Camping Unapologetic, Pushes Rapture, End of World to October 21

Harold Camping effectively pushed back the Rapture and End of the World to October 21, 2011 on Monday, saying a May 21 Doomsday prediction took place spiritually on Saturday.

Camping, 89, was making his first extended comments on his radio and television program known as Open Forum, which originates from the Family Radio headquarters in Oakland , California.

May 21 passed without a cataclysmic disaster he had predicted. Camping's comments were being aired live from Oakland, California to the Family Radio network of stations.

He said that on May 21 there had been spiritual judgment instead of a physical judgment by rolling earthquakes around the entire planet.

Camping said that there would not be any need additional billboards or tracts and that Family Radio would no longer teach about Judgment Day.

The world has been warned, Camping said. We did our share.

On Sunday, in brief comments to IBTimes, Camping said he had to live with the fact that May 21 didn't match his expectations and told the San Francisco Chronicle he was flabbergasted about the result.

I'm looking for answers, he told the Chronicle.

In Camping's predictions ahead of the event, he said that the May 21 day would see the return of Christ and all the true believers would be taken to heaven. He had also predicted that five months of natural disasters would strike the earth and that the earth would ultimately be destroyed on October 21.

The timing, the structures, the proofs, non of that has changed at all, Camping said on Monday.

He said his calculations had not been wrong, but rather their interpretation, citing an invisible judgment.

Camping said Saturday, when the Judgment Day was supposed to have taken place, had been difficult.

When May 21 came and went, it was a very difficult time for me, Camping said. I was truly wondering what's going on.

Camping said that on Saturday there was so much pressure as the phone rang and people knocked on the door of his house.

So my wife and I went to a hotel that night, Camping said.

We prayed and prayed, he said.