Nah, not really. This is supposed to be the last day of our existence, according to Harold Camping, but not even the Christians believe him, and they’re pretty kooky.
Rocky Mountain, N.C.’s Glenn Lee Hill, a retired pastor of Meadowbrook Christian Church, has told The Christian Post, “The late night comics tend to make fun of Christians anyway and when this happens it gives them an opportunity to mock us.”
Hill fervently refutes Camping’s latest rapture claim that “the end is going to come very, very quietly, probably within the next month. It will happen by October 21.”
According to the retired minister, “That is an erroneous prophecy, I don’t believe the world is about to end. Jesus has provided the choice for people to live forever.”
That’s from a Christian news site which then concludes on this note.
Fifty-eight percent of white evangelical Christians say Christ will return to earth by the year 2050, by far the highest percentage in any religious group, according to the survey.
By the year 2050, 23 percent of Americans believe that Christ will definitely return, and 18 percent more believe he will probably have returned to earth by that date.
It seems to me that if you’re one of those evangelical Christians, you’re just as insane as Harold Camping. The only difference is that you believe the Bible verse that says no one can prophesy the date, and Camping is skeptical.
My students have a big exam today. I’m sure some of them are praying — mostly for a good grade, probably, but I imagine a few would accept the end of the world instead.
Oh, for fucksake not again! I thought it ended months ago.
Well, the 21st is 29 minutes from being over here in the antipodes. Jesus better make it snappy if he’s going to make that deadline.
That’s right I’m talking to you Northern Hemisphere types from the FUTURE, Future, future…. and I gotta say it’s great. My robot butler is just getting my hover bike ready whilst I catch the news on my tri-dee.
Whoops. Yep. That was it, right there. I just felt the world end.
Gah, I meant to say “North American types.” My kingdom for an edit button….
But the famed Campykins was RIGHT (have to get in a bit of ALL CAPS don’t I). The world DID end and you were also right that you didn’t notice it. You see the World was IMMEDIATELY REPLACED by an exact duplicate!!! It’s all revealed in one of the Hitchhikers’ Guides to the Galaxies!
In fact Campypoo was RIGHT EVERY SINGLE TIME he said the world had ended!!!!!
OK this link may not relate specifically to this article, but it is pretty relevant to the blog world. Good news!
New website lures away forums trolls
Camping, one tent short of a bivouac.
This ridiculous fantasy (the dead Jeebus will return in our lifetime) is not just harmful to the gullible morons who believe in it. Christian assholes use this childish nonsense to justify their disrespect for the environment and endangered species.
For example:
Pacific garbage patch and religious fanaticism
During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan came an anti-environment assault that offended to no end and that was continually justified as actually being necessary to precipitate the Second Coming of Christ!
Check Meetup.com or Drinking Skeptically to see if there is a rapture party in your area. In my area, it’s being held at a colonial-era inn.
I’m getting a @#%# cold today. Does that signify the end? I gotta be sick for the rapture. Oh fuck, god won’t want me in heaven because I’m sick. Kind of like my clients for the day.
I use to find Harold Camping good for lulz, but now I find the whole thing just kinda sad. The fact that he had a stroke after this year’s earlier rapture-lite underlines it. It’s like watching an old, arthritic dog barking weakly at the cars he used to chase.
If you think Camping is mistaken about the Rapture only because he predicted the wrong DATE, all of the jokes on the Internet over the next couple of days are about you, too.
Shit. There was a knock on my door a couple of minutes ago, when I opened it this long haired crazy bastard pushed me over. Musta been some kind of hippy cause he sure did stink. He grabbed my beer, stole my hover bike and took off, screaming and gibbering about the last of V8 Interceptors, making up for lost time and how much he hates his fucking dad. Jesus, what a night.
@richardelguru #7
But doesn’t that also mean the world ended a bunch of times and Camping did NOT predict it?
No, we think he mistaken in believing there will be a rapture at all. Mistaken as well in believing god(s) exist.
Camping is mistaken about so many things.
@NMcC
This thing will never end. Even after the year 2012.
Let me tell you, if there is a god, and a saviour, the last people he\she\it will be saving are the American Evangelists, who really have lived in one of the most privileged times and places the world has ever known.
The fact they think they will then be the ones off up to heaven, and not the poor people who have suffered hardship in this life never fails to amaze me.
Why would Camping give anyone an opportunity to mock xians? I mocked their ridiculous beliefs for decades before I ever even heard of him.
Maybe the rapture has happened, & the true Christians have been taken up to Heaven, all six of them. (Tips hat to Dick Gregory)
@ Alverant 16
I am always open to improvements on my theory :-)
@Matt Penfold #17
That was my point. There are plenty of evangelical Christians who think he’s only wrong about the date, but right about everything else, including the fact that there will BE a Rapture in the first place.
