At 6:01 on Saturday, May 21, my husband turned to me and said, "Well, we'll be seeing a lot of new atheists soon."
He's wrong. He's not totally wrong. I think the children of those who believed Camping and watched their parents lose everything to a rapture that never happened may end up questioning their faith, but the adults? No. For one thing, they're too invested in their belief. Once you've sold your home, quit your job and put down your dog for your beliefs, you're not backing down. For another, the Bible provides the perfect out for these people: Deuteronomy 18:20-22.
“But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 18:21 Now if you say to yourselves, ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ – 18:22 whenever a prophet speaks in my name and the prediction is not fulfilled, then I have not spoken it; the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”
So, let me get this straight, predictions that do come true are from Yhwh, predictions that do not come true are not from Yhwh. Heads, I win, tails, you lose.
It's almost like the writer of Deuteronomy knew these sorts of things would happen- over and over again. Funny, that.
So don't expect that Camping's devotees will lose their faith along with their homes and jobs. They might, might mind you, stop listening to Camping, but their belief in god will remain unaffected.
I'm guessing that a small minority of Camping's adult followers will hit rock bottom and go into Sky Fairy recovery.
ReplyDeleteI'm torn between a visceral urge to point and laugh, and some real sympathy for anyone who suddenly realizes that they've made a catastrophic, life-altering mistake. I've been in that situation often enough myself, though not quite on this scale.
ReplyDeleteThe Bible, and Biblical interpreters are the masters of Covering their Asses.
ReplyDeletewe've been joking about the whole thing for a week - and since saturday, we've been saying "happy post rapture!" with joke about how the whole 5 people raptured won't even be noticed...
ReplyDeleteto the point where i've forgotten to feel bad for these people - ESPECIALLY their kids
[but why the FUCK would you put your dog "to sleep" just because the rapture is coming? even if you ARE taken in the rapture, that just means YOU are gone - i'm sure there are people who will care for your dog, damnit! it should be fucking ILLEGAL to kill a pet who isn't either extremely ill or hasn't been deemed a huge "threat" to society [by biting people or similar]
And Camping has already revised his predictions/created a new excuse for why his predictions were wrong and people should still listen to him.
ReplyDelete