Hm. Hm. Where’s the breaking news of the disappearance of millions?
MB’s brother lives in Australia — where it is currently, ahem, almost 5 a.m. tomorrow, the 22nd. MB said, “Yeah, I think (brother) would have texted me if there were suddenly a bunch of empty Speedos on Bondi Beach.”
Hmm.
I guess the world lives to debauch another day, eh, Harold?
Honestly, though, this man is doing damage in so many ways. Here’s an example. You know, I’d be okay, Harold, if you were taken to your final destination at 6 p.m. your time today.
Oh, no. Wait. That would rob me of the pleasure of hearing what the hell you have to say for yourself on Monday.
Also: Will you be reimbursing the people who gave their life savings to promote this “guaranteed” rapture? Since you claimed “The Bible guarantees it!” when it, in fact, does not and this was simply one man’s flawed guarantee, I think the least you could do is reimburse those who gave everything to you because of your retarded and duplicitous “guarantee.”
I smite thee in my head, Harold. And all your minions who duped gullible and vulnerable people.
The “Family Radio” website is down now, too. But what I want to know, well, aside from the reimbursing the life savings thing, is how he gets around “No one knows the day or the hour.”
I mean, look, there are lots of theories about the End Times and what it will be like and how it will go down, and there’s lots of space for “interpretive freedom” in the Biblical texts, because many of them are rather vague. But I don’t know how Jesus could be more clear than “No. One. Knows. The. Day. Or. The. Hour. No one. Not the angels. Not even me, Harold.”
Since you’ve done more research on this than me, have you heard how he handles this verse?
The teenage cashiers at the local grocery store were counting down while I was finishing my shopping.
Cashier 1: “All right, it’s 6:00!”
Cashier 2: “Yeah. . . but let’s, like, wait ’til it’s 6:01.”
Hee! It’s almost 8 p.m. here on the East Coast and either we all got left behind (I even texted my sister in DC to check) or it just plain didn’t happen.
There was certainly enough traffic out and about to make me a little suspicious about things. Then again – I do live in New Jersey.
I don’t understand why anyone would be willing to listen to a man whose predictions had already been proven wrong once before. I will admit to being mildly interested in seeing how Camping will dig himself out of this failed prediction; no doubt he will, no doubt there will still be people stupid enough to give him their money.
Katie — I believe his end-around on that one is that you CAN know if the Holy Spirit reveals it to you. So, okay, if the HS revealed it to Harold, then he did it to punk him. That’s my theory here. I’m not saying the Holy Spirit wasn’t involved: I’m saying he punked ol’ Harry because he was annoyed and Harry deserved the public humiliation.
Kate P — Hahahahaha. That is cute.
RT — Yeah, it will be interesting to see how he digs out. If I had to guess he’ll say something like, “Well, obviously, you all prayed enough and God stayed his hand” or something.
I winder if Camping has spent any time thinking about the story of Jonah. My take on that tale is that even if God picks you to be a prophet for him, He might give you information that ends up being wrong, and that any prophet of His ought to be humble enough, and loving of humanity enough, to accept that.
Though, now that I’ve written this down, I’m uncomfortable with the implication that Camping might have been misled or deluded, but well-intentioned. That poor man in Staten Island, who gave up his life savings because he honestly thought he was helping people…
Well, I very well might be mis-interpreting Jonah. It’s such a strange story. Particularly the part about the giant gourd.
I hope Camping realizes his arrogance, and allows public humiliation to knock him down a few pegs. But I don’t think it’s likely.
roo — In the Old Testament, the punishment for a false prophet was … death. So … well, Camping is lucky that Christians don’t believe we’re under the “law” of the OT anymore, I guess.
I’m disturbed that his radio station is just playing hymns right now. There IS regularly scheduled programming, but since he botched the end of days, I guess it’s officially irregularly scheduled programming.
According to his wife, he’s in seclusion. Sorry, Hal. Come out and take your lumps like a man. I hate cowards.
Re false prophets and keeping one’s story straight– if the Holy Spirit “revealed” the truth unto him, why did Camping have to do strange math with figures from the Bible? Isn’t his excuse for the previous wrong date he gave that he got the numbers wrong the first time? You’d think a revelation would be the more akin to the answers in the back of the book– not the math problems themselves.
Whatever. I’ve tried to be charitable, but he’s a Liar with pants afire. Hopefully for him that won’t be his literal fate.
Looks like we’ve got until October now. How many tries at this does he get? This recent prediction was already an apocalyptic mulligan after his first miscalculation in 1994. His math teacher should be embarrassed.
roo — I don’t even think there’s any need for treating him charitably. He IS a liar and he misled thousands of people. I have nothing but contempt for him and don’t feel bad about that in the slightest.
Brian — Yeah. I heard that. Now it’s October 21. So the rapture is “off” but the end of the world is still on. Apparently? The best thing God could do would be to take this man out of the picture, seriously. He’s 89. He’s lived a nice long life of lying. He’s worth millions — that he bilked from vulnerable people. How is he any different from someone like Bernie Madoff, really? Because he wears the “Jesus” hat and it’s all “non-profit” BS.
Yeah, apparently we’ve moved from pre-trib to post-trib Rapture. It’s like having New Year’s Eve at Times Square cancelled, but hey, we’re still on for the massive overnight cleanup, right? All the vomit, spilled food, and crushed party hats, none of the fun! Sign me right up for that one, Slappy.
October 21 is the day before my cousin’s wedding. I wonder what the catering contract says about rapture.
For the record: My new favorite thing to say to people with whom I am deeply unimpressed is going to be, “I smite thee in my head.”
Marisa — Hi, hon! Yes, you would not believe how many people I have smote (smited?) in my head. Oh the humanity.