Has Harold Camping Apologized Yet?

I just feel so sorry for Fitzpatrick. He’s an older gentleman and the loss that money must be devastating, especially if he gets cancer or some other catastrophic illness and there’s nothing left for health care or other basic needs. I hope he has family who can help him. Harold Camping is evil and, no doubt, is laughing all the way to the bank.

I saw the video on GMA this morning. And while I do enjoy a good deal of schadenfreude when I see some true believer get screwed, Fitzpatrick look crushed. This wasn’t some huckster who was bilking old ladies out of their money. This was a true believer whose god let him down.

I truly felt sorry for the guy.

Of course, the sorry SOB will come up with some reason why it’s his fault, and not god’ss, and not the bible’s. And he will continue to be a sad, tortured soul…

From the BBC:

“I had some scepticism but I was trying to push the scepticism away because I believe in God,” said Keith Bauer, who travelled 4,830km (3,000 miles), from Maryland to California, where Mr Camping’s Family Radio is based, for the Rapture.

I think many of us have been there. It is one of the saddest things, seeing people battle against themselves to sustain belief in the unbelievable.

Fuck’em all, morons.

Awe come on Hemant – there must be at least a little schadenfreude.

I have zero sympathy for those who gave up their money for this shyster. Quite frankly, they deserve to lose their money for their credulity.

It is definitely funny. But it is also sad at the same time.

I wonder what their reaction would be if we atheists took up a collection to help the poor deluded and bewildered rubes who gave their life savings to the conman Camping?

Oh right, “Evil Atheists Exploit Rapture Failure Through Disingenuous Altruism For Camping Followers”

I feel sympathy for this man. I think he really was trying to save people from a danger he believed existed. There’s something noble in that in a Don Quixote sort of way.

What he was doing was still naive at best, but I found him sad more than annoying. There are plenty of other rapture hopefuls who were much more dangerous and irksome.

Camping, as well as Fitzgerald, are deluded, and more than a little gullible. There really is no difference between their beliefs and someone that really believes in Bigfoot or UFOs. Their belief just happens to have a set date and time associated with it. By his language, he seemed like he was also a creationist, so he was most likely raised into it (I don’t know of many people that have coveted to YEC).

While they will probably alway hold the Bible up as an inspired work, right now they might be willing to give up on it’s power as magic ball. If they’re willing, now’s the time to give them some good critical reading material.

While it is sad to see someone spend (some of?) their life savings on fiction… i do have a feeling of shadenfreude on the whole about this entire situation.

Belief is a choice.

While i believe this old man was genuine in his belief and was really trying to help people in his own way he did consciously make the decision to spend that money on his own.
Has his mind been completely poisoned by religion and entirely lost its ability to be skeptical of religious based supernatural claims? Ugh.
Anyone here think he would have been one of the farmers with guns outside on the night of october 30th, 1938 trying to defend the rest of us from the martians? Most likely not, because H.G.Wells’ show was not based on religion but on science fiction.

Why didn’t members of Fitzpatrick’s family try to talk him OUT of such foolishness? That’s who I’m pissed at.

The only silver lining is, it’s never too late for Robert to see the light of Reason and step away from the delusion of faith, albeit as a pauper utterly dependent on the social safety net. I’d recommend he stop voting Republican if he ever has before because of pet religious ideas…

better if they donated their money to the charity..

I feel sorry for Mr. Fitzpatrick–living under his particular delusion–a mental illness of a sort I guess, is a sad thing, and not something to made fun of any more than making fun of someone who suffers (and yes, he seems to be suffering) from any other psychological delusion would be, regardless of the source of that delusion.

Mr. Camping, however, is another story–how the f**k did he ever amass assets worth $104 million [see USAT story] as a non-profit? And no doubt tax-free as well! Didn’t Jesus say something about how easy it would be for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter heaven?

Just imagine if either of these men used their fortunes to do exactly what their Lord commanded them to do, namely, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and visit those in prison.

That rotten old rat! I don’t feel sorry for him one bit!

I feel very sorry for Mr Fitzpatrick.

As a matter of fact his situation reminds me a little of Jesus’ (at the end of the book of Mark) when he cries out “my god, why have you forsaken me?”. It is a heart wrenching plea. Both Jesus and Mr Fitzpatrick were so certain of different endings to their respective stories.

