Is May 21st the end of the world? How would you spend your last night in CNY?

May 21, 2011 may be Judgment Day and the beginning of the end of the world.
Reverend Harold Camping, founder of Family Radio Worldwide, has a number of followers who believe his prediction that the

Rapture — the belief that Christ will bring the faithful into paradise prior to a period of tribulation on earth that

precedes the end of time — will be this Saturday.
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment," Camping said. The 89-year-old

retired civil engineer also predicted the apocalypse in 1994, but now claims that was merely the end of "the church age."
His new theory suggests that earthquakes will hit Fiji and New Zealand at 6 p.m. Saturday and the second coming of Christ

will immediately follow. The actual end of the world, Camping says, will be completed five months later on October 21, 2011.
If it is the end of the world, what would you do on your last night? Followers are warning people the end is near, doing

everything they can to save them. Many worry about looting, while others are planning "rapture parties."
Here's how local Twitter and Facebook users said they'd spend their last night in CNY:
@shue_box: Eating dinner at Dinosaur and then going downtown to get bombed.

@Mitch_M: Ichiban, ultimate chocolate cake from @Wegmans with a Friendly's peanut butter chocolate sundae. Isn't that a

shame?

@dagsly: Is it apocalypse, or just the rapture? I need to know what to prepare for. If it's the rapture, I'm spending the

night scouting good about-to-be-abandoned housing.

@SYRDT: Nachos, Craft beer, Nerf Gun war with my son and my fav girl! (not necessarily in that order)

Tim Bennett: Watching the NASCAR Race.

@sjvelasquez: If I were in CNY for the rapture, I'd put my effort into getting out of CNY... I'm sure the lingering steel

plant chemicals will create an impenetrable orb around Western New York.

Shelly Lewis: lol, NOT in CNY!! On a beach somewhere warm.

Stay-C Colvin Miller: At my baby shower with all my close family and friends...which is exactly where I will be :)

@abrosenthal: I'd walk alone in Thornden Park at 11:59pm so I could see the look on the thugs' faces when the world ends just

as they rob me.

Jules Jenners: How about not in CNY? Tahiti.

@mrs_jade315: if I had 1 night left i would eat at the Dominican spot on westcott, go for a ride on rt 20, and get drunk at

the Clinton St Pub

Francis Lee: Slaughtering zombies, as the CDC recommended.

@maddieMRL: I would hang outside in the warm weather at Syracuse Suds drinking an Empire Brewery Pale Ale.

And what will the end look like? This clever video mashup shows how Hollywood has imagined the apocalypse in "Armageddon,"

"2012" and other movies

May 21, 2011: rapture or party time?

Oakland minister Harold Camping of Family Radio has 5,500 billboards worldwide with his rapture date.

If everything goes as Oakland minister Harold Camping predicts, the Bay Area will suffer a world-ending earthquake around 6 p.m. Saturday, God-fearing Christians will ascend to heaven and everyone else is in big trouble for eternity.

And if Camping is wrong, the American Atheists will gather in an Oakland hotel meeting room Sunday to celebrate.

"We're confident we'll still be here," said Larry Hicok, the California director of the American Atheists who scheduled the 200-member meeting to coincide with Camping's forecast that the biblically ordained rapture is at hand. "But if it does happen, we wanted a front-row seat."

The 89-year-old Camping first declared that May 21, 2011, would be the end of the world nearly 15 years ago, shortly after his earlier 1994 Judgment Day prediction passed without incident. In spite of his track record, his latest Armageddon announcement has attracted a constant stream of national media reporters, bloggers and documentary film crews to his headquarters near Oakland International Airport.

"God is utilizing the media," Camping said from the offices of his Family Radio last week, after concluding a Skype interview with a popular website. "And my, my, has the media been busy with me."

Around the world

Camping's radio and television shows are broadcast in dozens of countries, and his organization has paid for 5,500 billboards to advertise the rapture date on every continent except Antarctica. Armadas of RVs painted with Scripture have crisscrossed the country to enlist new believers before it's too late.

Tom Evans, 51, who has worked for Family Radio for 25 years and has a wife and two children ages 3 and 7 months, said it was difficult to explain the assurance he felt within, knowing that Jesus Christ will return Saturday to retrieve saved souls.

"You can understand it intellectually, but to really know it is going to happen, you have to understand it spiritually," Evans said. "You have to feel it."

