So my uncle died, age 30, after the failed end-of-the-world prediction among Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1975. I was just a kid, so I didn’t have a full understanding, and we weren’t JWs anyway.
It may have been suicide; my mother and grandfather firmly believe that, while my grandmother insisted to her dying day that it was an accident. The fact that it’s a point of contention 35 years later says something. Probably the truth is somewhere in between: a bit of depression, a bit of foolish pre-Rapture behaviour (running up enormous debts), a bit of carelessness. He died by getting his clothes caught in a machine, and personally I’ve always thought farmers had better ways of offing themselves.
At any rate, it pretty much destroyed that side of the family. My family joined the JWs in the early 1900s, so they’ve managed to make it through at least four “end-of-the-world” predictions that came and went. I realize that doesn’t say a lot for them, but for the most part they were farmers with little education.
I find myself thinking about those idiots who believe. (Are there any? The news stories seem to have trouble finding them.) I think of my uncle, and his kids, who grew up with their stepfather’s last name. The cruel way JWs deal with former JWs, and the hypocritical intolerance of former JWs. The unending pain my mother has gone through. So I’m mad at these non-stories that are dredging up pain, and I’m mad at my friends, who are universally pointing and laughing. I’m mad because pointing and laughing at this seems kind of fun and I don’t have the heart to join in.
On the plus side, this will all be over soon, and we don’t have another end-of-the-world prediction for a whole year.
There was an interview on NPR this morning with someone who has given up his job, everything, waiting for the Rapture, and he talked about what a relief it is to no longer have to worry about the state of the economy, his personal finances, his insurance, his future…he just felt such relief that he no longer had any of that stress in his life. It sounded to me like the relief some talk about coming over a suicidal person when they have made their decision. And my first thought (after thinking, wow,wouldn’t it be nice to no longer have any of that worry) is that he may find an accidental way to die when he discovers the rapture hasn’t occurred and he has to go back to supporting himself…only now without his family.
I am sorry to hear of your personal family tragedy about such a scenario.
Personally, I find the Rapture stories funny and absurd because it is one more fringe of religion that proves the fact that there is no science involved - just some rigid beliefs that cause people to do stupid things. There are many who think most wars wouldn’t have been fought if it weren’t for the holier-than-thous.
As a raging ex-Catholic, I have lots of reasons to loathe religion - and I am not the only one; there are tons of ex-Catholics out there who feel the same way. As I have mentioned here before, I don’t think I have ever met an ex-Jew, an ex-Baptist, an ex-Lutheran - but let me tall ya, that line of ex-Catholics could easily encircle Italy.
The Rapture nonsense to me is one more indication of people getting sucked into a cult and ruining their lives. The Catholics are simply more subtle - they fill you with guilt, pick your pocket to feed the Vatican, and try to foist 16th century morality on people in the 21st century.
So yes, I will also be laughing and pointing at 12/12/12 when all those dire prediction fall flat. You would think people would finally catch on to this bullshit, but as we know here - fighting ignorance is taking longer than we thought.
Stuff like this is why I’m active in the Skeptics movement. Because it’s not just harmless nuts, vulnerable people get genuinely hurt. I saw a t-shirt at last years Amazing Meeting…http://www.amazingmeeting.com/, that said “Credulity kills”. Yeah, yeah it does.
Thanks, all. DMark, the other half of my family is Catholic. In my experience and from my biased perspective, they wasted a lot of energy on staying in God’s good graces but overall they seemed like a mentally healthier bunch than the JWs.
I think the Skeptics movement is a brilliant way to combat this. Just giving people the tools to think, and getting them to use them, would go a long way towards solving the world’s problems. (The non-Rapture is a pretty minor problem, I know.)
Well, D-Mark, it is hard to know what an ex-Jew is. I describe myself as a Jewish atheist, but would not consider myself an ex-Jew. I gather it is different with Catholics.
One thing that struck me is that Camping said that everyone hates a truth-teller (he’s got that right), but what he doesn’t realize is that most of us, unless they suffer personal tragedies over this, do not hate him; we are laughing at him.