May 21 2011 Judgment Day on Huffington Post
tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/tag/may-21-2011-judgment-day
Huffington Post
The Adam Carolla Show: One Man's Opinion: The Rapture
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/The Adam Carolla Show/one-mans-opinion-the-rapt_b_867654.html
The Adam Carolla Show
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/The%20Adam%20Carolla%20Show/
This week I have a special message for Harold Camping, the guy who screwed up everyone's weekend with his false Rapture prediction. We're establishing a new rule: you can come up with all the proclamation ideas you like, but we're putting a shotgun to your head that's going off within 15 minutes if you're wrong. I spent my entire Saturday in fear because of you. Next time, get in a coffin and wait, and leave me out of it. <br />
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<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/end-of-days">End of Days</a>, <a href="/tag/harold-camping-judgement-day">Harold Camping Judgement Day</a>, <a href="/tag/apocalypse">Apocalypse</a>, <a href="/tag/the-adam-carolla-show">The Adam Carolla Show</a>, <a href="/tag/rapture">Rapture</a>, <a href="/tag/harold-camping">Harold Camping</a>, <a href="/tag/adam-carolla">Adam Carolla</a>, <a href="/comedy">Comedy News</a></p>
Thomas David DuBois: Why The Apocalypse Is So Compelling
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-david-dubois/reminders-next-apocalypse_b_868672.html
Thomas David DuBois
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-david-dubois/
<em>"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." --Orson Welles</em><br />
<br />
As we have all heard by now, American preacher Harold Camping predicted that the end would come on May 21. In his version, the end would begin with the Rapture, in which the pious would be physically taken up to Heaven, leaving the rest of us to a fairly grim fate. I don't need to tell you that things did not transpire as Camping predicted. The rapture didn't happen -- at least, it didn't happen to anyone I know.<br />
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Camping was not the first person to have predicted the end of the world, and he won't be the last. In fact, the world has been ending almost since the day it began. The apocalypse, it seems, is a pretty consistent theme throughout human history, and makes an appearance in almost every culture.<br />
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It is tempting to dismiss Camping's followers as gullible crackpots -- more than a few commentators expressed satisfaction at the disappointment of the faithful as the clock ticked down on an event that never came. But wouldn't we do better to ask <em>why</em> the apocalypse is so compelling? What is it about the times we live in that would make rational people accept the idea that the end of the world was upon us?<br />
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Camping's predictions have already been discussed to death (the best analysis I have seen is a <a href="http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/05/texas-faith-what-gives-rise-to.html" target="_hplink">series of short responses</a> collected by columnist William McKenzie). But since we know that this sort of thing is bound to happen again, here are three points to keep in mind the next time someone tells you the end is nigh: <br />
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<strong>1. It's not just Christians:</strong><br />
<img alt="2011-05-30-dubois1.jpg" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-05-30-dubois1.jpg" width="240" height="350" style="float: right; margin:10px"/><br />
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When we see people like Camping and his followers in the news, it is easy to assume that all this concern with the apocalypse is a Christian phenomenon. But ideas about the end are not uniquely Christian, uniquely American or even uniquely delusional. Every culture since the beginning of civilization has had some idea of how, why and when the world will end. I will likely face some criticism for saying so, but religious and scientific ideas about the end of the world are actually not <em>that</em> different from each other: both are based on some combination of observation, analysis and faith. Yes, faith. If you believe that the end will come when the earth is engulfed by a dying sun, it is because you have <em>faith</em> in the integrity of the scientific community that told you it was so. Don't forget that Camping himself did not learn the date of the Rapture from visions or angels -- he <em>calculated</em> it from evidence he found in the Bible. This was also science -- at least science of a sort. <br />
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<strong>2. It's not the end of the world:</strong><br />
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It really isn't. The word apocalypse, which comes from the Greek <em>apokolupsis</em>, doesn't mean "destruction," but <em>revelation</em>, as in the Book of Revelation. In fact, most religious images of the end of the world share this theme of uncovering some great mystery or secret, shining light upon the world, and ushering in a new age of peace and enlightenment. To understand why people would look forward to the apocalypse, or even try to hasten its arrival with an act of violence (such as when the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult released deadly sarin gas on the Tokyo subway in 1995), we must remember that this event is not the end of the world, it is simply the end of the world <em>as we know it</em>. Once the period of destruction is passed, the deserving few (more on this later) can look forward to a new, perfect age.<br />
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<strong>3. We won't know why until its over:</strong><br />
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Most images of apocalypse revolve around the idea of justice. With the end of the world comes a great sorting of the good from the bad, the sheep from the goats, or what have you. Again, this is not a uniquely Christian idea. Many religions, especially in their more popular variations, share this theme of a final judgment. And it's no surprise. The promise of perfect justice -- that the faithful will be rewarded, while the sins of the wicked are revealed and punished -- is remarkably attractive, especially when such justice is elusive in everyday life. But more than that, the end of the world is like the climax of a movie. In his comments for McKenzie's blog, Dallas minister Daniel Kanter suggests that our concern with the apocalypse reflects a mass narcissism that runs rampant in American society -- we literally can't imagine how the world could go on without us. Kanter makes a good point, but he overestimates how unique modern Americans are. Other religious ideas about the end do something similar -- they write history as a series of portents, prophecies and revelations that all lead up to <em>this very moment</em>. One Chinese belief, prevalent for centuries, is that Confucius, Laozi and the Buddha (this list was later expanded to include Jesus and Mohammed) were all prophets of a secret "true teaching." Not surprisingly, the revelation of this true teaching marks the culmination of history, and the end of the age. How and when the world ends gives meaning and purpose to why it existed in the first place. <br />
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The reasons behind why apocalyptic movements suddenly gain traction tell us a lot about ourselves and our society. We think about the end not merely during times of stress, but during times of <em>uncertainty</em>. That said, we can all look forward to the next round of apocalyptic hysteria in 2012.<br />
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<strong>WATCH:</strong><br />
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<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/religion">Religion</a>, <a href="/tag/christianity">Christianity</a>, <a href="/tag/religion-and-science">Religion and Science</a>, <a href="/tag/apocalypse">Apocalypse</a>, <a href="/tag/china">China</a>, <a href="/tag/buddhism">Buddhism</a>, <a href="/tag/may-21-end-of-the-world">May 21 End of the World</a>, <a href="/tag/may-21-2011">May 21 2011</a>, <a href="/tag/end-of-the-world">End of the World</a>, <a href="/religion">Religion News</a></p>
Diane Dimond: False Prophets and Their Profits
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-dimond/false-prophets-and-their-_b_869672.html
Diane Dimond
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-dimond/
<em><strong><br />
Religious Hucksters do more than wheedle money out of their flock. <br />
They can destroy lives too. </strong> </em><br />
<br />
There ought to be a law. But there isn't. <br />
<br />
So, religious hucksters like 89-year-old Harold Camping continue to operate monumental con-jobs that bring in multiple millions of dollars in donations from gullible people. <br />
<br />
In case you missed the details: Camping's latest Doomsday prediction stemmed from what he described as an intricate mathematical formulation taken directly from numbers in the Bible. As he figured it, all good and righteous Christians would be taken up to heaven 722,500 days after Jesus' crucifixion -- on May 21 at 5:59 pm. (He didn't bother to say which time zone would be hit first.) The rest of the world's population, his outlandish prophecy promised, would be left to suffer five months of cataclysmic earthquakes and other biblical tribulations until the whole planet ceased to exist sometime on October 21. <br />
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Funny, the scripture I remember says man will never know ahead of time when the Rapture is coming. <br />
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Now really, how could anyone take this guy seriously? He made a similar end-of-times prediction in September 1994. Oopsie Daisy! Guess that wasn't right. Back then, Camping declared a "miscalculation" and went back to the drawing board after the world did not end. <br />
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Nonetheless, the media trumpeted (you should excuse the pun) Camping's latest "drop-dead date" over and over, giving it importance it did not deserve.<br />
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During the last few years, Camping's 66 Family Radio stations all across the country have been trumpeting his forecasts for the destruction of mankind. <br />
<br />
