Same Message, Different Doomsday Vehicle

Warning: The following article contains criticism of a religious figure. Actually, it’s not really criticism, more pointing fun at a guy who should know better. If you feel the need to get angry in the comment boxes, feel free, but please use your CAPS LOCK sparingly, keep the language reasonable, cite any reference material and above all else, don’t blame the ancient Mayans for anything, they’ve been through enough.

As a rule, I wanted to keep Astroengine.com away from religious debate, but once I became embroiled in the 2012 doomsday hysteria, religious views were bound to creep in. After all, 2012 is the latest date prophesied for Armageddon, End Times and Judgement Day, I was bound to start receiving emails and comments with a toasty religious flavour. That’s fine, everyone should have an opinion. Just because I don’t believe the year 2012 will bring anything of special religious/spiritual significance, that’s my view. I’m not religious and I’m not a religious specialist, it’s not my thing.

However, science is “my thing” so when I see authors banging on about the existence of Planet X, killer solar flares, geomagnetic shift and all the other wild and inventive ways the Universe won’t destroy the Earth, I do have a strong opinion. Now that “No Doomsday in 2012” has had over 1,000,000 hits (that’s a 1 with six zeros after it. I’m now in megahits), it would appear that 2012 is a doomsday theory that might not go away (place your bets on how many millions of hits that article will rack up in the next 3 years!).

However, having written about the key attributes of doomsday theories as presented by authors who use lies to sell a book or drive search engine traffic to their site (fear is a potent moneymaker after all), I know bullshit when I smell it. However, this time the doomsday prophecy doesn’t come from the misinterpretation of a Mesoamerican calendar, it comes from a popular American Christian evangelist. I have to say, I am impressed.

So, using my fool-proof “cheat sheet” on how to spot a doomsday fake, it wasn’t hard to cut through David Wilkerson’s dogma, revealing his “prophecy” for what it really is: rubbish.

When David Wilkerson woke up this morning, I suspect it wasn’t just coffee he was drinking. I know there are many ways to worship a God, but raving about the imminent destruction of New York and consequent ransacking of the world’s cities probably isn’t something any God would want. Much less when God is being blamed for the mess.

So what is the prophecy this time? In a blog post entitled “AN URGENT MESSAGE” (note the capitalization, scary isn’t it?), David gives the standard doomsday à la carte: something scary is coming and there’s nothing we can do about it. Nothing new so far. However, his urgent message is serving as a classic example of how not to write a doomsday prophecy. Let’s get stuck in!

(I’m using the rules outlined in How Do You Spot Science Abuse in the Social Media Soup?, to see if the rules apply in this case).

Rule: THEIR CAPS LOCK IS STUCK
David throws us right into the gist of the nonsense with a fabulous paragraph:

AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. IT IS GOING TO BE SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE – EVEN THE GODLIEST AMONG US.

This rule is battered, bruised and kicked out of the ring with that statement. Naturally, this is a prophecy, so it is also vague. What flavour of Earth-shattering calamity? When will it happen? Frightening? Surely not as frightening as your frightening words? Really? Wow, that is frightening.

Rules: God is behind it and They jump to conclusions
Sorry, this was a cheap shot, after all David is a Christian evangelist, he’s going to get God involved. But the funny thing is that it is God’s fault for the financial crisis too:

What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (v. 3).

God is judging the raging sins of America and the nations. He is destroying the secular foundations.

From one line of Psalm 11 (v. 3), David has done some incredible detective work, jumping to a huge conclusion: we are in recession, therefore God did it, the Bible says so.

Then David goes on about how some teachings of the Bible somehow predicts the problems we are facing now. Well, that’s what this guy does, he teaches from the Bible. That’s fine, but tone down all this death will you?

Rules: Doomsday will usually occur imminently and They KNOW the future
“I do not know when these things will come to pass, but I know it is not far off. I have unburdened my soul to you. Do with the message as you choose.” Need I say more?

On a practical note, is this rapture going to take very long? What kind of timescale was the longest rapture in the past? Looks like David has the answer for that one, and he’s being eerily exact:

“First, I give you a practical word I received for my own direction. If possible lay in store a thirty-day supply of non-perishable food, toiletries and other essentials. In major cities, grocery stores are emptied in an hour at the sign of an impending disaster.”

We have a forthcoming 30-day rapture people! Get down your stores and stock your cupboards! It looks like impending doom might be good for the retail industry at least. Who said the end of the world had to be bad for the economy?

In Conclusion
At the end of the day, this is religious prophecy, so David Wilkerson can say whatever he likes without basing any of his words on fact. It is based on the Bible’s teachings interpretation, not a physics textbook, so it is very different from any of the doomsday/conspiracy theories I have tackled in the past. However, there is one striking resemblance between Wilkerson’s “prophecy” and the Mayan calendar prophecy, they are both intended to stir up fear of an imminent doomsday event. Neither are based on any fact, and both sound like the crazy ramblings of madmen.

I have little idea about Wilkerson, I’m sure he’s done some good with his position as a pastor, but this is not one of those times. He has jumped on the bandwagon in an attempt to gain attention (of which he has already received across the web) for a stupid, vague and irresponsible prophesy that will cause some upset. Apparently, he has done this kind of thing before, inventing prophecies that, of course, didn’t happen.

Hold on, perhaps Wilkerson is trying to add some fervour to the release of the doomsday comic-to-screen movie, Watchmen (as far as I know the storyline, in the comic at least, is based on a lot of people dying in New York)? Or he might have watched way too many Heroes episodes, thinking that he is the religious equivalent of Isaac the painter who could paint the future? Unfortunately, this guy is either crazy or (more likely) seeking attention for personal gain. In my experience, it’s usually the latter.