This Weeks Sound Off

Family radio made thousands of dollars fueling the May 21st., end day prediction!

I believe that Family Radio should refund what monies they collected to all who invested into this less than Biblical proclamation cause obviously Family Radio hasn’t read Revelations where it CLEARLY states that no one except the Father knows when the end is to come.

To think that Family Radio played into this lie, including peoples fears is inexcusable and should do the right thing by apologizing to the world that they spiritually fumbled.

This also proves another point. That people who follow a cultic religious leader blindly and does not take time to open their Bibles and study the TRUTH for themselves are nothing more than sheep easily lead to their own spiritual ineptness.

This is not to say that the end isn’t near. Nonetheless, till that time, reality must be at the core of your faith and we have a Book that clearly tells us how to distinguish what is TRUTH and what is FICTION. If you follow TRUTH you will not be mislead. On the other hand, If you worship FICTION you are setting yourself up for a delusional disappointment.

Never allow yourself to be mislead or misguided by a false prophet. Know the facts by studying the Word for yourself cause if you don't then you will be deceived like those who followed this unfortunate lie, which in the face of the world you are now a laughing stock and less apt to be taken seriously.

Ragbag Headliners

Apple Triggers 'Religious' Reaction In Fans' Brains, Report Says

Next time Grandma asks why you're going to the mall on Sunday morning instead of church, tell her you're going to Apple Chapel.

For Apple fans, the brand triggers a reaction in the brain that's not unlike that of religious devotees, according to a BBC documentary series that cites neurological research.

The neuroscientists ran a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on an Apple fanatic and discovered that images of the technology company's gadgets lit up the same parts of the brain as images of a deity do for religious people, the report says.

The first episode of the documentary shows Apple employees "whipped up into some sort of crazy, evangelical frenzy" at the recent opening of an Apple store in London.

Observers and Apple critics have long accused fans of the tech company of taking their infatuation to an extreme.

People have gone to great lengths to prove their love of Apple with tattoos, bumper stickers and home shrines to outmoded Mac computers. Apple's cult-like following was highlighted in a 2009 documentary called "Macheads."

A blog, aptly titled Cult of Mac, wrote on Thursday about Oakland, California, resident Gary Allen's cross-country pilgrimage to Apple's first store in Virginia to celebrate the retail chain's 10th anniversary this week.

In speeches, Pope Benedict XVI has said technology consumption poses a threat to religion and the Roman Catholic church. The holy leader told a Palm Sunday crowd last month that technology cannot replace God.

However, apparently it may inspire god-like devotion. –CNN Digital Biz

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U.S. Broadcaster Silent "As Judgment Day" Hours Tick By

With no sign of Judgment Day arriving as he had forecast, the 89-year-old California evangelical broadcaster and former civil engineer behind the pronouncement seemed to have gone silent on Saturday.

Family Radio, the Christian stations network headed by Harold Camping which had spread his message of an approaching doomsday, was playing recorded church music, devotionals and life advice unrelated to the apocalypse.

Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994.

In his latest pronouncement, he had said doomsday would begin in Asia, but with midnight local time come and gone in Tokyo and Beijing and those cities already in the early hours of May 22, there was no indication of an apocalypse.

The Oakland, California, headquarters of the network of 66 U.S. stations was shuttered with a sign in the door that read "This Office is Closed. Sorry we missed you!"

Family Radio officials, with the help of supporters, had posted over 2,000 billboards around the country warning of a May 21 Judgment Day.

The headquarters, which appears to be normally closed on Saturday, was also shuttered on Friday.

Camping, whose deep sonorous voice is frequently heard on his radio network expounding the Bible, could not be reached for comment on Saturday.

The shades were drawn and no one answered the door at his house in Alameda, California.

Sheila Doan, 65, who has lived next door to Camping since 1971, said he is a good neighbor and that she is concerned about Camping and his wife, because of the attention his pronouncement has received.

"I'm concerned for them, that somebody would possibly do something stupid, you just don't know in this world what's going to happen," she said.

Atheists in different parts of the country were planning celebrations and get-togethers to mark the failure of Camping's May 21 prediction to come true.

In Oakland, the same city where Camping's network is based, over 200 people gathered at an atheist convention at a Masonic lodge where speakers jokingly took note of the Judgment Day pronouncement.

"It's kind of crazy, but there's actually a dark side to it too," said Stuart Bechman, national affiliate director of a group called American Atheists.

"There are a lot of silly and even unfounded beliefs that go on in the religious community that cause harm," he said.

Tom Evans, a spokesman for Camping, said earlier this week that at least several tens of thousands of people listen to Family Radio's message.

The network is heard in more than 30 languages through international affiliates, according to Family Radio.

In New York, at least one of Camping's followers continued to hold out hope Judgment Day would come.

Retired Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker Robert Fitzpatrick, 60, said he spent more than $140,000 (86,249.38 pounds) of his savings on subway posters and bus shelter advertisements warning of the May 21 Judgment Day.

"God's people are commanded to sound the warning, to sound the trumpet so to speak so people know," Fitzpatrick said of his advertising blitz.

He said Camping led him to believe Judgment Day would be May 21, but added that he disagreed with the broadcaster's prediction it would begin in Asia.

In Fitzpatrick's view, from his reading of the Bible, Judgment Day would begin around 6 p.m. Eastern Time. He said on Saturday he still had no doubt Judgment Day would come this day.

"I wouldn't even entertain that question because there's too much proof from the Bible," he said. –Yahoo News

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When Doomsday Isn't, Believers Struggle to Cope

If you're reading this, Harold Camping's predictions that the end of the world would start Saturday (May 21) failed to pan out.

That's good news for most of us, but Camping and his followers were looking forward to the end. After all, they believed that they were likely to be among the 200 million souls sent to live in paradise forever. So how do believers cope when their doomsday predictions fail?

It depends, said Lorenzo DiTommaso, a professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal who studies the history of doomsday predictions.

"If you have a strong leader, the group survives," DiTommaso told LiveScience. "Sometimes the group falls apart. Most often, the answer given by the group is that the prophecy is true, but the interpretation was wrong." [Read: Why People Look Forward to the End]

In 1994, Camping predicted a September doomsday, but hedged his bets with a question mark. On his website (familyradio.com), Camping wrote that he had misunderstood a key biblical passage, but since that time, biblical evidence for a 2011 end had "greatly solidified."

Doomsdays without doom

The classic study of "doomsdays gone bad" took place in 1954. A Chicago woman named Dorothy Martin predicted a cataclysmic flood from which a few true believers would be saved by aliens. Martin and her cult, The Seekers, gathered the night before the expected flood to await the flying saucer. Unbeknown to them, however, their group had been infiltrated by psychologist Leon Festinger, who hoped to find out what happens when the rug of people's beliefs is pulled out from under them.

Festinger's study, which became the basis of the book "When Prophecy Fails" (Harper-Torchbooks 1956), revealed that as the appointed time passed with no alien visitors, the group sat stunned. But a few hours before dawn, Martin suddenly received a new prophecy, stating that The Seekers had been so devout that God had called off the apocalypse. At that, the group rejoiced — and started calling newspapers to boast of what they'd done. Eventually, the group fell apart. Martin later changed her name to "Sister Thedra" and continued her prophecies. 

Other failed doomsday prophets have struggled to keep their followers in line. One self-proclaimed prophet, Mariana Andrada (later known as Mariana La Loca), preached to a gang of followers in the 1880s in the San Joaquin Valley of California, predicting doomsday by 1886. But Andrada was not consistent with her predictions, and believers began to defect. Trying to keep one family from leaving, Andrada told them one of them would die on the journey. Sure enough, the family's young son soon fell violently ill and passed away. The family accused Andrada of poisoning him. She was arrested and found not guilty, but never returned to preach to her followers.

