May 21, 2011: The Beginning Of The End?

I first heard about evangelist Harold Camping's prediction that the Bible foretold the world would end tomorrow back in January, was duly amused, and did a short blog. I knew he had followers who believed (isn't that always the case?) but I didn't know just how many. At his Family Radio ministry headquarters they are in shutdown mode in preparation for the end of the world this weekend and some of their (thousands? millions?) of followers have quit their jobs and/or made other life-altering decisions. A New York Times article says some "working-class people have reportedly liquidated their bank accounts to support Family Radio's campaign". So how will it unfold? Saturday the 21st will be the Rapture, where the relatively few "righteous" will rise up to heaven, leaving the roughly 7 billion rest of us to suffer and die during 5 months of hell on earth.

An enterprising atheist entrepreneur came up with a brilliant idea (I'm simply devastated that I didn't think of this myself!) of offering the pet-loving righteous to come pick up their furry little darlings - for a fee, of course - when their owners ascend into the heavens on clouds of glory. He apparently carefully vetted his nationwide group of atheist employees by ensuring they did the proper blaspheming so they wouldn't accidentally be Raptured along with the owners and leave little Fluffy or Sparky without anyone to care for them.

Harold Camping had predicted the end of the world in September 1994. He now says he forgot to take the Book of Jeremiah into account and is now certain, without doubt, no plan B, that it will happen on May 21st, 2011. It shows how deeply irrational we are and how easily led astray that the end of the world has been predicted with some regularity for thousands of years and still people believe. I think the Seventh Day Adventist religion had its beginnings in waiting for the end of the world that was supposed to happen October 22, 1844. It is now one of the fastest growing religions organizations in the country.

Some who doubt that Camping's predicted apocalypse will occur are planning Rapture parties and generally making fun of his faithful followers. They, and I, will be greatly and unpleasantly surprised if it actually does happen. I used to think the odds of this predicted event actually happening were so close to zero that it could be safely dismissed. Then my favorite rationalist / skeptic, Sam Harris, happened to mention that if philosopher Nick Bostrum's computer simulation model indeed described our perceived reality and it happened that Mormons or some such group were the ones running the simulation on hard drives of the future then it was indeed possible that I might see Jesus coming to deliver my just punishments for the sins of rational thinking and insistence on evidence for beliefs. I wouldn't mind discovering that I was actually just living in a computer simulation but, please god, not that one!