Thank you JayZeus, for the Rapture!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Now that the servants of the Dark Lord have been taken away in their expected Rapture, things are starting to cool off here. There are few to no religious zealots harassing people on the street today. It is as if we have all been saved from the fiendish antics of a cruel and despotic deity.

Has anyone else noticed an unusual sense of calm and serenity in their neighborhood today?

One observer commented that people have spent their savings on ads proclaiming yesterday as the end of the world. That sounds like both a pitiable and a just state of affairs. Do you personally know anyone who got sucked in that deeply?

Comments

[bex.livejournal.com]

I don't know anyone who's into that sort of thing, but I've heard some harrowing stories. I kinda forgot that while my friends and I were laughing at the idiocy, there were actually people out there who believed the Rapture would happen and did some pretty messed-up stuff in preparation.

That is pretty grim.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Very sad.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

She wanted to die at her friend's house? What a shitty friend.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Not really, but we went and looked at a property (http://www.realestate.com.au/property-residential+land-vic-dixons+creek-2847171) yesterday that looked like people had just left halfway through a build...


(They had, if you can remember hearing about the massive fires in Australia that killed all the people a few years back, they went through here)

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

That looks very post-Apocalyptic.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I went through the top of Marysville about 5 days after the fire burn through there, with the NSW Rural Fire Service (fat lot of good we did) and that was as close to Armageddon as I reckon I'll ever see in my life. It was just blackened trees, burnt stumps, cars and houses, melted street signs and black dirt.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

What, no looting? Me'sa disappoint.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I heard stories about people taking their pets in to be put to sleep. People are very disturbing.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

He was stopped. (http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/193295/250/Pets-removed-from-man-planning-pre-Rapture-killings)

[baby-werewolf.livejournal.com]

I've also heard about some guy who was taking money off people to look after their pets after they got Raptured, and then is now all 'lol no refunds'.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Imagine what will happen in December next year. If the Apocalypse doesn't come, we'll bring it on ourselves.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad that FamilyRadio.com (http://www.familyradio.com/index2.html) is still promising that the Apocalypse will happen on May 21.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

0 Days left!

Good theory

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It does not sound like San Francisco, though.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

ahahaha, that's awesome!

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

I have come to the realization that every American community has waaaay more than one village idiot. If they had a national convention, even New York City wouldn't have enough hotel rooms to handle it.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Indeed! And even if we did, we do have a badddd bed bug situation :P

[oportet.livejournal.com]

The followers are/were definitely idiots.

As for Camping himself - genius. I've heard different estimates on his net worth, from $60 million and to just over 100. I think we all need to step back and admire this man for what he pulled off - if you can plug profit and degree of difficulty into some kind of formula - he has to be one of the greatest cons in history.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

What made it truly great is that he pulled it off twice.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I side with the "Camping you Magnificent Bastard, I read your book" crowd.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Why is this nut not being charged for inciting a riot or disturbing the peace? If it were anything other than religion, he would have been.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

I don't think there were any riots and as long as the laws are obayed publically doomsaying is legal.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

I know at least one person that remained hidden in their basement, praying to god. However what is bothersome to me is the number of sane rational people who bought into this.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I watched the Blues Brothers today. Love James Brown's scene:

I'll bet...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It looks like they used a trampoline to shoot those high jump dance shots.

[majortom-thecat.livejournal.com]

At first I thought the whole thing was pretty funny. And then I noticed that people were not only making fun of Camping and Co., they were mocking the whole concept of rapture in general. I was afraid that Christians would get upset and it would turn into something like another War on Christmas. I felt bad for making fun of my own parents, because they believe in the rapture too.

But apparently the Christians who have the "correct" version of the rapture prophecy were too busy making fun of their less-informed brethren to notice all the people who were making fun of the whole idea of rapture itself.

I wonder if the rapture will become an annual event. It would be kind of a fun holiday - people would act like the world was ending for a day or two, then lay some empty clothes out on the lawn and imagine that either they or people they don't like are about to be beamed away.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Make fun all you want. You need to be right every time, they just need to be right once.

Since there is a non-zero probability that they are going to be right with any given prediction, if they keep trying, they'll get the last laugh.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

People who are silly enough to give up their life savings don't deserve any sympathy, but they also don't deserve to be mocked for their actions, either. People do outrageous things because of their faith, both good (large amounts of money donated to charities) and bad (killing in the name of some god or prophet). Most Christians know that no one can discern when the Rapture's going to happen, so why get on some crazed man's bandwagon?

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Regardless of why it is done (faith or some other reasoning), smart, good things are still worthy of praise and stupid, bad things still worthy of condemnation.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Someone told me the May 21st impending "apocalypse" was a publicity stunt staged by atheists out of New York.

Don't know how accurate that is... I would think anyone who read the bible would know the end of the world is prophesized to be 100% unpredictable.

Back in the day...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... Christians were considered to be atheists. After all, they had no respect for the gods. People today who have no respect for the material Creator of the flat and immobile Earth are considered to be atheists by the same logic. One of my favorite observations on Communists is that they worship Marx, Engels, and Lenin as much as Christians worship Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.

As for the accuracy of the New York source, a small amount of research leads to Oakland, California which is about as far from New York as you can get without going to Wasilla, Alaska.