I'm keeping a word processing document open in case I want to write something. I guess it worked because here I am typing.
It's the end of the world. Well, at least according to some folks. People can believe anything they want about most things. In terms of faith, things get blurry and subjective. How one woman approaches how she sees the Catholic God, is different from how a Jewish man sees Yahweh. That doesn't mean both people are necessarily wrong in their aspect of faith, just that their faith is different. I'm fairly certain, most people that are full of their faith think they are good people.
Anyway, that's a crazy philosophy I may delve into at some point. My head needs to work it out more. If I go off on it now, especially in a public forum (read: blog) it could come to bite me in the ass. That may not matter though because the Rapture is occurring this Saturday. No time for repercussions.
If you have been in any major population center chances are you've seen the signs. I don't mean omens. I literally mean signs on billboards, buses, and on people's person sandwich board style. The world is ending May 21st, 2011.
Harold Camping is a man with a message. That message is that there are signs taken from the Bible that led him to believe that the rapture will occur on Saturday. The rapture is supposedly the time when God raises those deemed worthy to his side, while the rest are left behind (yes, a pun) for the coming apocalypse. There have been plenty of Biblical experts claiming the world will end or whatever on various dates throughout time. There have been plenty of experts in various fields claiming to know when the world will end. It hasn't ended yet though.
For me, my biggest problem with Camping's message, is that it's presented a absolute truth. He doesn't make claims that this is his opinion, or what he believes, it is what it is. Maybe it's just me, but absolute truth also stated that the world was flat and that we were also on the back of a giant turtle. (I like the turtles.)
Using numerology, Camping said he extrapolated the date for the rapture from various passages in the Bible. The most focused on is the Second letter of Peter (2 Peter 3:8) “"With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day". Couple that with Genesis 7:4 "Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth" and a math problem starts to form. 1 day = 1 thousand years; 7 days = 7 thousand years
There is a lot more to it. Frankly, while I find it semi-interesting, I don't really want to learn everything about it. Here's the wikipedia link for people that took the time to attempt to explain it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction.
I don't think God would have us base our faith on math puzzles. I don't care what religion you are, if your deity of choice said math can solve all... that's science. I didn't think science and faith walked hand in hand. At least it doesn't for renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking.
Sure, people like the Buddha gave his followers logic puzzles and similar brain teasers, but that was in an effort to reach enlightenment. It's to get you to think. The Christian God seemed to present in the New Testament a more direct approach, like turn the other cheek. I would like to think God would like his message clearly known. If the message is more cryptic, who is to say things haven't been altered in the the translations of the Bible in that past almost 2000 years?
In the end, will the world end on Saturday? I have no idea. It might, but I doubt it. The world could end on Friday. It could end Sunday. It could also end thousands of years from now. As much as things always seem to get predicted about the end times, we aren't going to know until it happens.
Even then, we probably won't believe it.
