Three

So, just in case you're starting to worry about the imminent taking up of all the believers this weekend, I thought I'd give you a few facts and some things to consider before we hit the deadline (or should that be lifeline in this context?):

How likely is the Rapture?
Well, according to the 'Rapture Ready' website, the 'Rapture index stands at 182 at the moment, quite a distance from the all-time low of 57 recorded in December 1993. Then again, it is not as high as the all-time maximum of 184 recorded this April. So I guess those who record these things (How, I ask myself?) don't share Harold Camping's convictions (not that I believe he has any, I'm sure he's an honest, law-abiding citizen).

Fancy a bet?
No of course you don't because you're Christian but if you did, the last time I can find any British Bookie offerting odds on the end of it all it was William Hill (back in March 2003) and they offered nine hundred and nine thousand to one. Now, that's not bad odds at all, just think about it for a minute - a tenner placed on it would see you (if you paid tax when placing the bet) recoup something just under £9.1m. Now that would pay the parish share - then again, hopefully you've gone with them and the parish share won't need paying as there are few stipend costs and the atheists will nick all the building for carpet warehouses.

Perhaps we can forget that one!

Been predicted before?
Of course it has, many, many, many times before! In fact Harold Camping is not stranger to predicting the end having done it with a predicted date in September 1994. Hey ho, perhaps this time he's got it wrong and if he has, what will this mean for Family Radio I wonder?

If I was him, and I found I'd got it wrong, I'd leave poiles of clothes everywhere around the offices and hide somewhere for a long time to make it look like I was right. Have to wait and see on that one I guess.

If people are so convinced they are going, why aren't they giving stuff away?
This is a question one of the young people I met a while back asked me. Their reasoning was that as we can't take it with us, why don't we give away our cars, money and property on Friday night (regardless of time zone, it will still be Saturday we go, apparently)? A very good thought, anyone sure they are going can mail their money, property deeds and anything else to me in the hope that they won't miss it and I won't need it for our building fund, and if we are all wrong, I won't be one of those who keeps reminding them (especially if I have their stuff!!).

What? Some are doing just that?
And this for me is the saddest bit (if they're wrong) in that people like the sixty year-old, retired transit worker from Staten Island who invested his entire life savings of $140,000 into the campaign. "I’m trying to warn people about what’s coming. People who have an understanding (of the end the times) have an obligation to warn everyone.” Another follower, has abandoned the idea of going to medical school and she and her husband have apparently moved to Orlando where they have rented a home and are currently handing out tracts warning of the impending end.

I don't mind people being wring, but when they screw up the lives of others through it, especially in the way that this prediction is, I get a bit tired and angry!

Still, he wasn't the first and won't be the last, will he?

Pax