Over the last seven years, <a href="http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_18089432?nclick_check=1" target="_hplink">according to</a> copyrighted reporting in the <em>Contra Costa Times</em> (a newspaper close to the Family Radio headquarters in Oakland, California) the non-profit organization "has raised more than $100 million in donations... according to tax returns." <br />
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You know, the bulk of that money likely came from people who least could afford it. The donations came from those who now tell stories of quitting their jobs, devoting themselves to poverty and to reading the Bible so they would be ready to meet the Lord. They have no idea how they will survive now that they've given away worldly possessions and used up all their savings. <br />
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One Family Radio listener named Adrienne Martinez of Orlando, Florida <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136053462/is-the-end-nigh-well-know-soon-enough" target="_hplink">told</a> National Public Radio she planned to go to medical school but decided not to because she firmly believed the world would end soon. <br />
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Another radio fan, 60-year-old Robert Fitzpatrick of New York, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/22/us-apocalypse-prediction-idUSTRE74I3KS20110522" target="_hplink">says</a> he spent $140,000 of his savings on placards and posters warning of the judgment day. <br />
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In Texas, 42-year-old Julianne McCrery, described by friends as a woman who had long suffered from <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43080603/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/moms-arrest-mystery-boys-body-abates/" target="_hplink">mood swings</a> and had an arrest record dating back to before her son Camden was born, is believed to have murdered her son because she believed Camping's Armageddon prediction. McCrery loaded up her child and drove to Maine where police found her son's suffocated body by the side of the road. They caught up with the 6-year-old's mother in Massachusetts, sitting in her vehicle reading a Bible. She calmly told police, "I killed my son. I want to kill myself." <br />
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At first glance it seems almost comical that Camping would make such an outlandish prophecy -- not once but twice -- and that people would take it so seriously. After you learn of the very real human damage done it isn't funny anymore. <br />
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The cost of one man's incredible hubris is countless people left disillusioned and penniless. And, maybe, one little boy's life cut short by a mother who wanted him to get to heaven a week before she did. <br />
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Yes, there ought to be a law. But there isn't. <br />
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Remember television evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, Robert Tilton and Oral Roberts? They're all the same. They offer up the comfort of the Lord and in return use threats of damnation if donations slow down. <br />
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In case you forgot, Oral Roberts took to the airwaves in 1987 to declare to his faithful that if he didn't get 8 million dollars right away the Lord was going to "call him home." He got the millions in donations and lived another 22 years. <br />
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America is a country that prides itself in its freedom of choice. These gullible people made bad choices and there's no law that governs that. But there is a moral one.<br />
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Harold Camping was <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/22/BAKO1JJIK7.DTL" target="_hplink">quoted</a> as saying he's "flabbergasted and stunned" that he and his followers are still on this earth. He has re-calculated again and now says the Rapture has been re-scheduled for October 21, 2011. As if Armageddon can be deferred like filing for an extension on your taxes. <br />
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Why in the world would anyone believe this guy on his third strike? <br />
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Roy Black, an attorney in Florida, declared on his Facebook page that Camping should be charged with "criminal fraud to obtain money by lies and deception." <br />
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Any takers out there? I'd love to see the feet of some of these false prophets held to the fire of damnation. <br />
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<strong><em><br />
Diane Dimond can be reached through her Web Site: www.DianeDimond.com Her latest book is "Cirque du Salahi," the inside story of the so-called White House Gate Crashers. Available at Amazon.com </em><br />
</strong>
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/false-phrophets-and-their-profits">“False Phrophets and Their Profits”</a>, <a href="/tag/diane-dimond">Diane Dimond</a>, <a href="/tag/robert-tilton">Robert Tilton</a>, <a href="/tag/harold-camping">Harold Camping</a>, <a href="/tag/diane-dimonds-weekly-column">Diane Dimond’s Weekly Column</a>, <a href="/tag/campings-false-past-predictions">Campings False Past Predictions</a>, <a href="/tag/jim-and-tammy-faye-baker">Jim and Tammy Faye Baker</a>, <a href="/tag/rapture">Rapture</a>, <a href="/tag/oral-roberts">Oral Roberts</a>, <a href="/tag/campings-armageddon-prediction">Campings Armageddon Prediction</a>, <a href="/tag/family-radio">Family Radio</a>, <a href="/tag/robert-fitspatrick-of-new-york">Robert Fitspatrick of New York</a>, <a href="/tag/dommsday-predictions">Dommsday Predictions</a>, <a href="/tag/jimmy-swaggart">Jimmy Swaggart</a>, <a href="/tag/adrienne-martinez-of-orlando-florida">Adrienne Martinez of Orlando Florida</a>, <a href="/tag/contra-costa-times">Contra Costa Times</a>, <a href="/tag/religious-hucksters">Religious Hucksters</a>, <a href="/tag/juliannemccrery">Juliannemccrery</a>, <a href="/media">Media News</a></p>
Carla Wise: Lessons From the Rapture That Wasn't for the Climate Movement? No -- Just Ideas on a Way Forward.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carla-wise/lessons-from-the-rapture-_b_869207.html
Carla Wise
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carla-wise/
I was eager to read Claire Hope Cummings' recent post on <a href="http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-05-22-apocalypse-now-lessons-for-the-climate-movement-from-the-rapture" target="_hplink"><em>Grist</em></a> about what the climate movement might learn from the Apocalypse that wasn't. The lack of progress on national and global mobilization on behalf of climate stabilization has given us plenty to be discouraged about, and I hoped for some bright ideas. But I couldn't find much in Cummings' essay that jibes with my sense of lessons the climate movement needs to learn. So here I offer my ideas on what the climate movement, meaning all of us who hope to do something effective now, might do in seeking a way forward. <br />
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Five years ago, NASA's James Hansen, often called America's top climate scientist, began speaking about the probability of a climate tipping point, and suggesting that we might have a decade to reverse greenhouse gas emissions before very large and catastrophic climate change became unstoppable. Time marches on. Why aren't people responding to ever-mounting piles of scientific evidence, to wildfires, floods, heat waves and droughts? Why is there still so much denial, misinformation, and inaction? What could we (writers, climate scientists, climate activists) have done differently? What should we do differently in the future?<br />
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This is what Ms. Cummings is trying to get at, but although she makes some good points, she fails to offers a coherent way forward. Her advice boils down to: 1) reconsider our use of apocalyptic terms when talking about the future, 2) embrace the needs of humanity (emphasize basic human rights over nature's rights), 3) talk in ways that ordinary people can understand, and 4) most curiously, to look to the civil rights movement for guidance. <br />
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It <em>was</em> an incredibly discouraging year. On the heels of the failure of international negotiations in Copenhagen and the death of the modest cap-and-trade bill in the Senate, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iLlplzCfRzOCYprl-opzs04GvuoQ?docId=CNG.9ef0a881a7c2cb5d9c21f0a1a7bdc17d.241" target="_hplink">polls</a> began to suggest that the number of Americans who believe the scientific consensus on climate change has declined in the last few years. Then there was the takeover of the Republican Party by climate-change deniers, who are currently attempting to strip the EPA of its authority to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions. In response, President Obama has retreated on his promises to address climate change, apparently giving up, for now, on working with the Congress on the most important issue of our time. <br />
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But the lessons I take from all this are different from the ones Ms. Cummings suggests. <br />
<br />
Here are her main points, and my responses:<strong><br />
1) Reconsider our use of apocalyptic terms when talking about the future.</strong><br />
Language is important, but I think it is wrong to suggest language about climate change needs to be softened. Are people scared off by blunt language about the seriousness of our situation? Do dire warnings turn people off? Perhaps sometimes. But here's the problem: the caution and qualification that has accompanied so much climate change communication does not accurately reflect reality, so I believe it is counterproductive. We live in a time when respect for the truth has dangerously eroded. Here is a statement of fact: the best available science indicates that large, catastrophic, and potentially irreversible climate change will be a likelihood by the end of this century, or sooner, if we do not quickly change course. The impacts will threaten the survival of millions, and possibly billions of people and a large proportion of other species.<br />
<br />
