I gotta say, I’m taken aback by the ridicule heaped on the May 21st Apocalypse believers. I think they’re whacky, of course, and I’m not making post rapture plans of any kind. But, then again, I think all flavors of mystical worship and magical thinking are equally whacky. I’m consistent. But so many out there snicker and chide these people of faith, chuckling at the nut-jobs who believe something so fantastical – right before they go into church and drink the blood and eat the body of their invisible, sacrificed god. They get a good laugh at the outrageous idea that May 21 is the finish-line, while ordering fish because they whole-heartedly believe that their god has a strong opinion about their diet on certain days of the week. Or that they’ll one day be reborn as a koala bear, or that seventy-two virgins wait for them after death. Yes, you’d have to be mad to think the rapture is coming next week, when we all know that what’s really in store is that a small cadre of skeletal horseman will ride forth from the bowels of hell to smite the unworthy. May 21st? Who could believe anything so absurd!? The hypocrisy of raining down scorn and judgment on the apocalypse folks while vehemently embracing all manner of hallucinatory demagoguery– even so far as trying to write it into law around the country -- is staggering. I guess it shouldn't surprise me, but it always does. To paraphrase one of history’s great teachers, “Let he who is without his own brand of irrational faith cast the first stone.” Fire Away.

5. ???
6. PROPHET!

A California woman named Lyn Benedetto was one of millions who heard Camping's message, and became concerned that her daughters would suffer terribly in the coming apocalypse. She allegedly forced her daughters, 11 and 14, to lie on a bed and then cut their throats with a box cutter. She then tried to kill herself, though police arrested Benedetto and all three survived.

police arrested Benedetto and all three survived.