaven during The Rapture, but doesn’t every one else go down to Hell? There wouldn’t be anyone left to get hurt from these cars with people missing, so what’s the point?

That depends on whether you’re a pretribulationist, a posttribulationist, a midtribulationist, or a modified or full preterist. According to the classic historical Christian eschatological formulation, people go to Heaven or Hell at the time of the Last Judgment, after various elements of angel-devil warfare and disasters over the Earth (see Revelation for details). But according to the belief first espoused by Darby and promoted by Jenkins and LaHaye in their popular novel series, Jesus shows up first, before all the warfare and catastrophes, does not descend to Earth, but rather calls to Himself all the True Believers, everyone else getting to live through seven years of general mayhem (and presumably having opportunity to repent and get counted as a Good Guy at the Last Judgment).

So the result according to their scheme is that the True Believers get caught up unexpectedly and sent to their Heavenly reward, while the rest of us get to schlep through the Great Tribulation.

Ergo, the “In case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned” bumper stickers and the cutesy messages like “If you’re Raptured, can I have your car?”

[furt]

@acsenray

I’m no expert on this matter, but since no one else has mentioned it yet – No, I don’t think everyone else automatically goes to hell. First you have a period of time during which the Antichrist rules the world. Then Jesus comes back and, if I recall correctly, collects those people who have changed their minds about not believing in him. Something like that.

I think this is the basis for those “Left Behind” novels.

Correct. The term for this period if time is The Tribulation. Many believers think that the Church would go through the end-times crap like everyone else, but most fundamentalists are “Pre-Trib” i.e. Rapture, followed by 7 year Tribulation followed by Second Coming. Some liken it to a sort of Eschatalogical White Flight.

[Acsenray]

@furt

Some liken it to a sort of Eschatalogical White Flight.

Heh!

[Polycarp]

@furt

Correct. The term for this period if time is The Tribulation. Many believers think that the Church would go through the end-times crap like everyone else, but most fundamentalists are “Pre-Trib” i.e. Rapture, followed by 7 year Tribulation followed by Second Coming. Some liken it to a sort of Eschatalogical White Flight.

Do you have any quantifiers for this, by any chance? Results of surveys, or some such? I was seeing a lot of argument on the subject on Christian Forums – since eschatology is about as interesting to me as scatology, I didn’t pay it a lot of heed, but I was seeing strong arguments between all the groups I enumerated in the first sentence of my post, so I’d be curious as to whether your assertions (which I do tend to agree with) are borne out by statistics or merely your (and my) strong impressions regarding fundamentalist beliefs.

[CynicalGabe]

What about people with heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure (subject to strokes)? Would you ban them from driving as well?

Those prone to strokes are banned in CA i believe. I had a coworker who lost his license after a small stroke (while driving).

[Yeticus_Rex]

Since the rapture is a one-time event, I’ll lump it in with those who will suffer from first-time heart attacks, first-time seizures, first-time stroke, first-time falling asleep at the wheel, first-time DUI pass-outs, first-time <fill-in-the-blank>…In other words, you might as well ban all of us, or none of us. It’s more likely that the later will happen to all of us rather than the rapture in anyone’s lifetime. Just ask all the fundies who died before them what they died from? Oh, that’s right, you can’t. :rolleyes:

[DanBlather]

@Bricker

In my state, that’s not true.

Nor does it appear to be true in yours.

According to the Epilepsy Foundation, Oregon merely requires that a person with epilepsy be seizure-free for six months, and submit a statement from a physician that the driver is medically qualified to drive.A person who experiences strictly nocturnal seizures or seizures preceded by prolonged auras may not require driving restrictions, depending on the individual’s history.

OK then, if you stop believing in The Rapture for 6 months in a row I guess it would be OK to get a license.

[JohnClay]

In reply to the first post, fundies might believe that more souls might get saved if they’re allowed to use cars (due to them being able to preach more) then souls lost due to car crashes during the rapture.

[Snooooopy]

@DanBlather

Now The Rapture may or may not be true, but by Pascal’s wager shouldn’t we at least ban those that believe in it from driving or operating nuclear power plants, etc.?

That would not be fair to Homer Simpson.

[DrDeth]

By the OP’s reasoning- everyone should be denied a driver’s license, as any of us could die at any time. The chance of the OP dying of some- unknown to him- malady suddenly is thousands of times greater than the car in from of his being suddenly unmanned by “the Rapture”. :rolleyes:

[duffer]

@BobLibDem

I should think if the fundamentalists are right and the rapture comes and all the heaven-bound are whisked away, driverless vehicles are going to be rather low on the list of concerns for those left behind.

Argh! Beat me to the point I was going to make.

[duffer]

@jk1245

I would be very interested to see how many rapture believing fundies under the age of 50 have 401k plans.

Considering there is no announced date for it to happen, I wonder why you’d be concerned about the 401(k)'s of believers of a Raptu… Hey, wait a minute! What have you heard?!? :dubious:

[Twin]

As long as we’re taking bumper stickers literally, I’d like to see all cars with the bumper sticker “Horn Broken, Watch for Finger” fail their yearly inspection due to an inoperative horn.

[Bricker]

@DanBlather

OK then, if you stop believing in The Rapture for 6 months in a row I guess it would be OK to get a license.

You’re conflating several arguments and results with this comment.

