What will Harold Camping say after May 21, 2011 when the Rapture doesn't occur?

[tat tvam asi]

When the rapture and earthquake don't occur then the whole thing is off. The October date becomes meaningless at that point. Or at least it should become meaningless according to Campings ministry. It's a sequence of events that absolutely depend on tomorrow's rapture fulfilling his interpretation of biblical prophecy...

[Robert Tulip]

Well, here I am on 21 May already (Australia is a day ahead of the US). Its the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

But I certainly don't agree with Michael Stipe that time has no meaning.

I've been discussing this Camping material with Tat for a couple of years, exploring the comparison with astrotheology. I find it interesting as a way to psychoanalyze American culture.

Here is a recent commentary I made on some Christian analysis of Camping.

Well folks, here we are all these years later counting down to the 21st of May. It's do or die for old Camping @ this point and so far he's remained absolute about the rapture taking place and massive earthquakes starting around 6:00 pm eastern standard time. I was driving down the road yesterday and I heard the DJ on the radio station say that some of the religious folks are calling for the rapture on Saturday and making light of the whole thing. So it seems that now at the last minute Campings getting some mainstream coverage. Hopefully there'll be a media blitz next week after no such rapture or global earth quakes occur...

Tat, this general question of eschatology, the theory of time, is far from simple. Camping tries to make it simple, and gives the general public the view that religion as a whole is idiotic. The church responds by also agreeing that eschatology is basically idiotic. Our discussion several years ago in this thread was all about how we can reconcile the myths of eschatology with scientific knowledge. I think it is wrong to say that just because Camping is crazy, therefore everyone who takes an interest in finding hidden messages in the Bible is also crazy. My view is that there are hidden messages in the Bible, concealing an esoteric tradition that sets the history of the world in a cosmic framework.

I read the commentary that FTL linked from http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-e ... ing-50273/ and would like to make some comments on it.

millions of people in America have been warned through Camping’s radio program and by means of the more than 1,200 billboards his ministry has put up across the nation. According to press reports, Family Radio has put up 2,000 billboards in other nations, as well.

I had not realized this kook had such an enormous publicity machine! I feel that it illustrates a subconscious sense that modern life cannot go on as it is. Camping's version of the apocalyse is laughable, but there are other apocalyptic ideas, for example in the movie Koyaanisqatsi, that provide an accurate empirical message about why current practices cannot continue. We see here the archetype of cosmic transformation emerging in distorted form.

Camping states: "it was not until a very few years ago that the accurate knowledge of the entire timeline of history was revealed to true believers by God from the Bible. This timeline extends all the way to the end of time. During these past several years God has been revealing a great many truths, which have been completely hidden in the Bible until this time when we are so near the end of the world."

To my reading, the strange thing is that this statement, laughable when applied to Camping, has a germ of truth when applied to astrotheology. If precession of the equinox is a concealed esoteric message in the Bible, then interpreting the Bible against the framework of precession gives what Camping offers, a timeline of history.

Christ specifically admonished his disciples not to claim such knowledge. In Acts 1:7, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” In Matthew 24:36, Christ taught similarly: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” To state the case plainly, these two verses explicitly forbid Christians to claim the knowledge of such dates and times. Jesus clearly taught that the Father has not revealed such dates and timing, but has reserved that knowledge for himself. It is an act of incredible presumptuousness to claim that a human knows such a date, or has determined God’s timing by any means.

Yet, if we accept, with Carl Jung, that the numerous Biblical references to the end of the Age are about the cosmic turning of the stars, the shift of the equinox from the constellation of Pisces to Aquarius, then perhaps the Bible does give a means to determine God's timing. Matthew 24, the chapter cited here, also includes a quite precise statement, that 'this gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole inhabited earth, and then the end will come'. This matches to the roughly 2000 years of the Age of Pisces, which is now drawing towards an end. The gospel has in fact been preached to every country, so the dismissal of all interpretation as 'incredible presumptuousness' is itself somewhat presumptuous. There is an old tradition going back to Augustine and Irenaeus that interprets time as a 7000 year period, with the last 1000 years as the millennium.

