Doomsday Cult

A Russian cult emerged from the cave they were hiding in while waiting for the end of the world.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/01/doomsday-cult.html?ref=rss

Allow me to give you some advice: If you ever decide to join a cult, the first thing you should ask about is the quality of their doomsday cave. A poorly constructed cave could kill you, and that would take most of the fun out of doomsday.

You should also look for a cult leader who has some specificity about the exact doomsday date. Otherwise you’re just sitting in a cave for an extra month for no good reason. I’d want the comet to strike earth a minute after I wiped my feet on the cave’s welcome mat. That way the people who got all of my worldly possessions wouldn’t have time to enjoy them. I wouldn’t feel so sad for someone who, just prior to being annihilated, was saying something like “HA HA HA!!! THAT IDIOT SCOTT GAVE ME HIS Wii!!!” That guy has it coming.

I think it will be hard for the cult members to explain the gaps on their resumes when they try to reenter the job market. “Well, I spent much of 2008 in a cave waiting for doomsday. It turns out that my infallible leader was more of a drooling nutbag than a prophet. Anyway, my point is that you should hire me because I have excellent judgment.”

The big problem with picking a doomsday date is that it so obvious when you are wrong. For most other decisions, you can generally make a case for why your wrongness was really right. For example, you still hear people say Saddam had WMD but he did a good job of hiding them. There’s no way to disprove that sort of assertion. But when the world doesn’t explode on Tuesday, it’s hard to make a case that it did. You have to go with something like “The comet was heading this way, but we prayed it off course. You’re welcome. Give me back my stuff.”

Reportedly, there are a number of other doomsday cults in Russia. I wonder if they have some sort of convention. I can imagine rows of vendor booths for white robes, hair clippers, and canned food. I suppose there would also be a cave realtor or two.

I wonder if the other doomsday cults were sitting in their own caves, listening to the news on their radios and thinking “Those idiots! They totally got the wrong date!” I imagine the various doomsday cults are highly competitive, always trying to recruit the nuts away from the other cults. “Our cave has a flat screen TV, and every Friday is casual.”

Cults are funny.

Comments

[mandy]

Chinese antique furniture manufacturer,our products include all kinds of antique chinese furniture,oriental antique furniture

[Courtney]

Best part of the whole sotry? He was charged with setting up a religion associated with violence...

[Robby]

"So use D/M/Y." --Mark

I prefer Y/M/D, myself. If you think about it, I'm sure you'll realize how much more logical that is than anything else.

[pmrjulio]

I personally will find kind of troubling if the cult leader of my favorite "Doomsday organization" decides not to join me once we go into the cave. That will be for me a red flag, even if detained.

Second, it is important to bring a calendar and a intrument to measure time. It seems Doomsday will be in May. As far as I'm concerned, it will be next month. So, they spend about 4 months inside a cave without power, water and limited food, just to leave the cave 1 month BEFORE Doomsday? Second red flag.

Third. They left because the cave collapsed. Didn't they even think on what was going on outside the cave? This would have been my point of view, if I was a Doomsday fan: If the cave was collapsing, chances are the Doomsday started a little bit earlier. The cave was not as solid to keep Doomsday outside. It was not true, but it makes a hole in the solidity of their certainty of the Doomsday events (and the cave). Red flag.

[Steven Cornett]

I find Doomsday cults a little odd myself, but that one seems to take the biscuit. From my perspective, it seems that those cultists got their eschatology mixed up; they seem to have no clue who are supposed to tell the hills "hide us" and the rocks "fall on us."

Better, in my mind, that when my doomsday comes (if, at no other time, then the hour of my death), I'd be found doing my duties of the moment. Far jollier than hiding in a cave anyway.

[Smokefoot]

The end of the article said that the leader "blessed the cult members, many of whom were women." That makes me wonder what "blessed" is a euphemism for.

[smee]

I think a big clue should be the fact that their leader didn't go with them in the cave . . . hmmm . . .

