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 This time around, there are no RVs or signs carrying the "awesome news" of the end of the world.
October 21st, 2011
06:00 AM ET
The End, again? If it is, we thank you for your timeBy Jessica Ravitz, CNN (CNN) - In case you are reading this, might we suggest you read really fast? The world may end any minute now, if the latest doomsday prediction is on target. We realize October 21 didn’t get the shout-out that May 21 did, so our apologies if this comes as a surprise. But if you had heard the complete message the first time, you would have known. “The warning is out,” Dennis Morrell, 44, of Jacksonville, Florida, reminded us a couple of days ago. “There’s nothing else you can do.” Earlier this year, and with the backing of the Christian broadcasting network Family Radio, billboards touting May 21 as Judgment Day dotted the landscape. RVs plastered with the fateful date crisscrossed the country as believers wearing T-shirt announcements and waving fliers sounded the alarm. That was to be the day when a select 2% to 3% of the world’s population, predetermined by God, would be raptured up to heaven. Everyone else, the story went, would endure months-long judgment amid chaos, destruction and unspeakable suffering. A massive earthquake would ravage the land, bodies would be tossed about and terror would reign for the duration. Five months or exactly 153 days later, it was said, the world would disappear – which brings us to today. This was the schedule laid out by God’s word in the Bible, the faithful said. It was the plan deciphered and shared by Harold Camping, now 90, the founder of Family Radio, based in Oakland, California. Camping, who has an engineering degree, had spent more than 50 years combing through his Bible and crunching numbers embedded in scripture. Sure, he’d made a similar end-of-the-world prediction for September 6, 1994, but who hasn’t been tripped up by biblical verses? With additional studying, calculations and new signs that would be revealed later, he said earlier this year that he had no doubts this time around. “I know it’s absolutely true, because the Bible is always absolutely true,” he told CNN before May 21. “If I were not faithful that would mean that I’m a hypocrite.” Problem is, May 21 came and went, and the world remained the same. Soon the billboards disappeared. The T-shirts and hats worn by believers got tossed. The RVs were quietly parked, tucked away in storage yards, possibly sold. Camping came forth, two days later, with an explanation - and his last news conference. October 21 would still be the end, he said, but a “loving and merciful” God had opted to spare humanity the five months of turmoil. A couple of weeks later, Camping had a stroke. He is said to be recuperating at home after a hospital and rehab stay and has only made a handful of radio addresses in the months since. Family Radio declined our requests to interview him. Fred Store, a 66-year-old retired electrician and longtime Family Radio listener, dedicated seven months of his life to sharing the “awesome news” that was the May 21 message. He led a caravan of believers, five RVs strong, on a tour of the United States for Family Radio. He was in Boston in May when he expected to be raptured up to heaven. When nothing happened, “We were caught by surprise. ... But we realize now that it’s very possible that we misunderstood some of the things we thought were true,” Store said this week from his home in Sacramento, California, where he has put up a number of caravan friends. “I believe that October 21 is the end, and I trust in God. Whatever way he chooses to end things will be perfect.” On the Family Radio website, the May 21 events, or nonevents, have been clarified. “What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what he wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God’s salvation program would be finished. ... For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God’s final judgment,” the statement reads. As for that massive, body-flinging earthquake anticipated by believers, well, it turned out to be less literal. “We always look at the word ‘earthquake’ to mean the earth, or ground, is quaking or shaking violently. However, in the Bible the word ‘earth’ can include people as well as ground. ... Therefore we have learned from our experience of last May 21 what actually happened. All of mankind was shaken with fear. Indeed the Earth (or mankind) did quake in a way it had never before been shaken.” No one was raptured on May 21, but that’s just because “universal judgment” will come on the last day. “The elect” or “true believers” are still guaranteed their day of rapture, and everyone else will be “annihilated together with the whole physical world.” For Paul Anatiychuk, 36, of Charlotte, North Carolina, the way this played out has been a relief, a blessing. A husband and father of two children, ages 8 and 9, he wasn’t sure if his own family members would be saved. The thought of leaving them behind on May 21, to