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Doomsday prophets are often depicted in cartoon as bearded , garbed mankind standing on street recession with signs reading , " The End is Now " or " Repent ! " It ’s a cunning caricature , but very dated . These sidereal day forerunner of the apocalypse — peculiarly Christian fundamentalists — are get their content out via Twitter , Facebook , pamphlets , radio set shows and hoarding .
It ’s not decipherable what , exactly , the public is suppose to do with this information . Most people perhaps respond with a shrug , take that it ’s anotherfailed spiritual doomsday forecasting . Others may assume that that if the world really is going to end soon , there ’s not much point in worrying about it .
Though mainstream churches have typically shied away from forebode that Armageddon is imminent ( or its day of the month even knowable ) , plenty of self - styled prophets believe they know the genuine verity . One of them is Harold Camping , the 89 - yr - old leader of the ministry Family Radio Worldwide , whose study of the Bible has convinced him and his followers that theworld will cease on May 21 , 2011 . Actually , the complete destruction may take up to six month , but for sure no one should make programme for Thanksgiving or Christmas .
Fundamentalist Christians have a long and colorful history of searching for — and mistakenly believe they have found — clues about when Jesus would return to Earth and bring about the concluding judgment . In the early 1800s farmer William Miller conclude from a Bible study that the world would end April 23 , 1843 . It did not . [ Infographic : A abbreviated History of Doomsday ]
The public is intelligibly fascinated by the conception , from cataclysm film to scientific discipline fiction . concord to authors Jim and Barbara Willis in their book " Armageddon Now : The End of the World A to Z " ( Visible Ink Press , 2005 ) , Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins ' Armageddon - themed " allow for Behind " books have sell over 65 million copies and remain one of the good - selling fabrication series in print .
Part of the confusion stanch from contradictory Bible passages about when Jesus will riposte . Matthew 24:36 State Department explicitly that " Of that day and hour knoweth no one , not even the angels of heaven , neither the Son , but the Father only , " while Matthew 16:28 understandably suggest that Jesus would riposte during this disciple ’s lifespan : " There be some standing here , which shall not taste of destruction , till they see the Son of Man do in his land . “The Bible also gives mixed messages about whether the Earth will be demolish ; 2 Peter 3:10 commonwealth that " The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up , " while Ecclesiastes1:4 states that " The earth shall abideth forever . "
It should be noted thatCamping ’s caterpillar track disk of Revelation of Saint John the Divine predictionsis somewhat uneven . He was antecedently certain that the world would end in September of 1994 , and prepared himself for the event . The notable lack of ecstasy did not dissuade Camping , who went back to the Bible , did some numerological trick , and recalculatedthe real Doomsday as May 21 . Time will tell if he ’s right , but either agency it ’s not a defective thought to tell acquaintance and mob how much they mean to you .
Benjamin Radford is deputy editor program ofSkeptical Inquirerscience magazine and author ofScientific Paranormal Investigation : How to lick Unexplained Mysteries . His Web web site is www.RadfordBooks.com .
