Oh, FFS!

Harold Camping, fresh from yet another failure to predict the “rapture”, now says it’ll be on October 21. Having to once again rationalise away his being wrong, he said that May 21 was "an invisible judgment day" in which Camping’s god supposedly made “spiritual judgment”, whatever that means.

There’s simply no end to the lengths these people will go to explain away being wrong. One of Camping’s disciples declared that their “prayers worked” and that their god “delayed judgment” so that more people could be “saved”. Others believed the delay was their god's way of separating true believers from those willing to doubt what they claimed were clear biblical warnings. Such people always have an explanation for being wrong, but never a good one.

Camping himself must not be a true believer: He’s not giving away his possessions before his next imaginary end of the world. He says he’ll need them before October 21 and after that it won’t matter. Or, maybe—having been spectacularly wrong twice now—he has a sensible portion of doubt.

Camping has pissed off even fellow fundamentalists. The more common belief among conservative Christians is that humans can’t know about “the end of the world,” and they’re right about that. The fundamentalists quote the bible, Matthew 24:36, "but about that day or hour no one knows". Rationalists and Christians who are not fundamentalists simply point out that science is incapable of saying when, precisely, the earth will “end”, though scientists do have theories.

Pretty much everyone who’s not a religious extremist agrees that Camping’s predictions are, and always have been, total nonsense. Why, then, is everyone afraid to call Camping what he is: A delusional old man who’s trying to hoodwink gullible people into sharing his delusion. I realise the media can’t put it so honestly, but come on, how much more absolute bullshit are we supposed to take from this whackadoodle? Do even rightwing Christians really believe that their god would entrust such an important message to a nutjob like Camping?

The media will probably make another circus out of this in October. I’ve had enough. So, I intend to completely ignore it. However, I do reserve the right to ridicule Camping again on October 22. If I’m not too busy in the reality-based world or can even be bothered, that is.