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 Harold Camping, now 91, is the force behind Family Radio -- and a couple failed prophecies.
May 16th, 2013
07:00 AM ET
End times for doomsday-linked radio network?By Jessica Ravitz, CNN (CNN) - Dealing with a struggling radio business – this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. By all his calculations, Harold Camping expected to be nearly two years into his Rapture revelry, hanging in heaven with God and the select others who’d been saved. But when his predicted and vastly promoted May 21, 2011, Day of Rapture came and went, and the end of the world on October 21, 2011, didn’t pan out either, Camping lost his doomsday mojo. It didn’t help that he had another knock against him, having made a similar failed prophecy back in 1994. By March 2012, the degreed engineer who’s spent more than a half-century studying the Bible admitted mistakes. He vowed to back off from the prediction business. Now it seems Family Radio, the nonprofit Christian radio broadcasting network Camping started in 1959, may be foundering, according to an investigative story recently published in the Contra Costa Times. Financial documents show that Family Radio's assets dropped by more than $105 million in less than five years, despite an influx of $85 million in donations over that time, the California newspaper reported. This, of course, was during the big push to spread the news about the end that wasn’t. The paper also said donations have tumbled nearly 70% since May 21, 2011, spawning layoffs of longtime employees. And saddled with loans, a dwindling cash flow and alleged mismanagement, the network was reportedly forced to sell off its three biggest stations. “You eliminate those three (FM stations) and, ultimately, the rest of it dies,” former employee Matt Tuter told the Contra Costa Times. “I believe they are killing it off.” All of these financial struggles, however, come as the network grapples with losing the voice of its biggest star - Camping himself. He suffered a stroke in June 2011. And though he remains involved and still serves as the network's president, the flagship show he hosted, "Open Forum," is only running previously recorded programs. It was through Family Radio – and its multitude of U.S. stations, satellite feeds, shortwave radio use, Internet reach and translation machine – that Camping’s teachings and 2011 predictions spread across the globe. His doomsday message was bolstered by a massive billboard campaign at a reported price tag of $5 million. There were also initiatives like Project Caravan, which dispatched teams of volunteers in RVs to warn the people. CNN hopped on board one caravan and traveled with faithful ambassadors who’d given up everything for this cause. The coordinator for Project Caravan, Ted Kim, left Family Radio soon after May 21, 2011. Once his ambassadors - still around and not raptured - had a place to go, he told CNN, his work was done. Even though he doesn't work there anymore, that doesn’t mean he’s lost faith in the mission. He still believes spiritual judgment occurred in 2011 and that the world’s physical destruction is near. Photos: Doomsdays throughout time Kim, who is now home schooling his children and caring for his mother, suspects the supporters who fell away had erroneously put more stock in Camping than they’d put in the Bible or God himself. But Tuter, the former employee who served at Camping’s side for years before he was fired in 2012, suggested to the Contra Costa Times that a demise of Family Radio may be deliberate. He said Camping made it clear to him in 1996 that he wanted the network to die when he did. "He was very specific he did not want it to continue," Tuter told the newspaper. He said Camping confided in him a week before going into heart surgery: "God raised up Family Radio just as a platform for me!" Tom Evans, who has taken over the network’s day-to-day reins since Camping suffered that stroke, could not be reached by CNN for comment. But he offered the newspaper a very different perspective than Tuter's. Evans said he hopes that Family Radio can move forward, leaving this end-of-the-world banter behind it. “We want to be a comfort and reminder of God’s strength and mercy,” he said. “In the end, our founding mission is to proclaim the word of God.” That mission, coupled with the network’s recent history, may not make them boom like they once did. But to Evans and those who are keeping the faith, neither should it portend doom.
