Birthday Party, Cheesecake, Jelly Bean – Boom
The end of the world is happening tomorrow! (But not really.) Actually, by the time you read this, a good chunk of the Faithful should have been raptured by now, and subsequently, that time zone should have started to succumb to earthquakes. Supposedly, every place on earth gets a one-two punch of rapture-earthquake at 6 p.m. local time on Saturday May 21. In other words, Christmas Island (aka Kiritimati Island) should be gonzo about now. Australia, too.
I feel bad for the people who believe this. My parents got sucked into something like this once and it was a weird time for our family. Some old preacher guy with a lot of followers called for the rapture to happen in September 1994 (I don’t remember the actual date), and they believed it (or, at least, I remember a lot of weight being put into that prediction).
Update: I just did a little research. It’s Harold Camping that’s calling for a May 21 judgment day, and he was the same dude that called for it in 1994. I’m astonished people are listening a second time.
The worry over if I was a “good enough Christian” to go to heaven was heavy on me constantly, even though I was skeptical of the entire concept of the rapture and “the End Times”, predicted or not. Horror stories of what would happen to non-believers post-rapture were hurled at me from the pulpit every Sunday morning, but I never quite believed them. When nothing happened that September (I was 12), it started me down the road of thinking for myself, although it would be several years before I would be un-entangled from the trappings of religion completely.
There are young teenagers who are going through the same thing right now, and they’re scared and lonely like I was. It’s a really awful place to be when you’re raised in an environment of fear, and my heart breaks for them. As much as I’d like to laugh off the nutters, I’m just plain angry at them for being so stupid.
So a message to the young faithless who are scared of their own natural skepticism: it’s OK. Really. There is peace without the insanity of your wild-eyed preacher screeching at you to adhere to a moral code you find ridiculous. And, if Dan Savage will forgive me for stealing the phrase, it gets better.
Image from here. I would have taken my own – there are plenty of these around in the subways and on the streets – but I can’t quite help feeling awkward about pointing my camera in their direction.
Bailie Marie
20 May 11 at 2:32 pm
I went to a Christian high school and luckily the teachers and what not were radicalist, it did not stop the occasional student to start end of days rumors. Seriously when I was a junior some kid decided that it seemed like “end times” and got a bunch of students worked up. The faculty had to do this whole thing about not knowing when the rapture would be, like I said it was not a fanatical place at all more of the treat your neighbor as you would want to be treated sort of a place but I guess some people just like drama.
So coming I guess from the opposite experience as you this makes me angry as well, I wish I could give a massive pep talk for people to not trust crazies!!
Cindy
20 May 11 at 5:46 pm
I was raised in a Southern Baptist home. By 94-95, I had started to really distance myself from the church, particularly after a sermon about how we should never question authority. They were put there by God. The whole thing makes me cringe for these people’s gullibility. Then and now.
Laura
21 May 11 at 2:54 am
I be honest, even though I was raised in a non-religious home (definitely not anti-religious, but nonreligious), I was still a little freaked by this. I was too young in 1994, and living in too small a town, to be aware of the past rapture, but I just had a really long talk about it with a friend. To be honest, if my faithful friends aren’t worried, then I am not either. I’m honestly more worried about the people who believe in this sort of thing (and what they will be doing in Boston tomorrow…) rather than myself.
A Strange Boy
21 May 11 at 4:11 am
I was raised in a Christian household but I really started falling away from the church when I was 12-13 and I attended what was my first and only music bonfire. I had a couple of issues with the church since then (mainly over my father’s employment), made a return to the church around 16 (when I really started to wonder about my sexuality…I now think this was an attempt to suppress it) and stayed until I was about 20 when I felt that the kind of Christianity most people practice was either too buffet-style and watered down or made more sense on one level yet completely abhorrent. I don’t know what I believe right now; I do like the teachings of Christ but I find so much of the religious aspect basically an overgrown, overpowerful cult that seems more concerned with maintaining its authority over followers. Camping and his ilk were more extreme than what I grew up with, but at the same time I did have passing awareness of that level of radical Christianity. And of course, I would see books like “The Late Great Planet Earth” in the bookstores my parents would go to (as well as anti-Rock music books, anti-psychology books, etc.)
Jessica
21 May 11 at 11:18 pm
There are certain groups of people in which rational, logical argument is a frivolous waste of time.
Kris
22 May 11 at 12:49 am
I feel really bad for the kids whose parents fall for this and sell everything, squander college funds and basically ruin themselves for these so-called prophets. I wonder if they realize how many lives they hurt when they make these predictions.
Kizz
23 May 11 at 2:20 pm
This is probably the post that made me feel most hopeful and good about the hoopla surrounding the recent prediction. If disproving the rev’s math helps even a few more people trust in their own minds and decisions that gives me a lift. I’m sorry it has to happen in a way that might be isolating and frightening but I’m glad it’s happening. Thanks for pointing out the possibility.