[Faline]

Not something i believe but it is current news so people can speak about it here and add bits of info or whatever

One in 10 of us is said to be anxious that 21 December marks the end of the world. The Ancient Mayans predicted this doomsday, and the press is eating it up. But where are all the believers?

That the world will end in 2012 is the most widely-disseminated doomsday tale in human history, thanks to the internet, Hollywood and an ever-eager press corps.

Recent hurricanes, unrest in the Middle East, solar flares, mystery planets about to collide with us - all "proof" of what the ancient Mayans knew would come to pass on 21 December 2012.

According to a Reuters global poll, one in 10 of us is feeling some anxiety about this date.

Russians have been so worried that the Minister of Emergency Situations issued a denial that the world would end.

Authorities in the village of Bugarach in the South of France have barred access to a mountain where some believe a UFO will rescue them.

And survivalists in America - many of whom use the term "prepper" - have been busy preparing for all manner of cataclysm.

So I set out to find people who believe 21/12/12 is D-Day.

It was harder than I imagined, despite seeking out preppers, bunker builders, and even a Mayan shaman.

Eventually I turned to Morandir Armson, a scholar of the New Age and Esoterica at the University of Sydney, Australia.

"If you told me there were more than 5,000 people who genuinely believed the end of the world was coming rather than just having vague fears about it, I'd be surprised," he says.

Armson adds that those people are probably "in the wilds of Idaho, heavily armed, and won't talk to journalists anyway".

The heightened fear around this date is, in his view and that of other experts, almost entirely due to the internet. More specifically they blame the blogosphere.

It is not how the whole 2012 phenomenon started.

In 1987, Jose Arguelles, a man who devoted much of his life to studying the Mayan Calendar, organised what was called the Harmonic Convergence, a sort of post-hippy Woodstock. It attracted tens of thousands around the globe.

The event was an attempt to "create a moment of meditation and connection to the sacred sites around the earth," says Daniel Pinchbeck, author of 2012: The Year of the Mayan Prophecy.

It was also the beginning of what many in the loosely-defined New Age movement regard as a process in the transformation of our consciousness - a transformation that goes into full effect at the end of this year.

Pinchbeck calls 21/12/12 the "hinge point" of the emergence of a new, more enlightened age - not an ending point for all civilisation.

"It is quite clear that the Mayan system envisages a new cycle of the calendar beginning on the 22 December 2012," says Graham Hancock, author of Fingerprints of the Gods, and something of a rock star in the world of ancient mysteries enthusiasts.

He says the ancient Mayan culture was a shamanic one. Those who left us the calendar were visionaries who were providing clues to this ending of one cycle and the beginning of another.

That is not to say that New Agers do not see catastrophic events as necessary in some way to this new birth.

In fact they tend to embrace eastern faiths and native cultures with their cyclical views of time. In these visions, the world has been and will be destroyed - to some degree - and we start anew.

Accordingly, some believe the Mayans were sending us a warning for 2012.

"We may see a lot of destruction," says Pinchbeck. He points to Hurricane Sandy, which recently hit his home city of New York.

Many, including the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, linked that hurricane to global warming, which tends to be seen by New Agers as the main threat to our planet.

However the New Age movement is full of optimists. Crucially, they say we have a choice in how this story ends.

"We do not have to step over the edge of the abyss into darkness and destruction," Hancock says, calling this point in time a "cusp moment."

"It's up to us. It's totally up to us."

Morandir Armson, the Australian scholar, says the belief that 2012 marks a positive shift is one also shared by UFO groups, such as the Ashtar Command and the Ground Crew. These groups have no headquarters but for internet sites.

He says they refer to themselves as "lightworkers" who believe a fleet of alien space ships hover around our solar system.

"By doing good works on earth [they believe] you can speed up the consciousness of our humanity," says Armson.

In many ways, they emphasise the more positive aspects of the traditional Christian Apocalypse. The fire-and-brimstone part gets downplayed in favour of the glorious Kingdom to come.

Some 20% of Americans believe we are in the end times, and that they will see the return of Jesus Christ in their lifetime.

This month marks Advent in the Christian Calendar, during which Christians are encouraged to read from the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic vision of St John the Divine.

"It's full of gory and grotesque detail of how the wicked are going to be punished," says Ted Harrison, author of Apocalypse When: Why We Want to Believe there Will Be No Tomorrow.

The twenty-first of December, however, is not on the biblical calendar and few, if any, believers in the traditional Book of Revelation are attached to this date.

The supposed date of the coming apocolypse, 21 December, also marks the Winter Solstice, symbolic in many cultures of the end of darkness and the renewal of the light.

It might, suggests Harrison, focus our minds on how we have been treating the planet and those on it, and how we could mend our ways.

In this respect, he says, "It might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's one hope. A remote one, but it is one hope."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20764906

[Johnny Wadd]

See ya on the other side

[ernyzaz]

this is just beyond stupid how people even talk about this

[Pyramid_Head]

I too do NOT buy this bullshit. IF the world ends, it will be out of the blue and unexpected. There have been thousands if not more dates that claimed to be D-Day and ended up not being so. Anyone else recall Y2K?