Searching for explanations

How Camping's followers will cope with a failed doomsday prediction depends on the structure of the group, said Steve Hassan, a counseling psychologist and cult expert who runs the online Freedom of Mind Resource Center. [After Doomsday: How Humans Get Off Earth]

"The more people have connections outside of the group, the more likely it is that they're going to stop looking to [Camping] as the mouth of God on Earth," Hassan told LiveScience. "Information control is one of the most important features of mind control."

In his experience, Hassan said, about a third of believers become disillusioned after a failed prediction, while another third find reason to believe more strongly. The remaining group members fall somewhere in between, he said.

Doomsday groups in history have run a gamut of responses after failed predictions, said Stephen Kent, a sociologist at the University of Alberta who studies new and alternative religions. On occasion, a leader will admit he or she was wrong; other groups will come up with a face-saving explanation. Some groups may blame themselves, rationalizing that their lack of faith caused the failure, Kent told LiveScience. Other groups blame outside forces and redouble their efforts.

"One of the options is for the group to say, 'Society wasn't ready, Jesus felt there weren't enough people worthy of rapturing. Hence, we've got to go out and convert more people,'" Kent said.

After the apocalypse

Often, a failed prediction leads to splinter groups and re-entrenchment. After Baptist preacher William Miller predicted the end of the world on Oct. 22, 1844 — a date thereafter known as "The Great Disappointment" when nothing happened — his followers struggled to explain their mistake. One subset decided that on that date, Jesus had shifted his location in heaven in preparation to return to Earth. This group later became the Seventh-Day Adventist church. [Infographic: Doomsdays Past and Present]

Sociologists and doomsday experts agree that Camping is likely convinced of doomsday rather than perpetuating a hoax or running a scam. A con artist, Hassan said, would never set himself up for failure by giving a firm date.

A belief in doomsday gives followers a clear sense of the world and their place in it, Kent said. Those comforting beliefs are difficult to maintain after the world fails to end.

"This could be a fairly sad day for these people," Kent said. "There will be some greatly disheartened people who may be terribly confused about what didn't happen." -Yahoo News

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Preacher Now Says End Of The World Will Happen In 5 Months

Harold Camping is sticking to his apocalyptic guns.

In his first radio broadcast since his doomsday prediction failed to pan out in a spectacularly public fashion, the California preacher insisted his was an error of interpretation, not fact.

What's more, he has another calculation for the day the world will end - October 21, 2011.

Camping had kept a low-profile since Saturday, the day he had forecast for the return of Jesus Christ to Earth. He and his devoted followers have been warning for months that on May 21, a select 2% to 3% of the world's population would be taken to heaven. Those left behind would face months of tribulation before perishing in the Earth's destruction, which Camping said would happen on October 21.

This is the basis for his new prediction, which Camping claims is not new at all. He told listeners on his Family Radio broadcast Monday that God is "loving and merciful," and had decided not to punish the humanity with five months of destruction.

But he maintains that the end of the world is still coming.

"We've always said October 21 was the day," Camping said during his show. "The only thing we didn't understand was the spirituality of May 21. We're seeing this as a spiritual thing happening rather than a physical thing happening. The timing, the structure, the proofs, none of that has changed at all."

However, Camping said his group would not be mounting another advertising push. In the months leading up to May 21, Family Radio billboards popped up across the country, warning that the end was near.

"We're not going to be passing out tracts," Camping said. "We're not going to put up any more billboards. We're not going to be advertising in any way. The world has been warned. We did our little share and the media picked it up. But now the world has been told, it's under judgment."

Camping founded Family Radio, a nonprofit Christian radio network based in Oakland, California, with about 65 stations across the country, in 1958. It received $80 million in contributions between 2005 and 2009.

He first inaccurately predicted the world would end in 1994. Despite his poor track record, he has gathered many followers. Some gave up their homes, entire life savings and their jobs because they believe the world is ending.

Reporters who were allowed to ask questions during the broadcast Monday pressed Camping on this issue, but he would not admit that he bore any blame for his followers' predicaments.

"I don't have any responsibility. I'm only teaching the Bible. I'm telling ... this is what the Bible says. I don't have spiritual rule over anybody ... except my wife as the head of the household." -Belief Blog

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Life Goes On: Doomsday Believers On The Morning After

Theirs had been an unwavering belief, the sort that inspired some to quit jobs, leave their homes and walk away from family and friends to issue a doomsday warning.

Without question, they believed May 21 would be the day that Jesus Christ would return and rapture them - and a select 2 to 3 percent of the world’s population - up to heaven.  Everyone left behind would be on a crash course to final destruction, scheduled for October 21.

But now it’s May 22.

The sun rose, birds are singing and life as we know it continues. Those anticipated earthquakes that the May 21 doomsdayers said would ravage the earth on Saturday at 6 p.m. in each of the world's time zones never came.

And the faithful believers - who said the Bible guaranteed this day - are still here, trying to make sense of it all.

“Of course there’s disappointment. There’s no getting around that,” said Tom Evans, who’d left his northern California home to spend the weekend with family and friends. “When you as a person believe that God is coming back, and you believe the evidence is very clear that he’s coming back, that is something every child of God longs for. In a moment, we’d be changed and spend eternity with God. I’m not ashamed of that at all. I’m not ashamed of wanting and hoping for it.”

But Evans did reveal some regret.

“For us to say it was absolute, I think that’s where we went wrong. That’s where we strayed, and that I would gladly apologize for,” he said. “Whether I personally have done something dishonorable, I’m still mulling it over. I was trying to be faithful.”

Evans spoke to CNN as an individual, not as a spokesperson for Family Radio, the Oakland, California, Christian broadcasting network behind the May 21 movement.

But Evans has been a paid spokesman for the network, a job he said he expects to resume – at least in the short term – after he and Family Radio's board of directors meet with Harold Camping, the network's 89-year-old founder.

“I have not spoken to Mr. Camping about the issue of what to do next,” Evans said. “But he and his wife are fine, and our response will come in the early part of next week.”

Camping, a degreed engineer (not a pastor) who claims to have made the Bible his “university” for more than 50 years, has experience with failed prophecies. He once claimed the world would end in September 1994, later chalking that snafu up to biblical miscalculations and the need for further study. This time around, he said earlier this year, he had no doubts.

Calls to Camping's Alameda, California, home, went unanswered.

CNN reached out Sunday morning to about a dozen doomsday believers, to see how they felt after waking up. Only Evans and one other responded.

"I'm fine Jessica, really!" Darryl Keitt, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, who spent about seven months touring the country in a caravan of RVs, sharing the doomsday warning, wrote in a text message. "Just need 2 process this."

Those who’ve studied end-of-the-world movements are analyzing what happened, or didn’t happen, and forecasting what will come next.

“In the end, it was a whimper, not a bang,” said Lorenzo DiTommaso, author of the forthcoming book “The Architecture of Apocalypticism” and an associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. “The 21st of May came and went, and with it Harold Camping’s prediction of the coming of the Rapture and the day of doom.”

Based on past doomed doomsdays, much can be learned, said DiTommaso, who has studied apocalyptic worldviews for 12 years.

He shared what he meant in a written statement to CNN:

Historically, failed prophecies tend to result in disillusionment, with members deserting the group, or, more typically, a faith-saving (and face-saving) statement to the effect that while divine revelation remains infallible, human calculation is not. In short: The math was off, and it’s back to the drawing board. If the logic seems a bit self-serving, recall that in the apocalyptic mindset, faith precedes theory, and theory informs the evidence.

