"Rapture Party" Planned for May 21

By Peter Jamison Thu., May 5 2011 at 4:24 PM

Categories: WTF?

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Time to party with the Whore of Bablyon

On May 21, fans of American hip hop music will have a chance to celebrate the birthday of the late Christopher George Latore Wallace, popularly known as Biggie Smalls. But those who don't like rap need not feel left out, because we all have a reason almost as momentous to throw a party -- the end of the world.

Sorry if we're the ones breaking the news to you, but life as we know it will cease 16 days from now. According to Harold Camping, president of Oakland-based Family Radio, May 21 is Judgment Day. The saved shall be gathered up in the Rapture, the graves shall offer up their dead, and our former governor will reappear, a red glow in his eyes, intoning, "Come with me if you want to live."

So Camping informed SF Weekly managing editor Alan Scherstuhl in a recent interview. Applying some form of nonsensical mathematics to the Bible -- "If we substitute 1,000 years for each of the seven days, 2011 is exactly 7,000 years from the Flood," he told Scherstuhl -- Camping has arrived at May 21 as the day the world will end, and has bought large amounts of public advertising space to warn Bay Area residents of their impending demise.

If you're as perturbed by all this as we are, you'll probably want to quaff a few glasses of amber-tinted liquor to steel yourself for all those walking corpses, and perhaps work up the courage to hit on the Whore of Babylon when she arrives riding her seven-headed monster thing. Well, don't worry -- the nonprofit American Atheists has got you covered.

The group is throwing four "rapture parties" on May 21 and 22 at locations across the country, including one on Camping's home turf in Oakland. Featuring various atheist speakers, the two-day party at the Oakland Masonic Temple is dedicated to "2000 years of 'Any Day Now,'" as the group proclaims.

Go ahead. The end is nigh. Dance like nobody's watching.

Read more about the impending apocalypse and five things you should do before the world comes to an end May 21.

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