As the world turned its collective head to watch briefly as 5/21 passed, as expected, without event, a good number of people shook their heads in disbelief that someone would buy into such nonsense. Of course, these same people believe in stuff equally nonsensical, it's just not put into a format that can be quantified and tested along the way. As long as it's someone else's "crazy" then it can be mocked, just don't tell me my personal brand of "crazy" has problems!

Growing up Mormon, I bought into all kinds of apocalyptic craziness. I was born in the '70s and as such was a part of the "last, great generation" that was reserved specifically for these times. This was to be the most challenging time in the history of mankind when Satan was to be unleashed with all his power and only the most valiant would be able to withstand the oncoming moral onslaught.

Stories were told of people who received Patriarchal blessings promising that they would be alive to witness the 2nd Coming. All of the signs of wickedness and abomination were being fulfilled - surely God's final judgment was close upon us! How obvious it was that the end was near!

Whatever...

The only difference between Mormonism and Harold Camping is a fixed date.

Camping put himself in a position to be quantified and measured, something that Mormon prophets learned long ago to be an unqualified recipe for disaster. If you want to be a prophet with durability, minimize the specifics. People will still give you credit for anything that ends up being remotely accurate, so you can still get a lot of the upside. You just want to avoid getting stuck with something specific that ends up being proven false at a later date.

Why else do you think there's been no official position on Book of Mormon geography? "It's not essential to know" could be restated as "We don't know, so why lock ourselves into something that can be disproven if we don't have to?"

Plenty of people will mock Harold Camping and his followers for believing something so obviously wacky. And then they'll turn around live their lives completely oblivious to the notion that some of their own beliefs are equally absurd - the only difference between the two is something quantifiable like a fixed date.

It is much easier to see another's foolishness than our own. Yet we were duped for many years as well.

May this be the year for cult members to wake up!

From the post Mormon board, "Your shit is shit, but our shit is the one true shit." Mormons have zero right to mock these fundie guys; they believe in the same thing. They are just too pansy to put a specific date on it.

"Your eyes will not dim with death, but you will through your faithfulness behold the saviour, even Jesus Christ in his glorious and triuphant second coming."

The first presidency wrote a letter warning middle management against this bs in blessings, patriarchal and otherwise, back in the 70s. Too many people were dimming without the triumph.

Oh yeah! Saturdays warrior! Remember that sugar coated excrement? How freakin longis this Saturday anyway. If the earth is billions of years old, brace yourselves, we only have a few hundred million left!!!

From Richard Packham's site on failed prophecies:
http://packham.n4m.org/prophet.htm

CHRIST'S SECOND COMING IS IMMINENT: Joseph Smith prophesied on several occasions that the Second Coming was to be expected very soon.

Nov 3, 1831. D&C 133:17. "The hour of [Christ's Second] coming is nigh."

April 23, 1834. D&C 104:59. "...to prepare my people for the time when I shall dwell with them, which is nigh at hand."

Nov 25, 1834. D&C 106:4. "The coming of the Lord draweth nigh..."

Apr 3, 1836, D&C 110:16. "The great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors."

Feb 14, 1835. HC 2:182. Joseph Smith preached that the coming of the Lord would be in 56 years (i.e., about 1891). This prophecy also occurs in his diary for April 6, 1843 and HC 5:336. See also D&C 130:14-17. Joseph Smith prophesies that "there of those of the rising generation who shall not taste death till Christ comes." He prophesies "in the name of the Lord God - let it be written: that the Son of Man will not come in the heavens till I am 85 years old, 48 years hence or about 1890." (The official historians have deleted the last phrase, beginning with "48 years" from the church history, but it is contained in the original diary.) The version in D&C 130 is phrased negatively, i.e., Christ will not come before 1890. It is also made conditional on Joseph Smith living to the age of 85. Joseph Smith says (v 16) that it might merely mean that if he lives to 85 he will go where Christ is, and therefore see his face. But that interpretation would not make sense if the revelation is in response to Joseph Smith's inquiry about the time of the second coming (v 14).

FULFILLED?: The second coming did not occur about 1891, and the Church does not claim that it did. Nor has it occurred since. Joseph Smith did not live to be 85 years old. God must have known that he would not. Why would God make a revelation conditional upon an event which he knew would never happen?

Remember, Kolobian time is different. Fortunately for mormons, that means that it could happen in a 500 years and still fulfill the prophecies, since they can always say that the prophecy was in God's time, not our time.