Listen to Harold Camping's full response to May 21st 2011 Sort-of-Rapture

The global earthquakes that were scheduled for Judgment Day, May 21st 2011, of course didn't happen, and neither were the saved removed from the planet. (My pet rat Blakey was missing Saturday Morning, & we were worried she was Rat-tured, but we eventually found her.) Harold Camping eventually re-appeared on Monday, and gave a full press conference / special broadcast of his daily show Open Forum, that was widely reported on. The whole thing is up on the Family Radio website now, here.

Our friend & symbologist Dr Benway explained in an e-mail Camping's new stance:

My understanding is that it didn't happen yet and he made a miscalculation,

This is actually not quite his present position, and differs from it mainly in not having cojones the size of ripe grapefruit hanging out of its bushy ears. In a stunning tour de force characterized by the artful admixture of jovial arrogance and aw-shucks humility, Camping turned his twin .50 caliber machine guns of gospel truth on an incongruously hostile group of secular (probably homosexual) press without any discernible regret or consciousness of having done anything wrong.

What he's saying, as near as I can make out, is that he was and is still right about everything, except insofar as he had expected tangible rather than spiritual correlates to Christ's return. He actually said, in so many words, that he had been too cacognostic ("we took it too literally") and proposed an orthognostic reading of his original predictions ("the marvelous proofs...are more spiritual than I had supposed" or words to that effect.) Thus, everything is still on schedule: the day of Judgement came, God's Salvation Plan is over, and the wheat has been separated from the chaff. Correspondingly, Family Radio are decomissioning all their billboards and other public outreach campaigns, (after all, why waste time and energy proselytizing the damned?) and will be restricting their operations to programs like The Open Forum basically just to kill time until the utter annihilation of all things (except the Elect) which is still set to happen in nearly five months.

In my knowledge, Camping is unique here in promulgating what amounts to an apophatic eschatology. You can tell that the world is ending, but only through inference from negatives. Judgement Day is a spiritual rather than tangible phenomenon because we predicted giant earthquakes and they didn't materialize...

So, the October 21st date will not be as widely publicized, so therefore will probably not be as widely mocked by the secular world. But I still propose we meet again for Mimosas.

I've been reading a lot of the Christian response to this fiasco... And there will often be a sort of marginalizing of Camping as a loon, and worry that he is making the rest of Christianity look goofy for their beliefs. Tim LaHaye, who wrote the Left Behind novels, called Camping "bizarre" and "100% wrong." A very articulate scholar speaking on NPR even ended his segment about this with a disclaimer like "now don't get me wrong, I totally believe the rapture is coming soon." The point is, even if most of mainstream Christians take the Bible at its word that "of that day & hour knows no man" (see last week's Doonesbury), there is still a surprisingly high percentage of Americans who are expecting an apocalypse soon-ish, with a destruction of the Earth similar to the poetic descriptions in Revelations, a belief in Hell as a physical place with real fire in caves beneath the earth, et cetera, et cetera. Camping may have had a relatively small following, but the fears he was praying on are a mainstream part of American culture.

Coming Soon: ideas for questions to call & ask on Camping's Open Forum show.

Mimosas at Harold Camping's Family Radio Studios on May 21, 2011?

I thought bringing champagne to Harold Camping's Family Radio headquarters on Hegenberger Road in Oakland on the morning of the Rapture was an intriguing idea, and set up a private facebook invite for it months ago. However since then, after discussing it with other practicing members of the Mimosas Witnesses, we've sort of decided it was a bad idea for several reasons:

-Difficulty of getting people to Hegenberger Road for any reason.

-Possibility of offending or confronting people over there during a time full of expectations.

-Possibility of being cited for public drinking, or worse.

In regards to the first point, I was just reading relevant sections of the Gospel of Matthew, and Jesus makes the following warning about False Prophets: "Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not." -Matt. 24:26. Hegenberger Road is a barren trafficky street between the Oakland Coliseum and the Oakland Airport, and if any urban location qualifies as the wilderness, it does. Therefore I would recommend taking Jesus' advice and not letting a false prophet entice you to go to the desert. (This is a bit of a tangent, but the next verse, Matt. 24:27, describes the arrival of Jesus thusly: "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." What does Camping make of that bible verse, as he has said Judgment Day will be a slow moving earthquake which will move from East to West and hit every time zone at exactly 6pm? a bit slower than the speed of light.)

