What happens to a doomsday cult when the world doesn't end?

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Slate:

Preacher and evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping has announced that Jesus Christ will return to Earth this Saturday, May 21, and many of his followers are traveling the country in preparation for the weekend Rapture. They're undeterred, it seems, by Mr. Camping's dodgy track record with end-of-the-world predictions. (Years ago, he argued at length that the reckoning would come in 1994.) We've yet to learn what motivates people like him to predict (and predict again) the end of the world, but there's a long and unexpected psychological literature on how the faithful make sense of missed appointments with the apocalypse.

The most famous study into doomsday mix-ups was published in a 1956 book by renowned psychologist Leon Festinger and his colleagues called When Prophecy Fails. A fringe religious group called the Seekers had made the papers by predicting that a flood was coming to destroy the West Coast. The group was led by an eccentric but earnest lady called Dorothy Martin, given the pseudonym Marian Keech in the book, who believed that superior beings from the planet Clarion were communicating to her through automatic writing. They told her they had been monitoring Earth and would arrive to rescue the Seekers in a flying saucer before the cataclysm struck.

Festinger was fascinated by how we deal with information that fails to match up to our beliefs, and suspected that we are strongly motivated to resolve the conflict—a state of mind he called "cognitive dissonance." He wanted a clear-cut case with which to test his fledgling ideas, so decided to follow Martin's group as the much vaunted date came and went. Would they give up their closely held beliefs, or would they work to justify them even in the face of the most brutal contradiction?

The Seekers abandoned their jobs, possessions, and spouses to wait for the flying saucer, but neither the aliens nor the apocalypse arrived. After several uncomfortable hours on the appointed day, Martin received a "message" saying that the group "had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction." The group responded by proselytizing with a renewed vigour. According to Festinger, they resolved the intense conflict between reality and prophecy by seeking safety in numbers. "If more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly, it must, after all, be correct."

When Prophecy Fails has become a landmark in the history of psychology, but few realize that many other studies have looked at the same question: What happens to a small but dedicated group of people who wait in vain for the end of the world? Ironically, Festinger's own prediction—that a failed apocalypse leads to a redoubling of recruitment efforts—turned out to be false: Not one of these follow-ups found evidence to support his claim. The real story turns out to be far more complex.

What Festinger failed to understand is that prophecies, per se, almost never fail. They are instead component parts of a complex and interwoven belief system which tends to be very resilient to challenge from outsiders. While the rest of us might focus on the accuracy of an isolated claim as a test of a group's legitimacy, those who are part of that group—and already accept its whole theology—may not be troubled by what seems to them like a minor mismatch. A few people might abandon the group, typically the newest or least-committed adherents, but the vast majority experience little cognitive dissonance and so make only minor adjustments to their beliefs. They carry on, often feeling more spiritually enriched as a result.
________

A group of kooks who thought that the world was going to end in 1843 wound up becoming the Seventh Day Adventists. Never let it be said that doomsday cults don't have staying power.

[AceRimmer]

All I have to do is recall the 'Heaven's Gate' cult and remember what kooks these clowns are...

[Evad]

....and maybe the Rapture did occur and there was nobody worth taking.

[clearvision]

Ouch.

[righteousmomma]

Sorry for being so late posting here but real life has interceded so am now getting caught up.

 

Re this article ( the false prophet's prediction aside) -2 comments the author at SLATE made aroused my interest in his worldview and perspective on Christianity and the Bible because of the source he writes for:

 

First he wrote:

 

We've yet to learn what motivates people like him to predict (and predict again) the end of the world, but there's a long and unexpected psychological literature on how the faithful make sense of missed appointments with the apocalypse.

 

DING DING DING

 

For those not waiting for the world to end in a storm of fire and light it is easy to write off the believers as deluded, but Festinger was not so wide of the mark when he suggested that we adapt to even the most unlikely of contradictions using nothing more than our methods of everyday rationalization. The faithful could just as easily be those who stubbornly stand by disgraced politicians, failed ideologies, dishonest friends, or cheating spouses, even when reality highlights the clearest of inconsistencies. Armageddon is unlikely to arrive this weekend, but most of us have lived through it many times before

 

DING DING DING!!

Now historically and traditionally for all peoples worldwide

IF one believes "For God so loved the world that....."

 

and IF one believes Jesus said He Himself is The Way, The Truth and The Life and that NO ONE comes to the Father except through Him and IF one truly believes He WAS Resurrected and ascended and then sent the Gift of the Holy Spirit into individuals who accept and receive and believe on Him then one has to believe in the 2nd Coming.

 

IFone believes the Bible to be inspired by God to tell us how to relate to Him and NOT just a book of myths and fables that tell us man's quest to find "God" then....

 

either Jesus was a liar or a lunatic or who He said He was/is.

 

He did say we are not to know the exact time He would return but we can watch the "seasons" and certain events and for certain signs and that HE would return

 

Now one can be a DISPENSATIONALIST PRE MILLENNIALIST, an HISTORICAL PRE MILLENNIALIST, a POST MILLENNIALIST, an AMILLENNIALIST, a pre, mid or non rapturist but one still has to believe in eschatology. One can be any Denomination or an Independent or a non Denomination or a kook or a Bible Scholar

 

But one cannot psychoanalyze the Bible and the prophets' words and then a millenium or 2 later the words of Jesus and then afterwards the words of Paul and Peter and John and a score of others away.