I do like the quote "Kuznetsov was said to have blessed his followers, many of whom were women, before sending them into the cave," What kind of blessing did he give them?

"All the guys can take a break, I'm going to bless all the women together in my bedroom."

[quantum_flux]

I like that cop's endquote to that video: "Once you think you've seen it all, something else comes around!"

[Mark]

[Saddam did have WMD.

Or do you believe that all those Kurds gassed themselves?

Posted by: Dave]

a) if they've been used, you don't get to use them again

b) why was this not brought up at his trial?

c) (actually asnwering b) where did he get these WMDs from?

[AC]

I like the Jewish God's rule. In essence, if what the prophet said does not come true, the prophet is killed.

[AC]

Never underestimate the power of loneliness.

[leonardtambunan]

I am reading your post from our cave...
They provide WiFi here.

[Stewart]

If you are a doomsday cult, why go hide in a cave. Surely the point of Doomsday is that the world will end....

Why are you not out partying your life away????

cult member: "woo hoo the world ends in 15 days, let's get wasted and have lots of non-commital s£x"
non-cult member: "I don't know, I have to get to work and file my time sheets"
cult member: "I bought some choco sauce and after we are going to go and thump Bush on the nose"
non-cult member: "well, why didn't you say, woo hoo"

[RavenBlack]

Cults being funny is, of course, why Red Dwarf is considered a cult comedy.

[Ric]

Forgot to post this. Not sure when he updated last, but it's pretty funny to read through. A list of Doomsday Cults:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/9941/

[Ric]

It also makes you wonder if they sometimes decide to merge like businesses. On the serious side...it is sad how many of these there are. I have personal experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses through family that is now out of there. They continue to spout out dates for the end of the world. They don't do it as much as they used to because it's bad for marketing. Everytime they miss it, there is a big drop in membership. Then, after a while, they throw out another one to help drive membership and scare the crap out of everyone. They've also been good at dismissing the dates they missed by saying..."well...you read more into it than what we meant"

[Tomas Liubinas]

Pictures here:
http://www.fishki.net/comment.php?id=33324

Greeting from Lithuania
http://tomas.liubinas.com/

[P-A]

I;ll go for the cult that chooses the Doomsweek that wipes out the male population through deadly virus. Of Course my cave is virus free, and I can offer to female believer a chance to get a better "piece of me" if they register during the "Trial session" (that is: every week end before Doomsweek).
On top of that I can create a cool Newspaper ("Doomsweek") that brings back lots of terrified females looking for guys that will "stay around". I need to find a trick to keep the males far away though.. Maybe put flowers, or shoes, or dresses on the cover of my Doomsweek magazine..?

P-A
http://devrouze.blogspot.com/
** blog Not in english **

[Geoffrey James, Sales Machine]

“The comet was heading this way, but we prayed it off course."

Gee, sound like the Y2K hoax. Scott, are you ready to admit yet that the disaster scenarios (none of which happened in countries that did no Y2K work) weren't real?

[Mark]

[Then you will be surprised to learn that the U.S. National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) said that 500 chemical weapons were indeed found in Iraq. The story is here
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

A summary of the NGIC report is here
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf

Cheers,
Everett

Posted by: Everett]

Two words for you and Faux News:

Spent Rounds.

Shoot a cannon and you WILL get duds. These duds are still heavy, propelled miles and when it hits the sand it is still going at speed.

Now guess what happens?

The shell buries itself.

Hidden WMD's?

And is there ANY Intercontinental Ballistic Cannon available? No? So how the feck were they supposed to hit the UK or US with them as per our 45-minute dossier that got us into the whole stupid situation? Row the cannon to a couple of miles offshore and fire from there?

[Mark]

[12/23/2012

Posted by: T.I.M.]

OK. Can SOMEONE here tell me WHY?

Why do you go

Month
Day
Year
?

Month/Day, I can understand.

Day/Month, I can understand.

Day/Month/Year, I can understand.

