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Reminder: October 21, 2011 is The End Of The World!!!
Harold Camping prepares for a taping of his show Open Forum in Oakland, Calif., Monday, May 23, 2011 (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Hey, what are you doing tomorrow? Dentist appointment, lunch with your boss, seeing a movie? Forget it. We told you ages ago there was only one thing you needed on your schedule for October 21, 2011: The End of the World.
The date was selected by Harold Camping, a Bay Area rapture advocate (rapturist?) who also previously predicted the world would be ravaged by the Almighty on May 21, 2011. When nothing happened, and we all awoke, still here, still having to pay our bills and eat some breakfast and go to work, Camping, a radio evangelist, came up with a handy explanation a few hours later, after a whole lotta prayin':
"On May 21[...] 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."
Got it? All this time we have been under "judgment" and tomorrow we, uh, get our sentence.
Mind you, even the very, very, very faithful have doubts: Camping himself seems to be working in words of uncertainty in his current prediction, according to SF Gate, who note the ailing, elderly minister has said tomorrow's big event is "maybe" the big event:
"I do believe we're getting very near the very end," Camping, 90, said during a podcast recorded earlier this month and posted on his Family Radio website. "Oct. 21, that's coming very shortly, that looks like it will be, at this point, it will be the final end of everything."
Now, there is another school of thought--that the impending arrival of NASA's UARS satellite back to earth, smashed into a gazillion pieces upon re-entry, is a sign of the end of the world. Those who think December 21, 2012 (yeah, that's right, a whole other camp says we have another year-ish to live in sin before our fiery demise) is the actual Judgment Day poo-poo this, though:
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UARS satellite crash is the beginning of the End of the World? Not likely say most. The debris will be rather small, and there has been no historical damage from space junk re-entering earth’s atmosphere in the past. Still believers of the coming Rapture and Judgment Day on October 21, 2011 may seen this as a sign of the End of the World. The sky is falling. You can almost hear the words fall from Harold Camping’s lips.
Judgement Day smackdown!
Here, Taiwanese video mavens Next Media Animation take on the October 21/Camping/Satellite Debris hot topic:
If you got on board with the hype in the spring over the May 21 Judgment Day (hey, there was an impressive PR campaign for that) but suffered a let down with the rest of us, you still have a few hours to ready yourself for the end of days. Or you could just proceed as usual. Your call! (Or IS it????!!!)
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
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