My Challenge to Harold Camping

Dear Harold Camping,

I have been following your public exploits concerning the Rapture/Judgment Day, God's plans for humankind, etc., and I have to color myself intrigued. You sounded so sure that there would be a global cataclysm (earthquakes, you said) on May 21; you said: "There is no way that this is not happening." But I can think of a few billion people who would disagree with you today.

Of course, one might say that it is easy to mock someone in hindsight, although you did have an explanation for why your prophesy didn't come true (here's a link so you don't forget). Instead of a physical cataclysm, the human race was subject to a spiritual judgment; even though nobody felt anything, everyone was judged so that the "true believers," as you call them, could be rooted out from the rest of humanity. The problem, though, is that your explanation sounds a lot like justification, or rather, that you've simply created a convenient "retcon" for what actually happened. That said, I'm going to challenge you, specifically to prove your certainty.

I am not a wealthy man. At any given time in my life, I have never had more than $10,000 to my name. Currently, I work a part-time job because there is no full-time work I can do to provide for my wife and son. However, I hear that your radio station has been quite profitable for you; numbers range in the tens of millions of dollars, with some sources saying over one hundred million. It is said that you receive millions of dollars in donations. And I imagine that, as long as it is in the interest of spreading God's word, you would have no problem making a donation. So here is my proposal; I want you to write me a check for $100,000. That's one hundred thousand United States dollars. I specifically want you to post-date that check October 22, 2011. I plan on using the money to create a series of lectures about what Jesus would think of present day society, based on my own rigorous study of the Christian Bible. (It stands to reason that if the world is not destroyed on October 21, that May's "spiritual judgment" also did not happen, and that the task of spreading God's word should continue.) You, of all people, should be able to appreciate a self-taught biblical scholar wanting to expose as many people as possible to God's word.

If you are even half as certain about your new prediction as you were about the last, then surely you would have no problem parting with what amounts to one tenth of one percent of your total net worth. And you wouldn't even be parting with it in reality, because I would not be able to cash the check until after the destruction of the Earth, and we both know how difficult it would be to find a bank on that day.

If, by some twist of fate, there does not happen to be an apocalyptic destruction of the planet, then you'll only have lost a fraction of a fraction of your estate, but the upside to that is that you can be certain that you have aided another person in his quest to bring the word of God to the public. (Plus, I imagine that you could write the money off as a donation and deduct it from your taxes.) My lecture series will undoubtedly help open the eyes of a great deal of people, and bring Jesus into more lives than it would if I was only using my own paltry resources.

As soon as you decide to meet my challenge, contact me so that we can properly arrange for this exchange to take place. You live in California, but I live in Ohio, so some sort of travel plans will have to be made (I assume that you would have no problem funding two-way travel for me or yourself; it would certainly cost less than $100,000 for you to do so). Ideally, the exchange should be done in person so that you can be certain that it is me. I would hate for you to give your hard-earned money to a fraud.

Should you decide not to accept my challenge, then I promise you that I will do everything in my power to dissuade people from believing in everything you've ever said. Once I have a signed check for $100,000 from you in my hands, I will thereafter herald you as a true man of God.

And rest assured, Mr. Camping, that I am not "putting God to the test." I am putting you to the test.

G.L. Gillen

I'm okay...

I know it's been a LONG time since I posted anything here, but I had to make sure that everyone knew I wasn't raptured away:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_21_2011

... you know, because nobody was. I'm not going to go out and say that Harold Camping is a fraud, because there are plenty of others who can say that first-hand: the people who donated to his website and radio station, the people that bought the T-shirts, the people who quit their jobs, and these folks in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/us/20rapture.html

I'm talking mostly about the kids in that article; their quotes really bring it all home, and make it a lot more serious than I'm making it.

On the Lighter Side

Here's a little humor for you, in book form:

Caution: blatant satire ahead. Do not take internally.

6. Do Something, and Pay Attention

So I'm approached with a sarcastic reply to the last essay: "We'd love to hear your solution," or something to that effect. Perhaps I need to clarify a few things.

The solution, if it must be spelled out, is actually very simple: DO SOMETHING. What you're doing now--Nothing-- isn't working. Stop doing Nothing. Do Something. When you do Nothing, you allow stuff to happen like the re-election of inept presidents and the systematic pillage of the country's economy. So stop it.

