I wonder why the goverment has allowed this cult of religious nutcases spread fear among the populace...

Kasama ba diyan si OB?

http://www.3news.co.nz/Religious-gro...9/Default.aspx

Religious group: Judgement Day looms on May 21
Fri, 13 May 2011 4:01p.m.

A US-based Christian group took to the streets of Manila this week to spread its Judgment Day prediction of May 21, 2011.

Volunteers from religious group Family Radio wore neon coloured t-shirts and walked along Manila's main thoroughfares giving out pamphlets to passersby and warning them of the impending doom.

They believe that the end of the world, predicted by Harold Camping, the president of Family Radio, will happen during the sunset of May 21.

Camping is said to have predicted that date through a series of mathematical calculations and unravelling of codes hidden behind the story of the great flood in the Bible. He was convinced that God gave hints of the doomsday in the scriptures and that it was their job to decode it.

Camping also predicted that the world would end in September 1994, following his previous calculations based on a specific event in the 1980s. When his prediction failed, he said his other prediction in 2011 would definitely come true.

The group, made up of members and volunteers from the US, left their jobs and even their families to travel the world to spread the message.

Kenji Hoffman left his family and his successful job as a mechanic in the US to join the Family Radio crusade around the world. He used his savings to facilitate his trip to the Philippines. He said he believes God has left clear signs that the world is coming to an end.

Professor Gerardo Lanuza, from the University of the Philippines' Sociology of Religion said that the Judgement Day groups have increased in recent years due to the unstable political and economic climate around the world. He says groups like Family Radio take the signs of the apocalypse to form communities to support each other.

"They want to offer people some kind of security; a type of security amidst an insecure world," Lanuza said.

Despite Family Radio's insistent campaign, many of the predominantly Catholic Filipinos paid little heed to the warnings.

"It might really happen since there's a lot of sin in the world… it will happen, but not in what they were predicting. Judgment Day can't happen on May 21," said bus inspector Rico Almasan.

Professor Gerardo Lanuza said Family Radio's prediction will not affect much of the Philippines' citizens because the majority of the citizens listen to head of the Catholic Church in the country.

Despite the sceptical response, members of Family Radio are unfazed and believe they are serving a higher purpose.

"The world is temporal, we are seeking for an eternal one, eternal things," says Leo Arenas, a recent convert of Family Radio.

Family Radio is a Christian radio broadcasting network in the US. It was founded in 1959.

More than 80 percent of the population in the Philippines is of the Catholic faith.