Okay, Rapture™ been and gone in this time zone, Boooooring.
Does this mean I can skip the morning shave?
Ha!
Like they’re few and far between.
Call me uncharitable but I hope he has another stroke tomorrow when the Rapture fails to materialize again. The thought occurs that if his God is real, He will likely slap Camping with the Gospel of Matthew (I believe it’s 24:36 but forgot) and go “what part of ‘no man knoweth the hour nor the day’ didn’t you understand?!” before dumping him in hell.
Seriously, I always say one of the best proofs Yahweh either doesn’t exist or doesn’t give a shit is the complete lack of God-smack, smiting, lightning bolts etc etc aimed in the general direction of people who misuse and misrepresent and flat out LIE about Christian teachings.
Read as slave. I have a filthy mind.
@ 27 Hazuki
“lightning bolts”
Wasn’t that Zeus or Thor?
I used to know a joke about lightning and two guys (a priest guy and a normal guy) shooting and the normal guy having a bad day and constantly missing and shouting “Fuck missed!” and the priest guy getting pissed off and telling the normal guy that God will strike him down for swearing and the normal guy missing and “Fuck-missing” yet again and a little cloud pooting up to them in a clear sky and a lightning bolt zapping the priest guy and a Voice from out the cloud crying “Fuck missed!”
But I’ve forgotten it.
@6 FossilFishy
Nobody wants your upside-down southern kingdom!
I’d say that’s more than being uncharitable
Actually the world is simultaneously ending today, and in June 4th 1962 and July 1st 1920 and Dec 25 1911. Since the monster causing it exists outside of time.
((really obscure comic reference))
Camping, one tent short of a bivouac.
I prefer “one mosquito short of malaria”.
End of the world? Hey – a good day to bury bad news!
richardelguru
Dang. I probably would have enjoyed reading it.
I have lived through so many ends of the world that I do not even notice any more.
I read an article attacking global warming saying we shouldn’t bother with that when malaria is still an issue
*sputtering in rage*
@31
Well, I can’t hide behind “PMS” as it’s not that time and also that is a crappy excuse :( Maybe vengeful? Maybe tired of these Liars for Jeebus polluting the noosphere with their bullshit that isn’t even Biblical?
…it’s the end of the world as we know it…
and I feel fine…
So when someone in the future makes a claim for a rapture that never comes (when we can say that they have “gone camping”!), is there anything that we can do to hold them up to their failure? Or are they perpetually going to slip and slide claiming that they made a mistake and that “it’s really going to happen this time”…
Uh, the world actually ended, July 14th, 76 A.D. It was the day before the last person of the generation that Jesus spoke of in his quote- “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” was to die.
Unfortunately, since then the world has not existed.
Fifty-eight percent of white evangelical Christians say Christ will return to earth by the year 2050, by far the highest percentage in any religious group, according to the survey.
By the year 2050, 23 percent of Americans believe that Christ will definitely return, and 18 percent more believe he will probably have returned to earth by that date.
These are the same people who would try to kick a football held by Lucy van Pelt.
Or who thinks that the lottery is an investment option good investment…right?
I mean–how many decades and centuries and millennia have to go by with no sign of this slacker deity showing up for them to get the hint?
Note to self: Don’t post when you’ve had only 1.5 hours of sleep in the past two days.
Camping probably doesn’t care much if people laugh.
He made many millions of dollars being wrong about the End of the World, three times now. It’s an easy job, no heavy lifting or education required. Just god babbling.
The rest of us have to actually do productive things in the real world for a fraction of what Camping gets.
@43
But the Bible says no such thing! Not in Matthew 10:23, or 16:28, or anywhere else! …oh…it does? Well it’s obviously a metaphor. But it’s still true! Just…metaphorically true. STOP QUESTIONING OR GOD WILL BURN YOU FOREVER AND EVER!
It’s been 2,000 years now. Who knows, maybe another 2,000 years. It’s not like xians are very smart.
If the xians would follow their magic book instructions, they would have stoned Camping to death years ago as a false prophet.
Then again, the fundies would have stoned all their leaders to death too and wouldn’t be such a social problem.
if the rapture really does happen, will the republican presidential debates keep going? or are they part of the tribulations the rest of us must suffer?
I heard that it’s really going to happen this time.
So…
Glen Davidson
dang. stoopid rapture. i was going to go to Tashi Station and get some power converters.
Guys, I got the new date for the end of the world. It will be when Michelle Bachmann gets elected for 2012. At that point, Earth won’t be able to bear the weight of all the stupidity on its surface and collapse on itself, forming a black hole of stupid and destroying humanity.
Darn you, PZ!
Now I don’t have time for one last, one last party.
Though, I guess when he comes around again in five months, I’ll have enough time to prepare one last time for one last party for one last prediction…
“Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Yeah, at Rapture Ready, they think they are more rational than Camping since they don’t set dates.