Yes, I am an atheist, but I can imagine how horrible it must be to feel so betrayed by a being you poured your absolute love and trust in.

I have a little sympathy for people who were taken in, but I will have zero sympathy for people who don’t take this as a serious wake-up call and leave their religious faith by the roadside and move on. At least those defrauded by Camping have the chance to live the rest of their lives with a more worthwhile sense of purpose.

I’m to damn tired to laugh at him but I do find it amusing. I’m not going to feel sorry or bad for him. His choice, not mine.

I am directly laughing at him. He wanted it to happen. Which includes my being killed as well as millions or billions of others…What a db! He needs ppl laughing at him to shock him into really reconsidering that validity of that fairytale! – Sometimes IN YOUR FACE is necessary.

When deciding if it’s ok for me to have schadenfreude (aside: how cool is it that that word has become mainstream since Avenue Q?) about these people, I consider two facts:

1) They’ve been going around gloating that they’re going to heaven and everyone else isn’t – even their friends, coworkers, siblings, and children. It’s a way of expressing “I’m better than you, because God loves me more, so I’m going to the eternal party and you’re going to burn in hell forever, ha ha.” And they think the eternal suffering of everyone around them is just peachy. This, folks, is a classic hate group, albeit disguised in flowery words of christianity. This is the same manner in which the KKK operates: by making its members feel good about themselves by telling them that they’re superior to everyone else and so everyone else deserves to suffer.

2) I’m gay, and one of the fundamental tenets of Camping’s beliefs is that homosexuality is so evil that it’s one of the primary reasons God is going to end the world. So all of these people who blew their life’s savings on advertising were in fact spending all their money to push the idea that I’m so horrific that God will end the world just to put a stop to me. Again, this is a classic hate group tactic, to pick a scapegoat and blame all the evils of the world on them. You know, like black people, or jews.

Nope, I have no problem whatsoever with the idea of feeling schadenfreude about Camping’s followers. Go ahead, laugh away. They’re bigots and they got burned by their own bigotry.

The ones I feel sad for are their families that didn’t believe but who have had to suffer first the obnoxious smarmyness of the believers and now the financial consequences of their stupidity. Especially the kids. Like those kids the New York Times profiled, who now probably can’t afford college because their parents stopped saving and quit work to spread the message of the rapture. I feel really sad for them – sad they had to put up with this BS, sad they might have to go through life with inadequate education because of it, and sad that they’re going to have to live the rest of their life knowing their parents are a couple of morons who value the inane ravings of an old and obviously incorrect kook over the well being of their own children, who they clearly hate because they told them they’re going to hell.

you may not be able to laugh at it but I still can.

He was an idiot. A gullible idiot. People repeatedly warned him and tried to explain it to him. He actively refused to accept logic and embraced the ignorance. It’s sad that he lost all his money but he can’t just go blaming it all on Camping. He chose to listen to nonsense, fund it, spread it, and he needs to accept the punishment for that… embarrassment and ridicule and bankruptcy. I feel no pity for the man that willingly threw it all away when everyone was telling him the truth. If he tries to sue Camping I hope he loses.

@Mike,

About painting with one brush…

If you are from a branch of Christianity that doesn’t hold the following core beliefs
– Man created innocent but with free-will
– Man falls and is tossed out by God (God can’t or won’t be in the presence of sinners)
– Man given opportunity to be saved through Christ
– There will be a day of reckoning

Then good for you. I wish more were like you. You may be on the road to being good without God.

Poor deluded fool. There may still be some hope for this gentleman though. He atleast is questioning why the rapture didn’t occur. How long and how deep he will ponder this question is anyone’s guess. I wonder if anyone has ever reached out to him to see if he’s even willing to take this questioning of his holy book even further? He seems to be fairly far gone but you never know.

And how sad is it that he comes off so delusional, confused, neurotic, etc.? He seems completely out of touch with reality at moments here all because of FAITH placed in an ancient book full of Bronze Age mythology and superstition. Add in years of indoctrination and mental programming. A truely lethal combination. I’ve grown to despise the word faith. Boggles my mind. And it depresses me that this neurosis infects so many normally rational people.

