How much do you know about the Mayan calendar?
I was watching a documentary about the Mayans in my world history class this morning, and they said that the Mayans had predicted the “end of this world” to come on December 23, 2012. Palin? Coincidence?
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I am more akin to believe that the end of the Mayan calendar has more to do with convenience and celestial events than prophetic knowledge. If they knew the world was ending in 2012, wouldn’t they also have known that severe drought would diminish their population at it’s height? Or that the Conquistadors would lay waste to their culture?
Said another way, any calendar needs to have a beginning and an end. We shouldn’t read too much significance into where the beginning and end are specifically.
It’s December 21, 2012
I personally don’t know much about the Mayan calendar but, I’ve heard that many times before and I don’t believe it’s going to “end” there might be some kind of change in the world but that’s it. I spoke to this astrologer once and she said we’re not going anywhere.
It has nothing to do with the end of the world, it’s the end of a ‘stage’, it supposedly coincides with a wobble the planet does on it’s axis every 12k+ years, and junk. It’s supposed to be not just an end of things, but a beginning for a new era. People tend to focus on the end because we’re essentially scared lltte monkeys with too much brain to just hang out, eat bananas and be happy. This is my very simple explanation of what I do know, picked up from documentaries and book browsing…
As for whether or not it’s true—Call me on the 22nd and we’ll see how each other is doing.
Bunch of guys who used to run around without adequate male support, stabbing people to death to appease their gods. Oh, yeah, they made this calendar thingy that everyone says is going to end the world. Ain’t happening. They couldn’t even figure out indoor plumbing & thought the Spaniards were their gods because they’d never seen a horse before.
<Roger Daltry singing> Meet the New Age! Same as the Old Age!
@Ich: Wasn’t that the Aztecs? (with the horse)
@asmonet
yes I do believe that was the aztecs
@ich: Haha!
@aan: tyvm! :)
@asmonet and adrj027: I know, hence the quotes around end of this world. As in, the world as we know it. I’m not saying it’s prophetic in any way I just thought it was amusing. Sheesh, tough crowd today.
Aztec, Inca, Mayan, Toltec, I dunno. You seen one Precolumbian civilization, you seen ‘em all.
I propose a special area for 2012 questions.
I don’t particularly care whether or not the Mayans did the same stuff as the Aztecs. The point here is that nothing about that calendar of theirs has any effect on the fabric of the Universe.
I really don’t get why people want to believe in this shit. If anything happens to the world in 2012, some moldy old artifact is not going to have anything to do with it. Why 2012? Why not 2060, the date Newton supposedly predicted for the Biblical Apocalypse? Why not Y2K, all sorts of hairy shit was supposed to happen then and, uh, besides the disaster of G.W. Bush’s election, nothing bad happened.
In that year, there was reason to believe we’d have problems because of the Y2K computer glitch. People were terrified of it. I worked actively on that problem, along with a lot of other programmers, and guess what? We did good. The world did not end. The Internet stayed up. Trains ran on time. Planes stayed in the sky. If you had $1300 in your bank account on Dec 31, 1999, you still had it on Jan 1, 2000. There were a few little things that got by us, but they were fixed quickly, and life went on just fine, except for maybe a few more hangovers than usual.
Only humans affect their destiny, and only through conscious action. Old books and artifacts don’t mean anything. Once in a while, some old prophecy seemingly comes true because of random probability, and people are like “Whoa! There must be something to this stuff!” There isn’t. Hollywood does not help, either, especially with the CGI effects they can generate now. It’s cinematically convincing bullshit, but it’s still bullshit. Lemme spell that out:
B U L L S H I T
I think the point is that the calendar has nothing to do with the end of the world, it simply describes stages as interpreted by astronomical occurrences.
But thanks for working on that Y2K thing, Ich..
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Besides, if you don’t want to worry about 2012, consider the possible differences between the Mayan Long Count and the Gregorian calendar. Then you can move the apocalypse to 2011
@ich: That’s kind of a load of bullshit. Y2K is not a comparable event as it was a completely man-made ‘problem’ that yes, was avoided by people working on said problem. You’re using that to explain away a potential ‘celestial event’? Something humans can have no part of? And there is science behind the theory, the Earth wobbling on it’s axis is a FACT and it coincides. Saying that humans control their own destiny or even affect it as you said with that as your proof is kind of silly.
It might be our destiny to die next year when an asteroid collides with us. My decisions from now until that moment have no bearing on the outcome.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. It will be here a while longer.
Nothing is gonna happen. Trust me – or not – but I’ll still be here.
No one is arguing with you on that point?
i always figured that the asteroid would hit the holy land
it would definitely put the whole issue of ownership rights on the back burner
Many people predicted the world would end on January 1, 2000. We’re still here. Same will happen in 2013.
@IchtheosaurusRex The Earth will still be here awhile from now, but we probably won’t be.
No one has mentioned that we have pretty much sealed our fate in the past two hundred years or so by our greediness for natural resources and our obsession with procreation with no thought for the future. We’ll drive ourselves to the brink of extinction and ruin just like the Aztecs and the Incas and the Mayans. I wouldn’t worry about some calendar.
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