Saturday, May 21, 2011

Surprising? Nope.

Well, here it is, midnight PST, making it past seven PM in New Zealand, yet it looks like Harold Camping's apocalypse is at least an hour late.

It's amusing that after two thousand years of failed predictions, people are still expecting the Jewish Zombie Apocalypse (you know, Jesus returning to the Earth). Harold Camping was able to put together an advertising campaign with over three million dollars in donated cash. Three million dollars that could have gone to something important, like (as Jesus commanded) feeding the hungry or clothing the poor. It's disheartening to see such large numbers of people willing to waste their lives and huge amounts of resources in the vain attempt to warn people of imaginary dangers, especially when we risk catastrophe from real perils like climate change, pollution, disease, reliance on non-renewable resources, etc.

Attempting to get people to worry about the consequences of tossing out a few bits of plastic becomes that much more difficult when they're terrified that hidden demons or dragons are chomping at the bit, waiting for the signal that will free them to unleash waves of disease, suffering, and death upon the entire populace of the Earth, save for an invariably small number of "true believers" who will be magically protected from the apocalypse.

People have such short memories that they cannot recall the hundreds, if not thousands, of failed predictions regarding the apocalypse. What will it take to convince humankind to abandon superstition pushed by con men and begin to recognize the real problems that we face as a species on this planet?


4 comments:

  1. "No one was raptured because we all fall short in the eyes of God."

    There is my guess.....

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  2. My choice is a combination of a few justifications:

    "God has seen our good work and how so much press about this prediction has exposed so many unsaved to the message of the gospel, and He has granted us more time to bring the masses to Him!"

    Alternately, Harry will probably discover some other obscure scripture that will allow him to "recalibrate" his numerology for yet another prediction with which to fleece his flock.

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  3. The best comment I've found so far on the failure of Camping's prediction can be found at Dispatches From The Culture Wars, where D.C. Sessions stated:

    "What you -- and Camping's followers -- don't understand is that he was 100% right: the Rapture happened yesterday, and all of the Chosen were transported to Heaven.

    "No wonder his followers are upset and confused."


    Priceless!

    ReplyDelete