There's more wrong with Harold Camping than his prediction of judgment day. Tim LaHaye, author of the "Left Behind" series, said Camping is "bizarre" and "100% wrong." Hal Lindsay scorned Camping's words as an opportunity for atheists. Tim and Hal should know. They both made their millions on the same schtick too. I wonder how much money the attention brought in for Camping? When will people learn?

It bugs me that people spend money for that stuff. Why not give that money to local churches whose ministers will actually come visit you when you're in the hospital? Or why not send those millions to established charities for people whose world really has come to an end because of tornados or floods or real earthquakes?

Camping, LeHaye or Lindsay, all lacking in religious education, claim to have the Flash Gordon code ring to decipher a few parts of the Bible. Yet they miss what the Bible says about the poor we always have with us. What we do for the least of them, the Bible says plainly, we do as to God. That's day by day reality. Some who live with poverty and war don't have any world to end because for them it never much got started.

In Idaho schools are being cut and basic humanitarian services cut off for our elderly. That's what we should be doing with our money, not looking for a secret code to cheat history. Ask me for chapter and verse. The Bible says God does not want multi-million dollar religious industries but only for us to do justice, love community and live humbly.

Apocalyptic doomsayers predicted the end before language even had a future tense, and there is some of that in the Bible. Yet Jesus' words are clear. "You will not know the hour or the day." Period.

So yes, we live in hope for the justice to come, and yes we treasure each moment and live it just like it might be our last. Still we are accountable for making choices about the future. The Apostle Paul expected the end, but his life lasted long and his words went on to guide believers 2,000 years after the end that never came in his time. Like him then, we must not be so arrogant as to think the world is only about our generation. Like him, we too are responsible for how our actions affect generations we could never imagine. Here's my prediction. The end of the world is not that near; you have to cope.

MIKE BULLARD

Coeur d'Alene