Month/Day/Year, I don't get. Except that you spent a long time not USING the year and got used to Month/Day and you were afraid your brain would implode (or, more likely other people's brains, 'cos it's always SOMEONE ELSE who's the thicky and you're the one going to have to wipe brain goop off your face when the bang happens to someone near you) if you used M/D and D/M/Y.

Most of britain get the idea of May 4th. They use it. They still get the idea of 4/5. And 4/5/2007 comes out naturally, whereas you can say May 4th, 2007 and there's no confusion possible about what each bit means. Heck, we use 4th May, 2007 too.

And still the lack of goop to clear.

So use D/M/Y. Sept 11th is going to remain 11/9 except by the media who like the simple mnemonic of 911. But that's the media for you.

[inutile2]

you're wrong in making a joke of them, Scott.
Actually they WERE right.
The world WAS MEANT to end in that date.
Buth then, the Hawaiian court injunction delayed the CERN project...

[Alsadius]

Actually, Saddam did have WMDs - the intelligence failure was in a massive overestimation of the size of the programs, not in saying that they existed. There were no nukes or biological weapons, but they've found multiple stockpiles of chemical weapons of various types - mustard gas, even a bit of nerve gas IIRC. They also found some efforts to squirrel away capability to re-start development in case the sanctions were ever lifted, but nothing all that big. So while there was a pretty big screwup on the part of the US et al., saying that there were none at all isn't true either.

[workerant]

The Jehovah's Witnesses did the doomsday thing a few times and they are still going.

[Michael]

Cults are funny.

Except when they stick around for a few hundred years, call themselves a church or mosque or whatever and then get in the way of normal people trying to live.

Or did you mean funny peculiar?

[MaxDZ8]

I see a another sell spike coming for the Jap. Again. :)

[Joe]

I conclude from these posts that a lot of Dilbert Blog readers have strange sexual fantasies involving cults.

[priya]

rofl. . .loved the post. . .I guess after the world gets destroyed an alternate universe would be created. . .However, i think the world will be destroyed on a Monday .I really hate monday's!

[patti]

Patti wonders:
Maybe it is a bigger deal than we first thought. Maybe we will find that the holiest of the holys.. really died and then... came back. Will they undergo hypnosis to see if they left their bodies for a while?

MAYBE THEY WERE ALREADY HYPNOTIZED. Were they found with any stolen goods?

OR, perhaps they signed over all earthly belongings to ..their leader? HMMmmmmm '
"REMEMBER, You must stay hidden until hell freezes over!"
I wonder if they gave him the deeds to their homes and now they will all be forced to live in caves for the rest of their lives. "Oh yeah, it'll be a cold day in hell... before I do this again!

I wonder if their leader prayed.. earth's fate away. I wonder if he turned the tide of death with his heavy prayers and THEN, like-a-miracle, they and ...we ... were all saved.

Actually, with some publicity, the place could now become a commune of sorts. Or perhaps a vacation spa or maybe ... even a tourist attraction...or survivalist resort!
"Welcome to the Doomsday Caverns. Your place to stay when you want to..get away!"
OR?
"This way to The Doomsday Caverns, your escape from hell"

I KNOW. It will become the setting for a BOOK. Or even BETTER for a "reality show" called "Hybernation-Salvation"

On another note:
How many children will be born to "them that procreated" in the next 6-9 months?
And will they be forever called? "BABY-DOOMERS"

__________________

[kelli]

"The big problem with picking a doomsday date is that it so obvious when you are wrong."

True dat. Christianity would never have gotten off the ground if Jesus had actually specified a date.

[D. Mented]

RPK - the Mayans predicted the downfall of their own civillization for about the time that it actually happenned. Also interesting, December 21, 2012 is the one day in 26,000 years that the light of our sun shines straight through a stellar gap into the center of our galaxy. They saw that date as the end of the longest of their time cycles - it is the end of one galactic rotation of our solar system...Makes ya' go HMmmmmmm...
Bloodboiler - they call it Scientology.
Scott - as others have mentioned, most cults use sex instead of television. Makes sense, as television lets you see what's going on in the world, but even really great sex doesn't really give you the power to know if there's a comet on its way...or not.
Don't get too much national pride going, though - we've had whole communities that didn't plant any crops at the end of one century because they were sure the world would end that year so they wouldn't need any.
Myself, I'm badly allergic to anybody who tells me he- or she- knows the answer to everything, can predict when the world will end, or anything like that. Really violent reaction.
D. Mented

[Alex K]

Holy shit! You have a Wii? Can I buy it off you? Not even autographed or anything...

