[kba]

William Miller predicted Jesus' return in the year 1843. When that didn't happen, he adjusted his calculations to mean March 21, 1844. When that failed, it became October 22, 1844. He kept modifying his prediction whenever it failed. You'd think being constantly proven wrong would make people stop believing him.

That's how the Seventh-day Adventist Church was started. A church that today has more than 18 million members.

You can't reason people out of something they didn't reason themselves into.

[M_Grey]

This is also how the JW's started, and frankly continue. The simple, sad reality is:

People mostly believe what they want to believe.

[hilop]

Once the snowball starts rolling, the later generations don't care much for the ridiculousness founding myths. It just becomes a traditional culture. Same for all religions, and heck, even nations

[pavel_lishin]

You could argue the same thing about Christianity in general; didn't Jesus prophesize his return to occur within a very short time after his death?

[variant]

SDA here -- that's partially true, but at some point he did realize there was no actual prediction in scripture about a specific date for the second coming. The church has made no such claims since the 19th century.