-- by Micheal
Harold Camping was wrong about the date of the Rapture, again. He let his overconfidence in his cleverness paint him into a corner. How could he now just admit he was flat-out wrong? True to form, he has fudged on the event that took place on May 21st, rather than admit his convoluted numerology was wrong.
Now, Camping claims that May 21st was the deadline for salvation. The world will be destroyed on October 21st. Anyone who wasn't saved by May 21st, is just plain doomed.
This is far from the first time that date-setters have spiritualized their (apparently) failed predictions. When William Miller's prediction of the Rapture occurring in 1844 didn't pan out, those Millerites who did not drift away in The Great Disappointment spiritualized it. Christ didn't return to EARTH, but he descended from one level of heaven to one closer to earth. See? The date wasn't wrong. Miller just misunderstood Christ's travel plans. Christ would make the next step closer to earth in the near future. Please stand by.
A disappointed former Millerite, Nelson Barbour regained his zeal for dates. He predicted that Christ would return in 1874. Christ did not appear. Instead, this "event" was spiritualized. Christ did not APPEAR, you see, but instead set up his invisible "millennial" kingdom in which he rules the earth -- invisibly. The Rapture, Barbour said, would occur in 1878. When this did not happen, there was yet another great disappointment among his Adventists.
Many fell away, including C.T. Russell, who, disappointed and angry as he was, carried on the doom banner with his new splinter group, later named Jehovah's Witnesses. Russell, keeping Barbour's date of 1874 as the start of Christ's invisible reign, figured it would last 40 years (not a thousand, per Revelation 20:2-7). Therefore, the world would end in October 1914. While 1914 was not a good year, the world didn't end. This date, too, got spiritualized. Something ended in October 1914. It just wasn't the whole world. Russell's successors would predict the end(s) many more times. 1925, 1941, 1975, etc. Something, we're told, really did happen on those dates. It just turned out to be spiritual (and invisible) and not fire falling from the skies, moon turning to blood, or ANY of the stuff in the Book of Revelation. Don't any of these guys read the whole book?
Now Camping is following in the tradition of failed date-setters. Keep the date, but move the goal posts. Now the date to watch is October 21st. He says it's the end of the world, but as we've seen, just what happens on a particular date is very much ripe for revision.
Doom For Dollars?
Fox News reported that Camping's organization took in $18 Million in donations in 2009. His organization has a stated worth of $104 million. $34 million of that is socked away in securities. If the world is going to end soon, why would Camping be buying stocks and securities? Think about it. How many thousands of hapless lemmings have given Camping their life savings (I mean, who needs it if the world is ending, right?) to pay for Camping's ad campaign?
Lemmings Awake! Turn back! Don't give Camping and his organization any more of your money. It smells like a cruel scam. Even if Camping were sincere, (and he's been sincerely wrong twice now), it's still pointless. If the world is going to end in October, your money won't do any more good in HIS stock portfolio than it will in your scanty checking account.
If you think the world is ending soon. and are truly worried about the lost souls around you, tell them what you know about Christ. That's what Jesus said to do (Matthew 28:19). Of course, now that Camping has made the gospel look incredibly stupid, this will be an even tougher job than it was before. Thanks Harold.
How many thousands has Camping actually convinced to stay aboard the train to hell because he made salvation look stupid?
5.22.2011
Another Apocalyptic Failure
-- by Micheal
Harold Camping was absolutely sure, this time (not like last time) that May 21, 2011, at 6:00 p.m., the Rapture would occur. Hundreds of thousands of Christians would be miraculously taken off the earth, followed by five months of tribulation before the end of the world on Oct. 21st.
It didn't happen...again. That's not a surprise. Harold has been wrong before. What is surprising is how many people gave him even a scrap of credibility. Granted, we did not have people selling off their possessions and waiting on their rooftops, as was done in centuries past. But, Harold had mustered an awful lot of money from people who apparently believed him. All that advertising, full-bus decals? None of that comes cheap.
This week's scenario was not new, as I'll review in a moment. But, it has been awhile -- over a decade -- since the last end-of-the-world brouhaha, so perhaps we were due.
We all recall the Sturm und Drang over Y2K. End of the world, or at least massive chaos and reversion to the dark ages. Didn't happen.
Before that, our same Harold Camping had predicted that Christ would return between Sept. 15-17th, 1994. Didn't happen.
Before that, a Korean church plastered posters all over (I see one every day at I-93's Exit 4) announcing that the Rapture would come on October 28, 1992. Didn't happen.
Before that, a self-taught "bible scholar" named Edgar Whisenant published a book announcing that he had 88 reasons why the Rapture would happen in 1988. He sold 4.5 Million books! 4.5 Million! Didn't happen, but made him a lot of money.
Before that, the leader of the Jehovah's Witnesses church announced in 1974 that 1975 would be the end of the world. Wrap up your earthly affairs. This is it. Didn't happen. But then, they'd been predicting the world would end in 1914, 1925, 1941, etc.