Second, the Bible does not contain hidden codes that we are to find and decipher. The Bible has been given to us in order that we might know the truth, and the truth is clearly revealed in its pages. We are not to look for hidden patterns of words, numbers, dates, or anything else. The Bible’s message is plain and requires no mathematical computation for its understanding. The claim that one has found a hidden code or system in the Bible is an insult to the Bible as the Word of God.

Saying the truth is clearly revealed is not true. Much of the Bible is fraudulent, and much of it does conceal hidden messages. This argument that the Bible is clear is just as bad as Camping's claim to have found an erroneous secret code.

[tat tvam asi]

And all of these idiots have similar views to Camping in terms saying that Israel fulfills prophecy and how we're living in the last days etc., etc. They just pussy foot around putting a specific day or hour on it in order to align with the verse in question. They all have interpretations of Daniel and Revelation that involve making use of the obscure mythic imagery. Thinking that the imagery of Revelation represents earthly kingdoms and kings prophecied in advance and it all leads to a timeline placing this time period as the end or close to it in some way. They're not very different from Camping at all. They are all the reason that there is a Camping taking all of these stupid concepts to a logical conclusion. And these fools want to stand back and call him crazy as if any one of them are any better. The entire thing is delusion. And at least tomorrow one more aspect of this great delusion can be firmly put to rest. And with time the entire end times and rapture doctrines of every variety will necessarily fade into history. The great long lasting Egyptian religion died and spun off into copy cat religions and why would the delusion of one of it's copy cat offshoots, Christianity, be any different? Another century with no rapture, no floating Jesus in the sky, no city coming down, no lake of burning sulfur, or any other mythology literally happening, should put quite a damper on the continuation of these various social delusions.

[tat tvam asi]

http://www.freethoughtnation.com/contri ... -near.html

UPDATE: Be sure to join us for the live stream "May 21, 2011 Judgment Day Party."

The much-publicized "return of the Lord to rapture all righteous believers" predicted by an elderly man named Harold Camping is creating quite a ruckus in the United States. As some may recall, Camping, who runs an organization called "Family Radio," has made this prophecy before, most notoriously in 1994, which came and went uneventfully. Camping's recent prediction is that some 200 million people will be "raptured" on May 21, 2011, which means they will be taken up into the sky to meet with Jesus Christ, while the rest will be annihilated on October 21, 2011. Evidently this notion of mass global genocide appeals to many, as they prepare for the "Lord's return" or "Second Coming."

Firstly, there is little evidence that Jesus Christ was ever on Earth during a "First Coming," so a Second Coming is highly unlikely. (For those who wish for more information about that subject, please see my books and articles.) Secondly, although various of the many views of the "Rapture," "Tribulation" and "Second Coming" use different biblical verses, let us look more closely at some scripture used to create the Christian eschatology or end-of-the-world scenario.

One of the most common scriptures used for "proof" of "the Tribulation," which will supposedly accompany Jesus's return, is Matthew 24 (3, 29-34), the relevant parts of which are translated in the King James Bible, favored by evangelicals, as follows:

And as [Jesus] sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what [shall be] the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?... Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer [is] nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, [even] at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Exciting stuff, particularly for those who lead dull or traumatic lives and who may not wish to live any longer. However, let us look more closely at the most germane language here.

Coming or presence?

At Matthew 24:3, we read about the "coming" and "end of the world." But is that really what is meant by the writer(s) of these passages? The Greek word translated here as "coming," as in Jesus's "Second Coming," is παρουσία or parousia, which also denotes "presence." According to The Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary, ousia means: "being, essence, substance; property," while para means: "near; beside, along;...towards; during; beyond, except; contrary to, against, in comparison with;...from alongside of, from;...beside, near, in the presence of; according to."

As we can see, there is not necessarily a sense of future coming in this combined word, which could mean, among others, "in the presence of a being."

In reality, it may be that the original biblical writers meant parousia as a current and everlasting divine presence, not the purported future coming of a physical man.

Another question we may then ask is why Christians need Jesus in the physical form, in any event? The parousia is now, as believers demonstrate every time they speak of Jesus in the present tense and pray to him.

End of the world or completion of an age?

