Media Circus of Biblical Proportions at Armageddon HQ
The media has been in a tizzy over the Rapture predictions made by end-times prophet Harold Camping, whose followers expected to ascend to heaven after God destroyed the world on Saturday at 6pm. Mostly, it’s just been a convenient excuse to bash Christians, even though the vast majority of Christians think Camping is a kook:
I suspect that the media feeding frenzy … has less to do with an impulse to lampoon the ridiculous than an impulse to ridicule Christianity in general. Despite Camping and his followers being an extremely small fringe group, the media has covered this story as if the entire Southern Baptist church made this prediction. Stanley also concurs that this should be an extremely small story, not a dominating narrative, but also predicts that we’ve just seen the beginning of it. Come tomorrow morning, we’re going to see a deluge of snarky reports about the silly end-timers who got left behind — excuse me, Left Behind — which will all carry an unstated theme of “oh, those silly Christians and their silly beliefs!”
So, the media have a self-serving justification for turning a small story into front-page news. But they do have a big logistical problem with the Rapture: it has no locus, no “main stage” where the whole drama will play out. Instead, Camping’s followers are scattered one-by-one across the country, each waiting for Rapture or disappointment in private. So where can you as a reporter stand facing the camera with a meaningful backdrop to show you’re in the middle of the action?
Well, Oakland, California famously has “no there there,” but it does have the only “there” for the Armageddon story — the headquarters of “Family Radio,” the Oakland studio where Camping records his radio shows which are then broadcast around the world. So I — along with a veritable circus of pranksters and true believers — decided to await the rapture at Armageddon HQ, the Family Radio offices on Hegenberger Road near the Oakland Airport. (Two other photographers also showed up and contributed their pictures to the report below.)
Turns out that neither Camping nor any of his followers were on hand, but that didn’t diminish the completely ridiculous media circus that ensued — a self-feeding fiasco that encapsulated the Armageddon-mockery frenzy we’re witnessing on a wider scale across the country.
When I first showed up around 4pm, there wasn’t a single soul around — just two hours until the end of the world, and no one is at the headquarters of the group that predicted it? Weird.
I went up to the building, but even that was closed, and no one was inside. Wait — did they say six p.m.? Or was that Eastern Standard Time? Was I already too late, the last person standing on earth?
I snapped a shot of the inside of the Family Radio office — didn’t seem like they had made any special preparations for Armageddon. What are those folders doing in the “In” box? Pending completion…when, exactly? (Later, a reporter told me that 80% [he was very specific about that -- 80%] of the Family Radio employees don’t believe Harold Camping.)
But the desolation was only temporary. Soon, a procession of groups and individuals — from the completely serious to the utterly absurd — would show up and transform the parking lot into a media circus.
The first arrivals were the Calvary Bible Church, of Milpitas (a small city south of Oakland). They were disgusted by Camping’s self-serving prophecies, and wanted to show that not all Christians were falling for this hoo-ha. Shortly afterwards, a Japanese journalist (seen here on the left) showed up and interviewed them.
The Milpitans said they were there to give counseling to any devastated Camping followers who might show up at the main office after the fizzled Rapture, and prevent them from committing suicide or losing their faith in God.
And from there, it was all downhill.
Next up was a covey of sarcastic hipsters who showed up to, well, just be on the scene. When interviewed by various reporters, they had no real explanation for their presence, other than to satiate their need for postmodern irony.
So they posed for souvenir photos in front of the Christian signs.
More professional jokers arrived a few minutes later: Bishop Joey, leader of a freelance comedy troupe known as the First Church of the Last Laugh, affixed a helium tank to a pole. Why?
To inflate love-dolls and twistable balloons made to look like little people, which were to be released at 6pm, to give the media a “visual” of souls ascending to heaven. Of course!
By this time, the television news crews were arriving in a continuous stream, like Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl. Here the ABC News reporter practices her “very serious” expression in preparation for the 5pm newscast.
And where there are cameras, there will also be attention-hounds. This duo announced that Gay Pride has successfully prevented Armageddon.
The leader positioned himself directly in front of the Milpitas Christians, since most camera crews were using them as a backdrop.
And they just kept coming. A small squad of sarcastic nihilists arrived with the now commonplace parody placards “This Is a Sign” and “Upside Down Sign.” (I’ve seen these same jokes over and over at protests in recent years, and have always wondered: Are these people all part of the same specific group or trend, or do they somehow manage to come up with the same joke independent of each other?)
Right on their tails was a raucous group of young “scientists,” with mockery-infused signs trumpeting science’s superiority over religion. (Of course, it was quite apparent just from looking at them that not a single one of them knew the difference between a proton and a quasar; by “science,” I presume they meant “secularism” or something along those lines.)
They paraded in a circle, trying to draw attention away from the nihilists, comedians, gays, Christians and hipsters.
When that didn’t work, they turned on a loud boombox and started doing the spastic dance in front of the assembled camera crews. (I especially like the expression of the Christian woman on the far right, which seemed to hover somewhere between “You have got to be shitting me” and “God, please give me the patience to endure these juvenile asswipes!”)
Our burgeoning five-ring circus became a six-ring circus when Santa Claus began encouraging everyone to “drink the Kool-Aid.”
One by one, two by two, nuts, kooks and true believers of every stripe managed to find their way to Hegenberger Road as 6pm approached. Here we see a banjo player with a propeller beanie, who serenaded the crowd with his off-key rendition of R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
Someone handed out trillion-dollar bills that were so unbelievably well-made that they could easily pass for the real thing. Even the paper stock felt like real money. I don’t want to get in trouble with the Secret Service for counterfeiting, so I purposely cropped off part of the bill.
(Hey, I have an idea: Maybe if I mailed 15 of these to the government, I could solve the federal deficit! Oh, wait, somebody already thought of that. Never mind.)
A man wearing a priestly cassock positioned himself in front of Camping’s offices and began to pompously declaim in churchly Latin — but who’s going to take you seriously with pornographic love dolls drifting in the background?
Another guy showed up with a shirt that announced he was “Rapture Ready.” Was he serious? Joking? After a while, I couldn’t even tell any more.
A woman offered me a ticket to the afterlife.
I closed my eyes and chose one at random — looks like my eventual destination is The Great Void, which seems pretty appropriate for an agnostic like me.
Off to the side, a guy carried a sign reading “Homosexuality is caused by child abuse.” He and the Gay Rights dudes occasionally stared at each other warily, but luckily their paths never crossed.
By this stage, the whole scene was utterly surreal. Photographers began lining up across the street, and passing cars (most coming from the nearby airport) slowed down so people could snap pictures to show the folks back home. California never disappoints!
Bishop Joey held court in his Oakland A’s-styled “Atheists” shirt, the perfect interview subject for the throngs of media crews looking for something to focus on.
Every now and then a helium-filled love-doll would escape and fly up to heaven prematurely. One can only imagine the chatter between the pilots of passing 747s and the airport control tower: “Roger, I have an unidentified flying sex toy off the port side. Please advise.”
“This is Southwest Airlines flight 238. Spongebob Squarepants is ascending to heaven in our flight path. Abort landing?”
Someone put snarky signs (this being the most memorable) all over the parking lot.
One of the “scientists” repeated the same joke found in a million blog-comments over the last week.
As far as anyone could tell, there were no Camping followers on hand for the Milpitas Christians to console, so instead they formed a line on the roadside and consoled passing traffic.
As 6pm approached, the whole scene just descended into chaos. Everyone was everywhere with no rhyme or reason, cameras pointing every which way, trying to visually capture Armageddon somehow.
Yes, my son, this is what hell looks like.
The Christians seemed overwhelmed by it all, and retired to the back to the parking lot to have a group prayer huddle. The fact that they tried to do it out of the way where no one could see them — the first non-performative act I’d seen in hours — indicated to me that they were sincere, not just showing off.
Finally, 6 o’clock rolled around — rather anti-climactically as it turned out, since various jokesters had been loudly yelling premature countdowns since at least 5:15, just to confuse everyone — and the balloon-souls were released. Everyone looked skyward and cheered.
