End of the world???

[Z77 3]

2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist

AP – In this photo taken Oct. 3, 2009, Guatemalan Mayan Indian elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun poses for a portrait …

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer – Sun Oct 11, 3:58 am ET

MEXICO CITY – Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."

It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.

"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."

Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.

A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.

But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"

It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.

One of them is Monument Six.

Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.

It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.

However — shades of Indiana Jones — erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.

Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."

Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 — including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.

And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.

"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."

The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy

Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.

"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."

Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."

If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.

But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on awinter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.

That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.

Another spooky coincidence?

"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.

"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.

But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.

"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.

As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.

Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity — a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."

While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."

Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."

"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of thenorth and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."

The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.

Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.

While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.

"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around." 

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yup...enough said

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_apocalypse2012

[MattShizzle 11]

Yeah, the tinfoil hat/woo warrior/conspiracy theory/UFO crowd gets on my nerves.

eta your computer mouse when you are across the street has a stronger gravatic influence on you then distant galaxies ever do.

[GlobexCo 33]

The world could end on 31 Dec 1999 (milleniun bug), but it won't end in 2012 , because it can't end in 2012! Cause we're still waiting for Simcity 5 and for Duke NUkem Forever!!

[TekindusT 3,809]

At least 2012 movie seems to feature great special effects... I'm a fanatic of catastrophist movies!

[Z77 3]

Independence day! woot

[DITRO 15]

pfft..... Everyone knows the world is gonna end in 2016... I mean 2034... or maybe it ended back in 1982?

[Kryptowhite 9]

And of course once it doesn't happen all these idiots will pin this on the mayans and say "o what a bunch of idiots" or something like that. Never realizing that a) they misinterprited things b) they were dumber for believing that stuff. We all die someday and the world will end eventually, so no point trying to figure out when.

Still, december 21st 2012 is going to be a fun day. I am going to be messing with people all day "Woah dude you gotta wake up the sky is glowing orange" "did you hear? congo just nuked Zimbabwe over a banana dispute!" Of course i'll be a freshman in college that day so i might be too drunk to remember.

[pagenotfound 53]

Hey, party at my house on the 22nd!

[Blazerhawk 162]

2012=Y2.012K

Simple as that.

[sumwonyuno 42]

...the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.

That just sums it all.

A lot of people around the world live in constant fear.  If a person's fear gets to the point where he or she is desperate for any sort of comfort, that person is vulnerable to manipulation by others.  It's not just for the religious (or religious-like) fanatics.  In the United States, I believe that there's a widespread culture of fear (not just because of 9/11), but it's created and reinforced by society, the media and government.

I have a friend that had an innocent interest in aliens and the supernatural.  I guess from absorbing so much superhero content, he's become self-righteous.  He stumbled across the wrong web page one day, and he discovered all of these conspiracy theories and doomsday prophecies.  So today my friend is fearful of everything.  For a good year or two (or three?) he's been harrassing people about his new found beliefs and "truths".  Almost all of my friends just keep a lot of distance from him now.

It's not worth it to debate a person that doesn't base their logic on facts.  Fine, humans just don't know that much.  But that doesn't mean that someone's unproved pseudo-theory on 2012, et al., has more merit than facts that have been proven (by human, objective standards).  Tactics such as saying education is indoctrination, humans don't have the consciouness to know more, etc., are more like scapegoat sentences of rhetoric.

Humans have the ability to learn.  If any of the previous end of the world prophecies were true, then we'd be long gone (the ultimate "learning" from mistakes).  So anything "bad" that happens in the world (and is played up by the media and repeated all over the Internet) becomes another example of end times.

As for the Mayas, there are descendants still around.  Sure, they may not be able to remember the context that the calendar was created for.  It's a job for historians to figure that out.  It's not credible people out there that are the cheerleaders of 2012.  It's just disengenous for anyone to warp interpretations of another culture to fit their own agendas.

[Meg 368]

I've lost count of how many times the world was supposed to have ended by now.   

Duck and cover drills under the desks at school.  (Like that was supposed to protect us during a nuclear attack?) 

Then the 1975 prophesy that the world would end. (Nope, still here.)

Then the 1987 harmonic convergence which was supposed to transition earth's energy from warlike to peaceful.  (How's that working out so far?)

Then the "evitable" doomsday conclusion to the Cold War.  (oh, yeah, it didn't happen that way.)

Then end of the millennium where the traffic lights were supposed to stop working and the power plants would all die.  (There actually was a math issue there but, guess what?  We fixed it in time!)

Now, it's 2012 when the Mayan calendar flips to a new year.

:::: this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius :::

oops,  wrong decade.  

Never mind . . .

[N106 10]

Honestly, I'd get very mad if the world ended on December 21, 2012. I made a $2 bet with one of my friends that the world will not end in 2012. I'd lose 2 dollars if the world ended!

[blade2k5 1,523]

Pooh. Ye of little faith.

[Larks2242 251]

I hope not i'm too young to die

[panthersimcity4 162]

The world will end in 2012. It says so on the internet, so it MUST be true!