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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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If Camping was sincere he'd give back to those who lost everything over his failed predictions. His calculations were always seen as incorrect and misleading by Bible scholars. He used those erroneous tools and misguided calculations to feather his own nest, and why did he keep soliciting donations when the world was coming to an end? What did he need money for? The Bible itself says that "no man knows the day or the hour, not even the Son." Did Camping consider himself to be above Jesus Christ? What a blatant display of arrogance! And if it's true that he wanted his ministry to end with him, then how selfish is that? I guess it wasn't about people and their salvation, only about him and his glorified sense of self import!
"bible scholars"...good one...like "Harry Potter scholars" or "Silmarilian scholars".
Stupid Atheists loiter amidst the grasslands ever a wailing their contrary opinions like weeds needing to be pulled up! Stupid theists are as their atheist cousins, both sides teetering on the edges of sanctimonious ills of believe-abilities. Theists believe in a God of the above while atheists believe it not. Who is the worst fool, one who has their faith set to be in God or the one who is faithlessly set against God? With God there is faith and without God there is faithlessness. Which side of mankind's equilibrium will win out? I have faith in one but not in the other.
You suck
more blah blah blah from the blah blah blah king.
We will always laugh at you religious tools.
Richard Cranium,
So much for the "blahs" of one being an ignoramus of feeblemindedness in Freudian comforts.
Word salad clean up on page 7, STAT!
Here is the only rule of thumb to continue on being a doomsday promoter...
~~ NEVER tell the public (or offer up) a date for your doomsday prophecy.
You are taking a date to doomsday? Should be sure to put out.
@Richard
Nah.. not me.
I'm telling the future nutcases the secret formula to success. I like to see how many crazies will spring up from this.
It's all for the laughs. XD
God and His existence isn't logical. It isn't because He is God. For example, if you want to go out on the water, logic dictates that you need a boat or some floatation device. But if it's God, He can just walk out on the water. How? Because He's God! That's not hard. Basically to prove God by logic is illogical because God does not fit scientific logic. What you think you can discover God on your own terms with gadgets and devices? He's God. You have to discover Him on HIS terms. And that's through His Son Jesus. What? You think by saying "god doesn't exist" makes Him not exist? Science hasn't figured out how the earth was formed and the theories quoted are flawed because you can't create matter; physics 101 (scientific contradiction). And if you say science is working to solve this and other mysteries is like having faith in something that's not there ... imagine that.
Nice circular reasoning there.
All of science is better than the goddidit theory which is completely illogical and unreasonable.
How many parts of the bible have to be proven wrong before you accept that it is nothing more than man made drivel?
How do you know if a scientists didn't doctor his results? How could you know unless you do the experiment for yourself? You would have to "trust" his/her work and recordings. Same with archeologists. And so it goes with the Bible. To make it plain, you are going to trust someone.
Besides, some guy getting up in a boat and saying "Peace be still" and a all stormy weather stops in an instance; how EXACTLY would someone explain that today anyway? We don't have sciences for that.
Wow, pasigiri, that simple explanation really clears up a lot of the confusion I had about god. Thanks, your a good spokesperson for atheism.
"if you say science is working to solve this and other mysteries is like having faith in something that's not there ... imagine that."
Faith is belief without evidence, thus the reason we reject the god notion.
Science provides evidence and I do expect science to proceed with finding more evidence. However, I do not simply accept everything they may say. If it seems pertinent than I will happily read up on it and accept the evidence as it is presented. The wonderful thing about science is it is a never ending process, there's always a discovery to be made.
Your bible has never been updated and it can be proven wrong by science...the fact that you don't see this is strictly your issue and laziness.
"How do you know if a scientists didn't doctor his results?"
All Scientific Theories must be peer-reviewed. They go through a rigorous process of being tested time and time again to show they are accurate. So doctoring would be caught and thus would not pass a peer-review.
@Truth
"So doctoring would be caught and thus would not pass a peer-review."
–Watch the religious nuts come with an example where it was not caught immediately to suit their case. They'll never let idea that science is sometimes slow in the process of finding out these doctorings.
pasigiri,
If you dont understand the scientific method please just say so. It is VERY clear that you dont.
