I know I’ve been poking fun at all the followers of Mr. Camping who really truly believed that the Rapture was going to occur today, and I have no sympathy for the adults who were taken in.
However. Think of the children who were misled by this clown and by their parents. Those kids may have been panic-stricken for days, trying to say goodbye to their friends, their pets, not really understanding what this “Taken up into Heaven” business was all about. While the adults may be righteously angry at the man, or just confused, it’s the kids who are likely to be upset the most. Kids (mostly) trust their parents, after all. When those kids are told the Apocalypse didn’t happen as foretold, there may be even more confusion and anger. Realizing Santa Claus is a myth doesn’t even come close.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a spike in domestic disturbances takes place in communities where there are a lot of believers.
I was reading an article in the NYTimes (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/us/20rapture.html) and yeah, it was just sad. In particular:
“My mom has told me directly that I’m not going to get into heaven,” Grace Haddad, 16, said. “At first it was really upsetting, but it’s what she honestly believes.”
and
“I don’t really have any motivation to try to figure out what I want to do anymore,” he said, “because my main support line, my parents, don’t care.”
There’s this awful ego-driven thing going on that’s certainly never been in my denomination of Christianity – the “we’re the chosen and thus saved and you’re not, so there” attitude. An almost gloating kind of thing. Or condescending. But then my denomination doesn’t go in for the rapture story either, so I’m completely at sea in comprehending these folks. (PresbyterianUSA, which has enough flaky beliefs (still arguing over if gay members can be preachers) but is into scholarly disagreement and getting along with other faiths enough so that I’ll stick with it.)
Particularly weird is that you can counter the few verses that these beliefs are based on with countless more about helping people and not asking for anything in return, humility, love, helping those who don’t agree with you, the uncertainty of anything prophetic, etc. etc. I mean loads.
Also humorous is at the moment my folks are on a tour group to Jerusalem. With a group of both Christians and Jews, lead by a rabbi that has prayer breakfasts with my dad’s group of guys. (Secretly, since they’re mostly older retired dudes I think it’s a way to sneak out and have a really fatty/fried food fest without their wives telling them not to eat things. But Presbys are big into meeting regularly with other faiths and *trying* to solve larger problems in the community, you know the usual homelessness, etc. type of hard problems.) No way to communicate with my folks yet but I’m dying to know if they’ll hear any of the world ending stuff. I bet this sorta thing happens a lot if you live in Jerusalem though.
“What’s all that noise in the street?”
“Oh just another group of rapture folks, same as last week.”
Ok one more then I’ll stop! I have my phone set with an app that notifies me of quakes within a certain distance of my location – and I’ll regularly in the past few months get an evening alert of a quake that’s closer to Japan there here. (It’s been pretty constant for them, sadly.) I have been waiting all day for one of these “business as usual” quakes to happen today and for everyone waiting for something to flip out a bit.
But I’m totally ok that this didn’t happen!
One more link, good article to what happens next with these sorts of beliefs – sadly a large percent will just rationalize but then continue on with this sort of thinking. This won’t make a huge percentage completely change their beliefs. And again, I’m thinking like you are – this is hardest on the kids.
https://www.slate.com/id/2295099
Batty, that NYT story is awful. Those poor kids.
Yeah day later and it’s those kids I’m still remembering. I hope they manage to make it through to adulthood without this completely ruining their lives – the more I think about it the more I see it like you, as abuse.
It’s why I’ve never had anything to say against the many people I know who are atheists/agnostic – the majority of the ones I’ve known have had really bad experiences with religion (various kinds) in childhood, and I don’t think it’s a surprise that that’s hard to recover from without becoming cynical/angry/etc. I had quite a few run ins with fundamentalists when I was young to also feel that cynicism/anger myself.