Oh, good. Five months. That should give me time to get my lack of affairs in order...

A lot of choo-choos have gone chugging round the bend over this one. I fully expect to be around at the end of tomorrow.

Amy, I'm so glad you're using your blog to point out that Emperor Harold Camping has no clothes! I don't have a problem with different religions, but when these fanatical types drag their reluctant children into it, it burns me up! Besides, Camping has reportedly made this same Rapture/End of Days prediction a few years back, and of course nothing happened. He must have a few bucks, though, considering he and his followers have posted billboards all over the place. Too bad he didn't put that money toward more productive things, like maybe establishing homes for kids with religious fanatic parents!

Incidentally, my dear longtime friend Rosemarie and I will be visiting NYC tomorrow -- the so-called Judgment Day -- to spend quality time together at the Kips Bay Showhouse, which benefits the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club. Based in the Bronx, where I lived for most of my life, it's a worthy cause. Among other things, it helps underprivileged kids. Now THAT'S a good use of money and time! Here's the link, if you're interested:

http://kipsbay.org/

I came across a post about Camping and this nonsense yesterday. The writer, who is himself an evangelical Christian (if an unconventional one), made a good point - it's easy to laugh at these people, but there's something really sad about Camping's followers:

That fear and trauma, we were sometimes told, was a good thing. It was a holy terror — a reminder to make certain that we prayed the right prayers and felt the right feelings to ensure that we would not be among those left behind. This is what they thought the scriptures meant when they spoke of “the fear of the Lord” — the powerless terror of the child of an abusive parent.

And that terror is what Harold Camping and his followers are feeling now. And it is what they will be feeling again Saturday evening, after that terror and despair first abates, then metastasizes in the realization that the world has not ended and that they are not the righteous remnant they staked their identities on being.

Fortunately, Camping is not as widely influential as LaHaye, so we’re talking about only thousands of followers, not millions. But that’s thousands of people, thousands of families experiencing one kind of trauma now and due for another, existential, shaken-to-the-core trauma come Saturday. That some of this trauma is self-inflicted or that, like most victims of con-artists, they are partially complicit in their own undoing doesn’t change the fact that we’re still talking about thousands of people in pain, fear and despair.

http://www.patheos.com/community/slacktivist/2011/05/19/disappointment-despair-and-harold-camping/

I better drink the good stuff first, just in case.

It's probably too late to drain the 401K and party till I drop. Which isn't very long, because I can hardly make it to midnight anymore.

Sarcasm aside, why would anyone make these sorts of predictions? If you were right, it would be irrelevant. When you are wrong, it should be humiliating.

Next up, Mayan calendar doom, I think. Unless some other nutcase comes forward with a different date.

I'm still taking bets, $1000 that the "rapture" won't happen tomorrow. Any takers?

http://dorktower.com/images/comics/DorkTower951.gif

Loved this tweet from @thisisjendoll:

Mike Bloomberg: Alternate Side Parking Will Be Suspended if the World Ends http://bit.ly/lprrdN

One of my best friend's mom is in a fanatical religious group that has been predicting the end of the world with regularity since my friend was a teenager. It's so sad, and my friend could probably relate to these kids in the article. She left the country a couple years ago just to distance herself from the nonsense.

@Michael P, I am getting a disturbing amount of amusement when I think about what's going to go through these people's heads on May 22 when they don't get sucked up into heaven.

Didn't the Bible say something about "the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night"?

...I am getting a disturbing amount of amusement when I think about what's going to go through these people's heads on May 22 when they don't get sucked up into heaven.

Maybe they'll be so embarrassed they'll off themselves!!

(Hey, I can dream, can't I?)

I fully believe the world will end at a date and time of God's choosing, one quite possibly set when he created the universe with it's natural laws and finite expiration date. But I don't think there are clues one can find to decifer that date. Nor should we. Live right, and live. Very important ideas, those.

"Nor should we."

