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Jaweed Kaleem

Harold Camping: The Man Behind
'Judgment Day,' May 21, 2011


First Posted: 05/19/11 10:29 PM ET Updated: 05/20/11 04:32 PM ET

Behind thousands of â??Judgment Dayâ? billboards on rural highways and city skylines, responsible for a small army of volunteers traipsing across the country to warn that the world will end on May 21, is a frail, 89-year-old California multimillionaire who runs one of the largest Christian radio networks in the world.

Each day, Harold Campingâ??s slow and sonorous Bible readings and his Open Forum call-in show broadcast for hours from the Oakland, Calif. headquarters of Family Radio, where Christian gospel and shows with titles such as â??Beyond Intelligent Designâ? and â??Creation Momentsâ? punctuate his words.

And while the retired civil engineer and former Sunday school teacher has been preaching the gospel for decades and talking about Godâ??s wrathful plan for the past two years, recent times have brought him into the spotlight like never before.

In the last week, variations of â??End of the World May 21stâ? and â??Harold Campingâ? have remained among the top search terms on Google. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control released a mock guide to the â??Zombie Apocalypseâ? on its web site that quickly went viral.

But "itâ??s no laughing matter," Camping told The Huffington Post. â??It is not something where it's a tiny, tiny, tiny chance it may happen. It is going to happen.â?

He and his fringe group of churchless followers believe that at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, a massive earthquake will make its way around the earth, beginning in Fiji and New Zealand. Graves will open and two hundred million 'saved' individuals will float up to heaven. The doomed remainder will live on an unruly earth for five months before God annihilates it five months later.

Complex Biblical numerology partially based on a literal reading of the King James Bible and partially based and obscure interpretation of the bookâ??s many symbols form the basis for Camping's warnings.

He says certain numbers repeat in the Bible along with particular themes. The number five means "atonement;" ten equals "completeness;" 17 is "heaven." Multiply those numbers by each other and multiply the result by itself. It equals 722,500.

"Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.," he says. "Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that's 1,978 years."

If you multiply that number by 365.2422 -- the number of days in the solar calendar -- it equals 722,449. And if you add 51 (the number of days between April 1 and May 21) to that number, it equals 722,500.

It gets more confusing.

Camping also believes that May 21 marks the 7,000 anniversary of Noah's flood and the end of a 33-year-year period of Tribulation, during which he claims Satan has ruled churches. He points to the increasing acceptance of gay clergy, for example, or the rise in charismatic and Pentecostal movements as signs that churches have gone astray. To him, rituals such as baptism and confession are worthless.

He made a similar prediction in the 1990s but later said he didn't look close enough at the Book of Jeremiah. This time around, heâ??s absolutely certain.

* * * * *

Like many of those who follow his predictions, Camping wasn't always so radical.

Born in Colorado, he moved to California at an early age and, with a budding interest in math and science, trained as a civil engineer at the University of California-Berkeley in the in the early 1940s. During World War II, he worked as an engineer for Kaiser. Afterwards, he joined a small construction business in Oakland.

But he really shined in church.

At the First Christian Reformed Church of Alameda, Camping, his wife Shirley and seven kids were well-known for his popular Bible study class. Self-taught with no formal religious training, the charismatic Camping would read and dissect the Bible with an ease and depth that attracted dozens of students.

For much of the time since its humble founding in 1958 in San Francisco and its expansion over the decades, Family Radio largely preached a command brand of evangelism, featuring Bible readings, early American hymns and southern gospel along with programming from Protestant churches across the country. Some local stations played contemporary Christian music, and shows from socially conservative organizations such as Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family were also syndicated.

By 1988, as Camping began quietly proclaiming a pending end of the world during his radio and Bible class lectures (he had no date yet), his church life and Family Radio changed drastically. In Alameda, church elders sternly told him to stop his predictions. Instead, he and 110 members of the church left to start their own congregation, which Camping quickly left after declaring the "church age" over.

