It’s the End of the World As We Know It…And I Feel Fine3

by Damon Martin

Judgment Day is happening friends, and it won’t be Arnold Schwarzenegger staring you down with a leather jacket and a 9mm.

No, Rapture 2011 is coming courtesy of Family Radio founder Harold Camping, who predicted through what has to be painstaking and meticulous research that Jesus is coming back to claim his flock on May 21 at around 6 PM.

Camping first predicted the world would come to an end in September 1994, though he admits that he got his calculations wrong that time around. Since then, he’s apparently got a more dependable abacus, and, despite his previous shortcomings, is 100% positive that he’s correct this time. On the appointed date, millions across the world will apparently disappear like they were in the movie The Langoliers, while the remaining sinners will be left to fend for themselves until God comes down on October 21 to put us all out of our misery.

“It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. I don’t even think about those kind of issues,” Camping told New York Magazine when asked if he’ll be worried if six o’clock rolls around and there are no major earthquakes. “The Bible is not – God is not playing games. I don’t even want to think about that question at all. It is going to happen.”

While Camping has gone as far as buying billboards to advertise Jesus’ return, most religious scholars scoff at his claims. Of course it’s not because they believe the whole rapture thing is about as likely as Noah packing a boat full of every species on the planet to survive a flood while living for 950 years, but it’s a close second.

People are taking Camping’s rapture declaration so seriously that an event has been created on Facebook so the heathens left behind can do a little social-media organized post-rapture looting. With millions of electronics store-owning Christians out of the way, the real party can begin. Meanwhile an atheist-run business is offering to look after the pets that are left behind (for a small fee of $135 – payable in advance of course).

The humor in Camping’s statements is pretty clear, but serious scientists still have to answer stupid questions about his clearly bat shit crazy claims. World renowned evolutionary biologist and famed atheist author Richard Dawkins was interviewed about Camping’s claims, and seemed to show equal parts of anger and humor when responding to a reporter from The Washington Post.

“Why is a serious newspaper like the Washington Post giving space to a raving loon?” Dawkins asked. “I suppose the answer must be that, unlike the average loon, this one has managed to raise enough money to launch a radio station and pay for billboards. I don’t know where he gets the money, but it would be no surprise to discover that it is contributed by gullible followers – gullible enough, we may guess, to go along with him when he will inevitably explain, on May 22nd, that there must have been some error in the calculation, the rapture is postponed to . . . and please send more money to pay for updated billboards.”

Camping however would surely laugh at Dawkins’ ridiculous “scientific” claims that the world will not end on May 21, because the Bible, as he tells it, was written by God. Yes, you heard that right…Camping believes the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelations is strictly the word of God and that’s where the rapture prediction truly came from.

“I know reporters don’t like to hear from the Bible, but the Bible has every word in the original language – it was written by God,” Camping stated. “Incidentally, no churches believe that at all, they don’t hold the Bible in the high respect that it ought to be. But every word was written right from the lips of God.”

So at 6pm on Saturday if the world starts to shake, and the oceans roar and the mountains crumble, don’t say Camping didn’t warn you – The rapture is coming, look busy.