It's the end of the world as we know it.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

I was watching the History channel last night when a program came on that explained how the ancient Mayans predicted the world to end on December 21, 2012. This date is celestially significant because this is the date that the Earth, the Sun, and the center of the Milky Way form a line. This happens only once every 25,800 years. They also cited how the Oracle of Delphi, and the Cybele of Rome predicted the world would come to an end around that time as well. They had some other justifications as well, but I can't remember all of them...

So what do you think? Do you think that the Mayans have some sense in predicting our doom (because they were accurate in predicting their own), or do you think it's all nonsense? Answer wisely.

[Warmaster Horus]

Well, in my humble opinion... I don't think so.
For one thing, what do they mean by "end of the world"? Earth is due to explode (or implode... be destroyed, in any case) in millenia. And not in 4 years. So what could be the end of the world?
Also, the alignement happens every 25,800 years? Well, it happened 25,796 years ago, and we're still here, right?
The way the world is right now, yes, the next few years/decades are going to be difficult (inflation, political instability, environmental disasters, etc.), but I don't think the end of the world is upon us. Yet.

Note that I don't know much about the subject in question. It just seems improbable to me.

EDIT: by the way, is this the right forum for such a question?

[Dutch_guy]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the world 'll end in 2012.

[Reverend Joe]

I was watching the History channel last night when a program came on that explained how the ancient Mayans predicted the world to end on December 21, 2012. This date is celestially significant because this is the date that the Earth, the Sun, and the center of the Milky Way form a line. This happens only once every 25,800 years.

They never predicted the world would end then. Their calender ends at this date for this reason. It's just an end of an old calender.

And the oracle of Delphi received her visions from a natural gas vent that made her hallucinate/contort, unless I am mistaken.

[cmacq]

The History Channel must die!!!

[Somebody Else]

The British army should be getting a new medium armoured vehicle about the. Does that mean we're going to go on a mad imperialistic campaign that ends in some kind of nuclear catastrophe?

Because if so, I'd like to be first at the bookies.

SE

[Viking]

This date is celestially significant because this is the date that the Earth, the Sun, and the center of the Milky Way form a line. This happens only once every 25,800 years.

The center of teh Milky Way ya say? Well the Mayans were not able to see the center of the Milky Way; it's obscured by massive dust fields.

Anyway, alignments are celestially insignifcant (strictly speaking, aren't the Earth, the Sun and Sagittarius A* (the center of the Milky Way) pretty much aligned all the time? ).

Also, the alignement happens every 25,800 years? Well, it happened 25,796 years ago, and we're still here, right?

The Mayans didn't know that when they were inventing their mythology.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

For one thing, what do they mean by "end of the world"? Earth is due to explode (or implode... be destroyed, in any case) in millenia. And not in 4 years.

For this question I will refer to the title of this thread. The end of the world as we know it. It doesn't mean the world will explode in a big firey bang. The Mayans refer to the end coming in the form of rising waters, which sounds hauntingly similiar to the effects of global warming. Could be natural disaster. Could be disease epidemic. Could be nuclear cotastrophe. Could be world-wide economic failure. The world may not end; it may just radically change.

The Mayans predicted the end of the world, but it was just for them. In reality the world kept on going alright. That could be the case for this prediction. Most of the people in the world could perish, and yet humankind could still manage to exist.

The center of teh Milky Way ya say? Well the Mayans were not able to see the center of the Milky Way; it's obscured by massive dust fields.

The Mayans had deep knowledge of the heavens. They were able to predict eclipses thousands of years into the future. When I implied "see" the center of the Milky Way, I really meant "calculate" by knowing how everything else was moving in the heavens.

Anyway, alignments are celestially insignifcant (strictly speaking, aren't the Earth, the Sun and Sagittarius A* (the center of the Milky Way) pretty much aligned all the time?)

Ummm...Geometry 101. Three points (earth, sun, and center of MW) are not always contained on a straight line.

And the oracle of Delphi received her visions from a natural gas vent that made her hallucinate/contort, unless I am mistaken.

That is a valid theory! But does that discredit her in any way? She was correct in a number of predictions (e.g. Alexander's conquests), irrelevent of whether they were gas induced.

Will the world end on December 21, 2012?!!! What do you think?

[CBR]

The Mayans did not predict doomsday, it is just the end of one calendrical unit. But some people are always looking for signs of doomsday so year 2000, cryptic religious texts or prophets ad nauseam will always be popular.


CBR

[Craterus]

I hope so.

[Mikeus Caesar]

The Mayans did not predict doomsday, it is just the end of one calendrical unit. But some people are always looking for signs of doomsday so year 2000, cryptic religious texts or prophets ad nauseam will always be popular.


