Sunday, July 24, 2016

The End of the World: Nostradamus vs. Harold Camping




Harold Camping, the late conservative Christian president of Family Radio, exclaimed a few years ago that “…the Bible has given us absolute proof that the year 2011 is the end of the world during the Day of Judgment… Amazingly, May 21, 2011 is the 17th day of the 2nd month of the Biblical calendar of our day…”  I remember personally driving around and seeing some of the billboards funded by his organization as well as hearing about it from a religious friend of mine.   


As it turns out, he was wrong.  Not only was he wrong that time, but also twelve times prior.  While many religions have wrongly predicted the end of the world time and time again, why do we still wonder in the back of our minds that there may be a grain of truth behind every prediction?  In the lecture titled “End of the World,” Dr. Berg explains that there are reasons for some falling prey to these otherwise ridiculous claims.  Nostradamus, he explains was a master in ambiguously describing these “end of the world scenarios” to the point that his predictions could reference almost any possible event.  There is a stark difference, however, between Nostradamus’ vague predictions and Camping’s easily-debunked ones.  Whether Camping legitimately believed that what he taught was true, or that he had ulterior motives (as most religions do) may never be known.  However, there is still a significant number of people that sadly still fall for these claims.

No comments:

Post a Comment