Not that any of this will preclude the appearance of future doomsday predictions. “Apocalypse,” Frank Kermode once observed, “can be disconfirmed without being discredited.” The massive 2012 phenomenon [based on the Mayan “Long Count” calendar] lurks just over the horizon. Even if the media and the public are over-saturated right now, the 2012 event promises to be as big as Y2K. After that, when the predicted events of the 21st of December 2012 fail to occur, a new generation of end-time prophecies will spring up. And that’s about the only sure prediction that one can make. –Belief Blog

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It's NOT The End Of The World As We Know It

This just in: Doomsday is doomed. And the world is still here.

After months of warnings and fear, the Day of Rapture, as predicted by apocalyptic Christian broadcaster Harold Camping, passed without apparent calamity. Judgment Day was to have started at 6 p.m., but as darkness fell on many parts of the world, it appeared that heaven could wait.

At this writing, there have been no reports of people soaring upward to the skies, but plenty of folks are talking about it.

Jim Brenneman, a cartoonist and CNN iReporter in Marcellus, New York, said he expects to remain on Earth, but you never know.

"Although I assume that I've lived a sinful life and will probably be here on Sunday, there is a small chance that maybe I was better than I thought and might get sucked up into the heavens on Saturday with all the other self-righteous wing nuts," he said. "If that happens, feel free to have my stuff. But probably not! Let the Looting Begin! HAPPY APOCALYPSE EVERYONE!!"

Many had looked Down Under to find relief. If Australia -- 12 to 14 hours ahead of Eastern daylight time -- survived, then maybe we all had a chance.

"Rapture deadline passes, world still here" screamed a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald.

By Saturday afternoon, Australia had become a trending subject on Twitter.

"Stop worrying about the world ending today. It's already tomorrow in Australia," wrote #EndOfTheWorldConfessions.

No problems reported so far in Asia or Europe, either.

But some were still not completely sure: "Maybe the world did end and Twitter is the only survivor," Simon Plumb said.

The Twitter feed for the U.S. Geological Survey, which records and measures earthquakes around the world, was mum on the topic. The agency's worldwide map showed no major earthquakes.

Had it all been for naught? All those billboards, signs and newspaper ads, the pamphlets blowing in the wind and the RVs plastered with Judgment Day warnings weaving through cities?

Believers had said Saturday would be the day when those who were saved would be taken up to heaven, and those who aren't will endure unspeakable suffering.

Judgment Day was supposed to have started at 6 p.m. and last five long months. Dead bodies were going to be strewn about as earthquakes ravaged the Earth, they said. And come October 21, they said, the entire world would be kaput.

It wasn't immediately clear what the believers thought about Saturday's nonhappenings. But people around the world sure were making jokes like there was no tomorrow. –CNN U.S.

Back In The Woods - Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Looking Pretty For God

A little girl walked to and from school daily. One morning, although the weather was questionable and clouds were forming, she made her usual trek to school. As the afternoon progressed, the clouds darkened and the winds whipped up accompanied by streaks of lightning.

The little girl's mother felt concerned that her daughter would be frightened as she walked home from school, and she also feared the electrical storm might harm her child. Full of concern, the mother got into her car and quickly drove along the route which her child usually takes en route to school. As she did, she spotted her little girl at a distance walking along unconcerned about the gathering storm.

At each flash of lightning, the child would stop, look up, and smile. More lighting followed quickly and with each, the little girl would look at the streak of light and smile.

When the mother caught up and drove beside the child, she lowered the window and called, "What are you doing?"

The child answered, "I am trying to look pretty because God keeps taking my picture."

May God bless you today and every day as you face the storms that come your way!

Author Unknown

Through The Eyes Of A Child

Psychology 101

A multi-step study in animal behavior was once performed as follows:

Step #1: Five monkeys were placed inside one cage, a banana on a string was hung from the top, and stairs were placed under the dangling banana. Before long one of the monkey climbed up the stairs toward the banana.

Before the monkey was able to reach the top of the stairs and the banana, all the monkeys were sprayed with cold water. Each time one monkey climbed the stairs to get to the banana, they were all sprayed with cold water. After a while, it was found that whenever a monkey tried to climb the stairs, the other monkeys ganged up on it and prevented it from going up the stairs.

Step #2: One of the five monkeys was removed from the cage, and replaced by a new monkey.
When the "newcomer" attempted to climb the stairs, the four original monkeys ganged up and prevented the it from getting up the stairs, and all successive attempts thereafter by the "newcomer" to climb the stairs were thwarted by the original four who ganged up on it and prevented it from climbing the stairs---without the need to spray the monkeys cold water!

Step #3: Another one of the original monkeys was removed and replaced by "newcomer #2". Once again, when "newcomer #2" attempted to climb the stairs, the remaining 3 original monkeys ganged up on "newcomer #2", and interestingly, "newcomer #1" enthusiastically joined the 3 original monkeys in ganging up on "newcomer #2" and preventing it from climbing the stairs.

Step #4 and #5: Once again, one of the original monkeys was repeated until all of the 5 original monkeys had been replaced by a "newcomer". With each "newcomer", the attack -and-prevent phenomenon took place without the need to spray the monkeys with cold water.
After having replaced all of the original monkeys, it is interesting to note that none of the "replacement" ("newcomer") monkeys ever tried to climb the stairs, and there was no need to spray any cold water.

The question is: why did the five "newcomers" [who replaced the five original monkeys] behave the way they did, with not one of them climbing up the stairs to get the banana?
The conclusion is: because in their minds they have been conditioned to think that that is the way it has always been!

Interestingly, it appears that the US Congress behaves just like the monkeys in the experiment.

The "newcomers" are "conditioned" by the "old timers" to behave and think according to the way "things have always been done". That is why from time to time, all need to be replaced!

Author Unknown

Autistic Boy,12, With Higher IQ Than Einstein Develops His Own Theory Of Relativity

A 12-year-old child prodigy has astounded university professors after grappling with some of the most advanced concepts in mathematics.

Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher than Albert Einstein - and is now so far advanced in his Indiana university studies that professors are lining him up for a PHD research role.

The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week, is now tutoring fellow college classmates after hours.

And now Jake has embarked on his most ambitious project yet - his own 'expanded version of Einstein's theory of relativity'.

His mother, not sure if her child was talking nonsense or genius, sent a video of his theory to the renowned Institute for Advanced Study near Princeton University.

According to the Indiana Star, Institute astrophysics professor Scott Tremaine  -himself a world renowned expert - confirmed the authenticity of Jake's theory.

In an email to the family, Tremaine wrote: 'I'm impressed by his interest in physics and the amount that he has learned so far.

'The theory that he's working on involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics.

'Anyone who solves these will be in line for a Nobel Prize.'

But for his mother Kristine Barnett, 36, and the rest of the family, maths remains a tricky subject.

Speaking to the paper, Mrs Barnett said: 'I flunked math. I know this did not come from me.'

And it hasn't gone un-noticed by Jake, who added: 'Whenever I try talking about math with anyone in my family they just stare blankly.'

Jake was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, a mild form of autism, from an early age.

His parents were worried when he didn't talk until the age of two, suspecting he was educationally abnormal.

It was only as he began to grow up that they realised just how special his gift was.

He would fill up note pads of paper with drawings of complex geometrical shapes and calculations, before picking up felt tip pens and writing equations on windows.

By the age of three he was solving 5,000-piece puzzles and he even studied a state road map, reciting every highway and license plate prefix from memory.

By the age of eight he had left high school and was attending Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis advanced astrophysics classes.

