It's the End of the World As We Know It...sing along!

Second verse, same as the first...few thousand. Isn't it at this point?

Some other group has crunched the 'Biblical numbers' and come up with a date for the End of the World. So, you know, give away all your stuff and stop paying your bills. Because either you'll be up in Heaven or down here getting poked in the ass with a pitch fork.

The world will end, according to Mr. Harold Camping, on May 21, 2011. Or, well, the Rapture will occur at least. It's not like the planet'll explode or anything. So I guess I don't have to worry about turning 29. Hah.

You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes. Real. Hard.

In the first place, this guy has *already* predicted the Rapture once. And, lo and behold, we're still here. His original prediction was for September 6, 1994. Did *anything* special happen on that date? Nothing comes to mind. And I think we'd notice the Second Coming.

Secondly, the Rapture is not Biblical. Okay? I've had this argument with someone from work and no, neither of us changed our mind, but the Rapture just ain't in there. It might make entertaining fiction, but it's not a sound Biblical doctrine.

Third, from what I've read his 'system' is numerology of his own design. He assigned, or, forgive me. He *discovered* that certain words have certain numbers associated with them in the Bible. And because the Bible was *dictated* by God that must have some meaning. He's matched 5 with atonement, 10 with completeness and 17 with Heaven. Then, according to Camping, Christ was crucified on April 1, 33 CE. And then he counted forward to April 1, 2011. Which is 1,978 years. Then he multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 which is the number of days in a solar year. Next he counted the days between April 1 to May 21, which is 51 days. He added that to his previous total (1978x365.2422=722449.08) to get 722,500.08. Only he reports it's 722,500. So I guess anything after the decimal point isn't important. Whee! I didn't know that I got to ignore parts of numbers rather than dealing with them in math. How fascinating.

This led him to realize that (5x10x17)x(5x10x17) = 722,500 or AtonementxCompletenessxHeaven squared. And that's why he's right and the world is going to start to come to an end on May 21 this year.

I don't even- *why* does this make sense to some people? *points up* This is math-y gobbldeygook! I guess it's true that there's a sucker born every minute...What's the significance of the 51 days in his math? Why did he pick 51? Or was it the date that made a difference? Or maybe, just maybe, he was just looking for some mathematical formula that would match the numbers that he had magically assigned meaning to. And what about that .08? Oooh...I know! When May 21 rolls on through and the world doesn't end he'll use that as the hook on which to hang his *next* calculation.

But getting back to my third point. Numerology is a form of divination, which is forbidden. Right there with talking with the dead, reading entrails, the bones, or the cards. Trying to divine the future is FOR. BID. DEN. What part of that is not clear?

Fourth, I seem to recall there being a passage in the Bible saying that no man knows the day or the hour? Yes? Or am I just making that one up. Anyway. Camping says that 'Noah knew' in response to this problem with his magic numbers theory-majig. Yes. Well. Noah knew because God *told him*. Like, face to voice, Noah heard it from God Himself. Camping's not claiming that God told him. He's just claiming that he figured it out. So 'Noah knew' doesn't save his 'argument'. And those are sarcastic air quotes around 'argument', for the record.

*headdesk*

And for tomorrows lesson, 'why ouija boards are a bad idea'. Take one million and three.