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May 22nd, 2011
03:07 PM ET
Life goes on: Doomsday believers on the morning afterBy Jessica Ravitz, CNN (CNN) – Theirs had been an unwavering belief, the sort that inspired some to quit jobs, leave their homes and walk away from family and friends to issue a doomsday warning. Without question, they believed May 21 would be the day that Jesus Christ would return and rapture them - and a select 2 to 3 percent of the world’s population - up to heaven. Everyone left behind would be on a crash course to final destruction, scheduled for October 21. But now it’s May 22. The sun rose, birds are singing and life as we know it continues. Those anticipated earthquakes that the May 21 doomsdayers said would ravage the earth on Saturday at 6 p.m. in each of the world's time zones never came. And the faithful believers - who said the Bible guaranteed this day - are still here, trying to make sense of it all. “Of course there’s disappointment. There’s no getting around that,” said Tom Evans, who’d left his northern California home to spend the weekend with family and friends. “When you as a person believe that God is coming back, and you believe the evidence is very clear that he’s coming back, that is something every child of God longs for. In a moment, we’d be changed and spend eternity with God. I’m not ashamed of that at all. I’m not ashamed of wanting and hoping for it.” But Evans did reveal some regret. “For us to say it was absolute, I think that’s where we went wrong. That’s where we strayed, and that I would gladly apologize for,” he said. “Whether I personally have done something dishonorable, I’m still mulling it over. I was trying to be faithful.” Evans spoke to CNN as an individual, not as a spokesperson for Family Radio, the Oakland, California, Christian broadcasting network behind the May 21 movement. But Evans has been a paid spokesman for the network, a job he said he expects to resume - at least in the short term - after he and Family Radio's board of directors meet with Harold Camping, the network's 89-year-old founder. “I have not spoken to Mr. Camping about the issue of what to do next,” Evans said. “But he and his wife are fine, and our response will come in the early part of next week.” Camping, a degreed engineer (not a pastor) who claims to have made the Bible his “university” for more than 50 years, has experience with failed prophecies. He once claimed the world would end in September 1994, later chalking that snafu up to biblical miscalculations and the need for further study. This time around, he said earlier this year, he had no doubts. Calls to Camping's Alameda, California, home, went unanswered. CNN reached out Sunday morning to about a dozen doomsday believers, to see how they felt after waking up. Only Evans and one other responded. "I'm fine Jessica, really!" Darryl Keitt, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, who spent about seven months touring the country in a caravan of RVs, sharing the doomsday warning, wrote in a text message. "Just need 2 process this." Those who’ve studied end-of-the-world movements are analyzing what happened, or didn’t happen, and forecasting what will come next. “In the end, it was a whimper, not a bang,” said Lorenzo DiTommaso, author of the forthcoming book “The Architecture of Apocalypticism” and an associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. “The 21st of May came and went, and with it Harold Camping’s prediction of the coming of the Rapture and the day of doom.” Based on past doomed doomsdays, much can be learned, said DiTommaso, who has studied apocalyptic worldviews for 12 years. He shared what he meant in a written statement to CNN:
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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So, where is this IDIOT now???? Calculating NEXT END OF THE WORLD, or counting Dollars that he collect???
I told you already he went to heaven last night at 6pm (PST local time of course, God doesn't mess with time zones), see previous note. Don't expect to hear form him anymore.
Is "he went to heaven" a metaphor for "left the country"? Because that's probably what happened.
Idiots.....just plain idiots
ajd this ridiculuos notion created you
Sorry man...all signs point to "no"
All available evidence says, uh unh...not even close...The Big Book of Nonsense tells us zippo
Shane,
I love the fact that you are trying to argue the ignorance and shortsightedness of the people who do not agree with your views, but how is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you are obviously far from educated. You are just spouting off a bunch of unsubstantiated claims in a language that looks to be on par with a third grader. Learn to have a clear arguable point before you continue to discredit your cause any further.
"Family radio" Why is it called family radio – wanting most of the people in world to be killed while a few go to heaven. this sounds more like the wishes of a mad man and not a family man.
Couldn't agree with you more. Isn't if funny how all the christians are hoping for the end of the world. I guess they have not taken into consideration that a lot of people might die, or if they have they don't care about the rest of us. Sounds like a fine example of a caring christian.
first of all, the Bible's Book of Matthew 11:36 JESUS said"But of that day (Judgement Day) and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Basically, no human will ever know when Judgement Day will come.
secondly, the Mayans built their calendar so that there was a specific position unique to every day until December 21, 2012. They couldn't have built their clock to infinity that way, so it will just stop counting days. Our clocks cycle so that they will go on as long as they are kept in working order. we will be just fine.
You humans....
Only 2-3% of the population was going to be taken to heaven and they were soooo sure they were on the list.???
They were so gullible they thought they were on the list.