His classroom presence is quite unnerving for many of the 18-plus year old students at his IPIU lectures.

Speaking to the Indy Star, Wanda Anderson, a biochemistry major said: 'When I first walked in and saw him, I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going to school with Doogie Howser.'

She added: 'A lot of people come to him for help when they don't understand a physics problem.

'People come up to him all the time and say, 'Hey Jake, can you help me'.

'A lot of people think a genius is hard to talk to, but Jake explains things that would still be over their head.'

And his Professor John Ross said his performance in lectures had been 'outstanding'.

'When he asks a question, he is always two steps ahead of the lecture.

'Everyone in the class gets quiet. Poor kid. . . . He sits right in the front row, and they all just look at him.

'He will come to see me during office hours and ask even more detailed questions. And you can tell he's been thinking these things through.

'Kids his age would normally have problems adding fractions, and he is helping out some of his fellow students.'

According to his parents Jake has trouble sleeping at night as he constantly sees numbers in his head.

But far from complaining, Jake has turned the sleepless nights to his advantage - debunking the big bang theory.

The next step, according to professor Ross, is for Jake to leave class altogether and take up a paid research role. –Mail Online

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Jacob Barnett teaches us Calculus 2.

Techniques of Integration

Life is short.
Break the rules,
forgive quickly,
kiss slowly,
love truly,
laugh uncontrollably,
and never regret anything
that made you smile.

~ Author Unknown ~

Remembering Our Men and Women
Who Have Given To Us Their Lives
In Order That We May Have ...
FREEDOM!

Happy Memorial Day

This Weeks Sound Off

 May 21, 2011: Judgment day?

Depending on who you ask, the end of the world is an abstract idea, a remote possibility or -- if you're an adherent to the Judgment Day movement -- coming up on May 21.

Family Radio evangelist Harold Camping and Judgment Day movement believers like Brian Haubert believe the exact date our world will come screeching to halt amidst a fiery rapture bigger and better than any CQI-related destruction ever created for film has been determined: May 21, 2011. According to Haubert -- who recently spoke to NPR's Weekend Edition -- that's exactly 7,000 years from the time of Noah's flood.

And, shockingly, the prediction has nothing to do with "The Terminator." We're skeptical.

"[I]t's very hard," Haubert told Weekend Edition. "I worry about friends and family and loved ones. But I guess more recently, I'm just really looking forward to it."

For the rest of us who may not be so excited about the end of the world, is there anything we can do? After all, the "Dancing with the Stars" finale isn't set to air until Tuesday, May 24. After that, we'd be fine with the world imploding/exploding -- but at least give us the satisfaction of knowing whether or not Ralph Macchio triumphs over Kirstie Alley to win this season's title.

No such luck, though, according to the end-of-worlders: According to Camping -- who calculated the date -- there is no plan B. It's May 21. Period. Though Camping had once determined that the world would end on Sept. 6, 1994, he now blames incomplete research for the faulty prediction.

Some have even quit their jobs and scrapped plans for higher education to carpe diem and hand out Bible tracts, according to NPR.

Meanwhile, we sit tight and feel pretty secure in the knowledge the world -- and Kirstie and Ralph -- will still be here for that finale. –KY3

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The reason I haven’t posted this earlier is because Harold Camping’s prediction is about as reliable as Stephens Hawkings belief in God and the creation story.

Obviously, Harold Camping has not read Revelations where it clearly states that no one except the Father knows the hour of His coming (Paraphrased). Talk about setting himself and his followers up for disappointment! Though Camping’s desire for this occurrence may be noble, I dare say he’s a bit misguided. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to hear what Camping has to say now that the event has come and gone, and we’re still here on earth looking forward to that day when Christ will truly return.

Now, lets assume yesterday was our final days and Christ had returned? Looking back, would you have been ready? No matter the misguidance of a see'er, one day He is coming back. With all the signs and signals around the world, He's pointing His finger, letting us know within our hearts that He's coming is nearer than we might think!

Judge Not

An old man sat with his twenty-something son in a train. As the train started to pull out of the station, the young man became quite excited. As the train got under way and picked up velocity, sitting by the window, the young guy put out one hand, felt the passing air, and exclaimed,

"Papa, see all the trees going rapidly past us?"

The old man just smiled.

Across the aisle sat a man and a woman, who listened and watched irritatedly as the son commented at everything he saw.

"Papa, look at the pond … look at the cows … Papa look at this. . .Papa look at that ..."
Soon it started to rain and raindrops hit the young man's arm and hand. The son commented, "Papa it's raining, and water drops are on my arm. See them?"

With the couple unable to contain their irritation any longer, the wife quipped audibly for others to hear, "That fellow needs to see a doctor and get proper counseling and treatment. He acts inappropriately for his age and size."

The old man politely turned to the couple and said, "Please pardon us, if we have disturbed you. You see, we just came from the hospital where my son had surgery, and he got his eyesight for the very first time in his life."

MORAL TO THE STORY: Judge not, especially if you do not know the facts.

Author Unknown

Absolutely Incredible

 Hair Cell in the Ear

Amazing photo as seen via an electron microscope. Incredible details of 1 to 5nm (nanometer) in size.

Here's what it looks like to see a close-up of human hair cell stereo cilia inside the ear. These detect mechanical movement in response to sound vibrations.

The Vatican vs. The Zionist Tsunami’

The slandering of Israel is growing at an alarming rate among some of the most important Catholic journalists today.

The January edition of La Cività Cattolica, the most authoritative magazine of the Jesuits printed under the supervision of the Vatican, opens with an editorial about Palestinian refugees. Adopting the Arab propagandist word nakba, it declares they [the refugees] are a consequence of ethnic cleansing by Israel. The journal also supports anti-Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, and falsely proclaims that “the Zionists were cleverly able to exploit the Western sense of guilt for the shoah to lay the foundations of their own state.”

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, just joined an interreligious meeting in Doha, Qatar. Sponsored by the Arab League, the event occurred on Jerusalem with the participation of Christian and Muslim leaders. But there was no Jewish presence.

The slandering of Israel is growing among the most important Catholic journalists. Vittorio Messori, who conducted the first book-length interview with Pope John Paul II , recently wrote an editorial for the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera where he stated: “All governments of all Muslim nations are under the tsunami of the violent intrusion of Zionism that has come to put its capital in Jerusalem.”

The Vatican’s teachings have a direct influence on over 1 billion people. To understand its new mood about Israel, one has only to read what happened in the special synod on the Middle East, hosted by Rome. Nothing was said about Islamist persecution of Christians; indeed, every effort was made to show the Catholic Church sympathetic to Muslim grievances, especially against “Zionism” – a word evoked as a symbol of evil.

Archbishop Edmond Farhat, the official representative of Vatican politics, proclaimed that the ultimate cause of all the evils in the Middle East is that “foreign body” which is Israel: “The Middle Eastern situation today is like a living organ that has been subject to a graft it cannot assimilate and which has no specialists capable of healing it”.

Archbishop Salim Bustros wrote the final message of the synod, claiming that the Jewish Promised Land had been “nullified by Christ,” thus reviving the infamous replacement theology that played a great role in the Holocaust. Bustros also claimed that the Bible can’t be used to justify the “occupation” of the West Bank, attempting to sever any link between the Jewish people and its homeland.

The former patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, named by Pope Benedict XVI to address the concluding session of the synod, presented a document against Israel called “kairos” bearing the signatures of many Christian leaders in Jerusalem.

It says: “The Israeli occupation is a sin against God,” and takes sides against the very presence of Israel.

