The Rapture II: This Time, It's Fireballs:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/05/24/camping-issues-apocalypse-correction-its-really-in-october/

And you thought this was over. Nope, Camping won't strike the tent on the old camp ground, he's going to try for round III of his little scam. Perhaps it's just me as a cynic here, but if anyone takes this guy seriously a third time, they forfeit being seen as anything but gullible patsies. To me this kind of hucksterism like the Trump-not-a-campaign illustrates the third side of US politics. There's the Mainstream one of guys like Eisenhower, Goldwater, FDR, and the like. There's the Paranoid style of McCarthy, Palmer, Stanton, and Nixon, and there's the P.T. Barnum type of Trump and this fellow.

But eh, people scam all the time, it's not like it's the end of the world as we know it or anything.......

Comments

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Interesting how we keep feeding the troll.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not feeding trolls is one of the most basic things in concept but one of the hardest in practice. >.>

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Australia actually illegalized trolling, recently. Cross your fingers someone develops an uncontrollable urge to see kangaroos and koala bears.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Now, now. Why be hatin trolls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Iceland))? They're so cute (http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/19667/troll.jpg).

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

"HolyPost: get down on your knees and blog".

Liked that logo! :-D

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Bo-ring.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that, btw. I didn't think it would look like that rude a comment when I typed it.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I wonder if our Rapture status was determined during the "invisible judging" on Saturday. This would mean that we are free to sin with immunity for the next 5 months. Sweet deal!

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"This would mean that we are free to sin with immunity for the next 5 months. Sweet deal!"

I suspect Camping might be inclined to have always thought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election) that was true.

[hikarugenji.livejournal.com]

This change at least can have a whiff of plausability to his followers because he always said that it was going to be May 21 rapture and Oct 21 end of the world; it will be interesting to see what happens after Oct 21 (sort of...I hope to have forgotten all about this by then.)

[tridus.livejournal.com]

Preying on the stupid is one of the oldest and most successful industries out there.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Alas, very true. I've been having arguments with colleagues about how much % of the general population are stupid simpletons. I know it sounds arrogant but it looks like it's true. Observations show that this could reach 95% and beyond, though I can't provide verifiable data for that. ;-)

Who was it that said...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public?"

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Hence why education sucks.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

To be fair, he had always said the Apocalypse would be in October, so this is more like time 2.5

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

This guy is doing more for atheism than Richard Dawkins.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Anybody with a non-negative impact is doing more than Richard Dawkins.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

HA! :-)

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed and Moses did more for Atheism than Dawkins.

Fooled me once...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

We will have to add to the old adage:

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me thrice, shame on my religion.

Re: Fooled me once...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Or in other words, It's Miller Time all over again.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

I know I shouldn't let it, but this stuff really makes me angry. I know that, in every belief system, there is a going to be a small minority of completely guano loco idiots willing to buy into the most outlandish, nonsensical drivel, but with the way this has been portrayed in the media, you'd think all Christians subscribed to this crap and it's only a sour-grapes minority calling bullshit.

Of approximately 2.2 billion Christians in the world, probably less than 5% subscribe to the brand of dispensationalist theology that gives rise to Camping et. al's notion of the "rapture" while the vast, vast majority (including Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and most Protestants) know this kind of nonsense for what it is: a quasi-heretical, heterodox theology that sprang up whole-cloth more than 1,700 years after the Church began, with literally nothing coherent in those previous seventeen centuries to base it on. The likes of Thomas, Luther, Calvin, and pretty much everyone else who was remotely orthodox would likely have found latter-day rapture-centered eschatology alien and dangerous. It smacks more of gnosticism than orthodox Christianity, and yet what does the media hype up beyond all reason? The stupid, crazy apocalyptic frenzy of a few (literally, a few!) credulous morons. We already get a bad name from the likes of Fred Phelps, Scott Roder, Koran-burning pastors, and any number of gay-bashing closet queers, and this doesn't help.

But I know, with the media's penchant for sensationalism and depicting a freakshow world where such a thing as "normal" doesn't exist (or at least is utterly unworthy of mention), that the day-to-day, reasonable faith and practice of that 95% will continue to be ignored in the face of all manner of insignificant little heresies.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure we can drop the "quasi-" qualifier on "heretical."

As you point out, it's pretty weird that this is regarded as Christian. When Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Reformed and Calvinist theology all consider something pernicious, as they do this, maybe it's not after all a duck, as they say.

Goes to indicate the utter strangeness of American culture, even if this is a minority movement even within that set.

The rest of the world should not regard this as giving Christians a bad name though. There's no compelling reason to consider Camping (like Phelps) a Christian. Nevermind not being ordained, these people have no preparation for ministry whatsoever, have no connection whatsoever to any recognized religious body, and both loudly denounce and are denounced by the relevant recognized religious bodies. So why should we bestow upon them even the most qualified authority of speaking for Christianity?

Well we shouldn't of course, and it's an evidently pernicious error of American culture that it is happy to bestow sacred authority on any one who so much as hangs out a shingle declaring themselves such.

[adrunkencadence.livejournal.com]

How many miscalculations will there be before people stop committing, according to their own beliefs, high-blasphemy? This isn't the first miscalculation. There have been thousands since Christ's death. If we play along with the believers own beliefs maybe, just maybe, the god they believe in spares us its wrath on the calculated day to provide a lesson in humility to those who would pretend to know the actions of god.

the power of positive thinking...

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Camping hasn't failed to predict the Rapture twice, he succeeded in finding two days that didn't have a Rapture - or something like that...

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

The Rapture is obviously still imminent. I'd like to apologise on behalf of all Icelanders to the people of the British Isles for switching on that other volcano (http://www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Volcano-Disrupts-Flights-Industry-Criticizes-Regulators-122509244.html)... Sorry! We didnt mean to... (Well, unless you'd like to scrap our whole debt we won't switch if off, muhahaha!)

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I'd like to apologise on behalf of all Icelanders
No U don't! We bow to no one.

(Well, 'cept for the hidden folk obviously. And bankers. Oh, and weird gals with weird dresses singing weird songs).

Camping should have looked it up.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

If he had done some quick Internet research, Camping would have found that Isaac Newton placed the Rapture at no sooner than 2060. This is mentioned here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Views_of_the_end_of_the_world). It is also mentioned in a Nova episode on Newton's religious and alchemical works "Newton's Dark Secrets (http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Newton-s-Dark-Secrets-Nova/70041659?strkid=1069385944_0_0&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strackid=182f458b95094432_0_srl&trkid=222336)."