Crazy Harold Camping and the end of the world

I'm setting this to post at 12:00 am on Saturday, May 21 - the date of the rapture.  At least according to the batshit crazy preacher Harold Camping.  Camping is an almost 90 year old evangelical preacher on the Family Radio broadcasting network he helped found and run for over 50 years.

I've heard Camping on the radio before (hey, I was in the car driving and bored) and his show typically has callers ask a question like "Brother Camping, does Hebrews 6:4-6 mean I can never be saved because I left the church and lived in sin for many years?" and Camping, with his deep, sonorous, made-for-radio voice then replies using lots of other Biblical verses to back up his claims (he believes, of course, that the Bible is inerrant, and must be interpreted using other parts of the Bible).

Where does Camping get the May 21 date?  It's almost too idiotic for words.  Here's the basic summary:

Noah's flood supposedly occurred in 4990 BCE,  which was 7000 years ago (4990 + 2011 - 1 since there's no year zero). Since 2 Peter 3:8, says "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years", then seven "God days" equals 7,000 Earth years since the flood, making 2011 the year of the apocalypse.

The exact date is obtained from the supposed date of the crucifixion - April 1, 33 CE. There are exactly 722,500 days from April 1, 33 CE until May 21, 2011. This number can be represented by 5 x 10 x 17 x 5 x 10 x 17 = 722,500 (numerology, anyone?).  Camping claims that the numbers signifies Biblical concepts: 5 for atonement or redemption, 10 for completeness, and 17 for heaven.

Pretty damn convincing, isn't it?

Camping fits every definition of a religious cult leader.  He has basically preached that the Holy Spirit has left the modern church and that all churches are now apostate - the solution to this is to read the Bible and listen to Family Radio.  In other words, he has the Truth (with a capital T) and everyone else is a heretic.  Of course, if you do a Google search on "Harold Camping heresies" you'll get thousands of web sites all listing their problems with Camping's ideas ("Our crazy ideas are correct, his crazy ideas are rank heresy!").

The sad thing are the people deceived by this nonsense (although it's hard for me to feel sorry for people so damn, fucking stupid).  Look for the rationalizations after the fact.  Brother Camping must have miscalculated (just like he did when he predicted the end of the world in 1994).  He'll show no shame for the psychological damage he's done to vulnerable people who will still continue to support this asshole with monetary contributions to his "ministry" on Family Radio.

By the way, despite all the news stories about this stupid prediction, Camping did not predict the end of the world on Saturday (what, reporters being lazy and getting simple facts wrong, you don't say?).  He predicted the rapture into heaven of about 200 million true believers with the start of the Great Tribulation written about in Revelation.  The end of the world is later in the fall on October 21.

Unfortunately, if there is a rapture, I'm sure I'm not floating away up into the sky. I'll just continue blogging about the rapture and tribulation until the Beast or his minions hunt me down (I'll console myself with the fact that since Camping believes in annihilationism, I won't have to worry about an eternity in Hell).

So, take a moment on Saturday night and thank whomever or whatever you'd like to thank for the beautiful gift of life and for having a mind that you can use for rational thought.  USE IT!  I hope we all try to work, in this post-apocalyptic world, toward pushing back the tides of superstitious nonsense that constantly threatens to roll over our civilization and enslave us in ignorance.  Evil old men like Harold Camping, parasitically living a good life off other's fears, should go rot in Hell.