[burt]

hahaha i wonder if these people knew about the colider thing.
i know no one reading this will ever admit it, but i know I will breath a breath of relief when the collider goes off and im still living.

[Drone74B]

I don't think cult leaders are not jobs. I think they're visionary capitalists who don't have the means to start a tobacco company.

[Rick H]

Um, we didn't need to "find" Saddam's WMDs in Iraq, he proved he had them by using them. The question was whether he got rid of them and whether he was expanding his production capacity.

[Oli]

Even better, some cults believe hte world has ended we just havn't realised it yet. Of course it doesn't stop them eating but hey, takes all sorts.

The best cults are like religions, they prohibit the most
unlikely things, but ones people dont care about, so if you see somebody turning their nose up at butternut squash you know why.

Then you have the ones that prohibit the major things so you feel like you belong to something important, they ban stuff like killing people, having sex and greed. These nut jobs call themselves Christians. I feel safe in calling them nutjobs because

1) Most of them ignore their own rules, and even start saying things like 'god doesnt exist, the bible is all, you know, a metafore'.
2) They tend to be pretty old, I think I could outdistance most of them, apart from possibly in teh deep south of the US, or in england, Barnsley, where the slightly against the religion third legs and six toes give them an advantage.

http://www.imapundit.com
http://www.medicalaviceguru.com

[Dave]

Saddam did have WMD.

Or do you believe that all those Kurds gassed themselves?

[Tobias Ekman]

One post and 56 comments and not one has mentioned Al Gore's doomsday cult!
Striking how difficult pattern recognition can be...

[John Reedy]

I assume they probably thought the world was actually over. Perhaps they still do.

http://awritersblock.com

[LA Clay]

WAIT! They left on April 1st?!? FOOLS GET BACK IN! IT WAS A JOKE!

[Dan]

This is hilarious! I love the irony that they were killed by natural selection.. har har har

[rita mae]

T.I.M. and RPK both mentioned 12/23/2012. Now that is TWO people saying the same thing. Hence, it must have some merit. Just great! Now the planning for my Christmas Eve that year is ruined. Thanks a lot!

Rita (if I'm here in 2012 -- that IS 4 years you know) Mae

[Sam Davis]

Did anyone think to check and see if this was an April Fool's Day joke? The Canadians and Brits are a lot bigger on such things than Americans and it may well be.

[Adam Reynolds]

I've no experience of the American workplace but, according to your comic, wouldn't willingness to follow a nut-job into a cave be a valuable skill for a prospective employee? More consistency Adams!

[DF]

If any one of those nut jobs actually gets a date right, he should change his name to Hay-Soos Mohammed Budda. I can see some poor schmuck now, manages to convince 50 people to hide in a cave because the end is coming. Next thing you know, a meteor hits and wipes out Kansas or something. All of the sudden, buddy has 1 billion people asking "So, what's gonna happen next?" The only cult I might consider joining is the Raelians, lots of hot girls there. I just hope the aliens don't have to probe me first.

[Canadian Cousin]

What are they doing out! It's not May yet. Lets find them another cave and force them to go back in.

[Mark]

Scott,

Given the "Boltzmann brain problem", how do you know "that the world didn't explode on Tuesday?"

[helton]

thinking about this story... let's say you believe on the concept of doomsday, and there are 2 cults:

Cult A says the dooms day is in may;
Cult B says the dooms day is in august;

witch one would be the 'wiser' choice?

it's tricky because if you join B and A is correct, you'll be unprepared. But if you join A and B is correct... the A's folks will mock you forever ( meaning 2 months ).

