The look like a normal family. A mother and father with beautiful looking children. The also appear to have some intelligence and education. Reading a few blurbs about them in the Daily Mail (London) you see a mother and father who believe so deeply in Camping's nonsense that they have the ability to tell their children that they are going to be left behind to suffer through the apocalypse while they (mommy and daddy) are whisked off to heaven for eternal bliss.
One U.S. family in particular will be stunned that the Rapture failed to happen.
Two years ago Robert Carson and Abby Haddad gave up their jobs to preach for the Family Radio church at the centre of the May 21 Judgment Day campaign.
They even told their three children - Joseph, Faith and Grace - that they were going to die.
Speaking to the New York Times, 16-year-old Grace Haddad said: 'My mom has told me directly that I’m not going to get into heaven. At first it was really upsetting, but it’s what she honestly believes.'
Another dedicated follower is Michael Garcia.
After spending months travelling the country to put up Judgment Day billboards and hand out Bible tracts, he planned to spend Friday evening with his family at home in Alameda, near the Christian media empire's Oakland headquarters.
'We know the end will begin in New Zealand and will follow the sun and roll on from there,' said Garcia, a 39-year-old father of six. 'That's why God raised up all the technology and the satellites so everyone can see it happen at the same time.'
Their beliefs are exactly like the silliness that permeates Armstrongism to this day. Armstrongism still looks at the idea of fleeing to Petra for a final training to be god's and goddesses. Parents of unbaptized children will be made god's while their kids will be left in Petra to continue to live as mortal human beings. Unless of course, they have not been killed by the invading armies that hate the true church so much that they nuke the place. Oh wait, the stupid pagan's can't even do that! Petra will be covered by a cloud that makes it invisible to airplanes. That cloud will scramble the radar of planes so no one will ever be able to find Petra. Sound stupid? You bet! That was actual teachings of Armstrongite ministers!
Even the callousness of the parents telling their kids they will not make it is exactly in line with Armstrongism. We proclaimed the same thing. Your child's only chance was to have had a prayer said of him/her at the Blessing of the Children service. If that happened then they at least had a chance! Otherwise they were doomed. And, god forbid if you child did not get baptized by 18. They were immediately destined to the lake of fire.
One WCG minister who left during all the changes wrote a book about his journey out of Armstrongism and into Lutheranism, Misery Synod. He also made the same claims about his kids. Because they had not converted to Lutheranism, Misery Synod, they were not going to make it into heaven. Eternally damned, lost, beyond redemption.
What a sad, impotent little god that would cause parents to make such comments to their kids!
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And as I predicted, now reported in the San Francisco IB Times, Harold Camping has disappeared.
The above link seems to be busy and isn't responding, so here is the text:
False May 21, 2011 Doomsday prophet Harold Camping "deserts" devastated followers, church offers solace (PHOTOS)
May 21, 2011 11:00 PM EDT
Doomsday prophet Harold Camping, who predicted that the End of the World would come on May 21, 2011, has gone missing ever since it became increasingly clear that his prediction is going to fail, even as local churches willingly stepped in to provide counseling and help to Camping's devastated followers.
Camping, the head of the Family Radio, had predicted that the selected number of people on earth, approximately 200 million, would Rapture to heaven on May 21, 2011 while those left behind would witness the destruction of the earth which would come about on October 21, 2011.
He has based his predictions on Bible verses, namely Genesis 7:4 ("Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth") and 2 Peter 3:8 (“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day”), and concluded that May 21, 2011 is 7000 years after the Great Flood (4990 B.C.), concluding that it indeed is the Doomsday.
4990 + 2011 – 1 = 7000 (the subtraction of "1" is necessary because year 1 B.C. is followed by 1 A.D., skipping year 0).
Because Camping was certain "without any shadow of a doubt it (Doomsday) is going to happen," many of his followers sold their possessions and quit their jobs.
Adrienne Martinez, a follower of Camping, and her husband have reportedly quit their jobs and spent the last penny in their bank account towards a rented house in Orlando. "We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won’t have anything left," said Adrienne.
Now that Camping's prediction is proven to be a complete failure, attention has been shifted to his devastated followers. Previously when Doomsday prophecies have failed, some misled followers have turned violent, even leading up to murders and committing suicides.
In order to prevent this, church groups are actively providing counseling and advice for the damaged souls.
On May 21, 2011, around 4 p.m. (local time), a group of rescuers, led by Pastor Jacob Denys of Calvary Bible Church in Milpitas, CA, came in front of Camping's Family Radio headquarter in Oakland, CA, with signs and banners, and offered to provide counseling and spiritual support to the dejected followers of Camping. Camping and his staff were nowhere to be seen. However, a few of Camping's followers who were there, avoided the crowd and refused to offer any comment. One of the followers even tried to assault the IBTimes reporter when approached, saying, "I want to be left alone."
"We are here to reach out to those people who might have bought the lie (of Camping)," said Denys. He, adding that they are not to condemn anyone, said, "What we are hoping is that we would be able to invite people who might have been affected to our church in Milpitas and hold a special service that would embrace them and reach out to them."
The service, Denys said, will be at 10 a.m. on May 22, 2011, the day after the failed Doomsday.
"Churches like ours, he (Camping) says, are of the devil, that the Holy Spirit has left the church and all is left now is a shell. Even though this is what they've been believing and they've been teaching, we love them and we care about them. We don't want them to be hurt. Today is a hard day for them," James Bynum, a deacon of the church, said.
One of the biggest potential fallouts of this fiasco is that the poor teens engaged with the Family Radio Harold Camping failure may be destined for suicide.
Enthusiastic teens who have been proclaiming the end of the world to their friends and schoolmates will very likely find that they are completely isolated in the manner that teens do under these sorts of circumstances. Teen peers can be cruel and merciless.
Some teens may find the only recourse is to end their own life.
Armstrongists should take note. You are cut from the same cloth as Harold Camping: You lie to them and then you take their money.
If it were up to me, I would proclaim June as International Jihaad against the Armstrongists month. It's a perfect time, what with Father's Day and Pentecost.
But Jihaad is an holy war and I'm not certain that Allah / God could be called upon to support it. We'd be on our own, and that being so, how far could we get?
Want to give it it try to find out?
Sensitive humans are drawn to the hope and promises of religion whether it be Christianity or a hundred other views about the meaning of life.
We are aware that we are aware and therein lies both the hope and the problem.
These are very very sincere people. Remember???? We were. I was. While i reserved the right through the years to keep my bullshit detector up and running, (good thing) I was sincere as were everyone who writes on this blog and other WCG offshoot sites.
We write to process sincerity gone bad.
Live and burn...Welcome to EarthSchool
You know, it takes one to know one.
Let us take time to examine the truths from our sworn enemy.
Supporting lying false prophets like Camping comes with a serious price tag attached. That is simply the way it is.
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