May 21 Earthquakes: Rapture 2011 Rumors Prove False (POLL)

The rumors had persisted for months. Harold Camping and his followers were convinced beyond any doubt.

Time zone by time zone, at 6 p.m. local time on Saturday, May 21, 2011, massive earthquakes would create destruction across the globe and only believers would be saved, so Camping's theory went.

Believers were adamant that this would happen, as the campaign spread across the country and reached a fever pitch leading up to today.

But Camping's family radio was strangely quiet today as nothing happened in New Zealand, then China, then Europe. Camping's daughter says he's "bewildered," and all he can do is wait until midnight since he was so convinced.

It was a normal day for earthquake activity. According to the USGS, there were a handful of quakes with greater than a 5.0 magnitude, but nothing out of the ordinary. Those quakes included:

5.8 2011/05/21 22:06:27 35.592 140.728 34.5 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 2011/05/21 21:37:11 -5.821 129.406 255.0 BANDA SEA
6.1 2011/05/21 21:17:01 -30.775 -178.133 19.8 KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND
5.0 2011/05/21 16:30:31 31.259 -41.003 9.9 NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.3 2011/05/21 13:08:06 17.257 121.755 45.1 LUZON, PHILIPPINES
5.0 2011/05/21 09:53:55 -7.265 147.003 42.6 EASTERN NEW GUINEA REG, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
5.2 2011/05/21 08:33:21 65.369 -166.891 19.2 NORTHERN ALASKA
5.1 2011/05/21 00:41:37 -55.997 -27.195 40.7 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.9 2011/05/21 00:16:27 -56.066 -27.165 64.8 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION

Smaller quakes peppered the Earth as usual, including one in the Bay area in California, but nothing significant. The most major event involving Mother Earth ended up being a volcano eruption in Iceland, but that happened at Iceland's most active volcano.

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Comments

[nyoped]

12:45 AM on 05/24/2011

Nonsense of biblical proportions.

[Loki Laufeyson]

12:04 AM on 05/24/2011

deast1115: Did you read anything of what I wrote? Anything at all? Did you do any of the research I recommended? For the last time, the Bible that
you so revere is a work of historical FICTION!!!! If you don't know what
fiction means, look it up. Jesus probably never existed and if he did, he was one of the dozens of messiahs wandering the countryside of Palestine at the time. Earthquakes have been happening regularly for the past 4.5 billion years. Homosexuality is perfectly normal - every mammalian species and some reptilian species have a statistically significant ratio of homosexual members. Nations have been fighting nations since before recorded history. Pestilence? What pestilence? Grow up, shake off the shackles of superstition and join what some of us like to refer to as reality.

And by the way, what if you are wrong about the existence of God? Would that be such a bad thing?

[deast1115]

10:10 PM on 05/23/2011

The bible says, that NO MAN knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven. It is true that we are living in the last days. Jesus is coming soon, and people need to repent of their sins and ask the Lord to come into their lives and let the Spirit of God be in control. Stop sinning and get your heart right with God.
You need a personal relationship with the father. Going to church will not save you. the bible says, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and NO man comes to the Father, except through Him.
Harold Camping might have gotten the day wrong, but not the signs of the times. The word says the onlly sign will be as the days of Noah. Earthquakes in divers(different) places, pestlience, homosexual activity, men with men, and women doing those unseemly things, Nations fighting against Nation, The whole world against Israel.
All these things are taking place now, at the same time.
Jesus is coming soon to rapture His church. Those left behind will suffer the wrath of God, through 7 years of tribulation like the world has never known. Be ready to lay down your life for the Son of God. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Let everything that hath breath, praise Him. GET READY, GET READY, GET READY.
HE IS COMING SOON.

[powercosmic]

11:49 AM on 05/23/2011

Thank YOU Harold Camping for making thousands of Agnostics out of some now former believers.

You are helping my cause more than you know.

Millions of "Chr.istians" in Name Only are sitting on the fence, quiet in their doubt, these kinds of ridiculous displays help to wake them up, out of the delusion.

Thanks again.

[MeatShield]

05:08 AM on 05/23/2011

Not surprised at all, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a tiny bit disappointed.

[mattyj77]

02:33 AM on 05/23/2011

Oh and i agree with loki. When facts change i will change my mind. The bible however does not constitute facts.

