News World Ending October 21st?

[Loru]

no world ending on 21st. guy is insane. EOT (end of topic)

 

[APDAF]

It cannot end it is a friends birthday.

 

[Artlav]

If the guy is just insane, why is there so many posts in this thread?

 

[Jarvitä]

If the guy is just insane, why is there so many posts in this thread?

 

[jedidia]

Yes, a lot of people have been apologizing for poor ol' Harold over the years. Too bad people's lives are still ruined because of his actions. But hey, at least *someone* *somewhere* is sorry.

What else can i do?

 

[RisingFury]

What else can i do?

Nothing. In fact, do nothing.

Our society doesn't work in a way where one man pays for another man's sins. Camping's actions aren't yours to carry. People have to atone for their own sins and correct their own mistakes.

Here's an ugly fact that you just can't explain by Camping not being in control of his actions:
All the doomsday ads are adverts for FamilyRadio.com. FamilyRadio brings in in excess of 50 million dollars from donations alone every year and while the numbers for 2011 aren't available yet, most estimates put the doomsday ad campaign way over that.

If he was honest about saving people's spiritual lives he damn well wouldn't put ads for his company out and ask for donations. The whole thing was just a scam. Keep in mind that as a result, people died, nearly died or had their futures ruined.

Robert Fitzpatrick is just one of thousands who donated to Camping for the fear mongering campaign. Robert himself donated his entire retirement fund. Here's his reaction at 6 pm, when the world was supposed to end:

I don't understand this, though. Even if the end of the world, described by Christianity does come... what makes you think the date is calculable? If indeed God is orchestrating everything, what makes you think he would just put a date readable to humans into a poorly written book and not hide behind layers of secrecy? Just because you want it to happen, doesn't mean you need to believe it every time. Keep in mind Camping made a failed prediction in 1993. He was as sure back than as he was this year... and no stroke or old age to excuse him.

And what's with the whole eternal torture of the non believers? If you do believe in God, than we're all God's children and equal in his eyes.

 

[PennyBlack]

Theres a few of P.T.Barnum quotes that spring to mind here...

1. “There's a sucker born every minute”
2. “Without promotion something terrible happens... Nothing!”
3. “Every crowd has a silver lining.”

Life, your not getting out of it alive are you. :tiphat:

 

[dbeachy1]

EDIT:
Thread reopened after cleanup. Let's please keep it civil, all. Thanks.

 

[jedidia]

Nothing. In fact, do nothing.

Our society doesn't work in a way where one man pays for another man's sins. Camping's actions aren't yours to carry. People have to atone for their own sins and correct their own mistakes.

You're probably right...

I don't understand this, though. Even if the end of the world, described by Christianity does come... what makes you think the date is calculable?

especially if said book clearly states that it cannot be calculated. I wonder about that a lot. It's either people not reading their bible enough, or trusting their preachers too much, or both. The position of preachers in conservative evangelical churches is fearfully central, more so than that of catholic priests in medieval times, and certainly more than in traditional protestant churches (where, by karl barts reasoning, a tape player holding the sermon should do just as fine...)

And what's with the whole eternal torture of the non believers? If you do believe in God, than we're all God's children and equal in his eyes.

The issue is a bit more complex. First, evangelical christianity has a wrong focus when it comes to condemnation. Nobody gets condemned for not believing according to the bible, but for his sins. The way to get saved from judgement is grace, which will be extended to those who believe. Exclusively in mainstream evangelical theology, among others in most others. I'm pretty strictly on the amongst others side here, because to support the exclusivist claim means to throw out half the bible and cinsider the letter to the romeans as ruling authority on the matter. That letter was more advertising than theology though, so i think it' a pretty poor interpretation.
But it goes to explain why the evangelical church focuses so much on a believer/unbeliever duplicity and not on siner/forgiven siner/can't really tell wheather forgiven or not scheme of the older theologies.

