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For the guy who spent his life savings on the bus ads promoting the Rapture (and others like him), should we: 1)feel sorry for them; 2) write them off as sheeple — just another example of the easily deluded, or 3) condemn yet another charletan, Harold Camping, and hope his @ss is sued out the wazoo? (PNJ):
When 6 p.m. came and went at various spots around the globe, including the East Coast of the United States, and no extraordinary cataclysm occurred, Keith Bauer – who hopped in his minivan in Maryland and drove his family 3,000 miles to California for the Rapture – took it in stride.“I had some skepticism but I was trying to push the skepticism away because I believe in God,” he said in the bright morning sun outside the gated Oakland headquarters of Family Radio International, whose founder, Harold Camping, has been broadcasting the apocalyptic prediction for years. “I was hoping for it because I think heaven would be a lot better than this earth.”
…In New York’s Times Square, Robert Fitzpatrick, of Staten Island, said he was surprised when 6 p.m. came and went. He had spent his own money to put up advertising about the end of the world.“I can’t tell you what I feel right now,” he said, surrounded by tourists. “I don’t understand it. I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened.”
Also see:
* Are you rapture ready – fundie billboards say the end is near: May 21, 2011
* More Rapture-readiness: MN jeweler launches 50% off Second Coming Sale
* $140K flushed away: retired subway worker invests life savings in 5/21/2011 Rapture ads
24 Comments
The Apocalypse didn’t happen today…YOU’VE BEEN DEAD THE WHOLE TIME. [/M. Night Shyamalan]
An evil voice in my headI’m trying really hard to be mature and compassionate and say “feel sorry for them” but there’s this evil voice in my head that keeps saying “laugh at them–LAAAAUGH at them!!!!”
Believe in God?“I had some skepticism but I was trying to push the skepticism away because I believe in God.” It’s not belief in God — there are lots of people who believe in God who knew the world was not going to end at 6 pm yesterday. In my kinder moments I’m willing to say the man’s gullible. But then I have to wonder why he’s so willing to believe in the idea that he’s going to be saved and everyone else is going to be tormented. Doesn’t sound very Christian, actually.
And just because I can’t resist a little snark about the idea that gays were bringing on the Rapture: yeah, well, HRC must have been working on it. Please send money.
RapturedI think that Camping should pay back all those that invested in him and his ideas. In one fell swoop he has wiped out years of a belief system that has carried them through their lives. What can he possibly say to them but: Oops! My bad… I subtracted instead of added…the rapture will be next month…
Teh Gays Screwed It UpI am sure the guy will blame Teh Gays for messing up the rapture; hell, they are the reason for the rapture.
LA Times noted there was $72M in the bank of the “church”, wonder how much is in a Bahama’s bank now.
Finally, how many who actually believed him now think they were not good enough to be raptured and kill themselves?
Pharisees, false prophets, etcPerhaps now those that were duped will actually read their Bible, and discover the true message of “Love your neighbor, do unto others, and especially “whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers”.
Perhaps they will read passages warning against false prophets and pharisees, and will begin to understand just how far removed from the teachings of Jesus most “Christian” religions have strayed.
Perhaps they will read about commands to “not bear false witness against thy neighbors” and “render unto Caesar what is Caesars and unto God that which is to God” and begin to understand that seperation of church and state is a indeed biblical principle.
Perhaps…but not holding my breath.
My Two CentsLatest FaBlog: Fait Diver — Low Camp(ing)
The rapture was stopped…By Macho Man Randy Savage, who took one for the team in order to stop Jesus from coming back.
http://i.imgur.com/lQexk.jpg
If we took time to “feel sorry”for every delusional halfwit on the planet, our every waking moment would be filled with sorrow and we’d never have time for anything else. Like, you know, living?
No matter how much you want to, and no matter how advisable it might seem from a social/policy point of view, there is simply no way you can protect people from their own stupidity. The clucks who fell for this obvious hogwash will line up like the good
dopesChristians they are to support the next.There’s nothing to be done but sit back and have a good laugh.
I feel all three…as they’re not mutually exclusive.
I feel sorry for these gullible fools whose common sense ought to have kicked in the second these end-of-the-world predictions began turning into requests for money.
I write them off as sheeple because you cannot reason with someone who insists they’ve been given all the proof they need, right there in their Bible, that Camping’s predictions are 100% dead certain.
