AFTER re-crunching a bunch of numbers in the Bible, doddery old US evangelist Harold Camping has calculated that the world will go kaput on in May 2011. On that date Jesus will return to harvest the souls of the faithful.
Harold Camping: Photo Photo: Lance Iversen / The Chronicle
Back in the early 90s, the 88-year-old head of the Oakland-based, evangelical Family Radio station, predicted that it would end in 1994.
On September 6 of that year, dozens of Camping’s believers gathered inside Alameda’s Veterans Memorial Building to await the return of Christ. Followers dressed children in their Sunday best and held Bibles open-faced toward heaven.
But, as we all know, the world did not end, forcing Camping, a former engineer, to admit that he may have made a mathematical error.
He spent the next decade running new calculations alongside his media empire, and came up with 2011.
Employees at the Oakland office run printing presses that publish Camping’s pamphlets and books, and some wear T-shirts that read, “May 21, 2011″. They are happy to talk about the day they believe their souls will be retrieved by Christ.
Said Ted Solomon, 60, who started listening to Camping in 1997:
I’m looking forward to it. This world may have had an attraction to me at one time, but now it’s definitely lost its appeal.
As a young man, Camping owned an East Bay construction business but longed to work as a servant of God.
Because I was an engineer, I was very interested in the numbers. I’d wonder, ‘Why did God put this number in, or that number in?’ It was not a question of unbelief, it was a question of, ‘There must be a reason for it.’
The octogenarian believes the Bible was dictated by God and every word and number carries a spiritual significance. He noticed that particular numbers appeared in the Bible at the same time particular themes are discussed.
His full calculation appears in this report.
James Kreuger, author of Secrets of the Apocalypse – Revealed, has been studying the end of times for 40 years and is familiar with Camping’s work. While Kreuger agrees that the rapture is indeed coming, he disputes Camping’s calculations.
For all his learning, Camping makes a classic beginner’s mistake when he sets a date for Christ’s return. Jesus himself said in Matthew 24:36, ‘Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my father only’.
Camping’s believers will have none of it. Rick LaCasse, who attended the September 1994 service in Alameda, said that 15 years later, his faith in Camping has only strengthened.
Evidently, he was wrong, but this time it is going to happen. There was some doubt last time, but we didn’t have any proofs. This time we do.
Would this nutter’s opinion of Camping change if May 21, 2011, ended without incident?
I can’t even think like that. Everything is too positive right now. There’s too little time to think like that.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 3rd, 2010 at 12:33 pm
I think this latterday Millerite has made a slight computational error. Jesus, if born at all, was born around 4BCE or 6CE which means there’s a 50% chance the world ends in 2007 and a 50% chance for 2017. Since it didn’t happen in 2007 there’s only a 50% chance for 2017…….but if you multiply the 4 year error times the six year error times the distnce in Angstroms from Camping’s butt to the nearest banana it comes out that the world will actally end in about a trillion years which coincides beautifully with M theory and the ekpyrotic universe hypothesis which was dictated by dog as part of the hidden mysteries of the apocalypse of Junius, the text of which has unfortunately been lost. Anyway I wouldn’t worry none about 2011……got to make it through 2010 first!
January 3rd, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I wonder if as the date draws nearer, Camping will adopt the same tactic as Wayne Bent (aka Michael Travesser), the incarcerated sex pest who led the ‘End of the World’ cult. Decide a few days before May 11th that… well, actually the Earth isn’t going to literally see the End of Days, but there will be some major spiritual ‘changes’ that are naturally invisible. In Bent’s case they actually occurred inside him so only he could feel them.
This can’t square very well with those who have flooded the Internet with premonitions of Armageddon coming in 2012, hence inspiration for last year’s SFX-feast disaster film. Perhaps they might concur that the Almighty brought it forward as he is sick of the financial meltdown leaving certain Biblical quarters underfunded.
January 3rd, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Here we go again: Harold Camping! “You couldn’t make it up!!”
January 3rd, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Well is 2011 or 2012??
I wish these guys would sort themselves out, it makes getting life insurance very difficult…
January 3rd, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Harold Camping = “Am Nigh!”: Old Crap!!
January 3rd, 2010 at 2:47 pm
@Stuart W is correct. These people will not be fazed, even as William Miller was not: “The time…is now filled up; and I expect every moment to see the Savior descend from heaven.” Some of his followers came up with the idea, from a verse in Revelation, that Jesus was sitting on a white cloud up in the sky somewhere, ready to “Come On Down!” when enough prayers had been offered up!! This is similar to the chicanery used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses (Russellites) to explain the failure of their Messiah to materialize on past occasions – he has apparently set up his kingdom “in the heavens” etc, etc!!!
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:43 pm
This reminded me of number crunching that has been attempted before…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
* Apologies for the BBC Religious propaganda
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Funny how even though there’s literally a verse in the Bible saying that “no man knows the day or the hour” etc, that preachers keep trying to make stupid predictions.
If I was a god and some yahoo made a prediction about me ending the world and they were actually right, I’d change my plans just to spite them.
When I was a fundie, seemed like the preachers would set the “end of the world” date about two years ahead, just close enough to scare people, and just far enough away that people might forget about it when the date actually arrives. Most of those preachers are smart enough to just use a year instead of a specific date, so you can scare your audience without having to prepare for an actual (potentially embarrassing) event.
