It's the End of the World As We Know It
In case you’ve been living under a rock lately, or have managed to be busier than I have, there’s a fellow called Harold Camping who’s managed to convince quite a lot of people that the world will end on May 21, 2011 at 6PM local time.
And by “local time,” he of course means that a global earthquake is supposed to happen that affects each time zone in its turn. Yeah, somebody fails geology, physics, and common sense forever. (And what about areas that don’t have Daylight Savings Time, but are surrounded by places that do? Is there any aspect of this scenario that Harold’s thought out at all?)
Harold claims to have gotten this idea from reading the Bible, which is awfully strange when you consider that Jesus says, in that very same book, that even he doesn’t know when the world is going to end. No, seriously. The End Of Days, according to Jesus, will come “like a thief in the night,” and “no man knoweth the hour, not even the Son of Man, but only the Father.” I’m guessing that this End Times prediction, like most, isn’t based on a comprehensive reading of the whole Bible, but of the book of Revelation and the more unusual and occult-sounding* portions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah.
So. Thus far I’ve heard nothing of devastating quakes in Australia, Asia, Europe, or Africa, but of course that means nothing to Harold and co., who are probably huddled in some sort of bunker waiting for the Final Hour to arrive so they can gloat at everybody else from the comfort of Heaven. (Because, let’s face it, anyone who thinks they know when the end is coming is suffering from some serious delusions of grandeur.)
What will you be up to this evening when Camping’s campers realize that the end isn’t as nigh as they’d hoped? I’m going bowling!
* You try coming up with a better word for bones regaining flesh and walking around, angels that look like wheels covered in eyes, and metal idols whose golden heads can somehow be supported by feet of clay. If that isn’t occult imagery, then I’m a Presbyterian. Not that this matters to the sort of Christian we’re talking about here. To the doom-and-gloom Rapture-hunters, numerology and fortune-telling are only bad when non-Christians do it, or when Christians do it for any other purpose than learning of a day that no one is meant to know.