Camping: Where Did This Crusty Curmudgeon Come From?

Was it man, woman, plant, hatchery, outer space or is he the missing link?

Answer: From religion and in his case, more specifically the Christian Church. And what is so frightening is, there are many more like him, including most of us!

A Wikipedia Biography:

Harold Egbert Camping (born July 19, 1921), in Colorado and moved at an early age to California.[when?] He earned a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley (1942).[2] He and his family were members of the Christian Reformed Church until 1988. During this time he served as an elder and Sunday school teacher at the Alameda Bible Fellowship.[citation needed]

In 1958, Camping joined with other individuals of Christian Reformed, Bible Baptist, and conservative-Christian Presbyterian backgrounds to purchase an FM radio station in San Francisco, California, KEAR, then at 97.3 MHz, to broadcast traditional Christian Gospel to the conservative Protestant community and minister to the general public.[9] Through the 1960s, Family Radio acquired six additional FM stations and seven other AM stations under guidelines established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).[10]

Almost everyday, I think about my religious brothers and sisters, particularly the ones who believe that I have become apostate, a heretic, simply have lost it or was never truly saved in the first place. Some even believe that I simply backslid and am bitter, when neither of the two is true, I simply moved forward. On the other hand I also consider my religious brothers and sisters of all faiths, sects, denominations and persuasions, with love mind you, while wondering how do I, or others, get them to wake up. Why?

When I consider all of what has come out of religion from let's say, the Common Era:,to be frank, I can't see where most religious organizations or groups have progressed any further than a second grade reading level. And 2,000 years later, most religious groups that I know of for sure haven't advanced beyond a second grade reading level if that. I believe that if Jesus, Mohammed … were present today, they would agree. Remember, Jesus explained to his disciples, that they would do greater things, and that a spirit of truth (perhaps knowledge) would come to guide them. Well, if everyone has that spirit, what happened, and how do you explain that the religious world is the most divided of them. And speaking of greater things, he must have meant for one to have the ability to call down fire from heaven (hellfire for example), to kill individuals who did not see things as they do!

Reformed means, to do over again. Reverend Camping came out of a reformed church. So he came out of a group that reformed from another one, and Reverend Camping left his reformed church. Wait, my head is spinning. Why do religious groups that keep reforming them, always end up in the same place, that of being reformed themselves. Protestant churches are not the only guilty institutions. Western religions, as far as the universal Catholic church is concerned are protestant organizations. And what are they protesting? Well they are protesting the Catholic belief system, one that they did not have the power to reform. So one either reforms the existing institution or they split, pun intended!

What is my point did you say? The religious world, if you permit me to use this example, has been making an effort to reform itself all along. I am not doing anything new, except to say that religion needs to move beyond incremental reform. Instead, religion needs a forklift upgrade, because the inch-worm approach to reform is not working.

The religious world, throughout history, has been resistant to change, and that can be dangerous. Jesus was not killed, merely for political reasons, other than the politics of religion. Jesus was slain, for all intents and purposes given the encouragement of religious zealots, the ones who resisted reform and change. Frankly, the politicians found him guilty of doing nothing wrong. Jesus was a change-agent, that is what he was guilty of, similar to what change agents have experienced all along, and all to often finding themselves in direct confrontation with a religious organization. The latter could end i n sudden death.

Abel, of the canon, son of Adam and Eve, was reportedly slain because of a denominational difference, that resulted in his killing his brother. In other words Cain disagreed. with respect to how God was to be worshiped. And not only are the major religious groups doing the same thing today, killing their brothers and sisters who see things a bit differently than they do, individual religious adherents of various religious groups and faiths are still killing each other. Fatwah, Jihad, Crusade, the Klan ...

Simply consider what happens when individuals meet from vying religious groups, even interdenominational ones. From the onset, judgment is passed upon the other, even when they disagree over one point. The final result is that the other is placed at a distance, which is enough to render their counterpart dead. Often, one or both, will circumscribe and finally distance themselves from the other, which is the death knoll. Not one word will have to be uttered, the right look is enough to render a brother or sister dead, in the eyes of his or her fellow human beings.