"I began to see that the doctrine of salvation was wrong. Every church would say 'We will show you how to become saved,'" says Camping. "Salvation only comes through faith. We donâ??t know whatâ??s going to happen to Family Radio or the banks or anyone else on May 21, but it will be horror."

Camping himself doesnâ??t know if he will be 'saved.' He says thatâ??s predetermined by God.

Some Christian evangelists today are "millennialist," which means they believe in a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ upon his return, when there will be peace on Earth.

Not Camping. On May 21, the saved will go to straight to heaven to meet Jesus, he claims. The unsaved, including those already dead, "will never have conscious existence again...That person himself will not know anything about it they are dead," he said.

"Christ has no pleasure in the death of the unsaved. It is an enormous comfort about our loved ones," he added. "Pray they die quickly."

As Camping started to preach such views on Family Radio, programming that wasn't attune to his reading of the Bible was banned. Today, the station produces the majority of its writing in-house, devoting a chunk of the day to repeats of Campingâ??s own shows.

Worth more than $120 million and with 66 stations throughout the country, the network's broadcasts reach as far as Nigeria. Via the Internet, it's available in 61 languages. While Camping doesn't ask for donations, he admits that followers have generously given and also financed their own campaigns. Many have quit jobs and depleted their life savings to join caravans that preach across the U.S.

In 2009, the last year Family Radio publicly released a tax return, the group reported $18.4 million in contributions and $1 million through investments and other income. It spent $36.7 million and employed 348 people paid more than $9 million in wages and benefits.

* * * * *

Christianity isn't the only religion that believes the world will end, though its prescriptions about end times tend to be more frequent and pronounced than other faiths. In non-Abrahamic religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, the idea of death and destruction is more cyclical than finite.

Denominations differ on the exact chronology and length of Christ's second coming, but almost all say that the date is unknown and point at two key passages. One is 2 Peter 3:10: "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." Another is Matthew 24:36: "Of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."

Yet Judgment Day preachers say reading these passages alone leads to misinterpretation, claiming God has only recently given humans the ability to understand the hidden code of his book.

Throughout history, dozens of end-times predictions have gone unfulfilled, but some have had a lasting outcome.

In 1844, Baptist preacher William Miller gained thousands of followers by predicting Christ's return. Dubbed the "Great Disappointment" when Jesus didn't come, Miller's movement nonetheless grew into today's Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Hal Lindsey famously promoted in "The Late Great Planet Earth" and the idea that end times would soon approach, set off by a Soviet invasion of the Middle East.

The year 2000 passed without widespread digital breakdowns, while the year 2012 has also gained popularity among those interested in the ancient Mayan calendar.

On the date of Camping's Sept. 6, 1994 prediction, dozens of his followers gathered a short drive from his station's office in Alameda to watch for the return of Christ. They wore their best clothes and held their Bibles open toward heaven.

When the day came and went, the preacher initially didnâ??t admit his error. Instead, he offered a new date. Nothing happened again.

After a San Francisco Chronicle reporter asked him to explain, he said "nothing has been negated...The Bible is based on the Biblical calendar, which began in March. So 1994 runs until March 31, 1995."

â??I always said if it wasn't 1994, it would be 2011,â? Camping says today.

On May 21, the preacher, who says he rarely watches TV and even more rarely uses computers, will join Shirley in his living room. Theyâ??ll turn on the TV to watch for news of the quake.

When they see it, theyâ??ll be â??trembling before God for mercy."

The octogenarian hasn't been able to avoid the alienation many of his followers experience. His six living children, 28 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren think his theories are a sham. Only Shirley, his wife of 68 years, believes him.

"Most do not understand at all," he said of his family. "They think I have lost it."

Watch Harold Camping discuss the 'Judgement Day' and the end of the world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWmBZmelYmg&feature

Make My Bed? But You Say the Worldâ??s Ending

Abby Haddad Carson and Robert Carson say Saturday is Judgment Day; the
children, Joseph, Faith and Grace, right, do not.

By ASHLEY PARKER
Published: May 19, 2011

The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And parents who believe the earth will begin to self-destruct on Saturday.