Zev’s original observation was:

Would you also bar people with heart conditions, diabetes or epilepsy from driving? Even those who believe in the Rapture will gladly concede that the chances of becoming incapacitated by these conditions are much greater than any chance that someone might be injured by the Rapture and a car accident.

You attempted to distinguish his examples from your own by claiming that epileptics were forbidden from driving.

Now that you know this isn’t so, you cannot analogize the six-months-seizure-free with six months of “not believing in the Rapture,” since having seizures and believing in the rapture are not analogous. Instead, you must address why Rapture believers should be barred from driving when other, much more likely events (heart problems, diabetes, and epilepsy) could aslo cause a vehicle operator to suddenly lose control. In other words, even in the estimation of a Rapture believer, it’s much more statistically likely that an epileptic who has been seizure-free for six months to have a seizure while driving than for the Rapture to occur.

Under those circumstances, since we don’t forbid epileptics from driving, we shouldn’t forbid those who would be taken up by the Rapture to drive.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@DanBlather

Some fraction of fundamentalists believe in The Rapture when true believers will be called into heaven. Of course, if you are driving a vehicle at the time you will be putting a lot of people at risk. Now The Rapture may or may not be true, but by Pascal’s wager shouldn’t we at least ban those that believe in it from driving or operating nuclear power plants, etc.?

Considering the fact that there’s nothing in the bible to suggest that your salvation depends on your belief in the imminent rapture, the selection criteria you suggest may not be sufficient.

Let me add that from a public safety point of view, that if you are the victim of an accident caused by a raptured driver, the results of that accident are going to be the least of your worries. If you suscribe to Pascal’s wager, think about that.

[The_Asbestos_Mango]

Hmmm…

OK, yes, people do have heart attacks, strokes, epileptic seizures, narcoleptic episodes, etc. while driving, even though the statistical likelihood of any particular individual having such an occurrance while behind the wheel is fairly small.

But, we don’t have incidents where drivers with heart conditions, epilepsy, etc., are having their medical malfunctins en masse. These seem to be fairly uncommon happenings, uncommon enough that the majority of people who suffer these condidtions seem to be deemed safe drivers.

In the case of the Rapture, assuming the Fund’ist interpretation is true, massive numbers of people will suddenly disappear from the face of the earth simultaneously. Many of these people will, in all likelihood, be behind the wheels of their cars when this happens.

So, let’s say that the Rapture occurs during morning or afternoon rush hour, or on a holiday weekend when there are more than the usual number of drivers on the road. Now you have a situation in which suddenly dozens, if not hundreds, of moving vehicles will become unmanned, all at the same time, on the Dan Ryan Expressway, the Jersey Turnpike, or, Heaven help us, the Spaghetti Bowl. This is a situation which would very likely cause numerous multi-vehicle collisions, again, occurring more or less simultaneously.

Since the ability of emergency response personnel to, well, respond, for reasons a moment’s thought will make obvious, in a situation like this, the carnage would be unbelievable.

Given the fact that most Rapture-believing Fund’ists also believe that after the Rapture, those who are Left Behind will still have an opportunity to “get saved” during the ensuing Tribulation, and that, by their own definition, anyone killed in Rapture-induced car wrecks will go directly to Hell, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, then I think that they should feel a moral, if not a legal, obligation to refrain from driving, in order to minimize the amount of eternal damnation that would result from these accidents.

[Bricker]

Not being too hip myself on the mechanics of this thing…

Are the people that are Left Behind ultimately out of the running as far as salvation goes? Do they just live and ultimately die? What’s the deal?

[Padeye]

I can’t top the eloquence of zev_steinhardt’s reply so I’ll just quote an old Doonesbury cartoon. Lacy Davenport was telling her black housekeeper that teh glory days of Harlem would come back. Her reply was “so will Jesus but I’m not waiting up nights.”

[Illinois_Boy]

@The Asbestos Mango

Given the fact that most Rapture-believing Fund’ists also believe that after the Rapture, those who are Left Behind will still have an opportunity to “get saved” during the ensuing Tribulation, and that, by their own definition, anyone killed in Rapture-induced car wrecks will go directly to Hell, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, then I think that they should feel a moral, if not a legal, obligation to refrain from driving, in order to minimize the amount of eternal damnation that would result from these accidents.

Ahh, but the OP specifically asked whether Rapture Believers should be denied driver’s licenses. And my answer to that is ‘no’ because of … (wait for it)… the seperation of Church and State. The DMV / Secretary of State (or whomever) should not be allowed to discriminate based on religious belief or preference.

Further, I don’t think Rapture Believers (isn’t there a nifty nickname for these folks?) would feel a moral obligation to not drive. Firstly, IIRC, the Bible is fairly clear that no one, not even Jesus, knows the Hour of Judgement, so to *not * drive because you’re expecting the Rapture could seem a little presumptuous. More importantly, the Rapture/Tribulation and all it’s ill effects (war, death, suffering, more reality TV) are part of God’s Infinitely Wise Plan, so we believers have no business trying to lessen or mitigate the impact of The Event. In fact, if there was a way to simultaneously drive two or more cars, that might make the Tribulation even more Tribulicious!

[Yllaria]

I’d be happy to sell a device that will slowly apply the brake and shut off the engine in the event of a weight sensor discovering no fanny in the driver’s seat. Do you think there would be a big enough market of concerned whenever-tribulationists?

The most important thing, of course, would be getting the right name for the device. Any suggestions?