Reverend Camping, as far as I know ,was not produced inside of a Nazi Death Camp, neither was he member of the Third Reich. He wasn't raised in the Klan, or in some other hate group like the American Republican Party, oops, shouldn't have said that, okay, the Tea Party then! Reverend Camping was raised in the Christian Church. Get it, it was the institutional church that produced this man. And guess what? He is not the only one, there are many like him who were raised in Christianity who behave much as he has done over the past few months. In fact, most religious people are like him in this sense: I and my group are right, and the others are wrong, they believe.
.

Now here is the conundrum, given that most religious groups, but not all, think and believe this way, especially about their followers of God no less, and that they have a monopoly on the truth, then they are no better than the Good Reverend. Have you ever had to deal with 2 of your bickering siblings, who you believe should get along with each other because they are siblings? Have you finally understood that it is not axiomatic, that they will get along given that they have the same bloodlines. Isn't it amazing that all of the individuals on the planet who believe that they are in touch 'the deity', can't get along with each other, or individuals within their own religious-hate group.

Folks, this is what Karl Marx was talking about. Oh, I know what you're thinking. You are thinking, does he know who Karl Marx is, and, he calls himself a minister? And the next step is that you will dismiss me too. But here is what everyone I believe needs to do, particularly religious people, that is to stop for a minute and just consider how much you are just like Reverend Camping.

Am I an apologist for the good Reverend? Well why not, given that he is just like most dyed-in-the wool religious people that I know of and have read about. And having said that, not all religious people are dyed-in-the wool sycophants, that cannot be reasoned with. Typically, they are accused of not being authentic because they are smart enough to carry a sufficient amount of doubt.

But what is it that they are in doubt about, is the question? Typically, the latter group knows that wherever humans are involved, that you have to have a sufficient amount of doubt. Why? Or, you can be easily misled by nice men like the Reverend and other religious … pied-pipers.

Can you trust me? Yes, you can trust me to tell you that I believe, but I really don't know if everything that I was ever taught is true or not. Sacrilege, yes, I know, but let's move on! Frankly, I know that the source of my training and the trainers were human and therefore capable of making mistakes.

On the other part, their counterparts are arrogant enough to believe that whatever they believe or have read with their own eyes, or have been taught by someone that they like or agree with must be right. I also know that history and religion, are both tricky!

Doubters, scrutinizers take your pick, recognize that good people are capable of misunderstanding, misinterpreting, misunderstanding, miscalculating ideas and things, even with the best of intentions in mind. If the human race will continue to advance at all, I suspect that what we will eventually have to do is to (don't be shocked), is to move out and beyond religion and simply seek after what is real). In other words, religion will become one tool and the toolbox, and we use all that is available to help us to to search for and to connect with what is real.

And I don't doubt that some individuals already have done so, and if we were to approach them, they would likely explain that it took more than religion to help them to get where they are, and that they knew better than to attempt to explain what they knew to a religious person, person or groups.

Am I saying that we should have doubts? The answer is yes, just as some of the Holy books have said that we should put any confidence in the flesh, or the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful. Why? Too much of what we know today, comes from translated and often mistranslated texts, and people who thought that flying machines were to be worshiped.

t what it is, and since we can see that much of our central learning has come from translations by and of imperfect people, derived from imperfect people – then we ought to be able to have a shadow of doubt about what we have learned, and move forward into discovery.

Folks, if all that we are is a group of people, who like Reverend Camping are waiting for someone to zoom in, beam us up to the Mother Ship and to subsequently destroy our brothers and sisters, because we believe that somehow we are any better than them, it would appear that we are still stuck in old time religion. 


I believe that what we refer to and think of when we refer to God, the Supreme Being …, take your pick is far greater than what we have been permitted to believe or to understand, as a result of old time, and reformed religion. Reverend Camping then is not alone then, in terms of being a fallacious prognosticator.

What would be the payoff 'that would come about if we permitted ourselves to advance and understand advancements', perhaps it is already nere? I suspect that the following would occur: We would eliminate selfishness, and too much of being self-absorbed. And if we were to do that and along with it eliminate the need to be that we were the only one that was right, all of us might grow and perhaps learn to live in peace and to better the earth. After all, where does hate derive from typically? The answer is from religion!.

Ergo, to answer the question again, where did this crusty octogenarian fossil, Reverend Camping come from? He came from the same place, and still attending the same school that most of us did, from religion and the religious school. The question is: Have we learned anything, for I have heard things that are far more preposterous than what the good Reverend has had to say. And if you are wondering whether I like the man or not, I do. How could I not like him, I am a part of the religious world that created him!

Respectfully,