Judgment Day Followers
Await Rapture

The three teenagers have been struggling to make sense of their shifting world, which started changing nearly two years ago when their mother, Abby Haddad Carson, left her job as a nurse to â??sound the trumpetâ? on mission trips with her husband, Robert, handing out tracts. They stopped working on their house and saving for college.

Last weekend, the family traveled to New York, the parents dragging their reluctant children through a Manhattan street fair in a final effort to spread the word. â??My mom has told me directly that Iâ??m not going to get into heaven,â? Grace Haddad, 16, said. â??At first it was really upsetting, but itâ??s what she honestly believes.â?

Thousands of people around the country have spent the last few days taking to the streets and saying final goodbyes before Saturday, Judgment Day, when they expect to be absorbed into heaven in a process known as the rapture. Nonbelievers, they hold, will be left behind to perish along with the world over the next five months.

With their doomsday T-shirts, placards and leaflets, followers â?? often clutching Bibles â?? are typically viewed as harmless proselytizers from outside mainstream religion. But their convictions have frequently created the most tension within their own families, particularly with relatives whose main concern about the weekend is whether it will rain.

Kino Douglas, 31, a self-described agnostic, said it was hard to be with his sister Stacey, 33, who â??doesnâ??t want to talk about anything else.â?

â??Iâ??ll say, â??Oh, what are we going to do this summer?â?? Sheâ??s going to say, â??The world is going to end on May 21, so I donâ??t know why youâ??re planning for summer,â?? and then everyone goes, â??Oh, boy,â?? â? he said.

The Douglas siblings live near each other in Brooklyn, and Mr. Douglas said he could not wait until Sunday â?? â??Iâ??m going to show up at her house so we can have that conversation thatâ??s been years in coming.â?

Ms. Douglas, who has a 7-year-old, said that while her family did not see the future the way she did, her mother did allow her to put a Judgment Day sign up on her house. â??I never thought Iâ??d be doing this,â? said Ms. Douglas, who took vacation from her nanny job this week but did not quit. â??I was in an abusive relationship. One day, my son was playing with the remote and Mr. Camping was on TV. I thought, This guy is crazy. But I kept thinking about it and something told me to go back.â?

Ms. Douglas and other believers subscribe to the prophecy of Harold Camping, a civil engineer turned self-taught biblical scholar whose doomsday scenario â?? broadcast on his Family Radio network â?? predicts a May 21, 2011, Judgment Day. On that day, arrived at through a series of Bible-based calculations that assume the world will end exactly 7,000 years after Noahâ??s flood, believers are to be transported up to heaven as a worldwide earthquake strikes. Nonbelievers will endure five months of plagues, quakes, wars, famine and general torment before the planetâ??s total destruction in October. In 1992 Mr. Camping said the rapture would probably be in 1994, but he now says newer evidence makes the prophecy for this year certain.

Kevin Brown, a Family Radio representative, said conflict with other family members was part of the test of whether a person truly believed. â??Theyâ??re going through the fiery trial each day,â? he said.

Gary Daniels, 27, said he planned to spend Saturday like other believers, â??glued to our TV sets, waiting for the Resurrection and earthquake from nation to nation.â? But he acknowledged that his family was not entirely behind him.

â??At first there was a bit of anger and tension, not really listening to one another and just shouting out ideas,â? Mr. Daniels said.

But his family has come around to respect â?? if not endorse â?? his views, and he drove from his home in Newark, Del., on Monday night in a van covered in Judgment Day messages to say goodbye to relatives in Brooklyn. â??I know Iâ??m not going to see them again, but they are very certain they are going to see me, and thatâ??s where I feel so sad,â? he said. â??I weep to know that they donâ??t have any idea that this overwhelming thing is coming right at them, pummeling toward them like a meteor.â?

Courtney Campbell, a professor of religion and culture at Oregon State University, said â??end timesâ? movements were often tied to significant date changes, like Jan. 1, 2000, or times of acute social crises.