"So what's Something?"

I'll tell you what's Something: anything that's right. Doing Nothing is wrong. I'll repeat that: doing Nothing is wrong. You can't say, "Nothing is Something, so when I'm doing Nothing, that's Something." No, it's not, because Nothing is wrong. Your Something has to be right. How do you determine what's right? If you can't figure that part out, then just do it. Then you'll either figure it out by the results or someone will figure it out for you.

And that's the second part: Pay Attention. Don't justify anything. Don't ever say, "Well, this is actually working because blah blah blah." That's justifying; that's wrong. That's what screws up global economies. Paying Attention actually tells you whether or not Something works. And if it's not working, try Something Else.

"I'm still not following; I want you to be more specific."

Fine, here are some examples. If your politician is doing a bad job--and most of them are--then write letters, arrange protests, get some petitions going (it's the oft-forgotten First Amendment freedom); we're supposed to be living in a government that gives the people the final say, so have your final say. If you worry about crime in your neighborhood, then start up something to give the locals some skills to get them real jobs; the big secret we're not telling our criminals is that if they have legitimate sources of income they'll be less likely to commit crimes. If you think a business is overstepping its boundaries, then call the shareholders, arrange boycotts. Start caring about something other than your favorite TV shows; trust me, they'll be out on video a couple of weeks after the season is over, so you'll have time to watch them after you've started fixing things.

So, let's summarize:

Step One: DO SOMETHING; anything that's right. Doing Nothing is wrong.

Step Two: PAY ATTENTION to what happens afterward; don't pretend what you're doing is working.

5. On Terror

Hey, remember that time God flooded the earth to kill off all the sinners? Remember how well that turned out, eliminating sin and all that? Yeah, it's a similar intro than the last one, but it's a similar topic: terrorism (and, no, I didn't plan specifically to do this one at this time; there's a flow to all these posts, if you haven't yet seen it, and it has nothing to do with when they show up).

I'll try to keep this one short, because it has the same basic premise as the last post: you will not--will not--will not stop terrorism by "hunting down" all the world's terrorists. It simply will not happen. You can believe me now, or go ahead and try it, fail, and believe me later (although you won't admit to it, because this is a very emotionally charged issue, and nobody wants to admit to being wrong about it).

There are too many people who are out there who aren't terrorists but who are all too willing to believe the terrorists' ideals, and who are just a few steps away from becoming terrorists. There are too many people being born into terrorist families, being groomed in terrorist ways while they're still too young to think for themselves. You'll never kill them all. Never.

Just like God didn't stop sin by killing off all the world's sinners in the Great Flood.

Yes, I know that it's just a story and it didn't really happen, but I'm using it as a metaphor. Plus, some people do believe it, word-for-word, and my point will still stand: terrorism exists as an outlet for some people's fear and tendency towards violence. These, like the various tendencies towards sin and any proclivity towards doing "bad things," will not be purged from our species simply by killing the people that act on them it. Other people will lash out based on their fears, if not right away then later (and, obviously, unexpectedly). The only way to kill off the human race's problems is to kill off the human race.

So what's the real solution? That's a tough call, because, frankly, my solution to crime is a little too far-fetched. It involves people--probably you--caring about stuff that may never affect them. It involves people--definitely you--caring about other people they may never meet. It involves people--seriously, you--caring about anything at all. That's a lot to ask. So if we can't stop our own people from doing bad stuff to each other, how can we stop people from other countries doing bad stuff to our people? I'm not going to spell it out, because it involves a fundamental change in the way we--that is, you--see the world, other people, and ourselves. And if you're too lazy and stupid to figure out how to stop domestic crime, how can you expect to stop international crime?

For now, just know that nothing's going away until you get off your ass and do something.

4. On Crime

Hey, remember how God made laws telling us not to do stuff like kill other people or steal things? Remember how nobody killed anyone or stole stuff after that?

No? Good, because it never happened.

Except the law part, that is (well, maybe; we at least know that somebody, somewhere, at some point, said "stop killing," etc.). What never happened was the cessation of murder and theft and all the other stuff people like to call "sins." What follows is not a criticism of religion (that's for later, and trust me, you won't like it), but a criticism of the nature of law versus crime.