@ 29 richardelguru
I seem to remember that one, though in the version I remember they were playing golf.
Well, I’m ready.
Wait–is my hair okay?
What, again? I swear, every couple of months the world is supposed to end. I charge about the streets telling everyone the end is nigh, host a massive orgy, and then – nothing. A chap just can’t rely on anything anymore. Even the apocalypse is tardy…
;-)
It’s strange, but I have yet to notice Cthulhu rising from his fastness at R’lyeh to consume us all. How many times, Camping:- if there are no non-Euclidean, tentacled cosmic horrors, then it is not a proper apocalypse…
I wonder what the next random date he dreams up for armageddon will be? It astounds me that anyone still takes him seriously. Even the other fundies think he is crazy, but then again they are not in much of a position to point fingers, still waiting for their magic sky elevator to the celestial Disneyland in the sky as they are.
This issue made a brief slot on breakfast TV in the UK. There was a clip of a bunch of loons with placards and a sign offering to sell you a ticket to Heaven but I have no way of knowing whether it was recent or from last April.
And they believe this based upon ZERO evidence. Oh dear.
The bronze-age book is of no help whatsoever:
• Rev. 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
☞ Sorry, that was written sometime between 68-95 CE, or about 1,950 years ago. If ‘the time is at hand’ then someone’s hourglass is clogged.
• Luke 21:32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.
☞ Yeah, well. A generation is 20 years. So, something close to 100 generations have passed since that was written. Someone’s going to be pissed.
Usernames A S, won’t they already be pissed, or stoned? Oh no. The Christians believe that bible crap when stone cold sober.
I’m sure Camping has several explicit and well-structured arguments for today being the end of the world; according to the Principle of Charity we should portray his position in the best possible light.
It’s a good thing that I didn’t wait until Saturday to read this. I might have missed it.
Have you seen or heard this guy?
I think the world may be coming to an end for him.
We might be seeing the onset of senile dementia.
It’s kind of sad.
It’s a good thing the world isn’t ending tomorrow instead, can you imagine god having to decide whether Rapturing involves work or happens automatically?
@stonyground #59:
Did the weather look any better than today?
I don’t know why, but this post reminded me of the “It’s Prophecied” youtube video you posted on TET within the last year.
And yes, I’m giggling a bit right now, just thinking about it.
Can you post it again? It’s Friday, and I want to giggle some more. Thanks.
The Thrid Iggle of the Acrapolypse is big on the rapture.
“Fifty-eight percent of white evangelical Christians say Christ will return to earth by the year 2050 …”
Well, they obviously don’t know their history. Everyone else knows that the catlicks have been parroting the “no one knows the time” phrase for almost 2000 years. After all, with a few generations already dead, people started saying “hey, what’s this about Jesus returning while someone in the audience was alive?” About 2000 years later and still no Jesus – nor will there ever be, but some people just can’t spot a lie even if it comes right up to them while they’re having lunch and pees on their face.
The world already ended for us Aussies yesterday, just as it ended for us back in March before you guys got to have your world end.
So, suck it poopyheads-we got to have the world end before you did again, nyah, nyah!
@Ing:
If that’s supposed to be Atomic Robo, I think your dates are a bit off. Considering one of them was early 1920s, one just post-Sputnik, and one was pre-Viking II in the 1970s…
The whole thing is silly, like anybody believed the world was going to end this year. We still have a little over a year before the actual end of the world.
@72
I can’t wait for 2013. Assuming I am still alive I will get hideously drunk in celebration of “No more fucking 2012 prophecies.”
Unfortunately, the powers that be seem to be trying their damndest to make sure civilization doesn’t last that long :/ I am thanking my lucky stars I broke free of religion before the midden really hit the windmill, because looking at your own impending slow death is not good for one’s notional Sanity Meter.
I had forgotten all about Camping’s end of his fantasy world until I read this post. Damn, it’s like forgetting it’s April Fool’s day
6pm East Coast Time, October 21 2010. The Sin City of New York, and Florida, the location of about 90% of “Cops” episodes, have been Raptured, along with the rest of the East Coast. All communications have ceased, planes are falling out of the sky, cars are careening out of control, the pagans remain behind in confusion and chaos, asking what is to be done. Too late, pagans, too late.
Harold Camping’s Family Radio is streaming still, but only canned pre-recorded programming, because they are all gone.
So, if no man can predict the second coming of Jesus, then all I have to do is make a series of predictions about Jesus coming at all possible times between now and well, way way into the future. Bwha,hahahaaha. I bet that’s what Einstein was doing and why Jesus hasn’t made it back yet
Is it true that there’s a drinking game where you have to drink every time a Christian predicts the end of the world or the second coming of Christ?
if the rapture really does happen, will the republican presidential debates keep going? or are they part of the tribulations the rest of us must suffer?