Cummings says she thinks "we need a more sympathetic and less cataclysmic way to capture the public's attention." I disagree. People resist change. Why would they mobilize for change if everything will be fine anyway? More importantly, the truth is the truth: climate change is accelerating, we are causing it, and it may be irreversible very soon if we fail to reverse emissions trends. How we act from here may determine the fate of humanity. Isn't it time to say so? <br />
<strong><br />
2) Remember that our success will depend on embracing the needs of humanity.</strong><br />
Cummings suggests that basic human rights should be the heart of the environmental agenda, as opposed to the needs of other species, arguing it is wrong that "the poster child of climate change is still the polar bear and the ice caps, not the Inuit." I agree that we've so far failed to grasp that humans, especially those already living in poverty or in the most threatened places, are just as threatened by climate change as polar bears, but I think a better way to look at it is, we are all in this together. It is not either other species are at risk or humans are at risk: we are all at risk. <br />
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Another key point is that people working for climate action are all needed, whether they advocate for Inuits, polar bears, African farmers, or Saguaro cactuses. I am a conservation biologist by training, and I am passionate about the natural world. That is the lens through which I see this problem most sharply. Also, I am a parent, and imagining my daughter's future keeps me motivated. What we most need is inclusion. There is room for all of us, and we can be most effective working from our places of passion, knowledge, and commitment. <br />
<strong><br />
3) Talk in ways that ordinary people can understand.</strong><br />
As a writer, I agree that communication is critical. But I think better advice would be to explain climate change, repeatedly and with clarity, in ways that make the connections between climate change and our well-being obvious. Cummings criticizes the use of such terms as parts per million and greenhouse gases. I think these terms are necessary, and they are pretty easy to explain. We DO need to explain, every time we can, in every way we can think of, the causes, consequences, and solutions to climate change. We must work harder to tell the truth, including parts per million and greenhouse gases. The gap between what scientists have learned and what the public understands is a huge barrier to progress. This gap means that much of the public cannot rationally partake in the debate over the costs and consequences of various climate-related actions, so we have to work harder to close it. <br />
<strong><br />
4) Look to the civil rights movement for guidance.</strong><br />
Cummings' post concludes with a suggestion that perhaps we haven't made progress because "we lack leadership and inspiration equal to this task." She then recommends that we "look to the civil rights movement for a model of leadership." My response to this is that I'm not sure what looking back accomplishes, or what is gained by pondering what Martin Luther King Jr. would have done. No one knew at the beginning what the civil rights movement would accomplish. Today, we don't know what it will take to mobilize the country or the world to fight climate change. We do have committed leaders emerging, including Bill McKibben, James Hansen, and many others. We simply have to keep working to build the leadership, inspiration, and public engagement equal to the task. <br />
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<strong><em>A little context and what next</em></strong><br />
What we often miss is the dramatic improvement in communication about climate change over the past few years. Although the basic science has been settled for some time, until recently journalists routinely presented climate change as a disputed hypothesis, with nearly all climate stories including a climate contrarian's point of view for "balance." <br />
<br />
Today, it is a rarity to find reputable sources giving significant space to the few skeptical scientists that remain, and there is a lot more good writing about climate change. Climate science has advanced dramatically as well: scientists now know, with great precision, how much carbon dioxide concentrations have increased, how much warming has occurred, how quickly warming is accelerating, and many other measurable details about climate change. We know current warming is not natural, that we are causing it, and that it is occurring much more rapidly than warming episodes of the past. If not for the gap between what climate scientists know and what the public understands, we would be impressed with what we have learned about the complex climate system of Earth in a short time. <br />
<br />
Although concern about climate change has declined with the great recession, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/146606/Concerns-Global-Warming-Stable-Lower-Levels.aspx" target="_hplink">polls still suggest</a> that a majority of Americans do understand that climate change is here and that we are largely to blame. So while deniers and skeptics have renewed strength in the present Congress, they do not speak for the majority. However, so far, inadequate numbers of us are engaged enough to push climate change action ahead against the powerful forces fighting progress. This is the important task now: is to reach the vast numbers of people who accept the reality of climate change but are not yet actively engaged in trying to change course.<br />
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I actually believe our time may be coming, and the violent resistance by tea partiers, the fossil fuel industry and the Chamber of Commerce may be a last stand of denial. Even if this is true, it may be too late. But still, the best advice I've heard was given by environmental law professor and climate activist Mary Christina Wood, who, when asked by a concerned citizen what to do, responded simply, "do something, do anything, just don't do nothing." <br />
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The Earth's climate does not care whether some are tired of glum predictions, whether some are skeptical or deny climate science, or whether mistakes have been made in the past. It simply continues to obey the laws of physics and chemistry, and continues to respond to the gases we add to the atmosphere. None of us can know, at this point, if humans will find the will and the way to act in time to prevent very large, rapid climate change that will threaten future generations of humans and non-humans alike. Our children and grandchildren may face a world of unimaginable and catastrophic climate change. It seems obvious, though, that the best thing to do is to get to work. Don't be distracted by phony controversies or the claims of climate-change deniers. It may still be that we, as a species, will pull together and find a way to change course, so speak truth without apology, as often and as clearly as you can.<br />
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<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/climate-movement">Climate Movement</a>, <a href="/tag/climate-change">Climate Change</a>, <a href="/tag/the-rapture">The Rapture</a>, <a href="/tag/polar-bears">Polar Bears</a>, <a href="/tag/claire-hope-cummings">Claire Hope Cummings</a>, <a href="/tag/climate-change-denial">Climate Change Denial</a>, <a href="/tag/global-warming">Global Warming</a>, <a href="/green">Green News</a></p>
Christal Smith: Seeing the World Through "Apocalypse Eyes"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christal-smith/emergency-neil-strauss-interview_b_868344.html
Christal Smith
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christal-smith/
So you survived the second coming. <br />
<br />
As we embark on this post-Rapture era, don't you dare breathe a sigh of relief before hearing what Neil Strauss has to say. He has been worrying about the survival of the human race, well, actually his own survival, in particular, for the last decade. <br />
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Strauss struggled to understand how a general national complacency could prevail even after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina underscored how shockingly vulnerable we are to both natural and manmade acts of devastation. Softened as we are by the lull of technology and modern conveniences, we are dangerously unaware of the role we must each play in our own survival. Strauss' response: he learned to live in the wild with nothing but a knife, raised a goat to make his own cheese and yogurt, and trained as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). It took him eight years, but he got himself a second citizenship in a small island republic where he can legally escape and safely reside should life as we know it here become unsustainable. When it comes to doomsday scenarios he has a lot more useful information than Harold Camping ever will. As he explains in <em><a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060898779" target="_hplink">Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life</a></em>, it's time we take matters into our own hands. <br />
<blockquote><br />
"Our society, which seems so sturdily built out of concrete and custom is just a temporary resting place... that's how the world looks through apocalypse eyes. You start filling in the blanks between a thriving city and a devastated one... and whether you and the people you love could escape... I want to be the one who gets away. The winner of the survival lottery." </blockquote><br />
<br />
<center><img alt="2011-05-27-cover.jpg" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-05-27-cover.jpg" width="227" height="336" /></center><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
CS: What snapped you out of your complacency and made you question your personal security?<br />
<br />
NS: I came up in a world in the 80s where everything was booming. We were creating a global village where all the fundamentals of life are taken care of for you. The first wake up call was a post 9-11 disillusionment with what we are taught in school about what it means to be American [realizing] we are not invulnerable. Then there was also starting to see that the constitution and the civil liberties we have are flexible -- they are not givens. <br />
<br />
The final straw was Katrina and here's where the last vestige of American illusion dissolved. Here was something we knew happening ahead of time and [yet] we still see bodies floating down the street in an American city. <br />
<br />
This was never supposed to be book, by the way. It was personal. It wasn't until the economy started collapsing that people started to feel worried and see a need [for this information]. <br />