The thing about eternal torture, on the other hand, is an issue of text critisism, which is a sub-branch of theology. The beginning of the problem is the double meaning of the hebrew "olem", which can mean either eternal or final, depending on context. The other quarrel is with the greek word aeon, which's literal meaning is known, but the concept the woed was filled with at the time is lost. "From age to age" could therefore mean an undefined time, or it could mean a very closely defind time. To further complicate matter, we don't know how time itself was perceived. We know that the bible is one of tne few worldviews at those times that indeed considers time to be a finite quantity, but it's not really clear what that meant for the common man's perception of time.
Going strictly by simbolism, the punishement seems finite: all imagery used to describe it use images of devourment and distruction, not of torture. As such all that can be concluded is that punishment seems to be final and irrevocable, but not necessarily eternal, but that the text doesn't completely exclude the possibility.

 

[Jarvitä]

Here's an ugly fact that you just can't explain by Camping not being in control of his actions:
All the doomsday ads are adverts for FamilyRadio.com. FamilyRadio brings in in excess of 50 million dollars from donations alone every year and while the numbers for 2011 aren't available yet, most estimates put the doomsday ad campaign way over that.

"The world is ending, but God still needs your money." :rofl:

 

[Pinguinboy]

 

[FADEC]

The interesting question is why people do care about the belief and prophecy of such guy. whether he says something or a grain of rice is going to burst any moment somewhere in China is totally irrelevant. At least to me.

 

[Mojave]

Here we go again

The world will get all worked up, and when Oct. 21st hits, the laughing will begin :facepalm:

 

[fsci123]

Im going to go to timesquare during the rapture a place a $100,000 bet that the world will not end with any person wearing the rapture poster.:thumbup:

 

[RisingFury]

"The world is ending, but God still needs your money." :rofl:

Exactly. And it's destroying the credibility of both faith and religion.

 

[Jarvitä]

Exactly. And it's destroying the credibility of both faith and religion.

You appear to be implying faith/religion had credibility to begin with. Credibility is the ability to explain your actions and beliefs. Even if you take seemingly-rational action out of ridiculous, religious beliefs, you don't have credibility, because there's no guarantee you won't use the same irrational justification to do something dangerous. Similarly, even the most rational-sounding explanation can't justify believing something that doesn't follow from prior/axiomatic and conditional beliefs. 'Credible faith' is an oxymoron.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Nah, that's the day that ROSAT will hit...:lol:

 

[Pyromaniac605]

You appear to be implying faith/religion had credibility to begin with. Credibility is the ability to explain your actions and beliefs. Even if you take seemingly-rational action out of ridiculous, religious beliefs, you don't have credibility, because there's no guarantee you won't use the same irrational justification to do something dangerous. Similarly, even the most rational-sounding explanation can't justify believing something that doesn't follow from prior/axiomatic and conditional beliefs. 'Credible faith' is an oxymoron.

That's exactly right, for a start how is the world and only the world supposed to get destroyed and how could you possibly know when it was going to happen?
Personally I'd still prefer to think of these "predictions" as a sick old mans ramblings and get on with my life as usual. That seems to be the best way to deal with end of the world predictions anyway, anybody got any other ideas?

 

[Jarvitä]

Personally I'd still prefer to think of these "predictions" as a sick old mans ramblings and get on with my life as usual. That seems to be the best way to deal with end of the world predictions anyway, anybody got any other ideas?

I see it more as a gigantic corporate organisation promoting a sick old man's rambling to separate gullible people from their money. And then there's the fact that the sick old man's rambling preempts both his sickness and age, it's basically his life's work - hence the sickness and the age are not valid excuses, mass stupidity confounded by greed is.

 

[dgatsoulis]

When we see a "crazy old fool" dressed in rags, holding up a sign that says "Repend, the end is near", on our way to work, we probably think "poor man".
When you see a "biblical scolar" (especially one that makes more than 50 million dollars per year of the prediction) predicting the very date of the rapture, you get things like this:

Extreme case? Sure. The woman was obviously not well. But weren't the young men that caused 9/11, extremists? Were they really "evil" or were they just misguided?

Many people say: "What's wrong with religion? Heck, i don't even believe most of the bible/q'ran/your book. Those are just paraboles. I believe in doing good for my fellow human being. In the same way Jesus/Mohammed/Josheph Smith/etc said."

The problem (for me) is that "moderate" theists, pave the way for extremists.
We apply critical thinking and scepticism in every aspect of our lives, but when it comes to matters of "faith", we choose to abandon our faculties, just because we are taught that faith is somehow a virtue. Is it really?
Is "believing" in something, with absolutely NO shred of evidence, a good thing?