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Apocalypse (Not Quite) Now: Camping Picks New End-of-World Date

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So you thought that Saturday was the actual Judgment Day? Well, the joke is on you, because your spiritual leader, California's Harold Camping, says the Almighty was at work, all right, only you won't see anything until the real end of the world, which is October 21st.

Time reports on Camping's first post-non-rapture Family Radio broadcast, in which Camping explains why there were no quakes or snakes or anything in the first verse of that R.E.M. song at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21st, as he predicted:

"On May 21, this last weekend, this is where the spiritual aspect of it really comes through. God again brought judgment on the world. We didn't see any difference but God brought Judgment Day to bear upon the whole world. The whole world is under Judgment Day and it will continue right up until Oct. 21, 2011 and by that time the whole world will be destroyed."

It took camping a day to come up with this handy explanation. On Sunday morning, when Camping and his followers faced a world still humming along as it was the day before (i.e. no Rapture), the Oakland-based man some are calling a false prophet said he was "flabbergasted" that after years of Bible study and calculating that nothing had happened.

It's another Save the Date, then, for those of us who RSVPd to the "Post Rapture Looting" event on Facebook that didn't take place. No word on if Camping plans to put up billboards touting the updated October 21 date.

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