 

One cannot turn them into a study of evolutionary brain/mind development. Either they were speaking truth or deluded fools.

 

So I googled this guy:

 

I am a clinical and research psychologist interested in understanding brain injury, mental distress and psychological impairment. I’m currently working for Médecins sans Frontières (specifically Médicos sin Fronteras España) as mental health coordinator for Colombia. I have the honour of being an international member of the ’Chair of Psychopathology and Clinical Psychiatry Professor Germán Berrios’ at the Departamento de Psiquiatría, Hospital Universitario San Vicente de Paúl and the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. I am additionally honoured to be a visiting Senior Research Fellow here, at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.

 

So what??!!, you might ask. Well, think about it. Black (hue) versus white (hue), darkness versus light, evil versus good, hate versus love, truth versus lie, absolute versus situational, liberal versus conservative, atheism (literally "without God") versus Theism, Existentialism versus Fundamental Biblical Precepts and Principles, science versus Faith, secularism versus Faith, psychology versus Faith, man versus God.

 

We and our children become subtly and without realizing it influenced and affected and effected by the fine guise of humanist socialist teaching by the "intellectual elites" of every era.

Still same old same old.

 

Sorry for the long rant but I see the ramifications everywhere.

[Pepper]

Harold Camping : Sets New Doomsday Date

 

Rapture now scheduled for October 21

 

It was a mascilculation. Aynone can make en arror. It is hugh but not vey series.

[righteousmomma]

Harold Camping : Sets New Doomsday Date

 

Rapture now scheduled for October 21

 

It was a mascilculation. Aynone can make en arror. It is hugh but not vey series.

Of curse, repant! repant! wulf is cumin'

[pollyannaish]

Sorry for being so late posting here but real life has interceded so am now getting caught up.

 

Re this article ( the false prophet's prediction aside) -2 comments the author at SLATE made aroused my interest in his worldview and perspective on Christianity and the Bible because of the source he writes for:

 

First he wrote:

 

We've yet to learn what motivates people like him to predict (and predict again) the end of the world, but there's a long and unexpected psychological literature on how the faithful make sense of missed appointments with the apocalypse.

 

DING DING DING

 

For those not waiting for the world to end in a storm of fire and light it is easy to write off the believers as deluded, but Festinger was not so wide of the mark when he suggested that we adapt to even the most unlikely of contradictions using nothing more than our methods of everyday rationalization. The faithful could just as easily be those who stubbornly stand by disgraced politicians, failed ideologies, dishonest friends, or cheating spouses, even when reality highlights the clearest of inconsistencies. Armageddon is unlikely to arrive this weekend, but most of us have lived through it many times before

 

DING DING DING!!

Now historically and traditionally for all peoples worldwide

IF one believes "For God so loved the world that....."

 

and IF one believes Jesus said He Himself is The Way, The Truth and The Life and that NO ONE comes to the Father except through Him and IF one truly believes He WAS Resurrected and ascended and then sent the Gift of the Holy Spirit into individuals who accept and receive and believe on Him then one has to believe in the 2nd Coming.

 

IFone believes the Bible to be inspired by God to tell us how to relate to Him and NOT just a book of myths and fables that tell us man's quest to find "God" then....

 

either Jesus was a liar or a lunatic or who He said He was/is.

 

He did say we are not to know the exact time He would return but we can watch the "seasons" and certain events and for certain signs and that HE would return

 

Now one can be a DISPENSATIONALIST PRE MILLENNIALIST, an HISTORICAL PRE MILLENNIALIST, a POST MILLENNIALIST, an AMILLENNIALIST, a pre, mid or non rapturist but one still has to believe in eschatology. One can be any Denomination or an Independent or a non Denomination or a kook or a Bible Scholar

 

But one cannot psychoanalyze the Bible and the prophets' words and then a millenium or 2 later the words of Jesus and then afterwards the words of Paul and Peter and John and a score of others away.

 

One cannot turn them into a study of evolutionary brain/mind development. Either they were speaking truth or deluded fools.

 

So I googled this guy:

 

I am a clinical and research psychologist interested in understanding brain injury, mental distress and psychological impairment. I’m currently working for Médecins sans Frontières (specifically Médicos sin Fronteras España) as mental health coordinator for Colombia. I have the honour of being an international member of the ’Chair of Psychopathology and Clinical Psychiatry Professor Germán Berrios’ at the Departamento de Psiquiatría, Hospital Universitario San Vicente de Paúl and the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. I am additionally honoured to be a visiting Senior Research Fellow here, at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.

 

So what??!!, you might ask. Well, think about it. Black (hue) versus white (hue), darkness versus light, evil versus good, hate versus love, truth versus lie, absolute versus situational, liberal versus conservative, atheism (literally "without God") versus Theism, Existentialism versus Fundamental Biblical Precepts and Principles, science versus Faith, secularism versus Faith, psychology versus Faith, man versus God.

 

We and our children become subtly and without realizing it influenced and affected and effected by the fine guise of humanist socialist teaching by the "intellectual elites" of every era.

Still same old same old.

 

Sorry for the long rant but I see the ramifications everywhere.

 

Nice rant! Humanism pops up all the time...even out of my own mouth and mind. We are so conditioned by it all around us, it is often difficult to realize it. What is funny though, is how much faith their is in all elements of science. It is a fundamental part of being human...and yet humanists don't recognize it as being legitimate. As I say to my children...to much thinkin' can mess you up as bad as not enough.