It likens the security barrier that has blocked suicide attacks to “apartheid”; it cancels the concept of a Jewish state and proclaims that “resistance to the evil of occupation is a Christian’s right and duty.”

The document was presented in a Vatican-owned building run by Pax Christi, Catholic Action and the Franciscan Custodian of the Holy Land.

THE CURRENT Vatican patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, affirmed also that “you can’t have both Zionism and democracy,” supporting the “one-state solution” – a euphemism for the destruction of the Jewish state. Elias Chacour, the Catholic archbishop of Galilee and Nazareth, went on to say that Israel committed “an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.”

Israel bashing is also part of the strategy of the Vatican Secretariat of State in the Middle East; its default position, vis-à-vis militant Islamism, is to try to reach accommodations with regimes and forswear condemnation of Islamist ideology. Israel is easily expendable in this horrendous scheme.

Yet the Church should have a strategic interest in a friendship with Zionists. Israel and the Vatican should be natural allies against the devotees of death. There is only one Middle Eastern country where the number of Christians has grown – Israel (from 34,000 in 1949 to 163,000 today).

Pope Benedict should now reverse the tragic wave against Israel and the Jews, which its enemies want to annihilate, with the same powerful determination with which he raises his voice in defense of the “nonnegotiable” principles concerning human life. Israel is also not negotiable.
_______________________________________

The writer of the above article, Giulio Meotti, is a journalist with Il Foglio, and is also the author of A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel’s Victims of Terrorism.

The Scariest Path In The World?

This video below is especially dedicated to those who love to hike and take unusual and daredevil types of adventure.

WARNING! The video clip is NOT for anyone who has fear of heights and/or balance problems.

The entrance(s) to this old mountain trail, originally built in the 1920s for hydroelectric workers, ha been closed to the general public for years, but not policed. So, a few daring souls have hiked on it at their own risk.

The trail has not been maintained for years, and majority of the trail’s protective railing had rusted away and/or had fallen off long ago. But there is a cable or wire attached to the face of the mountain for one to hold on to for balance, if needed, but it could support only so much weight. Because of the trail’s terrible state of disrepair, several people who had dared to hike on it had reportedly fallen to their deaths hundreds [even a few thousand] of feet below.

The walk is amazing and hair-raising. It is even more amazing and hair-raising when one considers that it was filmed by someone who hiked and videotaped at the same time!

Watching the video should have one on the edge of his/her seart and possibly even have a feeling of “butterflies in the stomach”.

This video is six minutes long. To intensify the experience, click on the full screen button.

^^^*^^^

El Camino del Rey [High Quality]

"High On The Hog"

"...we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God." -Acts 2:11

Keep the communication of your faith in Christ simple and clear.

The other day, I had my usual cup of morning brew in my usual coffee house. When I was finished, I walked back up to the counter and asked for a refill. One of the young women behind the counter exclaimed, wide-eyed, "YOU want a refill!?" She was acting out good-natured mock surprise as I, apparently, had rarely, if ever, gotten a refill.

My response, as I snapped my 50-cent refill charge on the countertop was, "Yep, I'm living high on the hog today!"

She and another young employee laughed, but it quickly occurred to me that I wasn't even sure what the expression "high on the hog" really meant, even though I knew the context within which to use it. So, I asked them, "Have you ever heard that expression before - 'high on the hog'?"

They both said "no." One of them was clearly of Asian descent and the other Hispanic. Therefore, I wasn't sure if it was an Anglo-Saxon reference or not.

"It means I'm splurging this morning," I said. They smiled, again, so did I, but I beat a hasty retreat realizing that the term "splurging" was very possibly a term from my cultural upbringing that they might not be able to relate to either.

I've had a chance to spend several hours thinking about this and it's lead me to wonder how effectively any of us communicate the redemptive, unconditional love of Christ to persons who have had no introduction to Him. Certainly, God desires us to talk about Him - they called Jesus "teacher" and He spoke effectively in terms clear and familiar to an audience in His specific culture.

How can we act and speak in terms clear and familiar enough to those around each of us to open up the possibility that their hearts would recognize their own longing for Christ?

Prayer:

Lord, I admit that I have sometimes felt confused and maybe even communicated confusion through religious terms, many of which mean nothing when someone I know or love is hurting or searching. Help me keep my ability to communicate my faith simple, yet profound. Thank You that your Holy Spirit promises to make the difference that I cannot. Amen.

^^^*^^^

Think for a minute about what, or who, really made the positive difference for you in your walk of faith. Chances are it was a simple, uncomplicated comment, thought, moment, idea, or example. Talk to another follower of Christ about this. Discuss ways to relay effectively the love of Christ to others.

By Jim Colman

This Weeks Sound Off

Gay Teen Attacked By Mob Gets Assaulted Again, Police Say

A gay teenager who was beaten by a mob of men at a gas station has been assaulted again, according to Rock Hill police.

The beating of 19-year-old Joshua Esskew made national headlines last month after he was beaten by at least eight men at a Rock Hill gas station and the attack was caught on tape.  Esskew called the attack a hate crime, saying someone yelled a gay slur at him before the attack.

According to a Rock Hill police report, Esskew, who is now 20-years-old, was assaulted again early Sunday morning outside a Bi-Lo grocery store at 1735 Heckle Boulevard.

Esskew told officers that he was "walking from his vehicle to the entrance of the [store,] when an unknown female yelled [a gay slur] at him." Officers say Esskew turned around to look at who yelled at him and said "Excuse me?"

According to the report, Esskew told officers that he exchanged words with a man inside the vehicle and then walked to the Bi-Lo entrance, when he was pushed from behind by one of the people.

Esskew was not injured in the assault.

The night manager of the Bi-Lo told officers that he witnessed a verbal exchange between Esskew and pair, who "appeared to be extremely intoxicated and were acting belligerent."  The manager was able to get the license plate information from tan 2001 Mercury Sable as it was leaving the parking lot.

Sheriff's deputies from the York County Sheriff's Office went to the home listed for the plates, but were told they had moved out a month prior. –WMBF News 

^^^*^^^

Christians should be ashamed of themselves for not speaking out against hate, particularly against those who are vulnerable to social stigmas that aren’t "acceptable", in this case Homosexuality.

Sadly, most Christians have missed the call to love and accept those who are different. Instead of mimicking Christ’s love, they have made a mockery of it by remaining silent while many gays and lesbians are assaulted or worst yet, murdered. How dare you call yourself “Christians” when you keep silent which encourages hate, even murder of God’s children. You should be ashamed of yourselves!!!!

On judgment day you will be held accountable even for your silence, for in silence you have aided in the murder of His wonderfully and beautifully created gay and lesbian Children.

Locally Speaking

Fetus Protection Law In N.C.

North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue has signed a bill into law that creates separate criminal counts for causing the death or seriously injuring a fetus inside the mother's womb at any stage of development.

Perdue's office said she signed the bill into law late Friday.

Perdue said in a prepared statement she supports abortion rights but also supports punishing anyone who would attack or kill a pregnant woman. The law won't apply to legal abortions but does give legal status to fetuses that can't survive outside the womb.

The law takes effect December 1 and creates new counts of murder, manslaughter and assault and battery for what it calls unborn children.

The governor had until Sunday to sign the bill, veto it or let it become law without her signature. –Reported by WMBF News

Ragbag Headliners

Egyptian Copts, Reeling From Violence, Want Protection

Muslim-Christian sectarian violence intensified in Egypt this weekend, spurring an emergency meeting of the Cabinet and public exhortations from Coptic Christians for international protection.