I've been invited to no fewer than three other rapture parties in the next 24 hours, but I still desired some sort of pilgrimage on Saturday to see the scene. Especially after I read SF Chronicle journalist Justin Berton's 2010 article about Harold Camping, "On Sept. 6, 1994, dozens of Camping's believers gathered inside Alameda's Veterans Memorial Building." (That was the last time he predicted Judgment Day on an exact date.) Not finding any evidence of a Camping-sponsored party myself, I e-mailed Berton asking if he knew of a gathering or if Camping was having a press conference somewhere some time, and to let me know if he heard anything. Berton wrote back and said that Camping had advised his followers to stay at home with their loved ones this time around.

That e-mail exchange continued for a few more e-mails, and I mentioned my idea of having mimosas in the parking lot of Camping's studios. I think I was fairly vague about actual plans, and told him our updated plan was to ring in Friday night (Tonight! when the giant earthquakes are supposed to first hit the Pacific Rim) in a cemetery, and attempt to call my friend Shani in Jerusalem, who agreed to go to the Mount of Olives for a live report. However, he mentioned it in front page article in the Chronicle yesterday, "May 21, 2011: Rapture or Party Time?"

Mocking and concern

A few nonbelievers have suggested throwing a party outside Family Radio's headquarters Saturday night, mimosas in hand. Other skeptics, however, say the fact that Camping has assembled a dedicated following is nothing to laugh at.

I think I can assume I inspired that paragraph. It leaves me in a bind tho, because I don't want to throw a party on Hegenberger Road, especially not Saturday night, and we intended no "Mocking" or "concern." More disconcertingly, the article's main objective is to create a false dichotomy between "Rapture" and "Party Time," and lumps us in with "a few nonbelievers."At least he got the key word "mimosas" right, otherwise "nonbelievers," "party," and "night" seem to be invented by the journalist. (I definitely said "pilgrimage" in my e-mail to him.) Anyway, I don't mean to parse words, it was otherwise a great article by Berton, and it was awesome he mentioned mimosas at Family Radio Studios.

I'm mostly composing this blog post and posting it on Rapture Eve in case anyone read that in the Chronicle & was wanting to know more. The Mimosas Witnesses are not organizing a gathering at the radio station, however we might still make a pilgrimage sometime. If anyone out there is inspired by the idea, and wants to go to Hegenberger Road of their own accord, please do, but at least consider my hesitations listed above. It might be fun to cause a scene there, anyway. But remember the Mimosas Witnesses is an inclusive religion of peace, and over all a religion of AM cocktails. If you'd like to know more about the Mimosas Witnesses, please read my pamphlet below.

False prophets with multi-million dollar budgets have the ability to do massive harm. Jesus said they come in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. In Harold Camping's case, he looks like crap. Many people are taking this seriously (as has been well reported this week in articles in the NY Times and NPR), selling off their life savings, &c. The U.S. has a high population who believe the Second Coming of Christ will occur in their lifetimes, and many are highly suggestible. Interestingly, I was looking through the Wikipedia's list of previous exact dates set for Judgment Day, and many of the previous Prophets of This-Or-That-Day were not wholly cast out by their followers. They include such luminaries as Swedenborg, William Miller (of the Adventists & also Baha'i,) Charles Taze Russell (of the Jehovah's Witnesses,) Joseph Smith Jr., Benjamine Creme, Sun Myung Moon, &c &c. So this could not be the end of Harold Camping, depending on how he spins the results of the events tomorrw. (It wasn't the end of him in 1994.) In any event, Camping suggests going about business as usual tomorrow, so please have mimosas with your loved ones somewhere.

Update: According to Scott James in today's New York Times / Bay Citizen, Family Radio Studios has been empty since Monday:

Inside the sprawling, threadbare Oakland headquarters of Family Radio Worldwide the staff has prepared for the end of the world this weekend — and it appears they mean it.

“There’s so little time left,” a smiling elderly woman said, hugging a colleague.

On Monday, the last day outsiders were welcome inside the gated compound, recording studios sat empty. Current programming for the independent Christian broadcast ministry was produced weeks ago. No more shows are needed.

Join the Mimosas Witnesses

Do you wake up on Sunday Morning with a thirst for life? Do you wake up on Sunday Morning with your head pounding from a life well lived? You should join the Mimosas Witnesses.

The Mimosas Witnesses' central and only tenet is the drinking of fruit juice-based wine cocktails in the morning. The Mimosas Witnesses is as non-exclusive religion, and you may join in addition to already being a member of another religion. We do require a tithe, which no member has ever complained about, as the ten percent or more of your income tithed we ask you to spend on booze for your consumption and to share with friends.