A plea for ignorance, an end to learning, which is an "appeal to consequences" fallacy. You're just wishing people would quit publishing threats to the perceptions of the world you've carved out for yourself.

Irony: With these three words, you've called for people to quit looking for clues to their destiny - but that's exactly what these nuts have done. They have gripped a particular facet of religion - as you have - and then decided there is no more to be learned or gained. And you have now apparently agreed, with those three little words, probably because you stopped thinking about it, too.

Do you desire that astronomers cease their sky survey, looking for the next threat to strike Earth, too?

PS: "decipher". Yeah, I know.

Ladies, if I'm left behind during the Rapture, I am totally looking up your skirts as you fly away.

@Flynne I'm sure the Kool-aid is mixed and ready for that purpose. Man, we are SO not saved.

Goodness. How amazing that they have such rational children.

I was reading a few days ago that they expect a surge in bankruptcies over the rest of the year because so many of these people have been living high off their credit cards never epecting to have to pay them back...

I would start believing in God if She would actually rapture these losers.

As a Christian, I find it highly interesting that this completely contradicts what Jesus says:

Mark 13:30-33
30Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
31Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
32But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
33Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.

So, how do they know when the rapture will come, if Jesus is saying that he, himself, does not know? How do you put one man's prophecy over Jesus'? Just my input.

@Gog - we should all be naked, so that should be fairly easy.

"My mom has told me directly that I'm not going to get into heaven"

Judgement Day will be so much easier for God with Abby Haddad by His side, providing the needed assistance.

I think this batch of Californians still ranks a 9 or 10 on the end-of-the-world nuttery scale:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(religious_group)

This is the story of my life as a kid. Seriously. My parents were highly religious and about once every three years the church would have some claptrap about the Rapture. They'd print booklets for "what to do if you missed the rapture", hold rapture practice sessions, make music videos about the rapture, and other such nonsense. Every time there was an eclipse they'd say things like "That's the last eclipse before Jesus comes!"

During these phases I wouldn't do my homework or keep up with my responsibilities. I thought it wouldn't matter since we were going to get raptured anyway. Of course after the first few times I figured out that it was never going to happen and that all the excitement was just nonsense.

Their latest big one that I saw was Y2K, where they actually took out an hour-long slot of airtime on all the major networks to talk about the rapture. Obviously they had some major egg on their face when nothing happened.

My point here is that we shouldn't be waiting for some omnipotent god-creature to come and spirit us away to heaven. That's simply not a healthy way to live. We should be making heaven here on earth instead, no matter what religion (or no religion) that we believe.

Sarah, I love that you, as a CHILD, were able to figure out this was complete crap ... while all the adults were not.

I think my favorite part of the article was this:

“I have mixed feelings,” Ms. Haddad Carson said. “I’m very excited about the Lord’s return, but I’m fearful that my children might get left behind. But you have to accept God’s will.”

hmmm not exactly mother of the year. If I had kids, I'd be like eff the rapture! Leave me down here, God, please, so I can be with my children when the end comes.

No, Rad, I'm saying I think it idiotic to pour around for clues in books or calendars. Period. I'd say there's a difference in looking for asteroids and in thinking some cryptic line means the world ends mysteriously tomorrow.

Thanks for the spelling lesson. You try typing while being climbed on.

The thing that bothers me the most about this particular breed of crazy is that they think that their BELIEF in their creator will be the golden ticket to heaven, rather than their ACTIONS while they are here. It gives them a convenient excuse to treat the "nonbelievers" (like their children) like garbage.

I tried to get a very cute girl religious from work to agree sleep with me tomorrow night if she wasn't taken to God since that meant she was going to hell anyway.

She just laughed.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (wheeze gasping for air) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

This religious assbags are funnier than Daniel Tosh.

Thanks Amy I really needed a good laugh.....

That seems quite a bit like child abuse.

WHAT?!?!?! It better not end tomorrow, I just graduated today AND got my first job....all that work for nothing????

