“I’m currently being taken up … Ooo, feels so weird! Oh wait, sorry. My bad. I was just in an elevator.”
This was one of the many tweets posted on Twitter on Sunday after the world failed to end and no one was “raptured” - ascended to heaven before the end of the world - which US evangelist Harold Camping, 89, had predicted would happen at 6pm on Saturday.
“Wonder if the peeps that spent their life savings and sold their houses etc have a plan B?” asked one tweeter, while another advised: “If rapture people feel really upset, we can always console them by saying: ‘It’s not the end of the world.’”
One feigned disappointment at “not seeing a man from mars eating cars”, while another poked fun at a friend: “Anthony hiya. Guess u still here. Still living in sin.”
Someone, apparently from the US’s Nasa, was a little peeved that they had been overshadowed: “If only Nasa got half the media attention of the rapture nonsense. We actually do take people up into the sky.”
One person bemoaned the fact that the event had not happened: “Non-believers should be gutted, too. It was an opportunity to rid the planet of a bunch of idiots.”
Camping, who predicted the world would end on May 21, is not part of the main “rapture movement” that has taken off in the US, as this group sets no specific date when the “rapture” will happen, according to Jim Cochrane, a professor of religious studies at UCT.
Cochrane said on Sunday the “rapture idea” was very much a contemporary phenomenon, and did not form part of mainstream Christianity. - Cape Times