I condemn the charlatan Camping, for preying on people’s foolishness and gullibility to make a quick buck for his fake-religion radio empire, and I hope there are investigations and prosecutions underway. Metaphorically speaking, it’s one thing for a fool to burn down his own houses, but another thing entirely to be the person handing him the matches and urging him to go do it.
The Rapture debacle is mainstream Christian not fringe. Camping’s followers weren’t fringe Christians. Instead, they were doing exactly the same thing that other Christians do, namely, read the Bible and take the interpretations to heart. Then, one is challenged to stick to those convictions no matter what. It is this kind of behavior that makes the faith so problematic. It causes homophobic behavior to be sanctioned in our society as God’s will
Rapture softwareWell, at least this didn’t happen:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/r…
Crazy white folksAnd that’s not me saying that, that’s what I hear black Christians saying.
Christianity“But then I have to wonder why he’s so willing to believe in the idea that he’s going to be saved and everyone else is going to be tormented. Doesn’t sound very Christian, actually.”
No? Sounds very like Christianity to me.
a thoughtful take @ huffington posthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/desiring-the-end-of-the-w_b_864574.html ”People can be in hopeless personal situations with family, or face depression and feel like there is no way out. The end of the world seems The end of the world seems like a positive and real option when you are at rock bottom and don't know how to rise up. ”
Feel sorry for them? Absolutely notMAYBE if this was the first time he predicted the end of the world and got it wrong. But this shit already came and passed in 1994. And I’m pretty sure he wasn’t entitled to a mulligan…
The Rapture Readies get a reality checkHarold Camping not only has to apologize to his followers But needs to give lots of apologies to the LBGTQ’s that he has blamed for the “Rapture” Since he was so insistent that he was right and he was so wrong, his whole thought process needs to be checked! Rapture and all Harold said should be brought up every time NOM or any other Bigoted and Hate group uses any of Harold’s arguments! There Msg is and has been proved wrong!
Pity their chldren.The money these stupid assholes wasted on this stupidity was likely their childrens’ college funds. Their kids will suffer for their ignorance, and now have to grow up knowing their parents are fearful ignorant cattle, herded into willingly opening their wallets to thieves at the drop of a fear-inducing hat. At least on the bright these kids now also know long-winded loudmouth preachers who ask for money and say the worst will happen otherwise are liars and crooks, and will grow up rejecting the bile.
But no kid should have to be so harshly disillusioned with their parents so young.
So my vote is don’t take any pity on the adults here. This was their own stupidity. NO REFUNDS FOR STUPID PEOPLE.
Take pity instead on the children hurt by this idiocy. The innocent bystanders whose futures were sacrificed to feed this delusion.
Make sure they don’t suicideWe can comment on their folly later.
For all I know, Camping was right, the Bible does say the world would end a few days ago. But it also says the Earth is a circular plate covered by a transparent firmament to keep the waters above out.
Like this – but with the water outside, not inside:
That’s why the sky is blue – because of all of the water up there, some of which is let in when it rains, and the “windows of heaven” are opened.
As a sometime Rocket Scientist, you can see how this isn’t a very useful model of the world for me.
As a researcher in genetic and evolutionary algorithms, I routinely do stuff all the time which Creationists say is impossible even in theory, creating order out of chaos through natural selection.
And as someone who’s Intersexed in a way that completely f*cks up the whole endocrine system (mild, late-onset non-SW 3BHDD is exteremely variable in effects) my mere existence shatters the barrier between M and F from a biological viewpoint, no matter how well I might identify as standard model female.
The Bible says all sorts of stuff that ain’t necessarily so, that doesn’t actually describe reality very well. Deal with it.
What about the part that says no one knows when the day is?
The bible is replete with contradictions.Since there are thousands and thousands of contradictory statements in the bible, the part that no one know the day the Rapture is, could easily be overlooked. After all, the other thousands or so are…
Not necessarilyNo doubt most of these fanatics have already pulled their kids out of public school and either into a private religious school (ala Jesus Camp), or are homeschooling them, programming them into the obedient little mindless drones their masters tell them to.
PT Barnum said it best: “A sucker’s born every minute.”
And then there’s Thomas Tusser’s proverb: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
I guess they got what they asked forexcept now they have to live with the fact that they are fools putting their “faith” in a shyster. Typical idiotic religionists.
And they are right.