Last year, Harold Camping, the radio pulpit pounder, stirred his flock to action when he told them that Jesus was returning to end the world on May 21, 2011.
Unfortunately for the preacher, Jesus was apparently busy that day and couldn’t meet Camping’s schedule. Unfazed, Camping rescheduled the Second Coming and the subsequently end of the world for October 21.
Again, Jesus blew off the date and Preacher Camping slipped quietly into retirement, no doubt wondering why his Lord and Savior had seen fit to make him into a laughingstock.
That’s the problem with predicting the end of the world and trying to speak for deities. If mythology teaches us anything, it is that the gods are fickle. Many Christians get this when they pronounce that “the Lord moves in mysterious ways.” Of course, they also tend to blame everything bad on God, too. But, I’ve mentioned that previously.
This year is a watershed year for end-of-the-world hoo-ha and falderal and, most importantly, for enterprising organizations and individuals to rake in oodles of cash. If you think about it, it’s amazing how much money people will spend preparing to be vaporized/exploded/incinerated/drowned/boiled/schmushed, etc., etc. Which takes us back to Camping.
Arnie Bermudez, a columnist for the Tucson Citizen, points out that the 90-year-old Camping “…managed to swindle hundreds of people out of money donated to him because of his doomsday calculations that determined the end of the world was in May of 2011.” He also reminds us that after the revised October 21 date fell through, Camping admitted “in a private interview” that predicting the Rapture (aka the End of the World) is impossible. Yet, even though he admitted it, Camping didn’t return the money he filched from his true believers.
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