<br />
CS: In fact you do focus on the idea of economic security as disaster preparedness. Explain. <br />
<br />
NS: Ultimately the lesson is that it really is about peace of mind and feeling like you have a backup plan. My dad always said to expect the best but prepare for the worst. Once all these things happened every side of what I took for granted, I realized it was a privilege, not a right. What surprised me the most was when I researched this book, I went to the fringes -- the hardcore survivalists, the off-the-grid guys, but when I went to the center I found the government saying the same things. That's when I knew I had something. Now the government is telling us if you call 911 we might not be able to answer your call. We assume bank machines will always work, but if lose electricity, you have no cash. The book comes from not wanting to have dependencies. <br />
<br />
CS: We have to expect we will be on our own with scarce resources and reduced staffing for emergency responders. <br />
<br />
NS: Whether the danger is your own government, a terrorist from another country or a natural disaster or even an economic disaster, the preparation is pretty much the same. A strange thing I found is there is no specific culture teaching me what I was looking for because each has a focus. For example what I call the PT world [permanent travel] -- people who try to get second passports, have their money in different currencies and precious metals, tax avoidance schemers -- and that's one piece, but you could get caught at the border anyways; and the survivalists with all those lists to stockpile, but what if you can't get everything; and the naturalists are not realistic either because we are in cities and you are limiting yourself. It's that each is a subset of skills you need, so it's not practical. Just like martial arts are not made for the street. <br />
<br />
CS: So where do you fall in all this? <br />
<br />
NS: My guiding principle is to do all this stuff without having to compromise your lifestyle due to fear. If anything adds to your life rather than taking away from it, it is good. I'm still living in LA, not Utah. I have these skills I learned but I use them to help the community. I'm not just hoarding a stockpile. I still stay active in search and rescue. Skills are the most important [defense]. How are you going to get water? How will you stay calm in emergency situations? You have to expose yourself. <br />
<br />
CS: Did you go too far? <br />
<br />
NS: I didn't go far enough. I really would have loved another year to keep doing this.<br />
<br />
CS: What more did you want to do? <br />
<br />
NS: (checking the list he keeps on his iPhone) Pain endurance training, motor repairs, I want to get a gyrocopter license, shooting rifles and shotguns, a performance driving course, hazmat classes. I still need to get better at baking bread, making beef jerky, and gardening. There's tactical tracking and ham radio -- there's still a lot to learn.<br />
<br />
CS: Of all the training you did get, what makes you feel the safest? <br />
<br />
NS: As an EMT [you know] If something happens you can do something about it you become a part of the solution. <br />
<br />
CS: Why do you think that Americans, even after Katrina and 9/11, are not more prepared? According to a recent FEMA study less than 23% of Americans have taken what they deem the necessary measures of preparedness and the number one reason why is that most Americans think emergency responders will be available to help them. <br />
<br />
NS: There are also people I talked to that fear that by preparing they will make bad things manifest, like in <em>The Secret</em>. <br />
<br />
CS: Meanwhile the most likely disaster scenarios here in LA besides earthquakes actually involve chemical and biological warfare, but I've barely met anyone prepared for that. <br />
<br />
NS: That's my biggest worry. That's why I got that passport. <br />
<br />
Robert Downey, Jr. is someone who takes Strauss' words to heart. In fact he is slated to play Strauss in the movie adaptation of <em>Emergency</em>, which he will also produce.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/emergency">Emergency</a>, <a href="/tag/rapture">Rapture</a>, <a href="/tag/apolocalypse">Apolocalypse</a>, <a href="/tag/survival">Survival</a>, <a href="/tag/disaster-preparation">Disaster Preparation</a>, <a href="/tag/survival-tips">Survival Tips</a>, <a href="/tag/neil-strauss">Neil Strauss</a>, <a href="/tag/end-of-the-world">End of the World</a>, <a href="/tag/survival-guide">Survival Guide</a>, <a href="/tag/emt">Emt</a>, <a href="/los-angeles">Los Angeles News</a></p>
The Apocalypse: Uniting Canada’s Left And Right
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/05/30/rapture-apocalypse-canada_n_868467.html
The Huffington Post News Team
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
Now that the rapture has been delayed six months while God tallies the results of his apparently invisible judgment day, we can turn our thoughts to other things. Like why Canadian media outlets big and small, for profit and for our benefit, turned the nonsensical ramblings of American octogenarian radio preacher Harold Camping into a major news story. This is a guy who already claimed that the world would end – in 1994! So how does a man so far out on the lunatic fringe that he’s actually pulled this same schtick before get so much attention from staid information outlets ranging from <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/radio-host-says-rapture-actually-coming-in-october/article2032209/" target="_hplink">The Globe and Mail </a> to the nightly news?<br />
<br />
Seeking answers, I dive into the murky depths of apocalypse divination. I find out, on my very first Google search, that Camping is all wrong. The world isn’t going to end in 2011. It’s going to end in 2012. You can <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2010/apocalypse2012/" target="_hplink">watch</a> an entire documentary on the hows and why of it online at CBC’s Doc Zone. <br />
<br />
Interesting that nobody mentioned that little factoid. I guess, “Lunatic Preacher Says Tomorrow but Other Loonies Say Next Year” doesn’t make for quite as gripping a headline.<br />
<br />
But just as summer will give way to fall, Camping’s October will give way to the next nut’s January. Wire stories will proliferate, that one guy who wasted a hundred grand of his own money on doomsday billboards will be profiled and we’ll revel (revel, get it?) in every word.<br />
<br />
The fact is, we Canadians, a primarily secular, increasingly diverse, almost entirely urban citizenry made up of largely literate people, love this stuff. We love The Rapture! We love to read about it, we love to join Facebook groups about it (I’m “maybe attending” <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121968371215699" target="_hplink">post-rapture looting</a>). We might crack wise, we might just use it as an excuse to get awfully drunk and say things that’ll make us feel like the world ended that morning after all, but we do pay attention to it. (Speaking of morning, apparently Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbasias had a lovely post rapture breakfast – so lovely she posted a picture of it on the ‘<a href="http://twitpic.com/50lz9z" target="_hplink">Net here</a>).<br />
<br />
So what’s the deal? After finding Zerby’s breakfast, weighty predictions about 2012, and several websites hellbent on defending Jesus from Camping, I decided the Internet was not providing me with the kind of straight forward answer to incredibly complex questions I had come to expect from the world wide web. So I ventured into the increasingly rare terrain of actual dialogue with real people.<br />
<br />
First up, Paul Bramadat, Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria. He made two cogent points: That all the news about the Rapture was, in some weird dark way “comic relief in a news cycle normally dedicated to wars, tornadoes, political changes and nuclear disasters.” He connected this to our general fascination with cranks: “We’re all fascinated by people who approach the Bible, or any text, so literally.” Now I’m not one of those who with elaborate theories about the difference between Canadians and Americans, but there’s a subtext here which goes like this: In Canada, we approach these stories with, uh, shall we say a certain degree of irony. This ironic distance is bolstered by the fact that these tales of biblical prognostication derived mathematically from the bible by a former engineer turned radio host whose organization has spent 100-plus million dollars buying bus stop ads in Ghana are uniquely American in their aspect. In Canada, we participate in afternoon zombie walks and hipster Day of the Dead parades. We bring our toddlers and argue about whether or not the Queer Zombies Against Israeli Apartheid should be allocated funding and allowed to lurch alongside. In America, where evolution is still an open question, they outfit a fleet of RVs luridly painted with text urging people to Repent Because the END is NIGH.<br />
<br />
In the run-up to the last great potential apocalypse – remember good old Y2K? – Professor Marlene Goldman, who teaches English at the University of Toronto, investigated Canadian attitudes to the end days through the lens of canonic CanLit-ers like Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley and Thomas King. “I was seeing that Canadians were very resistant to the classic version of the apocalypse which is the destruction of the earthly world and the creation of a heavenly world,” she explains to me over the phone. (And yes, I do deserve props for tracking down the only Canadian academic to have speculated at length on the relationship between CanLit and the Rapture.)<br />
<br />
Quite simply, her research, which coalesced into the tome Rewriting Apocalypse in Canadian Fiction, suggested that from the very early foundations of this country, Canadians were doubtful they had much to fear from the apocalypse. When explorer Jacques Cartier came to Canada he famously wrote that he had found the land that God gave Cain. What’s to fear about the end days? Things are terrible already! Bring it on! Professor Goldman cites Timothy Findley’s novel Not Wanted on the Voyage, a book about the first biblical apocalypse (you know, the one that led to countless annoying ecumenical children’s toys featuring Noah, his wife and a bunch of cute animal).<br />
<br />
