NZ Skeptics Articles

Articles tagged with "date"

The Rapture and the Julian Calendar

13 October 2025

As a calendar geek, I was surprised to hear calendar conversion raised as a reason the rapture didn't happen as predicted.

Why was the Rapture predicted for September the 24th? And why didn't it happen?

29 September 2025

In an article from two weeks ago, I wrote about an Official Information Act request sent to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet by Melanie Petrowski, a conspiracy theorist from Napier. The request was about the rapture, which had apparently been given a date of September the 24th this year. Melanie wanted to know whether the Government was aware of this pending event, and what preparations they may have made. She also wanted to know if the government was ready for some of the new systems that were about to be put in place by the antichrist to monitor and control us, and she sought reassurances that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon (or Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour if Luxon was raptured) was going to resist these new technologies, such as drones, the Beast System, quantum dot tattoos, and more.

The NZ Skeptical calendar: August 29th to September 4th

29 August 2022

Work on the NZ Skeptical calendar (our attempt to find a New Zealand skeptical event for every day of the year) continues apace, with 346 individual events recorded and now only 140 days remaining to be filled. This month has been especially busy, with Brian Tamaki and the rest of the anti-mandate, anti-vax pundits making headlines with one debacle or another.

Things that didn't happen this week

16 August 2021

On a lighter note, this week there were two earth-shattering events that were meant to happen. The first was the Global Prayer to End Atheism, and the second with the prediction of Trump's reinstatement as president on Friday 13th.

Smoke & weird crackers

1 February 2020

As I looked out at the Australian smoke filling our normally blue New Zealand skies, it made me angry. Angry to think that where there is smoke, there is fake news holding us back from taking action on the climate crisis. There are still many who don't think we need to change from our current course, and others who think our contribution wouldn't make a difference anyway. Still too often I hear arguments which are nothing more than false balance, the scientific consensus put aside because of some meme picked up on social media. I believe we can't afford to ignore the science and we must act. It's the right thing to do. We need to set an example, even if our contribution is small by individual or national standards.

4004 BC and all that

1 August 2006

Jim Ring takes another look at Bishop Ussher's famous date for the creation.

Skeptics join celebration of Earth's birthday

1 February 2006

The last of Hamilton's highly successful Café Scientifique series for 2005 examined the issue of dating the Earth and the universe. The date was chosen to be as close as possible to Bishop Ussher's preferred date of October 22 when, he calculated, the creation of the universe began in the year 4004 BC.

4.6 Billion Years Worth of String

1 February 2004

Bill Taylor explains some of the thinking behind the Time-Line installation, "Genesis Aotearoa", at Victoria University (See also Page 13)