May 21, 2011

[The Minx]

We still have a few hours till the end of the world.

Or at least a few hours till the back-pedaling begins.

Not that there's anything unusual about end of the world predictions, but this prediction has been all over billboards and internet sites such as YouTube much more than is usually the case.

[Soontir948]

I wonder how much money they are making from people checking out their website/radio station.

[Batman]

Dammit. I missed another 'The end of the world is near' craze apparently.

[rhoenix]

Dammit. I missed another 'The end of the world is near' craze apparently.

Don't worry - you'll see it again soon.

[Batman]

More likely I won't, given I apparently slept through the last one.

[Derek Thunder]

Oh man, and I just bought a new car too. I better get in some driving, because they may still be correct (11:59 PM in Pago Pago or Midway).

[Batman]

So just out of idle curiousity, why is it the end of the world this time?

[rhoenix]

So just out of idle curiousity, why is it the end of the world this time?

Because using $math, some guy showed that the end of the world was today at 6pm, at every time zone.

There are no prizes for pointing out that 6pm in one timezone is 4pm in another, 3pm in another...

[frigidmagi]

Ladies and Gentlemen (man do I use that term loosely) I with not so deep regret must inform you. The End of the World has been postponed indefinitely.

Due to budget cuts.

Carry on.

[Steve]

I thought it was because the Macho Man intervened and elbow-dropped God to stop it?

[Hotfoot]

It turns out there was a terrible mistake when one of the apostles referred to Jesus as "Slim" in passing around Randy Savage.

Oh yeah

[Charon]

Randy Savage died for our sins.

[The Minx]

There was actually a small earthquake in the Bay Area at about the time predicted:

Link

Earthquake shakes SF Bay Area

By The Associated Press

Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 7:46 p.m.

SAN FRANCISCO — People across the San Francisco Bay Area felt the rumblings of a small earthquake on Saturday night, but there were no reports of any damages or injuries.

The magnitude-3.6 earthquake struck just before 7:05 p.m. and was centered near the city of Hercules at a depth of about 5 1/2 miles, according to a preliminary report from the United States Geological Survey.

The epicenter was about eight miles north of Berkeley and 17 miles northeast of San Francisco's Civic Center.

The USGS National Earthquake Information Center said it received scores of reports of people feeling the shaking across the Bay Area, especially in Oakland and Alameda.

"It probably wasn't strong enough for damage, but it was widely felt by people," said Sheng Zao Chen, a geophysicist at the USGS

Police and fire officials in the area said there were no reports of any problems from the quake.

Many Bay Area residents took to Twitter and Facebook to joke that the mild tremors were the beginnings of the apocalypse, as the quake came about an hour after the widely publicized predictions of cataclysm from Oakland Christian media founder Harold Camping.

"Is that all you've got apocalypse?!" Erin Webb of San Francisco wrote on Twitter.

I guess they don't make apocalypses like they used to.

[Soontir948]

'Rapture': Believers perplexed after prediction fails

Followers of an evangelical broadcaster who declared that Saturday would be Judgement Day are trying to make sense of the failed prediction.

Some believers expressed bewilderment or said it was a test from God of their faith, after the day passed without event.

Meanwhile, the evangelist at the centre of the claim, Harold Camping, has not been seen since before the deadline.

He had predicted that Jesus Christ would return to earth on Saturday.

True believers would then be swept up, or "raptured", to heaven, he had pronounced.

The 89-year-old has used broadcasts on a Christian network and billboards to publicise his ideas as part of a campaign that went global.

He said biblical texts indicated that a giant earthquake on Saturday - which he said would begin at 1800 at various time zones around the world - would mark the start of the world's destruction, and that by 21 October all non-believers will be dead.
'Some scepticism'

Robert Fitzpatrick, a retired transportation agency worker in New York, said he had spent more than $140,000 (£86,000) of his savings on advertisements in the run-up to 21 May to publicise the prediction.

After 1800 passed and nothing had happened, he said: "I do not understand why... I do not understand why nothing has happened."

"I can't tell you what I feel right now. Obviously, I haven't understood it correctly because we're still here."

Other followers said they had had their doubts about the prediction.

"I had some scepticism but I was trying to push the scepticism away because I believe in God," said Keith Bauer, who travelled 4,830km (3,000 miles), from Maryland to California, where Mr Camping's Family Radio is based, for the Rapture.

"I was hoping for it because I think heaven would be a lot better than this Earth," said Mr Bauer, a tractor-trailer driver, who took the week off work for the voyage.

Other followers said the delay was a further test from God to persevere in their faith.
'No Plan B'

US media reported that there has been no sign of Mr Camping since the prediction turned out to be false, while calls and e-mails to Mr Camping's Family Radio went unanswered on Saturday.

The Washington Post reported that suicide prevention hotlines were set up in case believers fell into depression after the apocalypse failed to happen.

A group from the Calvary Bible Church in Milpitas, California, organised a Sunday morning service to comfort believers in Mr Camping's preaching, the New York Times reported.

"We are here because we care about these people," the newspaper quoted James Bynum, a church deacon, as saying. "It's easy to mock them. But you can go kick puppies, too. But why?"

