The San Francisco Chronicle profiles a guy who mocks the silliness of thinking that world will end in 2012, when Mayan prophesy predicts. It’s irrational! He’s right about that. But why is it irrational? Because, well…
Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012.
“That date has not one stitch of biblical authority,” Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. “It’s like a fairy tale.”
The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.
…
Camping, 88, has scrutinized the Bible for almost 70 years and says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Good Book. One night a few years ago, Camping, a civil engineer by trade, crunched the numbers and was stunned at what he’d found: The world will end May 21, 2011.
Clearly, that’s a much more rational belief!
But… how predictable is this part of the story?
This is not the first time Camping has made a bold prediction about Judgment Day.
On Sept. 6, 1994, dozens of Camping’s believers gathered inside Alameda’s Veterans Memorial Building to await the return of Christ, an event Camping had promised for two years. Followers dressed children in their Sunday best and held Bibles open-faced toward heaven.
But the world did not end. Camping allowed that he may have made a mathematical error.
He’s certainly given it a lot of thought, though…
The number 5, Camping concluded, equals “atonement.” Ten is “completeness.” Seventeen means “heaven.” Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011.
“Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.,” he began. “Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that’s 1,978 years.”
Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days – the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.
Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.
Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500.
Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.
I imagine May 22, 2011 will be an interesting day for his followers.
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But… but…
1978 * 365.2422 = 722,499.0716. Don’t those decimals throw off the rapture a bit? Or does god just do a lot of rounding? (Maybe he never did well with ‘significant digits’ in heavenly high school?)
Plus where does 1978 come from? I mean, why “take April 1, 2011″? ‘Good Friday’ in 2011 is April 22nd, not April 1st. (April Fool’s, by the way…) And is that April 1, 33 via the Julian calendar, or Gregorian? Is Camping accounting for the missing days from the calendar conversion? April 1, 2011 under the Gregorian calendar is March 19, 2011 via the Julian calendar.
‘Course Xtians never were good at counting to begin with – even as a school kid I didn’t understand how dying on a Friday afternoon and being resurrected on a Sunday morning equaled “descended into hell for 3 days”. (It actually sounds more like one of those N.Y. Times travel articles, “36 Hours In… Hell”.) Looking back that was one of the first chinks in the armor in my mental freedom.
I know, I know, there’s no reasoning with these types. But it’s just so sad and depressing that these fools have the same vote as you and me.
1Jn 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
2011 is the end- don’t believe what the Bible says about 5/21/11? forever death awaits……
“… 2011 is the end- don’t believe what the Bible says about 5/21/11? ”
I don’t think it’s the Bible that’s saying it.
To “sin”, one first has to establish some kind of mumbo-jumbo prior “pure existence”, and then posit that deviations from that offend some great being who simultaneously (somehow) loves us unconditionally but will punish us for eternity by breaking any one of the rules even once. Unless we genuflect and say “sorry”, in which case it’s back to a ticket to paradise. Until we break another rule. [lather, rinse, repeat]
Remember, believing in invisible things makes you a more complex and fabulous person.
Verily. As it says in Exodus 20:2-3 ” I iz Ceiling Cat An I iz Top Cat, An I broughted u out of hawt litturbawx wit no cheezbrgrs for hard mousin at all. No can has other ceiling cat!! U gotz other Ceiling Cat, I shoot yous wit mah lazer eyes. “
What an idiot. He completely forgot to account for the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. Good grief. Such an elementary error!
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