At least 12 people were killed and 232 others were wounded in sectarian clashes outside a Cairo church, according to state TV. Officials said violence began over rumors that a Christian woman who converted to Islam was being held at the church against her will.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf postponed a trip to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to discuss the church attack and hold the emergency meeting, according to EgyNews, Egypt's official news agency.

A small group of Coptic Christians gathering near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Sunday called for international protection of Egypt's Christian community and condemned the government for not doing more to protect them.

Small groups composed of Christians and Muslims engaged in heated debate sectarian tensions mounted, but they were peaceful. Soldiers stood in a line across the road to prevent protesters from approaching the U.S. embassy.

In the Cairo neighborhood of Maspiro, violence erupted when several hundred people, predominantly Christian but also Muslims, demonstrated in favor of national unity in front of the TV building.

Stones were hurled and people threw bricks from rooftops on predominantly Christian protesters. Some people were injured.

Chants could be heard of "with our souls and blood we will sacrifice ourselves for the cross." Military riot police with red helmets and clubs separated mutually hostile crowds. –Read more at CNN World

Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?

We all wonder what will happen to us after we die. When a loved one dies, we long to see him or her again after our turn comes. Will we have a glorious reunion with those we love or is death the end of all consciousness?

Jesus taught that life does not end after our bodies die.  He made this startling claim: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again.” According to the eyewitnesses closest to him, Jesus then demonstrated his power over death by rising from the dead after being crucified and buried for three days. It is this belief that has given hope to Christians for nearly 2000 years.

But some people have no hope of life after death. The atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote, “I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my own ego will survive.”1 Russell obviously didn’t believe Jesus’ words.

Jesus’ followers wrote that he appeared alive to them after his crucifixion and burial. They claim not only to have seen him but also to have eaten with him, touched him, and spent 40 days with him.

So could this have been simply a story that grew over time, or is it based upon solid evidence? The answer to this question is foundational to Christianity. For if Jesus did rise from the dead, it would validate everything he said about himself, about the meaning of life, and about our destiny after death.

If Jesus did rise from the dead then he alone would have the answers to what life is about and what is facing us after we die. On the other hand, if the resurrection account of Jesus is not true, then Christianity would be founded upon a lie. Theologian R. C. Sproul puts it this way:

“The claim of resurrection is vital to Christianity. If Christ has been raised from the dead by God, then He has the credentials and certification that no other religious leader possesses. Buddha is dead. Mohammad is dead. Moses is dead. Confucius is dead. But, according to…Christianity, Christ is alive.”2

Many skeptics have attempted to disprove the resurrection. Josh McDowell was one such skeptic who spent more than seven hundred hours researching the evidence for the resurrection. McDowell stated this regarding the importance of the resurrection:

“I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, OR it is the most fantastic fact of history.”3

So, is Jesus' resurrection a fantastic fact or a vicious myth? To find out, we need to look at the evidence of history and draw our own conclusions. Let’s see what skeptics who investigated the resurrection discovered for themselves.

Cynics and Skeptics

But not everyone is willing to fairly examine the evidence. Bertrand Russell admits his take on Jesus was “not concerned” with historical facts.4 Historian Joseph Campbell, without citing evidence, calmly told his PBS television audience that the resurrection of Jesus is not a factual event.5 Other scholars, such as John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, agree with him.6 None of these skeptics present any evidence for their views.

True skeptics, as opposed to cynics, are interested in evidence. In a Skeptic magazine editorial entitled “What Is a Skeptic?” the following definition is given: “Skepticism is … the application of reason to any and all ideas—no sacred cows allowed. In other words … skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe.”7

Unlike Russell and Crossan, many true skeptics have investigated the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In this article we will hear from some of them and see how they analyzed the evidence for what is perhaps the most important question in the history of the human race: Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
Self-Prophecy

In advance of his death, Jesus told his disciples that he would be betrayed, arrested, and crucified and that he would come back to life three days later. That’s a strange plan! What was behind it? Jesus was no entertainer willing to perform for others on demand; instead, he promised that his death and resurrection would prove to people (if their minds and hearts were open) that he was indeed the Messiah.

Bible scholar Wilbur Smith remarked about Jesus:

“When he said that He himself would rise again from the dead, the third day after He was crucified, He said something that only a fool would dare say, if He expected longer the devotion of any disciples—unless He was sure He was going to rise. No founder of any world religion known to men ever dared say a thing like that.8

In other words, since Jesus had clearly told his disciples that he would rise again after his death, failure to keep that promise would expose him as a fraud. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. How did Jesus die before he (if he did) rose again?

A Horrific Death and Then. . . ?

You know what Jesus' last hours of earthly life were like if you watched the movie by road warrior/brave heart Mel Gibson. If you missed parts of The Passion of the Christ because you were shielding your eyes (it would have been easier to simply shoot the movie with a red filter on the camera), just flip to the back pages of any Gospel in your New Testament to find out what you missed.

As Jesus predicted, he was betrayed by one of his own disciples, Judas Iscariot, and was arrested. In a mock trial under the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, he was convicted of treason and condemned to die on a wooden cross. Prior to being nailed to the cross, Jesus was brutally beaten with a Roman cat-o’-nine-tails, a whip with bits of bone and metal that would rip flesh. He was punched repeatedly, kicked, and spit upon.

Then, using mallets, the Roman executioners pounded the heavy wrought-iron nails into Jesus' wrists and feet. Finally they dropped the cross in a hole in the ground between two other crosses bearing convicted thieves.

Jesus hung there for approximately six hours. Then, at 3:00 in the afternoon—that is, at exactly the same time the Passover lamb was being sacrificed as a sin offering (a little symbolism there, you think?)—Jesus cried out, “It is finished” (in Aramaic), and died. Suddenly the sky went dark and an earthquake shook the land.9

Pilate wanted verification that Jesus was dead before allowing his crucified body to be buried. So a Roman guard thrust a spear into Jesus' side. The mixture of blood and water that flowed out was a clear indication that Jesus was dead. Jesus' body was then taken down from the cross and buried in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. Roman guards next sealed the tomb, and secured it with a 24-hour watch.

Meanwhile, Jesus' disciples were in shock. Dr. J. P. Moreland explains how devastated and confused they were after Jesus’ death on the cross. “They no longer had confidence that Jesus had been sent by God. They also had been taught that God would not let his Messiah suffer death. So they dispersed. The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks.”10

All hope was vanquished. Rome and the Jewish leaders had prevailed—or so it seemed.

Something Happened

But it wasn't the end. The Jesus movement did not disappear (obviously), and in fact Christianity exists today as the world's largest religion. Therefore, we’ve got to know what happened after Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb.

In a New York Times article, Peter Steinfels cites the startling events that occurred three days after Jesus' death: “Shortly after Jesus was executed, his followers were suddenly galvanized from a baffled and cowering group into people whose message about a living Jesus and a coming kingdom, preached at the risk of their lives, eventually changed an empire. Something happened. … But exactly what?”11 That's the question we have to answer with an investigation into the facts.

There are only five plausible explanations for Jesus' alleged resurrection, as portrayed in the New Testament:

1. Jesus didn't really die on the cross.
2. The “resurrection” was a conspiracy.
3. The disciples were hallucinating.
4. The account is legendary.
5. It really happened.

Let's work our way through these options and see which one best fits the facts.

Was Jesus Dead?

“Marley was deader than a doornail, of that there was no doubt.” So begins Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the author not wanting anyone to be mistaken as to the supernatural character of what is soon to take place. In the same way, before we take on the role of CSI and piece together evidence for a resurrection, we must first establish that there was, in fact, a corpse. After all, occasionally the newspapers will report on some “corpse” in a morgue who was found stirring and recovered. Could something like that have happened with Jesus?