The Rapture!
A prank had gone viral on Facebook earlier in the day: Place empty clothes on sidewalks around your neighborhood after 6pm, to indicate where “raptured” Christians had ascended bodily into heaven, leaving all worldly things — including clothes — behind. Someone apparently thought it was funny to surround Camping’s office with these prank rapture outfits.
Or could it be — some in the crowd really had gone “poof” at 6pm, and none of us noticed? If so: had they all been barefoot? Or do you walk around in heaven naked except for your shoes?
The media, grateful to finally have a visual to accompany their Rapture coverage, hung around for hours afterward interviewing anyone who would consent to go on camera.
UPDATE:
Harold Camping “flabbergasted” world didn’t end
The man who said the world was going to end appeared at his front door in Alameda a day later, very much alive but not so well.
“It has been a really tough weekend,” said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old fundamentalist radio preacher who convinced hundreds of his followers that the rapture would occur on Saturday at 6 p.m.
Massive earthquakes would strike, he said. Believers would ascend to heaven and the rest would be left to wander a godforsaken planet until Oct. 21, when Camping promised a fiery end to the world.
But today, almost 18 hours after he thought he’d be in Heaven, there was Camping, “flabbergasted” in Alameda, wearing tan slacks, a tucked-in polo shirt and a light jacket.
Birds chirped. A gentle breeze blew. Across the street, neighbors focused on their yard work and the latest neighborhood gossip.
“I’m looking for answers,” Camping said, adding that meant frequent prayer and consultations with friends.
“But now I have nothing else to say,” he said, closing the door to his home. “I’ll be back to work Monday and will say more then.”
“…whose followers expected to ascend to heaven after the destruction of the world today at 6pm”
I think you have one detail wrong. True Christians were supposed to ascend to Heaven earlier this evening at 6pm, but the destruction of the world is (was) not supposed to happen until some time in September….at least that’s what I heard one of Camping’s followers say on Michael Medved’s radio program. Of course, this is an an inconsequential detail at this point.
Actually, they seem to keep “changing the goalposts” on this point. Camping definitely stated that a wave of earth-destroying disasters would slowly encircle the globe at exactly 6pm in each time zone on May 21 — starting with a 10.0 Earthquake in New Zealand and then wiping out each time zone one hour at a time until nearly the final disaster finally hit the West Coast at 6pm Pacific Standard Time. Since the first 10 or so disasters never came to pass, they starting backpedaling on the prediction it seems.
Even so, there’s always some vagueness built in to these things, so that hedging bets can be done afterward.
Anyway, my goal is not to rehash the details of the prediction — that’s being done elsewhere, everywhere — but rather to document what happened at Armageddon Ground Zero, where we can see the entire fiasco represented in miniature.
I heard at one point that the final end of the world was October 21, 2012. Disasters between now and then but the final end on that date.
You’ve got two different Armageddons conflated here. December 21, 2012, is the date used by people who buy into the Mayan Prophecies – interestingly enough, they seem more numerous than the Camping folks. Camping predicted disasters starting on May 21, 2011, that would continue through October 2011, when the world would finally be destroyed by a big old meteor, or something like that.
Since the 2012 date hasn’t gotten here yet, we can probably look forward to plenty more Armageddon-speech in the future.
Harold. You can come out now, but only if you put away the calculator. Disgusting though that so many ignorant people threw away their lives and possessions to follow his crazy predictions.
To the people that want to sue? NO, stupidity does not mean you have a tort claim.
I can’t imagine that more than a handful of this guys followers actually took his prediction seriously. And as far as I can tell his church only received publicity here in the U.S., as my facebook friends from Europe, New Zealand & Australia had no idea what the rest of my American friends were joking about.
The US wasn’t the only place that heard about Camping’s predictions.
I saw one of the posters here, in Southern Ontario, Canada, starting a couple of months back. The national MSM had stories both before and after the 6PM Saturday deadline too.
Failed prophesies frequently lead to a reintensification of belief and identification with the prophet and his core group.
There’s a famous sociological study about it, and, of course, there’s a real-world example one can’t help tripping over: Jehovah’s Witnesses.
So Camping will lose some followers, as he has before, but the core group will find a way to go on believing.
As I stated over on the Tatler, anyone who’s actually read their Bible knows that this was much ado about nothing:
Get that… no one knows the day nor the hour, and it will come when you don’t expect it.
Now, if only the Biblically-ignorant media would quit pushing these wacko doomsday theories…
Something else to keep in mind… The word “Rapture” does not appear anywhere in the bible. The theory is based on a misunderstanding of several key scriptures.
To put it bluntly, Christians are not going to be whisked up into the sky. It says very plainly in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4, that the day of the Lord (Christ) will not occur until AFTER the great apostasy (falling away through deception) and the revealing to the world of Anti-christ / Satan (the son of perdition), who sits upon the throne in Jerusalem claiming to be GOD.
———————-
1. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and [by] our gathering together unto him,
2. That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
3. Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition
4. Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
———————-
A lot of Christians who believe in the rapture are going to be deceived when Satan comes “disguised as an angel of light”, claiming to be God (Jesus).
If you look at the parables related to threshing / winnowing (separation of wheat from the tares), it is actually the “tares” who are blown away, and only the good seed that remains. I think that this suggests that those “left behind” are actually the righteous in Christ, and those “taken” are the tares who will be burnt up in the lake of fire (2nd death).
It says clearly that Jerusalem is God’s favorite place in all of creation, and that Christ’s kingdom will be here on Earth. We as Christians are not going anywhere, and rapture is false doctrine.
Joshua, your comment about the “rapture of the wicked”–see Matthew 13–is something that I’ve leaned towards for years.
**It says clearly that Jerusalem is God’s favorite place in all of creation, and that Christ’s kingdom will be here on Earth. **
However, Jesus ALSO said, “My Kingdom is NOT of this world.”
Mother Nature arranges a “Rapture of the Stupid” every single day; we know of it as “evolution.”
Hi Cluny,
Jesus kingdom is not of this (present) world, but of the heavenly world to come… Which doesn’t mean it won’t be here on this earth physically (or spiritually), just that it won’t be based on our understanding of current earth systems.
You want to see a lake of fire? I’ll give you a hint… it rises in the east and sets in the west.
Two things: first of all, the Rapture is the Resurrection of the Just, cf 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15. Second, the Greek phrase “he apostasia,” does not mean “a falling away.” It literally translates, “the departure.” “He” means “the,” not “a” (definite article, not indefinite article).
Hi Myth Buster (I love that show btw…),
All that 1Th is saying is that at Jesus’ second coming, those who are already dead in Christ will rise (be resurrected) first, followed by those who are still alive. It says nothing about this event occurring before the coming of antichrist.
Regarding the word apostosia, I’m not sure where you’re getting your translation, but Strong’s concordance lists it to mean:
1) a falling away, defection, apostasy
It is used 575 times in the context of “forsake”, and one time as “falling away”. It is also related to the word “apostasion”, which means to “divorce” or “repudiate”. I see nothing about “departure”…
check out the following link for more details:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G646&t=KJV
Myth Buster…your Greek is flawed friend. Apostasia means to depart from a STANDARD, not from a place. The standard HAS been departed from for sure. That standard is the Scriptures. As for when Jesus will return…that’s God’s business. Ours is to be ready.
WTF?
“The media” hasn’t been reporting this very much at all. I learned about the affair from some RV’s parked in front of a Best Buy about 45 days ago, and there was maybe one article found on the Drudge site.
Last night’s local and national (ABC) news hardly gave it a mention, and even then the newsreader seemed to be careful to word things such that it was clear that this wasn’t a mainstream christian view.
There is more humour etc to be gleaned from personal facebook pages than the media in general.
I have no idea what planet you’re from, but it’s probably not too far from Camping’s.
And here is why I love the Bible so much. Based simply on the fact that no one can know the date of Armegeddon, the eternity of Earth can be ensured with the simple belief that each day is the Last Day. If any man, any where on the globe truly belives that a day is the Last Day, then Yahweh has promised that it is not.
