" As might also be suspected, there are equally conflicting absolute certainties about the precise timing of the Rapture. The choice here is between the unarguable certainty that the Tribulation will precede the Rapture and the equally unarguable certainty that the opposite is true and that the Rapture will precede the Tribulation. Historically, compromise has usually been far from theological debate, where hands typically have been found to lie itchingly closer to swords, but so important are Last Things that happily one is available here, for it is also held to be absolutely certain by some that the Rapture will take place exactly in the middle of the seven-year Tribulation. Spoiling for a fight, though, equally certain to others, brooking no dispute, is the fact that the Rapture will come close to the end of the Tribulation, with a rump of the latter still to run. Happily for the Born Agains, it is also absolutely certain that for them, but not for the unprescient chumps who have not got themselves Born Again, the Rapture will enrapt true believers just in the nick of time at the start of the Tribulation leaving the erstwhile chumps the chance of quickly getting Born Again and being rapt at the end of the Tribulation. "

― Peter Atkins , On Being: A Scientist's Exploration of the Great Questions of Existence