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:51 pm
You’re right, Lucky Jean (won the lottery again then?); even Jesus didn’t know when he was coming back again, because his daddy wouldn’t tell him!! I was a fundamentalist too, for years, and remember that way back in the 1950s his return was “imminent”, but they’re not in the least bit embarrassed about this, and merely retort: “Well, look how much more imminent it must be now, then!”
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:55 pm
It is a pity these end of timers don’t all have a mass suicide at the predicted time and leave the rest of us in peace. Seriously, the various religious factions are doing their best to start World war 3 to bring on their end of times.
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:31 pm
It actually would be good if it did happen in May 20011….the silly beggers would be gone then….leaving the world to rationalists and normal folk….it would also be really helpful if all the faithful of all religions left…..inlcluding Bin Laden…then we would finally know where he was as been all this time…..since 2 trillion dollars US could not find him.
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Every few months or so I go off to give a pint of blood away for the benefit of others. The venue for this act of altruism is of course a local church hall. There are quite a lot of books kicking around and on one visit I spotted “The Late Great Planet Earth” by Hal Linsey. This book was written in the early seventies and predicted that the world would end sometime during the eighties. Twenty odd years later we are all still here and yet this book has yet to hit the trash can.
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Hahaha!!! I have in the barriejohn library (to be bequeathed to the nation upon my demise) copies of both that book and “Satan Is Alive And Well On Planet Earth”, Stonyground! I can’t tell you how popular Hal Lindsey was back in the “good old days”: another of those “You can be hip and intellectual and still be a Bible-believing Christian” types. The evangelicals love them. Amazingly, Lindsey is still going strong, and has a website, and just like the others is not in the least bit fazed by the fact that his Saviour has still not “reappeared”! Still – maybe tomorrow, eh?
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Oh, heck. That’s almost a year and a half. Eat! Drink! Be merry!
On May 10th, repent.
January 3rd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
I’ve just had a closer look at Hal Lindsey’s website, and I see that he is claiming now that “Climate Change” is going to be the vehicle for the introduction of “a socialist new world order”! (I should point out here that he is a rabid Republican and Zionist as well as an evangelical premillennial dispensationalist. So much for Christians keeping out of politics.) This is nothing like his interpretation of “prophecy” in the 1970s. Thus it ever is with these people – they simply lurch from one bizarre interpretation of the Bible to another, seemingly oblivious to the fact that what they are so confidently saying now directly contradicts the predictions that they made in the past. They are truly beyond parody!
January 3rd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Couldn’t the end wait until after the Olympics?
January 3rd, 2010 at 10:10 pm
At least I’ll get to celebrate my birthday on the 10th May then, Mike – hahaha!!!
And Neuseline: to some of us, being spared the Olympics will be a true Godsend!!
January 4th, 2010 at 12:13 am
The world will end on a Wednesday? How thoroughly, utterly depressing
January 4th, 2010 at 1:39 am
Around my parts (near Boston, MA USA) some light stands still have posters from that era (error). Back then, the end timers made yet another stupid mistake: they printed their end of the world proclamations on rather rigid stock. It has withstood over a decade of life as we know it.
However, if this is really the moment, I am looking forward to a complete absence of these idiots.
January 4th, 2010 at 4:03 am
Do you think they will sign over their worldly assets to us non-believers before their “rapture”?
January 4th, 2010 at 4:06 am
Hey, you know what may be fun? Challenge them to a bet; Should they win we go to hell otherwise they stop believing in their nonsense.
January 4th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Christians do not possess “wordly assets”, @maotai. They follow Jesus, who told them to sell all their possessions and give the money to the poor. You obviously don’t know your Bible very well!
January 4th, 2010 at 11:54 am
If their expected ‘rapture’ fails yet again can we just have a simple apology along the lines of ‘we were wrong’. Thought not.
January 4th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Do you remember the endless nonsense they put out regarding the turn of the millennium? Wasn’t their long-awaited ‘rapture’ supposed to come and consume us all then as well? Don’t know about you guys, but I’m still feeling okay and I can’t see any flames licking around my ankles.
January 5th, 2010 at 9:42 am
The end of the world will come when we have consumed all the natural resourses. The Bible thumpers keep predicting these things, but they are all full of crock, keeping there flock focused on the end times. Silly stuff and just a good excuse to start even more wars. Can we say I hate Religon!!
January 7th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
“The octogenarian believes the Bible was dictated by God and every word and number carries a spiritual significance”
I wonder what his take is on Deuteronomy 18:20?
“But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in My Name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die”
I suspect we’ll soon find out.
May 16th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
The eight yearold girl, frighten to her wits-end. will the World end may11,2011? No my child no one know when this world will end. it could happen today or tomorrow. Be ready hopefully you willbe the one to go and not left behind. There willbe no way to correct your mistakes. It is all over.
Satan fights with lies, and sometimes his lies sound like truth, but only believers have God’s truth, which can defeat Satan’s lies
“finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stan against the devil’s schemers.”(Ephesians 6:10-11.
I hope you are not”flesh and blood” the demons over whom Satan has control.They are very real not just fantasies We face a powerful army whose goal is to defeat Christ’s church. BE AWARE!
May 16th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Ruth, if you come onto an ATHEIST site and spout religious garbage, you will automatically be disenvowelled
June 16th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
The problem with hoping for a mass suicide is the high risk of some young kids drinking the cool-aid along with their parents. And, as many of you may have experienced, the children of religious extremists actually can grow up into more main-stream adults.