The Mayan Calendar

[Clutzy_Ditz]

eek When I asked my adult smart-butt daughter if she could help me scan the image from the book, she did a clever search on the internet and found a great image of the Mayan Calendar. (She's the brains in the family and has a talent for searching the internet.) Geesh, she can make me feel dumb xd

 

[x-Genghis-x]

Thank you! That is much more detailed, I'll add it to the front page.  

[Clutzy_Ditz]

No problem. My daughter did the work xd

Back to the discussion? I suppose I shouldn't be so skeptical without studying more about the calendar. I've got the book, right? wink

But, on the other hand, do I really want to believe the world is ending soon? I have a cousin and an old friend who are a bit obsessed with Revelations of the Bible. It says none of us will know, yet the two of them have been trying to predict "the end" over and over, failing miserably. I don't care to listen to their ramblings because I tend to hold onto life a little tighter. I prefer living in my bubble, pretending all is well. wink  

[Kinnera]

Actually, the calender doesn't depict the end of the world. Being the geniouses the Mayans were, they were able to depict the cycles of the planets, and on December 21, 2012, the Earth, sun, and moon will line up directly with the path of our galaxy's only Black Hole.

Scientists say there will be little or no effect, and it will not cause a mass extinction.
We'll save the apocolyptic talk for the zombies. xD

Edit-Also, this one is aimed at Clutzy-Ditz. The Book of Revelations was written for basing disasters in their own time that had happened previously, or never occured at all. Most of the Old Testamate is a bunch of myths and stories anyway. (Please don't get on me for this comment, I am stating my opinion. PM me to flame.)

All throughout history people have given dates and times for the end of the world, and it never came...  

[Galad Aglaron]

Also, so-called "Armageddon" or "the End of Days" was misinterpreted. It was originally meant to mean something along the lines of "the end of days as we know them, welcome to the Age of Aquarius y'all". Which is why the world didn't end in 2000.  

[Cajun Niglet]

Prophecies and predictions always happen like this, vague and hard to interpret.

I consider saying that at some point, in the future, humans will die, woefully obvious. The Mayan world consisted of a few tribes in Meso America, so a decimation of population by trade, war, or any other thing is easily predictable.

People who create these seem to want fame as wise men who predict events, but they are vague enough to match a broad spectrum of events, so when people look at it, they fit the prophecy to their event. To use an analogy, the whole prophecy is like a pile of dough, no discernible shape, while the event is like a cookie cutter. We just put the dough in the cookie cutter, call them geniuses for knowing, and tickle our own fancies by saying we interpreted it. A prophecy that is only understandable after an event is worse than useless; it can cause actions based on an interpretation not necessarily correct.

Sadly, something will probably happen, and people will do just what I said about fitting events. Any prophecy should be disregarded, as it won't be true until after it happened anyway.