You've probably figured out that I'm advocating the idea that outlawing something won't stop it from happening/existing. The Decalogue has been around for a few millenia, and probably wasn't the first of its kind; I don't know ancient history that well. But that doesn't matter. We have current laws that not only prohibit all kinds of stuff, but also spell out what the punishment will probably be for breaking the law. However, we find ourselves frustrated that crime still occurs; we seem to think that making the punishments worse--or going after the perpetrators more doggedly--will make the crime problem go away. We're collectively missing something.

And here it is: you won't stop crime as long as people have reasons to commit crimes. You know, on a subconscious level if nothing else, that you're a slave to your own desires. "I don't feel like cooking tonight, so I'll buy fast food." "I don't feel like exercising, so I'll just watch TV." Well, when people are caught in situations like poverty or addictions, they're slaves moreso to these needs. While most people's wants revolve around not doing things, some people's needs push them to do whatever it takes to help themselves, hence the stealing and other crimes. See, most criminals know that their crimes are wrong; it's just that they don't care, because another need supercedes the desire not to be caught and punished. Telling them not to do something (i.e. making a law against it) won't stop them from doing it.

Now here's the tricky part: the people that make the laws know all this stuff, and they either don't care or they use it to their advantage. Case in point: theft. Reducing poverty would reduce theft; with fewer people needing money/food, there'll be fewer people stealing things to pay for stuff. However, these people tend not to vote, so politicians don't care about what they need. (Funny, though: they often steal from people who do vote. Hmmmm...).

Another case in point: abortion. Now I'm not saying that it's a crime by nature, but I will say that I wish it didn't exist. The problem is that it's not going to go away if a law is made against it. The powers that be want you to think that it will, but these are the usually the same people that say, "If you outlaw guns, that won't stop gun violence." And they're right about the latter; what they won't admit is that the same logic applies to the former. If we actually eliminate the reasone why people consider abortion (inability to provide for a baby, unwanted pregnancies due to poor sex education, etc.), and thereby eliminate abortion, it no longer exists as a topic of political debate, and politicians risk losing important votes from people who would otherwise realize that they're little more than power-hungry plutocrats.

This is essentially why we lost the War on Drugs, by the way. People told us, "We're going to go find all the drug dealers and arrest them, and that will eliminate the problem of illegal drugs." We believed that. Well, it didn't work because there were--and are--still reasons for people to want illegal drugs, so there's still a market for illegal drugs, and therefore still illegal drug dealers. The War on Drugs was fought on the wrong front from the start, but those in power do like the fact that drugs still exist as a possible political platform if they ever want to come up with another pretend solution.

The actual solution to all this stuff goes back to a previous post of mine that states that you need to demand more from your so-called leaders, and hold them to their promises more strictly than you have in the past. Until you do that, don't expect them to solve anything for you. And don't expect not to have to worry about crime.

... Now, can you guess what I'd say concerning the problem of terrorism?

3. ... Or Just Shut Up

I was reading a couple of articles about lying today. They claimed that the average adult lies between 200 and 300 times per day, or roughly three times every ten minutes (this includes so-called "white lies"). Also, most people apparently assume they've been lied to a lot, and think that most of their own lies are acceptable.

I'll keep this one short: a lie shows not only a certain amount of contempt for the listener (in that you don't respect him/her enough to tell the truth) and for yourself (in that you don't think people care enough to hear the truth from you). Deny it all you want, but there are varying degrees to which that's true for every person and every lie.

Doesn't matter if you want to preserve someone's feelings; the more we lie, the more apathetic we become about lying, and the more it happens without the appropriate retribution. (You'll notice that this ties into my previous post; that's why I chose it as a topic).

So, obviously, you'll want to be careful about what you hear, and don't be afraid to call someone on his/her lie(s). But, more importantly-- much more importantly-- start demanding better of yourself. Don't be afraid to tell the truth; bravery seems to be such an important aspect of adulthood, and yet we're all so afraid of telling people what we really think. When you're uncompromisingly honest with others, they'll soon be uncompromisingly honest with you, and then with each other.

Let's start some good trends for a change; we owe the world something for invoking over ten seasons of Big Brother upon it.