The world has been on the verge of ending ever since people decided it was on the verge of ending, which probably happened when we were Neanderthals wondering why it took so long to figure out how to make fire. The history of apocalypse prophecy is, quite literally, a bottomless pit. The 21st century is no exception, especially for those who were convinced we would never make it past 2000 or 2001. What is particularly ludicrous is the prediction that the world will end at a specific point in time. This says as much about the gullibility of our species as it does about the duplicity of certain self-proclaimed prophets. Forget Ezekiel and the wheel or Daniel in the lion’s den: every era has its doom sayers. Take October 22, 1844, for example, which was only a few months after Joseph Smith (the prophet of Mormonism) was murdered at age 38. On this October day more than a century and a half ago perhaps as many as 100,000 God-fearing Protestant folk had given up their earthly possessions and quite a few joined Miller on a hill waiting for Jesus to come and greet them. The Mormons believe that Jesus came to Missouri, but it seems he skipped Rev. Miller’s venue.

There are quite a few doom-mongers to choose from, some like Harold Camping of relatively high media renown, but let’s focus on an internet prophet named Ronald Weinland. In 2006 he published a book saying that the world would end in 2008. As you can see in the cold print below, the United States has ceased to exist as an independent nation, at least as far as the prophet could see.

In the revised blurb on the current website (noted below), it seems (in case you did not know it) that the end has already come. The trumpet sounded on December 12, 2008. Perhaps it sounded louder near Wall Street than anywhere else in America. I suppose that for some doom-mongers, the idea of a black man (and a stealth Muslim born in Kenya as has been Donald Trumped at us) being elected as president is as potent a sign of the Day of Judgment for White Fundamentalist thunderers as any other. So now the real end, really, is forecast for Pentecost 2013. This is too bad for Mitt Romney, even if he does manage to pull off a victory as the first Mormon to sit in the White House. But then some of the more devout Mormons no doubt have their own date for the end of it all and the return visit of Jesus to America.

Prophet Weinland has his Armageddon scenario (in which 200 million people will die in one day), the trumpet plagues of Revelation and all that beasty boys and gory revelatory stuff in his warning. But at least he does not single out Islam as the only Satanic regime: no, rather it is all other religions (even the ones not mentioned, of course) except for the one he belongs to and that is “the” Church of God.

Don’t say you weren’t warned, over and over and over and over again. You can count on it, over and over and over and over again. And if a giant meteor crashes into earth and destroys human life as we know it, be assured that somewhere on it there will be a label that says “Manufactured in Heaven.”