So the world didn't blow up. Or get raptured. Or whatever the fuck was supposed to happen this weekend that didn't.
There's a lot of people out there now heartily mocking Harold Camping's apocalyptic prediction and the dumb people who took it seriously. And they should.
But, you know, Camping's stupid religion isn't stranger or more "out there" than any of the other competing faiths. At least Camping put his set of beliefs up for an actual empirical test. And now we can see it's Grade A bullshit.
Many of the people who are now laughing at his believers owe their owe allegiances to religious institutions pushing claims that are equally or more absurd. But almost all of these institutions, even the ones with their own specific brand of End Timeism, have long ago learned the secret to keeping their lucrative fraud rolling: Don't be specific!
Keep it all vague and murky.
God is coming. The Promises will be fulfilled.
"But no one can know the hour or the day." Blah blah blah.
Just don't lose your faith. You'll be rewarded...eventually. Whatever, dude.
It's a con that can run forever. And probably will.
That's how it's generally done. But Camping, somehow, never got the memo. He --as opposed to,say, the Catholic Church or your local Baptist preacher-- actually did give his followers the oppurtunity to empirically test the mettle of his claims.
How unchristian of him.
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