Many Christian groups however dismissed Mr Camping's ideas, with some describing him as a "false prophet".

US atheists held parties to celebrate the failed prediction, while a group of non-believers gathered outside Mr Camping's Family Radio International headquarters in Oakland, California, as the deadline passed.

"It was probably one of the saddest things that I'd ever read, the idea that there's kids out there whose parents spent their college savings funds, who sold their homes," one woman told the BBC.

Earlier, Mr Camping has said he knew "without any shadow of a doubt" that "judgement day" was arriving, and said there was no "Plan B".

He has predicted an apocalypse once before, in 1994, though followers now say that only referred to an intermediary stage.

I do feel bad for the children of the families that have sold their belongings and homes. I'd be mighty pissed if I had their parents.

Edit: Inserted link.

[The Minx]

Those who listen to would-be prophets would do well to read the Deuteronomy test for prophets:

18:21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?

18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Deuteronomy 18:20 also says that false prophets are to be put to death; I don't hold this view, obviously. But the followers of these kinds of charlatans should still pay heed to 18:21 and 18:22.

There is no such thing as a "God is testing your faith" defense for these kinds of things.

[Dark Silver]

[Hotfoot]

[Batman]

Oh my Valen that picture is awesome.

Personally I'd consider the Hulkster legdropping Jesus to be even more awesome but given the circumstances this one is certainly much more appropriate.

[Soontir948]

Now it is in October.

24 May 2011 Last updated at 03:10 ET
Rapture: Harold Camping issues new apocalypse date

The evangelical broadcaster who left followers crestfallen by his failed prediction that last Saturday would be Judgement Day says he miscalculated.

Harold Camping said it had "dawned" on him that God would spare humanity "hell on Earth for five months" and the apocalypse would happen on 21 October.

Mr Camping said he felt "terrible" about his mistake.

But he said he could not give financial advice to those who spent their life savings in the belief the end was nigh.

Mr Camping had predicted that on 21 May, true believers would be swept up to heaven while a giant earthquake would bring destruction for those left behind.

His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions of dollars on broadcasts, billboards and campaign vehicles to publicise the prediction.

Some followers donated their life savings or simply gave away their worldly possessions as the day approached.

Many expressed bewilderment and shock as the day came and went with no sign of the global cataclysm.

"I've been mocked and scoffed and cursed at," said Jeff Hopkins, a retired TV producer in New York state who spent some of his savings customising his car to showcase Mr Camping's warning.

"It's like getting slapped in the face."
'Not accurate'

Mr Camping had not been seen since Saturday until he appeared on a show on his Open Forum radio show, broadcast from Oakland, California, on Monday to give a 90-minute sometimes rambling presentation that included a question-and-answer session with reporters.

He said that when his prediction had failed to materialise he felt so terrible that he took refuge in a motel with his wife.

He said sorry for not having the dates "worked out as accurately as I could have".

Over the weekend, he said, he had returned to the scripture and it had "dawned" on him that a "merciful and compassionate God" would spare humanity by compressing the apocalyptic destruction into a shorter time frame.

But he insisted 21 October had always been the end-point of his own chronology - or at least his own latest chronology, as a previous prophecy that the apocalypse would strike in 1994 also failed to come to pass.

Asked if he had any advice to offer those who had given away their material wealth in the belief the world was about to end, Mr Camping said they would cope.

"We just had a great recession. There's lots of people who lost their jobs, lots of people who lost their houses... and somehow they all survived," he said.

"We're not in the business of giving any financial advice," he added.

"We're in the business of telling people maybe there is someone you can talk to, and that's God."

Wait, he'll give months to spare? What about all the centuries that has since past?

[LadyTevar]

I wonder how much money Camping will get in the next 5months

[The Minx]

Apparently, it was an "invisible" judgement (link):

[quote]Posted at 11:13 PM ET, 05/23/2011
Harold Camping says May 21, 2011 was ‘invisible judgment day,’ world will end October 21, 2011
By Elizabeth Tenety

You’ve been warned.

Radio evangelist Harold Camping said in a special broadcast Monday night on his radio program Open Forum that his predicted May 21, 2011 Rapture was “an invisible judgment day“ that he has come to understand as a spiritual, rather than physical event.

“We had all of our dates correct,â€

[General Havoc]

Well Jesus was a Jew...

[Batman]

Who knows, maybe the Apocalypse has happened (pick any time in the past for which it was predicted) and what we think is still the real world is actually hell? I mean take a look at the TV program.
Or big corporations and Accountability. Politicians. Free speech. Consumer protection. Human Rights.

Maybe the Rapture already happened and the difference was so subtle nobody noticed.

[The Minx]

I can't help but wonder what it means that the people who will go to heaven are already "judged", does that mean that people can do whatever they want from now on, because the judgement has already happened? Doesn't that sound kind of disturbing?

In any case, he has already said that the October date will be the end of the world, and that this is not spiritual, but literal. Between that and his confusion that nothing happened on May 21st, I think he seriously believes what he says. I wonder how he'll cope.

[General Havoc]

If this is hell, then I'd love to know what a hundred years ago was. Bad as you may think things are now, it ain't WWI.