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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Doomsday Cults in 2011

I was walking between lectures the other day, and on the corner of Symonds and Alfred street, there was a man handing out fliers. I grabbed one, just in case there might have been some free food involved (I'm a poor student you see). My first impression of the piece of paper was "HOLY CRAP WALL OF TEXT". The title at the top is 'THE END OF THE WORLD IS ALMOST HERE! HOLY GOD WILL BRING JUDGMENT DAY ON MAY 21, 2011'. I laughed, and then put the paper in my bag to deal with later.

It is now later, and it is time to take a look at their claims. In the first paragraph, they claim that the Bible gives "correct and accurate information about [Judgment Day]". So right off the bat, I can tell that whoever set the Doomsday Date, didn't read the Bible very carefully.
What the New Testament has to say about when Judgment day comes:
Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father (Matthew 24:36).
Concerning that day or the hour nobody knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father.
Keep looking, keep awake, for you do not know when the appointed time is (Mark 13:32-33).
for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.(1 Thessalonians 5:2-4)
Anyway, it shouldn't really be any surprise that delusional cultists don't even know their way around their own book, and this is evidenced well by the very next paragraph!

They claim that "in its original languages [The Bible] has never been changed, and every word in the original languages is from the mouth of God". Needless to say, this cult's leader Harold Camping does not know the original languages of the Bible, so I think I'll turn to someone who does for that information thank you.
“With the abundance of evidence, what can we say about the total number of variants known today? Scholars differ significantly in their estimates -- some say there are 200,000 variants known, some say 300,000, some say 400,000 or more! We do not know for sure because, despite impressive developments in computer technology, no one has yet been able to count them all. Perhaps, as I indicated earlier, it is best simply to leave the matter in comparative terms. There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”
-Bart Ehrman

So, five sentences into the content of this poorly constructed piece of propaganda (what kind of passer-by is going to read 2 pages of solid text?) I have learned that: A) They are wholly ignorant of what the Bible actually says
B) They are genuinely deceitful and are spreading outright lies about their holy book, that anyone with an inquisitive mind will go and fact-check.
So you parasitic, gullible propaganda distributers, you're not off to a very good start in convincing me that the world actually is going to end on May 21st.

7 comments:

  1. they have shoved their phamplets at me every time i have walked past which is twice a day... the first two paragraphs were so laughable i couldn't read any more.
    good blog!

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  2. Yeah I haven't made it past the first two paragraphs yet either.

    Thanks!

    -KJ

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  3. Great post, hopefully they'll begone next week. :P

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  4. I like having crazies around the place to be honest, it makes me feel saner by comparison.

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  5. hold onto their pamphlet, then when it gets to may 21st and the world hasnt assploded, ask them whats up? ;)

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  6. its really going to happen

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  7. OMG I'M FUCKED THEN!

    I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD AND SHIT!

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