DOOMSDAY DEFERRED OR NOT?

By Ian O’Neill

Published October 18, 2011 | Discovery News   Print  Email  Share AP

The Doomsday Clock is shown in 1998.

On Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, the Rapture will be upon us. That’s according to U.S. Christian broadcaster Harold Camping anyway.

Yes, that’s the same Mr.Camping who “predicted” doom on May 21. But, as far as I’m aware, we’re still here. So, Oct. 21 is the new Rapture. Right.

Postponing doomsday is not uncommon amongst doomsayers (religious or otherwise), especially when the original day of doom doesn’t happen. And for Camping, “Doomsday Deferral” seems to be a fun trick he likes to play. He did, after all, also predict doomsday in 1994.

Countless people have predicted countless end-of-the-world scenarios — and the planet’s still here, fortunately. We look back at some of the wackiest forecasts.

ANALYSIS: Doomsdays: Dubious and Deferred. So, how did the ailing 90-year old explain away May 21?

On May 22, an obviously shocked Camping emerged from his home to say he was “flabbergasted” that the Rapture stood him up. But then, a couple of days later, like all good doomsday prophets, he had an answer: May 21 was just the beginning; the Rapture would take a lot longer; the real Rapture will happen five months later on Oct. 21.

“What really happened this past May 21st?” Camping asks on his Family Radio website. “What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God’s salvation program would be finished on that day.”

Basically, “Applications for Salvation” closed on May 21. You see, even the Office of God has red tape.

ANALYSIS: Doomsdays That Never Happened

After saying something about earthquakes shaking mankind … and that the Bible refers to “earth … as people as well as ground,” (roughly translated as people, as well as the ground, were shaken) … somehow there was a lot of shaken people on May 21…?

Regardless, it’s unlikely we would have experienced anything because it was “an invisible judgment day.” Clever. A subtle Judgment Day.

Unfortunately, though Camping’s predictions are clearly based on an overhyped religious belief — that mainstream Christians think are bunk, by the way — he has a hardcore group of supporters that have sold their houses to pay for touring the U.S. in RVs, “spreading the word” of one delusional religious leader.

I have bent, pulled and prodded every single doomsday theory, and have yet to find a single thread of proof that we could ever predict one of them happening in 2012. In fact, many of the theories (like a marauding Planet X or spontaneous polar shift) are fundamentally flawed or completely fabricated.

At best, Camping is delusional and enjoys the attention, at worst — like many doomsayers that have a book to sell — it’s about money and fear.