The Rapture is coming. Again. Ho hum.

There is a dangling font tag causing yellow-on-white headaches now to everyone.

I never cared, but my answer is still NO (in case anyone else cares what I think).

@ #1:
whew, I thought my internet explorere was bugged/glitched.

Also, the fonts at the bottom bit where you sign in and leave comments is messed up as well.

Oh goodie, I can sleep in Monday.

I like how it links to a video that opens with scripture saying "Of that day or hour, no one knows."

Come on, dude. Try harder.

He wouldn't by any chance be making a living from this con, somehow, now would he?

end of the world.

With those choice of colours, no doubt. lol

oh great. I'm gonna die on an airplane. I'd rather the Rapture came on Monday, because then it wouldn't affect me at all, since I'm spending Monday in that den of sin known as Amsterdam. I'm sure no one is getting raptured in Amsterdam.

Does the mushroom cloud on his website look like a rather friendly, big woolly penis, or am I just abnormally obsessed with male genitalia?

So, wait ... this means I don't have to grade P.Chem exams this weekend? Awesome. Orgy at my place in Urbana-Champaign.

Why did everyone start commenting on this old post again?

I'm giving finals on the 14th and 15th (and 19th, but they're screwed no matter what)--should I even waste the time printing off tests?

I gotta know!

I love the "Eye of Sauron" on that website.

I just wish he'd change the color scheme and the fonts - it's so 1985. I have to take Tylenol3 now

Come on, you scoffers - the question "Will The Rapture & Sudden Destruction take place BEFORE: Monday — December 14th 2009?" is a fair question, is it not? If the answer is no, and I have some confidence in my confidence that that is the case, then the question becomes "Will The Rapture & Sudden Destruction take place BEFORE: Monday — December 15th 2009?". Just as good a question.

Now, if he had said "The Rapture & Sudden Destruction Will take place BEFORE: Monday — December 14th 2009?", then you might well be critical if you are still alive on the morning of the 14th, with a sore head from a hangover (one, or two, more drinks making no difference at all with the rapture coming). But the other way? Just a question, and we scientists like questions.

David Horton

Perhaps the whole thing is just a cunning attempt to turn Pharyngula yellow. Awesome.

Should have been Tuesday 15th of course, I'm just hopeless at this prophecy business.

David Horton

Boring, they've been wrong for 2,000 years.

According to the OT, False Prophets are to be killed. It even says how to tell. The ones who are wrong.

So this guy should be fair game for a stoning party. OTOH, if they stoned all false prophets, most of the fundies would have long since killed each other.

The rapture would be so cool. Imagine the world without these idiots any more, all of them forced to spend eternity face-to-face with that monster they worship, while the rest of us enjoy a slightly improved gene pool. Hey, it's my fantasy.

I braced myself for a seizure and scrolled down a bit, and realised he hasn't bothered to edit his old stuff to keep up. Most of the site is focused on possible events in Fall 2009, and it's now more than a week into winter.

In whose timezone?

As has been said, the guy isn't even confident in his predictions anymore, relying instead on intimidating qualifiers and conditional statements. Someone's trying way too hard to not not believe.

Font tags? Really?

It's precious. He authored the whole thing in Word 9. That is to say, Word 98. (2010 = 14, 2007 = 13, 2003 = 12, XP = 11, 2000 = 10). In one, glorious, 30,000 line page.

Doesn't the Bible say something about killing false prophets? How many times do you get to be wrong before your considered a false prophet?

And all coded in Hot Dog Stand. Classic.

BTW, Rapture Man, the answer to your question is the same as it was the last time you predicted The End Of The World: no.

Whoa. I just zipped straight to the bottom and JohnnieCanuck (#6) is dead right. In the link [$100 FREE Gift!] is a pyramid scheme based on winning souls for money. There's a form on the first page after the link for all and sundry to enter their credit card information.

As a bonus, it describes itself as an exercise in "MLM marketing". That's short for multi-level marketing...marketing.

Marketing.

I use this site in my Color Theory class as a bad example. Actually, I use terms slightly stronger than "bad" and always get a laugh from my students.

At least it's good for something.

Must the end of the world be heralded in Comic Sans? Wouldn't a stern Franklin Gothic Black Condensed or a chunky Gotham Ultra be more menacing? I mean even just Arial would have more authority. And really now, what's with the Memphis palette? How about just red and black for the really giant type?

My birthday is on the 14th. This rapture stuff better not happen before I get presents and cake.

Dammit! I hope it doesn't come on the 14th! I'm buying myself a Playstation 3 for Christmas. Although I have an appointment at the hospital to get tubes stuck in places where no tubes should normally go.

A warning ending in a question mark? That's novel.

WARNING: Is a new meme descending on the Internet?

What we need is a public Google calender for these predictions as otherwise I keep forgetting that the universe is about to end, and end, and end, and end...

#17

"if they stoned all false prophets, most of the fundies would have long since killed each other."

I live in some hope and vast expectations, but seeing as Yahweh is grossly incompetent I also hold no such hope or expectations soon.

After all the 'wholly babble' is written to appeal to what ever prejudice one finds morally righteous.

