RALEIGH, N.C. – The Apocalypse didn’t happen in 2011 but Harold Camping has confirmed that it will happen – October 21, 2012.
May 21st, 2012 has come and gone. The Rapture is over. Now the dread can begin because on October 21st, 2012… all of us that have been Left Behind, will die.
As crestfallen followers of a California preacher who foresaw the world’s end strained to find meaning in their lives, Harold Camping revised his apocalyptic prophecy Monday, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.
Here’s a recap of how we got here:
Marie Exley would have liked to start a family. Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has less than two months left on the planet and she is going to spend her time spreading the word: Judgment Day is almost here.
Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the Bible that the end of the world will begin May 21, 2012.
Technically, May 21st was Judgment Day, or The Rapture, so the world won’t end that day, it’s just the beginning of the end… But, don’t worry, it will end VERY soon after. Probably by October 21st of this year – at the latest.
To get the word out, they’re using billboards and bus stop benches, traveling caravans of RVs and volunteers passing out pamphlets on street corners. Cities from Bridgeport, Conn., to Little Rock, Ark., now have billboards with the ominous message, and mission groups are traveling through Latin America and Africa to spread the news outside the U.S.
“A lot of people might think, ‘The end’s coming, let’s go party, let’s drink and have multiple sex partners” said Exley, a veteran of two deployments in Iraq. “But we’re commanded by God to warn people. I wish I could just be like everybody else, but it’s so much better to know that when the end comes, you’ll be safe.”
Last August, Exley left her home in Colorado Springs, Colo., to work with Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio Worldwide, the independent Christian ministry whose leader, Harold Camping, has calculated the May 21 date based on his reading of the Bible.
Her husband left for Vegas to drink and spend his life savings on prostitutes.
Exley, in the meantime, is organizing traveling columns of RVs carrying the message from city to city, a logistics challenge that her military experience has helped solve. The vehicles are scheduled to be in five North Carolina cities between now and the second week of January, but Exley will shortly be gone: overseas, where she hopes to eventually make it back to Iraq.
“I don’t really have plans to come back,” she said. “Time is short.”
Not everyone who’s heard Camping’s message is taking such a dramatic step. They’re remaining in their day-to-day lives, but helping publicize the prophecy in other ways. Allison Warden, of Raleigh, has been helping organize a campaign using billboards, post cards and other media in cities across the U.S. through a website, We Can Know.
The 29-year-old payroll clerk laughs when asked about reactions to the message, which is plastered all over her car.
“It’s definitely against the grain, I know that,” she said. “We’re hoping people won’t take our word for it, or Harold Camping’s word for it. We’re hoping that people will search the scriptures for themselves.”
Camping, 89, believes the Bible essentially functions as a cosmic calendar explaining exactly when various prophecies will be fulfilled. But he’s 89, so he’s not so worried about the world ending. He’s already done all the living he wants to do.
The retired civil engineer said all his calculations come from close readings of the Bible, but that external events like the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 are signs confirming the date.
“Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment,” he said.
The doctrine known as the Rapture teaches that believers will be taken up to heaven, while everyone else will remain on earth for a period of torment, concluding with the end of time. Camping believes that will happen in October.
“If May 21 passes and I’m still here, that means I wasn’t saved and I will be dead on October 21st. Does that mean God’s word is inaccurate or untrue? Not at all,” Warden said.
The belief that Christ will return to earth and bring an end to history has been a basic element of Christian belief since the first century. The Book of Revelation, which comes last in the New Testatment, describes this conclusion in vivid language that has inspired Christians for centuries.
Few churches are willing to set a date for the end of the world, heeding Jesus’ words in the gospels of Mark and Matthew that no one can know the day or hour it will happen. Predictions like Camping’s, though, aren’t new. One of the most famous in history was by the Baptist leader William Miller,who predicted the end for Oct. 22, 1844, which came to be known as the Great Disappointment among his followers, some of whom subsequently founded the Seventh Day Adventist church.
Ron Hardeski of Bayonne, New Jersey also predicted the world would end on February 27th, 2004 – his wife’s 50th birthday. The world didn’t end, so Ron beat his wife to death with a Bible. He’s serving a life sentence.
“In the U.S., there is still a significant population, mostly Protestant, who look at the Bible as kind of a puzzle, and the puzzle is God’s word and it’s predicting when the end times will come,” said Catherine Wessinger, a professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who studies millennialism, the belief in pending apocalypse.
“A lot of times these prophecies gain traction when difficulties are happening in society,” she said. “Right now, there’s a lot of insecurity, and this is a promise that says it’s not all random, it’s part of God’s plan.”
