World doesn’t end, despite group’s predictions

As of Thursday morning, the world did not come to an end. In itself, that fact is not newsworthy — unless you’re a member of the eBible Fellowship, an online gathering of Christians headquartered in Philadelphia whose leader and founder Chris McCann insisted on Tuesday the world would be wiped out “forever” (and, for good measure, “with fire”) the very next day.

“According to what the Bible is presenting, it does appear that 7 October will be the day that God has spoken of: in which the world will pass away,” McCann told the Guardian.

Earth will be “gone forever. Annihilated,” he added ominously.

But as McCann himself acknowledged this week, the October 7 deadline was based on a prediction that has been wrong before. Twice.

(In fairness, McCann was apparently not among those who anticipated the end of the world on September 27-28, when the so-called “blood moon” prompted several apocalyptic warnings and subsequent NASA reassurances.)

“The expectation of the world ending this fall stems from an earlier prediction by Harold Camping, a Christian radio host who was based in California,” The Guardian reported. Camping told listeners of his radio station, Family Radio, that the world would end on May 21, 2011, and then — when nothing happened — switched doomsday to a new date that October.

McCann thinks May 21, 2011, actually was a significant date — “judgment day” — from which point God counted 1,600 days to decide which nonbelievers to save, in addition to previously selected believers. Those 1,600 days, by McCann’s count, ended Wednesday; hence the imminent apocalypse.

Except he wasn’t completely sure.

“There’s a strong likelihood that this will happen,” McCann said, then acknowledged: “Which means there’s an unlikely possibility that it will not.”

Life, McCann presumably learned upon waking up Thursday morning to a world that evidence suggests is still very much in existence, can be full of surprises.

Phew.