The human side of the Rapture hoax.

[Joe the Revelator]

"I don't understand why nothing has happened," a deflated Fitzpatrick said in Times Square just after 6 p.m. "I did what I had to do. I did what the Bible said."

"I obviously haven't understood it properly, because we're still here," added Fitzpatrick, 60, surrounded by a phalanx of reporters and skeptical onlookers.

The retired MTA worker from Staten Island bought $140,000 worth of advertising, proclaiming that the end was near. He and followers of California televangelist Harold Camping thought a global earthquake would strike the East Coast just before 6 p.m.

After the clock ticked past 6 p.m. and nothing happened, Fitzpatrick appeared to shrink amid the jeering crowd.

"How can you still stand there? How can you still do that?" Raeed Clark, 26, told Fitzpatrick, calling his ploy "the biggest scam in history."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/05/21/2011-05-21_despite_preparations_believers_of_apocalypse_shocked_when_doomsday_time_passes_w.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I feel bad for the guy. He's the one who gave his life savings to try to, in his mind, save people.

[Logical]

Fine line between gullible and deranged. n-t

[Ian David]

1. Considering they blame "Teh Gay" for dooming mankind, I find it hard to muster sympathy. n/t

[Joe the Revelator]

3. This guy did that?

I didn't know that.

[sakabatou]

14. Neither did I

[La Lioness Priyanka]

28. you were wrong. nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. its part of the philosophy he endorsed. it states so on all the rapture websites

[Joe the Revelator]

19. For this particular rapture? I mean the entire idea is absurd, but I've never heard the

May 21 people give any reason for the rapture aside from some numerology that camping came up with.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. yeah, part of the prediction was due to the rise of the gay pride movement

i just read it a few days ago.

i dont think this entire thing was as homophobic as these things usually get, but it was not homophobia free either

[Joe the Revelator]

23. Interesting. Thanks for the info.

I still feel bad for this particular guy for some reason. I think because he seems like he has something wrong with him to begin with.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

26. i do too feel bad for the guy.

[EstimatedProphet]

71. I feel kind of bad for him

But frankly, he wouldn't have felt a bit bad to go up in the middle of the air and look down on everyone writhing in misery and torment. All of the Rapture descriptions focus heavily on how those that are Raptured will get to enjoy watching the Doomed meet their Doom. That keeps me from shedding many tears.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

25. a good video for you

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/05/homosexuals-brought-on-rapture.html

[Joe the Revelator]

30. Wow. Well, there that is.

What a jerk-off

[La Lioness Priyanka]

31. but i do feel sad for people who believed this and spent their live savings on it.

[Joe the Revelator]

34. As do I. But not for Camping. He deserves all the scorn and viritol that is going....

...to be thrown at him

[Zorra]

47. eeeew what a dark icky little man. He emanates evil. ick!

shudder

Now I need a shower,

[a la izquierda]

67. My husband and I saw this...

I turned purple and almost blew my top (my mom and uncle, the two closest people to me in the world besides hubby, are both gay). My husband mused "And Newt Gingrich and his three marriages are the picture of marital sanctuary and grace."
I had to laugh at that point.

[Bluenorthwest]

82. The President also says all straight couples are 'sanctified by

God' and have a 'spiritual element' gay people lack. This means he believes that Newt and The Mrs. Three, or the Ensigns are Sanctified by God. He says this. People nod along, rationalize it, but it is what it is.

[a la izquierda]

87. Newt had been on the news like 5 minutes before.

Hence my husband's comment. You don't need to tell me what the President says about gay couples. There's more hypocrisy from the family values crowd, however, and I'm pretty sure that the President doesn't believe gays cause bad things to happen. Maybe Newt does, but I KNOW that's how many so-called Christians in the Bible Belt of Oklahoma feel.

[blondeatlast]

72. What a creep. Romans 1 is talking about idolatry, not homosexuality.

What a creepy, vile man.

[Sky Masterson]

83. wow.

He is just so sure about his predictions/assumptions.
I hope he gets his ass sued.

[11 Bravo]

96. Damn, thanks LP! I had no idea that homophobic bigotry was such an integral part ...

of this gig.

[RKP5637]

36. I have no sympathy for them at all, many enjoy gay bashing so in my

book they're getting what they deserve. What goes around comes around IMO.

[Joe the Revelator]

41. Maybe. But a lot of these 'followers' come off as dumb and disturbed instead of hateful...

But I can understand why you wouldn't want to give them a pass.

[CBGLuthier]

99. Is that BROAD BRUSH heavy?

Does toting around such a broad brush strain your back?