OK, let’s get it straight, people:
May 21st:
Rapture
Oct 21st:
World destroyed
Between those two dates was supposed to be an accelerated tribulation period, where millions of people died every day of random horrible causes.
I mean, if you’re gonna make fun of Camping, and I highly encourage this, then at least get the details right!
SmooveBB says:
Whewn I looked at the url, “http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-decoy-website-launched-to-lure-away-all-moroni,26393/”, I thought it would be about Moroni of the Mormons.
Since nobody has responded, here is my report. I checked out the onion.com piece, which names outkube.com as the “new website” that “lures away forums trolls.” Just for grins, I checked for outkube.com. There is such a beast, which acknowledges, at the bottom of the page
It must be the end of the world when you can’t trust an onion.com story to be a pure spoof.
Ichthyic said:
You’re right that October 21st is (was?) supposed to be the end of the world, therefore no more Republican debates whatsoever. However, you forget Camping’s amazing history rewriting abilities. Now, his followers have a different version of his prediction.
From the prophit’s website:
“… on May 21 Christ did come spiritually to put all of the unsaved throughout the world into judgment. But that universal judgment will not be physically seen until the last day of the five month judgment period, on October 21, 2011.
…
“… the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period. On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured.”
So, I guess their current version is:
May 21: meaningless spiritual second coming
Oct 21: rapture + total annihilation to sinners
I predict they’ll re-interpret these prophecies again tomorrow.
Hey, it’s now the 22nd here in Australia. Probably in Japan and New Zealand too. Did we miss someething or is the rapture a Northern Hemisphere kind of thing? It’s good though, more embarrassment for those tainted by belief and the fraud that is faith.
Gord O’Mitey way up @9
It didn’t take me this long to get it, I just now started reading this thread.
Fucking hilarious!
(I have a child
ish-like sense of humour.)“…is the rapture a Northern Hemisphere kind of thing?”
No, it’s an old-fashioned, tried-n-true head up your own ass kind of thing.
One Tent Shy of Chautauqua. Sorta has a ring,eh,what? Since the posthumous figure in this rapture business, we could have John Wayne play the lead. Does anyone know if Camping is good on camera? I have a twisted (no strikeout) sense of humor.
Fundaretardo xians pretend quite pompously, as it ‘appens, to imitate their fictional hero and his bigotries line by line cretinism by cretinism in their tacky instruction booklet translated from Aramaic and Greek which appears on a one for one par about as inaccurate, even indecipherable as the instruction booklet for a cheapo moody Korean video recorder.
Now pretty damn sure there was some pontificating in the xian handbook about …’False Prophets’ and what should befall them!
Camping is about as wayward and as accurate as a paralytic drunk on a dance floor.
This is no one off, he has been wrong consistently for over 20 years, the dude has form in his prophecy…bad form for sure… but form nonetheless.
Seems some xians that boast godly interpretation themselves are insulting their god by allowing this particular ‘dumbshite con artist’ to actually exist in this spiritual realm in-spite of their hysterical interpretations found elsewhere about other folks, some not quite dumb enough to get screwed and scammed by xian lurve’ and others who fall in love with another person not of the opposite sex, they seem to get rather less xian forgiveness then an xian false prophet.
Confused …I am now!
Probably in Japan and New Zealand too.
Uh, Hobbiton is the to East of OZ, mate.
:)
I thought god made it pretty clear what he thought of Camping’s “predictions” when he struck him down with a CVA the last time.
This should be a required question for any presidential candidate in the USA : “Do you think the world will end when Jesus returns, do you think this is likely to happen in our lifetime, and are you looking forward to it ? “
@Rich Woods #66
It was a very brief clip but I would guess that it was from last April given the weather. Oddly we have just had several days of summer weather in October, pitty that we had so few days of summer weather in our actual summer.
Well, the world is still here. A quiet Saturday, but that’s the usual for my neighborhood. All right Camping, now where’s that bottle of absinthe and box of Twinkies you owe me?
Post-apocalyptic prophecies have been so hyperbolic.
Why, I can hardly tell that we’re now in a post-apocalyptic scenario.
Glen Davidson
I can’t wait for 2013. Assuming I am still alive I will get hideously drunk in celebration of “No more fucking 2012 prophecies.” – hazuki
I predict that there will be a new date set within a month. My guess is 2020 – has a nice ring to it, and it gives a few years for people to make money out of the gullible before another reset is needed.
Nah, KG, it’s be 2021 – “Whoops, we reversed the digits. Just a slight miscalculation…”
But Jesus did what Harold Camping did: predict that the end will come in his contemporaries lifetime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbBYLQxC7z0 The difference is, Jesus explicitly says he didn’t know the day and the hour…
How many times do I need to reinvent myself in this circus of doom?