by Robert Landbeck

Created on: January 07, 2011   Last Updated: January 09, 2011

If proof of humanity's profound ignorance of that potential called God were necessary, one Harold Camping, an American evangelical and radio broadcaster, will make it clear once again; he has fixed the date for the return of Christ at May 21, 2011.

Attempts to fix a date and time for any act of God have never proved correct before. This could be why so very few ever attempt it now. To do so risks the considerable humiliation of demonstrating personal delusions and further providing insight into the inefficacy of religious claims made. An earlier attempt by this same would-be prophet to predict Christ's return already failed once in 1994. According to him, this was the result of a mathematical error or calculation.

But let's humour the idea for the moment and consider more carefully. There are so many potential implications to muse over: If such an event ever does take place in our lifetimes, the 'Apocalypse' that the religious promise will rain down on the rest of us is much more likely to land on their own heads first, hard and heavy! First of all, 'Christian' institutional forms have been breaking up in disagreement for the whole of their history.

Beginning with the origins of the Roman church, unresolved divisions started even with the choice of scriptural material that was was to later become known as the Bible. However suggestive scripture material may be, there is no recorded document or teaching of a specific 'revelation' ever being passed on to anyone by Christ or his followers. Most likely because it was always an oral tradition, a moral teaching, to be shared privately between individuals.

In the modern world, religious claims are a dime a dozen. And however one may pay a politically correct lip-service respect to them, history continues to slowly pull the rug out from any creditability they might pretend to. Whether pedophile priests, acts of terrorism, false prophets,  the foundations of all religious claims remain questionable. I don't intend making a case here against the potential for God nor in favour of atheism, but I have no hesitation about openly questioning the efficacy of religion as we have understood that term via history. For if there is a God, tradition, instead of bringing us closer has taken our minds far from that reality!

The Christian religion as we know it in all of its forms, ancient and modern, is a theological construct. A human intellectual attempt to comprehend the mind of God. Theology therefore

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