[Keith Bee]

2. Unrec

Topic no longer pertinent.

[Joe the Revelator]

4. ?

[LynneSin]

8. Rec (the OP)

who are we to decide what is and is not pertinent

[Lars39]

10. The human element is always pertinent.

Real people got scammed.

[hlthe2b]

27. ???

why be so rude?

[Control-Z]

40. It is more pertinent now

than it was before, if you give it any thought. There are people who have been devastated by this scam, left both financially and spiritually bankrupt. There are children, whose parents stopped working and paying the bills altogether, who will become homeless.

I feel sorry for many of these people - some who will never recover their losses or repair their lives.

[cprise]

79. I'll never feel sorry for the adults

They wanted to watch the rest of humanity suffer from their perch at the pearly gates. Tim Lahaye is very popular with this crowd.

At best, they ignore the copious amounts of hate emanating from their movement leaders onto the rest of us.

[stuntcat]

69. please pay attention Admins

open thine eyes, see another example of why un-Recing is a dumb waste. I have never seen it have any use at all, just dumb and petty :banghead:

[LynneSin]

5. Cleary this idiot never read Matthew 24:36

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

If this guy actually read the words of Jesus instead of listening to some old-fart con-artist from Oakland, CA, this man would still have his $140k.

[Joe the Revelator]

7. Matthew is bullshit as well. ( the entire bible is) however this guy clearly has issues...

And I feel bad he was taken by a snake oil salesman for his life savings.

[LynneSin]

18. To read Matthew and the other gospels, no matter what your beliefs are...

will show you that Jesus was a liberal; very progressive for his day and age. Even if you do not think of Jesus as the Messiah, you'll find Jesus, the human, as someone with compassion that did not like organized religion or those who passed judgement onto others. He reached out to help those who were poor and needy. One doesn't have to profess being a Christian to appreciate what he did during his time here on earth. Even Gandhi was a big fan of the guy.

[Joe the Revelator]

22. I'm sorry if my other post came off aggressively,however enough evil

Has been done is Jesus name, and enough other wise smart people have allowed themselves to become ignorant through the bible that I have very little tolerance for it.

[LynneSin]

43. The people who do evil in his name probably are quoting Paul as they do it

I don't blame your anger one bit - it is justified. But look at the scriptures they'll quote - either old testament or something Paul said (new testament after Jesus). Never do they quote Jesus. It's really sad

[Zorra]

49. Yes, I've noticed that also. I've called it Paulism all my life. nt

[blondeatlast]

73. That's a good way to frame it.

:thumbsup:

[Zorra]

81. "Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ." :

Carl Sagan
"My long-time view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of two seemingly
immiscible parts--the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas Jefferson attempted to
excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn't much left when he was done, but it
was an inspiring document."

Thomas Jefferson
"Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus."

Albert Schweitzer
"Where possible Paul avoids quoting the teaching of Jesus, in fact even mentioning it. If we had
to rely on Paul, we should not know that Jesus taught in parables, had delivered the sermon on
the mount, and had taught His disciples the 'Our Father.' Even where they are specially
relevant, Paul passes over the words of the Lord."

Will Durant
"Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of
Christ."

"Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ."

Walter Kaufmann
"Paul substituted faith in Christ for the Christlike life."

George Bernard Shaw
"No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its
legs again in the name of Jesus."

Thomas Hardy
"The new testament was less a Christiad than a Pauliad."

Jeremy Bentham
"If Christianity needed an Anti-Christ, they needed look no farther than Paul."

Carl Jung
"Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in."

Bishop John S. Spong
"Paul's words are not the Words of God. They are the words of Paul- a vast difference."

[Ian David]

11. But Camping figured it out, so god had to change the date...

... to one that nobody knows.

[RKP5637]

38. Camping makes out like a bandit with all of his pure BS, to the tune of millions

and millions and millions!!! The guys a con artist, a scammer and a charlatan. He throws in the God word and suddenly he's legit to his flock.

Fortunately, this was not Jonestown and the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project.

[LynneSin]

42. What would be a good laugh is if some of these people duped would actually sue him

could be funny

[RKP5637]

46. It sure would make for an interesting class action lawsuit. n/t

[ohheckyeah]

6. I've often wondered

what is so wrong in a person's life that they would spend their time looking forward to the end of the earth and being whisked up into the sky. The gift of life is just that....a gift. Live it like you appreciate it is my philosophy.

