The Rapture Profiteers

BusinessWeek:

For nearly a year, nonagenarian preacher and radio personality Harold Camping predicted the world would end on May 21. Locusts would blanket the earth and millions would die while Camping and his flock would rise up to the sky, rendezvous with Jesus, and ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven. Instead, May 22 happened, Camping postponed the end of the world by five months, and then suffered a debilitating stroke -- leaving a huge vacuum in the Rapture market.

The meltdown came at a propitious moment for apocalypse followers. A proliferation of earthquakes, a plague that may or may not be sweeping Brazil, the Greeks, and Kim Kardashian, among other things, may be conspiring to create a Rapture bubble. In addition to Camping's revised forecast -- the world is definitely going to end on Oct. 21 -- many Rapture-seekers now believe the Aug. 2 debt-ceiling deadline signals that the end may be very, very near.

Read the whole story: BusinessWeek

Comments

[budanatr]

02:03 PM on 07/31/2011

My neighbor's above ground pool ruptured yesterday. Does that count?
Oh, sorry, rapture, not rupture.
Maybe they are the same?

[AbrahamMcLemore]

06:29 AM on 07/31/2011

Can you imagine!
People placing attention-grabbing headlines about the "Rapture" on a website solely to generate revenue?
How greedy can one get.

[Patrick Shaw]

05:54 AM on 07/31/2011

I cannot believe that this 2,000 year old con game is still pulling in the suckers.

[Shane Ricks]

05:34 PM on 07/31/2011

Freedom? Democracy? Humans as intelligent beings? Atheists who think they are rationalists? Modern atheists who maintain a worldview they constantly argue against? Which 2,000 year old con game were you referring to?

[luckyone77]

11:48 PM on 07/30/2011

He said it was judgement day. And judging by the headlines in recent weeks, judgement day IS here. who would have dreamed Murdoch's empire would fall? the GOP in shambles. "christian" terrorists. And its just the beginning of revelations...

[CalSailor]

06:16 PM on 07/31/2011

Who would have dreamed Murdoch's empire would fall?

Anyone who watched Fox News and realized what he was passing off as "news".

Pr Chris

[farmilyman]

10:14 AM on 07/30/2011

They are very low level life forms.

[Tabasco]

10:02 AM on 07/30/2011

'Preying on the beliefs and good intentions of others' is such and unpleasent phrase. Instead, let's call it "Doing the Lord's Work".

[Cranmer1549]

12:36 PM on 07/29/2011

A message to all who believe they are going to be "Raptured" - please sign over your house and car to me. You won't be needing them soon anyway. I promise to take care of your pets.

[bbriani3842]

10:47 AM on 07/29/2011

Insurance Policies for un-Raptured pets ... wow.

I wish I had that kind of creativity for fleecing the gullible and st*pid.

[sharmaine73]

12:20 AM on 07/31/2011

You have to be heartless too.

Anyway, why wouldn't God take the pets too? What did they do that was so wrong? Eating the bacon off your plate while you weren't paying attention seems like a rather small offense.

[Cole 33]

09:48 AM on 07/29/2011

Religion, Drugs, Weapons and Porn. The biggest profit generating businesses throughout history

[susandiane]

09:36 AM on 07/29/2011

It seems counter-productive to give money (or anything else) to the "end-of-worlders" Why would they NEED the money. I would think a better way to dispose of your income is to lock it up in a trust fund to care for the children born AFTER the rapture!

[buggeroffyou666]

09:06 AM on 07/29/2011

Want to protect yourself from rapture profiteers? Don't believe in ridicules stories about zombies, animals with too many eyes, a hot babe from a city dead for thousands of years and a dragon knocking the starts out of the sky as it tries to eat the pregnant woman on the moon.

[Tabasco]

10:09 AM on 07/30/2011

Whoa! I may agree with everything else you said, but I draw the line at zombies. They're real! Just tune in to CSPAN.

[Dan Stewart]

08:48 AM on 07/29/2011

I suppose there are people who believe this nonsense.  PT Barnum's favorites.

[Will3384]

08:42 AM on 07/29/2011

It's disgusting to see that companies are using biblical prophecy to benefit themselves; they're selfish and full of greed. We have so many false prophets, just as the Bible said there would be, claiming that the world would end on this day and that this and that will happen. Blah, blah, blah. The only truth is what comes out of the Bible. The Bible explains the events that will take place in the end times and in Matthew 24:36, it clearly states "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." So, you can guess until you run out of breath, but your guesses mean nothing. God didn't give us secret symbols as to when He's coming but signs as to show us that the time He's coming is near. It's very simple: do what you're supposed to do and let God handle the rest. Oh, and stop making money off of God.

[KrautMan]

11:45 AM on 07/29/2011

"It's disgusting to see that companies are using biblical prophecy to benefit themselves­; they're selfish and full of greed."

Hu? You obviously believe there's going to be a rapture, so why would these companies/people be disgusting, greedy or selfish?

[Will3384]

12:19 PM on 07/29/2011

I said it that way because there's no need to profit off of God and I hope for their sakes that they have conviction about it because they will be judged. They look to the money instead of looking to God.

[bmuesli]

01:26 AM on 07/30/2011

Humans have been "making money off of god" for two thousand years. How do you think the massive cathedrals were built? The church put fear into people and forced them to give up their labor and their pennies, telling them that the return of Jesus was imminent. Well, it's 2011, and no Jesus-return has materialized, and I'll wager that it never will. At least we have some lovely architecture and music to show for it.

[SimonBao]

10:17 AM on 07/30/2011

Well... they've been making money off of God and The Gods for far more than 2,000 years.

In every thoughtful historical analysis of the rise of civilizations and organized religions, the priests and temples have always profited handsomely from their special role in people's faiths.

Sumerian priests made money off The Gods, as did the priests among the Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, Israelites, Persians and Parthians, Greeks and Romans, Brahmins, Incans, Mayans, Toltecs and Olmecs...

Making money off of God or The Gods has not special or unique place in Christianity, it's an equal opportunity abuse of people's faith.

[michelesda]

08:27 AM on 07/29/2011

God's punishment for Harold Camping's lies came swiftly.

[buggeroffyou666]

09:07 AM on 07/29/2011

That was old age not god.

[eric14]

05:30 AM on 07/29/2011

Jack Van Impe, a televangelist....Van Impe, who co-runs his ministry and budding apocalypse empire with his wife and fellow prophet, Rexella...
---------------------------------------
Appropriate names, like Lamb the Butcher.

[farmilyman]

10:15 AM on 07/30/2011

When I see them I feel the world will end tomorrow.