Another week, and another doomsday prediction has come and gone. Harold Camping has been predicting for years that October 21st would be the final day of the Earth’s existence, and he held to that even after his May 21st Rapture prediction passed without incident.
Camping and his organization are being mum at the moment. According to the Christian Post, Camping’s radio station has been broadcasting very general, consoling messages that avoid any direct mention of the flubbed prediction.
Actually, the Christian Post makes a prediction of their own: December 2012 will be the next big month for fans of the apocalypse. Apparently there’s been quite a lot of buzz online about it.
Meanwhile, over at Religion Dispatches, Jason Bruner points us to part of the fallout from Camping’s May 21st prediction:
In late April and early May 2011 thousands of Christians gathered to await a cataclysmic event. They had journeyed to a hilltop in the rural north-western highlands of Dien Bien, Vietnam. Translated short wave radio broadcasts sponsored by Camping’s Family Radio told them that the land of the sinful would be destroyed. The righteous, those who had accepted God’s forgiveness offered in Jesus Christ, would be saved in this radical reordering. That would give the Hmong what they have been waiting for — a land of their own. The promised apocalyptic reordering was good news.
Reports are sketchy, but it appears there was a confrontation between the Vietnamese military and the Hmong believers. There are hints that there was violence, but the Vietnamese suppression of journalists in the area make it impossible to be certain.
Bruner wants to make clear that the Hmong were not passive dupes of an American media campaign, which is essentially the official line from the Vietnamese government. The Hmong are an ethic group that spans several countries; much like the Kurds in the middle east. They have a long history of apocalypticism with the belief that the second coming will leave them with a land they can call home. So while Camping provided the seed, the Hmong provided fertile soil in which it could grow.
I get the feeling that there are more than a few Christians who are giving more credence to the Dec 2012 prediction than they did to anything Camping said. It’s interesting to see that faith does not protect all of them from the influence of popular culture.
7th day adventists were founded on a flubbed doomsday prediction. There may have been an initial stumble but they’ve been going strong ever since. The religious seldom let reality and logic get in there way.
Believing in the End of the World and believing that it’s a particular day, has no order of magnitude difference of any significance at all.
Believing that there are supernatural forces that will destroy the world and purify it for the righteous is complete insanity.
The world of humans may well end, as all other species eventually have met their end – but it’s going to be down to our own stupidity and polluting ways – not because of anything else.
The question is, have humans so impacted the earth as to render it destroyed for life entirely. Scorched earth is not the legacy we should be leaving.
So all atheists were saved?
Well, the atheists have not found themselves in some sort of hell like place. As with the deluded, nothing happened and nothing of a supernatural nature will. Like the rest of the fraud, it’s nonsense.
I guess they will try to say it about every month, so that if a big accident happens they can claim to be visionaries, instructed by god. These people are insane. This is also a form of fear mongering, that should be at least fined. Camping should go more camping and stay off the air.
“Bruner wants to make clear that the Hmong was not passive dupes”
Minor nitpick, but that should be “the Hmong were”, as it is referring to a specific group of people.
Got it. Thanks.