I wish I had a dollar for every time someone mentioned the "end of the world" in 2012. It seems like "everyone" knows that the world is supposed to end on December 21, 2012, at the end of the Mayan Calender when asteroids will ravage the earth, Planet X will collide with us or the sun will go mad and burn us to a crisp. Or there will be some sort of giant flood a la Roland Emmerich. Take your pick. Or Jesus will come back, or something like it. These are all false, for various reasons, and as if it isn't enough that I keep hearing this from self-appointed prophets on the History Channel I've now been warned of impending doom from the GOP. Yes, that's right, the GOP. I routinely receive emails from an organization called GOPUSA, dedicated to "bringing the conservative message to America." Turns out that they're just a pack of fear-mongering scoundrels.
Once again, it says, the government is "lying to us," about something that could bring death to millions. Yes, dear readers, "the sun could kill us!" Well of course the sun could kill us, if one stays out in it too long and gets skin cancer. Or sunstroke. Or dehydration. But wait, they don't mean it like that!
The email assures me that numerous factors all point to "something big" in 2012. Why yes, in fact I seem to remember there is a presidential election next year, that's important. But wait, they didn't mean that!
The Mayan Calender "drops off completely." Oh, is that so? The problem is that the Mayan "Long Count" calender that they refer to was just one of several Mayan calenders in use, and the Maya never looked to 2012 as the end of the world. In fact, they calculated dates long into the future past next year, which one would assume means that they didn't expect the world to end. For the Long Count, 2012 represented the point at which the calender started again, like December 31st for our calender. After all, there is nothing on our current 2011 calender past December 31, but we do not expect the world to end then.
"Current events have started sounding an awful lot like Revelation." A personal opinion, not hard fact. While some events that happen now may seem scary, I rather think that people witnessing the end of the Roman Empire, the advance of Genghis Khan or the Black Death of the 14th Century would have had better cause to suspect the end of the world than we do. To say that we live in awful times is myopic at best. We in the West, most of us, have food on our tables, a roof over our heads and go to bed expecting to wake up without fear of being butchered in our beds or dying of virulent disease. Frankly, believers have been seeing Revelation everywhere they looked since Nero allowed Rome to burn! And yet here we are still. How many times to people have to predict a specific date for the end of the world and been proven wrong before this nonsense isn't taken seriously any more. I'm eagerly awaiting May 21st and December 21, 2012 so that I may add those dates to my long list of wrong predictions for the end of the world. Perhaps so-called believers predicting the end of the world should look to their own Bible. You know, that "no man knows the day nor the hour" bit?
The email claims that NASA looks for the sun to go "haywire" next year. Balderdash. Now they're just making stuff up. The current sun cycle does not reach a maximum next year, and in fact this particular cycle has been rather quite and not particularly active.
All this does is attempt to incite fear in the gullible, and it shifts the focus away from our real problems. The Mayan Calender won't mark the end of the world, but it can take people's attention away from the decline of oil. Or global warming, which more than ever is ridiculed as an obvious farce when nothing could be further from the truth. I fear for the good of all when the "end of the world" is widely accepted without evidence but global warming, and evolution for that matter, are rejected in spite of the evidence. It does not bode well for us.
Once again, it says, the government is "lying to us," about something that could bring death to millions. Yes, dear readers, "the sun could kill us!" Well of course the sun could kill us, if one stays out in it too long and gets skin cancer. Or sunstroke. Or dehydration. But wait, they don't mean it like that!
The email assures me that numerous factors all point to "something big" in 2012. Why yes, in fact I seem to remember there is a presidential election next year, that's important. But wait, they didn't mean that!
The Mayan Calender "drops off completely." Oh, is that so? The problem is that the Mayan "Long Count" calender that they refer to was just one of several Mayan calenders in use, and the Maya never looked to 2012 as the end of the world. In fact, they calculated dates long into the future past next year, which one would assume means that they didn't expect the world to end. For the Long Count, 2012 represented the point at which the calender started again, like December 31st for our calender. After all, there is nothing on our current 2011 calender past December 31, but we do not expect the world to end then.
"Current events have started sounding an awful lot like Revelation." A personal opinion, not hard fact. While some events that happen now may seem scary, I rather think that people witnessing the end of the Roman Empire, the advance of Genghis Khan or the Black Death of the 14th Century would have had better cause to suspect the end of the world than we do. To say that we live in awful times is myopic at best. We in the West, most of us, have food on our tables, a roof over our heads and go to bed expecting to wake up without fear of being butchered in our beds or dying of virulent disease. Frankly, believers have been seeing Revelation everywhere they looked since Nero allowed Rome to burn! And yet here we are still. How many times to people have to predict a specific date for the end of the world and been proven wrong before this nonsense isn't taken seriously any more. I'm eagerly awaiting May 21st and December 21, 2012 so that I may add those dates to my long list of wrong predictions for the end of the world. Perhaps so-called believers predicting the end of the world should look to their own Bible. You know, that "no man knows the day nor the hour" bit?
The email claims that NASA looks for the sun to go "haywire" next year. Balderdash. Now they're just making stuff up. The current sun cycle does not reach a maximum next year, and in fact this particular cycle has been rather quite and not particularly active.
All this does is attempt to incite fear in the gullible, and it shifts the focus away from our real problems. The Mayan Calender won't mark the end of the world, but it can take people's attention away from the decline of oil. Or global warming, which more than ever is ridiculed as an obvious farce when nothing could be further from the truth. I fear for the good of all when the "end of the world" is widely accepted without evidence but global warming, and evolution for that matter, are rejected in spite of the evidence. It does not bode well for us.
You should write for a larger public, Brady. This is very, very good. Alas, the gullible fools who fall for the "end of days" crap aren't going to be influenced by you or anyone who can make rational sense. Theirs is a form of mental illness, I swear. Willful ignorance compounded by a total inability to rationally reflect on their ill-supported "opinions." Opinions, by the way, they'll defend until death, even while denying others theirs.
ReplyDeleteStupid idiots. Everyone knows that 2012 is when we'll have a breakout of the Zombie Virus. Some people never learn.
ReplyDeleteSo should we start hunting for other calendars, predictions, assertions, etc. made by extinct primitive peoples? I smell money!
ReplyDelete