Doomsday Debacles: Harold Camping and William Miller (Numbers 8 and 7)

 "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father," Mark 13:32 reads. Despite this passage many Christians have used biblical prophecies to explain the end of the world. Harold Camping, a retired engineer, believes that there is a numerical system in the bible, that when interpreted right, says that the end of the world would have been on May 21, 2011. This excerpt from http://articles.sfgate.com/explains how Camping got the date 5/21/11.

"The number 5, Camping concluded, equals "atonement." Ten is "completeness." Seventeen means "heaven." Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011. Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D, now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that's 1,978 years. Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days - the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year. Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500. Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500. Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared." (Berton 2)

Many people all over the world believed, and still believe, Campings ideas. He reaches people all over the world through his Family Radio, 610 AM KEAR. In fact on May 21, 2011 many people dressed up in their nicest clothes and held their Bibles upto the Heavens, awaiting the return of Christ. However, in my opinion, this "religious man", also claims that we should ditch our churches and that we can not be forgiven, we are predestined to go to Heaven or predestined to go to Hell. I thought that Christians belived in a forgiving God and that you could be cleansed of your sins. Isn't that the whole reason He supposedly died on the cross for us?

Another religious prophesier, William Miller, also prochesied a doomsday using the Bible in mathmatical ways. "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Daniel 8:14. From the preeceding biblical passage William Miller beleived that the world would come to an end between March 21, 1843 and March, 21, 1844. He took the days as years, so the sanctuary would be cleansed in 2,300 years and he took the sanctuary being cleansed as Jesus's return. He said that Jesus's return would come 2.300 years after the decree of Greek King Artaxerxes in 457 B.C. So, 2,300-457= 1843. When March 21st, 1844 passed by he changed the date to October 6th, 1844, The Jewish Day of Atonement. And that obviously didn't work either. but he died beliveing that a doomsday was imminent.

Berton , Justin. "Biblical scholar's date for rapture: May 21, 2011." SFGate.com. 01/01//2010: 1-3. Web. 31 Oct. 2011. <http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-01/bay-area/17466332_1_east-bay-bay-area-first-time-camping>.

Doomsday Debacles: The Seekers and The Mayan Calendar (Numbers 10 and 9)

"Doctor Warns of Disasters in World Tuesday -- Worst to Come in 1955 He Declares."

How would you react if you saw this headline in your local newspaper? Well in 1954, citizens of Chicago, Illinois woke up and stumbled onto this headline in The Chicago Tribune. The doctor making this extravagant claim was Dr. Charles Laughead, a Michigan State College physician. He believed that voices in his head were telling him that aliens were going to save the world from God's wrath on December 20^th, 1955. He probably got these ideas from Dorothy Martin, aka Marian Keech, of whom he was an adamant enthusiast. Dorothy Martin, a 54-year-old Illinois resident, was the leader of The Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, a UFO cult that is also known as The Seekers. On Christmas Eve 1955 many of Martin's believers gathered in her home, believing that a world abolishing flood was imminent, a message that was allegedly beamed to Martin from the alien race on the planet Clarion. The few people who found Martin's ideas truthful, most of them having quit their jobs and sold their possessions, sang Christmas carols in wait of the salvation from the aliens of Clarion. After waiting for hours on end, Dorothy Martin claimed that her and her followers actions had such an influence on God, that he decided not to wreak havoc on the Earth. In fact, Leon Festinger wrote the book “When Prophecy Fails”, about the cognitive dissonance in the members of The Seekers minds in order to better understand apocalyptic cults.

On December, 21^st, 2012 I will be enjoying my third month in college at UW Eau Claire, on my way to becoming an educator. Or will I? Some people claim that December 21^st, 2012 is the day of the apocalypse, the day that the world will be eradicated. But why 12/21/12? The believers of this doomsday augury interpreted this date as THE day due to the Mayan “Long Count” calendar. The “Long Count” calendar was used by the Mayan people to document the historical events past what their shorter 52 year calenders could do. Since the Mayans produced this calendar in 1314 BC and the calendar spans for 5,126 years the first cycle is said to end on, you guessed it, December, 21^st, 2012. This date, ironically, is the same date as the winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere.  Many people infer that life as we know it will end on 12/21/12 in many different ways from a comet, a meteorite, or Planet X hitting Earth to the rotation of Earth reversing.  However, neither the ancient Mayans or decendents of the Mayans alive today predicted this prognosis. In fact, Mayan decendents believe that 12/21/12 is the start of a new age, in which humanity will evolve to better understand our place in the universe.



Doomsday Debacles: Introduction

What do the Large Hadron Collider, Halley's comet, Y2K, Heaven's Gate, and The Seekers all have in common? The for-mentioned subjects are doomsday prophecies, all of which contain some downright psychotic and impractical ideas and some grandiose acts to accompany those absurd convictions. In the up-and-coming posts I will be writing about the top ten failed doomsday apocalypses. I will be writing as a journalist in Guru Magazine, a debonair yet refined magazine with a wide variety of different topics and writing styles presented in a simplistic way, so that Average Joe's can easily comprehend the information. In fact Guru Magazine is the world's first “science lifestyle magazine” combining the informational content of science magazines with the fun and understandable aspect of lifestyle magazines. I plan to match Guru's writing style by being informative and creative but concise. I would also like to bring the artistic feature of the magazine into my blogs by incorporating pictures and color, although with my topic the color will be subtle.

http://gurumagazine.org/