And the Earth spins happily in her course, and all can know that G-d has once again trapped Himself in His Own ignorance.
Come quickly, ye believers, and explain this away, as you affirm 7 and deny 144,000. Come and do your mad dance of rationalization.
For that too, serves Chaos.
@ConservativeWanderer
Yeah, but they’d rather take this opportunity to make fun of Christians than do some actual reporting on the issue.
I feel bad for all the folks that bought into this crud, but even more so for Camping. False teachers are judged pretty harshly.
A couple of years ago, the guy around the corner from me started putting up little Family Radio signs in his front yard. Then last winter a van turned up on his front lawn with End of the World messages all over it. When I drove by there today, the van was parked in the back and everything was quiet. The only creepy thing was the Homeland Security police SUV parked in the driveway. At first I could only see the word “Police” on the vehicle. I thought maybe the man had done something unfortunate and the cops were there investigating. Instead, I think the DHS guy is one of the true believers.
That’s about as wacky as it’s been around here. Not sure about DC. I could have gone up to check it out, but I had other things to do. California sounds like Ground Zero anyway.
Frikkin’ gays. Is there EVER a place or situation where they don’t throw ‘Gay Pride’ at you? Is that all they can ever think about? Their ridiculous ‘pride’ in putting things up butts?
How can you tell the extent of a person’s knowledge of science by their appearance? Do they need to be in lab coats?
I was influenced by their obvious youth (too young to have mastered anything) and their flippancy (they seem to prefer socializing and having fun than studying). The real scientists I know sit at home or in a lab or in front of a blackboard studying — they don’t run around with signs announcing that they are scientists.
I could be wrong about these fun-loving kids — maybe they all have PhDs and Nobel Prizes — but somehow, I suspect I’m not.
Real scientists have these things called “jobs,” which result in things called “lives.” These strange things called “lives” forces these poor scientists to spend their weekends engaged in bizarre activities such as taking care of their children, washing clothes, doing yard-work, etc. instead of smoking grass and parading around town with inflatable sex dolls.
Your wrong. There are millions of scientists working around the world, not all of them nobel prize winners and nerds in lab coats. The vast majority are normal people like everyone else who just happen to have a day job in science.
Yeah right, I mean, you are right that that kind of cr*ppy scientist exist, last time I checked they gave us Ozone depletion hoax, global warming hoax, global cooling hoax… they are still active trying to convince us that oil is going to finish after 20 years and that wind energy is profitable and “green”.
Scientists that are “normal people like everyone else who just happen to have a day job in science” are also the ones who are defenseless when high-profile politicians pretending to be scientists (e.g. Al Gore, or some IP panel member) start pushing their cr*p down the throats of every one.
Only hard-working scientists can stand against the fancy theories running amok between the public; they are usually without time to do silly shows about sects for sure. Real scientists have a lab, a computer or a blackboard at home, you know, they might be at home when that great problem-solving idea strikes.
I’m going to be nice and hope they were trying for some extra credit in a course.
Remember folks, his actions do prove the Bible in that it states not to be fooled when people say Jesus is here or over there. Instead of telling the truth he is a fool that ignores the word of God. And his followers need to start studying the word, and not be so fooled by a man. Is He coming back, yes because He said He would. Soon, yes because He said His return is soon. When, don’t know for it is not for man to know. It is for us to be ready.
For everyone tempted to scoff at the Bible as a whole because of Camping’s chronic foolishness, I sincerely warn you that on the Day that it does happen, saying “But those a-holes were wrong so many times before, we saw no reason to believe You!” will be no defense. You will be judged on the basis of how you viewed the shed blood of Christ for your sin; if you rejected His payment on your behalf, you’ll be condemned. If, on the off-chance, you’d never heard of Him, you’ll be judged on the basis of how you lived according to your God-given conscience — the Law of God written upon the hearts of all people. If you ever violated your conscience, you’ll be condemned. Camping’s foolishness will not be a mitigating factor.
Then that’s my excuse. I have no way of knowing that the representations of Jesus promulgated after his era have anything whatsoever to do with what he was really like, said or did — if anything. For all I know, his life and teachings have never been accurately recounted or represented.
I do indeed live my life according to my conscience (the God-given part still up for debate), and have never once done anything that I consider hurtful or morally wrong to any individual or to society at large. I don’t do this because of religious sentiment, or because I want to avoid hell, but rather because I (like most people, I can only hope) simply can’t help it — I feel like it’s genetically encoded in us. Only corruptive socialization prevents people from being inherently moral.
Mr. Zombie, I am afraid that is not going to cut it.
According to Romans 1:18-21, you are without excuse. Your claim to be an agnostic has no merit. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse …” (Romans 1:20) The claim of ignorance is no excuse. You owe it to yourself to investigate the claims of Scripture.
You are also not the standard of morality and righteousness so it does not matter if you live according to your conscience and “have never once done anything that I consider hurtful or morally wrong to any individual or to society at large.” Due to the fall of man, our conscience are dead until revived by God. When Paul said we were dead in our sins he meant dead.
God is the standard of morality and righteousness. None can live up to His standard, which is why the Son of God had to come to earth, take bodily form, live a sin free life, and then die to pay the penalty for our immorality and unrighteousness. Only those who accept Christ and His work on the cross become pure in the sight of God. Not pure in the sense that they do not sin but in that Christ has paid for their sins.
Morality and righteousness is much more than just not doing something that is hurtful or morally wrong to others. God created each human with a purpose – to glorify Him and serve Him. To not fulfill our purpose in life is to sin and fall short of the glory of God. There will be plenty of moral people in hell. Morality or even a committment to a moral code does not get us into heaven because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Since we all sin, we are all doomed unless we accept Christ.
Man was sinful long before corruptive socialization and no amount of corrective socialization will ever free man from sin. If you believe that “only corruptive socialization prevents people from being inherently moral” then you believe that you have no need of Jesus Christ as your Savior. Therefore, you very philosophy rejects Christ and thus you cannot claim ignorace as your excuse.
I have found you to always be intellectually honest and intellectually curious, therefore, I challenge you to examine the Scripture for yourself. Lay aside your bias and what others have said and go to the Scripture with a willingness to learn and you will find understanding there. It may take earnest study but I do not believe you are an intellectual slacker. Start with the New Testament Gospel of Mark and discover the true Jesus revealed in Scripture, not the Jesus of myth and secular speculation.
I have investigated the Bible more than you wish to know. And what I found wasn’t anything you’d want to know either.
For the sake of a peaceful comments section, let’s just leave it at that.
Then you know that if the Bible, then your claim to ignorance will not save you from judgment.
The Bible is an anvil that has worn out many hammers. I am sure that your findings are rather less substantial than you care to admit or would care to have discussed. I am sure you have discovered nothing that has not been discussed before.
Obviously my “discoveries” are nothing new – otherwise I’d be a world-famous scholar of ancient languages. All I did was research what has already been discovered and published by others.
But rather it’s the reverse of what you say: my findings are more substantial than I care to discuss.
I’m not ignorant of the Bible: however, I am profoundly ignorant of what did or did not happen circa 2000 years ago in the Near East.
Hard to have a discussion with someone who does not care to discuss his findings. So I will bow to you wishes.
I will say only one thing. To follow the thread of reasoning that you did provide – that we can no little of what happened 2000 years ago – then we must dismiss the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar, the wars in Gaul, etc.
I’ve been to Europe many times, seen the physical remains of the Roman Empire with my own eyes.
As has been discussed here (and elsewhere for hundreds of years), there is no confirming tangible evidence for any of the supernatural claims made in those writings you deem sacred known today as the Bible.
With the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar, the wars in Gaul, and countless other examples, there are several accounts from several authors with several points of view; there are surviving original manuscripts; there are archaeological remains; there are sculptures, tombs, aqueducts, skeletons, etc. etc. etc. Spear tips and broken chariot wheels found 12 feet underground at the exact spot where battles are reported to have happened. That is why those accounts are deemed reliable today.