Furthermore, the Greek words for "end of the world," συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος, could also be translated as "completion of the age." Hence, the phrase would refer to a period of time, rather than a physical destruction of the earth itself, although, of course, the passages that follow do depict a dramatic destruction. However, this sort of "apocalyptic" thought represents a genre fairly popular at the time this passage was written, as well as beforehand, as in the Old Testament book of Daniel, which contains similar thought, as do various Jewish intertestamental and apocryphal texts. Indeed, several other religions have their end-times scenarios also, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Zoroastrianism. Many of these concepts are pre-Christian and can be found in Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythology as well. Obviously, not all or even any of these notions may be true. Over the centuries and even in pre-Christian times, therefore, there have been countless "endtimes predictions," which have been as successful as palm reading.

There are many other such scriptures used by the biblically obsessed to determine the future, including some in the books of Isaiah and Daniel, at Matthew 25 and in the purportedly prophetic book of Revelation, as well as in the epistles to the Thessalonians, Timothy and Titus. Moreover, for hundreds of years people have been interpreting these "predictions" as referring to their own times. Indeed, some of the biblical verses (Mt 16:27-28; 1 Th 4:15-17) appear to be referring to Jesus's audience of the time, as if it he would appear "soon," within the time of their own "generation." Yet, he did not return, and "soon really seems to be a long time."

Prophecy or blueprint for disaster?

Exegesis of texts aside, it is unwise to base one's worldview on ancient scriptures that have been claimed to be predicting the events of the day in practically every generation since Jesus's alleged advent. It is likewise perilous to contribute to such unwarranted catastrophic thinking that may indeed exacerbate a situation that truly is degenerating, i.e., the general state of the planet. Then there is the enormous personal toll this sort of thinking has taken on thousands if not millions of people over the past couple of millennia.

If past experience is any indication, all those folks who have sold their belongings and are joining Camping for the Rapture will find themselves still on planet Earth with egg on their faces. Now for my prediction: Camping will then issue a statement that the Second Coming was "postponed" because of this or that, as if he is in communication with Jesus and God, who let him in on his/their plans. Let us not be too hard on them, as, it seems many already having a rough time, which is why they're gung-ho to get off the planet in the first place. Regardless of what happens, Harold Camping's business abilities and capacity to garner global attention are certainly impressive.

Further Reading

Family Radio's Announcement of May 21, 2011
Apocalypticism
Eschatology
Christian eschatological views
Rapture
Tribulation
Second Coming of Christ
A Brief History of the Apocalypse
History of the King James Bible
The Meaning of Revelation
Comparing Abrahamic 'End Times' Prophecies
John Hagee: Jesus is Coming Soon!
Mary 21, 2011 Judgment Day Party!

[lady of shallot]

My husbands bicycle forum has some very humorous posts on this:

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.ph ... Ride/page4

[tat tvam asi]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... evers.html

Saturday 6PM local time wherever you live is the last day on earth, claims evangelical Christian

Auckland, New Zealand, the first major city expected to suffer earthquakes, reports business as usual and there are no problems in Beijing, China

Harold Camping, 89, wrongly predicted 'the rapture' date once before in 1994

Atheists to hold parties to celebrate 'inevitable embarrassment'
Christian author calls Camping's prediction 'flat-out wrong'
Mayor Bloomberg says he'll suspend 'alternate side parking'

As May 21 drew nearer, followers say donations grew, allowing Family Radio to spend millions of dollars on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the doomsday message. In 2009, the nonprofit reported in IRS filings that it received $18.3million in donations, and had assets of more than $104million, including $34million in stocks or other publicly traded securities.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1N15C8dBS

[tat tvam asi]

Well it's dam near 7:00 pm in Florida with no earthquakes here either!!!

I wonder what this dip shit is thinking right now over in California? What will become of all the money and assets he's gathered as described above?? And I just can't wait to hear how this thread will be settled when Camping makes a public statement about his false prophecy???

[Azrael]

Moron 2 Jesus 0! Wonder how many people he suckered with this crap? Chalk this one up as one of the many that FAILED agian....its funny as hell.

[johnson1010]

Everybody still here?

Amazing!

Nobody magically floated "up" to heaven today!?

[Dexter]

Any comment from the Rapture wackos yet?