[Insideoutbodies]

bunch of shit first its the year 2000 now its 2012 after this they will make some other fucking date up and say "we got it wrong" fucking idiots

[Impotent Rage]

Originally Posted by Insideoutbodies ↗

bunch of shit first its the year 2000 now its 2012 after this they will make some other fucking date up and say "we got it wrong" fucking idiots

The y2k bug was very real and had the potential to cause most of the speculated problems. I'd say the mass media played a fairly significant part in publicising it thus averting the problems.

2012 is a very different issue. There is no reasonable basis for concern at all.

[kellyhound]

just winter starts tomorrow, that's it.

[Bastet]

Finally I have grand enough an excuse to buy a bottle of expensive quality champagne

[Sharon]

Ah well, let there be great indulgences on the eve of our doom

Did they take into account world time zones? If so, Austrailia must be on it's way out

[gatagato]

NASA is so sure there will be a December 22, 2012, it has already posted a YouTube video titled "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday."
<object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QY_Gc1bF8ds?version=3&amp;hl=it_IT&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QY_Gc1bF8ds?version=3&amp;hl=it_IT&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

Beyond 2012: Why the World Won't End
Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know, however, it will be another winter solstice.

Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the claims behind the end of the world quickly unravel when pinned down to the 2012 timeline.

Below, NASA Scientists answer questions on the following 2012 topics:

• End of the World
• 'Prediction' Origins
• Mayan Calendar
• Total Blackout
• Planetary Alignment
• Nibiru/Planet X/Eris
• Polar Shift
• Meteor Strike
• NASA Science
• Solar Storms

Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer (A):The world will not end in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.


Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?
A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.


Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.



Q: Is NASA predicting a "total blackout" of Earth on Dec. 23 to Dec. 25?
A: Absolutely not. Neither NASA nor any other scientific organization is predicting such a blackout. The false reports on this issue claim that some sort of "alignment of the Universe" will cause a blackout. There is no such alignment (see next question). Some versions of this rumor cite an emergency preparedness message from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. This is simply a message encouraging people to be prepared for emergencies, recorded as part of a wider government preparedness campaign. It never mentions a blackout.
›Watch the Video


Q: Could planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. One major alignment occurred in 1962, for example, and two others happened during 1982 and 2000. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
› More about alignment

Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.


Q: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the Earth's crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
A: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-switch to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. Scientists believe a magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia.
› More about polar shift


Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA Near-Earth Object Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.


Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of the world ending in 2012?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.
› Why you need not fear a supernova
› About super volcanoes


Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.
› Video: Solar Storms
› More about solar storms

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

Andy Fraknoi: "Resources for Responding to Doomsday 2012: An Annotated Guide"
National Public Radio: "Ask A NASA Astrobiologist About Dec. 21 'Doomsday'"
NASA Astrobiology Institute: "Nibiru and Doomsday 2012"
Bad Astronomy: "The Planet X Saga: The Scientific Arguments in a Nutshell"
Sky and Telescope Magazine: "2012: The Great Scare"
Houston Museum of Natural Science: "Maya 2012: Prophecy Becomes History"


Maya demand an end to doomsday myth
October 25, 2012

Guatemala's Mayan people accused the government and tour groups on Wednesday of perpetuating the myth that their calendar foresees the imminent end of the world for monetary gain.

"We are speaking out against deceit, lies and twisting of the truth, and turning us into folklore-for-profit. They are not telling the truth about time cycles," charged Felipe Gomez, leader of the Maya alliance Oxlaljuj Ajpop.

Several films and documentaries have promoted the idea that the ancient Mayan calendar predicts that doomsday is less than two months away, on December 21, 2012.

The Culture Ministry is hosting a massive event in Guatemala City—which as many as 90,000 people are expected to attend—just in case the world actually does end, while tour groups are promoting doomsday-themed getaways.

Maya leader Gomez urged the Tourism Institute to rethink the doomsday celebration, which he criticized as a "show" that was disrespectful to Mayan culture.

Experts say that for the Maya, all that ends in 2012 is one of their calendar cycles, not the world.

Gomez's group issued a statement saying that the new Maya time cycle simply "means there will be big changes on the personal, family and community level, so that there is harmony and balance between mankind and nature."

Oxlajuj Ajpop is holding events it considers sacred in five cities to mark the event and Gomez said the Culture Ministry would be wise to throw its support behind their real celebrations.

More than half of Guatemala's population of nearly 15 million are from indigenous groups of Mayan descent.

The Mayan calendar has 18 months of 20 days each plus a sacred month, "Wayeb," of five days. "B'aktun" is the larget unit in the time cycle system, and is about 400 years. The broader era spans 13 B'aktun, or about 5,200 years.

The Mayan culture enjoyed a golden age between 250 AD and 900 AD.