Now, there are other ancient writings and accounts which don’t have any confirmation — a good example being stories about Atlantis, stories which date back over 2500 years. Because no physical evidence has ever emerged to confirm the claims in one or two sources, most modern folks either dismiss Atlantis as a fable or at best file it in the “maybe” category.
The same doubt was maintained over the existence of “Troy,” the supposedly mythical city state besieged by Greek warriors in the Iliad. Homer’s writings were thought of as mytholigy — until a German archeologist unexpectedly discovered the remains of an ancient city at the exact spot where Troy was supposed to have been. Then and only then — after confirming evidence was found — was Troy moved from the realm of fable to becoming an accepted historical fact.
Christian “apologists” (in the original sense, not the modern put-down sense) have been searching for that confirming evidence for 1700 years at least in relation to Jesus, and have yet to produce it. Thus, the early Church Fathers’ emphasis on “faith” rather than empirical evidence.
I feel it’s a mistake to insist that there is tangible “proof” of God or of the Scripture stories, because then you’re playing on a different field with different rules. The best way to go is the way that have been hewn to for centuries, which is the spiritual route — God is something you feel in your heart, etc. etc. But you’re opening an unnecessary Pandora’s Box by placing religious claims on an empirical scale.
The life of Jesus Christ is not only chronicled in the Bible by four different authors, it is documented and referenced by Josephus as well as several other non-Christian authors. We have writings from witnesses to the life of Jesus and from the next generation who learned from those witnesses. No piece of archeological evidence contradict the claims of the Bible.
Now as to Julius Caesar and the wars in Gaul, we only have one historical account of the wars in Gaul and it comes from Caesar who wrote on the subject. Due to the nature of the war we have no archeological evidence to support his claims. We must take his word for it. Therefore, according to your criteria, we must dismiss the wars in Gaul. In fact, we have more evidence for Jesus than we do for those wars.
As to original written documents, we have none from the ancient world. Most were written on material that did not survive. What we do have is copies of the originals. Even our Homer is a copy – especially since Homer never wrote his oral narrative down. The Christian copies date earlier and are far more numerous than the secular writting you mention. Therefore we must – using your criteria – consider the Christian writings to be more reliable.
We have no confirmation that Socrates existed other than the copies of works attributed to Plato. Do we doubt the existence of Socrates?
What archeological evidence would you expect to confirm Jesus and His miracles? We have the remains of the temple at which He preached and taught. We have the Lake of Galilee on which He fished and we have archeological accounts that verify the nature of fishing described in the Bible. What archeological evidence would you expect from a healing or a teaching? Especially when to associate with Jesus would have been forbidden by the authorities in those early years. We have evidence of early persecution of the Christians. If you would like exact numbers of dates for the copies of the Scriptures, I would be happy to provide those.
OK, I can see I’d be wasting your time and mine. It’s repetitive saying the same thing, over and over, for each new commenter on each new thread. So, one last time, and then I’ll let you go your way, and say what you wish:
Sorry, but the one possible reference to Jesus in Josephus is now known to be a later addition inserted by a Christian copyist many many centuries after the fact. He did so for the very reason that it was so embarrassing that Josephus never mentioned the very thing he ought to have been consumed by.
And aside from that one non-reference, there are NO other contemporary references to Jesus from neutral third-party sources, outside of Christian writings (which naturally tend to be self-confirming). The absence of any independent contemporary mention — even the briefest passing reference — of what many believe was the most earth-shattering historical events of all time, leads many people (such as myself) to maintain a skepticism about the whole thing.
Am I also sometimes skeptical about secular “facts” and “personages” for whom there is also scanty evidence? Why, yes, in fact: Homer himself is likely to have never existed, and is just an amalgamated homunculus of early oral poets. Each historical fact is weighed as to its likelihood and accepted (or rejected) accordingly. So casting aspersions on spottily documented secular facts in no way adds reliability to your claims. The fact that many place names in modern France derive from the very names given by or recorded by Caesar is strong confirming evidence that his account was true. And there is archaeological evidence for those wars (and other wars as well). Genetic evidence too — people in the region to this day bear genetic traces of the Roman soldiers whom we know were recruited from various colonies (and left their DNA through rape/intermarriages/prostitutes/dalliances etc.). Don’t know where you’re getting your information, but I’d start widening the sources.
And as for
…uh, well, no piece of archeological evidence contradict the claims of Harold and the Purple Crayon either, for that matter. But that doesn’t mean it’s true. The absence of disproof is not the same as proof.
You feel the need to have a factual basis for your faith, and I understand that. But unfortunately you are molding the evidence to match your pre-existing belief, rather than coming to the same conclusion independently based on the tangible facts alone. (“Confirmation bias,” as they call it.)
The point of this post is to display and derive amusement from photographs of the kooks and media automatons who fabricated a news event out of thin air. It is not about trying to bully someone into accepting a spiritual doctrine based on skewed evidence and arguments.
I’m the MC of this show, not the target of your wrath. There are millions — tens of millions — of very vociferous atheists and religion-bashers out there (some of them depicted in this very photo essay), who are violently opposed to you and your beliefs. Why pick a fight with the one agnostic who agrees with you politically and is trying to be reasonable?
First, you have never been the target of my wrath. You can point to no instance where I belittled your opinion or launched an ad hominum attack. I even argued using the guidelines and criteria you set in your own posts. I even bowed to your wishes to not discuss the matter until you pursued it. I have been nothing but cordial. If you feel attacked then, perhaps you should examine your own convictions if they are so easily challenged.
Second, you offer some pretty flimsy evidence in your support of Caesar and the wars in Gaul. Being able to name places in a narrative does not mean the events in a narrative actually occured there. Otherwise, all historical fiction would be considered true. Likewise, genetic evidence only points to contact between the Romans and the Gauls. It does not prove that a war occured. I am simply stating that the rules of evidence which you use to deny the historical person of Jesus Christ would also condemn much of what we consider established western history.
Third, as the dance usually goes, I mention Josephus and you deny its reliablity. I then name others like Tacitus, Suetonius, as well as the first and second generation church writers and you dismiss them as unreliable. Thus whatever evidence I produce is deemed unreliable, altered, or part of a conspiracy.
The gospel writers wrote in the second half of the first century and their accounts soon circulated among the churches. Paul wrote at the same time. So did Peter, James, and John. All were first hand witnesses. You dismiss them as biased. Yet we do know that a new sect rose up among the Jews because of the persecution against Christians in the first century. The sect was mentioned by both Tacitus and Seutonius. Josephus not only mentions Jesus but James and Ananus the high priest. Christian churches grew in the first and second century as the original witnesses and then their disciples carried the message further. When you dismiss the New Testament you are not dismissing just one source but 27 different primary sources that were not refuted at the time. Paul even challenges his critics to talk to the witnesses. These were written by different people, from differnt places, to different audiences, and at different times. Yet, they all point to a historical figure named Jesus who died on a cross.
You offer nothing to refute these primary source documents except a conspiracy theory – that you cannot prove – of a conspiracy – for which there is no evidence. What would the purpose of the Jesus conspiracy be in the first place? Christians suffered intense persecutions until the 300s. Did the early writers really conspire to commit suicide and endure intense persecution?
It sounds like to me that you suffer from confirmation bias. You dismiss evidence and concoct theories to support your agnostic bias. Yet you offer no evidence. No the typical agnostic/atheistic response is always ridicule and condescension. (For example your remarks about Atlantis.) They usually have no time for a discussion on rules of evidence, primary sources, etc. Their minds are already settled. When challenged further they usually portray themselves as a victim and then get angry.
Please return to MCing and taking pictures. My original point was that ignorance is not an excuse and it still stands. Thank you for your time.
Translation: I am going to Hell for not accepting Jesus. Sorry, but many would consider that an attack. Try to see it from the other side.