[Kolbrún Mist Pálsdóttir]

Am i the only person that seems to think that this is an april fool's joke...

Kolbrún

[rick]

"The big problem with picking a doomsday date is that it so obvious when you are wrong" - a slight failure of imagination, that. When the world didn't end during the 'great convergence' in the eighties, one cult leader was quoted as saying that it actually did; but most people are too spiritually obtuse to notice.

[JBert]

This guys thinking. He leaves his wife where he's probably not getting any (marriage does that), moves to a small town (housing is usually cheaper), sets up a cult of "mostly women", has his fun then sends them to a cave. I'm willing to bet that his next move if it wasn't for the cops was to move to the next town and hook himself up with some new women for some lovin'. I mean really what's easier 1) telling a whole lot of women that it's over 2) sending them to a cave and f'ing off?

I think I'm going to start a cult. Any women interested please send me your measurements.

[Raymond]

This is why Wally needs to start a cult on the side.

[Mark Thorson]

They didn't come out of the
cave. I was watching Russia
Today just a few minutes ago,
and they said there's still
believed to be 11 people in
that cave. I believe it was
a woman and two children that
came out yesterday.

I can see another application
for mini-black holes here.
You put the black hole at the
back of the cave, tell people
that they can walk to the back
of the cave and enter heaven
(after depositing their
worldly goods in the bix box,
of course), and when they do
they'll disappear in a flash
of blue light. Very
impressive to any spectators.
And who knows? Maybe they
will enter heaven when the
black hole swallows them up.
You don't _know_ that you're
lying to them.

I'm surprised today's blog
isn't about the conspiracy of
8- and 9-year-olds to kill
their teacher. I thought
you would have admired their
organizational skills.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344369,00.html

"Tanner said the scheme
involved a division of roles.
One child's job was to cover
windows so no one could see
outside, he said. Another was
supposed to clean up after
the attack."

[dsouza.arnold@gmail.com]

One of your funniest posts ever! And I've been reading since the beginning! :)

[RPK]

According to the Mayan calendar, or should I say one of the three Mayan calendars, the world will end on December 21, 2012. Of course, the Mayan civilization died out long before that. I'm not sure if that says anything about the accuracy of their prediction.

In any case, I'm not going into the cave until after Thanksgiving of that year...

[Geoff]

Doomsday cults are just god's way of population control.... let the nutbars weed themselves out... if the world was going to end, I will be sitting on my deck, having a beer waiting for the fireworks to start, not sitting in a cave hoping to survive. I mean, who wants to survive just to die a miserable death later, if I wanted to do that, I would watch archived tapes of George W. Bush speaches and reruns of the View.

[T.I.M.]

12/23/2012

[G]

The best part for me is the cult leader didn't even join his followers in the cave - he blessed them before the went in. I wonder what his plans were before he got nicked by the authorities...maybe they all left him all their wordly goods. Bet part of the recruitment process is to find out what kind of homes and cool things potential followers have that he can "releive" them of.

[patti]

Patti says:
I believe that they read your "oops" post on the "Hadron Collider" and decided the cave won't help them. Maybe they thought the cave was a black hole and wanted to get there first?

Geesh.

Or maybe, upon exiting, they didn't recognize anyone and believed the END really came ... and THEY SURVIVED IT!!

I can imagine the ASTONISHMENT of the first cave-dwellers finally emerging INTO DAYLIGHT .... and this scenario:

"Wow, look at this! Heaven on earth? Are we angels or what?
IT'S too bad the ones we left,in our cave, for dead cannot see this, man. They are missing it. Oh well, maybe they were not saved like us. Maybe they were flawed sinners or somethin'. Hi, everyone.. Glad to be here. Did ya see how we survived that end-of-the-world-thing??
Wow, this place is really beautiful with the sun still shining and everything. This is really livin! How many of us are left? Have we got a story for you! What year is this anyway??"

[SRR]

"I imagine the various doomsday cults are highly competitive, always trying to recruit the nuts away from the other cults. "

Not at all. There are plenty of nuts to go around.

