Post-rapture wrap-up: Christians in the skeptic's seat

Well, the Rapture has come and gone with much more of a whimper than a bang, and while it was painfully obvious what was going to happen, I think that there are two important points to bring up about this from the atheist/skeptic perspective. First of all, this makes a great teachable moment for mainstream religion. The contempt for Camping's irrationality is the same sort of contempt that atheists have for mainstream religion. With that said, the second point is that skeptics reject the rapture claim because it's something they logically examine, instead of something just dismissed out of faith.

1. A lesson for Christians about how it feels to be an Atheist

The vast majority of people, even Christians, believed that these May 21st rapturites were crazies. To atheists, this was amusing and strange, after all the average Christian believes in The Rapture. They believe that everything Camping claimed would happen was true, they just disagreed on the specific claim of the date (dateism) and the ability to know the date (gnosticism). To sum up, most Christians were in the position of Agnotic Adateists, while Camping was a Gnostic Dateist. They were carefully hesitant to believe in a faith-driven claim.

For this fringe group, the mainstream christians got thrust into the position usually taken up by Atheists. They knew that these claims had no merit, had no evidence behind them, and they took a position very similar to atheism about that specific claim. Now, they dressed it up with verses about "false prophets" and "no man can know the date" but the reality is that they'd have rejected those claims even without those verses. The verses were just an excuse to support their own skepticism. Of course, it's too bad that they can't just cite their own rational thinking, but must hide their disbelief behind the guise of having even better faith, but that's another topic. The fact is, that these people accepted that it wasn't good enough to accept a claim based on faith or divination. They needed more. And that's what we atheists say all the time.

That's exactly how atheists feel about most christians. Atheist feel that most christians are just believing in some person's word on faith without any reason or evidence. We feel that the divination happening now or 2000 years ago doesn't matter. It's still silly to believe in.

Interestingly enough, mainstream Christians didn't stop at just ignoring or dismissing Camping's belief, but they thought it was bad enough to deserve scorn, ridicule, anger and frustration. Now sure, many Christians were emotionally sympathetic, and many Christians were just trying to distance their own beliefs from "the real crazies", but the fact remains that many people thought this was ridiculous, and heaped on the scorn and teasing. Or they got angry and Camping stealing life savings to support his mansion and cars along with the billboards and bus ads. They were disappointed with the wayward believers, and they were angry with the stolen money lining this liar's pockets. But of course, this is how we atheists feel about the mainstream religion's manipulation of purse strings. And of course the everyday church budget all across the nation, wasting money on adverts, radio shows, mission trips, buildings, full salaried positions, mansions, expensive cars, etc. every day at every street corner. We are upset with the huge evangelists stealing and wasting people's lifesavings (albeit a small amount at a time) on a lie and a falsehood. It makes us upset to see people so manipulated and exploited, and we are angry at the perpetrators and frustrated with the gullible. The only difference is that the specific date wasn't a mainstream adaptation, and that it was visibly and suddenly demonstrated to be wrong (as opposed to the gradual realization that 6-day creationism is wrong, for example). The atheist position is to be frustrated by these sorts of claims that affect lives, and now many Christians have gotten a taste of what it's like with this highly publicized but clearly wrong faction of Christianity.

With that point said, I'd like to make an aside:

I am rather sure that nobody affected by the rapture letdown will read this post, but if you do, know that everyone makes mistakes. When you believe things on faith alone, there's no way to filter out the rational from the irrational. That is why we skeptics do not believe things on faith. We want evidence and reason. It was faith, not you, who made this mistake. It was the world who told you that believing things for no reason is a virtue. It was the religion who manipulated you and used that to take your money. You are already suffering enough. Now that you've been shown to be wrong, take the time to mourn, and when you're ready come join us in the rational camp.

Continue with Point 2: Skeptics and doubt.