As for the historical evidence stuff — there has been an avalanche of words written about this for centuries on both sides. I’m not going to waste everyone’s time grappling over every (what I perceive as) mistaken point of yours, all of which been rebutted a jillion times. I know you will not be convinced. And nothing you say in a blog comment is going to undo a lifetime’s worth of research at my end. So let’s just agree to disagree.
Not an attack. Simply an accurate statement based upon the perimeters you set for the discussion.
You made the following comment:
“Then that’s my excuse. I have no way of knowing that the representations of Jesus promulgated after his era have anything whatsoever to do with what he was really like, said or did — if anything. For all I know, his life and teachings have never been accurately recounted or represented.”
In your comment you state that if Jesus returns you will plead ignorance. If Jesus returns then He is clearly the Son of God and His Word is true. Under that criteria, we can assume that what His Word says about ignorance not being a defense is also true. Hence, if Jesus returns then ignorance is not a defense.
It might be a hard word but we live in a hard world and I am not in the business of sugarcoating it.
Also:
IF my goldfish suddenly manifests supernatural powers and turns the moon into a whoopie cushion, then that would definitively disprove my baseless assumption that goldfish are just plain ol’ fish.
But, you see, in both instances, that’s a pretty big if.
The day Jesus returns, you will be proven correct, and I will regret my orneriness for eternity in hell.
Until then, I’ll just live my life and try to make the world a better place.
And I’m willing to make the horrible illogical supremely risky gamble that the moon never really will turn into a whoopie cushion, during my lifetime or ever.
I’m a grownup living in a free society and have the right to make that foolish, foolish decision.
Mr. Zombie – You really are much better than your last reply. Ridicule is often the last refuge of the intellectually dishonest.
I used the word “if” in deference to your agnosticism and to the scenario you created. When Christ returns, I hope you have decided to follow Him.
You can repeat the mantra “It has all been disproven” as many times as you like but you have still produced no evidence.
I quess that we will have to agree to disagree because you long abandoned an intellectual discussion. I must admit to being a little disappointed. I did expect better. Good evening.
Mr. Zombie,
Something about our discussion of Josephus struck me as off so I went back and checked some of my primary sources.
You stated: “Sorry, but the one possible reference to Jesus in Josephus is now known to be a later addition inserted by a Christian copyist many many centuries after the fact. He did so for the very reason that it was so embarrassing that Josephus never mentioned the very thing he ought to have been consumed by.”
According to my copy of Josephus, Jesus is mentioned twice in two separate entries. James, the brother of Jesus, is mentioned once. And John the Baptist is also mentioned. So instead of the once reference you dismiss, Josephus actually contains four separate references that confirm the Biblical account.
You state that the one possible reference (there are actually two) was added by a Christian copyist “many many centuries after the fact.” Yet, Eusebius mentions the passage in his history of the church written in the 300s.
An Arabic translation derived from copies other than the Christian copyists also bears the same reference. Did the Arabs also falsify ther document in the exact same way to promote the Messianic claims of Christ? Now, that would be a conspiracy.
The evidence in these primary source documents tend to contradict your claim.
And according to Mohamed, you are without any excuse for not praying in Arabic five times a day, and thus will be damned for all of eternity.
Please explain why we should take your claims regarding a supernatural world any more seriously than you take such claims made by Muslims.
The possible responses to your post are so many that it is hard to choose a point from which to begin.
Would you like to discuss the text of Scripture itself?
The testimony of history and culture?
The fact that Christianity produced western civilization and Mohammed produced Osama Bin Ladin and suicide bombers.
Now, as to the initial discussion, Mr. Zombie claimed that ignorance would be his defense if the Bible and the God of the Bible proved true. I simply showed that the defense would not work. Simply using the logic he placed in his own scenario.
Mohammed is a false prophet, as evidenced by his claim to be a prophet in the line of Jesus, but who contradicted the message of Jesus. Mohammed contradicted the Torah, the Prophets, and wrote damnable heresies and blasphemous statements against Jesus.
“Only corruptive socialization prevents people from being inherently moral.”
I must disagree. People from early childhood, regardless of upbringing, fail to be consistently, inherently moral due to an inborn propensity toward doing the opposite with knowledge (the literal meaning of “conscience”) not due to upbringing.
I have two girls, aged 3 and the other about to turn 1. The toddler has begun to deliberately lie, and did so before any lessons on truth/lies was ever presented. She knew it’s wrong to lie; she knew it on her own before her mother even caught her in the lie (we could tell from how she was acting; then the truth came out). That was her conscience at work. We didn’t put it there. We hadn’t informed it yet. It’s just who we are and how we’re made. It’s the Law of God written on the heart of all. The image of God, if you will allow it to be put that way.
Conscience proves the existence of sin within us all; it’s what drives our desire to do something about our moral failings — even you, who seek to do so entirely apart from religion per se. In your case, attempting to live up to the demands of your own conscience.
I recall stealing something from my mother at age 5 that I knew I shouldn’t have. I’ve never forgotten how my conscience suddenly felt like it weight 2 tons. Given my upbringing, I know I had not received warnings against stealing prior to the incident. I’d violated the Law that had been written upon my heart, and I knew — even then — I was answerable for it.
If we insist on dealing with our consciences in our own way, the God who put that conscience in each of us demands 100% purity in order to be accepted by Him. So if I may say it, your attempts to live up to your conscience is noble as far as it goes but it is not your “out” — it’s only the built-in warning system provided by your Maker to tell you that He’s there and that you need Him, as we all do.
A guilty conscence is not the same thing as knowledge that something “is wrong”. The statement “lying is wrong” is either true or false. If it is true, it is not true because “lying makes us feel bad”. It doesn’t follow.
Moral truths, if they exist, do not spring from our genes or our feelings. If “stealing is wrong” is based on nothing more than “stealing makes us feel bad” (does it rreally!?), then why should I not try to overcome this negative genetically determined feedback? If a drug was invented that would eliminate the bad feelings that come from the genetically determined conscience, why should I not take it and steal away to my heart’s content.
I don’t know about the “inherently moral” part, zombie. My view of human nature is a lot less positive than yours.
Otherwise, despite the preaching, stick to your guns.
It’s sad that there are so many objectivists now who believe that having faith is a breach in logic or reason. The truth about faith in Christ is that it is a reasonable faith. This is not a contradiction in terms either, and despite the superiority of Objectivism compared to other “atheisms” it makes the same mistake in casting a blind eye to whatever is responsible for existence in the first place. And it would follow, it should follow that reasoning CAN lead to axioms concerning such an entity that could create a cosmos repleat with Logic and Reason that we, both Objectivists and Christians love and use. You see, if I accept such axioms about this Creator, such as being inherently righteous and just deduced from the reasonable expectation that such power would be unsustainable if any corruption could be found in it, my trust in the axiom is vindicated in the same sense that A is A is a vindication of useful and uncorrupted logic. When I apply that axiom to the world, reality, that God is a Good God and I find no contradictions with this belief, nor the compatibility of a Good God with the God of the Bible I come to a faith that is, in fact, based on my reasoning. Why Christ and not Mohammed? That would be for YOU to find out and not for ME to answer.
Any who, if that Creator rewards one who chooses to recognize such power of His Godhead, and to punish others who choose to reject the very consideration of the origination of their self-ascribed virtue, what is it to the punished?
“If, on the off-chance, you’d never heard of Him, you’ll be judged on the basis of how you lived according to your God-given conscience”
I am with Zombie in this one, I’ve had a very strong education on the Bible, and I know that’s an idea clearly stated in the Bible. You are/will be judged with or without your Bible degree credentials, what it counts is your conscience, how did you use your Free Will and how you faced the consequences. And it’s not only a Christian creed regarding non-Christians, also Jews have Noahide laws regarded as “the basics” for non jews.
Being one who started as a Protestant child and moved towards Objectivism (an atheist philosophy), I can tell that lots of the religion-related stupidity on the earth is mostly due to personal interpretations of the books; to be fair, lots of the statements by “logic-defender” atheists are also just sh!t.