Not included in the toy are the carcasses of all the beasts and peeps left behind to drown. These elements are better left rendered by Findley whose Upper Canada sensibilities make it clear that, at the end of the day, Canadians just don’t trust anything that’s going to deliver heaven, on earth or up above. The novel ends with Noah’s much aggrieved wife sitting on the deck of the boat praying, in typical Canuck fashion, for rain to blot out the return of annoyingly sunny skies. (The weather’s too good right now. I’ve got nothing to complain about.)<br />
<br />
Finally, for exhibit C, I give you a brief email discussion conducted with Toronto writer Jim Munroe who has penned not one but two graphic novels [http://nomediakings.org/store/] set in the time between the arrival of the Rapture and the end of the world. Munroe told me that he was interested in the Rapture as a setting for his books because he “wanted to show a post-apoc world where things really weren't that different, for better or worse.” Wow. God finally swoops all the good Christians up to heaven and leaves the rest to fend for themselves in a purgatory that can only end in certain death and, well, things carry on as usual. We complain about the HST and ponder the choice between organic or local. No wonder Canada loves the end of days. I press Munroe for further information about the relationship between Canada and the Apocalypse. Well, he reasons, the apocalypse appeals to both the right and the left “so it spans the political spectrum as a genre.”<br />
<br />
For the right, it’s judgment day at last. The good are redeemed and the bad are left behind. For the left, it’s a metaphor steeped learning moment: too much power in one man’s hands and look what happens to the little people! Classic Canadiana: even in the end days, we find common ground.<br />
<br />
Follow Hal Niedzviecki at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/halpen" target="_hplink">www.twitter.com/halpen</a><br />
Vist Hal Niedzviecki at <a href="http://www.smellit.ca" target="_hplink">www.smellit.ca</a>
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/may-21-judgement-day">May 21 Judgement Day</a>, <a href="/tag/may-21-2011-end-of-the-world">May 21 2011 End of the World</a>, <a href="/tag/may-21-rapture">May 21 Rapture</a>, <a href="/tag/rapture-2011">Rapture 2011</a>, <a href="/tag/rapture-ready">Rapture Ready</a>, <a href="/tag/rapture-index">Rapture Index</a>, <a href="/tag/rapture-may-21st">Rapture May 21st</a>, <a href="/tag/rapture">Rapture</a>, <a href="/canada">Canada News</a></p>
John Lundberg: The Apocalypse in Verse
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lundberg/the-apocalypse-in-verse_b_868067.html
John Lundberg
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lundberg/
As Harold Camping's judgment hour approached last Saturday, a very small part of me worried that the old man was right. I glanced up at the sky over Union Square, fearing a scene such as Whitman described in his poem <a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2109.html" target="_hplink">"Whispers of Heavenly Death,"</a><br />
<br />
<em>I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses, <br />
Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing, <br />
With at times a half-dimm'd sadden'd far-off star, <br />
Appearing and disappearing.</em><br />
<br />
There was no great storm brewing, of course. And I was relieved to know that my last act on earth wouldn't be watching <em>Thor</em> in 3D.<br />
<br />
But last week's little doomsday scare was just the first of many. Mr. Camping -- fast becoming the boy who cried apocalypse -- has since revised his prediction to October 21st, and, more ominously, the Mayan calendar indicates that the world might end this December. <br />
<br />
All of this has inspired me to be a bit more prepared next time, and so I turned to poetry for a little wisdom. Poets have long mused on the end of the world and can offer us insight on a number of imagined endings. Contrast Whitman's vast rumblings to T.S. Eliot's famous conclusion to <a href="http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/784/" target="_hplink">"The Hollow Men,"</a> which is painful for the apocalypse that doesn't happen:<br />
<br />
<em>This is the way the world ends<br />
Not with a bang but a whimper.</em><br />
<br />
The American poet Sara Teasdale, similarly, found little fanfare in a world suddenly devoid of humanity in her poem <a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/there-will-come-soft-rains/" target="_hplink">"There Will Come Soft Rains" </a>:<br />
<br />
<em>Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,<br />
If mankind perished utterly;<br />
<br />
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn<br />
Would scarcely know that we were gone.</em> <br />
<br />
The great, brooding Romantic poet Lord Byron, known to sip his wine out of a skull, went all in, imagining a world bereft of light in his chilling poem <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/41/476.html" target="_hplink">"Darkness."</a><br />
<br />
<em>I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
<br />
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
<br />
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
<br />
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
<br />
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
<br />
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
<br />
And men forgot their passions in the dread
<br />
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
<br />
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
<br />
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
<br />
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
<br />
The habitations of all things which dwell,
<br />
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
<br />
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
<br />
To look once more into each other's face;</em><br />
<br />
Thomas Hardy gave voice to souls waiting to be judged in his poem <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15508" target="_hplink">"Channel Firing,"</a> in which the dead mistake the racket of artillery fire for the apocalypse. A sardonic God sets them straight about the noise:<br />
<br />
<em>"That this is not the judgement-hour<br />
For some of them's a blessed thing,<br />
For if it were they'd have to scour<br />
Hell's floor for so much threatening. . . .<br />
<br />
"Ha, ha. It will be warmer when<br />
I blow the trumpet (if indeed<br />
I ever do; for you are men,<br />
And rest eternal sorely need)."<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
And many a skeleton shook his head.<br />
"Instead of preaching forty year,"<br />
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,<br />
"I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer."</em><br />
<br />
The long-dead Parson Thirdly would, no doubt, also enjoy a little 3D <em>Thor</em>.<br />
<br />
Humor aside, I could find no more reassuring poem on the apocalypse than Czeslaw Milosz's <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19195" target="_hplink">"A Song On the End of the World"</a> (translated by Anthony Milosz). In it, Milosz imagines that the world's last day will be a beautiful and a simple one. <br />
<br />
<em>A bee circles a clover,
<br />
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.</em><br />
<br />
It's a let down, Milosz imagines, to all those "who expected lightning and thunder," and "archangels trumpets." His poem ends with a vision of a far more palatable version of Camping:<br />
<br />
<em>Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet<br />
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,<br />
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:<br />
No other end of the world will there be,<br />
No other end of the world will there be.</em><br />
<br />
And <em>that</em> is an apocalypse I can live with<br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/harold-camping">Harold Camping</a>, <a href="/tag/poetry">Poetry</a>, <a href="/tag/the-rapture">The Rapture</a>, <a href="/books">Books News</a></p>
This Week In Crazy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/28/psychometer-week-in-crazy_n_868451.html
The Huffington Post News Team
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
Our Psychometer engineers have carefully pinpointed the craziest figures in the news this week. Scroll over the dial to find out why these headline-makers earned a spot on the list and let us know if you agree with our picks (and who we missed).<br />
<br />
<iframe title="PsychoMeter" src="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/data_visual/psycho/2011/05/27/index.php" width="900" height="900" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" allowtransparency="yes"></iframe>
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/ed-schultz">Ed Schultz</a>, <a href="/tag/kim-kardashian-kris-humphries">Kim Kardashian Kris Humphries</a>, <a href="/tag/this-week-in-crazy">This Week in Crazy</a>, <a href="/tag/psychometer">Psychometer</a>, <a href="/tag/roger-ailes">Roger Ailes</a>, <a href="/tag/pete-degraaf">Pete Degraaf</a>, <a href="/tag/kris-humphries">Kris Humphries</a>, <a href="/tag/harold-camping">Harold Camping</a>, <a href="/tag/mitt-romney">Mitt Romney</a>, <a href="/tag/michele-malkin">Michele Malkin</a>, <a href="/tag/kim-kardashian">Kim Kardashian</a>, <a href="/tag/disney">Disney</a>, <a href="/tag/eric-cantor">Eric Cantor</a>, <a href="/comedy">Comedy News</a></p>
David Briggs: Predicting Religion's Future
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/predicting-religions-future_b_867565.html
David Briggs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/
The world did not end May 21.<br />
<br />
The calculations of the Family Radio prophet Harold Camping that believers would be taken up to heaven that day as an earthquake struck the Earth did not come to pass.<br />
<br />
Just like it did not come to pass in the 1840s, when followers of William Miller sold belongings, quit jobs and gathered on mountaintops in anticipation of the Rapture. Or on Sept. 6, 1994, or any of the other earlier dates Camping himself set forth.<br />
<br />
But if it seems foolhardy to forecast the date of the <a href="http://bit.ly/jvwQhP" target="_hplink">apocalypse</a>, predicting the future of religion is not so far-fetched, as some scholars say they have an increasing number of scientific tools to make such projections.<br />
<br />
Under at least one scenario, Hispanic Catholics will be the big winners and predominantly white religious groups will lag behind.<br />
<br />
