Religion: Mayday its "Judgment Day"

"The end of the World predictions have become very profitable for some in the past few years"

An elderly Christian preacher in the US has been on a mission to warn the world about the upcoming doomsday on the 21st of May 2011. As I am writing this article on the 22nd of May, the prediction seems to not have been true. This man is consciously trying to tarnish the reputation of the Holy Bible and the Christian community by making outrageous and fantastical predictions purely for publicity and endorsement.

If Mr Camping were speaking from any normal platform, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another religious eccentric wrongly calling the apocalypse. But thanks to this elderly man's ubiquity, on America's airwaves, his unlikely Doomsday message is almost impossible to ignore.

Everyday Mr Camping speaks to his followers via the Family Radio Network, a religious broadcasting organisation funded entirely by donations from listeners. Such is their generosity (assets total $120m) that his network now owns 66 stations in the US alone. Predicting the end of the World has become big business in the past few years with income and followers soaring at times of apparent apocalypse. Individuals like Mr Camping are using religion to exploit vulnerable people across the globe promising them salvation and hidden secrets in Holy Scriptures that nobody else knows of.

Claims like the 21st May apocalypse bring hordes of followers to him, all believing in ideas which have no basis in reality or in the Holy scriptures. His track record of predictions has not been great, refer to 1994.

So why do millions follow him? It would not be wrong to say that Camping puts fear into the hearts of many by stating that on doomsday, at precisely 6pm, 2% of the world will be “raptured” to Heaven and the rest will be sent to Hell. These predictions are made by businessmen not religious leaders. Like many closing down sales they are only there to pull in customers. It looks like these predictions will pop up every now and then, so get used to it.

Get ready for December 21st 2012 and the other predicted apocalypse, I will be blogging about it on the 22nd of December 2012.



Zubair A. Hayat - founder of THE AHMADIYYA POST