[Bloodboiler]

These amateur cult leaders always get it wrong. Sure collecting members and storing them in caves is fun when you start, but pretty soon you have to organize more food, waste management and get the males castrated. Alternatively you can blow up the cave entrance or poison their water, but then you have to come up with a new cave for your next cult. If your new cult members have to start by cleaning up bodies of the old cult members, they may have trouble seeing you as infallible. Furthermore, if your cult members just sit in a cave, they soon run out of money and cant contribute to the cult.

What you should do is organize a cult where most members have regular day jobs in addition to working for you. This way they never run out of contribution money and are on the field recruiting more members. As an additional benefit they naturally infiltrate to all layers of society, where they can do your bidding.

[Slap D. Monkey]

Oh yeah, and none of my followers are allowed to carry watches. Watches are the Devil!!

[Slap D. Monkey]

As a cult leader, I would try to learn from the mistakes of past failed cults.

For example, caves are good because they are dark and, if big enough, they can prevent my followers from seeing how many days have passed since arriving in the cave since they can't see the sun rises and sun sets. However, snow caves are bad.

Also, learn from Nostradamus and not put exact dates to events. Say things like "upon the hatching of the last spider egg after the first frost beyond the waning of the ninety-third blue moon of the new millenium, a comet will henceforth come to destroy all mankind." Anybody who is dumb is enough to believe I am a prophet is too dumb to figure out when that date is.

Third, learn from the Kool-Aid Comet suicides and the Waco Wacko's that if suicide becomes necessary, have a way planned to fake yours and escape to start a new cult.

[Matthew Kovich]

(insert comments relating "cults are funny" to the Catholic Church, or Islam)

I mean, those comments are both funny, and true --- but I'm just saving people lots of typing.

[hf79]

You totally missed the "blessed" comment in the article. How did he bless them especially since they are women. Makes me want to start my own cult so I can "bless" the women.

[MattF]

Famous book from the '50's-- "When Prophecy Fail"-- A group of academic sociologists infiltrated a doomsday cult to observe the group interactions when the aliens didn't invade. The observation was that the cult went public --after-- the failure. Being in a ridiculed minority actually strengthened the group bonding. It's interesting stuff, but, of course, you couldn't get this sort of thing past the ethics committee in the modern world of today.

[Everett]

Scott,

You said, "For example, you still hear people say Saddam had WMD but he did a good job of hiding them."

Then you will be surprised to learn that the U.S. National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) said that 500 chemical weapons were indeed found in Iraq. The story is here
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

A summary of the NGIC report is here
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf

Cheers,
Everett

[RI_Red]

I guess we'll find out if they were nutjobs or not "sometime in may".

[RI_Red]

I guess we'll find out if they were nutjobs or not "sometime in may".

[Screech]

PHB: I've decided to join a manager's cult. We're going to be in meetings all next week to decide on the name and method of doomsday. The week after that, we'll have meetings on how to survive.

[Michael]

Dear Scott,
you are right, cults are funny (remember when about 2000 years ago, they had a big laugh about that dude who claimed doomsday would come, and then they crucified him and... ).
But seriously:
I want my cult some place warm, maybe with a beach and some sort of rule on "rejoice and merrily mate with one another".
What fun is waiting for the end in a cave, dug into dirt, in Russia? Why would you want to survive if THAT is your living standard? Doesn't paradise/nirvana/reincarnation someplace else sound MUCH BETTER than a cave in Russia?
Isn't that the country with one of the highest suicide rates anyway?

Off to work on building my following...
Mike

[disembodied consciousness]

I love cults. They are funnier than Dilbert.

Cult composition favors a few dominant men, and a bunch of easily led women, and their children. All the typical doomsday cave needs is beds, and enough food for until the leader gets tired of sex. Game room my butt.

As for how to keep the cult going after a missed prediction, my favorite excuses (which recur so often there should be a warning label) are "We miscounted the data which was based on these 345 scripture references", and "It's a test of faith".