CBR

This.

It's like panicking because we've reached the end of the year and nothing comes after December 31st. A load of twaddle.

[Puzz3D]

Will the world end on December 21, 2012?!!! What do you think?

I'm going to continue doing what I do every day whether or not it's going to end. In other words, it makes no difference.

[The Stranger]

it might bring an end to the world as we know it... it may also be that a comet will hit peru or anyhow south america and will kill the world as they knew it... but i doubt it... i do think that religious fanatic ghosts will attempt to crash silhouet planes into phantom towers, and a dead tolkien will write a book about it!!!

[The Stranger]

I'm going to continue doing what I do every day whether or not it's going to end. In other words, it makes no difference.

don't lie, we all know you would start to rape murder and thieve like a madman, getting high and drunk in the process and slam yourself into a wall, actually believing the world has come to an end... and it has... for you... dont lie... were onto you!

[The Stranger]

you know whats funny... people only tend to look at the number of RIGHT predictions when looking at the credibility of a seer or someone who predicts... They forget about the 21,192,245,111 wrong predictions they made, while only 17 were right... quite odd isnt it, because would i be someone else, lets say a footballplayer and I'd say, ive lost 21,192,245,111 games but i've won 17 though, nobody is going to pat me on the back and say, youre one heck of a player. its easy, i could sit and make predictions for the rest of my life and have a few hit as well.

another obscure thing is that those predictions are always what u see in them, if im right the delphi oracly was ALWAYS ambiguous, and proud of it. Ofcourse, you can see in a prediction whatever you want most of the time, so when someone said a great man is going to conquer the world, everyone nowadays is immediatly, great? omg alexander!!! conquer the world? oh well, the world as they knew it... but actually it never happened...

and what about the possibilty that, because i know alexander attended the oracle, his conquerings were only carried through because he believed in the oracle, had the oracle said you are a GREAT loser, a crybaby and gay and will never accomplish anything, he might have gone home crying. and the oracle would have been right as well... and there i guess lies its strength and weakness, you have to believe in order for it to be true, come true.

[Viking]

The Mayans had deep knowledge of the heavens. They were able to predict eclipses thousands of years into the future. When I implied "see" the center of the Milky Way, I really meant "calculate" by knowing how everything else was moving in the heavens.

How could they know that the Milky Way actually had a center?

Ummm...Geometry 101. Three points (earth, sun, and center of MW) are not always contained on a straight line.

That completely depends on your perspective; stars that appears to be aligned on the night sky typically have completely different distances from you. Of course, you could say that by alignment you mean that you could sort of drag a stright line through their centers, in which it only happens then and then; but it's still an insignificant event.

Will the world end on December 21, 2012?!!! What do you think?

There is no more reason to consider that prophecy (which as other says, is in fact not necessarily a prophecy at all) more valid than the monster under your bed; both has as many scientific evidences to back them up (which is no one at all).

[cmacq]

Again, the History Channel must die!!! Die History Channel, die!!!

[Hax]

I will quote Jolee Bindo now.

"Every generation thinks that his or hers is the epic one." or something in that lines. Think about it.

Between the 50's and the 70's, we were afraid of the Soviets.

Between the 70's and 90's (stretching it a bit) we were afraid of the Arabs.

And now, we fear some date. Nah, I don't believe it.

[cmacq]

Death to the History Channel!!!


Except, of course dogfights. Did they kill that one?

[RoadKill]

Sorry to trash your party, but this has been proven wrong already. Calculated the Myans were off by a mile span. After a year of research a scientist discovered that if the Mayans were right, the world should have ended in 1993 or something along those lines. Don't worry. Besides I wouldn't trust people that thought cutting out someones heart and eating it can earn their bravery, the best it could've done was lower your cholestral, and give you a healthy dose of calcium

[Moros]

Sorry to trash your party, but this has been proven wrong already. Calculated the Myans were off by a mile span. After a year of research a scientist discovered that if the Mayans were right, the world should have ended in 1993 or something along those lines. Don't worry. Besides I wouldn't trust people that thought cutting out someones heart and eating it can earn their bravery, the best it could've done was lower your cholestral, and give you a healthy dose of calcium

Quite so.

Also about the Oracle. The Oracle of Delphi did inhale gas Ethylene (also called Ethene), which made her a bit crazy to say the least. However she would utter nothing sensible and comprehensible. Priests than "translated" the nonsense she uttered. These Priest weren't the stupidest of men, and usually said something contra dictive and vague. Something that usually could be poly interpretable. And when they were clear about something, it was when it was something that was pretty sure to happen/or couldn't be checked. A famous example is when Croesus went to Delphi, the priests told him: 'if you're going to cross the river of Halys, you'll destroy a mighty empire'. History tells us he lost his empire. However the priests who had it wrong had covered themselves nicely. Who is to say that they didn't mean Croesuses empire would fall? When it came to war, the golden rule was to side with the one appearing to be the strongest.

