A doomsday date for your diary! World 'will end on Friday' says preacher who claims the Apocalypse has arrived
By
Lee Moran
Doomsday preacher Harold Camping was left a laughing stock when his prediction that the world would end on May 21 failed to materialise.
But the 90-year-old Californian may well have the last laugh after revealing that date was in fact Judgment Day - a spiritual moment when the righteous would be chosen - and simply a warm-up for the Rapture which happens exactly five months later.
This means that Friday, October 21, will mark the start of the Apocalypse - when believers will be whisked away into heaven and hell will be unleashed on earth.
And cynics should be warned, as the
Rapture Index - a monitor of current affairs for the frequency and
intensity of end-time signs mentioned in the Bible - is at an almost
all-time high.
Will you be back again? Thousands of Harold Camping's supporters publicised his campaign warning of the end of the world on May 21
Bed-ridden Camping, who suffered a stroke soon after 'Judgment Day', said: 'We can be sure that the whole world [will be annihilated] on 21 October 2011.'
And since he said that the day of judgment had already passed, there was nothing the non-righteous could do to save their souls.
Therefore, he added, there was no point in advertising it to the extent of his May prediction - which saw his radio station sponsoring a worldwide publicity blitz.
Camping's new, muted, prediction of
imminent death and destruction comes as the Rapture Index - dubbed a
'Doomsday Dow Jones' - hovers at an all-time high.
Warning: The Rapture Index is a 'Doomsday Dow Jones' that predicts, when it has a high score, the end of the world
Controversial: Is Harold Camping a figure of fun or a true prophet of modern times?
In August the table - which measures 45 categories including levels of drugs abuse, anti-Semitism and wild weather - hit an unprecedented 184.
It now currently stands slightly lower at 180 - only two points below the 182 it reached in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist atrocities.
Unrest in the Middle East, the global economic crisis, the famine in the Horn of Africa and the slowing down of recent volcanic activity are all signs that the world is about to end, it claims.
The index, created by Terry James in December 1993, adds on its website: 'The Antichrist: The EU now has President. This office could be a precursor to the AC'.
James, of Little Rock, Arkansas, said he did not use his table to make predictions, but to measure 'the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the Rapture'.
He said: 'The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the end.' And he revealed that any figure over 160 made it time to 'fasten the seatbelts'.
Camping, a radio evangelist and president of a network of radio stations known as Family Radio, spent up to $100million over seven years predicting the Rapture.
His followers put up billboards, with many spending thousands of their own money in passing his message on.
He was openly mocked by talk show hosts and comedians, and religious leaders blasted him as a false prophet.
Non-believers and Christians alike made fun of his message and protests and demonstrations were held against his prediction - many of which turned into parties as the date approached.
He is not alone in his predictions as, over the past 2,000 years there have been at least 200 publicised prophecies that the world would end on a specific date.
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