I could go on and on, but I think you can see the pattern. This predicting the end of the world has been going on for hundreds of years. It was big in the 1800s. 1844 was supposed to be "It" or then again in 1874. The point is, people keep predicting the end of the world using bogus numerology to "unlock" prophecies in the book of Daniel and/or Revelation. Each doom-sayer is totally convinced that his (or her) calculations simply cannot be wrong. Whisenant even had the hubris to declare that "Only if the Bible itself is in error am I wrong." Way to go, Edgar. Take the Bible down with you.
All these geniuses burning the midnight oil to crack the Bible's code, yet each manages to come up with entirely different dates. Is no one learning from history? Is no one really reading the rest of the Bible? Quite a few times, we are told that no one will know the date. Read Matthew 24:36, Acts 1:7 and 1st Thessolonians 5:1. We're not going to know because we're not supposed to know. It's a "need to know" basis and we've been told repeatedly that we don't need to know.
Yet, every few decades, we get a new genius who can't read history nor reads all of his Bible and thinks HE is just smart enough to tease out the truth AND cannot be wrong. Such confidence inevitably attracts a crowd of people. We lemmings are suckers for a confident lemming who says "Hey, go THIS way!" It never ends well.
If you're a believer, I'm sorry, but we'll have to clean up Harold's mess. He's made the Bible look stupid along with himself.
If you're a smug atheist who thinks this is a good time to tweak your believing friends, chill out. A fool jumping off a building with feathers glued to his arms does not prove that man will never fly. It just proves he's a fool. You're still going to have some 'splainin' to do when your end comes.
Harold Camping was absolutely sure, this time (not like last time) that May 21, 2011, at 6:00 p.m., the Rapture would occur. Hundreds of thousands of Christians would be miraculously taken off the earth, followed by five months of tribulation before the end of the world on Oct. 21st.
It didn't happen...again. That's not a surprise. Harold has been wrong before. What is surprising is how many people gave him even a scrap of credibility. Granted, we did not have people selling off their possessions and waiting on their rooftops, as was done in centuries past. But, Harold had mustered an awful lot of money from people who apparently believed him. All that advertising, full-bus decals? None of that comes cheap.
This week's scenario was not new, as I'll review in a moment. But, it has been awhile -- over a decade -- since the last end-of-the-world brouhaha, so perhaps we were due.
We all recall the Sturm und Drang over Y2K. End of the world, or at least massive chaos and reversion to the dark ages. Didn't happen.
Before that, our same Harold Camping had predicted that Christ would return between Sept. 15-17th, 1994. Didn't happen.
Before that, a Korean church plastered posters all over (I see one every day at I-93's Exit 4) announcing that the Rapture would come on October 28, 1992. Didn't happen.
Before that, a self-taught "bible scholar" named Edgar Whisenant published a book announcing that he had 88 reasons why the Rapture would happen in 1988. He sold 4.5 Million books! 4.5 Million! Didn't happen, but made him a lot of money.
Before that, the leader of the Jehovah's Witnesses church announced in 1974 that 1975 would be the end of the world. Wrap up your earthly affairs. This is it. Didn't happen. But then, they'd been predicting the world would end in 1914, 1925, 1941, etc.
I could go on and on, but I think you can see the pattern. This predicting the end of the world has been going on for hundreds of years. It was big in the 1800s. 1844 was supposed to be "It" or then again in 1874. The point is, people keep predicting the end of the world using bogus numerology to "unlock" prophecies in the book of Daniel and/or Revelation. Each doom-sayer is totally convinced that his (or her) calculations simply cannot be wrong. Whisenant even had the hubris to declare that "Only if the Bible itself is in error am I wrong." Way to go, Edgar. Take the Bible down with you.
All these geniuses burning the midnight oil to crack the Bible's code, yet each manages to come up with entirely different dates. Is no one learning from history? Is no one really reading the rest of the Bible? Quite a few times, we are told that no one will know the date. Read Matthew 24:36, Acts 1:7 and 1st Thessolonians 5:1. We're not going to know because we're not supposed to know. It's a "need to know" basis and we've been told repeatedly that we don't need to know.
Yet, every few decades, we get a new genius who can't read history nor reads all of his Bible and thinks HE is just smart enough to tease out the truth AND cannot be wrong. Such confidence inevitably attracts a crowd of people. We lemmings are suckers for a confident lemming who says "Hey, go THIS way!" It never ends well.
If you're a believer, I'm sorry, but we'll have to clean up Harold's mess. He's made the Bible look stupid along with himself.
If you're a smug atheist who thinks this is a good time to tweak your believing friends, chill out. A fool jumping off a building with feathers glued to his arms does not prove that man will never fly. It just proves he's a fool. You're still going to have some 'splainin' to do when your end comes.
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