# Thanos and the Rapture **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [December 4, 2024, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144 "2024-12-04T04:30:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/21 "2024-12-04T21:29:43Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > The OP is discussing Evangelical Christians and the Rapture. Evangelicals don’t baptize babies, Catholics do. Evangelicals wait until children are about 10-12. Fair enough, I was trying to generalize to Christians in general (which is already a hugely divergent group), not just various evangelicals, because, IMHO (!) it’s hard to characterize what evangelicals will or will not do since it covers a crazy wide group from out and out cults to more-or-less confederations of loosely affiliated churches which later fracture into schisms again! I still stand by the statement that for the _more organized_ sects that they’d still be arguing 5 years later! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/22 "2024-12-04T21:47:41Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > People live on planets. And planets move like airplanes. If all those living creatures reappeared at the same spot they had disappeared at five years earlier, they would be in outer space. There’s no such thing as an absolute frame of reference; if people appeared in the same place as they disappeared (and if the earth had moved), this would establish one. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/23 "2024-12-04T21:51:03Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > the combined reality-altering power of the stones is essentially sentient enough to understand your intent In this particular case I think it’s that the stones quite literally give you a moment of true omnipotence and omniscience. Nobody phases into walls or pops into outer space unless you want them to. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/24 "2024-12-04T23:29:23Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > when Thor makes his first appearance in that film, Maria Hill tells Captain America, “they’re basically gods.” Well, that was Natasha, IIRC, but the scale is wildly different. I think most people would accept aliens after Loki/NY, Thor/London and the Sokovia accords. Captain America, Iron Man and Hulk are human, but are still steps into a larger world. But those were relatively local events, only really sucks if you were under them. I’d imagine a minority of hardcore religious types pretzeling their way out of cognitive bias and being treated like we treat flat earthers. But half the world’s population, evenly distributed and the societal collapse that would follow (and I predict would be much worse than in the movie)? People will grasp at anything to give it meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/25 "2024-12-04T23:35:19Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > But half the world’s population, evenly distributed and the societal collapse that would follow (and I predict would be much worse than in the movie)? Yeah, there’s no way that the Snap could have killed anything less than about 95% of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/26 "2024-12-04T23:39:33Z")
Hmm, I’m now imagining a dark television series where each episode covers a different religious extremist. A Thanos cargo cult, a suicide-to-join-your-loved-ones cult, a genocide against the enhanced. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/27 "2024-12-04T23:42:50Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > I think most people would accept aliens after Loki/NY, Thor/London and the Sokovia accords. Captain America, Iron Man and Hulk are human, but are still steps into a larger world. But those were relatively local events, only really sucks if you were under them. I’d imagine a minority of hardcore religious types pretzeling their way out of cognitive bias and being treated like we treat flat earthers. One thing I feel like the MCU is missing is that, aside from the occasional metahuman fight in the middle of a major city, the world still looks and feels exactly like our own. You’d think a timeline where Hitler was overthrown in 1942 by a cabal of guys with laser guns working for an evil mutant with a skull for a face and WWII was won when a popular Hollywood actor turned elite commando who wore his movie character’s costume into battle stopped him from nuking NYC would have evolved a little differently than our own. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/28 "2024-12-04T23:57:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > must have been a lot of Evangelical Christians who would have seen this as the Rapture. Oh my god, WHY did I never think of that? The biggest comic book fan I know is our minister. He would’ve bust a gut at a scene of some uptight Fundy CHurch Lady yelling “Hey, why is that asshole being raptured and I’m still here?” ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/29 "2024-12-05T00:00:28Z")
> [@digs](#): > > The biggest comic book fan I know is our minister. > He would’ve bust a gut at a scene of some uptight Fundy CHurch Lady yelling “Hey, why is that asshole being raptured and I’m still here?” Family Guy did it years ago. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZjYRZC6nbXw/maxresdefault.jpg "Family Guy- Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell after the Rapture") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjYRZC6nbXw) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/30 "2024-12-05T00:14:26Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > One thing I feel like the MCU is missing is that, aside from the occasional metahuman fight in the middle of a major city, the world still looks and feels exactly like our own. One of the general conceits of Marvel (and DC) comic books is that, even with superpowered beings, aliens, intelligent robots, mutants, gods, etc., running around, their “Earth” and its history, aren’t radically different from ours. I suspect that’s intentional, both for ease of storytelling, as well as making the stories feel more relatable to the readers. OTOH, I think it’s not uncommon for other superhero comics and related media to lean more heavily into the “alternative history” end of things. In the original _Watchmen_ comic series, for example, the emergence of superheroes in 1938 definitely changed history from that point forward: the U.S. won the Vietnam War in their reality, and Richard Nixon was still president in 1985 (term limits for the presidency having been repealed, and the Watergate scandal never occurring. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/31 "2024-12-05T00:21:20Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > One of the general conceits of Marvel (and DC) comic books is that, even with superpowered beings, aliens, intelligent robots, mutants, gods, etc., running around, their “Earth” and its history, aren’t radically different from ours. I suspect that’s intentional, both for ease of storytelling, as well as making the stories feel more relatable to the readers. Yeah, I suppose that’s a conceit of a lot of sci-fi set in the present day. I’ve lost track of how many times first contact has occurred in Doctor Who - it seems like every time an alien invasion happens everyone on Earth has forgotten that they’ve already fought off the Daleks like thirty times. AFAICT, the one major deviation from our timeline in the MCU is that covid doesn’t seem to have happened, or if it did it was a much smaller issue than it became in real life. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144/32 "2024-12-05T13:36:48Z")
Maybe half the viruses got snapped and the remaining weren’t enough to cause a pandemic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanos-and-the-rapture/1011144.md?page=1)