suffer what would come over the next five months, troubled him. “God tortures them while we’re hanging in the clouds?” he said this week. “It didn’t completely fit.” Now, Anatiychuk said, he can take solace knowing that when he’s saved, sinners will simply die. “Of course (the world) has to be destroyed and burned up by fire,” he said. “But it’s going to be very quiet.” Finding a way to save faith, and face, is part of the process when a prophecy fails, said Lorenzo DiTommaso, an associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal, who has been studying apocalyptic worldviews for a dozen years. He said those who become disillusioned aren’t quick to talk, and the rest find a new way to spin what has transpired. When nothing happened on May 21, Camping was left with a choice, said DiTommaso, whose book, “The Architecture of Apocalypticism,” is scheduled for publication next spring. Camping could have admitted he was wrong. He could have said the calculations were off and needed further analysis. Or he could have spiritualized the apocalypse, which is exactly what he did, DiTommaso said. That tack, that way of looking at the apocalypse, has a long history, he said, and dates back to early Christian theologians. Tyconius, in the late fourth century, took this approach, as - more notably - did Augustine in the early fifth century. Augustine “preferred to understand the millennium predicted in the Revelation of John in spiritual and metaphoric rather than literal terms,” DiTommaso said. He “sought to diminish the emphasis on hard calculations.” The obvious advantage of this sort of interpretation for a man like Camping, who has prided himself on his numbers, is that he can “divorce himself a little bit from the fact that he was so darn wrong.” What Camping will say - if anything - come Saturday, assuming there is a Saturday, is anyone’s guess. But DiTommaso said a new explanation, perhaps a new doomsday date, may be on the horizon. It would be just another in a long line of end-time predictions across the ages. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see another attempt” by Camping, he said. “If he were an artist, this is his masterpiece, his life work.” soundoff (2,353 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Next »
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"A fool and his money are soon parted" – all religions. For more on religion wickedimproper . com is a wonderful resource.
Does this mean I don't have to pay my electric bill?
While I do think the bible is true- I also think our understanding of it most times is wrong. IE it wasn't a 24hr day creation, it was a cycle. We haven't made it to the 7th day we are still on the 6th day being created. The more I learn about science and the universe the more I see that our traditional understanding of the stories in the bible are wrong. There are plenty of stories in there about aliens, advanced technology for the time, ect. These fools who say they know the exact day only serve to 1 call G-d a liar (for he said no man knows the time), & 2. Make Christians and the bible look like a fool through their ignorance and own delusions. They do more harm to a G-d they claim to love than anything else by making people doubt by their own foolishness. If there is a G-d I'm sure he is going to PO at these people who continue to lead those astray by their own words- not G-ds word.
"There are plenty of stories in there about aliens, advanced technology for the time, ect."
Name one.
Please, show me where it says that a day doesn't actually mean a day (24 hour day) in the bible. Is this your interpretation because you realize the ridiculousness that is the earth and everything on it being created in 144 hours or is there actually somewhere in the bible that I missed that says that a day is actually an eon, or an epoch?
I do not know about this, but maybe a day had not yet been defined as 24 hours yet.
@JW
I'll give you that it might not have been exactly 24 hours, however a day was defined enough by then to be a full turn of the earth, from sunrise to sunrise. They may not have had a clock, but they knew what the difference between, a day, a week, a month and a year were. If they had wanted to say it took god 13 billion years to create the universe, they wouldn't have said days. It would make more sense that if you wanted to prove how powerful your god is, then you would say that it took god only 6 days to create everything,
Colin
Isaiah 28:21
The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon— to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task.
I am not saying that the creation account was accurate necessarily. I think the writer of Genesis was giving his interpretation of what had happened. But, is it possible that at the beginning of the universe the orbit of the earth was different. If the universe is expanding, is it possible that the earth was once closer to the sun, but perhaps it did not revolve as fast?
Colin
Advanced technology:Genesis 6:15
This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.
