It's the end of the world as we know it
May 21, 2011 | Erin | Comments (1)
In case you haven't heard, today is Judgement Day according to an obscure but very vocal group of believers following the preaching of Harold Camping.
Camping estimates that about 3-4% of the world's population - those that are truly faithful - will rise into heaven, followed by five months of earthquakes and other plagues and disasters until the world officially ends on October 21, 2011.
Are you quaking in your boots yet? I wouldn't be too worried, Mr. Camping has been wrong before. He first predicted the apocalypse would happen back in 1994...
In fact, there has been a number of doomsday predictions over the years.
Here is some great reading on eschatology, the study of the end of the world:
The Apocalypse : A Brief History by Martha Himmelfarb
Boston University has a great web page with an Apocalyptic Glossary
A History of the End of the World by Jonathan Kirsch reveals how the most controversial book in the Bible changed the course of Western civilization.
Time magazine's online article published yesterday also gives a great summary of apocalypse predictions and end-of-the-world dates that have come (and gone) over the last couple hundred years.