Today's the day. Rapture - according to Harold Camping. Judgment day. It's a story that has gone around the world. But what I find fascinating is that it gets picked up at all. It's nonsense, right? So why bother? I think the logic of its appeal goes something like this.

In effect, today's the day we get to stare Rapture in the face, and we survive. Doomsday doesn't get us after all. It didn't come. Oh death, where is thy sting? Ha, ha!

It's not just that we get to chuckle at Camping's expense. He does, in fact, offer us a momentary taste of immortality. Today's not the day (unless you're one of the 150,000-odd globally for whom today is the day.) That's worth a celebration.

And there's a lovely twist to the story. Atheists in North Carolina are holding a two-day after-Rapture party. Honestly, today's nontheists have no idea how religious they are. Celebrate is precisely what you should do when you're saved.

So Camping is sort of right. Just as he predicted, there will be many today giving thanks for their salvation, if not the elect whom he foresaw. But then, even the Son of Man noted that only the Father knows.

(Image: Harold Camping)