And no law within is actually followed seroiusly cos that would be crazy!
Xians use it as a lose kind of erratic tom tom with an old out of date data map to tread the path of pompousness.
And like any tom tom, it is frequently ignored cos the road does not go the way the tom tom suggests, one must be above all pragmatic in these things...Je ne sais pas ?

How do I contact this maniac and get him/her to sign over to me their mortgage/car/bank account/star-wars figurine/used tissue collection, effective one day post apocalypso?
There are no contact details on this website well, none visible through the blinkin' barrage o' bulshit.

On July 22, 2009-- Solar eclipse occurs, and the moon and the sun enter the Constellation Leo. This is the sign of the Lion of Judah (indicating that Jesus becoming the Judge and no longer the sacrificial lamb)

This guy is using astrology to support his guess on the Rapture. He's ignoring what the Bible says about that:

All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you. Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame. Here are no coals to warm anyone; here is no fire to sit by. Isaiah 47:13-14 (NIV)

Fuck this stupid registration BULLSHIT.
I signed in to Moveable Type with my Google account, and look what it does to my user name!
How the hell do I tell moveable Type that I am really Michael Kingsford Gray?
And more to the point: Why the intercourse SHOULD I?

Take the programmers who are responsible out to a convenient pock-marked wall, and line up a rifle squad, I suggest...

-How many times do you get to be wrong before your considered a false prophet?-

Once i should think.

I think someone should hack his webpage and um...make it better. Because lets face it anything would be an improvement.

I suggest black text on black background.

#36

"I suggest black text on black background."

Or alternatively in the spirit of choice...White text on a white background....just a thought!

#36 & #37

Actually any colour of text...just as long as the background is identical in hue!

The Rapture on the 14th December?

Bastards! I've just this minute been speaking to a customer who has promised me payment on that date. The swine! I bet he knew all along.

Dear https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnb-E55g7vrnvH-3L1M6d7QuD… |,

That's a bit extreme, is it not?

BTW, is that your first or second name?

I thought https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnb-E55g7vrnvH-3L1M6d7QuD… | was quite a cute name.

You should keep it, you know how hard it is to find an unused email name these days. Don't worry we can shorten it to Newbie on here if you want ;)

Laugh all you want, but I'm getting the strangest sense of déjà vu. I'm sure it must have something to do with the resetting of the Mayan calendar machine.

(Subliminal message: read Wapsi Square)

Doesn't the Bible say something about killing false prophets?

The Bible also said that Jesus would return and bring about Armageddon in your (meaning his disciples) lifetime. Speaking of false prophets and all.

I signed in to Moveable Type with my Google account, and look what it does to my user name!

Be glad you can sign in at all.

You guys all missed it.The rapture almost came last Tuesday.

But it didn't.

;)

What? 14th December? Well it better occur then cos I'm sick of throwing daily rapture parties only to end in everything going back to normal.

Typical - the world ends the day before pay day. That just goes to prove THERE IS NO GOD.

Unfortunately no rapture will ever be enough, because it would only take some of the rabid religious...

We need a rapture that takes all religious extremists.

The guy has just shown over and over again that he's an incompetent prophet

Incompetent? Really? I don't think so. He has done exactly what absolutely all the other prophets that have existed have done: fail miserably.

From one of the links on that crazy site.

Modern cosmology has laid to rest the primitive creation myths of paganism, atheism, and eastern religions in favor of the God of the Bible.

The irony burns deep.

PZ.. plz help , the yellow hurts. Wave around a magic squid , may the tentacles cure this jaundice

Will the Rapture occur on Monday? If my date is amenable to sleeping over that night, then happily yes.

Mind you, we'd still have to get up Tuesday morning and face the neighbours...

Best web design. Evah.

I show this site to my friends just for the eye frying never mind the rapture nonsense.

I wonder how seriously he takes the prophesies. Has he spent the last few months going from one crisis to another as he has stopped paying bills and acting like there is a future or is he actually just carrying on as normal?

I wonder how mailing some "I hope you get raptured soon!" cards would go over with certain relatives....

I wonder how mailing some "I hope you get raptured soon!" cards would go over with certain relatives....

haha

"Here's to your impending rapture. May it be a sudden one!"

This guy's wrong almost as many times as Nostra-dumbass. :P.

#9. I had the impression of a jellyfish.

As hard as I've looked, I've never seen the ALL CAPS, ODD color choices, theme for Wordpress. Perhaps I should create one.

...although looking at my own comment, I don't think I could stand to look at it long enough to create it.

Ouch.

But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.

Luke 9:27 -- Allegedly the words of Jesus Himself.

No amount of failed prophesy deters a true believer.

Oh damn. I have to get more La Fin du Monde. What a shame. Again.

JC

The four library books I took out for my granddaughter are due back by the end of Monday. Now I don't have to return them. Hooray!

Oh, noez!!!

I can hav apocolipz?

@NewEnglandBob: Oh right, like you or any of the elitist "book readers" from the library will get raptured.