[Old and In the Way]

12. Amen.

[blondeatlast]

74. I can speak to that. It's a sort of "suicide," IMHO.

I've been desperate and sick and overworked and totally devoid of hope before, but never really considered suicide (out of concern for my son; I'm a single mom and my esx-husband cannot help, he works (not in the military) overseas. What I have thought about is how peaceful and restful eternal sleep would be.

Had I not had a very strong support system in my family and a faith that questions my own beliefs, I would be easy pickings for a cretin like Camping.

I can easily see how someone in a similar position would be persuaded.

[rug]

9. I agree with you.

[franzia99]

13. Do you think the leader of this cult is a sociopath or just schizophrenic?

[sakabatou]

16. Neither.

I think he knew what he did and got money from gullible people.

[Fumesucker]

21. That pretty much makes him a sociopath..

He did that to those people knowingly, he might as well have been a serial killer, he was going to kill some of these people and he knows it.

[sakabatou]

24. Possibly

But to say he's a sociopath? We don't know his true profile.

[franzia99]

44. So schizophrenic then?

[sakabatou]

56. No. His actions don't seem to point towards that

However, I'm not a doctor.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

63. not in the least bit. someone can be a scam artist without a psychological disorder

[blondeatlast]

75. Agreed; and I wonder if even he believes what he says. nt

[Speck Tater]

15. The human species is fundamentally flawed.

Evolution will eventually replace us with something better. Until then, there's not much we can do but sit back and enjoy the show.

[The Wielding Truth]

60. Evolution does not always replace with better. Just more survivable

If we need to be kind and communal to survive then we will be nicer people. If we need to be nasty and self centered then that will win. That is evolution.

It seems we are moving to a more spiritual existence though. The reality of knowing more about life and our logical place in the cosmos seems to lead to that end. That is if we continue to exist as human.Of course this is just how I see it.

[Speck Tater]

91. Good point

I guess I'm hoping that more survivable means better able to live peacefully in community setting.

[stuntcat]

70. and some of us are DEvolving

It's scary and sad, to me.

[fishwax]

29. Wow. Can't imagine getting to that point.

[AlabamaLibrul]

32. Unrec

[Joe the Revelator]

33. You know what's obnoxious?

Posts like yours.

[Xipe Totec]

39. +1

Seriously.

[AlabamaLibrul]

51. Ok

[Joe the Revelator]

52. Why don't you tell me what's pissing you off

You know, have a discussion.

[AlabamaLibrul]

59. Nothing, really.

I disagree with OP's assessment of the situation, had nothing more to add, un-recced and chose not do to so anonymously, since people tend to complain about that. "Those pesky anonymous unreccers" and all.

You sound pissed off that I went ahead and did so. I guess you get complained about either way.

[jwirr]

35. I think he applied the wrong Bible passage to Campings ravings.

He should have remembered the one about being wary of wolves in sheep's clothing and the one warning for false prophets. And yes, I think there are a lot of people who are feeling very down tonight because what they wanted to happen did not occur. True believers have a hard time adjusting when their world does not follow their preconceived ideas.

[The Backlash Cometh]

37. I really feel bad for the people who think this was a way out of their economic woes.

[Crunchy Frog]

45. Eh, this is one of those rare instances where social Darwinism works.

[AuntPatsy]

48. No sympathy, plenty of people in need could have used those funds

Instead he chose to throw it away, whatever happened to giving to those in need?

[Vinnie From Indy]

50. I blame the talking snake in the Garden of Eden!

n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

53. At it's best, life is about learning. Sometimes the hard way.

If this results in a few more critical thinkers and skeptics, and a few fewer glassy-eyed fundamentalists, It's a net gain.

[MrSlayer]

54. I don't feel bad for him at all. He's a fool.

One would think that by age sixty this guy would have amassed a certain amount of wisdom. Apparently not.

[Cali_Democrat]

57. +1

[Urban Prairie]

55. Anyone with eyesight can look up in the sky on a cloudless night and get a clue

See all of those stars in the sky, lurking rightwinger freeper fundies? Most of them are millions of stars, many with possibly, if not probably thousands of life-sustaining, habitable planets orbiting them, and just beyond the naked eye lie billions upon billions of galaxies.


That is obviously the most logical, and non-religiously hysterical reason why there was not, and probably never will be any so-called "rapture" but IS why there could indeed be an "end" times (mass-extinction event) if for example, Earth ever gets slammed into (again) by a large enough asteroid, or worse, a comet, that is, IF we don't manage to successfully self-extinct our own species beforehand, along with many other living species upon the planet. (not we that aren't always trying really hard over the past 60-odd years)

IF there IS a lone creator who intelligently designed this beyond mind-boggling vastness, it has a lot more on its "plate" than concentrating solely on separating the "evildoers" from the "pious/holy" and their problems that just this one self-important, and self-aware but infinitesimally insignificant human species has upon our ultra-minuscule blue dust-speck of a planet within just one solar system within just one galaxy within trillions and trillions within the known universe.

