Should Harold Camper be returning all the money to the people who gave it away or gave it to him?

Did you mean Happy Camper? Oh….Harold Camping!! lol

Yes, he should, but he won’t. None of the evangelists who have duped people over the years ever have had to give money back (that I know of….but I am sure someone in the Fluther will know if someone did.)

And the media was simply doing what it always does…covering a crazy story that drove ratings up. It’s no different than following the new saga of the “How many babies did Arnold really father?” story which hit the press here in the UK yesterday.

I

@DarlingRhadamanthus Shouldn’t there be some change in the law? It is just fraud plain and simple. He did it already in 1994 no?

We all have the responsibility to do the research on the individual, group, etc. we give donations to before it is handed over. As sad as it is, the people who financially funded Harold Camper didn’t have a gun at their head when they wrote out the check.

@Pied_Pfeffer Some people are just not capable. That s the whole thing. Protection of children, animals, is because they are not capable.

Those who allow themselves to be duped by whackos should not expect compensation for being morons.

@flo….What law would we change? And then someone would have to prove that he knew that nothing was going to happen. The only way this would be viable would be for someone who had knowledge that this was all a scam and was near to him…to come forward and tell.

But what if Mr Camping_truly believed_ that the world was going to end on May 21st? Can you sue someone for a “belief” even if that belief led others to believe the same?

It would be a very sticky situation. Not impossible but a big mess. And do you really want more regulations? I live in the UK where you need a regulation to walk out of your own house every day. What sort of law would you pass? You are not allowed to talk about the end of the world? You are not allowed to talk about the “Second Coming”?

There are a lot of apocalyptic visionaries out there right now…and not all of them are fundamentalist Christians. There are the Mayan 2012 people, the Comet Elenin people, the climate change is going to get us and we are all doomed people…will they also be clamped down on in this regulation?

I don’t favour stopping preachers from preaching whatever they believe. I don’t want any one to mess around with free speech. Free speech is not the problem. Ignorance and lack of discernment for the truth is the problem.

Someone could come up to me and tell me that if I didn’t wear purple knickers on a Tuesday, my life would end. Would I believe them? No, I wouldn’t. Why? Because I have the gift of discernment. I am quite aware that this is hogwash.

The problem is that we live in a world that is so infested with fear people cannot make up their own minds anymore. That’s what we have to work on…eliminating fear not eliminating crazy preachers.

Fear is what is driving people to believe these lunatics. Fear and desperation.

Don’t regulate or pass laws to prohibit or inhibit free speech. Get people live more balanced lives and _tell them to turn off the TV once in a while_and learn to get real.

He just moved the date. http://www.metafilter.com/103827/The-End-of-the-World-Is-still-At-Hand

Unfortunately being a shit-head is forever.

@johnpowell…Are you kidding me?

(Just read your link..you are not kidding me.)

Well, isn’t it interesting that his new date coincides with the general estimated arrival of a comet in our solar system. All we need now are people praying for the comet to hit us so this man can be vindicated and Jesus can come soon.

This “mind control” stuff is what is the most debilitating and heinous aspect of this whole thing….using the mind and prayers to bring about the Apocalypse is just ignorance to the nth degree. The same preachers who condemn “magic and soothsayers” are exactly doing that…practicing magic and prophesying the end of the world.

Go figure.

No.

It’s like asking if banks should let those millions of idiots keep their homes that were foreclosed because they didn’t read the documents prior to signing and then borrowed money that could not be paid back. Take some personally responsibility or you get what you deserve.

An incapable person would be incapable of giving money. Children and animals don’t have money to give.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vj8-_jhFAA <—Some crazy fucking shit right there.

And now the crazies have have a new date to kill more pets and children. Camping needs to be tossed in a hole before he does more damage.

I had no idea who the hell he was until I saw his mug on the news recently.
Puts me in mind of the scary preacher dude in Poltergeist 2….“God is in, is holy temp…..le!”

@johnpowell That last link is just awful. What in the hell is wrong with these people?

To answer the question, it’s not going to happen. What I don’t understand is how all of the people who fell for it aren’t pissed off, and trying to kill the dude.

A fool and their money are easily parted. You can’t legislate against that.

Duh.

I just don’t blame the duped. Some people just don’t have the wherewithal to figure out things. I don’t know what should happen but something should.

How about the ads infommercials with fake doctors? That is the crazy cookoo

@DarlingRhadamanthus ”eliminating fear not eliminating crazy preachers.

Fear is what is driving people to believe these lunatics. Fear and desperation.”
Okay but how is that going to be done? Using the media? Media is full of crazy garbagy stuff.

How about the ads/infommercials with fake doctors endorsing products?

@flo….I said to TURN OFF THE TELEVISION….turn off the media. Get back to what’s real. I never, ever said “use the media to conquer your fear.”

No one takes time to just sit and BE. To just sit and listen to the “Still small voice” within. That’s where the answers are….not on CNN or MSNBC, or Lady Gaga or MTV.

People are fearful because they spend time only watching TV…not reading, not meditating, not praying (well, positive prayer). And they have lost their ability to discern truth from fiction.

I never said to use the media.

Your empathy for people is admirable. Please just understand that there is a line that needs to be drawn where those in dire financial straights because of their poor choices. In a case like Harold Camper, there is no reason that anyone who has heard his message should not have the resources to investigate further.

I don’t know about you, but I have friends that are very religious and some that are not. I would go to both groups and ask them about Mr. Camper’s prediction to help formulate my own opinion.

As for the response to my initial post, Some people are just not capable. That s the whole thing. Protection of children, animals, is because they are not capable., I’ve been pondering this. I just don’t know what it implies. Does it mean that children and animals are not capable of making a decision before handing over their money? If that is the case, then I disagree. If that is not what was meant, I’d like to be corrected.

I mean this with all sincerity. I am just trying to understand your point-of-view, as well as trying to help you understand mine.

@DarlingRhadamanthus My phrasing was wrong there. I was thinking TV should not be in such a state that it is something to avoid. It can be a useful product.

As to “I never said to use the media.” We are not talking about people who can dicern things though.

@Pied_Pfeffer ”Does it mean that children and animals are not capable of making a decision before handing over their money?” I will have to think about that. Right now I can’t think. But like I mentioned above, this is not about the people who are discerning.

—@flo Thank you for not jumping down my throat my latest response. Let me rephrase that. What does your response about children and animals mean? I have a few relatives that, as young children, had a bank account, and they might have handed over their funds based upon their parents’ influence without doing any type of research. Either they don’t realize that they can or don’t know any better. As for the reference to animals, that is really where I got lost.

@Pied_Pfeffer it was just a general thing about the “animals, and children” and “protection”. Nothing to do with money. Maybe that was a bad example. How about mentally challenged people?

@flo Gotcha. I haven’t read up on any statistics of who handed over money to Mr. Camper. Did the mental disability of those that contributed come into play? (And back off those of you that might want to say that anyone who did were mentally disabled.)

The reason I ask is that my new SIL’s daughter is an adult who is mentally challenged and lives on her own. I don’t know if she controls her own money or her mother does. If she does, I could see that being a targeted audience. I would assume that would have hit the news if it were the case.

@Pied_Pfeffer what is the fitting term? Aren’t there mentally challenged people who are not offiicially mentally disabled and who are victims of these charletans? I don’t like the word “moron”. And the people who use that term sound like they think they purposely make themselves “morons”. And they sound angry and they think “morons“are the worst kinds of people, when they are just victims.

How about a fool? Or something less harsh, like the people who were fooled into handing over their money, although the former seems apt.

Well, the fucker is dead now, so he got what he deserved.