Answer: 🙂 Just wonder who will be first...HS-our old hag; Chad-our farm boy from Alabama; maybe lionlylamb-our home schooled friend or may it will be pasigiri-our newest member to show where a grade 5 education gets you.
@Truth
We'll just have to see.
"an influx of $85 million in donations"
85 million dollars wasted on spreading fear. Awesome.
A media outlet based on fear mongering? Fox News has a monopoly on that.
Um, if he TRULY believed the end was coming, why didn't he sell off the radio network back then??? Why wait until now to start laying off people?
Milking it for all the cash he can.
Ok, God is Jesus, Jesus is God. God wanted to have a physical manifestation of himself on Earth and though he created the heavens and the Earth, Adam and Eve, he couldn't manage a “Jesus” so he knocked up a virgin by proxy who then gave birth to Himself and then he waited for himself to grow up so that he could preach the "truth" to those who would listen.
Then he set up his own death so that he could suffer on a cross to "die" (even though he can't die) for the sins of all the many billions of people who would be born who had not yet committed any sins but for whom he has a plan and that plan includes sinning for some unknown reason so he needed to die for them. Then he becomes a ghost, takes a little trip to Hades to hang with the red guy and then he "rises" and walks about frightening people and then disappears after telling everyone he would return and never shows his face again.
Why?
I would offer this counter possibility. Mary got knocked up by the blacksmith. Jesus was a cult leader. Jesus broke the law and was punished and died.
Jesus had a bad weekend for your soul.
That was beautiful! Thank you for a dose of reality. Wait for the hate...
So you are saying that it is KIND OF AN IMPOSSIBLE STORY?! Shocking! I love the whole "Its Gods plan" vs "Mans free will" debate; bottom line if you believe in a God you need to start the education process OVER!
Ricky Gervais proposed the theory that Mary accidently got some sp.unky water in her orifice while washing in the Sea of Galilee.
You dare to ask WHY when it is clear that the why doesn't matter?
You know the HOW, so who cares why the fairytale was written the way it was?
There is no reason for insanity. No rational means of production of crazy talk.
There is no why. There is only poop being flung by groups of crazy piebald primates.
my mother was a N-U––N, with eleven kids.
Truth absolute, she popped us out like a t-shirt cannon
slam, goes, boom. Hurrah. One, less, crazy.
Many argue that, if science has not found an answer to a phenomenon, then God did it.
Therefore before we understood lightning, God did it. Likewise for rain, tides, earthquakes, etc.
Using this logic, every time we explain something we did not previously understand, a piece of God is eliminated.
Therefore, God will necessarily be disproven over time.
Therefore, there is no God.
The law of a diminishing God.
thats flawed logic for modern religions. christians jews or muslims aren't like, say, the greeks who thought that zues literaly hung out all day chucking lighting bolts, just because science can explain natural phenomenons doesn't necesarrily disprove the existance or even the influence of God despite what people say
nick, it does disprove the existence of a moral god.
Explain why you can't stop drinking Apple.
nick: There is no evidence to support a god, trying to disprove a god can't be done but given that there is absolutely zero evidence for one, it is safe to say it's not very likely one exists.
I can't think of anyone worst than some smug religious know-it-all.
Glenn Beck is positioning himself to be the head of the next religion. With all this money for the taking, he'll be raising in prominence soon!
But he doesn’t talk religion though? Or does he? I never actually listened to him. I assume he doesn’t b/c some acknowledged that he never brought up social issues on his fox show.
Christianity is the belief that a god impregnated a virgin with himself, to give birth to himself, so he could sacrifice himself to himself to forgive the "original sin" of a couple we now all know never existed.
Atheism is the belief that the above belief is fvcking stupid
What, that doesn't sound logical? What about the burning bush? I saw it once, took three weeks and tons of meds to get over it too.....that b!tch.
