Anyone who thinks that Christians have cornered the market on gullibility should look here where you will find predictions by eminent prognosticators – many of them scientists – along the lines of:

What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?

Democracy will be dead by 1950. (John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936)

The light bulb: Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure. (Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison’s light bulb, 1880.)

The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad. (The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.)

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible (Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist).

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? (H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Bros)

Rockets are too far-fetched to be considered. (Editor of Scientific American)

The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine. (Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.)

Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years. (1955)

X-rays will prove to be a hoax. (Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883)

And I haven’t even started on failed global warming predictions. Take heart Harold Camping, compared to this bunch, you look pretty rational.

It took the Anglican Church centuries to get from a belief in the literal bodily resurrection of Christ to the liberal – some would say wishy-washy – belief in a “spiritual” resurrection.

Harold Camping made the journey in just one day: not on behalf of the resurrection, but the rapture. Apparently, all appearances to the contrary, the rapture did occur on May 21st – spiritually:

He continued: ‘We were convinced that on May 21 God would return here in a very physical way by bringing a great earthquake and ushering in the final five months of the day of judgement and the fact is when we look at it spiritually, we find he did come.

According to him, the world is still going to end on October 21^st, although Harold now seems to have a way out if it doesn’t.

Also, according to Camping, “In May 21 1988 Christ left the churches and installed Satan there”, which is definitely off, since John Bothwell became Bishop of Niagara in 1973.

As a Christian, I believe that one day Jesus will return, God’s Kingdom will be established on earth, and the universe will no longer groan under the weight of sin: Aslan will sing entropy into reverse.

Jesus himself didn’t know the date that this would occur (Mark 13:32); never fear, though, because Harold Camping does:

Harold Camping, 89, predicts that Jesus Christ will return to earth on Saturday and true believers will be swept up, or “raptured”, to heaven.

He has used broadcasts and billboards to publicise his ideas.

He says biblical texts indicate that a giant earthquake on Saturday will mark the start of the world’s destruction, and that by 21 October all non-believers will be dead.

Clearly Harold Camping subscribes to twerp theology; God doesn’t, nor would he wish to lend credence to someone who does, so the last date God the Father is likely to pick for the rapture is May 21^st 2011. The Devil might want to give Harold more air time, of course, so I wouldn’t be particularly surprised to hear of the odd earthquake tomorrow.

What is certain is that death is inevitable: by Eternity’s measure, in a very short time I and everyone I know will have ceased to live on this earth and will face the unappetising prospect of judgement for the way we lived or mercy through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Your choice.