Ya know, if this guy made predictions like this for any other reason and his imaginary friend’s name was Fred and not Gawd, he would have been medicated and held for observation long ago.

Faith can supposedly move mountains. In this case; faith can move your money into MY bank account. It’s a win-win! LOL Seriously though, I don’t feel sorry for the guy. I do have hate for those who take advantage of people like him.

The stupid thing is that he probably believes “government hand outs to lazy minorities are wrong”, and yet, he’s now going to be counting on government assistance for himself.

When given the choice between ‘Christian’ compassion and all this vitriol, is it really any wonder people choose Christianity?

Yes, he made a mistake. We all make mistakes. Yes, he needs a reality check. At times, we all need a reality check. It is even very likely that HAD something happened, he WOULD be laughing at all the rest of us.

None of that matters. He is still a member of the human race, he still deserves the respect that any one of us would ask for ourselves. What this man really needs isn’t our ridicule. It’s our compassion. Real compassion, the kind that doesn’t make demands or have prerequisites, that doesn’t say you must ‘be’ this, or ‘believe’ that, in order to be valid.

Yes, he was duped. We’ve all been duped. Yes, he’s been manipulated. Have any of us not been, at some point?

Religion tears apart. It’s destructive. We as a community have the power, through empathy and really showing ourselves to be ‘good without god,’ not just using it as a flashy catchphrase, to heal those rifts.

Or we can make them worse. It’s our choice.

Harold Camping was well aware of what the bible attributes to Jesus saying in Matthew 24. He has an extensive response to that entitled “No Man Knows” on his home page, siting numerous bible verses that talk about the time being revealed to God’s people shortly before the end comes.

That’s the problem with the bible – it contradicts itself. I’m annoyed by all the Christians who “would never fall for that because of what Jesus said”. Jesus also says (in Matthew 24) that the end would come to that generation. Who’s the false prophet now? 🙂

I almost have to admire Harold for his boldness and confidence in his faith. Most Christians don’t set dates for the same reason they don’t proclaim that God can restore an amputee – they know better than to put themselves/their god on the line like that when it comes to getting too specific.

I come from a Seventh Day Adventist background and I can only hope that this recent fiasco will stir up some major cognitive dissonance in those I “left behind” when I started thinking for myself.

These people, sad as they are, must be held accountable for their gullibility. They do not deserve to have their money returned to them.

Im at a loss to understand why the hell you have any sympathy for these self righteous retards at all. They are the ones happy to condemn everyone not part of their sick death cult at the drop of a hat, almost jacking themselves off in glee at the thought that they will be “saved” and everyone else will fry.

Screw them all. They deserve nothing but ridicule and derision in bucket loads, and over in the UK that is what we would heap on them. That may explain why these wierd millenialist death cults seem to thrive in the US and not be a part of UK culture. Here we heap derision on these fools and laugh them off our streets, and so dont have to suffer their presence in our public lives.

Stop being nice to them and apply a little tough love. That way they may pack in their bigoted stupidity and learn the difference between reality and fantasy sold by shabby snake oil salesmen and hucksters like Camping.

Guys these aren’t true believers.They are following a man followers whom has falsley predicted the rapture in 1994,1996,2011 and now oct 21 2011.It does show the wisdom of stoning the false prophet after the first time.The rapture itself is a doctrine that was not taught till the late 1830s by a girl who formally dabbled in the occult having a supposed vision of it and then being peddled by a Thomas Darby.If you look at what Jesus himself said look at the parable of wheat and tares which seems to say the opposite the angels gather the tares and throw them into the fire.So instead of the popular left behind fables,the tares or non believers are harvested for the fire not the belivers disapearing.

In general, I don’t feel sympathy for the situation they have willingly put themselves into over nothing more than somebody else’s words. The sympathy I feel for them—but especially Fitzpatrick—is that they are both old men, and in all the decades they have lived, they have learnt nothing useful for life.

They have gone through all those years completely unable to distinguish fact from fantasy. There is little difference between them and those freak in Michigan(???) who tried to hurry up Armageddon by shooting police officers. Or, for that matter, between them and those that blow themselves up in crowded markets or fly airplanes into skyscrapers. The difference is one of focus, not substance.