So is the World Going to End Oct. 21? Harold Camping Still Thinks So

Remember Harold Camping? You know, the 90-year-old preacher and radio host who warned that the world was going to come to an end back on May 21, 2011? Well, here we are, nearly five months later and Camping, who suffered a stroke after his predictions didn't come to fruition, is back at it again. And he's sticking to his new prediction.

As you'll recall, earlier this year many people did, indeed, buy into the hype. Some even sold their homes and possessions and gave their lives to Camping's cause.

(Related: Learn more about the group behind the predictions)

Sadly, these individuals did all of this in vain, as May 21 came and went, with the earth remaining intact. But following his very public failure, Camping wasn't dissuaded from his belief that the day of reckoning was on its way.

In an attempt to soften the blow that his faulty preaching had sustained, he claimed that he was "looking for answers" in the days following the debacle.

But in the end, rather than moving forward and apologizing for his failed claims, the radio preacher said that he simply misinterpreted the Bible. Dismissing his initial 6 p.m. deadline for the world's implosion back in May, he subsequently said that the original date he gave served as the spiritual beginning of the world's physical end.

Thus, he came up with an entirely different timeline based on a new date, October 21:

“Were not changing a date at all; we’re just learning that we have to be a little more spiritual about this.

But on Oct. 21, the world will be destroyed. It won’t be five months of destruction. It will come at once.”

CNN has more about these claims:

After making his initial failed prediction, then following up on it with his new, five-month timeline, you may recall that Camping suffered a stroke. Despite his ongoing recovery, Camping is still repeating his claim that calamity is on the way. In a recent radio recording (yes, he's also doing radio again), he said:

“I really am beginning to think as I restudied these matters that there's going to be no big display of any kind. The end is going to come very, very quietly, probably within the next month. It will happen, that is, by October 21."

On his Family Radio web site, Camping has a full description of his latest prediction. Here's a portion of it:

Thus we have learned that except for a somewhat different understanding of the words “earthquake” and “rapture” or “catching up” no other past teachings of Judgment Day or the end of the world have been changed. The time line, the certainty of it, the proofs, and the signs are all precisely the same. No other past teachings have been changed or modified. Indeed, on May 21 Christ did come spiritually to put all of the unsaved throughout the world into judgment. But that universal judgment will not be physically seen until the last day of the five month judgment period, on October 21, 2011.

Since it's already October 14, this means that we're, once again, only days away from the world's purported ending. It's beginning to feel like "Groundhog Day," no?