Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Harold Camping, the impressario and not-so-great predictor of FamilyRadio.com, famously promised that May 21st, 2011 would be the day the world ended in the Rapture.
That didn't work out so well. We're all still here, including some people who -- let's be honest -- are definitely not getting spirited up to heaven.
So now he's got a new prediction: it's actually going to be October 21st, 2011, which buys us all some more time. And for that, I'm grateful. I've gotta be honest: I just wasn't ready for it all to end last Saturday. For one thing, I've got stuff at the cleaners, and there are about three movies on my Netflix queue.
He explains it all, of course. From CNN.com:
In his first radio broadcast since his doomsday prediction failed to pan out in a spectacularly public fashion, the California preacher insisted his was an error of interpretation, not fact.
What's more, he has another calculation for the day the world will end - October 21, 2011.
Camping had kept a low-profile since Saturday, the day he had forecast for the return of Jesus Christ to Earth. He and his devoted followers have been warning for months that on May 21, a select 2% to 3% of the world's population would be taken to heaven. Those left behind would face months of tribulation before perishing in the Earth's destruction, which Camping said would happen on October 21.
And this time, we're on our own:
"We're not going to be passing out tracts," Camping said. "We're not going to put up any more billboards. We're not going to be advertising in any way. The world has been warned. We did our little share and the media picked it up. But now the world has been told, it's under judgment."
What is it about the Apocalypse that's so irresistible to would-be Nostradami? Why the obsession with the end of the world?
It's easy to make fun of Harold Camping, but he's a lot more entertaining than this ridiculous gasbag:
“The lags in the global climate system, including the buildup of heat in the oceans from which it is slowly reintroduced into the atmosphere, means that we can create conditions that make large and destructive consequences inevitable long before their awful manifestations become apparent: the displacement of hundreds of millions of climate refugees, civil unrest, chaos and the collapse of governance in many developing countries, large-scale crop failures and the spread of deadly diseases.”
He also said this:
“It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.”
All in all, I prefer the Camping version of the end of the world. There's more reliable science in it.
- Comment (18)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Well, I for one am disappointed. The number one reason I was hoping for the end of the world was that I'd never have to hear from Al Gore again.
(Reason number two was a three-way tie among Harry Reid, Jimmy Carter and Bristol Palin)
Sep '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
I believe the end of the world will be in November 2012.
Mar '11
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Do we know the select 2% weren't taken? Maybe Camping missed the cut with the rest of us.
Sep '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
The most obvious difference between Camping and Gore is that Camping is willing to violate the first rule of prognostication and predict an exact time for his event to occur whereas Prince Albert and his ilk...wall st is full of them...are "smart" enough never to predict both the event and the time of its occurence. I suppose the reason for this is that Camping actually believes his nonsense.
May '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
That's what happens when you forget to carry the 7.
Dec '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Another obvious difference between Camping and Gore is that Camping is predicting the inevitable destruction of the temporal world, whereas Gore is predicting the conditional destruction of the world. Camping only offers his followers their spiritual salvation when the end comes, whereas Gore says that if his followers sacrifice enough and work hard enough to force everyone else into his cult, he can ensure that the cataclysm is averted. Camping is more honest: he's not trying to extort anything from his followers via his prediction.
Dec '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
EJHill
That's what happens when you forget to carry the 7. · May 24 at 1:06pm
And get your metric conversion factors confused.
Mar '11
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
I was returning home from the Bay Area on May 21. The last time I left the Bay Area, Jim Berkland was predicting an earthquake.
Is this a coincidence, or am I one of the Four Horsemen?
Aug '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
There's one other huge difference between these two jokers - Contributions to Camping's three card monte are strictly voluntary (to the tune of about $70 million I understand!) while the gospel of algore seeks donations by governmental fiat.
Because Pawlenty fell for this ruse - algore's, not Camping's - our energy costs in Minnesota are heading higher due to the green energy mandate he signed while governor, which is exactly why algore and his ilk are much more dangerous than Harold Camping!
May '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Frozen Chosen: There's one other huge difference between these two jokers - Contributions to Camping's three card monte are strictly voluntary (to the tune of about $70 million I understand!) while the gospel of algore seeks donations by governmental fiat.
Because Pawlenty fell for this ruse - algore's, not Camping's - our energy costs in Minnesota are heading higher due to the green energy mandate he signed while governor, which is exactly why algore and his ilk are much more dangerous than Harold Camping! · May 24 at 1:48pm
Pretty off-topic, but who do you think is squishier: Pawlenty or Giuliani?
May '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Oh, and what really bugs me about this whole thing is Camping's supreme confidence in speaking on behalf of the Bible. "The Bible Guarantees" his prediction, no less.
How dare he anoint himself in that way, and cast his aura of kookiness on those who approach the Bible with more humility.
Aug '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Ottoman Umpire
Frozen Chosen: There's one other huge difference between these two jokers - Contributions to Camping's three card monte are strictly voluntary (to the tune of about $70 million I understand!) while the gospel of algore seeks donations by governmental fiat.
Because Pawlenty fell for this ruse - algore's, not Camping's - our energy costs in Minnesota are heading higher due to the green energy mandate he signed while governor, which is exactly why algore and his ilk are much more dangerous than Harold Camping! · May 24 at 1:48pm
Pretty off-topic, but who do you think is squishier: Pawlenty or Giuliani? · May 24 at 1:54pm
Definitely Giuliani, although he's got that NYC street toughness while Tim suffers from something we like to call "Minnesota nice".
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Gore is not a gas bag. He is a "crazed sex poodle."
Jul '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Camping just pulled off a "theological" snooze alarm on the rapture.
Apr '11
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
Camping is rather amusing. Gore is just annoying, especially since so many people take him seriously and this whole idea he publicized now has such a huge detrimental effect on public policy.
May '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
I'm repeating myself here, but according to Old Testament theology, false prophets are supposed to be stoned to death. There was a good reason for that.
Dec '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
I'd say he's a wannabe crazed sex poodle. If he was a real one like DSK, that masseuse would have ended up like the Sofitel maid. She's lucky Gore is so lacking in follow-through.
Sep '10
Re: Choose Your Nut: Camping or Gore?
wannabe crazed gender poodle.