Will the world end tomorrow (May 21)?

Image entitled End of the World
(I'm pretty sure it's really a screen
shot of Hell in the movie Constantine)
from  XarJ blog.

There's a lot of hype right now about tomorrow being the end of the world.  Some people are laughing at the idea, while others are deadly serious.  I had mostly just heard it mentioned that "the world is going to end May 21, not December 21" and read jokes about the rapture on Twitter, but didn't know what this was really about.  Was it a New Age prediction that Christians had latched on to and associated with the rapture?  Was it a small group of fanatical Christians?  Where did this idea come from?  I honestly didn't care and didn't take the time to look it up.

Today, I got curious and did a Google search and read the following "tract" and laughed:

http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/

The people pushing this idea (both this website and others) aren't saying May 21 is the end of the world, they're saying it's the "rapture" and the closing of the doors of salvation.  Everyone who isn't a Christian on that day is doomed, they say.  The end of the world is October 21, destruction in fire.

I put tract in quotes because when I was a new Christian back in 1995 in a church that actively used tracts, a tract was a small folded paper with a short message on it, used to try to get a spiritual truth across or to try to "lead someone to Jesus".  It's small so it's easy to pass out or leave somewhere and easy for someone to pick up.  It usually has pictures on it, both to make it look more attractive and to get across the point.  This is on a website, and if you print it out, it's a full 8"X14" legal sheet, which isn't easily passed out or kept.  Though in the history of religious and political tracts, they've been much bigger.

Anyway, back to the "tract".  The part that immediately made me laugh were the following, especially in light of what's actually said in the rest of the tract:

The Bible’s calendar of history is completely accurate and trustworthy.

and

Since this Bible calendar is given by God in His Word, it can be trusted wholeheartedly.

Image from Regnum Christi.

If you read the pamphlet, it's supposition, interpretation of Bible verses with no support beyond the ones used.  Whether you believe the Bible is the Word of God and 100% accurate and infallible or not, this isn't things that are said right out in the Bible, they are conclusions based on how the author (and his/her sources) read those verses.  While that doesn't mean the conclusions are false, it does mean that you should think about it and come to your own conclusions, not trust it wholeheartedly or take it as "completely accurate and trustworthy".  As human's we have a rational, reasoning brain for a reason.  It doesn't take rational thought to believe everything you are told unquestioningly.  To use a (Christian) Bible verse to show what I'm saying:

"As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." ~Acts 17:10-11

The Bereans are praised for not just taking what Paul said as Truth but examined the Tanahk (Jewish scriptures) to see if what he said was true.

Now, lets look at what they actually say.