May 21: The end of ze world

UPDATE: The world did not end, thank god. I refused to believe the world would expire before the milk in my fridge did.

I choose to take the Black Horse Pike on my drives from college to home. I drive it because it is a much more interesting drive than the expressway. I take the pike because there is more to look at outside my window. And, most of all, I take the pike because it saves me $3.75 in toll charges. I don't, however, take the pike to learn news of the coming rapture. But as I slow down my crappy sedan, worried about the police car behind me, I spot a billboard. It's not an anti-drug billboard or an always entertaining Chik-fil-A billboard. It's space rented out by Family Radio, a christian radio station. And like all prophets, Family Radio chose to spread the word on ad space revolutionized by South of the Border.

Specifically this man, pictured here with his many leather bound books.

Jeremiah performed, Ezekiel went crazy, and Harold Camping, Family Radio founder and originator of the end of the world theory, made billboards. According to him, through numerology and his TI-30 calculator, May 21 marks the day of rapture. Rapture is the long promised time when God shall take the faithful up to heaven, and leave everyone else twiddling their thumbs. Prophecies have been nice enough to describe the tribulations of man during end times but never said when it would be.

Apparently it happened in 1992. Nobody noticed.

I went to Catholic school. And while Bible class made for excellent naptime in high school, I spent most of my time reading the Book of Revelations. There's a reason I read Revelations out of boredom, because it was scary and crazy enough to be interesting. That and I was a fan of The Omen growing up (cue scary music). Nothing captures the imagination like the end of times. And that is exactly what Camping counts on. Camping is the madman on the street, only instead of badly Xeroxed pamphlets its an AM frequency. AM stations, where your grandfather listens to the music he grew up with.

I only have faith in FM stations.

It's easy to believe something when you say your source is the Bible, but Camping's own method for determining the end relies on leaps in mathematics and logic. To the further discredit of Camping, he already claimed that the world would end on Sept. 6, 1994. You'd think that after he walked out his door on Sept. 7, seeing the world untouched by God's hand, he'd of given up on being a prophet. Yet here is he again looking for attention.

The Bible guarantees it indeed...

Really, Camping and is just undercutting the 2012 prophecy. Most likely pissed that people (and Roland Emmerich) are putting so much faith in 2012. He doesn't believe in calendars, only the Bible. And according to him, the Bible names May 21 as Rapture. I don't have faith in Camping however. Just as I don't have faith in 2012 or any other apocalypse prophecy. People have been predicting the end of the world since it began. Yet, with all the prediction and numerology and supposed experts on History Channel claiming Tribulation, the world still revolves on its path in defiance. The fact that May 22 will be like any other day should not be a surprise to anyone.

The world better not end before Kung Fu Panda 2 comes out.

So live your life, instead of being afraid of predictions made by a radio station personality looking for attention and ratings. Have an end of the world party. And when you wake up with a headache and the urge to puke because of the seven shots of tequila you had, be thankful you have another day on this world. And, preferably, party again to celebrate God postponing his owning for another time. Strangely enough, that date also signifies my friend turning 21. So maybe there is something to this end-of-the-world thing. Just don't listen to Camping. He is the kind of person that gives the Bible a bad name.

You now have four days to learn all the lyrics to this song.