Friday column: A question of belief

Ah, Harold …

Here I was, exhaling a ginormous sigh of relief that the world didn’t go boom May 21 as you predicted, when you go and move the goal posts.

Now, I have to wait in terror five more months to Oct. 21?

Not fair, Harold.

Still, I think I’ll manage.

Somehow.

I’d give Harold credit for being light on his feet, but it’s rather a job requirement for a false prophet. In honor of Camping’s latest fizzle — he first predicted the End of it All in 1994 — The Christian Science Monitor ran a look back at some other apocalyptic busts.

My favorite was the 1954 prediction by a Chicago housewife and Dianetics follower involving aliens from the planet Clarion. Some of her followers, like Camping’s, quit jobs and sold possessions, then gathered at her house to await The Big Event.

When the appointed time came and went, her followers became increasingly agitated, whereupon the housewife announced she’d heard from the Clarions once again: God was so impressed by her group’s faithfulness, he had decided to spare Earth, after all!

Now, that’s being light-footed.

Lance Armstrong and his lawyers are not nearly as nimble on their toes. Perhaps they can’t be. Or perhaps they don’t have to be. It’s hard to tell.

To former associates’ accusations of the use of banned substances comes Armstrong’s mantra: “Never failed a drug test.” To former teammates’ allegations of cheating comes his lawyers’ mantra: “Liars out to sell a book.”

Armstrong doesn’t claim to be a prophet, but he does have followers, believers who have a stake in his story and his veracity.

Many of those have cancer, or have loved ones with cancer, and want very much to believe that the founder of the Livestrong Foundation won all those Tours de France riding clean.

One of them is Jennifer Floyd Engel, who writes for the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas. Her mother died of a hereditary form of cancer, a fact that, she says, “skyrockets my odds into an ugly place.”

Engel wrote this week about the importance of Armstrong’s Tour de France victories:

“The yellow jersey provided inspiration for everybody fighting cancer and everybody who may one day lock horns with this insidious disease. This was proof that doctors are not always right, that not everybody they say is going to die does and those who do win can come back stronger and better.”

Engel is shaken by the latest allegations but is hanging on to her belief in Armstrong’s innocence.

So is a friend of mine, who can marshal an impressive array of facts to support the view of Armstrong and his lawyers.

I would not dispute a single sentence of his litany; he knows the material much better than I.

And perhaps he is right; I would like him to be so.

And yet.

When there’s this much smoke, usually there is fire — somewhere.

It’s difficult for me to believe that all who have accused Armstrong have done so from ulterior motives, and even if they have, it doesn’t mean their charges don’t carry some truth (see Canseco, Jose).

It’s hard for me to believe that Armstrong — as fierce and driven a competitor as I’ve ever seen — would not avail himself of the same “edge” as did many of his competitors (and many of his teammates). Not if it meant victory instead of defeat.

Do I know he cheated? No, I don’t.

And I don’t know the world isn’t going to end Oct. 21.

But I’m not quitting my job.