The Ultimate Deadline
(C) 2015
Ray X - 9/19/15
Time is running
out. I am feverishly
writing this piece, hoping that it will be completed and published, because I
will die at any moment.
Why? The end of the world will occur sometime
between September 15th (Did you note we're still here?) and the 28th.
Yes, the
end is nigh again. (Yawn.) I suspect I'll survive this doomsday like all
the previous ones.
So what
has set off the doommongers again?
Before it was Y2K screwing up all the computers, then some stuff about
the Mayan calendar running out of days.
This
time we have the omen of a blood moon and a group of asteroids that will smack
the shit out of the Earth.
Why
hasn't anyone learned from previous doomsdays that the end will come like a
thief in the night (unlike the cable TV guy who never shows up in the morning).
With
that question in mind I did some quick Google research to see what the experts
had to say.
The top
Google hits went back to 2011 when octogenarian Bible scholar Harold Camping
said the world was going to end that year.
He divined this knowledge from his close interpretation of the Holy Book
(apparently he glossed over the thief in the night bit). Camping first predicted the cosmic crap
hitting the celestial fan on May 21st.
May 22nd
rolled around and guess what didn't happen.
So no doomsday then? Not for a
committed doommonger like Camping who dug deeper into his research. He now claimed both the Rapture and the
Apocalypse would occur on October 21st, a two-for-one special.
You know
the rest.
Camping
did put an interesting twist on his doomsday scenario. The world would be destroyed by a series of
earthquakes traveling from time zone to time zone. [1] Destruction would first occur on May 21st,
2011 in the time zone that saw 6 PM first (Did that calculation include
Daylight Savings Time?). So long, Pago
Pago. We hardly knew thee.
According
to CNN Camping raked in some dough.
Suckers -- oops, I mean followers -- donated to Camping $80 million from
2005 to 2009. [2] Some of his followers
were left penniless. After all no need
for money after the Rapture. Might as well donate Junior's college education
fund -- he'll never finish his freshman year.
(That did happen.)
So here
we go again, a new doomsday, a new circus.
Why do
people fall for the End Times deception?
Lorenzo
DiTommaso, a professor of religion at Concordia University, observed that
doomsday believers try to reconcile two conflicting beliefs. [3]
People believe the world is a bad place, that humans can't find solutions
to many great problems. On the other
hand a "cosmic correction" will prove that there is meaning to
existence, a Final Reward will be provided.
Doomsday isn't chaos: it's proof of order.
Shmuel
Lissek, University of Minnesota neuroscientist, echoed the comforting aspects.
[4] She gave the example of someone
anticipating a painful experience like an electric shock. Once the pain has passed the person can relax
(unless we're talking about the Executive Monkey). Knowing the future takes away uncertainty. Doomsdayers can focus on a common goal,
preparing for the Big Finale.
I
remember survivalist Kurt Saxon made a comment on his radio program many years
ago. He was annoyed with wacko
conspiracy theories and the people who believed in them.
He cited
the example of the little old lady who lives alone, waiting for the day the
government would round up everyone and put them in concentration camps. In such a camp, Kurt said, she would have no
more responsibilities. No uncertainty.
Or as I
sum up: Free at last.
[1] The
Rapture Is Not Saturday; It's Tonight - Tina Dupuy May 20, 2011
[2] Harold Camping called “liar” who made
‘Doomsday’ money on defaced Wiki page - By Hao Li on May 21 2011
[3] The Draw of Doomsday: Why People Look
Forward to the End by Stephanie
Pappas, Live Science Contributor Date:
16 May 2011
[4] Psychology Reveals the Comforts of the
Apocalypse By Daisy Yuhas | December
18, 2012
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