â??Ultimately weâ??re looking for some authoritative answers in an era of great social, political, economic, as well as natural, upheaval,â? Professor Campbell said. â??Right now there are lots of natural disasters occurring that will get people worried, whether itâ??s tornadoes in the South or earthquakes and tsunamis. The United States is now involved in three wars. Weâ??re still in a period of economic uncertainty.â?

While Ms. Haddad Carson has quit her job, her husband still works as an engineer for the federal Energy Department. But the children worry that there may not be enough money for college. They also have typical teenage angst â?? embarrassing parents â?? only amplified.

â??People look at my family and think Iâ??m like that,â? said Joseph, their 14-year-old, as his parents walked through the street fair on Ninth Avenue, giving out Bibles. â??I keep my friends as far away from them as possible.â?

â??I donâ??t really have any motivation to try to figure out what I want to do anymore,â? he said, â??because my main support line, my parents, donâ??t care.â?

His mother said she accepted that believers â??lose friends and you lose family members in the process.â?

â??I have mixed feelings,â? Ms. Haddad Carson said. â??Iâ??m very excited about the Lordâ??s return, but Iâ??m fearful that my children might get left behind. But you have to accept Godâ??s will.â?

The children, however, have found something to giggle over. â??Sheâ??ll say, â??You need to clean up your room,â?? â? Grace said. â??And Iâ??ll say, â??Mom, it doesnâ??t matter, if the worldâ??s going to end!â?? â?

She and her twin, Faith, have a friendâ??s birthday party Saturday night, around the time their parents believe the rapture will occur.

â??So if the world doesnâ??t end, Iâ??d really like to attend,â? Grace said before adding, â??Though I donâ??t know how emotionally able my family will be at that time.â?

Juliet Linderman contributed reporting.

Thursday, May 19, 2011 21:01 ET
When I fell for a doomsday prophecy
At 13, I was blinkered by Harold Camping's first predicted
Rapture -- and the fear of it nearly consumed me
By Steve Kornacki


Anne Kornacki

A photo of the author as a boy

To most people, Harold Camping -- the 89-year-old doomsday prophet who insists the Rapture will occur this Saturday -- exists mainly as a source of comic relief. But for me, his name is an involuntary portal to a particularly traumatic episode from my youth: the last time Harold Camping predicted Armageddon -- the time I believed him.

OK, that's overstating it a bit. I was not absolutely, positively convinced that the world was going to end on Sept. 6, 1994. But for nearly two years, I was absolutely, positively convinced that it might. It was a fear I kept buried inside, aware of how nutty it would sound to everyone else in my life, even as it exacted a punishing emotional toll. There were many signs in my youth of the chronically anxious adult I would become, but this 22-month saga was by far the most dramatic.

I was 13 years old when I happened on a Prodigy bulletin board message one rainy evening in November 1992. It was from a religious broadcaster from Oakland, Calif., who had just published a book arguing that the end times were two years away. I'd never heard of Harold Camping, but his credentials -- a background in engineering, a Berkeley degree -- seemed at odds with the caricature of a quack I'd been trained to associate with this kind of claim. I'd also never actually seen or heard someone present a detailed case for the Apocalypse. My parents had raised me Catholic, but that was mostly to make their parents happy and to meet other people. Groton, Mass., was hardly a nest of religious fanaticism. I'd assumed that the arguments of doomsday believers were akin to the unkempt "End is near!" sign holders we'd occasionally encounter on trips to Boston.

But this bulletin board message was almost reasonable. It opened with a concession about how crazy the idea seemed and an acknowledgment that many previous Armageddon forecasts hadn't panned out. Then it explained -- in clear, calm and perfectly punctuated sentences -- why Camping's theory was so different. There were calculations, references to major historical events that matched up to scripture passages, and statistics about recent increases in natural disasters that portended the Second Coming. It ended with a warning as simple as it was chilling: You have until Sept. 6, 1994, to save yourself -- and everyone you care for.

Sure, it sounded crazy. But then I wondered: What if it was right?

