Posted on 05/27/2011 3:16:05 PM PDT by Ed Hudgins
Eighty-nine-year-old religious nut Harold Camping prophesized that the world would end on May 21, 2011, at 6:00 p.m. local time. A woman who believed him wanted to get a jump on Armageddon and avoid the horrors of fire and brimstone. So she slit her 11- and 14-year-old daughters’ throats with a box cutter and then slit her own.
The Rapture did not occur. The world didn’t end. The two daughters and mother survived. The mother is in jail where she belongs. Camping, sadly, also survives and is free to cause the world more grief.
Camping promoted his prophecy through his 66-station Family Radio network. He convinced followers to plaster the message on billboards and hand out leaflets coast to coast. Some now-destitute disciples emptied their bank accounts to advertise the Apocalypse.
Camping himself was reported to be confused and flabbergasted that his prediction was wrong, even though he was wrong with a similar prediction decades ago. He now thinks the world will end in October. What we really need is an end to the root of all immorality, a root that gives rise to people like Camping.
What is this root? And how ought we to deal with Camping and his followers?
Children Behaving Badly
Children often behave in an irresponsible, irrational, emotionally charged manner with very bad results—valuables broken, someone hurt. In the aftermath they’re often confused and torn inside. They might cry out of shame for what they’ve done. Or they might block out unpleasant realities and anger at their own negligence by making excuses or lashing out at others. Good parents will also try to correct them and to change their moral habits lest they have miserable lives ahead of them.
While Camping himself and those who propagated his nonsense…
(Excerpt) Read more at atlassociety.org ...
Camping is a nut, but the media is the real culprit here. If this woman was a believer, she 1) would have known that the rapture is not a bad thing and 2) wouldn’t have missed it by committing murder-suicide.
But, the media hype of Camping’s non-event let the whole world know about it and then the crazies got involved, as this woman obviously is. They hyped it for two weeks leading up to last Saturday and reached millions more than Camping’s little radio network.
If Harold Camping is somehow "responsible" for the reprehensible actions of this woman, then Richard Dawkins is equally "responsible" for the suicide of Jesse Kilgore.
Granted, I do not believe that either of these people are personally responsible for the actions of other people, but it is always fun to hold atheists to their own standards.
I hold individuals responsible for their own actions, this woman as a case in point. And I also lambast those like Camping who peddle mindless ravings and who help sustain an anti-Enlightenment culture of ignorance.
I could easily make the suggestion "After the Apocalypse, Try the Bible!" instead.
"Tops is your belief that the Bible is a divinely inspired book that allows you to make predictions about the end of the world. Given all evidence to the contrary, if you allow that meme to stay in your head, you’ll keep banging your head up against failed prophecies."
I believe the Bible is divinely inspired yet had enough sense to realize that Camping and his followers are false prophets.
"You often label this practice “faith” and argue that it should be respected. It shouldn’t."
Everyone lives by faith whether they realize it or not. Everyone has faith in something. To sneer about it is foolishness.
"This is why it is important to promote an Enlightenment culture that values the virtue of rationality and critical thinking above all else."
Wrong! Rational, critical thinking is not strictly the terrirtory of the atheist/humanist. God gave us a functioning brain to think but also gave us a spirit to commune with Him. It is not one or the other. "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." 1 Cor 3:19
Try Reason! That is what the Lord said: “Come now let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimsom, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquities of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)
“For He (God) hath made Him (Jesus)to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
That's really what irks me the most about Harold Camping... I wonder if the MSM hyped up his blasphemous BS just to score more hit points against Christianity.
Oh absolutely! Camping was an easy target and deserves scorn. But the MSM is enjoying the heck out of this. Wonder how they would treat a prophet of the Muslim faith who made the same erroneous claim?
"But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you..." 2 Peter 2:1
The more false prophets emerge, the greater the scoffing and mockery will be.
"Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." 2 Peter 3:3-4
We'll find out on June 5 in Iran. Mahmoud Ahmedinewhatver has predicted that is when their doomsday prophecy will take place.
I mean a particular approach to knowledge. In this context “faith” might best be understood if preceded by the words “leap of.” It means believing something for which there is very little evidence or strong evidence to the contrary. It is this approach to knowledge that distinguishes uniquely religious beliefs from other beliefs, including beliefs about morality that one might derived philosophically, for example, from man’s nature as a creature with a rational capacity and free will.
Aquinas distinguished natural law, which is discovered through reason, from divine law, which is revealed directly in the Bible. But there is no rational way to determine whether the revelations in the Bible are any better than those in the Koran or those expounded by Hindu or Buddhist mystics.
Later thinkers tried to understand God as revealed in nature via reason. This line of thinking ended in Deism, with a god as a prime mover/designer force who is not involved in any way in the day-to-day operations of the universe or the world of humans.
Some religious folks argue that those who accept that our knowledge about objective reality must come through rational inquiry are acting on faith just as much as someone who believes every word of the Bible (or any other holy book) is revealed wisdom and instant knowledge. But that’s playing a word game because the two approaches to knowledge are very different.
When I think of faith I must base it on my almost 60 years of study (the last 48 years, more seriously)of the promises in the Holy Scriptures.
We know: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:13)
In the Gospel of John Chapter one: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.”(v.1) “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (v.14)
In Hebrews chapter 11: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (V.1) “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (v.3) “But without faith it is impossible to please Him [God]: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (v.6)
We know the Lord Jesus told Satan: “Man shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4)
And like we read in Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is quick and sharper than.........and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Now that I’m 77 years old, have worked in the consulting engineers field over 40 years, along with other Architects, Engineers, and Contractors; many of which were Hindus, Moslims, Russian Jews, Buddists, etc. I learned one major lesson: Our Lord Jesus Christ died for all of them, He came to bring salvation to the Jew first, then to all others.
“For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world: but that the world through Him, might be saved.” (John 3:17)
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” is the definition given in the Bible. That’s good enough for me and most Christians.
Based on that definition, all human beings live by faith. We had faith that when we went to bed last night, we would wake up this morning. We have faith that the doctor gives us the proper diagnosis and that the pharmacist who fills the doctor’s script will give us the right medication. We have faith that the food we eat and drink we drink won’t make us sick or kill us. The list could go on and on.
God does not ask His children to live by blind faith. The evidence of His existence is everywhere if we will take the time to look and listen. Science is just man’s way of showing how God does things.
After hundreds of prophecies written in the Bible are fulfilled exactly as predicted, it would be unreasonable and illogical to not have faith that they were written by the hand of a Creator. For example, the coming of Christ was predicted many times by Old Testament prophets and came to pass. If anyone here can predict even one unusual event before it happened, I would pay attention to their words. Harold Camping is disqualified from that. :)
“For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:16-21
Notice where it says “that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.” This is where Camping and those of his ilk constantly err.
Thanks to all for the conversation on this interesting topic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.