To answer one popular question: Camping has not sold his Alameda home, nor has he given away his possessions, although media reports suggest a handful of believers have cashed in and pulled up stakes in anticipation of the final day.

Camping says God wants people to live every day humbly and as evenly as the next.

New Zealand is first

Saturday, said Camping, "will start like any other day. There's no reason to behave or act differently."

New Zealanders will be the first to know, Camping said. At 6 p.m. their time - 11 p.m. Friday in the Bay Area - a great earthquake will shake the island asunder, triggering an apocalypse that rolls relentlessly our way.

"It will continue across the Earth at such a rate," Camping said, "every Richter scale in the world and every news organization in the world will have no doubt - Judgment Day is here."

It will reach San Francisco around 6 p.m. PDT. The saved Christian souls will ascend to heaven, including those dead and buried. All others will remain as the Earth falls into fiery chaos.

To answer a second popular question: Camping and his followers will not gather at one location Saturday, preferring to stay home with their families.

Camping lives with his wife and says only one of his eight adult children shares his convictions. Few of his grandchildren have contact with him.

His follower Evans plans to huddle at home with his wife and children.

"I know I want to be with them when it happens, God have mercy," he said.

Mocking and concern

A few nonbelievers have suggested throwing a party outside Family Radio's headquarters Saturday night, mimosas in hand. Other skeptics, however, say the fact that Camping has assembled a dedicated following is nothing to laugh at.

Pastor Dave Nederhood, who knew Camping before the minister split from Nederhood's Christian Reformed Church in Alameda nearly 20 years ago, said a cult of personality surrounds Camping that makes this "every bit as dangerous as a Jim Jones or a Heaven's Gate situation."

Nederhood said Camping encouraged his followers to isolate themselves - "to stay at home and listen to Family Radio all day" - and of the few he's met, he's picked up on some "serious psychological damage."

"I just really feel a sense of sadness and apprehension for the people who've taken a big bite on this hook," Nederhood said. "All kidding aside, what are some of these folks going to be doing on Saturday when the one person they followed told them they would be in hell if they wake up on Sunday, May 22?"

Harold Camping of Family Radio in Oakland, Ca. on Saturday May 14, 2011, during his nightly radio program Open Forum. Camping has been saying that the world will end May 21, 2011.

Filmmaker Zeke Piestrup has been following Harold Camping for about a week, posting his teachings online. The minister says that "God is utilizing the media."

Harold Camping of Family Radio in Oakland, Ca. on Saturday May 14, 2011, talks with callers during his nightly radio program Open Forum. Camping has been saying that the world will end May 21, 2011.

May 21st Doomsday: Does Harold Camping’s Ministry Have Money?

May 21st, Doomsday is one of the hottest search topics in Google.
So in case you haven't heard by now, Harold Camping is the preacher who claims to have the calculations set on May 21, 2011 as The Judgment Day, Rapture Day, Doomstay  -or whatever you want to call it. Camping's apocalypse hype is getting worldwide attention.

Harold Camping, 89, is a former civil engineer and Bible scholar. He is president of the religious non-profit Family Radio based in Oakland, California which fervently preaches the message about the end of the world, now days away. He and a caravan of trucks have been plastering over 5,000 billboards, spending millions of dollars to spread the message.
So, where do they get the funding for all this?
Tax returns indicate that the radio ministry raised a staggering $100 million dollars over the past seven years. The ministry also owns 66 radio stations worldwide valued at $72 million in 2009.
Not to mention donations have soared as well. The contribution comes from radio listeners, according to Tom Evans, board member of Family Radio.

However, Camping claims that it is not about the money, but spreading the message and saving as many people as possible.
"When Judgment Day comes, if someone is a billionaire, how will they take their money with them? If we have any money left, and we will because we have to pay bills up to the very end "... it will all be destroyed because the world will be in a day of judgment.
"The money is not important at all. It's a vehicle to spread the judgment and a vehicle of the Lord."
According to Camping, "I've never taken one nickel out of Family Radio. Many evangelists have become very rich, but my wife and I live very modestly."
"We have no interest in talking about money. We never tell people what to do with their money, that's between them and God."
And in case one might wonder, Family Radio has no intention of giving away their money before May 21.
The explanation?
"There isn't going to be a Saturday. So certainly none of Family Radio's assets will be left because it won't matter," says Evans.
"The last thing people should be concerned with is what Family Radio is doing or what their assets are. They should be concerned with what I am doing and how I will stand before God."