This religion is not a parody of any Christian religion. It is a faith of life. Many practicing Christians do not believe in transubstantiation, although Jesus’ direct quotes from the Gospel of John explicitly require it. “Whosover eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.” -John 6:54. He defines His body as delicious bread, and His blood as fully alcoholic wine, which He then gifts to those He most loves. It may surprise you to learn that most so-called Christians do not drink wine during church service, even though Jesus was unambiguous about the ingredients of communion. He was a bit vague on the varietal of grape to be used, but there is little disagreement that champagne is the most divine kind of wine. As long as you are amongst friends and drinking wine, you are participating in a sacred gathering.

It has long been believed by Jewish peoples and many other biblical scholars that oranges were the famous fruits in the Garden of Eden which led to Adam’s downfall. Whether or not this is true, it is believed by many more that the juice from the orange is delicious. This mixing of the earthly juice with the sacred wine has created history’s most perfect cocktail.

Come, witness a mimosa! Join the Mimosas Witnesses! Mix wine with juice and share it with friends or strangers.

Special Manifesto: "YUR THER" - A Political Spelling Reformation

"Yur Ther: A Spelling Manifesto"

In the late 18th Century, Noah Webster had a political vision to revolutionize spelling for the American language. Many of his reformations eventually happened, like less-idiotic spellings of ‘color’ & ‘wagon.’ Some of his more radical ideas, like spelling ‘is’ with a ‘z’ like it sounds, never caught on. Although Webster is still lionized as the founding father of American Spelling, we have not continued to adapt after his fashion in the past few centuries. Our pronunciations have continued to evolve, but not our spelling of them. We are constantly adding trendy new words like “omg” & “unfriend” into the dictionary after they become common usage, but never updating spelling to reflect speech. Historically, spelling has been mutable and was constantly in flux for centuries. Between 1564 and 1616, the name Shakepeare was spelled more than twenty different ways in literary and non-literary sources (Shaxberd!) This not because people were stupid or didn’t fact-check the playwright's name, but because spelling was not standardized and it was used more freely as a tool to describe speech.

In the 21st century, things have changed again, and the pendulum is again pendulumming. The youf, as they’re known, when they are texting and IMing, have begun to ignore how words are supposed to be spelled and spell shit however they want. This spelling revolution has seeped into other correspondences and into literature. However, whenever it creeps into the schoolroom or into other written formats, the youf is seen as ignorant, uneducated, sloppy or worse. It’s time to accept this war for what it is! Spelling differences set culture against culture, elite against the democratic masses, generation against generation, race against race, man against man. Language is not a protected tower that only the educated can occupy, it is a chaotic mess of wilderness. Spelling is social, racial, and political.

In this brief manifesto, I propose eliminating the UNCONSTITUTIONAL laws mandating which ‘your’s or ‘there’s are supposed to be used in their elitist “correct” usages. (I realize that there is no “constitution” of the English Language, and therefore said laws cannot be unconstitutional. However, I reject your elitist definition of ‘unconstitutional,’ and like Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty, I choose to make words mean what I wish them to mean.) For too long now, incorrect uses of ‘your’/’you’re’ and ‘there’/’their’/’they’re’ have caused derision, condescension and patronizing rebukes from haughty rule-followers and narks (I’m looking at you, English teachers.) Many of the people who mess up these rules are intelligent and thoughtful users of language. Many more are not, but they are still human and still honorable members of the unwashed English-speaking hordes. Either way, surely the content is more important than the superficial spelling rules. Even if the content is crap, why should the spelling reflect poorly on the speller’s character? It is social and political discrimination to assume that spelling error makes a man less of a man.

The your/you’re and there/their/they’re rules are CONFUSING and UNREALISTIC. I have many college-educated friends who regularly commit mistakes to this rule, either because they didn’t notice the mistake or didn’t care. Others simply don’t give a butthole. Despite the widespread indifference, every day people are denied jobs or romantic advances on online dating sites because of mixing up their ‘there’s.’ I propose two new accepted words to the English Language: ‘ther’ and ‘yur.’ These are not meant to replace the other “correct” spellings, but to function as accepted stand-ins for the lazy or confused writer, in any public or private, official or unofficial written communication. Therefore their definitions would be as follows:

yur - either ‘your’ or ‘you’re,’ depending on context, or whatever.
ther - either ‘there,’ ‘their,’ or ‘they’re,’ depending on context, which should be easily discernible (hence “context”), so figure it out yourself and leave me alone.

I also propose lobbying congress to enact a Hetorograph Bill to protect citizens who regularly mess up hetographs/homonyms/homographs/heteronyms &c (the "homonymphobic" or "homonymphomaniac") from discrimination in the workplace, job market, and online dating sites.