There are several of us that are so sure we're going to be left behind that we're picking out which believer's house we're going to loot first. :D

I said that to one of my coworker's yesterday, and he turned to me and said, "I need a big-screen TV...for my house in HELL". LOL!

Entertainment through the ages...

This is like all "prophecies": we don't give any other guess a special pass. Why "prophecy"?

Because we can pretend that someone, somewhere, once upon a time could see the future.

If you think "prophecy" ever has a special status, you probably ought to say that out loud, and name that magic date after which none of them worked any more - that is, the date after which seeing the future was no longer possible.

"Maybe they'll be so embarrassed they'll off themselves!! "

Nah, they're all Cluster B's. They are incapable of being embarrassed. They'll just proclaim that they made a minor error in their math, calculate a new date, and start the whole circus all over again. I've seen this movie hundreds of times.

"My mom has told me directly that I'm not going to get into heaven," Grace Haddad, 16, said. "At first it was really upsetting, but it's what she honestly believes."

For the record: I'm a Christian and if this is true, then Grace's mother is an unspeakably cruel woman to say something like that to her daughter.

I don't believe tomorrow's the rapture either. Don't you get it folks? THE DAY AND TIME ARE UNKNOWABLE. Any human being who says they *do* know is just trying to scare you into giving them your free labor and/or money. Can you spell 'scam'? Or 'publicity stunt'?

Being a Christian doesn't give you a free pass. It obligates you to serve your community, and provide a positive example for it. Unfortunately too many folks seem to think "getting saved" means the exact opposite: that they now possess a free eternal pass to scream, yell, and turn borderline-psychotically abusive, like Piper Laurie in Carrie. Funny how that works.

Borrowing slightly from NikkiG

As a former Christian, I find it highly interesting that reality completely contradicts what Jesus says:

Mark 13:30-33
30Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
31Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
32But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
33Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.

Key words there "this generation"

That means that Jebus was telling the crowd of people before him that some of them would still be alive when the world ended.

Now assumig thee were pregnat women in the crow and a few of those fetues lives to be over 100, the world still should have ended before 150AD

Amy: I'd like to think that if Hitler (or Stalin, or Pol Pot, or whichever crackpot totalitarian mass murderer anyone cares to name) really did try for the deathbed/deathbunker conversion, the universe would still be violently reverberating with the incredible sounds of God laughing.

Anyhow, I'll say it: I'd rather live in a community of 1000 Amy Alkons, who think my Christian beliefs are bunk but respect my right to hold it as long as I don't force it in their faces, than any community containing anyone like Fred Phelps (shudder).

You're welcome Amy. One of these days I hope to send you via e-mail you a terrific column I saw printed waaay back in or around 1989 that I found in the Long Beach Press-Telegram, by a local pastor named Donald Shoemaker. It was a great piece highlighting how too many Christians turn off their critical thinking skills once they enter the arena of faith. I know how that probably sounds somewhat contradictory/oxymoron-ish, but... well, just read the article.

I like to think Pastor Shoemaker made some great points, including about how believers need to open their minds and learn more about crazy ideas like how to truly objectively analyze claims, that newfangled whatchamacallit called 'the scientific method', and pay more attention to that jello-ey computer-like thingy we all have one of between our ears. :-)

Actually Judgment Day was supposed to be last month, April 21, 2011. I guess Skynet changed its name to Google and decided to take another path.

twitter.com/JimCameron/status/60541191636262912

I have a good question for anyone who mentions "the end of the world":

How?

Because we can look around and see ALL of the mechanisms at work already around us - asteroid strike, gamma-ray burst, novae, etc.

It is my experience that religious fundamentalists don't know anything about the real world, and so they can only spout generalities to express fear, not any process.

Well, it's Saturday afternoon, and I'm still waiting. La-de-dah. Any day now. Tap tap tap. C'mon! I don't want to have to finish painting the deck posts.