Rapture Delayed Due to "Technical Issues"

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, February 9, 2010 -- God's spokesperson, Ermil Higgibilly, announced today that once again the rapture would be delayed. This latest calamity to befall God is expected to move back the time of the pretribulation rapture anywhere from a week to a month due to some 'technical issues' with God's website.Palm Jumeirah: God's home/headquarters is located on the fifth branch up on the left, fourth frond over

"Once again we have been forced to terminate the rapture scheduled for tomorrow due to technical issues with our website," Mr. Higgibilly said to the gathered representatives of the international media outside of God's terrestrial headquarters in Dubai. He added that, "the Apostles are currently addressing these issues and I hope to have more information for you all in the coming end of days."

While maintenance is underway on GodsOfficialWebsite.com, the following biblical passage is displayed in its place from I Thessalonians 4:15-18:

"According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. Yada, Yada, Yada…"

This mishap is the latest in a string of problems God has faced since he decided to make his presence known to humanity in June of 2008. First was God's unsuccessful foray into the social networking spere. On Facebook God started out well and acquired over 2,300 friends, but His incessant 'poking' and invitations to friends to install applications brought his network down to 12 until He was finally banished from Facebook due to posting inappropriate photos of Archangel Gabriel. MySpace proved to be more embarrassing as He had no friends in his network; after two weeks His account was closed for spamming.

Undeterred, God appears to have attempted using various other networking tools to get His message out. This may be deemed as having been largely unsuccessful by noting God's 'Karma' at reddit remains at 1 and, according to His profile on Digg, none of His submissions have been 'dugg' more than 4 times.

2009 brought God no nearer to accessing the Internet to spread His word as exemplified by His unsuccessful fight for the website god.com coupled with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN) vote to reject His .GOD sponsored Top Level Domain (sTLD) application.

In September of 2009, God and the 12 'Apostles,' His remaining Facebook friends, successfully negotiated with Go Daddy for the parked website GodsOfficialWebsite.com where He could spread His message. Unfortunately, Google spiders didn't seem to care for God's website so traffic remained low; additionally, Turkish hacker teams brought it to a standstill every couple of weeks. The "Dianetics Scandal", which occurred in December when the website ran a 20% off campaign for L. Ron Hubbard's book at Amazon.com, did nothing for God's legitimacy either.

After many missteps, God and his Apostles remade the site to what we know today as God's Official Website along with the ingenious 'Rapture Clock.' Luckily for God, the AdSense revenue generated by advertising on His highly-trafficked website afforded Him the chance to move His 12 Apostles to a beachfront house on the Jumeirah Palm Island in Dubai where they have been working on their website and running rapture workshops for new disciples in training.

“We are adept at handling natural disasters and, if you will, acts of God, but technology has a host of issues God apparently wasn't prepared to deal with when He created the universe. We will have things on track soon, In the meantime, I'd suggest you repent," quipped Mr. Higgibilly as he walked past the infinity pool and into the BBQ gazebo.

Note: Additional sources for rapturous raucousness: Daniel 12:10, Luke 21:36, Zephaniah 2, I Corinthians 15:51-52, Revelation 20:4

By Raoul Thibodeaux, Avant News Staff Writer