Yes, Christ himself said it would be soon.
Within the lifetime of the people he was adressing.
Oops, guess he was just another of those doomsday prophets…
Why shouldn’t Camping be dismissed? It’s possible he’s being a cynical businessman instead of a deluded fool, but either way, there’s no reason to take this kind of numerology seriously. It’s all made up. People find it dramatic and interesting, but that doesn’t mean it’s credible.
As for me, I was planning to celebrate my birthday on Saturday, so that timing would suck.
Maybe I’m mistaken, but I don’t think there are that many of them. Their effect is indeed trivial, and will be more so in a couple weeks.
Look, somebody somewhere predicts the end of the world pretty much every year. Maybe once per decade one of these predictions becomes popularized and a certain crop of credulous people who have psychological reasons for wanting the world to end will latch onto it. I don’t see any reason to think that this time is any more meaningful, in any way, than any of the previous times.
I haven’t personally spoken with one single person who takes this one seriously. That might be seen as saying something, since I live in an area so evidently conducive to “End Times” thinking that we have a t-shirt joking about it (there was a genuine little Y2K cult here).
There have been people who believed the world would end in their time for thousands of years. For some people it ‘will’ end with their death. and some people believe anything!
If Jesus was correct the world should have ended in the first century. He was going to come in his father’s glory while some of them standing there were still alive!
There have alwys been earth quakes and floods all through the time earth formed and will continue.Each century has had it’s people thinking the world was going to end.
Yes. Yes it will.
And to make your transition to heaven easier, please transfer all of your worldly wealth to me.
The only real question is what the excuse will be for the lights not going out. Miscalculation? God’s pleasure of their faith?
There aren’t many people enthralled, it’s just that the internet magnifies nutcases. And reading Camping doesn’t help, he makes no sense whatsoever.
Laugh now, laugh at the Believers. But you won’t think it’s all so funny at Judgment Day, eh? Who’ll be laughing then, Mr. Skeptic-pants? No so funny when the Beleivers get proven right, eh?
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how Camping came up with this bit?
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
According to Camping, the number five equals “atonement”, the number ten equals “completeness”, and the number seventeen equals “heaven”.
[/QUOTE]
I am a terrible Catholic. I vacilate between belief and non-belief all the time. Actually, I try really hard not to think about it critically, because part of me wants to believe, and if I think about it rationally, I won’t. 
I don’t think the world is going to end on May 21. Numerology is seven different kinds of horseshit… and these types of preditions seem like the worst kind of confirmation bias. Anyway…
If the the world does end, so what. My life is going to end at some point. Nothing I can do about that, nor can I predict when it will happen. So I have to keep living as best as I can, right?
Camping is not a false teacher; he is an erroneous teacher. False connotes an intention to mislead or deceive whereas erroneous means he’s just damn wrong. Camping sincerely believes that what he is teaching is correct, and therefore thinks it his obligation to warn the world.
The distinction between false and erroneous is important because come May 22, it will be the “Christian” crowd who will eagerly rush, en masse, to get the wooden posts, rusty spikes and iron hammer ready for Camping. But what they’ll fail to understand is that the reason why guys like Camping exist is because of their own immature, apocalyptic-motivated faith. The problem with modern, evangelical, Christianity, particularly the United States version, is that it lacks a uniform and concise theology. (Compare to let’s say Catholicism which for all it’s wackiness sticks to its centuries old dogma come hell or no high water) But before we rush to substitute the theologians for Camping on the cross of vindictiveness, let’s heed the words of Bart Ehrman: “For most people, the Bible is a non-problematic book. What people don’t realize is that they’re reading translations of texts, and we don’t have the originals… Given the circumstance that (God) didn’t preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that he hadn’t gone to the trouble of inspiring them.”
“There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.”
Doomsday did come within that period- Doomsday upon Jerusalem, Judea & Galilee, the Herodian dynasty, the Priesthood-Temple Establishment, the Mosaic Covenantal system, the Julio-Claudian Caesar line. And Jesus’ Kingdom slowly but surely started expanding & will continue to do so.
70 A.D.- the Great Tribulation came & went & all I got was a stack of Left Behind novels! L
I am not sure about your view on the connotations. Nor am I convinced Camping is doing this because he’s sincere. He may just be trying to get his name in the paper (if that expression still exists) and win new followers so he can get rich, or richer. But I don’t know much about the guy.
Well, Obama is the anti-Christ, so this guy has that going for him.
Is there any way I can buy puts on this prediction?
Nice, but your (re)definitions make it a rather Doomsday-light version of the normal interpretation as in “the END of the WORLD!!”.
Also Jesus’ promised kingdom is now only “The spread of christianity”??
Bit of a let-down, I must say.
Actually, even if you believe this silly nonsense it won’t. Did you read the Wiki page you linked too?
So, on May 21 200 million people will be beamed up to the starship Heaven, and the rest of us schlubs will mope about for another 5 months, until October 21st when the world will end…or something. So, what we need to be looking for on May 21st is evidence that 200 million people suddenly disappeared…that will be the sign that the end is near.
What would be really funny is if Camping and these other guys roaming about and tearing their hair over this were still here on May 22nd, while the skeptics were the ones who were raptured out instead. 
-XT
An evil practical joke would be to start rumors that various people have gone missing starting on May 22nd. Make Campings followers think the rapture happened and that they just missed the boat.
“My mom disappeard and we’re not sure where she went.”
“Did you here Jeff Goldblum wandered off from the set of the movie he was filiming last week, and no ones sure where he went”.
“They canceled all Obama’s big campaign appearence yesterday at the last mintue, I wonder why”
“That XT guy hasn’t been posting lately…wonder what happened to him??”
“Who cares?!? He’s not posting anymore!! WOOHOO. What are you guys doing for Halloween this year…?”
-XT
That Gadhaffi guy. No one has seen him lately, either!
Osama bin Laden was shot by Navy Seals. Riiiiiight…