This kind of doubt had long been my Achilles' heel. The rule of my childhood was pretty simple: Once even the faintest possibility of an imminent disaster invaded my mind, I would cease to function normally until I could establish -- with absolute confidence -- that the threat had been neutralized.

When I was 7 years old, an episode of the sitcom "Webster" helpfully alerted me to the dangers of home invasion. In response, I developed a habit of checking for intruders in every closet, under every bed, and in both showers whenever my family returned to an empty house. My parents seemed to find this funny. They also weren't too upset by my insistence on sleeping with the window in my room open -- even on the coldest winter night -- after a firefighter visiting my sixth grade class told us about the dangers of carbon monoxide, an invisible, odorless gas that would slowly make an unsuspecting victim sleepy before finally plunging him into an eternal slumber.

But my anxieties were also a source of profound frustration for those around me. I feared few things more than air travel, a phobia that grew out of the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988. I was 8 years old at the time and found the story both riveting and traumatizing. I couldn't stop imagining what the final seconds had been like: A bunch of normal passengers sitting in their seats, some talking, some reading, some sleeping, all contentedly passing the time on what they figured was a routine flight. And then: instant death. Just a quick, massive explosion that ended all of their lives on the spot. They probably didn't hear or see anything -- no chance to say goodbye to anyone, no last-minute prayers for salvation, no last words. Alive and oblivious one second, dead for all eternity the next.

When my parents planned a trip to England, I mounted a furious months-long campaign to convince them to leave me at home. I begged relatives to let me stay. I even rolled around in what I desperately hoped was poison ivy. (Sadly, it was just ivy.) My parents weren't laughing anymore. Ultimately, they insisted I go, and I spent the entire flight demanding our precise location from the stewardess, on the (incorrect, I'd learn in physics class years later) theory that we'd have a fighting chance if we crashed into water instead of land.

So if a plane flight unnerved me, you can imagine what learning about Harold Camping's predicted Apocalypse did. You have to remember how primitive the online world was back then. There was no Google, no Yahoo, no Wikipedia. Newspapers still existed only on actual paper, delivered to our home once a day. So when it came to interpreting Camping's prophecy, I was completely on my own. All I had was the bulletin board message in front of me and the few incoherent responses it had attracted. I sat there reading and rereading it, increasingly frustrated -- and panicked -- by my inability to identify even one glaring and obvious logical flaw that would let me laugh the whole thing off and forget it. I knew it could be baseless, that it probably was baseless -- but what if the joke was on me? What if the end really was approaching?

The good news was that I had time. Two years feels like the blink of an eye now, but it didn't when I was 13. So I was able to go about my daily life without being too outwardly affected by the anxiety that now stalked me. On good days, I'd barely think about September 1994 -- or I'd think about it but assure myself, "Everything will probably be fine" -- always making sure to include the word "probably," lest God think I was being cocky. On bad days, the fear of eternal torment was consuming. And telling anyone in my life was out of the question. At best, they'd just say I was being silly. At worst, they'd conclude I was mentally unstable. Either way, they wouldn't be much help. I was going to have to face the end of the world on my own.

My first refuge was religion. If I could equip myself with spiritual confidence, there'd be no reason to fear 9/6/94. My parents were fast becoming lapsed Catholics, and trips to Sunday Mass were growing more and more infrequent. I told them we should start going again. But we stopped because you hated it so much, they reminded me. So we compromised: They could skip church, but they'd give me a ride to an after-school religious class. I also sampled some other faiths, mainly by accompanying friends to various church youth group events. All of this felt like going through the motions, though. I was still the same doubter and sinner I'd always been.

So I tried something dramatic: basic cable. For a few weeks in the summer of 1993, I became a regular viewer of "The 700 Club," absorbing the emotional testimonies of the saved and praying along with Pat Robertson for my own salvation -- all while learning about the abortion-breast cancer link and the threat of "homosexuals in the military." But even in my frantic condition, I couldnâ??t quite buy it -- especially when theyâ??d go to a break and I'd watch an ad showing Thomas Jefferson getting arrested for praying in public.