[RebelOne]

68. Well said. n/t

[G_j]

76. well said.. nt

[ohheckyeah]

58. It's so easy for humans to demonize

each other. Where does it end?

I've ranted and raved against people like the ones who bought into this nonsense but they are sad, deluded, often sick people. They are easily duped because they have an abundance of pain, fear and guilt. I spent a number of years in a fundamentalist church and I have first hand knowledge of how very damaged many of these people are. They've been spiritually abused and many times have suffered other abuses that set them up for the spiritual abuse. Spiritual abuse is just as destructive, if not more so, than physical and even sexual abuse.

Tonight I just feel sad for them.

[Dorian Gray]

61. I feel badly for him too

he was bamboozled by a bamboozler. And to believe this was the end times shows he's gullible, but to spend a huge chunk of his life savings on it has to be devastating.

[slackmaster]

62. If a person hasn't developed any ability to detect bullshit by age 60, he probably never will

Tough shit.

[RandomKoolzip]

64. I don't feel bad for this dipshit AT ALL.

This is the most media-saturated, information-saturated society in history, and if you're too fucking DUMB to do the research about inflated claims regarding eschatology and not come to the conclusion that it's alll bullshit, you only have yourself to blame. This fool BOUGHT his own disillusion. He went broke conning himself, while all the while, facts stared him right in the face. He got what he deserved - fuck 'im.

[undeterred]

65. Then theres the animal side...

Our local news showed a man who was going to euthanize several pets because of the rapture. The humane society was called in and said they would keep his pets safe and find them new homes or return them to him after the weekend if the rapture did not happen.

He was having a yard sale to get rid of his stuff and to tell people that Jesus was coming back.

The humane society appeared to treat him respectfully.

[lumberjack_jeff]

66. Oh well. Maybe the people who sell ads, billboards and truck graphics will buy a boat with their $

We ship worldwide!

My sympathies tend toward those who suffer through no fault of their own. These doofuses? Meh.

[Stevenmarc]

77. I don't feel bad for the guy, but there is one good thing

after spending his life savings it's going to be tough for him to live in NYC, one less asshole is always an improvement.

[scarletwoman]

78. I feel bad for him, too. When I look at that photo of him I see a confused, lonely little man who

thought his life was finally going to have meaning, who thought he was going to be part of something wondrous and wholly greater than himself.

I can't feel anything but compassion. He was lead astray because he never discovered his own center, never knew how to love himself, never experienced inner peace. I think about the emptiness this man must have inside himself to so fervently crave leaving this world.

When I look at that photo I wish that another frame would have shown some kind soul reaching for his hand and leading him away from the jeering crowd to a quiet place, and sitting down with him to listen, really listen to allow him to unburden his soul, to tell his life's story.

The redemption he seeks could yet be found through the compassionate act of a fellow human simply paying attention to him.

I wish for him light and a healed heart.

sw

[Bluenorthwest]

84. That's a nice way of looking at things but

This man lived in the time and place we live in, he had money in the bank . Hard to believe he never had the chance to read a book or meet good people. I assume he rejected all reason willfully. I do not see any evidence that he is of diminished capacity. He adopted a fools set of beliefs and I am sure many told him that.
Many people who fail in an attempt to become more powerful look lonely and confused, McCain on election night comes to mind.
What sort of a person puts up billboards to scare kids? A creep, from word go, a selfish creep. In a bigoted an hateful cult. By choice he was in that group.

[scarletwoman]

85. Sorry, after reading the full article at the OP's link, I can't see him as a "creep",

just a lost human being overtaken by a massive delusion.

Fitzpatrick, for his part, spent the day as if it were his last.

For breakfast, he had coffee, toast and Ezekiel 4 : 9 brand Golden Flax cereal.

"The spiritual significance of these grains, I am not sure," said Fitzpatrick.

He felt no need to do the dishes, but did take a moment to feed peanuts to two squirrels that hang out at his back door.

"Only people can be saved - there will be no animals in heaven," he said.

<snip>

Fitzpatrick spent several hours at home responding to emails and making calls. Then it was time for his final lunch of chicken tenders and spinach served with lemon. "I expect this to be my last meal," he said.

