May 21, 2011

Mark your calendar for May 21, 2011. That's the day the world will end and The Rapture will occur.

The movie "2012" got it wrong, according to 88 year old Harold Camping, self-described biblical scholar, who also heads an evangelical radio station that broadcasts worldwide via satellite dishes. He figured it out by decoding hidden numerical references in the Bible. It goes like this:

First you have to take his word that the number 5 = atonement, that 10 = completeness, and 17 = heaven. Multiply 5 x 10 x 17 and then square the result = 722,500. I'm not clear on the significance of multiplying those numbers and then squaring the result, but hold on to the total.

Then you have to accept as fact that April 1, 33 AD was the day that Jesus was hung on the cross. Count forward 722,500 days from that date, and ergo you get: ***May 21, 2011***. Judgment Day and The Rapture.

Don't laugh. People believe this. All over the world, on every continent. Never mind the fact that Camping had for two years predicted that Christ would return on September 6, 1994. The faithful gathered in California with Camping on that day, holding their bibles open-face toward heaven, and waiting . . . and waiting . . . and [Waiting for Godot? Sorry, I just couldn't resist].

But nothing happened.

He says he made a mistake in his calculation back then. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle Rick LaCasse, who was in that group, says that his faith in Camping has only strengthened since then. "This time we have proof," he says, meaning that it's not just a prediction this time but actually based on the word of God in the Bible, as deciphered by Camping. He was asked if his opinion of Camping would change if it doesn't come to pass. "I can't even think like that," he said. "Everything is too positive right now. There's too little time to think like that."

Obviously, I am not a believer in Mr. Camping's theology or his mathematics. So why bother with this? People have been predicting the end of the world, in one form or other, for a long time. And it hasn't ended yet. We may be getting there via climate change and depletion of our ability to feed our over-populating selves. Which is a different problem.

Or is it? Isn't all of this the result of people believing what they want to believe, what they need to believe, for whatever psychological reason they need to believe it, or for whatever crass payoff reason they choose to adopt it -- and then trying to persuade others, or issue edicts, or pass or obstruct laws that have power over people? And it's all based on faith or cynical distortions or out right lies -- rather than established facts based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning and lessons from history.

I am not a scientific absolutist or puristic realist. I believe there is a place for faith in the world. It can inspire and comfort. So can great works of art, literature, and music. So can great moral leaders like Jesus, Mohammed, Ghandi, Schweitzer, King, Mandella, Mother Teresa. Moral teachings call us to our better selves and lead people to remarkable sacrifice for the good of others.

But no one should exercise power over others based on his own particular brand of faith when it contradicts empirical evidence. Whatever affects us all should be governed by the universally accepted set of principles of evidence-based facts, as best we can know them.

As far as I know, Harold Camping is harmless. I am not aware of his ever trying to force his belief on anyone or to get laws passed that discriminate against non-believers. But there are far too many who do try to impose their blind beliefs on others.

"Secular humanists" may be scorned by many religionists for lacking faith in a god; but their principles are based on empiricism, reason, and moral teachings of equality, justice and liberty. I suppose that's what I would be if I had to choose a label. You won't find secular humanists standing on a mountain top, waiting for their savior to return for them on a certain date, based on some esoteric math done by a zealot who arbitrarily assigned his own meaning to numbers written thousands of years ago and three language translations removed, and thinking he had uncovered God's code.

I've never heard of them invading another country or discriminating against those who believe differently. It is not secular humanists that hold health care reform hostage to religious opinions that declare a zygote a person from the moment of fertilization, so that abortion is actually murder, but killing the doctor who performs it is not. It is not secular humanists who quietly transfer a priest to another parish school to hide the fact that he molests children. It is not secular humanists who are about to pass a law in Uganda decreeing death to homosexuals and jail to their families for not turning them in. Secular humanism does not lead preachers to picket the funerals of AIDS victims, waving large signs saying "God hates fags. Matthew is burning in hell."

I may regret it when the great space ship arrives to take the faithful to heaven, and my name is not on the list. But I just don't think I can fake the belief that leads people to do such things -- or that sits silently while zealots do it in their name.

But that's a topic for another secular sermon: Where have all the liberal Christians and Jews gone? Was their leadership during the civil rights struggles just a fluke?

Ralph