@JW
We actually wobble in different ranges from the sun on a yearly basis, earthquakes can actually move the earth in space, however we have to stay in a strict zone in order for us to be warmed enough by the sun to have liquid water but also far enough away so that the earth isn't completely scorched. The closeness of to the sun (staying within its range) has no quantifiable effect on the year revolution we make around the sun, nor effects the earths rotation. Also there's no evidence that would show the Earth's rotation would be slower 2,000 years ago than it is today, nor anything that I can think of at least that would speed it up to the present speed if that were the case. In any event, if say the orbit was slower, or faster, it still wouldn't be slow enough to change what we know as a 24 hour day into a 52 week "day" or a 365 of our 24 hour days to make one complete spin. At most, if the spin were noticeably slower it would probably make a day 25/26 horus instead of the 24 that we know now.
Oh I didn't mean 2000 years ago. I mean like right after the big bang. At that point was the earth already set in its rotation? And did it have the same rotation?
Oh
Haha, did not understand you're question. I honestly don't know. Probably, who knows. Maybe the comet that nailed the earth so hard it took a chunk out that became the moon was the catalyst to why our planet rotates as fast as it does (complete guess there). I don't think we'll be able to figure that out without literally watching the formation of a planet over the course of a couple hundred thousand years and see if planets change their rotations independently or by a specific cause or both.
You probably know more about it than I do I am sure. Does gravitational pull ever weaken? Is it possible that earth is very slowly moving away from the sun right now, that it is just happening so slow that we cannot observe it?
Well gracity is counted as a weak force (it sounds counter intuitive but its actually really weak when you think about) and we are in an eliptical orbit, so we do tend to move farther/closer to the sun every so often. In terms of actually spinning our way out of orbit though? I don't think so, though what you say could be true. I always imagine the sun on a flat plane in space, then add in the weight and how that would make a dimple, and all the planets are just caught in that dimple, feeling the effects of the sun spinning us around, but we have enough weight we've made a "groove" in space as well, an impercetible line that we follow around the sun so we don't just roll right into the sun. This is a complete guess, but if we were moving further away from the sun at an incredibly slow rate (so slow we can't even notice it) then by the time we would notice it or feel its effects, the sun would already getting bigger and engulf us anyways.
I see. Yeah I do not think that we would fall out of orbit. I thought that if the gravity weakened our orbit would just move farther away, kind of like billions of years from now we would be where Mars is. So is the sun getting bigger now? What makes it get bigger?
J.W
I'm sure there are several books available that discuss events following the big bang, but you might want to read "Atom" by Lawrence Krauss. You can also find videos on the web, including (at least) one by Krauss.
Oh ok thank you
@JW
I do love space, but I don't think I have the exact steps down pat yet, but basically the sun is constantly undergoing nuclear fusion in its core, converting hydrogen to helium and sending off blasts all the time, sometimes in huge arms. When the sun starts to run out of fuel though it will get colder and expand, but since this is the sun we're talking about, that expansion is going to massive and I think go all the way up to Mars or even engulf that as well. (I've read some reports that say it will get as close to mars as mercury is to the sun now and I've read that it could expand up to the asteroid belt)
So if someone wants to bring about the end of the world maybe they should fire all of the nuclear weapons into the sun.
Haha, well not quite, All then nuclear weapons we have would go completely unnoticed on the sun, it has hourly explosions like that all the time. We would just need to explode all those weapons on the earth and that would do the job nicely, killing just about everything.
If anybody is interested in finding out how to destroy the earth refer yourself to this site: http://qntm.org/destroy
You'll be thoroughly disabused in your ignorance of what it will take to do the job. It is not an easy feat.
I just woke up; did the world end yet?
I still just feel bad for the people that truly believed this and ruined their lives and the lives of their families because of it. The concept should be "live life as a good person" but all this dogma turns some simple, universal idea into total crap. By dogma, I mean... Arks and floods and resurrections and ascensions and raptures and blah blah blah. George was right...
Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie.
&
Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.
"Its the end of the world as we know it! And I feel fine"
Genesis 11: 6-7. 'Nuff said.
Where's Waldo? Nuff said...
The only difference between Camping and Evangelicals is Camping has the temerity to set dates. Every other tenet of his delusional superst.ition is exactly the same as 99% of evangelicals – the continued post mortem existence of Jesus, an all loving god, a second coming with a rapture of the faithful.
It is all Dark Ages nonsense. Camping’s mistake was to say something verifiable and testable, something any self respecting theist knows to avoid at all costs.