On my own, I tried reading the Bible but couldn't get through a single page without growing hopelessly confused -- and bored. And I forced myself to pray every night, but this ritual quickly took on an OCD quality -- with my mind issuing increasingly elaborate requests ("Please protect my aunt's neighbor who I met that one time") for fear that leaving anyone out just once would lead God to give them cancer. The more I tried to force it, the more my mind was invaded by all of those pesky skeptical questions. I began to realize that this was a dead end, and while I didn't reject God, I did admit to myself that the certainty I craved was out of reach. I would have to settle for a vague sense of hope -- that he existed and that, if he did and if he decided to end the world, he'd have mercy on me.

As the calendar turned to 1994, I became especially sensitive to news of natural disasters. Camping's theory held that the Second Coming would be preceded by several years of turbulence on earth. So when a major earthquake hit Southern California in January â??94, I was saddened to hear that dozens of people were killed. But I mainly wondered: Was this a sign? I felt the same thing a few months later, when nearly 50 people were killed -- and whole towns were destroyed -- by a freak string of tornadoes in the Southeast. Was God warning us of what was to come in September?

That summer, I took a road trip to the Midwest with my father. We saw a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, and I smiled and sang along when Harry Caray led the crowd in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." But I couldn't shake the fear: Imagine how much I'd be enjoying this if I could just be sure the world wasn't about to end, I kept thinking. Later in the trip, we checked into our hotel room and I thumbed through a local magazine that had been left on the table. There was an interview with Glen Campbell, who was apparently promoting an upcoming concert. My eyes were immediately drawn to one of the questions: As a deeply religious man, did he think the Lord would return in his lifetime? Campbell replied that he thought it would happen relatively soon. Was God now speaking to me through Glen Campbell?

Sept. 5 -- the day before that particular end of the world -- was a Monday, Labor Day. I was due to start my sophomore year of high school later that week,. On the outside, I seemed calm enough. On the inside, I was petrified. I had long ago perfected this balancing act. That night, as I watched the clock down to midnight with mounting anxiety, I sat down in the living room and turned on Monday Night Football, the 49ers and the Raiders. Somehow, the noise from the crowd gave me comfort. I thought of telling my mother everything -- that I was worried, that I'd been worried for two years -- and that I just wanted to say goodbye to her in case. Instead, I stayed put.

But then, somewhere around halftime, I realized something I'd never actually considered about the Rapture: Logistics. Here it was almost 11 p.m. on Sept. 5 -- but weren't there 24 time zones in the world? Didn't that mean that it was Sept. 6 already in a lot of other places? I'd been counting down to Sept. 6 on Eastern Standard Time, but why would God automatically be doing the same? If there really were something magical about the date Sept. 6, wouldn't there be breaking news reports of doom and gloom elsewhere in the world by now? It had to be getting close to Sept. 7 somewhere. Almost miraculously, I began feeling the relief that had eluded me for nearly two years: The Rapture was here -- and the world wasn't ending.

I'd love to report that this experience marked a fundamental turning point in my life -- that it taught me to trust my rational instincts and never to let my darkest fears consume me again. But that really wouldn't be true. Since dodging Armageddon in 1994, I've diagnosed myself with one terrifying disease after another (always incorrectly, so far). I also haven't been on an airplane in more than 15 years. But I can say this: When I heard recently that Harold Camping had revised his calculations and discovered that the world would be ending on May 21, I knew better than to panic. This time, I can emphatically and confidently state that there's absolutely nothing to worry about and that Saturday will come and go without anything happening. Probably.

TFN Says Goodbye
By Jose

Darn, there go our plans for the weekend.

Word on the Internet is that the world will end Saturday. Since itâ??s on the Internet, it must be true. Especially if itâ??s on YouTubeâ??it is, we checkedâ??where state Rep. Leo Berman says those â??Tubes are infallible.

For the person who wins the Texas lotto on Saturday night, this is horrible timing.

So here at TFN Insider weâ??re writing one last post to say goodbye and wish everybody best of luck in whatever comes your way after Saturday.

