The world's not going to end in December

[Handley_Page]

I don't have a link, but a couple of months ago there was an article saying they had found a Mayan calendar painted on a wall that extended well beyond december 2012....the mayans were advanced in some ways, their calendar was much more accurate then calendars were in the western world until relatively recent times and they were good observers.
Part of the problem is that a lot of Mayan culture was lost, much of it deliberately destroyed by the Catholic Church (for example, the native mayan language, the written language, was undecipherable until fairly recently, because it was forbidden under pain of death thanks to our old friends the Inquisition..and the church has the gall to claim religious liberty over contraception *gag*), so there is a lot more myth and conjecture, even now, then facts. Mayan experts, descendants of Mayans whose life work is deciphering Mayan culture, have all said that the December 2012 was the end of a cycle,not the end of the world, and that given how long ago Mayan civilization died out, they simply didn't have time to keep building the calendar forward.

A very valid point. The Inquisition has a great deal to answer for.

The bloke I was trying to recall was Harold Camping.
There was a report of one woman who sold up completely in the belief that he was right. I wonder if she (and any others) got compensation ?

 

[topace]

Unfortunately I have to put up with parents who believe in the book of Revelation (and the Bible in general and specifics like creation and the global flood of Noah). They like to insist that the world is in the "end of days" because so many so-called prophecies are coming true.

A few they mention:

Israel becoming a nation again after over 2000 years of not being an independent one in 1948.
Their re-capturing of Jerusalem in 1967.
The increase of earthquakes and other natural disasters.

I don't think I need to say anything more, except that I think it's merely coincidence that those things are happening and their so-called 'holy' Bible foretold stuff like that. So did Nostradamus and other so-called prophets and fore-tellers of doom and gloom. I have a two-part video about stuff like this that I found fascinating to watch, but I doubt my parents would accept it as truth, even though some of it was scientifically proven. *shrugs* Their loss...

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Thera doesn't exist any more, it is the Island of Santorini and is basically a blown apart crater, not even sure there is enough oomph left in that for a fart...

Sorry, the island that is now Santorini was blown apart; the magma chamber beneath the crater is still there, thank you, and has expanded in the past few years. Yellowstone's magma chamber is also filling. My suggestion that any of these things have to do with the "end of the world" was tongue-in-cheek. Volcanoes do repeatedly erupt with out bringing an end to the world. In fact, the Hawaiian Island chain is made up of sea mounts from above a sub-tectonic plate "hot spot" which keeps erupting as the plate moves over it. We should expect such events (oops! Mt. St. Helen went awhile back, didn't it?) to occur naturally, and not consider them part of some cosmic or earthly religious plan.

I don't have a link, but a couple of months ago there was an article saying they had found a Mayan calendar painted on a wall that extended well beyond december 2012....the mayans were advanced in some ways, their calendar was much more accurate then calendars were in the western world until relatively recent times and they were good observers. Part of the problem is that a lot of Mayan culture was lost, much of it deliberately destroyed by the Catholic Church (for example, the native mayan language, the written language, was undecipherable until fairly recently, because it was forbidden under pain of death thanks to our old friends the Inquisition..and the church has the gall to claim religious liberty over contraception *gag*), so there is a lot more myth and conjecture, even now, then facts. Mayan experts, descendants of Mayans whose life work is deciphering Mayan culture, have all said that the December 2012 was the end of a cycle,not the end of the world, and that given how long ago Mayan civilization died out, they simply didn't have time to keep building the calendar forward.

Actually the Maya and their language are still alive and active. Their city-states collapsed by around 900 CE, our dates, though they did keep much of the culture alive. Bishop Landa had the great Maya library at Mani burned in 1521, and he should be condemned for that, but he also had much of Maya belief and culture recorded by Mayan scribes on codices that are still available. The proper translation of Maya glyphs, initiated by Tatiana Proskouriakoff in the 1950s has made it possible to recover much more of Classic Maya civilization. http://www.archaeology.org/1109/features/tatiana_proskouriakoff.html

The calendar, of course, doesn't end: it is linear but also cyclical. This winter solstice marks the end of the last baktun in the latest long count, so it is seen as significant, but, then again, how many of "us" saw the Y2K event as the end of civilization (i.e. computer-related life) as we knew it. All that happened near me, though, was the crash of the I-87 emergency phone system in the Adirondacks. The day following Y2K was 1 January 2000; the day after this year's Winter Solstice will be the first day of the next long count. I suggest we all get out for a ritual ball game then.