Age patterns, plus fertility, immigration and conversion rates project that Hispanic Catholics may nearly double to 18 percent of the U.S. population by 2043, according to an article by Vegard Skirbekk and Anne Goujon of the World Population Program and Eric Kaufmann of the University of London in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.<br />
<br />
The three researchers predict the secular population will grow in coming decades before reaching a plateau by the middle of the century. Liberal Protestants, an older demographic with low fertility rates and little expected benefit from immigration, are expected to continue to decline.<br />
<br />
These are not predictions to be taken lightly, the researchers state. "Demographic projections are the most certain of any in the social sciences," they say in the journal article.<br />
<br />
Not everyone is a believer, however.<br />
<br />
Barry Kosmin, a principal investigator of the American Religious Identification Survey, said no one can predict the 2024 election, much less patterns of religious growth and decline 30 years from now.<br />
<br />
"It's preposterous to do this kind of thing," said Kosmin. who also is director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College. "You can't tell what's going to happen."<br />
<br />
<strong>More Catholics, Muslims, fewer Presbyterians</strong><br />
<br />
Despite conversions and a lower fertility rate among white Catholics, the expected growth of Hispanic Catholics could lead to a historic shift in American religion, according to Skirbekk, Goujon and Kaufmann.<br />
<br />
In their study largely based on <a href="http://www.thearda.com/Archive/GSS.asp" target="_hplink">General Social Survey</a> findings, census immigration statistics and Pew data, the researchers state the rise among Hispanics "will power the growth of Catholics as a whole, who will surpass Protestants by mid-century within the nation's youngest age groups."<br />
<br />
Even with net losses to secularism and Protestantism, if current rates of fertility, immigration and conversion remain constant, Catholics would outnumber Protestants some time in the second half of the century, the researchers state.<br />
<br />
Under the same scenario, aided by immigration and in the case of Muslims higher fertility rates, the percentage of Americans from non-Christian faiths would almost double, from 6 percent to 11 percent.<br />
<br />
Most predominantly white groups are expected to decline as a percentage of the population. Baring unforeseen shifts, the researchers said, even conservative Protestants are expected to decline overall as the white share of the population falls.<br />
<br />
The secular population, relatively young and a winner in the switching wars, is expected to grow in the coming years, but eventually to reach a plateau due to low fertility and a modest immigration rate.<br />
<br />
In his new book, "Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century," Kaufmann refers to demography as "the soft underbelly of secularism."<br />
<br />
"Seculars would have to maintain a high rate of defection" to hold on to their percentage of the U.S. population," Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, said in an interview. "Having to run to stand still is kind of the lesson for seculars."<br />
<br />
<strong>A lot can change</strong><br />
<br />
Skirbekk, Goujon and Kaufmann note a lot can change to alter their projections.<br />
<br />
Immigration laws can be tightened, or patterns can shift so that significant immigration begins to arrive from more Pentecostalist-source countries such as Guatemala or parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Fertility rates can fluctuate, the researchers note.<br />
<br />
But demographic projections can still be of great value, particularly since the characteristics of future populations are "heavily constrained" by the ages of current populations and the main source of religious recruits is the children of communicants, the researchers state.<br />
<br />
Others, however, say it is foolhardy to predict future events.<br />
<br />
Kosmin notes that even in recent years, few predicted such trends as the growth of nondenominational churches. Nor would one have predicted the clergy sex scandal that engulfed the Catholic church.<br />
<br />
Similarly, one cannot predict the rate of religious switching decades away. Just because a child has an Hispanic Catholic father does not mean a grandchild will be Catholic, he said.<br />
<br />
"It's a clever statistical exercise," he said of demographic projections, but not one likely to bear fruit.<br />
<br />
The final reckoning will not take place until the middle of the century, when the projections can be judged against the actual numbers.<br />
<br />
There is one consolation. Whatever happens, at least it's not the end of the world.<br />
<br />
<em>David Briggs writes the <a href="http://blogs.thearda.com/trend/" target="_hplink">Ahead of the Trend</a> column for the <a href="http://www.thearda.com" target="_hplink">Association of Religion Data Archives</a>.</em><br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/population">Population</a>, <a href="/tag/islam">Islam</a>, <a href="/tag/evangelical">Evangelical</a>, <a href="/tag/youth">Youth</a>, <a href="/tag/william-miller">William Miller</a>, <a href="/tag/apocalypse">Apocalypse</a>, <a href="/tag/harold-camping">Harold Camping</a>, <a href="/tag/secular">Secular</a>, <a href="/tag/christianity">Christianity</a>, <a href="/tag/fertility">Fertility</a>, <a href="/tag/growth">Growth</a>, <a href="/tag/protestant">Protestant</a>, <a href="/tag/demographics">Demographics</a>, <a href="/tag/catholic">Catholic</a>, <a href="/tag/conversion">Conversion</a>, <a href="/religion">Religion News</a></p>
John Bobey: Tips for NASA: Houston, You Have a Problem
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-bobey/tips-for-nasa-houston-you_b_867655.html
John Bobey
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-bobey/
Dear Mission Control,<br />
<br />
Far be it from me to suggest that you've made traveling to outer space boring, but your penultimate shuttle voyage has inspired less interest than the Twitter contest to decide what the Kardashians will title their new novel (<em>Fahrenheit 36D, Not Such Great Expectations, A Farewell To Plot?</em>) I have to say... this trouble in sustaining interest in our relationship... it's not us, <em>it's you</em>. <br />
<br />
I remember the thrill of the first shuttles blasting off, how teachers would wheel a TV into the classroom so we could all watch. The evening news was filled with stories of what you were doing, the implication being that each mission brought us closer to vacations on the Moon and personal jet packs for everyone! But then... nothing much seemed to happen, and the only time you caught our attention is when something went wrong (yeah, I went there). Today, we're more enthralled when a Jet Blue flight gets stranded on the runway than when you use rockets and laser beams to put a telescope into orbit... one that only sometimes-kinda-sorta works (yeah, I went there, too). More often than not, it seems like you're sending astronauts...<em>"star voyagers"</em> for crissakes... to go fix something that's broken. Whoever you hired as the Super on the International Space Station is doing a worse job than Schneider.<br />
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But cheer up! With a little imagination and a tweak here and there, the next phase of the space program will be as successful as the Mars Probe! (That's the last one, I promise.) Just keep in mind... <br />
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<strong><br />
We Like Catchy Names</strong> - You shot yourself in the foot by calling them Space <em>Shuttles</em>. "Shuttles" don't boldly go where no man has gone before, they go to Chicago, and occasionally bring you from Parking Lot T to the front entrance of the State Fair. And when you recently announced that your new spacecraft would be called the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, did you mistakenly think you were naming a new hybrid minivan from Kia? Aurora, Odyssey, Antares -- those are names! From now on, when it comes to naming a spaceship, don't think sensible, think stripper.<br />
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<strong>Don't Try To Fool Us</strong> - The big accomplishment you're crowing about from this latest mission is installing a Cosmic Ray Detector, a.k.a. an "Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer." Whoa. Cosmic rays? Now that we killed bin Laden, who are we protecting ourselves from, Blofeld? And trying to fancy it up by calling it an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer doesn't help. My scientific background may be limited to research into the relationship between Mentos and two-liter bottles of Diet Coke, but even I'm pretty sure you're making that up.<br />
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<strong>Space Travel Is About The Future</strong> - What's with this business of wanting to go back to the Moon? We don't look to you for reruns -- NASA isn't Nick at Nite! Why not say you want to explore Venus... maybe because you think it's named that because it's crawling with hotties? You know, chicks who look like Angelina Jolie! Not present-day, have a bunch of babies Angelina Jolie, but the crazy, vial of blood wearing Angelina Jolie from years ago.) C'mon, the moon is so five minutes ago. Actually, it's more like 20 million minutes ago, but you get my point. <br />
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<strong>It's All About Casting</strong> - We want astronauts with The Right Stuff, and that "stuff" isn't folksy charm or gee whiz likability. When your crew members speak to the media, they sound boring... and this is on NPR. Am I the only one who's seen <em>Armageddon</em>? We want guys with a need for speed, not the need for pleated khakis... Bruce Willis, not Bruce Vilanch... Animal, not Bunsen Honeydew! How can you not get it-- this isn't rocket science! (Back off -- it's a figure of speech.)<br />
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Look, we're all on the same team here. Most Americans understand that we've trashed earth like a spring break hotel room, and Mother Nature isn't bringing us any fresh towels. We know we're going to need new places to trash, I mean live, and that you're our real estate agent. But that doesn't mean you can't get the job done with a little style. And through it all, never forget that I'm here to help. Once you see my resume, I think it'll be clear that I'm (a state school grad with a major in popular music history who helped produce John McEnroe's talk show) exactly what you need. NASA... CNBC, whatevs. Now... let's light this candle!
