It's The End of the World As We Know It...

...and I feel fine!

No earthquakes. No floods. No dead bodies everywhere. And unfortunately, none of the crazies have been taken up to heaven to be with their god and leave the rest of us alone. *sigh*

And the CDC had even come out with a blog post about what to do in case of the Zombie Apocolypse. I was so looking forward to putting the plan into action.

NOT!

I'd like to say that I don't understand why so-called holy men (it's almost never a woman) predict the end of the world, but unfortunately, I do.

It's buried on the ebiblefellowship site, which has already taken down the "end of the world" prediction page. Not that I expected any less, seeing as how it didn't happen.

But they still haven't taken down this page. It's their donation page, and it was live right up to and beyond the apocolypse. Just in case they change the wording, I'll quote what was on there up until at least the time of this blog post:

Donations to EBible Fellowship are no Longer Accepted

EBible Fellowship is NO LONGER ACCEPTING DONATIONS due to the shortness of time until May 21, 2011. If you still wish to make a donation, please make it to Family Radio (see below).

For all those who have given over the years, we thank you for your faithfulness in assisting to get the Gospel out into all the world.

Donate to Family Radio

Although EBible Fellowship has no affiliation with Family Radio, we do believe them to be a Biblically based ministry used by God for the furtherance of the Gospel. Contributions can be sent to them at:

In addition, you may donate to Family Radio through their secure donation form.

That's right. Despite the fact that the end of the world was coming when they wrote this, one part of their conglomerate (which they claim isn't affiliated to the other part. Like Hell...) was and is still accepting donations. Apparently, Family Radio intended to continue even past the end of the world.

Which tells me that the perpetrators of this scam didn't believe a word they wrote. It was only a scam to get money out of ignorant god-fearing folks. Unfortunately, it worked rather well on some people. A man took out his life savings to put up billboards all over NYC, I'm told, and I read about a couple who stopped paying their mortgage and saving college funds for their three teen-aged children because they thought it wouldn't matter past today.

As far as the perpetrator is concerned, he should be charged and convicted of fraud, since it's patently clear that he lied in order to obtain money, and innocent if ignorant folks are going to suffer big time because of his duplicity. I wasn't counting too much on the world ending today, so I didn't get myself in deep water financially or anything, but I'm sure that some folks will be in torment for far longer than the five months the tribulation was supposed to last because of this idiot.

And for the victims, I have only this to say: Wise up! It's fine to be a conservative or evangelical Christian, but fundamentalist Christians who believe this sort of nonsense are the laughingstock of atheists everywhere. Get an education in science and world history and textual criticism. Start questioning authority, especially the authority of anyone who claims to know the mind of God on any matter. And be doubly suspicious if they not only have a direct line to God, but claim that God wants you to give them all your money.

I'm a Christian, and I'm passionate about my religion. I love and serve God (or at least I try to...). I genuinely believe that if a society is to function optimally, there needs to be a religious cohort present. Certainly I don't know of any society from the beginning of recorded history until now that has successfuly functioned without one.

So it makes me truly sad and angry to see folks who might have been helped and comforted by having a religious faith become passionate unbelievers because of stupid nonsense spouted by greedy and/or ignorant preachers.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." (Matthew 18:6, NIV)

ETA: I wrote this post, and had to come back to edit it, because someone on the Absolute Write forums linked to this article.

I will quote the writer:

This is what religion encourages: fear based on imaginary terrors.

One nutcase, with about ten followers, and people who don't know any better take them as representative of all religions.

If you are an atheist, please have the intelligence to realize that the overwhelming majority of religious folks are not like this, nor does most religion encourage "fear based on imaginary terrors." If you're so inclined, I give you a challenge: find a mainstream denominational church with a liberal bent and attend services for a few Sundays in a row. I'm not hoping you'll convert to Christianity if you do this, but I do hope it will educate in the matter of the wide diversity of Christian beliefs. You can also read some of my former posts on this blog, many of which are sermons I actually preached to good reception.

I have no real qualms with atheism, but fundamentalist atheism scares me as much as fundamentalist Christianity or Islam or Judaism does. And so I say the same to you as I say to the religious folks: get educated!