The Daily Mail Reporter in the UK ran a great article on the supposed Rapture Day of May 21, which can be read here.  It begins by describing how a 60 year old retiree sank his life savings of $140,000 into posting signs declaring the end times are nigh. I cannot even begin to describe my horror that this man has destroyed his future by blowing his savings on a made up event that will not happen. If this man has any family at all, then I feel sorry that they will now have to take care of him for the rest of his life because he will become a burden on them with no money whatsoever.  This poor man was misled by a preacher by the name of Harold Camping. This is the same man who declared the end of days in 1994 but claimed a miscalculation when is came and went without a rapture or planetary destruction.

Mr Camping claims to base his nonsense calculations on a supposed Biblical basis, which is full of a number of major holes, even in a general overview.  The article states that “according to them, Noah’s great flood occurred in the year 4990 B.C., ‘exactly’ 7000 years ago.” To begin with, a major flood in that period is just ridiculous and flies in the face a number of sciences and disciplines. For a historical example, Egypt had existed at this point in time as had Sumer (which is older) in the Western world, while China and India already existed in the Eastern world.  The “rise of civilization” occurred around 10,000 BC with the development of agriculture and language. Such preposterous ideas are also easily dismissed in the realms of geology, astrology, and in the dating of ice cores.

The article goes on to quote “In its second ‘proof’ the exact date is revealed by working forward from the exact date of the of the crucifixion – April 1, 33 AD.”  I will start by saying that 33 AD is the best guess by Biblical Scholars for the death of Jesus, however it is still a guess; especially considering that many scholars and archaeologists do not think Jesus as we know him existed, or if he did then he lived much later based on the evidence available in the Holy Land. Narrowing the date even farther down to April 1st is just making stuff up on the guy’s part. The date of Easter at the beginning of April has much more to do with earlier Jewish tradition as well as the Spring Equinox. Early christians celebrated the holiday in early April because they were able to tie it into Passover that way, they were also able to tie it into contemporary pagan festivals that happened during spring, such as Lupercalia. Early christians adopted earlier festival days into their calendar for numerous reasons, which I will not get into in this post.

If this pastor, Mr Camping, did even a little bit of research outside of his little world then he would realize that his ideas cannot stand up on their own. I do not have any issue with the man deluding himself, however he is deluding his entire congregation as well as attempting to delude people in areas where he is advertising.  He has so deluded people that they are willing to give up everything thinking that they will no longer be present on this planet in a week’s time. This man should be accountable for his actions that destroy and disrupt others’ lives, such as the story at the beginning of the post. This is why opposing viewpoints should always be offered to people, so that they understand more of the world and cannot be convinced by some guy with no evidence to back up his claims.

May 21 will come and go and there will not be a rapture, end of days, armageddon, or anything else one may want to call it. These poor individuals will wake up the next day and hopefully realize they have been deluded into one man’s crazy idea and I hope they will move on in their lives.  Although I do guarantee Mr Camping will claim that he misread again and will come up with another arbitrary date.

By the way, if you’re anywhere near Wichita, Kansas, you should check out Rapture Day. It is an event being put on by the Air Capitol Skeptics, an SSA affiliate. More information on their event can be found here.