What is sadder is that the majority of them will likely not learn from their actions, and when the next big Christian doomsday is predicted to occur, they will start preparing for that as well.Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
This makes me sorta sad.
. . .
You have to believe to get the benefit. And if you don't get the benefit, then you're secretly harboring doubt somewhere inside.... that's how they make people feel guilty, and perhaps keep quiet, when faith healing doesn't work on them. It's definitely a meme survival characteristic....
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
'Rapture' apocalypse prediction sparks atheist reaction
Beeb
US atheists are to hold parties in response to an evangelical broadcaster's prediction that Saturday will be "judgement day".
The Rapture After Party in North Carolina - "the best damned party in NC" - is among the planned events.
Harold Camping, 89, predicts that Jesus Christ will return to earth on Saturday and true believers will be swept up, or "raptured", to heaven.
He has used broadcasts and billboards to publicise his ideas.
He says biblical texts indicate that a giant earthquake on Saturday will mark the start of the world's destruction, and that by 21 October all non-believers will be dead.
Mr Camping has predicted an apocalypse once before, in 1994, though followers now say that only referred to an intermediary stage.
"We learn from the Bible that Holy God plans to rescue about 200 million people," says a text on the website of Mr Camping's network, Family Radio Worldwide.
"On the first day of the Day of Judgment (May 21, 2011) they will be caught up (raptured) into Heaven because God had great mercy for them."
The Rapture After Party in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is a two-day event organised by the Central North Carolina Atheists and Humanists.
"Though the absurdity of this claim is obvious to the majority of the world, it's a great opportunity to highlight some of the most bizarre beliefs often put forth by religious fundamentalists and raise awareness of the need for reason," said a posting about the party on the group's website.
Atheists in Tacoma, Washington, have headed their celebration "countdown to back-pedalling".
Events are also planned in Houston, Florida and California.
An atheist and entrepreneur from North Hampshire, Bart Centre, is enjoying a boost in business for Eternal Earth-bound Pets, which he set up to look after the pets of those who believe they will be raptured.
He has more than 250 clients who are paying up to $135 (£83) to have their pets picked up and cared for after the rapture.
They would be disappointed twice, he told the Wall Street Journal. "Once because they weren't raptured and again because I don't do refunds."
Meanwhile Mr Camping, who has been criticised by more mainstream Christians, says he knows "without any shadow of a doubt" that "judgement day" is arriving.
He says he will spend Saturday with his wife, close to a TV or radio.
"I'll be interested in what's happening on the other side of the world as this begins," he told Reuters.
There is no "Plan B", he says.
His campaign has been unusually widely promoted - both in the US, and overseas, including in the Middle East.
In Vietnam, thousands of members of the Hmong ethnic minority gathered near the border with Laos earlier this month to await the 21 May event, the Associated Press reported.
Chris McCann of eBible Fellowship, one of the groups helping to spread the message, said it had been publicised in almost every country.
"The only countries I don't feel too good about are the "stans" - you know, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, those countries in Central Asia," he said.
I'm actually impressed there is an Atheist group in North Carolina....seems like anyone I know from that state (in-laws excluded since they transferred to Charlotte for work reasons) are all bible-thumpers. I figured they'd run any non-believer out of there. LOL.
I almost wouldn't mind be destroyed in October to have five months without these people around.
The silver lining for sinners.
There are many organizations trying to help atheists 'come out the closet' in the US, but in many areas they would endanger their well-being and possibly lives by doing so, which results in a lot of lip service and secret lives. So yes, they're probably afraid of being run out (or worse).
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Does the day count as ended when its 11:59 EST or whatever silly time zones these particular people live in? Or do they have to wait until 11:59 in Hawaii?
I will be watching the rugby 7s wearing some hawaiians and flip flops i believe.
If i am raptured, and i fully expect to be, i ask only that someone find my porn stash and enjoy its many wonders.
"Son," he said without preamble, "never trust a man who doesn't drink, because he's probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. They're the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They're usually afraid of something deep down inside, either that they're a coward or a fool or mean and violent. You can't trust a man who's afraid of himself. But sometimes, son, you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are that he is learning something about humility and his natural human foolishness, about how to survive himself. It's damned hard for a man to take himself too seriously when he's heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl.
Spawneh!
I've got your rapture right here, sugar.
Get yer ass in IRC where it belongs.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
It's 6:00 PM local time, whichever time zone you're in. The Rapture will move with the sun.
Please mail me your porn stash and any other valuables before rapturing. Plane travel afterwards will probably be inconvienient, but I'm sure no mailmen will be raptured, so that system will continue working just fine.
Ah, Spawns...At least I know you still live, and have found some amusment in life : ). That's always good. Hopefully I'll catch you around sometime.
Had to stay in tonight because tomorrow is the kiddly's birthday party at 8AM. FML.
Happy Rapture Day
So i suppose i am doomed now?
Congratulations America
One more minute until Rapture! I hope this doesn't turn out like those Candlejack posts where I don't even get to fi
Ding dong thewitchbitch is dead.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
How long until the back-pedaling begins? I've already seen someone say that this must be God punishing them for being prideful.
