This Again?
Two what, you might ask, well two end of the world predictions for this year that are very specific. Like my argument with the conspiracist from the fall of last year (still waiting for that email where he admits he was wrong) getting specific dates and times from these people is rare. This is because vagueness is hard to prove wrong. All of the eschatological writing that was spawned out of the book of Revelation, exists because that book is full of metaphor, allegory, and symbolism. This allows multiple interpretations to stem from the book, each giving itself a level of credence because the only person that really knows what the book means is the guy who wrote it (even Bible literalists have a hard time with this one, because by taking it literally they have to buy into seven headed multi crowned dragons which they are unwilling to do–check out the Left Behind series for proof).
We all know that the Mayan calendar runs out in December. This apparently signifies that the world will end. It won’t but the true believers can go ahead and waste their money or something on this if they like. It’s not like there is one person predicting the end is coming and trying to rake in the money like that idiot last year. It’s becoming kind of obvious that there are people out there who desperately want the world to end and are willing to buy into any charlatan that predicts the world will end and has the scantest shred of evidence to back himself up.
People wonder why I have a problem with religion. I know that I am generalizing but religion does hand con men a ready made vehicle to enable them to swindle. People like Ronald Weinland.
Ronald Weinland is a self-appointed prophet who has decided (or been told) that the world is going to end on May 27 of this year. It’s unclear from his website how he arrived at this specific date since the FAQ specifically says that we can’t know when the final trumpet will sound. Somehow, as I am understanding it from his surprisingly clear website (usually these end time websites are horrible) that there are 1335 days from “Trumpets of 2008 to Pentecost of 2012 (May 27th).” The 1335 days apparently references the book of Daniel which is a prime text among Christian Eschatologists (although more likely than “Daniel” predicting the end of the world it was probably more about the writer wishing an end to the Jewish persecution by the Seleucids, or Antiochus depending on who you ask). The “Trumpets” is Rosh Hashanah according to Wikipedia, I’m willing to give Weinland the benefit of the doubt on the date calculation. Why the 2008 Jewish new year is of particular important for the end of the world is a question answered in his books, which I’m not going to read. Although I will point out that they are free, which is nice that he won’t charge for the real “truth.” Although his FAQ does end with how to appropriately give your tithe to his church as demanded by god.
Since May 27th falls on a Sunday this year, I guess we can have an end of the world party on May 26th, and then do again when the Mayan calendar runs out on December 21. What I like about the May date is that it is almost exactly a year from last year’s rapture. The best part of the Weinland prediction is that he states clearly that people who make fun of his prediction and deny it will “die from cancer.” Seriously.
The Founder’s Party (my political party consisting of just me) proposes a new law. We will call it the Michael Stifel law, named after a German monk and professor of Mathematics at Jena university. As a mathematician he is allegedly the first person to use the term “exponent” and created an early form of logarithmic tables. However he was also a crank predicting that the world would end on October 19th, 1533 at 8am (I love when they include the time). Obviously he was wrong, in being wrong though people of his town publicly flogged him and he never made another prediction. Stifel’s law, would punish any person who uses “end of the world” predictions to collect money to fines and public shaming. The only exceptions to this law would be people who give some sort of good or service in return for the income. If someone writes a book saying the end of the world is going to occur on 2/14/2050, and charging for it would not be in violation of the law, but people like Weinland and the dude from last year would. Public flogging would be nicer but there’s an amendment against that sort of thing.
