And Now, the Backpedaling
(Alternate title: Invisible Rapture.)
Harold Camping, who got his fifteen minutes of fame predicting the end of the world this past Saturday, has started the backpedaling.
In a rambling discourse to reporters outside his Family Radio International office, Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer, indicated he had misread the signs in predicting that the faithful would be lifted up to Heaven Saturday, leaving sinners to suffer through five months of disasters until the Earth was consumed in a fireball on the End of Days.
God did “bring judgment on the world,” on Saturday, he said, but there will not be any terrible buildup to the end. When it comes, it will happen quickly, he said.
Funny how a “spiritual” apocalypse looks exactly like an apocalypse that isn’t there. I guess he doesn’t want to consider the alternate possibility: that he’s a superstitious fool who thinks that a many-times translated mishmash of writings from the bronze age has any bearing on the modern world. That would be too simple.
Last time he predicted the end of the world, his excuse was that he’d forgot to carry a two or something. This time, it’s that something happened, but we didn’t see it because it was invisible. I’m disappointed. Both of those are tired old excuses that have been used time and time again by previous prophets of armageddon. Would it have been too much to expect him to spend some time coming up with something new? I suppose it was.
Basically, the same stunt the JWs pulled in 1914.
Exactly. Is it too much to ask for some originality?
If Camping were right, he would’ve teamed up with some comic writers or science fiction authors, since they’re good at retconning and storytelling, and planned some sort of grand epic explanation for why nothing seemed to happen. Maybe something with massive earthquakes around the world, giant lizards rising out of the ocean to eat Tokyo, a brave band of faithful praying against all odds, and a fleet of spaceships piloted by cherubim and seraphim traveling back through time to set everything back the way it was.
Then, when the apocalypse failed to materialize and he had to fall back on plan B, at least he could’ve gotten a book and movie deal out of it.
BTW, I guess I should play the Bingo. I get: A1, B2, C2, B4 (using ABC across and numbers down, as in a spreadsheet).
I disagree with C2: AIUI Camping’s story all along has been that the rapture would occur on May 21, after which the world would carry on through various horrors until October wheneverth, when it would finally be destroyed.
But if you can find him claiming that this is a reason to believe more strongly — I haven’t bothered to look for his 90-minute announcement, but maybe it’s in there somewhere — you can claim C3 which gives you a bingo.
I see your point re C2.
You’re claiming D4? Is that different from B2?
Also: I haven’t wasted time going through all of Camping’s excuses either, but this quote seems to give us A3, B3, and arguably the rest of that row.
Oops! No, I misread what you said: you said B4, and I mistook that for D4.
Never mind.