Fanny Says: Thank Heaven, We're Still Here

Dear Fanny:

I'm writing this on Earth, which somehow survived the absolutely positive prediction that the world would end on May 21.

The prediction was made by Harold Camping, the 89-year-old owner of Christian radio stations and Web sites. He made a similar Doomsday prediction in 1994, but nothing happened then either.

I'm not criticizing anyone's belief in Judgment Day, Armageddon or similar concepts found in the Bible and other religious works. Since the Old Testament prophets, religious figures have predicted that mankind ultimately would face a day of reckoning.

What disturbs me is that the mainstream media gave excessive and obsessive attention to a man who obviously is a publicity-seeking charlatan. No rational person really thought the planet would begin to disintegrate at 6 p.m. May 21.

Camping's nonprofit company spent tens of millions of dollars--much of it in donations from followers--on thousands of billboards and broadcast ads promoting Judgment Day (and not coincidentally, his own organization). Some individual listeners spent their own money, including a man in New York City who drained his $140,000 life savings to pay for posters in subway stations, according to news reports.

Just think how those millions could have used to help the needy here on Earth.

An unrepentant Camping now claims that May 21 was only the precursor, and that Armageddon will indisputably occur on Oct. 21. Instead of adding fuel to the fire, the media should ignore future Doomsday predictions by Camping or anybody else. What do you think?

Skeptically,

Rational Being

Dear Being:

When I was a little girl, my father would read me stories from "Aesop's Fables."

One of my favorites was "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." If you recall, a shepherd boy cried out that a wolf was attacking his flock. The townspeople rushed to his aid, only to find out the boy had made it up. The lad thought this was so amusing he put out another false alarm. The third time, however, a wolf really did attack, but the townspeople, having been fooled twice, refused to help him.

The pseudo-seer you describe has even less credibility than the shepherd. The boy, at least, finally did speak the truth.

Camping's so-called "predictions" have been utterly false from the outset and no one should believe anything he says. No bona fide religious leader is going to give a specific date for Judgment Day. As the Gospel of Mark says, "But of that day or that hour no one knows..."

I realize that religious freedom is a fundamental constitutional right. As much as I detest phonies who exploit the vulnerable and the gullible, I am not suggesting that radio evangelists or anyone else be prohibited from making bogus predictions.

Fortunately, there were no mass suicides this time, as occurred in 1997 when 39 members of the apocalyptic Heaven's Gate cult in California killed themselves.

I urge the media to exercise more responsibility in the future. Doomsday predictions should be placed in the same category as sightings of Purple People-Eaters in flying saucers, the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster.

You probably are familiar with the adage, "Dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog is news."

In that vein, "A man predicting the end of the world is not news. The world actually ending is news."

Intelligently,

Fanny