As I noted in my article about Niribu, these people don’t really think about the effect they have on those around them. From children calling NASA asking for suicide advice to people selling all their possessions for dirt cheap, since they won’t be needing them, the aftermath for these people can be devastating. Both emotionally and fiscally. Nevertheless, celebrated whack job, Harold Camping says today’s the day.
Maybe.
Today might be the end of the world, but Family Radio Network preacher Harold Camping, whose last Doomsday prediction in May fizzled, doesn’t want to make a big fuss of it this time.
Camping’s home phone has been disconnected and a visitor to the radio station in Alameda, Calif., is gently turned away with “no comment,” Inside Bay Area reports.
The Associated Press reports that Susan Espinoa, daughter of the 90-year-old Camping, responded by e-mail to one request for comment by saying: “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we at Family Radio have been directed to not talk to the media or the press.”
Camping, who suffered a stroke in the weeks after his May 21 for the End of the World failed to materialize, reset the date for Oct. 21, but has notably sprinkled his prediction with “probably” and “maybe.”
On the other hand, an earthquake rocked San Francisco on Thursday.
On his Family Radio Network website, Camping noted that Doomsday predicting is not easy.
“There’s a lot of things that we didn’t have quite right, and that’s God’s good provision,” he says. “I really am beginning to think, as I restudy these matters, that there’s going to be no big display of any kind. The end is going to come very, very quietly, probably within the next month. It will happen, that is, by Oct. 21.”
After May 21 came and went, Camping — who blamed a similar 1994 misfire on a math error — did readjust his assessment by saying “God’s judgment” was completed on that day, and the final sword would fall today.
“Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on Oct. 21,” he says.
In the leadup to May 21, the non-profit took in millions in donations, while thousands of followers spread the word in their hometowns or quit their jobs to set out on caravans that crisscrossed the country. The network also spent millions on 5,000 billboards around the world warning of the coming Apocaplypse.
This time, Family Radio Network apparently will let Doomsday speak for itself.
“Family Stations Inc. has no comment concerning Oct. 21,” spokesman Thomas Evans wrote in an e-mail, Inside Bay Area reports. “Our media response was made back in May.”
Here’s a question for you; what are the odds of a quarter landing head’s up?
Answer: 50%
What are the odds of a quarter landing head’s up after landing on tail’s fifteen times in a row?
Answer: 50%
I bring that up to remind you that numerology is the art of finding patterns where none exist. And it is that – ahem – discipline that Mr. Camping has applied to the Bible. You may as well grab random letters out of a Scrabble bag and use them to define your next grocery order for all the logic that’s involved.
Nevertheless, some people take this very seriously. And some, like NORAD, use their Santa trackers to keep the Rapture honest.
I have no idea who’s in charge at NORAD right now, but I want to buy them a beer.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command has today announced its intention to track the Rapture, as a curtain raiser to tracking the End of the World.
Commencing at 6pm on Saturday the 21st May, NORAD will use it’s highly acclaimed “SantaTracker” network of satellites and webcams to follow the Rapture from it’s beginning in Fiji and New Zealand and on, through the Far East, Asia, Europe and finally to the United States of America.
It is expected that the Rapture will change speed as it travels the world time zones. This may mean that the Rapture arrives a little earlier or later than expected in your local time zone, and so you should be prepared a little early, and not be too disappointed if you are still here a little later than you expect.
This is due to the logistics of transporting the various population densities of expected “rapturees” in various parts of the world.
Clearly, for example, the Rapture will move speedily through Europe, especially because the Catholics are not going, but slow down massively when it hits the East Coast of the USA, slowing almost to a crawl when it hits Tulsa, but then speeding considerably as it mops up California.
Travel arrangements have been made to accommodate the Southern Baptists, staging posts might be required.
NORAD has been told to expect that they will not be able to use the regular “World Daylight Map”, because it will be so bright everywhere that this map will, for this day, have little meaningful use.
Counselors and psychiatrists have been stationed at Post Offices all over the USA to deal with the disappointment of Atheists when they realize that so few American Christians qualify that the GOP will probably be able to maintain it’s majority in the House, although it’s unlikely they will take the Senate.
There could be an unexpected vacancy in the White House, housing as it does an actual Christian.
This has been a Public Service Announcement.
This may be the best use ever of a military unit.
I’m normally amused by people like Camping but, as I’ve noted, it’s become increasingly clear that these people run roughshod over other’s lives without even remotely considering the consequences. Hopefully, as I sit here writing this noting that the priest nearby is steadfastly NOT flying into the sun, people will finally come to realize that fear mongering a**holes like Camping are best ignored.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnhKPw2NXIw&w=500&h=317]
Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!