20 May 2011 | The End (Is Not So Nigh)

I was trolling through comments about a story in the NY Times of a family where the parents are fervent believers that the end of the world is going to occur on Saturday, and someone made a good point, which I'll paraphrase here: how can mainstream Christians dismiss these end of the world types when their own beliefs are only of a degree of separation?

I guess that's accurate. I mean, a mainstream Christian still believes in an all-powerful god who looks like us but is incomprehensible, came to Earth as a person and died for the sins of mankind and has promised to return to judge the living and the dead...and he calls these May 21 end-of-the-worlders either crazy or deluded?

What's more, so many of the commenters kept posting "no one knows the hour or the day," from the New Testament, as proof that these May 21ers are wrong. They're appealing to the same type of mental gymnastics without the slightest hint of irony. They clearly believe the same thing, otherwise they wouldn't bother quoting Matthew or Mark to bolster their argument. They should just simply say, "It's not true at all." Talk about hedging your bets.

The other day, I listened to a piece on "Here and Now" about this topic and the interviewee, a professed Christian, was dismissing the May 21ers as well, but added in, "If God wouldn't tell his own son when the final time is, why is going to tell this [Harold Camping] person?" No matter how you cut it, this is not a rational argument whatsoever. It's absurd in the extreme and again, as that one commenter pointed out, only separated by degree, and certainly not kind.