Harold Camping's End of the World May Come, Twitter Users Say, Citing Earthquakes
Users on Twitter have been chatting up a storm about doomsday "prophet" Harold Camping who predicted that God's judgment would unfold on the world today, Oct. 21, and noting how two earthquakes that struck the U.S. Thursday may lend credence to the claims.
California's San Francisco Bay area was rattled by two small earthquakes Thursday. The first earthquake struck with a magnitude 4.0 hit around 2:41 p.m. PDT, according to the Associated Press. Another quake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.9 struck in Berkeley, the same region the first quake struck, at 8:15 p.m. PDT, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Were these two earthquakes precursors to Camping's doomsday prophecies?
Get Our Latest News for FREE
For the most part, Twitter users have rejected that idea and have instead been mocking Camping, convinced that since his May 21 Judgment Day did not occur as the Family Radio broadcaster predicted, that it was quite unlikely that the evangelist would have it right this time around.
A Twitter user with the name "Mike and Emily" tweeted, "Do you think the 4.0 earthquake last night in Berkeley got Harold Camping giddy?"
Allie Lucas tweeted, "Poor Harold Camping. Yesterday's earthquake in San Francisco must have really gotten him excited for a few minutes."
User Brinsmaid wrote, "So the world is supposed to end again today according to Harold Camping. He said it would start with an earthquake. There were two yesterday."
"Yet again, Harold Camping hits the mark on earthquake predictions, but misses everything else," wrote Jaweed Kaleem.
Twitter users have been discussing Camping and his Judgment Day prophecies so intensely that the hashtag "#rapture" and the name "Harold Camping" have registered on Twitter's Trend list Friday morning.
As for Family Radio, the platform Camping uses to publish and proclaim his teaches, many of which are considered erroneous by the mainstream evangelical Christian community, has been broadcasting recently recorded Bible study programs.
Friday morning, through its website, a Family Radio teacher was heard conducting a group in a discussion on the Oct. 21 Judgment Day and rapture. The teacher, unidentified in the broadcast, could be heard saying it was only through Family Radio that God had warned the world of its impending doom.
The Bible teacher added, "God would return on Oct. 21 and take His people out of the world," similar to how He took the ancient Israelites through the Red Sea when they were fleeing from the Egyptians, as described in Exodus 14 in the Bible.
The teacher closed out the Bible study by praying, "We know there had to come a day when You did finish all things, and we also know that we qualify in every way. Lord, we can do nothing but wait on You and hope to see the salvation of the lord."