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/nasa">Nasa</a>, <a href="/tag/blofeld">Blofeld</a>, <a href="/tag/nasa-space-shuttle">Nasa Space Shuttle</a>, <a href="/tag/the-moon">The Moon</a>, <a href="/tag/space-shuttle">Space Shuttle</a>, <a href="/tag/cosmic-rays">Cosmic Rays</a>, <a href="/tag/missioncontrol">Mission-Control</a>, <a href="/tag/houston">Houston</a>, <a href="/tag/multipurposecrewvehicle">Multi-Purpose-Crew-Vehicle</a>, <a href="/tag/astronauts">Astronauts</a>, <a href="/tag/rockets">Rockets</a>, <a href="/tag/the-right-stuff">The Right Stuff</a>, <a href="/tag/mars-probe">Mars Probe</a>, <a href="/tag/jet-blue">Jet Blue</a>, <a href="/tag/space-shuttle-endeavour">Space Shuttle Endeavour</a>, <a href="/tag/venus">Venus</a>, <a href="/tag/jet-pack">Jet Pack</a>, <a href="/tag/antares">Antares</a>, <a href="/tag/hubble-telescope">Hubble Telescope</a>, <a href="/tag/odyssey">Odyssey</a>, <a href="/tag/alpha-magnetic-spectrometer">Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer</a>, <a href="/tag/armageddon">Armageddon</a>, <a href="/tag/the-kardashians">The Kardashians</a>, <a href="/tag/international-space-station">International Space Station</a>, <a href="/tag/outer-space">Outer Space</a>, <a href="/tag/aurora">Aurora</a>, <a href="/comedy">Comedy News</a></p>
Paul Stoller: Enraptured Politics
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-stoller/enraptured-politics_b_865888.html
Paul Stoller
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-stoller/
Like many people in America, I attended a get-together on Judgment Day, Saturday, May 21. According to the biblical calculations of Family Radio's Harold Camping, Judgment Day would bring earthquakes and storms, which would mark the beginning of the Rapture, a process through which true believers are saved from the apocalypse and returned to a better world. Camping also predicted that God would destroy the world on October 21, 2011. What was one to do? Many people chose to confront these predictions with celebration. After my host gave me a bottle of UFO beer, we all toasted Judgment Day with much mirth and merriment -- a wonderful evening!!<br />
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When I returned home that evening, I logged on to The Huffington Post to follow a live Judgment Day blog that was being published in the Comedy Section -- more jokes and merriment. Although End Times narratives are frequently the butt of much appreciated jokes, they do merit our serious attention. Indeed, end of the world scenarios have a long and widespread history and have been the subject of anthropological study. Although they have been articulated in many parts of the world including New Guinea, North and Central America, the structure of end of the world narratives is fairly standard. There is a political, economic, or spiritual crisis. The ancestors -- or a god -- pick a prophet and tell him or her that the end of the world is coming. The ancestors -- or a god -- then command the prophet to preach about the end of the world. They order the prophet to tell those who will listen what they have to do -- throw away their goods, or profess their newfound faith and join a community of like-minded believers -- to make the world good again. The prophet then announces that when the apocalypse comes, non-believers will perish, but believers will be spared and eventually returned to a restored earth in which the political, economic or moral crisis has disappeared. These are the narratives of what anthropologists call millenarian movements -- cargo cults in Melanesia, or the American Indian Ghost Dances of the 19th century.<br />
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If you think that these kinds of apocalyptic beliefs are "primitive" or "far-fetched," think again. As the hoopla about Judgment Day, 2011 suggests, there are millions of people in America who believe in the End Times Rapture. The number of End Times churches is ever-growing. What's more, Americans seem to have a deep hunger for reading material about the End Times Rapture. Consider Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins's<em> Left Behind </em>series of books. According to its official website, the<em> Left Behind</em> series of books, all of which discuss biblical prophecies about the End Times, have sold more than 63 million copies. In <em>Left Behind</em>, the first book published in the series, a small group of passengers on a Boeing 747 bound for London mysteriously disappears from their seats. They have been saved. Those "left behind" now must confront the spread of chaos and fear on the plane and in the world. Their previous non-belief means that they will experience the full force of the apocalypse.<br />
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Although the narrative in <em>Left Behind </em>has an ingenious contemporary twist, which ensures its broad appeal, it shares all the major characteristic of apocalyptic stories you find in non-western, non-Christian worlds. What is of more profound interest, though, is that End Times narratives and beliefs highlight the alarming growth of apocalyptic thinking. If you believe that the End Times are near and that you have to get ready for the apocalypse, a reasoned scientific argument to the contrary will have little, if any, impact. Harold Camping's failed Rapture prediction in 1994 did not result in the erosion of his following. In the wake of his latest miscalculation, many of his followers will continue to make donations to Family Radio as they prepare anew for the End Times. If you prepare yourself, you won't be left behind -- a powerfully convincing pattern of "blind faith" thinking.<br />
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If you ponder this pattern, it becomes clear that "blind faith" thinking has entered the world of our politics. Many of our political leaders have "blind faith" in their beliefs -- ideas that don't seem to hold up to even superficial scrutiny. Millions of people believed -- and perhaps still do -- that President Obama -- all facts to the contrary -- was born overseas and is a Muslim. Many of the leading figures in the Republican Party have "blind faith" in the market. They believe that taxes, even for the wealthiest Americans, will ruin the economy, or that it's okay for the United States to default on its debt, or that transforming Medicare into a voucher system will preserve future health care for our senior citizens. Don't worry, they say, the forces of the market will solve all of our considerable social, economic and moral problems. <br />
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I'm not so sure. Having lived in several African nations, I have witnessed first hand how "blind faith" thinking can lead to widespread oppression. If you spoke out against the party line, you could be arrested, beaten, tortured and/or thrown into jail. "Blind faith" thinking may a good thing for spreading the word about the End Times, but it is anathema to a productive democracy that relies upon the critical exchange of ideas and the art of compromise. If reasoned discourse is no longer welcomed in a "blind faith" political system, then perhaps we are facing the End Times of our democratic political system.<br />
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But all this talk about End Times doesn't have to be completely depressing. While we wait for reason to make a come back, perhaps as soon as 2012, I'll opt for more mirth, merriment and another UFO beer. <br />
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<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/taxes">Taxes</a>, <a href="/tag/left-behind-book-series">Left Behind Book Series</a>, <a href="/tag/millenarian-movements">Millenarian Movements</a>, <a href="/tag/the-market">The Market</a>, <a href="/tag/judgment-day">Judgment Day</a>, <a href="/tag/harold-camping">Harold Camping</a>, <a href="/tag/democracy">Democracy</a>, <a href="/tag/tim-lahay">Tim LaHay</a>, <a href="/tag/cargo-cults">Cargo Cults</a>, <a href="/tag/new-guinea">New Guinea</a>, <a href="/tag/ancestors">Ancestors</a>, <a href="/tag/ghost-dance">Ghost Dance</a>, <a href="/tag/reason">Reason</a>, <a href="/tag/blind-faith">Blind Faith</a>, <a href="/tag/political-system">Political System</a>, <a href="/tag/end-times">End Times</a>, <a href="/tag/doomsday">Doomsday</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare">Medicare</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Robert Koehler: Ignorant Certainty
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/ignorant-certainty_b_867701.html
Robert Koehler
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/
Now that the end of the world didn't happen, I can't stop thinking about it. What chutzpah, what a diminished worldview, not simply to make such a prediction, but -- even more incomprehensible, to my relentlessly self-questioning mind -- to know you'll be among the saved.<br />
