It said “In Case of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmanned”.
Huh?
It’s a Christian bumper sticker. It indicates that when the Rapture (i.e. the second coming of Christ) comes, the driver of the automobile the sticker is on will be taken to Heaven, because he’s been such a good Christian. Presto, free car! 
How they already know now that they’ll pass the test, I do not know.
Then is rapture automatic if a woman is driving?
It’s religious? My word…I thought it was some security warning (like the guy had an ejector seat in case someone stole it…my imagination went wild).
Yeah, sounds like you got a wild imagination, all right!
(Disclaimer: I am not proselytizing, and IANATheologian.)
The occupants of said car are most likely born again premillenialist Christians (not all Christians believe the following), who believe that Jesus Christ died on a cross and was resurrected and they can accept him into their hearts in a personal relationship (i.e., “saved” or “born again”). In addition, they believe that Jesus Christ will again return to earth and instantly take all those who are born again in what is referred to as “the Rapture” into the air with him, leaving on earth those who are not born again.
Basically, the occupant of this car most likely believes they are born again and when the Rapture happens, they will go with Jesus Christ in the sky while their car remains on earth.
(Please let me know if there are any factual errors in this!)
My goodness, I always thought it was some sort of play on words that had to do with orgasm and emasculation. Learn somethin’ new every day.
It’s just another smug, annoying “born again Christian” saying basically, “When Jesus comes, I will be jerked out of this car leaving it in motion to crash into whatever non-born again morons are left behind, so there!” Or, to paraphrase Chevy Chase, “I’m saved…and you’re not!”
Just ignore them. :rolleyes:
Then you’ve seen the other sticker?
“Come the rapture, can I have your car?”
That’s what I thought too! Does that mean we’re going to hell?
you people who didn’t know what it meant… you are joking, right? (go ahead and whoosh me)
Um, no, OpalCat. Not everyone on this board lives in an area or country where people with such beliefs are common… 
I’d never heard of this bumper sticker until I started reading the SDMB.
No, they’re serious.
This bumper sticker is based on the same odd belief that the “Left Behind” series is based on: that, a few years before Christ’s for-real Second Coming, he’ll come partway down from Heaven, and the faithful will be levitated up from wherever they are, to meet him in the clouds.
This is what’s known as “The Rapture” in conservative Christian circles.
From there, Jesus supposedly will take them all back up to heaven, while a few more years of bad shit happens down here - including the reign of the Antichrist - before Christ comes back for real.
Personally, I’d like to see what would happen if all those who believe in the Rapture, were to be Raptured. It might just usher in the Millennium, down here.
My wife asked me about this bumper sticker a while back, knowing that I come from a large family of Fundies. (There’s a reason why I’m on this end of the country and they’re on t’other.) So I explained ‘The Rapture’ to her, ending with “so now you know what that means”, meaning the bumper sticker.
She thought about it for a couple of seconds, and said: “Yeah. We get all their stuff!”
True story.
I should mention that there is some Scriptural basis for “The Rapture”; it isn’t made up out of whole cloth. For instance, Matthew 24:
Or 1 Corinthians 15:
And the Book of Revelation is one Scriptural reference concerning the intervening bad times between the Rapture and the Second Coming.
Most Christians, including many conservative Christians, don’t believe in the Rapture, or in a literal time of tribulation as laid out in Revelation. But those who do are basing their belief on something.
I thought that the concept of the rapture was about as common knowledge as stuff like “the egyptians built the pyramids” and other stuff.
Egyptians built the pyramids?
and there is much debate (in certain Christian, circles, anyway) over when the rapture will happen – before “the tribulaton” (all that nasty end-of-the-world stuff), during the tribulation, or after it. And this is all argued with much fervor and quoting of obscure scriptures, often in the original language – and then the meaning of that original language is debated, etc.
It’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds… it’s almost as much fun as the evolution vs. creation debate! :rolleyes:
I though Ethiopian slaves built the pyramids?
Nope. I didn’t know what this bumpersticker meant until I asked my wife a couple of years ago. My wife had pretty much the same reaction as you. She was amazed I had never heard of the concept, but I hadn’t despite living in Virginia my whole life.