No End in Sight

Last year before I even knew that May 21st was the end of the world, I blogged about doomsdayers and their irrefutable evidence. (reposted below) I don't know why this topic interests me but I've always been fascinated by stories throughout history of people who have sold all possessions to wait for their ticket to heaven that they didn't have to die for. That kind of faith, however misguided it might be, is almost noble and inspiring. But one common thread in the stories always bothered me. It was the JOY they all felt about the extinction of humanity.

This latest group is disappointed that 200 million true believers weren't lifted up to heaven on Saturday while everyone else suffered and eventually died as a series of earthquakes and famine destroyed the Earth. "You can imagine we're pretty disappointed, but the word of God is still true" says one believer. Another man, his voice quavering, said he was still holding out hope that they were one day off. Another said exactly what all others have said the day after they didn't get raptured. She asserted that their prayers worked: God delayed judgment so that more people could be saved, but the end is still 'imminent'.

One television preacher from the midwest sounded perfectly reasonable as he pointed out the errors and delusions of these latest doomsdayers, but then seemed to join them when he said, "We have no doubt that the end is near and we continue to pray that it comes quickly."

Why are these people soooo eager for the end??? I think I got a clue this morning when I read this quote from one of Harold Campings tearful followers. "With maxed-out credit cards and a growing mountain of bills, he said, the rapture would have been a relief," Ahhhhh....Ok. That explains a lot. I think I get it now!


Here's what I wrote last year.

THE END IS NEAR

Doomsdayers have shouted this prediction for thousands of years and the only end has been their own. The recent "irrefutable evidence" has come from this years series of earthquakes. I've always assumed that the mountains and canyons and volcanos and sink holes and tsunamis and hurricanes that are all over the globe were evidence that we live on an evolving, living planet. Not so! I just read an article about the latest quake in Turkey but that's not where the real information was. The good stuff was below the article in the comments section. That is the best part of getting your news online. You get to see read people's opinions of the news. And since all comments are anonymous you get see the crazy stuff that these people really think about.

There were nearly 2000 comments on this article so naturally I didn't read them all, but I did browse a couple hundred and here is a breakdown of earthquake theories.

60% say the reason is biblical. Jesus is returning and the earthquakes are no surprise because it's all predicted in scripture. (Matthew 24:7 and Revelations 16:18-20). Biblical predictions have been around for 2000 years so this is nothing new. I have to be careful here because some of these beliefs are sincere but what stood out and bothered me about these posts was the apparent delight at the prospect of the end of the world. Sinners (humans who don't believe what you believe) were finally going to get what was coming to them. Seriously! These people have the same joyful confidence of the suicide bomber before he squeezes the trigger. Just no doubt in their minds about what comes next and joy in the knowledge that people were going to be hurt.

10% say government conspiracy. Included in this number are the handful who say it's Obama's fault. Apparently the United States has developed an earthquake machine and we are in the process of testing it around poor countries. Other more sensible conspiracy theorists say don't be silly. There is no earthquake machine. The US is conducting undersea nuclear tests. Both sides have lots of compelling evidence which I won't go into here.

10% say it's all about the 2012 Mayan prophecies. For more information...see the movie.

10% have actually made the case that earthquakes are caused by global warming. You see, because both poles are melting, the weight of the earth is getting redistributed and geologic shifts are occurring. The quakes are going to continue until the earth finds balances its new weight. One woman (who had quotes from Fox News) combines this theory with the conspiracy theories and says Al Gore is running the earthquake machine to fool us into believing him so he can take over the world.

5% believe mother earth is a living breathing organism and human kind is a parasite or bacteria on its surface. Because of our bad habits, she is finally taking action to get rid of us.

3% say oil drilling and coal mining are too blame. It's obvious that if you remove the interior of any object then the exterior is going to start collapsing. Also, the oil acts as a natural lubricant on the plates and now its missing so there is more friction that causes earth quakes. Ok, I have to confess that I almost started to believe this one. It made sense to me and the people explaining it were using really big, scientificky words that impressed me.

Only 2% of the people believed that there is nothing new or unusual going on. Here is a quote I lifted that summarizes my own views. "All you fatalists and conspiracy idiots are just that, idiots. Earthquakes have been happening around the world for thousands of years and every time idiots perceive it as a harbinger of Armageddon. Today's day and age with easily accessible information through the internet and growing number of people in areas that are able to report it so quickly, it may seem like there is an unusual amount of catastrophic natural disasters, but the fact is is that you are more readily informed of these events than the past. They've always been occurring, all over the world so get a grip and move on".

At first it frightened me that 98% of the population believe something dark and unusual is going on. But then with relief, I realized that it is just 98% of anonymous public forum commentors dying for attention. Tell me that's right. There aren't really only 2 out of 100 people that think this is all perfectly normal, right? Right?