Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe world did not end on May 21, as California religious broadcaster Harold Camping predicted. No earthquakes at 6 p.m. local time. No heavenly 'rapture' of any kind occurred. And nobody's pets head to be taken care of by others.The last time a person claiming to speak for God got this much attention, he was burning Korans in Florida with Afghans rioting in response.
This time, with plenty of help from Camping's radio network, followers and the news media, everyone knew that Judgment Day was coming. Make your plans now to be saved, or to get left behind and face horrible disasters.
Well, some of those horrible disasters have already occurred in the past few months. An earthquake in Japan that caused a nuclear disaster there, and tsunamis across the Pacific. Tornadoes that devastated Alabama and Minnesota. Flooding in Memphis and points south of the Mississippi River. Osama bin Laden is dead. Donald Trump almost ran for President. Yes, doomsday was upon us.
But on the day of the predicted apocalypse, there were no breaking news alerts from CNN and no warnings from the Department of Homeland Security. President Barack Obama and members of the government (as far as we know) weren't holed up in a bunker someplace. Life went on as usual.
The wake-up call from Camping and his followers was a mixed blessing. At worst, he might have caused some depressed individuals to decide that this might be a good time to take their own lives.
It may not have been Camping's intention, but he may have caused some soul searching among those of us to consider what we would do if it really was the last day of our lives. Would it be a time of reflection on what did or didn't happen in our lives? Would we take the time to say goodbye to everyone we knew? Or would we want to go out in one big blaze of glory?
Camping claimed he got his information from reading chapters relating to the Second Coming from the Bible, did the math, and came up with May 21, 2011. Then it was noted that Camping made a similar prediction about the world coming to an end in 1994. So he's 0-2.
Truth is, predictions about the end of the world have been around since there's been a world. The real purpose, it seems, is to scare people into believing in something that may or may not exist, or in a book that people either consider BS or believe in it totally. Oh, and a few bucks to support the cause wouldn't hurt either.
Apocalypse-watchers (and we know you're out there) have already moved on to December 12, 2012. That's when the Mayan calendar is supposed to end, and all sorts of calamities would occur. We'll believe it when we see it.
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