Why the World Will End (Again) Tomorrow

Stephanie Pappas (LiveScience.com)

(Fox) The world is about to end. Again. Oct. 21 is the next in a long line of apocalypses stretching back thousands of years.

This time, the prophet of doom is Harold Camping, a radio preacher who received international media attention in May when he predicted that Judgment Day would fall on May 21, followed by months of torment on Earth and an end to everything in autumn.

Judgment Day didn't bring the promised earthquakes and Rapture, but Camping now says May 21 marked a spiritual Judgment Day and that the world will still end "quietly" on Friday. It may seem odd that Camping's faith remains strong, but apocalypse experts say that doomsday prophets have often built their entire lives around their end-of-the-world views, and that worldview is hard to shake. For an elderly preacher like Camping, who suffered a stroke in June, apocalypse beliefs may also reflect his struggle with his own mortality....

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The Appeal of the End
Doomsday predictions, whether secular or religious, often attract those who feel the world is unsalvageable. Sometimes the world-ending catastrophe is nuclear winter; sometimes it’s the Mayan apocalypse. But religious doomsday groups often draw on mainstream faith, said Stephen Kent, a sociologist at the University of Alberta. "Almost all apocalyptic beliefs show Christian influence," Kent told LiveScience. More

Doomsday dud! So now what? (Commentary)

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)


Filmmaker Zeke Piestrup has been documenting Harold Camping; see below (SFGate.com).

Doomsday was a dud. It's no surprise. But we have to admit we're a little disappointed. We came in on the weekend, hugged Christian pets, went to a party, learned the Dougie -- and all for what?! When does the Bible show begin already?

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Kate Upton teaches a weary world the Dougie

Armageddon is the name of a Jewish war. And apparently it can not begin until a few other things line up. Imagine a religion, fundamentalist Christianity, put in a position to long for war, to be wary of anybody labelled "the peacemaker" (usually American presidents who try to resolve Middle East tensions), and who sees End Time signs in every social eventuality:

Kindness? So what. Compassion? Who cares. Environmental stewardship? Never heard of it. But homosexuality? Aha! Crime? Yes! Earthquakes? Praise the lord! Everything bad is good if it signals the end of the world (and the beginning of assumption into heaven).

CBS News Video as posted on SF Gate's May 21, 2011: rapture or party time?

Camping to Answer on Film Today

Wisdom Quarterly
Fortunately, Zeke Piestrup has been following doomsayer Harold Camping for weeks, running tape for as much as 19 hours a day in the run up to The End. But Camping went into black out mode on the 21st. He will emerge on tape to explain why his prediction failed.

And Camping will have an explanation today because he holds the world's record on answering Bible questions (50 years) on an unscripted open forum radio show. He is unflappable, charismatic, and absolutely certain of his interpretations. He has survived at least one failed prediction (but that one left him the out that May 21 was the only other option). More than surviving, he comes out stronger, in accordance with psychologist Festinger's 1950's findings on doomsday cults.

Former KROQ DJ Piestrup was on KROQ radio in Los Angeles Monday morning (May 23) discussing his documentary film on Harold Camping and the Family Radio ministry.

Camping "flabbergasted" Judgment Day did not come

SFGate.com
The man who said the world was going to end appeared at his front door in Alameda (Northern California) a day later, very much alive but not so well.

"It has been a really tough weekend," said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old fundamentalist radio preacher [and twice failed prophet] who convinced hundreds of his followers that the rapture would occur on Saturday at 6:00 pm.

Massive earthquakes would strike, he said. Believers would ascend to heaven and the rest would be left to wander a godforsaken planet until Oct. 21, when Camping promised a fiery end to the world. More

• Will Graham [Televangelist Billy Graham's son] preaches on end times after camping's wrong prediction [because there's a lot of money to be made from doomsaying]
  
• Harold Camping Should Publicly Apologize for Wrong Doomsday Prediction, Says Christian
• Critical Facts About Harold Camping
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• Harold Camping, We're Still Here After 6:01 P.M., What Now?
• Harold Camping doomsday prediction record: 0-2
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Doomsday dud explained!

LiveScience.com

Harold Camping has some serious explaining to do. Or does he? He may be an embarrassment to Christians, laughing stock to atheists, and a "nut" to everyone else, but what motivated his charismatic confidence? (Image: Karl Tate, TechMediaNetwork)

If readers are reading this, Harold Camping and FamilyRadio.com's predictions that the end of the world would start Saturday (May 21, 6:00 pm) failed to pan out.

That's good news for most of us. But Camping and his Christian followers were looking forward to the end. After all, they believed that they were likely to be among the 200 million souls sent to live in [space] paradise forever.

[That is the total number to get to heaven, past and present, because the worldwide earthquake was going to toss up the dead, according to Camping.]

Piestrup documenting Camping in the run up to the end (Michael Macor/The Chronicle).

• Harold Camping "flabbergasted"; Rapture a no-show

So how do believers cope when their doomsday predictions fail? It depends, said Lorenzo DiTommaso, a professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal who studies the history of doomsday predictions.

Doomsdays without Doom

The classic study of "doomsdays gone bad" took place in 1954. A Chicago woman named Dorothy Martin predicted a cataclysmic flood from which a few true believers would be saved by aliens. Martin and her cult, The Seekers, gathered the night before the expected flood to await the flying saucer.

Unbeknown to them, however, their group had been infiltrated by psychologist Leon Festinger, who hoped to find out what happens when the rug of people's beliefs is pulled out from under them. Festinger's study, which became the basis of the book When Prophecy Fails (Harper-Torchbooks 1956), revealed... More

• When Doomsday isn't, believers struggle to cope
• What do believers do when the world fails to end?
• Pondering death can alter behavior [Maranussati]
  
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• No Rapture, No Judgment, NO DUH

Countdown to extinction: the last seven days with 89 year old Christian prophet Harold Camping. "It's the gays and drug addicts!"

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