On a more serious note, the real question that I’d like to tackle is this: why do we find correlational “evidence” like Camping’s or my own to be solid support for our opinions? I think that the answer has to do with confirmation bias, or our propensity to seek and interpret events that argue in our favor. So, someone who believes that the world will end tomorrow will search for confirmation of this view and construe events in ways that support this belief. The problem with this heuristic is that it leaves no room for failure. We simply can’t be wrong. When unfortunate things happen in the world tomorrow (as they do every day), they can easily be used as “evidence” supporting a doomsday hypothesis.Another wink from psychology comes in the form of cognitive dissonance, or the discomfort that we experience when we attempt to hold contradicting beliefs or actions. To avoid this kind of discomfort, we adjust our beliefs or actions so that they happily align. The classic instantiation of cognitive dissonance is seen in a case study of a group of pre-Scientologists who lived through their failed prophetic predictions, eerily similar to the case at hand. When (or if) Saturday comes and goes as usual, Camping and his followers will need to revise their story. Will they abandon their faith and move on? Or will they create justifications and strengthen their conviction even more? We won’t have to wait very long to find out.

Enjoy the rapture tomorrow, and have a lovely Sunday

~Aline Grüneisen~