#57:

As hard as I've looked, I've never seen the ALL CAPS, ODD color choices, theme for Wordpress. Perhaps I should create one

Cool, DO it! And make sure to call it 'Rapture'

NBwaW@63: Unless the book is Going Rogue. You get special jesus points if you can slog through the intro

@Larry #65: Surely that's only a hypothetical scenario.

Hmm, my birthday is December 14th. I guess that if he's right, I won't be gettin' any older! :-)

... on a par with his abilities as a web designer

Right. If he was smart (and I doubt he is), he could use a simple script that displayed the date of the rapture simply as (current date + 7) or something.
And randomly change some of those colors.

Saves him having to update his site every week!

by the way, if Rick Warren doesn't get raptured on the 14th, I'm going to be awfully disappointed.

Until further notice, I simply ignore all messages that the end is neigh. I have lived through too many end of the world prophesies to take any seriously. My cynicism will be the death of me.

@Kelvin "whew, I thought my internet explorere was bugged/glitched."

As a web programmer, I can assure you that it is. We spend our lives getting around IE bugs.

I predict the Rapture will never happen...I win!

The Rapture is opening for Sudden Destruction before December 14th?

Is this an all ages show? Are there still tickets?

I love Rapture Theology!

God to humankind, circa 4000 BC: "I give you my greatest gift: free will. Enjoy!"

God to humankind, today: "Well, I certainly didn't expect you to use it." [Blows shit up.]

I find this whole concept of the rapture both selfish and sickening. Firstly, it's selfish because those are "saved" thinks that they are so above everyone else that they are the only one that escape destruction. Secondly, the people who are so rapture ready seems like they are wishing for the death of literally billions.

- The perfect God engages reality
- God creates all things, the Universe, Earth, logic, and reason
- God creates paradise
- God creates man after his image in paradise
- God gives man free will
- God creates the act of sin which is not bound by logic or reason
- Using free will, man sins
- God bans man from paradise
- Man keeps sinning
- God kills man except for Noah the drunkard and his immediate family who solely repopulate the Earth
- Man still sins
- God rapes his mother to give birth to himself so that he may die for all man's sins
- Man still sins
- God raptures sinners who enslave their minds to his whimsy
- Man sins even more
- God destroys the Earth and man through the acts of men
- God sends man to an eternal torture chamber

FAIL

I want the rapture to come and take the Moonies. The tribulations will be seeing the baptist, 7thday Adventists etc. explain where they've failed.

I believe this fellow belongs to the shotgun school of prophecy. Just keep predicting the end of the world until it happens. You're bound to get it right once, and you only need to get it right once.

"God creates man after his image"

Well, that was the whole problem. If he had any sort of self-awareness or spent any of his omniscience on introspection at all, it would have been bleedingly obvious that making anything in his own image would be a very bad idea.

@https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnb-E55g7vrnvH-3L1M6d7QuD…

OK I made a calendar for end of the word stuff.

The End Calender

Feel free to make the bad color and font worse to correspond with the urgency of the end. Please add any end dates you are aware of.

@52

Has he spent the last few months going from one crisis to another as he has stopped paying bills and acting like there is a future or is he actually just carrying on as normal?

*Sigh*, the joys of free web hosting (Prodigy or whatever it is he uses). Funny, considering all the free CMSs, blogs and scripts out there, plus the free forum help for any of the above. If he just spent 15 minutes at most each day learning something new, he could actually get people to stay long enough to read something presentable.

I find this whole concept of the rapture both selfish and sickening.

Yes, it is amoral and vicious. Desperately hoping for the deaths of 6.7 billion people. Only way to top that is if we discover UFO aliens. Then they can hope god kills them too.

It is also pathetic. How empty, meaningless, and unpleasant does one's life have to be that your main interest is for god to show up and end it?

The link doesn't work. It's not my fault!

Here it is in the raw:

http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/5a8id6cgrjm6i88hmjn135as9k%40group…

You know, if he keeps trying, he's going to be right one of these days. But nobody will know.

C'mon everybody, this has to be true, since when has the site been wrong before?

No Gods, No Masters
Cameron

You know, if he keeps trying, he's going to be right one of these days. But nobody will know.

Wrong. In the unlikely event of an honest to god rapture, the chances of him being right about the date, (given that he seems to pick dates mostly at random with a 3 week'ish spread), is almost as slim as the chance of a rapture in the first place. There is a significantly higher than chance probability that the last date he picks out of his hat is going to be post-rapture.

smooth font-shift, PZ

"How empty, meaningless, and unpleasant does one's life have to be that your main interest is for god to show up and end it?"

But remember Raven, these people believe that they are completely and utterly useless and that they need a "savior" in order to make their existence bearable. (I recently heard a song on my way home that says Jesus is the only worthy one and we are all worthless.) Apparently, the best they can hope for is that God ends it right now for them. They're like emu kids, except that they are apparently the "moral pillar"[citation need] of our society.

PZ, thanks for fixing this article. Its evil hidden characters kept crashing my IE yesterday.

With both the Rapture folks and Microsoft involved, there's always a guilty party to blame for one's problems.

The page now reads asks whether the Rapture will occur before Monday December 21st 2009. Funny that!

The new date is February 1st, 2010.