Was there an erosion of belief in this delusional religious doctrine last weekend? That is not a rhetorical question. I want to know. I want this studied.

It is being studied. The most widely cited study was participatory/anthropological, so you’ve probably run into it previously: Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of A Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World. Where several researchers infiltrated a UFO cult in the 50s. This lead to the development of cognitive dissonance theory, which unfortunately hasn’t produced much actual research because it is so loosely defined.

Of course you note the Millerians, and there are several sources for information. Of special note should be the work of historian Ronald Numbers. He specializes in creationism and fundamentalism, but the modern movements trace back to the Seventh Day Adventists, who lead directly the the Millerites. If you’re not interested in the creationist/evolution side, you’d probably want to avoid his epic tome The Creationists, and concentrate on works such as Numbers, R. (1976). Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White (p. 271). Numbers, R., & Butler, J. (1987). The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the nineteenth century.

When October 21st comes along, the actual date of the Rapture that failed to happen last weekend, and the Rapture does not happen again, will there be an erosion of belief in this delusional religious doctrine? Again, this is not a rhetorical question. It matters because if there is a significant erosion of belief, then people were fooled. That’s manageable, thinkable, not-entirely-unreasonable. If there is not, or there is an increase in following, then the people engaged in this foolishness are significantly not normal in a potentially dangerous way.

More than likely there will be an increase belief for at least half the followers, and an increased drive to recruit new believers. Several reasons for this, but essentially it supports beliefs that are central self-concept and understanding of the world – their personal epistemology, if you will. Of greater interest for me is the second half of the question above – that “people engaged in this foolishness are significantly not normal in a potentially dangerous way.”

This is not the case. They are in fact significantly normal in a potentially dangerous way. Shorter version – the mental problems are embedded in our DNA. We’re not evolved for rational thought, and rational thought is not at present a significant evolutionary advantage. What we are adapted for is social and emotional cognition. We’re social creatures. The first and most basic evaluation we give to beliefs is emotional (see the Haidt and Pizzaro references below). We’re adapted to live in small groups of hunter gatherers, and brains that are optimized for small groups such as hunter-gatherers have been advantageous for about the last 100,000 years.

During the last 10,000 or so years we’ve developed writing and agriculture, allowing a culture based on large numbers of interdependent people to emerge. Part of this development was the invention of logic and reason, including various versions of science over the last couple of centuries. But these are very recently invented cultural artifacts, and are not a ‘natural’ part of cognition the way social interactions are. In effect, people who are rational, thoughtful and plan for the long-term are not ‘normal’. Culture can encourage or impose rationality to a degree – laws, customs and social institutions can serve to encourage people to act more rationally than they otherwise would. But this is not the default mode for people – it’s a skill which must be learned and practiced.

The upshot that researchers often get wrong is that these people cannot be reasoned with. This seems to make sense – we’re trained to reason, argue, match standards of evidence, consider alternatives and look for flaws in arguments. When you talk to a researcher, you’ve both agreed on these ground rules beforehand, and they’re assumed. But this is not how people operate in general. Instead decisions are made, and then reasons are found or invented to support those decisions. If you’ve ever tried to reason with a creationist, you’ve seen that disproof is not a problem – they simply move the evidence goalposts. And why not – as Camping shows, when a prediction is disproved, the response is simply to move the goalposts and give a new date. Such a move flabbergasts researchers, but it is standard and unremarkable within the social context that Camping and his followers live in. Disproving a belief doesn’t invalidate the belief – it is simply a “test of faith” and actually increases adherence and certainty.

Having studied this in the context of science education, I’ve concluded that effectively dealing with the Campings, Palins and Becks of the world can’t be done through reason and logical argumentation. A more fruitful approach would be studying rhetoric (in the Aristotelian sense). Grab ’em by the emotions, and their minds will follow. But for a large segment of the population, it’s simply not worth the effort – I guarantee it won’t work.

Sorry to go on so long, but a serious question deserves a serious answer.

Haidt, J. (2001). The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment. Psychological Review, 108(4), 814-834.
Haidt, J. (2003). The emotional dog does learn new tricks: A reply to Pizarro and Bloom (2003) Psychological Review, 110(1), 197-198. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.110.1.197
Haidt, J. (2007). Edge: The Third Culture. Edge, 12.
Haidt, J., & Joseph, C. (2004). Intuitive ethics: how innately prepared intuitions generate culturally variable virtues. Daedalus, 133(4), 55-66.
Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2003). The intelligence of the Moral Intuitions: A comment on Haidt. Psychological Review, 110(1), 193-196. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.110.1.193

He wouldn’t write “Argh!”, he’d just say it….

If these idiots really believed in this crap, they’d put their money where their mouths are and willingly die when they are proven wrong. The rest of us wouldn’t have to hear them anymore, and the followers would either stop talking about it or stop living.

By the way, has anyone noticed that there is more than a passing resemblance between Harold Camping and Marshall Applewhite, leader of the “Heaven’s Gate” cult?

Speaking of suicide, why isn’t Harold Camping being held responsible for a woman’s murder-suicide attempt of he two daughters, for the hanging suicided of a 14 year old Russian girl, and the suicide of a Kenyan man?

http://www.christianpost.com/news/fearful-teen-commits-suicide-due-to-harold-campings-rapture-50542/

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There were plenty of them here in NYC Greg, included the poor, dumb bastard who blew over $140,000 of his retirement savings plastering ads about it on the city’s subways and buses.

I even got in an argument with one of them outside of Penn Station several months ago.

This is why I don’t trust any religious people to make real-life decisions. Whether it’s the apocalypse or the after-life, they make all their decisions based on those beliefs. They’ll destroy the world, if things it’ll help them have a better after life. It’s extremely dangerous and, unfortunately, rather than your litmus test, the litmus test we have is that you have to believe in these fairy tales to get elected.

We have plenty of more-or-less secular apocalyptic cultists today too. You know the type… People who are certain that the dollar will suddenly become worthless paper, China is planning a world takeover, or that Muslim extremists are around every corner and under every bed. Same mental defect as the religious sort.

This is all closely related to a phenomena best explained by an XKCD:
http://xkcd.com/258/

HP, whatever. A century here, a century there …

That’s nothing. I predicted a great war in Europe in 1914 almost two decades ago. But did anyone do anything about it? No.

Sadly I think there’s not much chance that any of them would denounce the idea of the Rapture in general, to occur at some unspecified future date.