I testify about myself, I first learnt about freedom, personal responsability, and work to earn a life, in my protestant-driven home; I learnt the morality of retaliation agaisnt evil people in the Old Testament; I learnt how your own soul salvation is an untransferable responsability, therefore how in a free society you have a right to preach your own creed but not to impose it on anyone, that you can promote freedom but not to impose freedom.
After readings, university and scientific research life, I actually think Objectivism is the best philosophy to live in this Earth (as opposed to gain entrance to heaven). How on the earth I became a capitalist, I very much have to say “many thanks” to the Bible (and lots of other many thanks to Aristotle and Ayn Rand).
X, you stated the following:
“I am with Zombie in this one, I’ve had a very strong education on the Bible, and I know that’s an idea clearly stated in the Bible. You are/will be judged with or without your Bible degree credentials, what it counts is your conscience, how did you use your Free Will and how you faced the consequences.”
If it is an idea clearly stated in the Bible, then please provide us with a citation.
I’ve been a Christian most of my life of one kind or other–Orthodox for most of it.
I’ve seen various dates set in my lifetime, including 1975 and 1988. In case you’ve not noticed, nothing happened on those dates, either.
However, I do believe that one way or the other, Jesus is going to send for each one of us–either at His return or at our deaths.
Do you want to meet Him as your Judge or as your Friend and Advocate? The choice is up to you.
However, I did enjoy these photos!
Good reply Cluny. I just might add that Jesus warned of false prophets and said that no one, not even He knew the day and hour of His return. Why can’t these people read their own Bible and believe it??
Next Regularly Scheduled End of World: December 22 2012.
Women and Minorities Hardest Hit!
the end of this post is nigh.
upside down post {turn your monitor upside down now, ‘k?}
You don’t happen to have any pictures of every single person there being beaten with baseball bats do you?
Sorry, no, I missed that part.
Where’s Frank?
My biggest problem with the ‘counselors’ that came to help the followers after the rapture didn’t happen was that they wanted to be sure that they didn’t lose their faith in God. I’m pretty sure that believing in a magical, invisible being that there is absolutely no evidence even exists is what got them into this mess in the first place. If they would lose their superstitious beliefs and start thinking rationally, then maybe the next time some crazy comes along claiming it’s the end of the world, they won’t fork over all their money, quit their jobs and basically make themselves and their children bankrupt and homeless. The dark ages ended a few hundred years ago. Someone needs to catch up.
Actually, there is plenty of proof that God does exist.
There is even scientific evidence that the accounts laid out in the Bible are accurate.
You just have to actually investigate, rather than make pronouncements.
Sooooo, you just have to display your sneering superiority?
How special.
Yes Dianna,
I do have things to show my superiority.
A recent study on Japanese males regarding a common ancestor as suggested by the bible (The advantages of the study include the centuries-long stability of this island population and the availability of ancient DNA samples from the Jomon and Yayoi tribes, who first colonized the Japanese isles.) and another study on the Finnish population,” and from more studies currently underway, dating for the common ancestor of all humans is being determined. Along with a 1995 Y-chromosome research project —one which examined a hundred times more nucleotide base pairs than any previous study— fixed the date for the most recent common ancestor of all human males a somewhere between 35,000 and 47,000 B.C.
This finding represents a significant breakthrough in physical anthropology. The recent date eliminates the possibility that modern humans evolved from another bipedal primate species (meaning that humans must be specially created).
This date has been questioned, however, for its lack of consistency with the date derived from mitochondrial DNA analysis which place the most recent common ancestor of all women somewhere between a few thousand and a few tens of thousands of years earlier.
Thus proving the Biblical Account.
It wasn’t you I was administering a smack to, JD.
Breathe. Notice the protocol – my reply to Ellie the snot was directly below yours. This one will be off to the side.
Don’t jump down my innocent throat. It’s not the Christian thing to do. Or even the agnostic or pagan one.
Sorry, it’s hard to keep track of which boards keep shifting and which only shift one level.
OH, BTW, it’s jd not JD – jd is a Unix Monicar, case sensitive.
35,000 and 47,000 BC? That’s considerably longer than the Biblical age of the Earth–never mind humans. So you prove and disprove in the same breath? Hem and Haw? See and Saw?
And, as always, Chaos is served by your endless spinning. Physicists may one day discover that gravity is the by product of the spin of rationalizations spewed forth by the followers of the One God.
Something controversial in the Bay Area on a Saturday afternoon and freaks show up. Whoda thunk it.
I’m not sure that if the rapture happened today there would be enough folks missing to raise any alarm.
Who is to say that Jesus didn’t return to earth and take the righteous into heaven?
Excellent!!
Hee hee hee hee hee hee! That’s the funniest line in the whole thing. Surprised nobody’s mentioned it yet.
Zombie – great job on this report.
The only people I have time for in this (though I rather raised my eyebrows when I saw their photos) were the Calvary folks. Their effort was sincere, if a little heavy-handed.
As for the rest? The mockery was as insipid as the “prophesy.” Though the sex dolls were a mildly amusing (better if they had been an individual joke).
The love dolls ascending up to heaven is a scene from the great HBO series “Six Feet Under” where a truck load of inflated naked people love dolls on the way to a bachelor party has a mishap and lets them float upward. A Christian woman is driving a car and gets out to join the Rapture and gets run over to start the show.
As usual a great Zombie documentary photo shoot for those of us that could not attend.
In case it isn’t clear from the title of the show, the woman in question dies, thus beginning the episode. That scene is, in turn, based on an old joke about the rapture. I’m not a Christian, but when I saw writing that was both that lazy/derivative and that mean-spirited, I figured I could save myself the trouble of watching the show (though that Alan “American Beauty” Ball did the series should have been enough).
Thanks, Zombie! That was PRICELESS!
Best laugh I’ve had in months.
Now that the world hasn’t ended, I wish I could get back all those one dollar bills I gave away at the local girlie bar yesterday.
At least you weren’t handing out One Trillion dollars bills like that one guy was at the event. Boy, I bet he’s now regretting having given away all that money!
If he had, the girls would be less than pleased – so let’s call it even!
Don’t worry he will just do what the government does and print more or borrow from China. Not like we all don’t have a spare trillion laying around.
Every Generation we see 1-2 predictions to end of the world based on timelines of the Bible, and this has been occurring for almost Two thousand years in popular Christianity.
However it is nothing new, before Christ walked the earth Nimrod and Semiramis and their son proclaimed themselves the Holy trinity, God in resurrected form, and without their worship the world would also end and leave humanity without salvation. And before them were astronomers and astrologers that worshiped the heavens and stars and things that go bump in the night, and so on since the dawn of humanity.
It seems to be a reinforcing need, without fear and threat of the worlds end, there is little to convince people to walk a just life, to feed the hungry, tend the sick, or care for those imprisoned.
I agree with Zombie, and if anyone does exhaustive research on the Bible in Greek, ancient Hebrew, and Aramaic historical context, a different picture begins to emerge. What we have been handed down in the KJV is a disaster of translation, compilation errors, the retelling of fables and myths from Akkadian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Phoenician and many other cultures that traded and merged with the Tribes of Israel.
These myths and Fables are interwoven with a true message, but the message has been altered by thousands of years of intentional corruption, plagiarism and greed.
In response to the statement of mankind being generally good at heart; anyone interested, the Bible has a different take on that: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” And,
“They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” And, “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
Doesn’t sound too good for the condition of mankind, does it? There are exceptions; my atheist parent is generally liked by everybody, doesn’t have a criminal record, wouldn’t harm a fly, gives to charity. Is fine with hating Christ at 93 years of age. Admires Stalin.
Well, okay then.
Regarding the ‘wicked’ rather than the ‘righteous’ (in Christ) being taken ‘out,’ one eminently qualified Bible researcher writes that the enemy of our souls will have to explain the a`rpa,zw/harpazo/rapturo: a cover story. Suffice it to say, those nasty ole’ intolerant bigots are purged from the earth. Now the rest of the world can get on with the business of ‘peace and safety.’ Hope and Change maybe.
