Doomsday Cults That Still Exist

He forgot the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which grew out of the Millerite movement of the 1840’s. He could have also included the current Rapturists but they are spread out over many denominations instead of just one central church.

If we can’t survive the death of our sun, then we don’t deserve to.

Back in the early 90’s, there was a crazy cult from Korea who believed that “the rapture” was going to occur on October 28, 1992. They had people in major cities all over the world trying to convince us of this. They tried really hard, as evidenced by the fact that I still remember the date 17 years later. It lead to a number of funny stories.

They had stickers made with the details of their wingnut religion, and stuck them on lamp-posts around Boston. (and probably other cities.) The stickers were a full 8.5×11″ size, and each had a big red cross in one corner. The thing is, they had them printed with indestructible vinyl on indestructible vinyl. Some of those stickers can still be found today. If they believed the world was going to end, why did they have their stickers made to last forever?

So, at the time I worked in an office building downtown. It was a very old building and had no air conditioning, so we had to open the windows in the summer. It overlooked Downtown Crossing, which is a sort of public square. The cultists took out the appropriate licenses for use of the square for a number of weeks during the summer, and they placed a guy with a megaphone in the square to hand out flyers and shout through the megaphone all day, “The rapture is coming October 28, 1992.” Eight hours a day. Directly below my window. Which I couldn’t close. Moreover, he was, like all the cultists, a crazy guy from Korea, who had a very strong accent, so we were treated to eight hours of “Da rapcha is come ing octoba twenty ate niteen nitey too”, over and over again. And it got pretty hoarse by the end of the day because he’d been shouting this nonstop for 8 hours.

At one point they ran an ad in the Boston Globe, with instructions to the public for “what to do if you miss the rapture.” I remember one of the points was “Gather together all the bibles you can, and hide them.” Italics theirs. They never did say what to do with them. Presumably this was to keep anyone from reading them? But anyway, another one of their items in the ad was about avoiding barcodes, because barcodes are the tool of the devil and his minions would tattoo it on your hand and then you’d go to hell, or something like that.

That afternoon, my coworker Kevin came into my office.
K: Tom, do you still have that printer that makes stickers?
T: Yes, Kevin.
K: Can it print barcodes?
T: Yes, Kevin.
(I was thinking he was going to start inventorying stuff or something.)
K: Can you print me one with a barcode for “666”?
(*pause*)
T: Yes, Kevin, I can. (*grin*)
(*tap tap tap hummmmm*)
T: Here you go.
(Sound of elevator departing.)
Window: Da rapcha is come ing octoba twenty ate niteen nitey too. Da rapcha is come ing octoba twenty ate niteen nitey too. Da rapcha is come ing octoba twenty ate niteen nitey too. Da rapcha is come ing AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!
(*silence*)
(Sound of elevator returning.)
T: Kevin, what did you do?
K: Oh, I reached out like I was going to take a pamphlet from him, and when he tried to give me one I put the sticker on his hand.

We had about an hour and a half of silent relief from the crazy cultist onslaught before a different guy showed up with a megaphone. This guy put the pamphlets in a box on the ground, would point to them when someone came by, and wouldn’t let anyone get within a few feet of him.

The Other Tom,
That was a hilarious and well told story. Thank you for a good laugh.

Natural Apocalyptics
OK, is it just me, or do other folks think that apocalyptic thinking is a deep “natural” cognitive illusion. It is only wacky when a cult gets a hold of it or it is nurtured. I wonder if we all don’t have some tendencies to think this way, given the right environmental triggers.

If we can’t survive the death of our sun, then we don’t deserve to.

Well I might survive it…

@The Other Tom… that was friggin’ awesome. Thanks buddy, you made my day.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, “I think we’re living in the End Times.” Jeesh, yes I would put a lot of Christian groups in the doomsday cult category. Only their not cults, they’re entire sects or entire churches. Liberal churches don’t use it much, but some of those barely qualify as Christian.

The jehovah witnesses will make another prediction and then deny they did it.

How do they overlook the fact that their handbook has a quote from their founder that says ‘this generation shall not pass away before I return’?

Generation usually equals roughly 20 years. It’s been 100 times that long already. I seriously doubt there’s any of that generation left.

muggle:

My mother loved the book “The Great Late Planet Earth” back in the ’70’s and would say that the world was gonna end when Israel had been a nation for 40 years.

That’s what my mother used to say. But, now “generation” apparently means as long as one person born in 1948 is still alive. So, they’ve bought themselves another 20 years at least before they come up with the next batshit crazy excuse. Of course, all the peddlers of this drivel will have long since died or retired wealthy by then.
She’s still excited that the rapture can happen any time. “It’s so close” she tells me. “You can take care of the dog when we go up and you stay.” And other annoying comments.

Here is a list of previous and current predictions of the end of the world. And this comes from a religious website that takes the concept seriously (if not the listed predicted dates).

Thanks Jeff. I can’t find the one I’m looking for. I have this memory of it being combined with an eclipse. But maybe that’s just my bad memory.