Shiny new graduates of the University of Arizona can put job worries behind them.

If our evangelical brothers and sisters of the Rapturist persuasion are correct there’s only a week to go before the faithful living and the faithful dead are lifted into heaven.

Good luck, young people, you should be able to make it through to the big day (May 21) on the proceeds of your graduation gifts. Try not to be driving your car when you are lifted up…the rest of us could use the transportation. Leave your friends a note telling us how to find your car keys.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that not all of us will be going; some will be left behind to make the best of a really bad situation until God destroys everything, turns out the lights and the party’s over. Mark October 21st on your calendar, that’s your last big date.

How do we know all this? Well, the bible tells us so. And the bible is the word of God, or so we are assured by the eBible Fellowship:

“The Bible is the Word of God! Everything the Bible declares has the full authority of God Himself. Now, at this time, information is coming forth from the Bible which clearly reveals God’s plan for Judgment Day and the end of the world itself.

Actually, it’s not so clear. Clarity only comes after a tortured exegesis of many books of the bible, all of which have different authors acting, we are to assume, as God’s inspired secretaries. How exactly we are to be assured of this inspiration is a puzzle. The assurance would have to come from outside the biblical canon itself or fall to the accusation of circularity. So far the evidence is slim to none.

I object to all  this nonsense because it obscures the meaning and value of the Bible as a purely human document; an amazingly diverse collection of books of history, law, moral reflection, practical advice, and poetry chronicling  Man’s struggle to understand the moral universe in which he finds himself.

This use of one of mankind’s great mythic documents as if it were some sort of magical fortunetelling guide demeans it. It reduces it to the sort of guide I used to see for sale in corner stores in Chicago: Aunt Tilly’s Dream Book and Guide to The Numbers.

I’ve been standing to one side while bloggers and commenters have at one another. There seems to be a good deal of passionate intensity on both sides of this cat fight. Accusations of racism and hidden racism are exchanged; claims of dark Communist plots are countered by shrill claims of police-state brutality; the establishment is “Shocked…shocked” by the inappropriateness of student sit-ins. “How could they?”

All of those issues make entertaining (and potentially informative) topics for debate, but they really miss the point. The important point is that MAS is an educational strategy that engages the interest and energy of students not otherwise engaged.

MAS students do better on standardized tests than non-MAS students. It keeps them learning, and it apparently reduces the drop-out numbers for Hispanic students.

That settles it for me.