Some have proposed that Jesus lived through the crucifixion and was revived by the cool, damp air in the tomb–“Whoa, how long was I out for?” But that theory doesn’t seem to square with the medical evidence. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association explains why this so-called “swoon theory” is untenable: “Clearly, the weight of historical and medical evidence indicated that Jesus was dead. … The spear, thrust between His right ribs, probably perforated not only the right lung, but also the pericardium and heart and thereby ensured His death.”12 But skepticism of this verdict may be in order, as this case has been cold for 2,000 years. At the very least, we need a second opinion.

One place to find that is in the reports of non-Christian historians from around the time when Jesus lived. Three of these historians mentioned the death of Jesus.

 Lucian (c.120–after 180 A.D. referred to Jesus as a crucified sophist (philosopher).13

 Josephus (c.37–c.100 A.D.) wrote, “At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of amazing deeds. When Pilate condemned him to the cross, the leading men among us, having accused him, those who loved him did not cease to do so.”14

Tacitus (c. 56–c.120 A.D.) wrote, “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty … at the hands of our procurator, Pontius Pilate.”15

This is a bit like going into the archives and finding that on one spring day in the first century, The Jerusalem Post ran a front-page story saying that Jesus was crucified and dead. Not bad detective work, and fairly conclusive.

In fact, there is no historical account from Christians, Romans, or Jews that disputes either Jesus’ death or his burial. Even Crossan, a skeptic of the resurrection, agrees that Jesus really lived and died. “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”16 In light of such evidence, we seem to be on good grounds for dismissing the first of our five options. Jesus was clearly dead, “of that there was no doubt.”

he Matter of An Empty Tomb

No serious historian really doubts Jesus was dead when he was taken down from the cross. However, many have questioned how Jesus’ body disappeared from the tomb. English journalist, Dr. Frank Morison. initially thought the resurrection was either a myth or a hoax, and he began research to write a book refuting it.17 The book became famous but for reasons other than its original intent, as we’ll see.

Morison began by attempting to solve the case of the empty tomb. The tomb belonged to a member of the Sanhedrin Council, Joseph of Arimathea. In Israel at that time, to be on the council was to be a rock star. Everyone knew who was on the council. Joseph must have been a real person. Otherwise, the Jewish leaders would have exposed the story as a fraud in their attempt to disprove the resurrection. Also, Joseph’s tomb would have been at a well-known location and easily identifiable, so any thoughts of Jesus being “lost in the graveyard” would need to be dismissed.

Morison wondered why Jesus’ enemies would have allowed the “empty tomb myth” to persist if it wasn’t true. The discovery of Jesus’ body would have instantly killed the entire plot.

And what is known historically of Jesus’ enemies is that they accused Jesus’ disciples of stealing the body, an accusation clearly predicated on a shared belief that the tomb was empty.

Dr. Paul L. Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, similarly stated, “If all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable … to conclude that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered … that would disprove this statement.”18

The Jewish leaders were stunned, and accused the disciples of stealing Jesus’ body. But the Romans had assigned a 24-hour watch at the tomb with a trained guard unit (from 4 to 12 soldiers). Morison asked, “How could these professionals have let Jesus’ body be vandalized?” It would have been impossible for anyone to have slipped by the Roman guards and to have moved a two-ton stone. Yet the stone was moved away and the body of Jesus was missing.

If Jesus’ body was anywhere to be found, his enemies would have quickly exposed the resurrection as a fraud. Tom Anderson, former president of the California Trial Lawyers Association, summarizes the strength of this argument:

"With an event so well publicized, don’t you think that it’s reasonable that one historian, one eye witness, one antagonist would record for all time that he had seen Christ’s body? … The silence of history is deafening when it comes to the testimony against the resurrection."19

So, with no body of evidence, and with a known tomb clearly empty, Morison accepted the evidence as solid that Jesus’ body had somehow disappeared from the tomb.

Grave Robbing?

As Morison continued his investigation, he began to examine the motives of Jesus’ followers. Maybe the supposed resurrection was actually a stolen body. But if so, how does one account for all the reported appearances of a resurrected Jesus? Historian Paul Johnson, in History of the Jews, wrote, “What mattered was not the circumstances of his death but the fact that he was widely and obstinately believed, by an expanding circle of people, to have risen again.”20

The tomb was indeed empty. But it wasn’t the mere absence of a body that could have galvanized Jesus’ followers (especially if they had been the ones who had stolen it). Something extraordinary must have happened, for the followers of Jesus ceased mourning, ceased hiding, and began fearlessly proclaiming that they had seen Jesus alive.

Each eyewitness account reports that Jesus suddenly appeared bodily to his followers, the women first. Morison wondered why conspirators would make women central to its plot. In the first century, women had virtually no rights, personhood, or status. If the plot was to succeed, Morison reasoned, the conspirators would have portrayed men, not women, as the first to see Jesus alive. And yet we hear that women touched him, spoke with him, and were the first to find the empty tomb.

Later, according to the eyewitness accounts, all the disciples saw Jesus on more than ten separate occasions. They wrote that he showed them his hands and feet and told them to touch him. And he reportedly ate with them and later appeared alive to more than 500 followers on one occasion.

Legal scholar John Warwick Montgomery stated, “In 56 A.D. [the Apostle Paul wrote that over 500 people had seen the risen Jesus and that most of them were still alive (1 Corinthians 15:6ff.). It passes the bounds of credibility that the early Christians could have manufactured such a tale and then preached it among those who might easily have refuted it simply by producing the body of Jesus.”21

Bible scholars Geisler and Turek agree. “If the Resurrection had not occurred, why would the Apostle Paul give such a list of supposed eyewitnesses? He would immediately lose all credibility with his Corinthian readers by lying so blatantly.”22

Peter told a crowd in Caesarea why he and the other disciples were so convinced Jesus was alive.

We apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Israel and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by crucifying him, but God raised him to life three days later….We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
(Acts 10:39-41)

British Bible scholar Michael Green remarked, “The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity. … There can be no rational doubt that they occurred.”23

Consistent to the End

As if the eyewitness reports were not enough to challenge Morison’s skepticism, he was also baffled by the disciples’ behavior. A fact of history that has stumped historians, psychologists, and skeptics alike is that these 11 former cowards were suddenly willing to suffer humiliation, torture, and death. All but one of Jesus’ disciples were slain as martyrs. Would they have done so much for a lie, knowing they had taken the body?

The Islamic martyrs on September 11 proved that some will die for a false cause they believe in. Yet to be a willing martyr for a known lie is insanity. As Paul Little wrote, “Men will die for what they believe to be true, though it may actually be false. They do not, however, die for what they know is a lie.”24 Jesus’ disciples behaved in a manner consistent with a genuine belief that their leader was alive.

No one has adequately explained why the disciples would have been willing to die for a known lie. But even if they all conspired to lie about Jesus’ resurrection, how could they have kept the conspiracy going for decades without at least one of them selling out for money or position? Moreland wrote, “Those who lie for personal gain do not stick together very long, especially when hardship decreases the benefits.”25

Former “hatchet man” of the Nixon administration, Chuck Colson, implicated in the Watergate scandal, pointed out the difficulty of several people maintaining a lie for an extended period of time.

"I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, and then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world—and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible."26

Something happened that changed everything for these men and women. Morison acknowledged, “Whoever comes to this problem has sooner or later to confront a fact that cannot be explained away. … This fact is that … a profound conviction came to the little group of people—a change that attests to the fact that Jesus had risen from the grave.”27

Were the Disciples Hallucinating?