Jesus was born during the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles, and was crucified on Passover. Christ was buried during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and arose from the grave during the Feast of First Fruits. He sent the Holy Spirit (Comforter) forty days later to the upper room on the Feast of Pentecost, and up next is Rosh Hashanah, covering two (changing lunar calendar) days each autumn, otherwise known as the “Feast of Trumpets.”
Paul writes, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed…at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
Isaiah writes, “Your dead shall live; Together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you (righteous) who dwell in dust; For your dew is like the dew of herbs, And the earth shall cast out the dead.” Revelation 4, “Come up here…” following nothing further is written regarding ‘the church.’
It’s unfortunate that Mr. Camping had such a public FAIL, but he has nothing on the thousands of zealot secularists spreading liberalisms falsehoods in every nation on the planet.
It’s interesting. I’ve rather skimmed the remarks of the preaching Christians, but none of you is annoying. Your intent in benign – you really believe our souls are in danger, and if you witness fervently, and argue convincingly enough, you might contribute to other readers’ salvation.
Good for you.
The one really annoying post was from an atheist.
Whatever my personal beliefs, I have a lot more time for the Christians.
Thanks for being fine examples, folks.
Everyone, please see my update at the end of the post:
UPDATE:
Harold Camping “flabbergasted” world didn’t end
This is great news as I was having terrible visions of the NBA Finals being swallowed up in a great lava-lit crack in the earth with lots of screaming and pitchforks waiting in the depths.
May as well make your reservation for Chichen-Itza next year where there is sure to be lots of morons dressed up like Mayans with stepped pyramid hats and signs in Mayan glyphs.
≈∝∅☃…:…:˚‡•✜☺▲▼☠☻☹◗●™
It would be really nice if he would:
1. apologize
2. admit that he’s given people yet more excuses to mock and ignore the Gospel
3. step-down from preaching and retire.
Harold Camping is not a fundamentalist but a gnostic.
The first fundamental of fundamentalism is a belief in Scripture. Mark 13:32 clearly says; “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Mr. Camping named not only the day but the hour. Did he assume that he knew more than the Son? He obviously had to disregard Mark 13:32 and Matthew 24:36 to make such a claim. Exceptionally bad form if he was a true fundamentalist.
Mr. Camping is however a gnostic. Early gnostics claimed to have a higher knowledge of Scripture than the average Christian. (gnosis = knowledge) Mr. Campling claimed to possess a knowledge denied to mere mortals, angels, and even to the Son of God. The claim puts him squarely in the gnostic camp.
Now here‘s an issue we can agree on: You are correct that Camping completely disregarded a crucial passage in the Bible in order to justify his so-called accurate conclusions from the Bible. And as such he’s quite the opposite of a literalist.
And also yes, one of the early branches of the Gnostics was a descendent of the “mystery religions” of the Hellenistic period (and later periods), in which there was secret knowledge which you could only acquire as you rose through the ranks of adepts, going through various bizarre rituals to become more bonded to the religion. (Not all Gnostic sects were structured like this, but some were.) That was one of the unique things about early Christianity: all knowledge was available to all members. Shocking for its era.
Interestingly, a prototypical example of these kinds of hierarchical “mystery religions” can be found in modern times: Scientology, which has secret knowledge you only acquire when you rise to certain levels (and of course fork over sufficient $$$).
To note Camping’s blunder, and remember to never repeat it ourselves, let’s listen to a song that I like to consider the agnostics’ theme song (especially the lyrics that go, “The greatest thing is to know: that what you don’t know, you don’t know”), but which is actually just Mark 13:32 put to a rock-steady beat:
Save a Bread – Justin Hinds & The Dominoes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3KBpV1yCxs
Agreed. Thanks for the link.
Thank you, but I think I do know.
I’ll call your “Justin Hines” and raise you Ravi Zacharais, who has debated every argument an agnostic or athesist can bring up. I could throw in Josh McDowell, Ray Comfort and Joe Stowell, but I’m too shy to do that.
Incidentally, I consider the KJV version to be highly credible, I don’t know which authors in whom you trust, unless it’s those who support your own views. My parent reads James Mitchner to learn about the Bible, and any Marxist/Socialist who ever owned a typewriter.
Life is like a coin to spend, but to spend only once. In this country we are (currently) free to live how we please, so why not just enjoy spending your ‘coin’ and let others enjoy spending theirs.
I meant “Lee Stroebel,” a former athesist who exhaustively researched the claims of scripture following his wife’s conversion to Christianity. Joe is the president of Cornerstone University, and a Christian author/speaker.
The media template is that Mr. Camping is a “fundamentalist preacher.” I have heard it several times on the radio. It is simply another attempt to smear all people who take the Bible serious as kooks.
The irony, as you and I have both noted, is that Mr. Camping did not take the Bible seriously. He was not a literalist as you say. In many ways he comes closer to a liberal christian who does not accept the Bible as the inspired and inerrant Word of God.
Zombie, love the song. “Agnostic” always sounds a bit wishy washy to me even though in strict technical terms it may be an accurate description. I wonder, have you ever considered calling yourself an apatheist? (This is an actual thing, you can look it up in Wikipedia.) We apatheists simply don’t care about the question, “Is there a God?” To me, I can’t ascribe any meaning to the question. I simply don’t know what it means. If I don’t know what it means, I can’t say I agree or disagree with it, or even say I am not yet decided about it. I don’t care about it.
We apatheists are also very tolerant. I don’t care what you believe or disbelieve so long as you don’t try to force that belief or disbelief on me.
Sure, I might be an “apatheist,” but I’m not sure how widely known the term is. But I definitely agree with the “I don’t care what you believe or disbelieve so long as you don’t try to force that belief or disbelief on me” part.
I don’t go around trumpeting my agnosticism. It’s just that if anyone asks, I shrug my shoulders — a shrug that conveys a deeps-seated not knowing, which leads to (as you say) not caring. Not an aggressive not caring; more like an “Eh, I’m busy with life at the moment.”
It is strange that this same sort of people who ridicule Camping received with wild enthusiasm at Columbia University a man who says that the End will come when the Twelfth Imam comes out of a certain well.
You mean, when he crawls out of a hole in the ground.
Nice reporting, Zombie. Well done.
FWIW, I just checked the local FR affiliate & heard Camping discussing the book of Ruth.
Kipling: (I can’t reply below your post so here it is here)
Actually, you do not come out well on any of the points you raise;
Scripture— I think we can both agree that the Koran can be dismissed as an obvious self-serving product of Mohamed’s imagination. But the Bible is full of ridicules absurdities that reveal it to be obviously a product from an age of superstitions, belief in magic and confusion regarding the laws of nature and cosmology.
Culture—faith in the Christian world is slipping (Europe is full of empty churches) while faith in the Islamic world seems to be firm. So, if you want to argue that looking at culture can divine supernatural endorsement, you have some real problems.
Bin Ladin and suicide bombers – yes, vile indeed, but let’s not forget the inquisition and the burning of witches and mathematicians (numerologists).
Christianity produced Western Civilization – While Christianity certainly did make its contributions you claim too much for it. Western Civilization was at least 500 years old at the birth of Jesus, and it is with good reason that we call that 1,000 year period when Christian thinking overpowered Hellenistic thinking up until the Renaissances, the Dark Ages. Indeed, it was almost as if Christianity was at war with Western Civilization – it ended the centuries long tradition in the west of science, free philosophical inquiry, theater, sports (it was Christians that ended the Olympics) mathematics and the spectacular achievements of Hellenistic art. So what was it that was being “reborn” in the Renaissances? Hellenistic (Western) Culture. It came back so powerfully that Christian thinking had to retreat to the point where even the Papal apartment was decorated with images Apollo and the great thinkers of pagan Greece.
Randy,
I did not raise any points. I asked where you would like to begin the discussion.
Your response above is simply a response to your own preconceived notions of what I would say in regard to each of the avenues I proposed. Please do not try to argue my side of the discussion as well as your own.
Let us look at your points one by one.