What a way to not "get it!" I would laugh were it not so sad that someone would pretend to have read something, then write a bad book report. Dog ate your homework?
I was glad to hear that the IRS is keeping an eye on the teabillies. Those losers are by far the most subversive group in the country today and someone has to watch them.
Who will be the next major voice of these doomsday tools?
I wanna see the next generation of ploys, that these fvcktards can come up with, to fleece money out of the suckers.
Glenn Beck!
Answer,
God knows the exact time when our sun will go super nova, expanding itself to the points of engulfing all the planets in its' wake!
@Dyslexic doG
You're quite right..
If that tool ever puts up an actual date of the next doomsday event the it'll be the end of his "career."
Michelle Bachman? Sarah Palin? Mitt Romney? Any other bat shit crazy republitard I'm missing?
@LL
Just fvck off and die. Your god never existed.
lionlylamb
Actually, you too can know when the sun will go super nova. Google works. Maybe your God uses it too??
That crazy bitch Amy from Amy's Baking Company on Kitchen Nightmares.
Answer
The Sun does not have enough mass to become a supernova because its mass is less than the Chandrasekhar mass (approximately 1.4 Suns) and it has no way to gain mass.
The guy in picture looks like father of Mohammad A. Dar, another loser, fooling humanity, crook.
I get the impression that everyone on this blog is upset at me when I say I am religious. What’s the big deal? It doesn’t bother me that you’re atheist. Please don’t reply back saying religious people start all wars and that they force their views on others b/c I never did either one of those.
No one is upset that you are religious. I just find it amusing that grown people can still believe in fairy tales. That's all. How can we ever truely move forward as a society believing in archaic stories about magic men in the sky? It is quite embarrassing.
Atheists aren't upset at people who are religious. That's silly. Atheists respond to stupid reasoning and poor logic with apt rebuttals that point out the silliness of the belief held, not the person expressing the belief. Sometimes, the believer shows himself to be a complete dovchenozzle about his belief and talks about the laws needing to follow his religious opinion and that somehow the 88% of believers are being "persecuted" by the 4% of atheists even though all the presidents of the US and 99.999% of lawmakers are christians.
Athiests respond to silliness, not the fact that soemone does or does not have a certain religious belief.
@Franklin
You can have your faith. We, atheists, do not care how you want to live with your faith.
Here is an example of what we will not tolerate from your kind though... it is rhetoric like this one:
"As a christian, I have the the authority to tell you how to behave, and how to act, and how you can manage your own body."
-- That sentence alone sums up the whole religious mentality.
Franklin: You're well entitled to your beliefs and most of us respect that. Where my biggest issue comes to play is when someone tries to use that belief to dictate how everyone else should live (ie: the abortion issue; birth control; gay marriage) or to hold it over our heads via the threat of hell.
Franklin, it's nothing personal really. It's just that religion is all a giant pyramid scheme that takes money and resources that humanity would be better off putting elsewhere, and also that religion has a way of causing people to do really stupid things.
You don't live in a vacuum. Grow a spine and stop being so sensitive to what is probably valid criticism. Ask yourself why people think you are so stupid.
@Sed
==quote==
"You don't live in a vacuum. Grow a spine and stop being so sensitive to what is probably valid criticism. Ask yourself why people think you are so stupid."
==end==
They can't do that. If they thought it through – the whole process of it – and found out that they are indeed damn pathetic and stupid.. they'll be hit with a huge ego knockdown.
Why is believing in a higher power considered stupid?
@Franklin
Why don't you tell us why it isn't?
Your only excuse left to you is to explain that it offers you comfort. Go through your list of things – you'll come right back to that "comfort". It's a 100% guarantee. It's your sole excuse.
