Winston-Salem, NC -- You may have seen them in the Triad, across North Carolina, and throughout the United States. Billboards stating that the end of the world in May 21, 2011.
It's part of a world-wide publicity blitz by a broadcast ministry called Family Radio, based in Oakland, Calif. The short version: Founder Harold Camping believes through a complex set of numerological calculations, one can date the creation of the world, Noah's flood and other events described in the Bible, then extrapolate when the Bible "guarantees" the world will end.
Billboards nationwide proclaim doomsday is coming May 21, 2011.
But before you start selling off your belongings, you might want to check your math. The real earth ending won’t arrive for another five billion years from now, when the sun runs out of hydrogen, evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins claims.
In On Faith, our forum for news and opinion on religion and politics, Dawkins and others roundly debunk the May 21 end date, which was calculated by Family Radio evangelist Harold Camping.
Dawkins writes:
Science knows approximately how, and when, our Earth will end. In about five billion years the sun will run out of hydrogen, which will upset its self-regulating equilibrium; in its death-throes it will swell, and this planet will vaporise.... In the nearer future, it is pretty likely that human life will become extinct — the fate of almost all species that have ever lived.
As Camping asserts his explanation for May 21, 2011 being the specific Judgement Day, the theory becomes even more farfetched. According to Camping, since God warned Noah of global Judgment Day seven days before it happened, this also correlates to the next Judgment Day seven “days” (specifically millennia) later. More, Camping says the flood can be dated back to exactly 7,000 years ago from May 21.
According to his website he says, “The Bible has given us absolute proof that the year 2011 is the end of the world during the Day of Judgment, which will come on the last day of the Day of Judgment.
We're living at a time when God is opening up the scriptures and we have a responsibility to tell people," Ropp said.
Christian theologians say there is no reason to panic — or to cancel plans for May 22.
“Biblical teaching can be an inconvenient truth to those who would set a month, day, and year to Christ's return,” Ralph Tone wrote on the Baptist Press website. “Jesus left no doubt about the futility of playing the dating game when he told his disciples three times in Matthew 24 not to go there.”
"I do believe Christ is coming, but I don't believe we know the time or the hour," Warren Gage, dean of faculty at the Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, told the Orlando Sentinel. "I think there's a very clear scriptural reference that no one knows the time in the end.
"May 21 is not circled on my calendar. And I'll be looking forward to Sunday, May 22.”
Read more on Newsmax.com: Group Claims World Will End May 21
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