Man...why's the world got to end right when I accepted a new job. Stupid rapture.
It is just irresponsible as can be for this Man to keep predicting the end of the world. Why does anyone cover this idiot? He should be in a nursing home not being given a forum to spout his bs.
People follow this crap becasue they really want to believe. Just think of all of the "sheep" dead, gone, and those living that have literally wasted their whole lives thinking that "something" other than this life I have been given is going to happen, that it's going to be better than what I have or what I can make now. Unbelieveable, people really should "get a life" the one they have now and make the best they can, not some pipe dream that might happen based on a very old very over translated book.
No one not even the Son(s) knows when this Earth will be destroyed, its' elements melted by the sun going nova. Science is not sure of the time but they know the 'event' will happen. It's just a question of when it will be happening. Friday, the 13th, 1313 sounds about right though. Of course, that's if the 13th falls on Friday. Too much to think about. I'll not be around come then so to all who will be here in 1313, Grab your dongy wongies and hold on to your butts, for it's going to get really really hot! 😐 🙁 🙂
have we come back to break the other sins that we missed yesterday? lets see, you are full of pride, and it shows again in this post.. and you are a lier as proven yesterday... are we going for the rest today?
it's 10.46 EST already, when does it start? i have not finished my work, today...
also, it's 6 hours later in germany, 4.46pm there right now... for them the day is closer to the "end" than it is for us
where does this global "problem" exactly start today?
would that mean, that my family in germany will be "ending" before us here in the US?
wow, camping really forgot so many details
Someone should tell Mr. Camping that stupidity is not a virtue...
Some Christians say stupid things, but I am glad that no Christians try to convert others to Christianity.
The CNN blog next door is about the latest pastor who just settled $exual harassment lawsuits being sued by defrauded parishoners.
How many times before you wise up, my Christian friends. How many times do they have to fool, cheat and deceive you?
I do not think that that story is very common.
Oh here we go again! And honestly I'd like to know someone that has died and came back to tell me how heaven was. And when I have asked these people who say you will not go to heaven for this or that reason I say well how do I know that is the place to go as I have never known anyone who went there and came back and told me about it. So if they can say the world is comming to an end then so be it. What can I say. Or anyone else for that matter. The bible is a story book. It has been rewritten so many times. Being like a story, by the time a story is passed around to 1000 people and then comes back for you to hear again it is so different you will hardly know that story. So to all if the world is comming to an end then go in peace!
The bible is the greatest selling fiction book of all time...
Someone that died and came back? That has already happened. His name is Jesus. He also said "Judge not lest ye be judged" among other things. He also said His Father is the only one that knows when the world will end and He hasn't told anyone yet.
The Bible has never been re-written. Martin Luther deleted some books of it and changed a couple others but the original still exists and there are many copies of it. It does take an education to understand it, so keep studying.
For someone who is talking about an education and studying doesn't do much studying them self... Especially if you think the bible and god is truth... Give the fairy tales a rest and pick up a science book and learn something real would you!
Religion always has and always will be a joke. Until we can abolish organized religion is when we can really advance as a species.
And when the Anti-Christ rises and says YOU will worship him – what will you do then?
Cause the plan is laid out for you – there will be no end to "religion"; the false one will put in place his "one false religion" and demand that you follow him as your "God".
No thanks. I know who the real God is.
Amen Brother
One 777777 or whatever should be One 666
I always get a big laugh out of people like you who try to validate their unbelief in such urgency, I could really care less if you believe or not. If nothing else my belief in God has made me a better person while I was here, and if I leave here to find that it is not so, well, I was still a better person while I was here, but if it is so, well, I just feel sorry for people like you!
You know god is real like how god crated a man from dust and a woman from man's rib? Give me a break! Christian religion is about 2,000 years old and yet we have ancient civilizations that existed 6,000 years prior to our current organized religions that we have today, that state nothing about Jesus or Christianity. I suppose you think that there aren't other planets out in the galaxy yet alone the universe that harbor life as well. Pick up real books that contain scientific, astronomical & historical facts than a fictional book like the bible and learn something for crying out loud will ya! It's people like you who limit the advancement of the human race!