[Motep]

you know whats funny... people only tend to look at the number of RIGHT predictions when looking at the credibility of a seer or someone who predicts... They forget about the 21,192,245,111 wrong predictions they made, while only 17 were right... quite odd isnt it, because would i be someone else, lets say a footballplayer and I'd say, ive lost 21,192,245,111 games but i've won 17 though, nobody is going to pat me on the back and say, youre one heck of a player. its easy, i could sit and make predictions for the rest of my life and have a few hit as well.

another obscure thing is that those predictions are always what u see in them, if im right the delphi oracly was ALWAYS ambiguous, and proud of it. Ofcourse, you can see in a prediction whatever you want most of the time, so when someone said a great man is going to conquer the world, everyone nowadays is immediatly, great? omg alexander!!! conquer the world? oh well, the world as they knew it... but actually it never happened...

and what about the possibilty that, because i know alexander attended the oracle, his conquerings were only carried through because he believed in the oracle, had the oracle said you are a GREAT loser, a crybaby and gay and will never accomplish anything, he might have gone home crying. and the oracle would have been right as well... and there i guess lies its strength and weakness, you have to believe in order for it to be true, come true.

Good point...and a highly entertaining one

[Kagemusha]

Any day could be the last day, so why bother with something one cannot effect at all.

[Craterus]

and what about the possibilty that, because i know alexander attended the oracle, his conquerings were only carried through because he believed in the oracle, had the oracle said you are a GREAT loser, a crybaby and gay and will never accomplish anything, he might have gone home crying. and the oracle would have been right as well... and there i guess lies its strength and weakness, you have to believe in order for it to be true, come true.

Hilarious.

However, as a defender of sexuality, I've gotta take issue with your suggestion that gays can't achieve anything.

[Hax]

Shut up, Crate :P Though the comment itself is indeed a bit off.

Also about the Oracle. The Oracle of Delphi did inhale gas Ethylene (also called Ethene), which made her a bit crazy to say the least. However she would utter nothing sensible and comprehensible. Priests than "translated" the nonsense she uttered. These Priest weren't the stupidest of men, and usually said something contra dictive and vague. Something that usually could be poly interpretable. And when they were clear about something, it was when it was something that was pretty sure to happen/or couldn't be checked. A famous example is when Croesus went to Delphi, the priests told him: 'if you're going to cross the river of Halys, you'll destroy a mighty empire'. History tells us he lost his empire. However the priests who had it wrong had covered themselves nicely. Who is to say that they didn't mean Croesuses empire would fall? When it came to war, the golden rule was to side with the one appearing to be the strongest.

To add to this, the priests were well informed of the business going on in the world. A lot of people came to Delphi and talked about the latest rumours there. The modern-day oracles would be Char and people like that. Saying vague and double things.

[anelious phyros]

I was watching the History channel last night when a program came on that explained how the ancient Mayans predicted the world to end on December 21, 2012. This date is celestially significant because this is the date that the Earth, the Sun, and the center of the Milky Way form a line. This happens only once every 25,800 years. They also cited how the Oracle of Delphi, and the Cybele of Rome predicted the world would come to an end around that time as well. They had some other justifications as well, but I can't remember all of them...

So what do you think? Do you think that the Mayans have some sense in predicting our doom (because they were accurate in predicting their own), or do you think it's all nonsense? Answer wisely.

That would be so freagin awsome!

[The Stranger]

Hilarious.

However, as a defender of sexuality, I've gotta take issue with your suggestion that gays can't achieve anything.

ah booboo, have I offended little cratieboys feelings???

[cmacq]

I can't believe the History Channel has provoked a discussion of anything, as if there was a basis for whatever? Next I can’t believe the History Channel has provoked a discussion of institutionalized prophetic pronouncement as propagandized and presented by the History Channel? The History Channel must die!!! It must die here; it must die now!!!

[Craterus]

ah booboo, have I offended little cratieboys feelings???

Not at all old friend. You carry on.

[Moros]

Shut up, Crate :P Though the comment itself is indeed a bit off.



To add to this, the priests were well informed of the business going on in the world. A lot of people came to Delphi and talked about the latest rumours there. The modern-day oracles would be Char and people like that. Saying vague and double things.

Ah this is what you get if EB members ( and ex-members) run into each other.