One Year Ago Today, the World Ended

May 21, 2012 By 27 Comments



Filed Under: General 27 Comments
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  • Paul Iannacone

    …and I don’t feel any different.

  • CS42

    Gee, how did the anniversary escape me?

  • martymankins

    We must all be zombies then.

  • http://www.facebook.com/AnonymousBoy Larry Meredith

    Well actually 1 year ago today we were “judged”. The end of the world was in October.

    • http://www.facebook.com/cburschka Christoph Burschka

      Did they come up with another explanation in October? Like, maybe we were just “spiritually” destroyed in October, but next time is totally for reals?

      • Derrik Pates

        No, Harold Camping admitted he didn’t know what happened, and vowed to make no more predictions. Of course, shortly thereafter he had a minor stroke, if I’m not too much mistaken. That definitely puts an end to his end-of-the-world prognostication.

  • advancedatheist

    Hal Lindsey, who hasn’t died yet and still broadcasts on some christian cable network, fueled this nonsense in my lifetime when he published his best-selling book The Late, Great Planet Earth back in 1970.  Last year I tried to interest some atheists like Matt Dillahunty and Seth Andrews in a campaign to shame Lindsey into issuing an apology to all of the people he spooked with his doomsday folly, but they declined. Lindsey deserves public humiliation more than Camping because he frightened a lot more people and he has never owned up to his delusions.

  • Derrik Pates

    I know there have been articles talking about at least a few of the people who were taken in, but I’d love to read a more sweeping coverage of all the people who were hawking this, and who sold off everything they had because they actually believed the end was really, truly near. How many there were, how they dealt with it. How many gave up on religion, and how many doubled down on the delusion. It’d certainly be interesting…

  • Alyeska

    What I want to know is what happened to the family of Abby Haddad-Carson?  She was the one who quit her job and stopped saving money for her children’s college fund just to preach the end of days.  Google has nothing since May of last year.

  • Marco Conti

    What I really find beyond comprehension is how most of these people end up rationalizing and justifying missed prophecies and coming out of the experience with their “faith” strengthened. 

    Of course, it could be some combo of ‘saving face’ and trying to maintain a modicum of sanity. Nevertheless I find it very puzzling, even for faith based cultures.

    I do feel sorry for these people that have lost everything for some silly prophecy, but part of me can’t help it say “they got what they deserved”. If only they learned. But they don’t.

  • Miss_Beara

    I had some crazy christian friends who thought it was sooo silly that the end of the world had a definite date because, of course, nobody knows when Jesus will return! 

    Ugh. 

    • newavocation

      And when he does return, does the vatican have a copy of his chariot license so they know they have the right guy?

      • Bill the Cat

         No chariot license needed – they have a time tested method of identifying him.

        They nail him to a tree.

        • Thackerie

          It’s a definite plus that the nail holes are already there — makes it an easy DIY project, like those ready-to-assemble furniture kits.

          • http://digitalatheist1.wordpress.com/ DigitalAtheist

            IKEA-rist… the ready made godling?

    • ragarth

       The irony is, that’s actually a quote mine. Jesus says in that same sermon that nobody there would see old age, indicating that his return would be within their lifetimes and therefore putting a constraint on when the world should end.

      Jesus stated that nobody would know the date or time, within the constraint that it would happen sometime within that generation.

      • Derrik Pates

        Which most Christians also conveniently ignore, because otherwise they’d have to admit that Jesus literally meant what he said, and that the claim is pretty much certainly BS.

  • advancedatheist

    Hal Lindsey got on George Noory’s talkshow last year and criticized Camping along the lines of: No, no, no, Harold! You don’t understand the rules of the game! You don’t set dates for the Rapture!

  • mikespeir

    “Ended” might be a bit of a stretch, but I don’t see that it’s gotten any better.  ;)

  • http://heretichusband.blogspot.com/ Heretic Husband

    EVERYTHING must fit into their belief system, even things that don’t make sense.   Reality must be bent to fit their belief system, not the other way around. 
    My mother, a devout Catholic, believes that miscarriages are “God’s way of ending something that wouldn’t have turned out well”.  She’s not a stupid woman.  She has a master’s degree.  She’s a former teacher.  But she has to bend reality to fit her belief system because the alternative is unimaginable.

    And, of course, people who do this will look at other people doing the same thing, shake their head, and wonder how someone could be so crazy.  I have no doubt that my mother thought the whole “end of the world on may 21″ thing was absolute insanity.

    • Ibis3

      But God didn’t provide miscarriages for all the somethings that were born and didn’t turn out well? Whether she’s referring to people who would have done evil or people who would have born only to suffer, does she think spontaneously aborted foetuses would have turned out to be worse than [insert name of serial killer] or suffer worse  than [insert name of child who died from painful congenital disease, hunger, or post-rape murder]?

      I just don’t understand the whole “God’s plan” justification.

  • http://twitter.com/krelnik Tim Farley

    For whatever it’s worth, there are two other Christian preachers who are claiming much the same thing this year.  Ronald Weinland of Church of God says May 27, Jose de Luis de Jesus of Creciendo en Gracia (Growing In Grace) says June 30.

  • Reginald Selkirk

    It was so much fun, let’s do it again!
    World to end on May 27, 2012

    • http://digitalatheist1.wordpress.com/ DigitalAtheist

      totally missed your post… but used my own link to the “creator” of the present doomsday nonsense… still.. two sources are much better than one :D

  • http://digitalatheist1.wordpress.com/ DigitalAtheist

    DON’T PANIC! For those of you who missed it the first time around–last year–the new date has been moved to May 27, 20012.M You still have time to make piece with… well whatever… in my case probably some pizza and a 5th of Tequila 30-30… but that’s just me.

  • Jlperry Als

    Hey, I would be hateful and bitter like atheists are, if I had to go to bed at night and know that I could die in my sleep and go into nothingness, for eternity.