The Rapture

Having not posted in a while, probably due to coming from a long line of procrastinators with tragically sort attention spans (it's amazing I'm here at all), I thought I should make a point of at least making some comment on  current events as they unfold. All I have to say on Osama's assassination is that it made for several instances of one of history's most amusing Freudian slips - headlines reading "Obama killed" and so on. I do hope they make note of these grim portents in the history books.
 
Now as for the big Rapture, I'm only sorry I got wind of it so late in the game; I didn't have time to put together a series of obituaries for all of my christian friends. I suppose if I was bothered, I would now have to change my mass E-ulogy from "It was nice knowing some of you" to "Sorry you didn't make the cut. Perhaps next time".
   Anyway, I thought I'd seek out all the other times the world was foretold to be kicking the bucket, and who did the foretelling. Here's a rundown of the most prominent fictional raptures:

2,800BC -  The earliest known doomsday prediction, on an Assyrian clay tablet. Little did they know they would set the crappiest trend since Australian slang 

1st century AD - Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 16:28 


1st century AD again - Jesus, again, as quoted (on a different occasion) in Revelation: 22:12


2nd century AD - Montanus (christian), a charismatic cult leader whose interests included lying to peasents


Mar 25, 970 AD - The Lotharingians (christian)


1284 - Pope Innocent III. He based his prediction on the date of the inception of the Muslim faith, and then added 666 years to that, winning the Foil Hat award for Most Dubious Methodology in the category of Prophesies.


1504 - Botticelli (christian)


Feb 1, 1524 - A group of London astrologers, who predicted a second Great Flood with its starting point in the Thames. Rule Britannia. 


1648 - Having made close study of the kabbalah, the Turkish rabbi Sabbatai Zevi predicted that the Messiah would make a miraculous return in 1648, and that his name would be Sabbatai Zevi. How anyone failed to see through this one is beyond me.


1666 - Sabbatai Zevi, again, following the failure of his first estimate. Last seen disguised as a goat, making a swift getaway from profoundly annoyed followers.


Dec 25, 1814 - Not strictly the end of the world. A self-styled prophet named Joanna Southcott averred that she was the expectant mother of a new Christ-child to which she would give birth on Christmas Day 1814. That she was a virgin and well over 60 did not appear to weaken her faith that this would come to pass. She was likely most embarrassed when she died on that day instead.  Despite this disappointment, a large cult continued to believe in Southcott and, as late as 1927, a sealed box said to contain an important message left by Joanna was opened in the presence of the Bishop of Grantham. It contained an expired lottery ticket. 


1874 - Memorable for being the first of a long line of dates posited for the End of the World by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Bloody troublemakers.


Dec 17, 1919 - Albert Porta, a meteorologist, prediected that a rare conjunction of planets would create a powerful gravitational or magnetic flux drawing a giant solar flare out toward the Earth, incinerating the atmosphere. Some credulous souls, on hearing this, apparently chose suicide rather than be killed. Porta was last seen in Suriname in 1920, disguised as a toad. 


Apr 29, 1980. Leland Jensen, leader of a splinter group from the minority Bahá'í faith, announced that this day would see a nuclear exchange between the superpowers resulting in the deaths of millions. Finding himself alive on April 30, the so-called prophet fell back on the traditional "This is only the start of the Tribulation" excuse.


Mar 10, 1982 - In a near repeat of the erroneous 1919 prophecy, a popular "science" book, The Jupiter Effect, expostulated that a planetary conjunction would cause earthquakes, or a solar flare, or both. What actually transpired was a slightly higher than average tide in some places, peaking at an additional 0.04mm. Most of the population survived. 


21: Apr 29, 1987: The irrepressible doom-monger Leland Jensen came back with a new single, called "Halley's Comet is going to collide with Earth". He lived out the rest of his days following '87 as a doorstop.


Sep 28, 1992: "Rockin" Rollen Stewart, an eccentric evangelist who started the craze for holding up signs representing bible verses at public events [John 3:16 was the most popular of these] was certain that The Rapture would occur on this day. He went on to instigate a bizarrely hypocritical campaign of stink-bombing churches and other religiously inspired acts of madness, which culminated with his imprisonment for kidnapping. He would go from zero to hero were he to announce that he had been taking the piss the entire time.


May 1997 - A worldwide suggestion was floating around that the Solar System was about to pass through a mysterious and entirely imaginary region of space called the Photon Belt. The Heaven’s Gate cult seized on this as their signal to commit mass suicide in March of that year, and have been posthumously ridiculed to this very day. 


12:01am, Mar 31, 1998. One of the more precise predictions of the Second Coming. Hon-Ming Chen, leader of the Taiwanese cult "The True Way" - claimed that God would announce his imminent return on every television in the USA at this moment, prior to an actual landing in his spacecraft. Chen had the good grace to admit his mistake afterwards and offered to be crucified when the deity failed to appear, but no-one seemed enthusiastic.


1999 - Nostradamus. This really tickles my funny bone when I hear dim bulbs muttering confidentially about how Nostradamus predicted 9/11 correctly and also made 2012 our doom in his questionable poems, when by his judgement we are all supposed to have died already over ten years ago.


2000 - Isaac Newton decided to muddy his reputation by weighing in with a doomsday estimate, but at least he predicted it in a time where the egg on his face would not concern him, being six feet under and several stone lighter.


Friday 13th April 2007 - An un-named punter placed a £10 bet at 10,000/1 with Ladbrokes, the bookmakers, that the world would end on that day. It is unclear how he expected to collect his winnings.


Mar 21, 2008 - A minor christian sect The Lords' Witnesses announced this date for the end of days on their website, which is still online. Apparently any questions visitors may have are to be directed to THIS fellow. I don't know about you, but I would take whatever he says with a pound of salt and a swift departure.  


May 21, 2011 - Harold Camping and his legion of idiots. From a recent article: 


Mr Camping's argument has convinced Adam Larsen, 32, from Kansas. He is among scores of "ambassadors" who have quit their jobs to drive around America in Family Radio vehicles warning of the impending apocalypse. "My favourite pastime is raccoon hunting," Mr Larsen told CNN. "I've had to give that up. But this task is far more important."  



Just when you thought America's reputation couldn't sink any lower into the swamp. He has now re-calculated his Rapture (for the second time) to sometime in October I believe. If it were me, I would have tried to buy myself a tad more time. 


I hope you've enjoyed the list, and remember, I'm not going to save a spot for any of you in the queue for cucumber sandwiches in hell.  

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