So we all knew this wouldn’t happen but now can we rub it in the face of the idiot(s) who propagated this nonsense? Is there a video of the ringleader being made to look sheepish? Please, tell me there’s a video.
(this is far enough removed from my world that I don’t know any of these people personally and I don’t have cable / watch TV so if there’s a link somewhere please post it)
Safe bet it wasn’t too hard to persuade the people that ponied up to finance the advertising campaign that it wasn’t worth the time it would take to provide a receipt for their 2011 tax return.
It would be really nice if there were some way to try the Family Radio types for fraud, especially since the money poured in. I’m not sure how it would be possible but it would be nice.
I at least hope that some news agencies are waiting outside Camping’s house for him to speak. I’m curious which option of responses he’ll take. I’m predicting “God, in his patience, has decided to give us more time to get saved.”
I’m betting they’re going to claim the money was Raptured up.
I haven’t heard anything about that Camping guy, who started the whole billboard thing. I speculated he might even be one of those who kills himself, either in anticipation of the Rapture or disgust that it didn’t happen. There is a fair amount of history with end of the world types doing that.
Camping hasn’t been seen since before the prediction failed. He locked himself up in his compound (razor wire and all) to spend the “last day” with his family. I’m worried they’re going to find a murder-suicide scene in there, which I say with all seriousness despite my past mocking of these people, would be tragic. I’d rather see him live and be wrong another day.
Camping did not show because he was raptured. He was the only one saved because he is so holy.
If I were him I would disappear and make that claim a way to keep the church together and the money rolling in.
I think the error he corrected for this time was how to arrange for the money to roll in. Back in the eighties, his revenue was directly and exclusively tied to the dissemination of his printed materials. Small thinking. He took in eighteen million dollars in donations in 2009, banging the “Get the word out about the imminent end of the world” drum.
What I wanna know is how did this asshole get so much publicity? Every page I visit online has something about it. I know most of the coverage was mocking, but why even give it that oxygen?
Because this group had a better PR machine than most doomsday cults - already had a national radio show, they put up billboards, some follower in NY spent $140 thousand of his own retirement savings buying subway signs. People paid attention 'cause they made it hard to ignore.
Not a national radio show, a national radio network, with 53 full-power and 54 more low-power AM and FM stations in the US, a US shortwave station, 2 satellite stations and international broadcasting in Russia, the Philippines, Turkey and Lesotho.
These “kooks” have a lot of airwave power behind them with a hell of a lot of reach.
I considered calling the “Family Radio” station here in NYC (I’ve been seeing their ads in the subway for some time) and requesting a song: “Hello, Goodbye” by the Beatles. (“I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello!”)
Then I figured (a) it’d get nowhere, and (b) as another minister (of a non-Rapture group) commented, “sure it’s easy to mock them, but so is kicking puppies”.
His point was, these are people who have done things like quit their jobs and blow their retirement money in what most people - even most other deeply religious Christians - thought was an obviously ridiculous move. Rather than rub it in, it would reflect better on us all to show some compassion.
Why? That would just be enabling future morons to throw everything away for nothing; those who might be thinking about following the next idiot with a doomsday prediction, and then might remember what happened (or didn’t happen) this weekend and have second thoughts, and maybe even decide to keep their job and their savings, or to do something positive to make a better world.
Sometimes you have to let people suffer a little, so that other people can learn from their mistakes (even if they don’t).
Roddy