I don't understand how people could get disappointed when a doomsday doesn't occur. Oh and about the Noah floods. They were probably the Scabland floods (or Missoula floods), as they happened at the same time period as the Noah floods.
Except there were no Christians in Montana during that time. The local event most often attributed to Noah's flood was the Black Sea glacial rupture, but although it's in the right location and occurred at the about the right time, the evidence is not entirely supporting of a deluge. The story of Noah's flood probably doesn't represent any one event, but rather an extrapolation on floods in general. Humans are very good at this sort of thing and it was well within the experience of the writers of the Talmud to extrapolate from flash floods and imagine a one that covered the world.
man it would be great if they took those 144,000 up to a mountain somewhere....take 144 million for all I care....leave us alone w/ all your nonsense...the rest of us will stay here and party...y'all can drift around in white robes and sing and prasie or whatever it is you do...
Dear Mr. Camping:
I fart in your general direction!
that guy is a silly english kanigit
Are you sure you escaped the rapture?
http://tinyurl.com/3pp827g
Yeah dude..I'm sure...get a life
the bible is truth god and jesus are real the bible warned of the false profits the bible is not a science book but it explained science before there was sciece and if john discounts god being responsable for sciense or the universe we live in he is dissalusioned
I find it hard to respect someone's opinion about science when they misspell it twice.
The bible fairy tales for adults.
If you do not believe in science can we deny you modern medicine, modern sanitation, your auto, consumer electronics, including cell phones and your computer, all created by SCIENCE. Or are you going to be selective in how you just deny science when it conflicts with your values. Hypocritical isn't it.
The Bible has been used for centuries by Christians as a weapon of control. To read it literally is to believe in a three-tiered universe, to condone slavery, to treat women as inferior creatures, to believe that sickness is caused by God's punishment and that mental disease and epilepsy are caused by demonic possession.
The entire purpose of life is to Live it, not spend every waking moment praying for the hour when you will leave it. For all the blather about eternal life, far too many squander the precious life they are given at first breath. End time prophecies become particularly prolific on those great cusps of change when the world is moving on, maturing, evolving, growing "in wisdom and understanding", and they simply cannot allow themselves to move on with it. People who fear social, political, and technological change more than anything would literally rather be dead than go through it. Religious conservatism is the rejection of life, with its challenges in the present and its hopeful promise of a better future.
amen
You are so right. First off, all of us will die eventually, doomsday or no doomsday and what happens happens. And truly religious people should be concerned with God's wants, ostensibly, loving our fellow man, raising strong happy families, helping those in need. Some dope spent his life savings of 140,000 on billboards aanouncing the Doomsday...pity he didnt give it to a shelter for the homeless, or a camp for disadvantaged kids, or autism research or SOMETHING!!!
Glad to see someone gets the point.
Hey Soliloquy, if all you christian wingnuts disapeared and stopped ruining everything for us here on earth in order to better your chances to your grifter made up god, I doubt any of us would really be too sad. It would give us more free time to dedicate to doing things that aren't trying to pull our modern culture out of the clutches of an antiquated and unnecessary belief system that is holding us back in the dark ages.
You clown.
Right on...silly believers, trix are for kids
Amen!
+1000 man. These fools live hoping to die. The sooner they die, the better off the world will be.
it's the end of the world as we know it... and i feel fine!
I really wish that we could live life like a dog. They don't worry about when they are going to die. They just bark, eat, poop, lick, and have fun till they die. Oh yea!
AHHHHH..these fools..they keep making themselevs look more and more foolish while science continues to answer the questions that necessitated the need to make up a god in the first place...its not that i don't believe in god, as this suggests that there is "something" to believe in, it's that god is a rediculous and childish notion on par with Super Man and Santa Claus...good luck with your faith
You all have it all wrong. The Rapture actually occurred. All the people who qualified for Heaven went to Heaven at 6:00pm local time Saturday, in accordance with internationally agreed upon time zones. For us people who are left behind, it seems to us like they never existed. That is why it seems like nothing happened. We just don't remember. That is why some who really believed in the rapture are strangely silent, after all they went to heaven at 6:00 last night. How would they say anything now? If you are here right now, it means you did not qualify and your soul will be consumed along with the rest of us when the ball of fire arrives on October 21st.
U mad bro?
@paul
LOL... Well, I guess we have a bit less than 5 months left to party hardy and live our lives to the fullest... which I do anyway.
Peace...
Paul, if your theory is correct, aren't you frightened?
I am fine, just a bit of sarcasm, but strangely founded in perfectly sound logic. If the Rapture really occurred as predicted, logic says the people left behind would not notice it.
I believe he is being sarcastic. At least, if I were to make a sarcastic response that would nearly word-for-word be it.
And a Round of Kool Aid for All.
I wonder if ANY of them will now realize that their bible is a book of myths and lies put together by people barely out of the cave. Probably not.
yeah, people who didn't understand why the sun came up or why the seasons changed or what a germ was...yeah let me live according to their ideas