Never took Early World History, huh? Western Civilization would not exist if not for "organized religion". Religion a joke? Well, God does have a sense of humor. He gave us Free Will which is always a hoot :-).
The classic reply by the religious "wait til you are at your deathbed".
The ever persistent spiel: "what if you are wrong?"
Gotta love that crap.
"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." Matthew 24:36, New American Standard Bible. And the other translations aren't significantly different.
But I thought God the son and God the Father were on in the Holy Trinity in your belief – how can it know and not know something at the same time.
Contradiction number 1,324 in this silly Iron Age faith.
I believe in what I can touch, see and hear. I bow down to nothing; I will worship nothing.
Camping has given Christianity a bad name and made Christian believers look like idiots.
I read the scriptures (old and new testaments) and am aware of the possibility of a Rapture,
I am also aware of Christs words "no man knows the time except the Father".
Camping is not the Father, nor is the Pope or anyone else here on earth.
I think Camping is using numerology for is phony predictions, he should be ASHAMED.
The "Rapture" is an idea from the late 1950's created by a fringe Protestant group, that most educated Protestants rejected. It would have faded into obscurity if not for the"Left Behind" series and other fictional accounts. Religious fantasy always sells.
This is to CNN
Why do you keep giving bandwidth to this nutcase? I realize that to be fair, you have to let everyone express their "opinion" but there are some who really believe in this crap, and will likely choose to end their lives before "the end comes"
This guy is no different than the doomsayers you see wearing the sandwich boards, yelling at passers by that the world is ending and to repent before it's too late. Yet I don't see you putting THEM on your site.
CNN is supposed to be about NEWS. Harold Camping is not news. He's a mentally ill old man, and he belongs in a home.
Amen brother. Methinks CNN pays these crazies to talk all this BS for the sake of having something to report besides the stupid wars.
The gospel of Jesus Christ:
Jesus Christ has borne our sins on the coss. Jesus died for us. By his death Jesus proved God's love. God gave his precious, beloved Son for us. God had yet revealed his love by the Creation and furthermore he had sent a lot of prophets to the mankind. A few people became believers, but most rejected God's messengers. Finally he even sent his only begotten Son to us. In Jesus God visited the earth. God loves the mankind.
If you believe and get baptized, the power of Jesus death and resurrection is dedicated to you. You get released from the slavery of sin and you can start a righteous life in the power of the Holy Spirit. God wants to give you a new life for free or as a cost-free present. God can give you the power to love Him and your neighbour. Everybody wants to be loved. God gives us the power to love.
Do you love your neighbour? Do you love your workmate or your classmate?
We all need Jesus.
there is no gospel of jesus.. try nice!
Mr. Brandlein (German?) anyway, so am I...
could you explain why -for example- the dinosaurs where left out of the bible??
Rainer – you have really been drinking the Koo-Aid way to long. You are going to be so disappointed you wasted your life thinking this way.
Seriously? Everybody needs jesus? There is definitely somebody who needs medications!!
I couldn't have said it better...
Don't be an idiot. Revelation 20:12 says you are saved by your works alone, not by your faith in Jesus. If you love your son, would you send him to die for you in a war? NO. So why would God. Satan tempted Jesus with an offer to make Jesus into a God, and Jesus responded with "Get behind me Satan, worship our ONE true God". Jesus never said "worship" me!. Read the Bible more thouroughly and stop listening to the brainwashing that's in the Church.
A1Retouching
The Bible is the story of God redeeming a people for Himself. Generation by Generation God reveals Himself to His chosen people. We can glean from that a glymps of God and a picture of what He has done, will do and continues to do. Dinosaurs and how specifically man was formed was not important to those generations. Besides Moses could not spell mitochondrial DNA so this is why we were created from dust (very small organic bits).
I love my neighbors, co-workers, brothers and sisters and treat them all with respect. I love this planet, everyday I try to do my best to stay possitive and enjoy what is around me. Why? Becuase I'm human and life is better like this, it has NOTHING to do with Jesus.
Let's see, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. nope. No Gospel of Jesus. He was the Subject, not the Author. As for the dinosaurs, they didn't believe, so God only chose Adam and his descendants. If the Bible included all the non-believers by name it would be a much bigger book.