Edit: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011...hquake.html?hp
Hope is the denial of reality
There are really three options for the really hard-core folks now-
1) Suicide.
2) Claims that the calculations must have been a little off.
3) The assertion that the apocalypse already happened, the good spirits were carted off the heaven and now we're actually in hell with the unbelievers. Which will probably lead to suicide (see #1).
They'll all be eating YOUR TAX DOLLARS
Suck on religion's dick some more, now
Go on
I'll watch
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Dread, you forgot 4) It's another test from God.
Hope is the denial of reality
Poor dumb bastards.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
At least the first two parts of that sentence are correct now.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...struggletocope
Last edited by Loki; 05-22-2011 at 04:57 PM.
Hope is the denial of reality
As hours tick by, "Judgment Day" looks a dud
Sat, May 21 2011
By Gabrielle Saveri
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - With no sign of Judgment Day arriving on Saturday as forecast by an 89 year-old California evangelical broadcaster, followers were faced with trying to make sense of his failed pronouncement.
Harold Camping, the former civil engineer who heads the
Family Radio Network of Christian stations, had been unwavering in his message that believers would be swept to heaven on May 21.
His Oakland, California-based network broadcasts over 66 U.S. stations and through international affiliates. With the help of supporters it posted at least 2,000 billboards around the United States warning of the Judgment Day.
In New York, retired transportation agency worker Robert Fitzpatrick was inspired by Camping's message to spend over $140,000 of his savings on subway posters and outdoor advertisements warning of the May 21 Judgment Day.
As he stood in Times Square in New York surrounded by onlookers, Fitzpatrick, 60, carried a Bible and handed out leaflets as he waited for Judgment Day to begin.
By his own reading of Bible, which was slightly different than Camping's, Fitzgerald expected the great worldwide event to begin at 6 p.m. Eastern Time.
When the hour came and went, he said: "I do not understand why ...," as his speech broke off and he looked at his watch.
"I do not understand why nothing has happened."
Camping, who previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994, had said doomsday would begin at 6 p.m. in the various time zones around the globe.
NEW DAY COMES
That meant it would begin in Asia and Oceania, but with midnight local time having come and gone in those areas, taking them well into May 22, and no indication of an apocalypse, Camping seemed to have gone silent.
During the day, his Family Radio played recorded church music, devotionals and life advice unrelated to Judgment Day.
The headquarters of his network was shuttered on Friday and Saturday, with a sign in the door that read "This Office is Closed. Sorry we missed you!"
Camping, whose deep sonorous voice is frequently heard on his radio network expounding the Bible, could not be reached for comment.
The shades were drawn and no one answered the door at his house in Alameda, California.
Sheila Doan, 65, who has lived next door to Camping since 1971, said he is a good neighbor and she was concerned about Camping and his wife because of the attention his pronouncement has received.
"I'm concerned for them, that somebody would possibly do something stupid, you just don't know in this world what's going to happen," she said.
Tom Evans, a spokesman for Camping, said earlier this week that at least several tens of thousands of people listen to Family Radio's message.
The network is heard in more than 30 languages through international affiliates, according to Family Radio.
In recent weeks, dozens of Camping's followers had crossed the United States in recreational vehicles emblazoned with the May 21 warning. Volunteers also handed out pamphlets as far away as the Philippines, telling people God had left clear signs the world was coming to an end.
In Camping's description of Judgment Day, the Earth would be wrenched in a great earthquake and many inhabitants would perish in the coming months, until the planet's total destruction on October 21.
On Saturday, some atheists in different parts of the country held celebrations and get-togethers to mark the failure of Camping's May 21 prediction to come true.
In Oakland, the same city where Camping's network is based, over 200 people gathered at an atheist convention where speakers joked about the Judgment Day pronouncement and a vendor sold jewelry with the words "Good without God."
Cara Lee Hickey, 32, a Christian turned atheist, said Camping's prediction got people talking.
"I've heard a lot of name-calling, but most of it is from other Christians calling him a false prophet," she said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...74I3KS20110522
It really pisses me off that people are giving this guy the attention that he obviously wants. I hate the media and I try to steer clear of the news and I actually didn't even hear about this imbecile until yesterday. I've had enough of seeing old, dim witted men on TV, newspapers, the internet etc all because they said something completely idiotic that's guaranteed to generate a lot of interest/talk. I'd rather hear about people making a difference in this shitty world, not about people who would rather see it destroyed.
On that note though, I did find this video rather funny
Harold Camping has gone into hiding.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13516796 I guess he was off by 5 months.
Hope is the denial of reality
True believers of the Calvinist type are supposed to reject that idea as vanity as all people, no matter how hard they try are corrupted and only God will be able to redeem them.
Congratulations America
I wonder if he ever considered that he might be too sinful to get raptured.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Not mutually exclusive, knowing only the will of God redeems and thinking that the only people truly saved are like them. Which is still vanity and pride, yes.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
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