We want to thank everyone for their kind support for the past 15+ years. Thank you for all the snarky comments on this blog. And two big thumbs upâ??as our bumper stickers sayâ??for doing your part to piss off the religious right.

Having nothing to lose at this point, we also want to fess up to a few things. The advice from the folks predicting May 21 is the end of days is to get things in order before we all leave, and we would never ignore guidance from people who have twice predicted the end of the world.

Letâ??s start with David Barton.

Dear Dave: weâ??re sorry. Weâ??re actually big fans. Sorry for all that bothersome fact-checking. You taught us that when you have the gift of an imagination, you donâ??t need a DeLorean to change history. And for that, we thank you.

To the Texas State Board of Education: you were right. Those social studies standards, your stances on evolution and abstinence-only sex education, and dislike of Muslims were all spot on. It just that TFN, truckloads of scholars with a â??left-wing elitistâ? education, teachers and university professors, qualified experts, everyday people blessed with sanity, and even conservative think tanks were sitting around one day bored and with nothing else to do. So we all got together and said, â??Letâ??s pick on the SBOE.â?

Sorry about that.

To the good folks at Liberty Institute/Focus on the Family â?¦ actually, never mind. Everything we said about you is pretty accurate.

So thatâ??s it. Time to say goodbye. Itâ??s been fun. We wish everyone a safe journey tomorrow.

Actually, no, not really. Weâ??re not going anywhere. Weâ??re pretty certain TFN, you, the religious right, and the rest of the world will still be here on Sunday, though some of us who have been watching the Texas Legislature for a few months now could go for an apocalypse or two.

But this whole talk of the rapture happening tomorrow has been amusing, much like it will be the next time the religious right predicts the end is nigh.

'Rapture' apocalypse prediction sparks atheist reaction

US atheists are to hold parties in response to an evangelical broadcaster's prediction that Saturday will be "judgement day".

The Rapture After Party in North Carolina - "the best damned party in NC" - is among the planned events.

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.

Mr Camping has predicted an apocalypse once before, in 1994, though followers now say that only referred to an intermediary stage.

"We learn from the Bible that Holy God plans to rescue about 200 million people," says a text on the website of Mr Camping's network, Family Radio Worldwide.

"On the first day of the Day of Judgment (May 21, 2011) they will be caught up (raptured) into Heaven because God had great mercy for them."
'Countdown to back-pedalling'

The Rapture After Party in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is a two-day event organised by the Central North Carolina Atheists and Humanists.

"Though the absurdity of this claim is obvious to the majority of the world, it's a great opportunity to highlight some of the most bizarre beliefs often put forth by religious fundamentalists and raise awareness of the need for reason," said a posting about the party on the group's website.

Atheists in Tacoma, Washington, have headed their celebration "countdown to back-pedalling".

Events are also planned in Houston, Florida and California.

An atheist and entrepreneur from New Hampshire, Bart Centre, is enjoying a boost in business for Eternal Earth-bound Pets, which he set up to look after the pets of those who believe they will be raptured.

He has more than 250 clients who are paying up to $135 (£83) to have their pets picked up and cared for after the rapture.

They would be disappointed twice, he told the Wall Street Journal. "Once because they weren't raptured and again because I don't do refunds."
'No Plan B'

Meanwhile Mr Camping, who has been criticised by more mainstream Christians, says he knows "without any shadow of a doubt" that "judgement day" is arriving.

He says he will spend Saturday with his wife, close to a TV or radio.

"I'll be interested in what's happening on the other side of the world as this begins," he told Reuters.

There is no "Plan B", he says.

His campaign has been unusually widely promoted - both in the US, and overseas, including in the Middle East.

In Vietnam, thousands of members of the Hmong ethnic minority gathered near the border with Laos earlier this month to await the 21 May event, the Associated Press reported.

Chris McCann of eBible Fellowship, one of the groups helping to spread the message, said it had been publicised in almost every country.

"The only countries I don't feel too good about are the "stans" - you know, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, those countries in Central Asia," he said.