A third choice is to give the followers poisoned kool-aid, so there's no one to rat out the founder when he moves to a new city and starts collecting new followers whith whom he has not yet had steamy biblical sex.

I don't quite get the having-sex-with-the-cult-leader thing. This didn't seem to be a big part of Jesus' schtick, but if you are claiming to be the messiah, better be ready to get it on. Perhaps the arrival of erectile dysfunction meds is a sign of the End Times. Actually I'm sure it is.

[oddTodd]

Did you pick up on the fact that the leader didn't feel the need to join his followers in the cave? And that the cult expects doomsday in May, so they gave up before knowing that they were wrong? This is one sad cult, I must say. Also, if they believe the world is going to end, what's the point of the cave? I'd be out robbing banks and having promiscuous unprotected sex if I knew the world was going to end.

[Everett]

Scott,

You said, "For example, you still hear people say Saddam had WMD but he did a good job of hiding them."

Actually, the U.S. National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) said that 500 chemical weapons were found in Iraq. Story is here
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

A summary of the NGIC report is here
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf

Cheers,
Everett

[james wilson]

My minimum requirements for a dooms day cave would be a well laid out rumpus room and a nice breakfast nook for my morning coffee.

[Diana W]

So why did they go into the cave in November when the prediction was for a May doomsday? Nothing better to do during a Russian winter than sit in a cold, damp cave? I'm guessing that after 4 months of the kids going "Has the world ended yet? Has the world ended yet?" that the parents decided it wasn't worth it.

[Real Live Girl]

I always joke that you'll know when I have a terminal illness because that will be the day I show up at the gym at 4am (my usual time) with a huge box of Cinnabons and Krispy Kremes, munching and passing them out as I go from cardio machine to cardio machine giving my friends the news and carbohydrates. Then I quit the gym.

So if I ever do get a genuine and sober tip that the world is actually going to end, everyone is welcome to join my cult. We'll be holed up in a luxury hotel near the beach, eating New York style pizza and warm toll house cookies, drinking champagne, and pairing off for doomsday sex. Not a bad way to go really.

[Eric M]

The funnier parts is that religous groups will use this as evidance that THEIR view is the correct view.

Or something like that, I may have just made that up.

I think cults are funny, execpet when the innnocent / children get hurt.... But Adaults in cults, now that is funny!

[GA]

I don't think anyone in the UK serious believes the company the work for is wothwhile (besides the company owners) - so saying "I have good judgement" is gonna get the interviewer thinking "you have good judgement, but you applied for a position here?"

But then, the british sense of hunour is such that if you could sound sincere in your statement, they'd probably hire you just so they can see the look on your face the moment you illusions shatter ;-)

[jerry w.]

Not too much of an upside for these wing nuts, if they're wrong they get laughed at, if they're right, they're dead.

I figure every day I can look at the grass and see the green end of it, I'm doing o.k.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Josh P.]

I would suspect the success of a cult is directly related to the hotness of the womenfolk...

If a cult has one half-assed looking guy nutjob running the place you'll never get more than 50 members. If you can get a few dozen hotties running the place you'll bring in a lot more people...just a theory.

[Billy Arvia]

Scott,

These guys are amateurs. They don't deserve to be called a cult. They lack the strength of their convictions. The article says they expect the end of the world in May. What are they doing out now?

Cults just aren't what they used to be. Whatever happened to Jim Jones and the good old "Peoples Temple?" Oh yeah. They're dead. But what about Marshall Applewhite and the "Heaven's Gate?" Oops. They are blowing dirt farts also.

I think I will just join the Hooters Cult and eat hot wings.

http://triplebee.squarespace.com/

[WCE]

You don't have to go to Russia to find a Doomsday Cult. One of my closest friends in high school (and perhaps the hottest girl in the class) ended up "finding Jesus", and, apparently, started stalking him.

