It’s easy to make jokes about the end of the earth that didn’t come yesterday at 5:59 p.m., as predicted by Harold Camping. There were so many things wrong about Camping’s prediction — the convoluted interpretation of the King James Bible, Camping’s past track record with false warnings of doomsday, the inability to see how culturally conditioned such predictions are, the notion that only one person would have access to such a prediction, etc. — that it’s really tempting to mock him. I did it myself, multiple times, this morning at church.
But it’s not really funnyr. Lots of people believed Camping, and some gave away everything they had thinking they wouldn’t need earthly possessions after yesterday. And everyone I know is capable of fooling themselves, and it’s a rare person who doesn’t delude themselves about something in their life; it’s better not to mock others about something for which we ourselves can be mocked. Finally, Camping’s well-publicized failure has brought out the anti-religion fundamentalists who are now gleefully declaring that because Camping was wrong all religion must be bunk.
I found one of the nicest responses to Camping’s message buried deep in story on the National Public Radio Web site:
“…people from more than one religion — and even a few atheists — admitted to being a bit introspective about the world on this particular weekend.
“That was true for Maddie Calhoon, a Unitarian Universalist from St. Paul, Minn., who was at a gathering Saturday night that guests renamed a ‘rapture party.‘
“‘We said, “We’re just glad we’re all together.” And it was a joke,’ said Calhoon, 24. ‘But of course it made me think about things, and about how I don’t reflect often about what I’d do if my time was coming to an end.’”
Nice response to this craziness: go hang out with some friends and reflect on what’s most important in life.