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In 1011, a guy like Harold Camping would probably have been able to generate more panic than bemusement. A millennium later, with science taught in the public schools and all, we have a little more collective resistance to such thundering certainty leaping from highway billboards. I confess, however, to feeling a deep, reptilian tug last Friday morning, as I saw the sign -- SAVE THIS DATE, MAY 21, 2011, CHRIST IS COMING -- while driving through eastern Wisconsin. Yikes, that's tomorrow.<br />
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What lingers for me in the aftermath of "life goes on (at least for a while)" is an alarmed sense of the power of ignorant certainty. Fanatical preachers are nothing more than the caricature of this power, which, in 2011, thrives like a virus in the American body politic. <br />
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"Today we presented legislation that advances our national security aims, provides the proper care and logistical support for our fighting forces, and helps us meet the defense challenges of the 21st century."<br />
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Thus spake U.S. Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, in a press release two weeks ago announcing the committee's approval of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 -- which contains provisions so alarming it has been <a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/worst-bill-ever-congress-0" target="_hplink">dubbed</a>, by David Swanson, "arguably the worst bill ever considered likely to pass into law," and even sparked an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17tue1.html" target="_hplink">editorial</a> in the <em>New York Times</em>. <br />
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Among the egregious provisions in the legislation, which awaits a vote on the House floor, as Swanson and many others have pointed out, are a crippling of the implementation of the new START treaty and a halting of the process of nuclear weapons reduction, keeping our nuke stockpile at Cold War levels; a total allotment of $690 billion for the Departments of Defense and Energy (including $119 billion to fund the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $18 billion for ongoing nuclear weapons research and development, and funding for various other highly questionable weapons programs and systems); and allowance for the indefinite detention of current and future Guantanamo prisoners. <br />
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But the big, scary thing about this piece of legislation -- the thing that summons a newer, deeper irrationality from the pit of our collective paranoia -- is the provision that would expand the "war on terror," at presidential discretion, to the whole world. <br />
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As the <em>Times</em> editorial put it: "Osama bin Laden had been dead only a few days when House Republicans began their efforts to expand, rather than contract, the war on terror. Not content with the president's wide-ranging powers to pursue the archcriminals of Sept. 11, 2001, Republicans want to authorize the military to pursue virtually anyone suspected of terrorism, anywhere on earth, from now to the end of time."<br />
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The bill circumvents Congress and the Constitution and would allow the Executive Branch to wage war solely at its own discretion. "It would allow military attacks against not just Al Qaeda and the Taliban," the <em>Times</em> explains, "but also any 'associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States.'" It authorizes, with its excruciatingly vague language, a sort of global manifest destiny. <br />
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And this brings me back to the idea of ignorant certainty -- a certainty about who should live and who should die -- that is the driving force not just behind religious fanaticism but, far more dangerously, behind the politics of empire.<br />
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The ignorant certainty of Harold Camping is essentially innocuous. He wasn't calling on believers to dispatch suspected sinners to their just deserts in eternity, simply to relax in the belief that God would do it himself. But the ignorant certainty of the politically powerful leaves nothing to God. The killing is done on their initiative and at their discretion -- and it's real. <br />
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This is war, and it has thrived as vibrantly in democracies as it has in autocracies. It could even be argued that the democratization of war and glory, the promotion of everyman from squire to swordsman, has fanned the flames of war. Consider the history of the 20th century (and the first tenth of the 21st). Democratic governments, while generally holding themselves blameless, have been responsible for a large percentage of the carnage wrought by modern, industrial wars. <br />
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And the United States of America, the original democracy, now devotes about two-thirds of its energy and treasure to war and defense. With the invention of the "war on terror" -- a term as vague and meaningless as "war on evil" or "war on sin" -- the political true believers and the economic beneficiaries of war found a way to keep the game alive indefinitely. NDAA 2012 would create the legal framework to disconnect "terror" from the 9/11 atrocities and guarantee the future of war, at the mere cost of the national soul.<br />
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Something feels like it's about to end. It's not the world, just what's left of American democracy. Once an interesting experiment in human sanity, it may prove unequal to its internal forces of fear and greed. <br />
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- - -<br />
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, contributor to One World, Many Peaces and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, <em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound </em>(Xenos Press) is now available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com. <br />
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© 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.<br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/empire">Empire</a>, <a href="/tag/congress">Congress</a>, <a href="/tag/national-defense-authorization-act">National Defense Authorization Act</a>, <a href="/tag/harold-camping">Harold Camping</a>, <a href="/tag/war-on-terror">War on Terror</a>, <a href="/tag/democracy">Democracy</a>, <a href="/tag/constitution">Constitution</a>, <a href="/tag/end-of-the-world">End of the World</a>, <a href="/tag/religious-fanaticism">Religious Fanaticism</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
INFOGRAPHIC: End Of The World Vs. End Of Oprah
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/26/end-of-the-world-oprah_n_867689.html
The Huffington Post News Team
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
The Oprah Winfrey Show ended in dramatic fashion Wednesday <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/25/oprah-winfrey-show-ends-a_n_866772.html" target="_hplink">after 25 years</a> on television. But it wasn't the only "end" being discussed.<br />
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Social media chatter has been filled with "end of the world" references, fueled by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/20/harold-camping-judgment-day-may-21_n_864507.html" target="_hplink">Harold Camping's prediction</a> that May 21 was "Judgment Day."<br />
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Of course, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/21/harold-camping-family-radio_n_865134.html" target="_hplink">the world did not end</a>.<br />
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But which of the two led to the most buzz? Oprah or the doomsday prediction?<br />
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Social media and news monitor <a href="http://meltwater.com" target="_hplink">The Meltwater Group</a> analyzed the volume of conversation around each event with <a href="http://www.meltwater.com/products/meltwater-buzz/" target="_hplink">Meltwater Buzz</a>. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, microblogs, comments and video were included in the analysis. The winner? See below. And let us know your reaction in the comments.<br />
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<b>LOOK:</b><br />
<img src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/282867/END-OF-THE-WORLD-OPRAH.jpg" width="550">
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/end-of-the-world-vs-oprah">End of the World vs Oprah</a>, <a href="/tag/end-of-oprah">End of Oprah</a>, <a href="/tag/oprah-winfrey">Oprah Winfrey</a>, <a href="/tag/oprah-vs-end-of-the-world">Oprah vs End of the World</a>, <a href="/tag/oprah">Oprah</a>, <a href="/tag/end-of-the-world">End of the World</a>, <a href="/tag/oprah-winfrey-show">Oprah Winfrey Show</a>, <a href="/tag/2012">2012</a>, <a href="/tag/infographic">Infographic</a>, <a href="/media">Media News</a></p>