From the website of the House of Yahweh:
The Days After September 12, 2006
The inspired prophecies show that the world will experience nuclear war in and around the great river Euphrates that will involve two great armies and kill a third part of man over a fourth part of the earth.
The days following September 12, 2006 will be filled with fear of reprisal and more nuclear destruction. The cause of war and fighting will still remain; as long as the cause remains so will the threat of war. The cause is plainly shown in the inspired prophecies from Genesis to Revelation.
Needless to say, the prophecies of the House of Yahweh, a cult founded by Bill Hawkins and headquartered in Abiline, Texas, have yet to come to pass. The explanation? Time-zones:
According to [Mosheh] Sang, a nuclear war between the US and North Korea only failed to kick off on Tuesday due to difference in international time zones. "Members of our sect who are in the US will not be affected, as they are protected by Yahweh," he added.
The problem with the timezone excuse is that, at most, it can buy you a day, and that's only if you predict something to happen to the west of the International Date Line while you are doing your date caiculations east of the line, and then only if the event involves passing over the line (for instance, calculating the date on which a ship will arrive in Japan having left Vancouver).
In any case, regardless of the inapplicability of the excuse, two days have gone by.
So what now? Well, the faithful in Kenya, where the cult began recruitung followers in 1997, continue to wait in their bunkers. When I say bunkers, I mean dugouts:
Followers of the cult have erected wooden props to support the 6ft by 10ft dugouts, but police said that despite this, they were worried the bunkers might cave in. Underground water was seeping in, which officers said would weaken the structures.
"Though there is freedom of worship in the country, our fears are that the members could die- not from the so-called nuclear war but by the bunkers caving in," Dominic Karanja, a senior police officer, said.
However, the cult said it was Yahweh's way of providing water for them to use.
The hope is that the people will start abandoning the bunkers (and probably the cult, too) as it becomes apparent that nothing is happening. There is a concern behind that hope, when it comes to the most fervent believers:
Six years ago, neighbouring Ugandans were shocked by a tragic end to a doomsday prediction.
After the world failed to end in December 1999, as predicted by the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, hundreds of the sect's followers were found murdered four months later.
Most were burned alive, actually:
Most of the deaths occurred in Kanungu, a small trading center, about 217 miles (360 km) southwest of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Some individuals at the scene believe that the parishioners had committed suicide; others say that the group leader, Joseph Kibweteere, murdered the members by luring them inside the church and then setting it on fire. The church's windows had been boarded-up; its doors were nailed shut with the members inside. They sang for a few hours. One witness said that they doused themselves with gasoline and set themselves ablaze. Some witnesses reported the smell of gasoline at the scene, an explosion that preceded the fire, and some screams from inside the building.
Other cult members were found in pits, covered with cement. Stabbed, strangled, poisoned...the membership ran the gamut of ways to die.
That's the problem with religions that focus on death instead of life. They always find a way to keep the promise. They have to, or else it's all a lie. Keep that in mind the next time you hear jihadists going on about the 72 virgins that will be the reward for those who die fighting the infidel. He's going to find a way to cash in on that promise.
