Well, today is the day. Today is the day the world will end, according to Harold Camping.
Let's back up a bit.
Harold Camping first predicted the end of the world would occur in 1994. That, of course, didn't happen, so far as we can tell. But he'd already had 2011 on the horizon as another possibility. And as that year drew closer, he grew more and more certain about May 21, 2011. On that day, the famous Rapture would occur with the final destruction of the earth on October 21.
In the Rapture, Harold Camping and anyone who believed him would be taken up to live with Jesus while the rest of us heathen scum would suffer five months of torture and judgement until finally it would all end in October. Makes perfect sense.
For Camping and his follwers, the world was definitely going to end. They traveled around the country in big buses warning everyone of the coming of Judgement Day--cue scary music.
But, naturally, the Rapture didn't happen. At least, Camping and his followers weren't swept up, and no one else was either, so far as anyone knows.
(It's possible, of course, that the Rapture did happen and the tiny, miniscule minority of true believers have left us and we just didn't notice. That would mean that the regular workings of the world are our punishment and torture. Same old, same old.)
On May 22, while many of his followers found themselves without jobs, because they'd given them up; without family, because they'd broken those ties; and without much money, because they'd given it all to Camping, Harold Camping himself came out quite nicely. He did, honorably, suffer a mild stroke a few weeks later. He's recovering well. (Christians speculate whether or not it was divine retribution.)
Camping went silent for some time, only to reemerge to tell all the skeptics that what had actually occurred on May 21 was an invisible Rapture. God didn't want us all to suffer for five months. (God only knows why.) Camping told the Daily Mail:
"On May 21, 2011 we didn't feel or see any difference in the world but we know from the Bible that God brought judgement day to bear on the whole world--and it will continue right up until October 21, 2011 when the whole world will be destroyed."
Now we understand. It took God all this time to go through all of our names in the big book of morality and judge us. No time for earthquakes, floods, pestilence, torture and all that. The Lord can only do so much at one time. It's a pretty "out there" idea in Christendom. The Camping types used to be excited about the prospect of a vengeful God making the streets run red with the blood of all the people who thought they were nuts.
But no, God spared us that. Invisible Rapture did what it was supposed to do and now it will all just end...today.
The Orlando Atheism Examiner has some end-of-the-world predictions herself. Here they are:
The world is not going to end today. The world is not going to end in 2012, either. The Christian end-of-the-world scenario will never occur*. Jesus is not coming back--because he probably never existed to begin with and if he did, he's dead now. Jesus is not coming back. Ever. Not one Christian will ever see Jesus return in his lifetime.
*This, naturally, doesn't count invisible returns or invisible destructions of the world after which nothing at all changes for anybody, but Christians make grandiose claims to the contrary.
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