Doomsday predictions create unnecessary frenzies, panic

If you're reading this, congratulations, you survived last Friday's rapture.  It is now safe to come out from your basement, return to your jobs and remember to refrain from yelling at the guy with stinky feet who sits next to you in class because you will live to smell him another day.

Doomsday predictions aren't new, yet the hype surrounding them never ceases to amaze me.  This particular prediction was made by Harold Camping, a 90-year-old preacher who heads Family Radio International, according to an Oct. 21 MSNBC article.

This isn't Camping's first attempt at predicting the end. Previously this year, he claimed May 21, 2011 would be the rapture date. May came and went and now in October, we've prevailed through his Oct. 21 doomsday prediction. Sorry Camper, but I think your math is a little off.

While most of us hear these stories and have a good laugh, some take matters into their own hands. Prior to May 21, Family Radio International spent millions of dollars on the more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs advertising the coming of Judgment Day, and many people quit their jobs and donated their retirement or college funds to the cause.  

It's a tad bit impulsive to make such important life decisions because of one man's premonition, I'd say. Camper claimed to have used an idiosyncratic calculation that combined the number of years since the Noah's Ark flood and other biblical numbers to conclude the doomsday date. However, nowhere in the Bible is the information explained. Sure, I could add up a bunch of unrelated numbers and make up a date, but that doesn't mean the world is going to explode.   

Maybe during his old age, Camper lost a bit of his rationale, but then how can all the other end of the world predictions be explained? The most well-known rapture date is Dec. 21, 2012, which is "explained" through the Mayan long-count calendar. The Mayans might be to thank for our modern-day understanding of mathematics, but they were not supernatural beings. They had no way of predicting the end. There isn't even any scientific or anthropological evidence to support the apocalypse, according to MSNBC. So why panic?

To put it simply, we are crazy. Predicted rapture dates have come and gone, and hysteria occurs every time. More than 55,000 people referenced the Oct. 21 Judgment Day on Twitter last week, according to MSNBC, and while most of them were making jokes, some seriously questioned the potential truth.  

Call me a masochist, but I almost hope someday one of the predictions comes true. No, I don't want the world to end, but the idea of planning for such a thing is just as crazy as those who believe it's true. If the world is going to end, it's going to end — there's nothing you can do to prepare for that. Go ahead and quit your job and donate all your money to a Judgment Day billboard, you still are going to die.

All the crazies can relax now. The world is safe until at least December 2012. As for Camper, maybe the third time will be the charm. I must say though, having a little crazy in the world isn't such a bad thing — it makes the rest of us look saner.

Molly Skyles is a senior communication major  from St. Louis