May 22, 2011

Still Here...

That was awkward. "No one knows the day or the hour..." Mathew 24:36

Well guys, it's the evening of May 22, 2011, more than 24 hours after the Rapture was supposed to have occurred. I saw no one raptured into Heaven, there was no discernible earthquake in my area, and nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever happened on May 21, 2011 (except for an insane amount of REM quotes on Facebook). At 6pm I was getting back to the hotel room in Pam Desert after an afternoon reading by the pool. No end of the world travesty. In fact, it felt a little like paradise.

Little surprise there. If I actually did feel an earthquake and people were suddenly recalled to Heaven I probably would have had a stroke. But what about all those "true believers" who were fully expecting to experience the second coming of Christ last night?

This is both depressing and hilarious.

Some felt confusion, some felt bewilderment, and all felt disappointed. I'm sure some also felt embarrassment for having believed some crazy whacko as strongly as they did, some even going so far as to give up homes, jobs and family to travel the country and spread the "awesome news" that the world would end May 21, 2011.

So, what happened to these people once they woke up on May 22, 2011 and realized they were wrong? Since there was supposedly "no Plan B," not even an obscure chance that May 22 would come for the saved, there's no turning back. Some will be destitute, some might go crawling back to the families they left behind. But there's a concern that these uber devout might turn to suicide as a means of coping with this severe loss and disappointment.

But there's a problem with this (and I realize it's a logical issue being applied to illogical people, but bear with me): Christians are forbidden from committing suicide. So no matter how bad their sorrow is at being wrong/left behind/whatever, they have to bear it until their natural or otherwise-not-self-inflicted deaths. This brings me to another logical problem I have with this whole rapture ordeal: some people truly believed this was God's telling them May 21, 2011 would be the date of the rapture, not a crazy old man who's been wrong before. And while I'm on my rant, the crazy old man who came up with this whole thing HAS BEEN WRONG BEFORE!

Harold Camping, however, isn't admitting lunacy. He says May 21 was an "invisible judgement day" and that the world will still come to an end October 21, 2011. And, of course, he's keeping donated money because he's not wrong.

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