Past predictions that failed to come true don’t have any bearing on the current calculation, believers maintain.
“It would be like telling the Wright brothers that every other attempt to fly has failed, so you shouldn’t even try,” said Chris McCann, who works with Bible Fellowship, one of the groups spreading the message.
“If you want to say we’re crazy, go ahead,” she said. “But when you’re dead on May 21st (or soon after), you’ll know we were right. And you’ll thank us.”
Not true the world will not end I'm still breathing aren't I???
truue dat
Thank You!
"Confirmed.." huh?
By WHO, Frank, your crazy Uncle Ed?
We have MORE to fear from nuts and paranoiacs like you, on December 12th or 21st (or, heh-heh, OCTOBER 2012?) this year, than we do from any impending natural (or manmade) disaster. From those gouging Americans out of their precious (and in most cases LIMITED) income for everything from 'Survival Kits Complete' to custom bunkers to gas masks and iodide pills, to those miscreants literally PLANNING on the mass mobbing and looting they will do that day (as many such 'groups' have already 'practiced' such nihilistic and self-destructive events this and past years – witness the convenience store/superstore 'flashmobs' or the pillaging and beat-down of hundreds of white visitors at last year's Wisconsin State Fair by the crazed, violent mob of 500+ black youths), I seriously believe we have much more to be alarmed about therein than we do any 'Mayan' end-count calendar/planetary alignment doomsday scenarios.
There IS a lot to think (and even, worry, a little bit) about, sure, what with global climate change, and the mere fact that, at any time, really, some random football field-sized space debris could crash into our planet – as has happened a couple times in Earth's history ALREADY, in the past – but the best advice I could give anybody about December 12 (or the 21st, if you're a nit-picker like me) is to simply pick up some extra milk, bread and beer/cigarettes the week before, in case the stores see a mass run on December 11th/20th, and stay home with a loved one/family/pet, watch some old movies and go to bed early for a change. Let the nuts, crazies and opportunistic thugs have the streets – tomorrow morning it will be THEIR task to come up with new excuses for why IT never happened.
Of course, it never hurts to keep batteries and a good a flashlight onhand, have your your iPad/laptop charged, and gas up your car in the weeks prior so you'll have a full tank that day (and night). The last thing you'll want to have to do is be in some long line or traffic jam somewhere, when everyone else starts freaking out and CREATING the REAL CRISIS…
this is why religion such. people use it to spread lies and manipulate people. i sometimes think the internet should be regulated so dumb people like this cant express their ideas and spread their lies.
You all fucking insane. its going to be a normal day. Seriously, your fucking insane.
the world will NOT end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the world will end but in about 13.5 million years. Or is it billion?
Our planet will get burned by the Sun when our Sun expandes, in 5 billion years.
hey guys where can I purchase a Tasmanian oak work bench I like the look of them and seen one at Harvey Norman but it was to much :/
then why are we still alive dumbos
This whole website is b.s, why are we even on here, by the way it's just winter solstice not the planets and the earth realigning. Where does everyone get their facts from seriously. Of course they want you to think it's the ending , duhhh so we spend all our money like morons, do stupid things, plus have something exciting to talk about. For all u believers , ur wack. U were a'll wrong the first 100 times it was predicted. I hope the ppl who thought it would happen in November are sitting their with their heads down feeling guilty for all those children and parents who have contemplated suicidal thoughts, associated with all this nonsense, its almost as if the selfish ones enjoy the fact the world might end.
the dinosaurs got wiped out but the world didnt end…so why would it end now? global warming? no.. the ice age was going through global warming and human race( CAVEMEN OR NOT) still managed to survive the continental drift…why not say we will too? this whole world will end is a crock of horse shit..
We're supposed to die in about 15 days right? Or was that cancelled again?
the earth will not end its all cock and bull stories
it's Dec….confirmed you say your site is crap.
Oh NO I'm Dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not! Lol
Were's harold camping now? oh yeah he's at home thinking and praying that it will happen next year!!!!! Lol
ayeee boys. Jesus here. Ill be here for you in 11 days. peace.
zato smo še živi…
ker smo bedaki…
It's all rubbish…..we all still exist.
4.8 billion years from now it will end lol.
so to all those still alive and waiting for the second date 12-12-12 or 12-21-12 do you wanna come to my kool aid party I promise its night to die for
wqhat are theese dopes saying its 12 december and im still breathing i wish they wouldnt put this news on the internet its just dopey ps dont mind them they are just dumbs who tells lies
The world already ended yesterday. We`re dead, but that`s OK.
Oh hey look at the date! It’s December 12 and I’m still alive!
its the 12 of december and were not dead.the world will not end in 2012