[SomeRandomAmerican 5]

The only reason that this crap comes up is so that some cult-founding wacko can found his own religion, gain followers, and then proceed to lead them off into the desert so they can kill themselves in anticipation of meeting up with the alien mothership travelling behind a comet. Its all a scheme designed to make money and thin out the population.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Originally posted by: sumwonyuno In the United States, I believe that there's a widespread culture of fear (not just because of 9/11), but it's created and reinforced by society, the media and government.

quote>

Amen. The government on all levels wields this fear as a bludgeon, and the media cheers it on because it gets fearful eyes tuned in for "this commercial message". So few people can see it, the rest wring their hands and run to hide under The Great Nanny's skirt.

[thepokemaniac 18]

Eh, I get sick of this "end of the world" thing. Now, not considering any religious ideas, scientifically speaking, the world will end when the sun engulfs it, or something like that. My social studies teacher is Cherokee, and he's met Maya.

"Just ask any of them! They'll tell you that the world will not end in 2012, thats just the end of one of their cycles. According to Maya legend, following a 'bad' cycle comes a good one, and current one we are in is a 'bad' cycle." He continued by saying that they are fed up with all these people making money off of a misunderstanding of their culture. I can't wait till December 2012 so I can tell everyone, "I told y'all so!"

[Jazzmaster 716]

Can't imagine the world coming to such an abrupt end on one, defined date.  I mean now scientists are talking about polar shifts and whatnot... of course they rarely brought that up (rarely=I'd never heard of it) until this alleged amrageddon started spreading.   Oh but since the polar shift hasn't occured in tens of thousands of years, it just MUST be due on December 21st 2012.  Yeh I don't buy it lol

But still, it's quite an interesting discussion topic, and I'm somewhat excited for Roland Emmerich's 2012 among (hopefully) other doomsday films...I love disaster films.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Of couse not.  The Mayans simply ran out of space and interest to record more cycles.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Maby the myans didnt finish the calender becasue the Spanish Arived.

[your_adress_here 11]

Originally posted by: Easy Bakes

Maby the myans didnt finish the calender becasue the Spanish Arived.

quote>

Anywho, I've already got my plans for that night.

[MattShizzle 11]

Actually Mayan culture died out before the Spanish ever arrived - some time in the mid 15th Century. So 2012 is some 550+ years past when they were making calendars. Even now with computers, easy printing and everything, when's the last time you saw a calendar for 2559 or later?

[Blazerhawk 162]

Anyone ever think the guys in charge of making this calendar just decided to wait until 2012 got closer before continuing? I mean the fact is that calendar still isn't up and it was done over 1000 years ago.

I just love seeing how people react to these things. If I were putting money on anything happening on December 21, 2012, I'd put it on a major earthquake in the New Madrid Fault Zone (its been about 200 years) or me winning the lottery (next to impossible as Alabama doesn't have one), not the end of the world (after all, we all know that doesn't happen until around 2552 ).

[hamsterTK 93]

Still, december 21st 2012 is going to be a fun day. I am going to be messing with people all day "Woah dude you gotta wake up the sky is glowing orange"quote>

I like the way you think....

Anyways, there's another reason why this fails. if the Mayans could predict the future why not predict their own demise, lol

[Follarch 327]

Amen to all of you! I just can't wait till that day. Cause the next im gonna wake up, and laugh at everyone who ever believed in the end of the world. There is no end, time is constant and infinite. And since existence "exists" within time, existence is infinite. Our generation might die one day, but the next will take our place as time, and the world, live on. Which sucks cause I wont be able to live to see the next century!

*Cries*

[kellydale2003 2,276]

I'm not insisting 2012 is doomsday - But a quote from the Mayans for when the calender runs out "The World will go for better".

And a quote from Nastrodamus, "The World will be better without humans".

These are of course translated, and I'm not a messenger. But don't shoot me! And these quotes kind of relate to each other in a way. Calendars are obviously for humans only, and obviously on that day Mayans insisted the World will go for better on that day. And this is when the calendar for "humans" runs out.

Weird, eh.

[Legosim 14]

i predict the world will end when someone hires me, which will be never! lol

this 2012 toot is a bunch of junk, i think the history channel really pushes it too far, they were the ones who started it. on december 21st im staying home and play simcity and my lego

And you cant predict when the world will end, if it ever will, it could end in an hour from now, or the sun might of just blown up while i was typing, sorry   im a nice crispy bacon strip now

[panthersimcity4 162]

Originally posted by: hamsterTK

Still, december 21st 2012 is going to be a fun day. I am going to be messing with people all day "Woah dude you gotta wake up the sky is glowing orange"quote>

I like the way you think....

Anyways, there's another reason why this fails. if the Mayans could predict the future why not predict their own demise, lolquote>

That's an excellent point. It's also important to note that the Mayans believed that ripping someone's heart out of their chest would make it rain... and I'm pretty sure that doesn't work. But then again, stranger things are possible...

[moaku 74]

My nickname means "Master Of All Known Universe", and as it, I can ensure you that the world will not end at this date since my evil plans to enslave the whole mankind won't be ready until 2020, so please be patient ! and have no fear, I still need Earth... at least for now !