She had kids, whom she "home-schooled" by making them read the Bible. She was certain that the Second Coming was right around the corner that she never bothered teaching her kids math or anything else, because, after all, 2+2= *whatever God Wants it to be*. That was the news I heard at our 15th HS Class Reunion, her oldest was about 10, then, so he'd be in his thirties by now. I'm wondering if he's found a normal job or if, because of his upbringing, he's only qualified to sell meth.

And there are lots of "Any Day Now" believers who've moved to Idaho or Wyoming, figuring they've got surviving this whole nuclear annihilation thing all worked out. The answer, it seems, has something to do with guns and canned food. Their assumption is that city-folk don't own guns of their own, so I figure they don't watch the news much.

[Jesus Jaquez]

I wonder why dogbert haven't create a cult, and become rich or may be he can be like a "Cult consultant" so the he can resolve some cult questions like

"What is the best way to determinate the doomsday date?"
"X Cult has a lot of people, How can I compite with them"
"Do I need to post ads in craiglist to get more people to my cult"
"Where is the best place to have the cave"

[Sue Dunham]

"Cults are funny."
Oh sure; it's all fun and games 'till they bring the Koolaid out.

[Kevin]

The Russians are far from the only people doing this: Tom Cruise built a bunker for when the evil lord Xenu (or whatever the hell his name is) returns.

Somehow that seems even more absurd: building a bunker for an alien who has lived since the dawn of man and has the ability to travel among the stars and to capture souls. Something tells me the bunker won't stop Lord Xenu...

[Mike]

Cults are funny? Well if you don't laugh I guess you gotta cry. What percentage of the human population is close enough to being a nut-job to follow a nut-job? I think it will be a big number. That guy Hitler got a lot of support in his time.

[Cathy D.]

Isn't there a doomsday clock? I think it's five minutes to midnight on it. I'd say we're all living in our "doomsday caves," whether we know it or not. Pass the pinot.

[HannahsDad]

I wonder if there's a perfect design for a cult's bolt hole? At the very least, there should be a games room - most cult members I've seen really need to take the time to unwind. And there should be a secret escape hatch for the infallible leader.

[Raj]

What I cannot figure out is how the cult lives on after they have failed once. Does the leader say, "Well guys, last time we picked up the wrong comet by mistake. But this time nothing can go wrong!"

[Arthur]

The prophecy is correct. It's obviously connected with Large Hadron Collider Thing. Can't you see!?

[dsg]

Hi Scott,

I saw this yesterday on the Reuters site, http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures. They have a nice photo essay of the cult. I'm not joining a cult until the accommodations and quality of members improve. This guy has no selling points.

I like to think of a cult as a club with an expiration date. Shop for one like you would milk. If the date is too short put it right back on the shelf. I like DNRC, no specific dates given, just a promise of world domination. If you ever do join a doomsday one, you can give me some of your stuff and I promise not to mock you.

Waiting for Dogbert’s rule,
dsg

[LA Clay]

It reminds me of a mainstream religion that predicted the return of Jesus, three times. Maybe they were talking about the influx of immigrants named "hey-soos"

[rita mae]

[Melting snow caused part of the cave to collapse, and a number of cult members, including four young children, remain inside and could possibly be dead.]

Looks like it was doomsday for somebody.

You forgot to mention that they were called "the True Russian Orthodox Church." Those Christians! What a silly group. Kinda makes you want to be an atheist, huh Scott? Oops. I guess you are. Wonder if they were vegetarians?

Rita (still a Catholic) Mae

[Leslie]

Sure, you can make fun of them now. But just wait until one of these cults is right, then they'll have the last laugh! Well, assuming there's much time for laughing when the world is ending.

As a Christian, I find it very odd that others who claim to know something about the Bible try to predict when something like the end of the world might happen. Especially since Jesus said that no one would know when it would happen.

[Paul K]

Don't forget the great Kool-Aid they have!

[Davesnothere]

I think this Dilbert Blog has the earmarks/hoofmarks of a cult.
But I love it!

Have some koolaid,

Dave

[FlowerGirl]

Well... if you put it like that and say cults are funny, why don't you make a dilbert comic out of it? :)