Doubt it made news anywhere else, but the slow news day story of choice recently in the USA was radio evangelist Harold Camping's prediction of the apocalypse scheduled for 6PM 5/21 starting at +12 GMT (it's good to know that God recognizes the International Date Line!). With solid math backing his predictions up, including such highlights as:
>"The number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".
...you can pretty well guess how this was going to go down long before 5/21. Various groups and individuals who were true believers purchased billboards, printed up literature, and toured the country in RVs painted with advertisements for our impending doom. Atheists had a field day, mainstream Christians groaned and had to remind everyone that they don't believe this nonsense, and RV dealers around the country wondered if they could just change the 2011 to 2012 on their recent trade-ins for the next set of crazies.
It was a good show!
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction
>Palmdale (KTLA) -- A woman slit her daughters' throats before slitting her own early Friday evening, claiming that "the Tribulation" was going to occur and she wanted to prevent them from suffering through it, officials said.
Awesome. This just gets better and better.
http://www.khq.com/story/14701903/radio-host-new-judgement-day-october-21-2011
>Camping told the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday he was "flabbergasted" his latest doomsday prophecy did not come true.
Maybe just admit you're wrong, dude...
>...Camping says his prophecy that the world would end was off by five months because Judgment Day actually will come on Oct. 21.
Sigh.... Look for this thread again in five months!
Maybe not, >>2.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/06/harold-camping-suffers-stroke/38757/
The evangelist in question appears to have suffered a stroke.
>Harold Camping, who rallied thousands of followers with a failed prophecy that the world would come to an end last month, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, a spokesman said on Monday.
The joke is too obvious.
Hey Look！
Time to wake up people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk63p6UkrlQ&NR=1
>The Christian radio station belonging to Harold Camping, who twice incorrectly predicted the world would end, plans to replace his weekday segment Open Forum with new programming after rebroadcasting the last show he recorded before suffering a stroke on June 9.
It was bound to happen. Wait, belonging to Camping? He owns that network?!
>The nationwide network, registered as a nonprofit organization with Camping as president, is worth an estimated $72 million, Fortune Magazine reported in May. Nearly all of the money comes from donations, including more than $18 million in 2009 -- up from $15 million the year before, IRS tax documents show
You'd think they'd have spent all that money if they believed their own message. Go for broke, you know. Like money is going to do you any good in heaven or on whatever's left of earth...
Oh, this is still the best story ever. It's the gift that keeps on killing! 29 June 2011:
>An Oregon man, believed to be a follower of Harold Camping and in jail for allegedly shooting a co-worker last week, wanted to punish the victim for mocking the California preacher’s rapture prophecy, emerging developments suggest.
>A 39-year-old man from west Eugene, Dale O’Callaghan, shot his co-worker, 33-year-old Jerry Andrews, in the shoulder June 24, calling him “one of those Satanic” people... O’Callaghan and Andrews, co-workers at LHM Hydraulics for several years, had argued occasionally over Harold Camping’s prediction that the rapture would cause the end of the world beginning May 21, which turned out to be false...
I have no words, >>7. This was funny before people started getting killed over it.
Even if the killer was a religious fanatic, that does nothing to excuse or mitigate what he did. I was raised in a religious household, but it did not have the desired effect. One of the things I recall, though, is that the Bible goes on at great length about being wary of false prophets who make false prophecies, who can be recognized... when their predictions don't come true. Does God have to come down from the sky and smack a few people? ("Dudes, he isn't a prophet, he's just some nut. You should be able to see this because he was WRONG. STOP LISTENING TO HIM.") Jesus wept.
HEY KIDS! Depending on where you are right now, it [is/is about to be] 21 October 2011, the end of the world (again)!
Please report any apocalyptic events to this thread immediately!