Next, Fitzpatrick drove to the nursing home that cares for his 94-year-old mother, who suffers from dementia. As parting gifts he brought grapes, a granola bar, juice, chocolates and a bottle of water.

"I read a passage - Luke 23," he said of his 30-minute visit. "It's an example of a thief on the cross and Jesus saving people up to the last minute."

Fitzpatrick planned to do the same. He kissed his mother goodbye and jumped on the 4:30 p.m. ferry to Manhattan, where he warned people of the Rapture until the bitter end.

I'm just a softie, I guess.

sw

[Zorra]

95. People that suffer from extreme delusions can be lethal.

"just a lost human being overtaken by a massive delusion."

I totally agree.

Brings to mind the "Good German" Nazis that so mindlessly followed the lost, loud, angry little crazy guy with the toothbrush mustache several decades ago.

I am genuinely concerned that the people that suffer under this mass delusion will someday gain enough political power to be able to, without constraint, fully exercise their "moral obligation" to exterminate GLBT's and any others that they find unacceptable due to the fact that they suffer from this mentally crippling mass delusion.

[Blue-Jay]

100. No animals in Heaven?

"Any place that's too high-falootin' for Rip is too fancy for me."

[malaise]

92. Ditto

He made choices - fugg him

[GreenPartyVoter]

88. What a beautiful post. Thank you for sharing this thought.

[annabanana]

94. (my reaction too). .Even the hard hearted must admit this is what you could call

a "teachable moment".

[deutsey]

98. Nicely put

I've done my fair share of jeering at Camping and his followers, but you touch on a very important aspect of this story that does call for compassion, I think:

"...a confused, lonely little man who thought his life was finally going to have meaning, who thought he was going to be part of something wondrous and wholly greater than himself."

Deep down I think that's what most people want and, yet, our money-driven, materialistic, highly medicated society today fails on so many levels to deliver that deeper sense of meaning and purpose.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

80. I feel the same way

BTW has anybody seen or heard from Mr. Camping? And when does his public tarring and feathering begin?

[BrklynLiberal]

86. P.T. Barnum is laughing in his grave. Sad for the man....but geewhiz!!!

[notadmblnd]

89. I hope he put a little of that away, cause the tax man is gonna want a little more than 1/3

of that 140k

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

90. "Only people can be saved - there will be no animals in heaven," he said.

If there are no animals in heaven, I don't want to go there. But this guy is a fool. A sad, sorry fool. If there is a heaven animals will be there. If there isn't, none of us will be.

[StarburstClock]

93. I feel sorry for the mentally ill too

It's terrible what their minds have to live through.

[JHB]

97. That's why you don't put your faith in Harold Camping and call it "Jesus"

It wasn't the bible that "said" what he should do, it was a cranky, arrogant preacher.

[RandomThoughts]

101. You make the point.

Why would God need people to 'save people' couldn't he do it?

That is the why would God need a starship argument. From one of the Star Trek movies. "I feel your pain"



However if God method to 'save people' was to have someone in the right place at the right time say something or do something. Then it could be done without the people having to know for sure, and blessed are those that believe without seeing.

So there is that also.

But you make the point that thinking a person saves someone is arrogant, and that is made by many people. Although the next step after that is, if they should have food, shelter, or anything else, then God could give it to them, so it is also used to break empathy.


Or if you realize God works through people, it changes the discussion on that point, however God wouldn't need any person, but could work through many people.


Then again, who knows what combinations of events could occur to put someone in the frame of mind that would be what God would consider 'being saved'

Although many think only some people can be saved, and they will all be saved who can, so why do anything, but instead try to make everyone's life better, but some others say it is the role of people to spread good messages to many people and that pleases God, but some others say helping people and living a holy life does that very thing.

I have not seen very many examples of people that live 'holy lives' as many define it, as having better earthy lives, so then there is that issue also. So then the rewards must be after life, but then some say that it is the offspring born into being in a better place by their parents blessing, while others might think it is a reward of past life. I have seen many people that have some benefit in life say they live holy lives to justify lack of empathy or ideas of unjust distribution systems.

but anyways.
:shrug:

I do know, I am due beer and travel money and many experiences, and the world should be more just and compassionate.



However the saddest of all delusions, is the heaven as a company, or many companies, where many people want people to think the world is bought and sold, or people are toys or commodies. And that there are companies, or groups that act like companies that control the world in the supernatural. It pops up in many delusions. It allows a rationalization for capitalist since they then think they make earth like heaven, when they race to the bottom.