Oh No! It's the Last Saturday Ever!

Or at least it is if you've decided to jump on the Harold Camping crazy train. Apparently, today is the time Jesus will be whisking away Christians (which is probably one of the most debated terms in the world) and leave everyone else behind for the earthquakes, volcanoes, zombies and Pauly Shore. Because apparently, a loving and all powerful deity is cool with destroying a huge portion of his beloved creation. I am not really going to debate that right now, because we have more important things to be concerned about, such as this being the last Saturday EVER! Or not.

The New York Times has a really interesting article on how this recent "it's the end of the world" craze has affected various families, especially those families comprised of part "Yahoo! I'm being rocketed up to heaven and all the heathens are going to explode!" and other part "You're nuts" factions. I think it is especially disturbing how at peace some of these folks are with the fact that they believe loved ones will be left behind to suffer and just chalk it all up to God's will, which is also known as passing your heartlessness on to something else. I'm also amused by the obsession with knowing when is the end of the world or at least, the Rapture. There is several other groups that have other specific dates in mind for world's end and the whole idea of the Rapture is a billion dollar industry with books, DVDs and mints (maybe). I realize the interest is due to the fact it is an unknown and also has to do with our own mortality (or specifically, life after death), and these are two things that always capture a large audience's interest. I just feel this dabbling with the Rapture is a special brand of crazy, especially since many Biblical scholars argue back and forth over if it even exists (let alone, the huge population that just thinks the whole religion itself is a fancy little fairy tale), and so it is far from an even accepted event that you can look forward to happening. Even if you do decide to believe in the Rapture, you have to admit the Bible does a pretty good job on being ambiguous about it, especially when it comes to pinpointing a date (heck, there is passages that insinuated that Christ's return was supposed to be during the Disciples life time). You can't help getting a feeling that if you do believe there has to be a rapture and that the Bible was talking about such a thing, that it at least God wasn't really wanting you to know the date.

Yet Harold Camping and many others like to spout out that they know the exact day that Christ is whisking away all the Christian and leaving everyone else to take part in an epic real life disaster movie. Of course, all the 'Rapture experts' are unable to agree on this exact date, but at least, they all seem to know that it is within the next two years. So, that must mean something, right?

Only if you discount the fact that Camping thought the Rapture was going to be in 1994 before, and maybe that was an enrapturing type of year but there wasn't any heaven rocket ship present. Prior to that, many 'prophets' promised we'd all be shot up to heaven in the 70s, the 60s, during World War 2, or countless other times, usually shortly after some major event that proved Christ had to be coming.

But of course, Camping now has irrefutable evidence that today is the day. Apparently, all those other times it was just throwing darts at a board. So, if he is right tten make sure you've changed into a fresh pair of underwear, because nothing is worse than meeting your maker when you're in a pair of dirty briefs.

Enjoy your last Saturday ever!!!

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