People still think they see a fat, gray-haired Elvis darting into Dunkin Donuts. And then there are those who believe they spent last night with aliens in the mother ship being subjected to unspeakable testing. Sometimes certain people can “see” things they want to, things that aren’t really there. And that’s why some have claimed that the disciples were so distraught over the crucifixion that their desire to see Jesus alive caused mass hallucination. Plausible?

Psychologist Gary Collins, former president of the American Association of Christian Counselors, was asked about the possibility that hallucinations were behind the disciples’ radically changed behavior. Collins remarked, “Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature, only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t something which can be seen by a group of people.”28

Hallucination is not even a remote possibility, according to psychologist Thomas J. Thorburn. “It is absolutely inconceivable that … five hundred persons, of average soundness of mind … should experience all kinds of sensuous impressions—visual, auditory, tactual—and that all these … experiences should rest entirely upon … hallucination.”29

Furthermore, in the psychology of hallucinations, the person would need to be in a frame of mind where they so wished to see that person that their mind contrives it. Two major leaders of the early church, James and Paul, both encountered a resurrected Jesus, neither expecting, or hoping for the pleasure. The Apostle Paul, in fact led the earliest persecutions of Christians, and his conversion remains inexplicable except for his own testimony that Jesus appeared to him, resurrected.

From Lie to Legend

Some unconvinced skeptics attribute the resurrection story to a legend that began with one or more persons lying or thinking they saw the resurrected Jesus. Over time, the legend would have grown and been embellished as it was passed around. In this theory, Jesus’ resurrection is on a par with King Arthur’s round table, little Georgie Washington’s inability to tell a lie, and the promise that Social Security will be solvent when we need it.

But there are three major problems with that theory.

1. Legends rarely develop while multiple eyewitnesses are alive to refute them. One historian of ancient Rome and Greece, A. N. Sherwin-White, argued that the resurrection news spread too soon and too quickly for it to have been a legend. 30

2. Legends develop by oral tradition and don’t come with contemporary historical documents that can be verified. Yet the Gospels were written within three decades of the resurrection.31

3. The legend theory doesn’t adequately explain either the fact of the empty tomb or the historically verified conviction of the apostles that Jesus was alive.32

Why Did Christianity Win?

Morison was bewildered by the fact that “a tiny insignificant movement was able to prevail over the cunning grip of the Jewish establishment, as well as the might of Rome.” Why did it win, in the face of all those odds against it?

He wrote, “Within twenty years, the claim of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish church. … In less than fifty years it had begun to threaten the peace of the Roman Empire. When we have said everything that can be said … we stand confronted with the greatest mystery of all. Why did it win?”33

By all rights, Christianity should have died out at the cross when the disciples fled for their lives. But the apostles went on to establish a growing Christian movement.

J. N. D. Anderson wrote, “Think of the psychological absurdity of picturing a little band of defeated cowards cowering in an upper room one day and a few days later transformed into a company that no persecution could silence—and then attempting to attribute this dramatic change to nothing more convincing than a miserable fabrication. … That simply wouldn’t make sense.”34

Many scholars believe (in the words of an ancient commentator) that “the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.” Historian Will Durant observed, “Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won.”35

A Surprise Conclusion

With myth, hallucination, and a flawed autopsy ruled out, with incontrovertible evidence for an empty tomb, with a substantial body of eyewitnesses to his reappearance, and with the inexplicable transformation and impact upon the world of those who claimed to have seen him, Morison became convinced that his preconceived bias against Jesus Christ’s resurrection had been wrong. He began writing a different book—entitled Who Moved the Stone?—to detail his new conclusions. Morison simply followed the trail of evidence, clue by clue, until the truth of the case seemed clear to him. His surprise was that the evidence led to a belief in the resurrection.

In his first chapter, “The Book That Refused to Be Written,” this former skeptic explained how the evidence convinced him that Jesus’ resurrection was an actual historical event. “It was as though a man set out to cross a forest by a familiar and well-beaten track and came out suddenly where he did not expect to come out.”36

Morison is not alone. Countless other skeptics have examined the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, and accepted it as the most astounding fact in all of human history. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ raises the question: What does the fact that Jesus defeated death have to do with my life? The answer to that question is what New Testament Christianity is all about.

Did Jesus Say What Happens After we Die?

If Jesus really did rise from the dead, then he alone must know what is on the other side. What did Jesus say about the meaning of life and our future? Are there many ways to God or did Jesus claim to be the only way? Read the startling answers in “Why Jesus.” -Y-Jesus (http://y-jesus.com/body_count1.php)

Click here to read “Why Jesus” and discover what Jesus said about life after death.

Endnotes

1. Paul Edwards, “Great Minds: Bertrand Russell,” Free Inquiry, December 2004/January 2005, 46.
2. R. C. Sproul, Reason to Believe (Grand Rapids, MI: Lamplighter, 1982), 44.
3. Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s     Life, 1999), 203.
4. Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), 16.
5. Joseph Campbell, an interview with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, PBS TV special, 1988.
6. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, eds, Jesus Under Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 2.
7. “What Is a Skeptic?” editorial in Skeptic, vol 11, no. 2), 5.
8. Wilbur M. Smith, A Great Certainty in This Hour of World Crises (Wheaton, ILL: Van Kampen Press, 1951), 10, 11
9. Historian Will Durant reported, “About the middle of this first century a pagan named Thallus … argued that the abnormal darkness alleged to have accompanied the death of Christ was a purely natural phenomenon and coincidence; the argument took the existence of Christ for granted. The denial of that existence never seems to have occurred even to the bitterest gentile or Jewish opponents of nascent Christianity.” Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, vol. 3 of The Story of Civilization (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), 555.
10. Quoted in J. P. Moreland interview, Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 246.
11. Peter Steinfels, “Jesus Died—And Then What Happened?” New York Times, April 3, 1988, E9.
12. William D. Edwards, M.D., et al., “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association 255:11, March 21, 1986.
13. Lucian, Peregrinus Proteus.
14. Josephus, Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, 18. 63, 64. [Although portions of Josephus’ comments about Jesus have been disputed, this reference to Pilate condemning him to the cross is deemed authentic by most scholars.]
15. Tacitus, Annals, 15, 44. In Great Books of the Western World, ed. By Robert Maynard Hutchins, Vol. 15, The Annals and The Histories by Cornelius Tacitus (Chicago: William Benton, 1952).
16. Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2004), 49.
17. Frank Morison, Who Moved the Stone? (Grand Rapids, MI: Lamplighter, 1958), 9.
18. Paul L. Maier, Independent Press Telegram, Long Beach, CA: April 21, 1973.
19. Quoted in Josh McDowell, The Resurrection Factor (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life, 1981), 66.
20. Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 130.
21. John W. Montgomery, History and Christianity (Downers Grove, ILL: InterVarsity Press, 1971), 78.
22. Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 243.
23. Michael Green, The Empty Cross of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984), 97, quoted in John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Knowing the Truth about the Resurrection (Eugene, OR: Harvest House), 22.
24. Paul Little, Know Why You Believe (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1967), 44.
25. J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2000), 172.
26. Charles Colson, “The Paradox of Power,” Power to Change, www.powertochange.ie/changed/index_Leaders.
27. Morison, 104.
28. Gary Collins quoted in Strobel, 238.
29. Thomas James Thorburn, The Resurrection Narratives and Modern Criticism (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1910.), 158, 159.
30. Sherwin-White, Roman Society, 190.
31. Habermas and Licona, 85.
32. Habermas and Licona, 87.
33. Morison, 115.
34. J. N. D. Anderson, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” Christianity Today, 12. April, 1968.
35. Durant, Caesar and Christ, 652.
36. Morison, 9.-04