Two More Days! (original) (raw)

I feel I should say a bit about the end of the world, since it IS occurring on Saturday and all. I’ve written about Harold Camping before, and how he’s considered extreme even by other fundamentalist Christians, as well as the fact that he already predicted the world would end in 1994 (which, as far as I know, it didn’t).

His rationale for choosing 2011 (and 1994, for that matter) is based on some really arbitrary mathematics. I don’t know that it’s possible to come up with a pseudo-science that can be used to predict literally ANYTHING as much as numerology. Despite a very aggressive PR campaign on Family Radio’s part, I don’t think most fundamentalists are buying this. Beth made a quite valid point about this, which is that a lot of these people assume we’re living in the end times, but they totally dismiss the idea that the world could end on Saturday. If the world is ending soon, couldn’t it just as easily end then as anytime else? Not that anyone other than God is supposed to know the date, but doesn’t that mean it could just as easily be three million years from now, and the parallels people draw between the modern world and Revelation are things that are ALWAYS going on? With thousands of years of failed doomsday predictions in our history, isn’t it rather arrogant to assume that the end of the world is going to occur within YOUR lifetime? I guess I’m kind of saying that, as crazy as Camping is, he’s hardly unique. I am looking forward to hearing him backpedal after Saturday, though, assuming he lives that long. I think I first heard Family Radio about six years ago, and I thought, “This guy is never going to make it to 2011,” but now he’s made it and is presumably going to have to answer for himself again. Not that it’s likely to impact his popularity much; a failed prediction will lose a religious leader some followers, but the really devoted ones will often become MORE devoted. We’ve seen this many times. Hey, the New Testament itself is filled with talk about how the end is coming soon, but Christianity is still one of the largest religions in the world despite the fact that it never came to pass.