This is what heaven looks like...boring.

OK one more Rapture post then I'm going home to mow the lawn...and drink beer. Throughout time there have been many doomsday predictions and I'm actually glad that there is so much coverage over this particular doomsday prediction. I hope that it brings mass attention to the belief that there is one true religion out of the many many, that there have been many such predictions throughout time, that certain peeps (chosen people) will literally rise up into the air (ascension) to meet their particular God while the rest of us (including very devout peeps of the not chosen religions) suffer here on Erffs and the real reasons why the world will end one day (but not because of God) and maybe some lessons learned.

In 1806 there was something called the Prophet Hen of Leeds. This little chicky was squirting out seeds, eggs that said Christ is coming. Pretty miraculous dontcha think. Not so fast. I don't know how they did this, but some gentlemen caught the hen in the act of laying one of these heavenly eggs. They determined that the farmer inscribed the egg(s) himself and placed (read shoved) the penned eggs back where it came from (gross). Huff Po has this example and 5 more equally wacky end of the world predictions. Check it, yo.

This...this is, err, mmm, I don't know.

The Brick Testament is totally cool.

I really, really, really like this photo...whatever it is. In 2009 I wrote the post 10 Wacky Doomsday Cults. While rereading this post I came across the realization that 1) there always has been and always will be these super crazy Rapture predictions and 2) even back in 2009, I used the word 'wacky'. Pretty wacky, hugh.

One of the doomsday cults was created by a 64 y/o virgin that was prego with the messiah (God loves him some virgins). Practitioners of this religion, errrrrr, I mean cult, were not supposed to have sex or eat chocolate because, drum roll please...they were created by aliens. If you think that is awesome, then check out the rest of the post.

Is it some kind of evolutionary trait that compels humans, with our awesome evolved human brain(s), to create/make up these end of world scenarios. It seems to be world wide-y in that all cultures have this kind of folklore, and ya know what, it's not entirely wrong.

The world will end one day and that is just how it goes. Although it won't be the Great Surveillance Camera in the Sky that destroys the Erffs, it will be the Great Lightbulb in the Sky, the sun. Astronomers have calculated that the sun will go bye bye aprox 1 billion years from now. In case ya don't know...when the sun goes, we all go. Thanks Christian Science Monitor, really.

The super awesome and mighty Debunking Christianity chimes in with prophetic excuses the Harold Camping camp will use after the not destruction of the world. Camping miscalculated his 1994 prediction (and admitted it) and "J.L." predicts that he will do it again. He also mentions the "your prayers were answered" excuse but he doesn't go over my favorite one: it's not the end of the world, it's just the beginning of the end of the world.

@vjack over at Atheist Revolution has a nice post on the lessons that could be learned from all this wacky end of times stuffs. Really, all the publicity has so much good atheist making potential. At the very least I hope that it makes peeps think about what they believe and why they believe. Yesterday a xtian dude was trying to explain to me why Camping is wrong and the whole time-as I held my tongue and wished I was a militant atheist*-I thought why doesn't dude apply the logic and reasoning he uses to refute the Project Caravan crew...on himself. Why, why, why...why.

Dude was bible spouting on me which was dookie because I already knew about Mathew 24:36 which states that no one can know the date or time of JC coming back to save a select few before his dad kills everyone else. You know what I'm going to say, right...cherry picking. Camping used select bible verses to come up with the numbers and the reasoning that 'X' amount of days after the Great Flood, which is May 21, 2011, is the day JC comes back. Using a select bible verse to refute Camping, like this dude was trying to do to me yesterday, is just as bad as Camping using bible verses to justify his biblical numerology.

If Christians worldwide can easily dismiss the Camping crew as wacko's, then why can't they turn the critical eye on their own beliefs. If they can confidently state that Camping's version of Christianity is not the true Christianity, then why do they believe that theirs is the one true Christianity. Their motivated reasoning ensures the survival of their particular splinter cell of belief I guess. Is it lack of even wanting to examine one's own beliefs, after all, religion doesn't exactly inspire peeps to question or motivate one to be skeptical. It is built on faith and faith is encouraged and praised over questioning.

Tomorrow we get to read all the post-not-Rapture articles and listen to all the excuses offered.OK, beer o'clock. Nite all.

* I'm not a militant atheist (in fact, there is no such thing). I'm what my very own peeps (Team Atheist) call an accommodationalist.  

** I forgot to add this article of wacky and failed end of times thingies.