[mattyj77]

02:31 AM on 05/23/2011

not only is the rapture barely passable fiction. The 2012 end of world is just as bad. We'll probably die from meteorite or horrible plague and there will be nothing biblical about that, it will seem 'biblical' but it will be natural. When we are all dead then that will prove once and for all that god does not exist since it will A) have had nothing to do with him and B) you'll all have not met him after the fact.

[jill in bed]

11:09 PM on 05/22/2011

Maybe the Rapture did happen but none of us made the cut.... Oops!

jill
http://inbedwithmarriedwomen.blogspot.com

[Freethinker 28]

12:10 AM on 05/23/2011

Funny comment Jill... I am just going to bed with a smile on my face... lol

[ratedrstar316]

10:14 PM on 05/22/2011

What a surprise! We're still here. This so called prophicy came from an 89 year old man who is at the end of his rope and is, if he hasn't already lost his mind. This was the same person who predicted that the world would end way back in 1994. All the real promblems in the world you would think the media would not give him his fifteen miuntes of fame again. Two stikes agianst the boy who cried wolf, I'm hoping that this is the end of his predictions and the end of the media coverage.Lets hear some worthy news. Who won the game, what,s the wheather like so I can go to the beach. Now thats news

[publiusmax]

09:49 PM on 05/22/2011

Do you believers know A- Jesus didn't write The Book of Revelation. B-The guy who did write almost certainly never met Jesus and probably wrote it over a half century after Jesus died, C-The only reason that it is included in the Bible is that a gathering of Bishops decided it belonged there over two hundered years after he wrote it (early fourth centuery)? I don't think that most of you do. Now that I've told you, research what I've told you, read the book again (if you've ever read it to begin with it) for yourselves (with an open minds you guys are so fond of saying) and ask yourselves if this cave dwelling hermit is really a credible source.

[Loki Laufeyson]

08:06 PM on 05/22/2011

And, yes, the examples you cite are unresolved and may never. I wrestle regularly with trying to understanding quantum mechanics and am constantly baffled because reality is complex and I am the product of a mere 4.3 million years of evolution. Actually, if you would want an argument in favour of the existence of god, look at quantum mechanics. If true, He has a mischievous sense of humour and is laughing Himself silly at his great practical joke.

[Loki Laufeyson]

07:59 PM on 05/22/2011

Moreover, inquiring minds constantly question the nature of reality - theists do not. All, I am asking of people is to challenge their own preconceptions. Unless you have, in fact, achieved omniscience, there is a distinct possibility that you are wrong about something. If that is in fact the case, why would you not want to know?

[Loki Laufeyson]

07:57 PM on 05/22/2011

natureman44: Thank you for your comment but I think you are missing my point. Yes, I could be wrong - that is the basis of my philosophy of life - but at least I am questioning myself. Religious people do not question whether their god exists or not. And true scientists change their minds WHEN THE FACTS CHANGE.
If you are going to quote Einstein may I suggest : "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." (Albert Einstein, 1954) "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." However, even if Einstein, one of the greatest intellects of all time, believed in God, he was not, ipso facto, correct, in that belief. Likewise, Stephan Hawking on the other side of the argument.

[emeathead45]

09:44 PM on 05/22/2011

You put in caps-``WHEN THE FACTS CHANGE``--Isn`t that a contradictory comment? If a FACT is in FACT a FACT, the FACT is it cannot change, otherwise it was never a FACT to begin with, and that is a FACT.

[Loki Laufeyson]

10:14 PM on 05/22/2011

emeathead45: Sigh. If you read my previous comments, you will note my reference to "available reliable data". All facts are contingent on our capacity to perceive them. As our technology progresses, we can refine the accuracy of factual data.

This is the old and spurious "intermediate species" argument. Isaac Newton's limited capacity to refine facts does not invalidate the Laws of Motion. Our inability to nail down the phenomena of quantum mechanics does not invalidate our determination to figure them out. So, yes, facts can change over time. But, we are aware of this. However religion brings nothing to the table that can be tested, refined, checked or nailed down. There is the difference - facts may be refined - religion, not so much. Evidence of god has not changed in human history - no facts then, no facts now

[mattyj77]

02:28 AM on 05/23/2011

Actually less facts. As science grows facts about nature as depicted in the bible become less factual. So religion is always going backwards. Take stars, if the bible was our only reference they would be like little lights in the sky, not huge stars light years away

[Loki Laufeyson]

06:28 PM on 05/22/2011

Anything that shakes me out of my ennui and anomie is fun. Take care of yourself, Gary

[eyeforeye42]

06:23 PM on 05/22/2011

A fool and their money is soon parted.