Franklin, it doesn't bother me one bit that you're religious and I don't think being religious is inherently stupid. What does bother me is when a religion promotes view that are damaging to people or society as a whole. A religion is just like a political party platform...a collection of beliefs. There's nothing inherently wrong with being "political" but if your politics include something offensive, like segregation or hurting the poor or punishing gay people who want to marry, yes, I think it's fair to start looking at the details of how the religion is put together.
And that's where we get to the question of whether a religion is "stupid" (not my chosen term) or not in a particular area. If a particular religion claims both that it respects science and that schizophrenia is demon possession we have a problem. Ditto with a religion that claims that no one is "born gay" or that the earth is 10,000 years old or that one group of people os less worthy than another. If you want to belong to religion X you should expect to take on responsibility just as you do for belonging to political party X. You don't get a free ride just by calling your beliefs "religion".
Franklin, you've missed a step. You've pre-supposed the answer to why. Come on, give it another go.
Sed, it's called begging the question. Christians are trained to do it, but once they see that you know that trick, they move on to trying to sell their scam to easier marks.
==quote==
Sed
Franklin, you've missed a step. You've pre-supposed the answer to why. Come on, give it another go.
==end==
For Franklin.... just in case you do not understand what is said.
The following is needed in order like this..
1) Prove a god .. any god.. exists.
then
2) Offer up your 'why' it is not stupid.
But if you're already proven god... well well. Then we don't need to go to 2.
I always felt that there more than something we’re on this planet for a reason. I always thought there was more to it than life and death. Of course I can’t prove it but I always thought there was an afterlife.
What you provided was a good reply. Even if there is no God but believing in one provides comfort and less stress, then why is it stupid?
If there is no God and one prays to relieve stress and are calmer afterwards, then this served some type of function.
@Franklin
"If there is no God and one prays to relieve stress and are calmer afterwards, then this served some type of function."
–You're the typical christian .. you have just one conclusion that you want to profess.
You want to say to everyone that your god offers the most comfort. For you that thought is always there. You can not justify in others saying that "so what if you find comfort in god.. I find comfort in other ways."
For you the concept of anything besides finding comfort through a god will be enough. You are typical in your reply like so many others. You can not have others say onto you "I find comfort through [this] and not through your bs."
For you – you have to promote this line of thought to yourself and tell others that "If only you were to find comfort through a god then I can befriend you."
Religion is the opiate of the people!
Religion is also the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.
For somebody who wants to deceive many people, yes.
For someone that want's to grow and develop life, no.
It's all about deception. It deceives one into the false promise of some imaginary glorious afterlife if only you believe, however you don't get there if you reject the notion and do as everyone should and question it.
One of my favorites quotes is: Science is questions that may never be answered. Belief is answers that may never be questioned.
I think it would be cool if he became an atheist before he becomes worm food.
I think it would be funnier if he had one more end-times prediction. There'll always be a bunch of idiots who'll believe him. There are few things funnier than Christians dest.itute after giving away all there stuff because of some bogus end-times prediction.
Their...not there.
This is sad. Camping gave me plenty to laugh at, I'll miss him.
the picture on this article is already my desktop background.
He has a powerful and happy expression. Part of me believes he was just having a joke on stupid people.
"the picture on this article is already my desktop background."
ಠ_ಠ
Meanings of word NUN.
Nun is a word and a letter by Latin, Hebrew and Arabic standard.
N---U--–N
Letter N represents intention by heart and mind in truth absolute.
Letter U identifies path, also known as RAH in truth absolute to reach results in truth absolute.
Second letter N identifies accomplishment or establishment of a noun in its true fundamentals, or truth absolute.
Every function of every one is required to be by NUN to achieve its intended form, proven by science and a fundamental commandment of truth absolute for human to follow to have peace, Islam in life and hereafter.
Damn it Islamabot, you are making me horny.
Nut job
Please tell me you don't reside in the USA or Canada?
Ruler, ism, 12", wood, to the knuckles ism, truth absolute, sister, harder.
What cheap drugs are you ingesting?