1. You stated: “But the Bible is full of ridicules absurdities that reveal it to be obviously a product from an age of superstitions, belief in magic and confusion regarding the laws of nature and cosmology.”
Please provide evidence and specific examples rather than general assumptions. Let us not deal in generalities but get to the heart of the matter.
2. I never made the statement that culture means divine endorsement. Not sure where you are getting that from but it is not from my initial post. Once again, you are responding to what you assume I would say.
3. Bin Ladin and the buring of witches. To prove your point and equate the two, you will need to show where Christ sanctioned and even encouraged the burning of witches. I can point to several references in the Koran that encourage jihad and the slaughter/enslavemet of non-believers.
Here you make the mistake of equating culture with Christianity. Something that I have not done.
4. Historians have largely abandoned the concept of calling the Middle Ages the Dark Ages. The practice actual began with the Renaissance as a way to connect themselves with the ancient Golden Age by discounting the intervening years.
5. Western civilization owes much to the Jewish tradition – as mentioned in most western civilization textbooks. Jesus Christ was after all a Jewish Messiah and the product of that culture. Thus the Judeo-Christian heritage predates the 500 years you mentioned.
6. You also make the mistake of glorifying both the ancient Golden Age of Greece and Rome as well as the Renaissance. You must take the good with the bad. The Greeks gave us intercene warfare that destroyed themselves and led to attempts at global conquest. Rome was a vicious machine that destoryed its opponents and eventually collapsed because few cared to fight for it. The Renaissance gave us good art but it also gave us political corruption, the Borgias and Medicis.
If you care to continue the discussion, please let us deal with reality and specifics. I would also encourage you to only argue your side of the discussion and not attempt to speak for me. Now, where would you like to begin?
1. You stated: “But the Bible is full of ridicules absurdities that reveal it to be obviously a product from an age of superstitions, belief in magic and confusion regarding the laws of nature and cosmology.”
Please provide evidence and specific examples rather than general assumptions. Let us not deal in generalities but get to the heart of the matter.
Seriously?
Talking snakes, rib-woman, noah’s ark, etc. for starters.
Professor of quantum physics at Cambridge University, Dr. John Polkinghorne: ‘Ladies and gentlemen…if you look at the early picoseconds of this universe and analyze just one contingent, the expansion and relation to the contraction, do you know how precise that had to be?’ ‘It would be like taking aim at a one-square-inch object at the other end of the universe twenty billion light years away and hitting it bull’s eye. Gentlemen, there is no free lunch. Somebody has to pay.’
Today, Dr. John Polkinghorne, is an Anglican priest.
Dr. Frank Tipler, Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University: “When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them.”
Actually, I’ve seen and heard things in my lifetime that make believing in talking serpents easy. (What spoke to Eve was a ‘serpent’ subsequently cursed to ‘go on your belly…’as a snake.)
Rib? Scientist Carl Sagan proposed that aliens dropped by and ‘seeded’ the earth; perhaps with Darwin’s monkeys. Tough luck for today’s monkeys who missed the evolution bus, musta been something good on TV that night.
Nearly every major culture has some form of ‘Noah’ story, as chronicled by author Don Richardson, so again, not a problem for me to accept. I read about explorers finding and photographing the remnants of Noah’s Ark years ago.
A bigger conundrum than snakes, ribs, and arks is this: When Jesus told Peter that He could call ‘legions’ of angels come and put a stop to what was about to happen….He didn’t.
After seeing all those great fun photos all I can say is I WISH I HAD BEEN THERE. It sure looks like they all had a great fun time waiting for the end of the world.
REPENT SINNERS! Or you’re all going to rot in the bottom of the bowl for all eternity when the Rupture comes!!!!!
(Sorry, my goldfish made me do it.)
Mr. Zombie,
Something about our discussion of Josephus struck me as off so I went back and checked some of my primary sources.
You stated: “Sorry, but the one possible reference to Jesus in Josephus is now known to be a later addition inserted by a Christian copyist many many centuries after the fact. He did so for the very reason that it was so embarrassing that Josephus never mentioned the very thing he ought to have been consumed by.”
According to my copy of Josephus, Jesus is mentioned twice in two separate entries. James, the brother of Jesus, is mentioned once. And John the Baptist is also mentioned. So instead of the one reference you dismiss, Josephus actually contains four separate references that confirm the Biblical account.
You state that the one possible reference (there are actually two) was added by a Christian copyist “many many centuries after the fact.” Yet, Eusebius mentions the passage in his history of the church written in the 300s.
An Arabic translation derived from Jewish copies other than the Christian copyists also bears the same reference. Did the Arabs also falsify ther document in the exact same way to promote the Messianic claims of Christ? Now, that would be a conspiracy.
The evidence in these primary source documents tend to contradict your claim.
@6.Ilpalazzo: what you, apparently, don’t know (as it wasn’t reported since nobody in the media bothered to actually listen to any of camping’s broadcasts) is that he blames the final days on the fact that gay citizens have achieved some legal rights in our society…which explains why those “frikkin gays” showed up and the meaning of their signs.
There was a Rapture! I was taken up, and then sent back … with a message.
The blow up dolls were a prank type thing by the local band “the Phenomenauts” they do a lot of wacky stuff but its usually relegated to their shows.
Here’s their video
http://youtu.be/r-XuIc_Lmp8
I should also add that they used hydrogen instead of helium. Which is incredibly dangerous since its explosive.
Where is everyone? Slow night? Did everyone get Raptured? Ha!
Zombie –
As always good job. Been following your stuff for 5 years. While you and I agree on a lot of things politically (I’m a conservative with a serious libertarian bent), you and I don’t agree on this, as I believe in the Teachings of Christ and the Word of God in the Bible. However, as a human with secular beliefs as well as those of a Christian, I deeply respect your reporting and am a fan. I don’t always like the content of your essays, but of course I live in this world and cannot hide from it and at times must be exposed to the foul crap in it – crazies, anti-Semites, exposed private parts and all.
As for Harold Camping…sigh.
Numerous examples of timing of the 2nd Coming are littered throughout history.
As a Believer – and I DO believe in a taking away of believers and am not ashamed in this – this kind of thing; the timing of the rapture and public exposure of such heresy, only brings shame to me. The public blowing up of a very personal belief only tarnishes us that only subscribe to the Bible and try to honestly convince others of the Truth within.
A sad occasion.
Matthew 24:36. All I needed to do was recall this when I heard of the Camping folks.
It is faith…not codes and secrets. I get tired of that bullcrap. It is the height of hubris to predict that which God the Father has kept for Himself. Hubris…exaggerated pride or self confidence…otherwise defined as self righteousness. Christians fall to the temptation of pride all the time and the media is always there to catch them. Sigh. Those of us who aren’t like them suffer in silence as the world falls further away. Only makes living our way harder. Anyway…
Zombie, I expect you don’t believe this…nor do most commentators…but I expect you to respect this as my belief and not yours.
Again, great job Zombie.
Of course I respect your belief. My skepticism is not an aggressive one — more like a laissez-faire skepticism, e.g. I. don’t require or insist that everyone else think as I do.
Glad you’re a fan, and sorry I can’t sugar-coat the grotesque reality of some of the things I cover. Life may be nasty brutish and short, but hopefully I can make it somewhat amusing as well.
Zombie – Thanks for the reply. I knew you’d respect my beliefs because if there’s been any common thread in all of the essay’s I’ve read of yours, it’s been a non-judgmental one in terms of beliefs.
Of course I’m a fan…I like those who think like me…and those who, like you, are intelligent and can present cogent thoughts and ideas in a clear and philosophically consistent way.
Do not apologize for the lack of sugar-coating. Like I said, I have to live in this world; I cannot run from it. Sometimes I must either confront or be confronted by things I seriously disagree with. No big deal.
By the way…just finished your great essay on education…ever read John Taylor Gatto?
Or better said: Ever read anything BY John Taylor Gatto? Good stuff about the foundations of our modern public school indoctrin – OOPS – “education” system.