Oct
19
What is the Origin of the 2012 Doomsday Belief?
I have seen a LOT of questions (on this site in particular) from those who believe that the year 2012 is some sort of doomsday year. Does anyone have an idea of the origins of this ridiculous rumor? Just curious…
Answer by Sharkey
This is rediculous, but I found this out too. All it does is mark the end of the Mayan calendar. They have no set things after this date and due to this people believe it is the end of the world. Remind you of the branch dividians in Waco, Texas? Har Har. No offense to the fanatics out there. I am a scientist and I am speaking from my profession.
Give your answer to this question below!
I think it is due to the end of the Mayan calender.
They predicted their own downfall (I think…) and their calender just stops suddenly in 2012. I guess that would explain why there is such widespread belief on the subject.
Oh, that’s a long story.
Raymond will jump in here (hopefully) with his narrative, which is a bit shorter than my link below, but the thumbnail sketch is:
Zacharia Sitchin’s “Nibiru” + Nancy Leider’s “Planet X” + Jose Arguelles’ “Mayan Prophecy” = “2012 doomsday”.
The 2012 proponents have combined various other doomsday stories, taking bits and pieces from each, and smushing them into one not-so-consistent myth. Basically when the whole 2003 thing didn’t work out, they re-tooled, picked up the new date from Arguelles, and swiped Sitchin’s planet, and began again.
Maybe 25 years ago archaeologists managed to decipher the Mayan inscriptions. They found a number of different calendars the Mayans used including a “long count” of days that started in August 3114BC, which was long before the Mayans had a civilisation. Because of their peculiar counting system. they more or less ran out of room for more numbers, so the long count ends on 21 or 23 December 2012. This is about as significant as a car distance meter going from 999,999 to 000,000, and the Mayans did not attach any prediction to this.
According to traditional European astrology, we are about to enter the “Age of Aquarius”, but the astrologers cannot agree on the year. Some said it was in the 1960s, others say not for another 100 years or so. So 2012 is right in the middle of the expected range of dates so it might as well be then as any other time.
Some woo-woo writers like Jose Arguelles got on to the end of the “long count” and stated predicting big things for 2012. Nothing very nasty, by the way, but that does not sell. Disaster sells. So others grabbed the idea and ran away with it, predicting all sorts of different disasters in 2012, including Nancy Lieder’s failed prediction of planet X damaging the Earth, which was supposed to happen in 2003.
All the rest about precession and alignments is of course nonsense and is just invented “evidence” for disaster.
It has to do with the Mayan calendar ending in 2012.
The Mayan calendar does not end. It’s circular. They didn’t run out of stone either.
http://images.google.com/images?q=aztec+…
http://www.azteccalendar.com/azteccalend…
The simple fact that you do not know, sets the foundation for the success of any doomsday hoax. Hoaxers rely upon the gullable and lazy and low educated. For various reasons, the numbers of those persons in 2009 is very high.
The Mayans were great mathematicians and astronomers. They not only studied the stars and planets, they (like practically every other culture before them) based their mythology and legend upon the sky. They were among the first cultures besides the Chinese and possibly Egyptians to discover precession of the axis.
Putting these two together, they had a mythology that if you picked one day – any day – out of the year, the Milky Way band would appear from Earth to go up or down in the sky according to sunrise. The Mayans picked the December Solstice since this is the day that the Sun begins its journey northwards (the Mayan live in the northern hemisphere).
The center of the Milky Way appears dark to our eyes because there is so much dust that it prevents the light from passing through. The Mayans only knew that it was a dark rift. To them it appeared like an alligator jaws. In myth, this was considered a birthing place.
Conclusion: the Sun would appear from Earth to be rising (out of the alligator jaws) when the Milky Way band was low on the horizon near our Gregorian year 2012 (give or take 8 years).
The Mayan culture was still young in 100AD. They had never before had any calendar. So they decided to make their first calendar. They did not place year 1 when this idea came to them, they needed to mark the past as well. So they did something ingenious, they put the END of their calendar on the day when the Sun would appear to be born out of the alligator jaws. This is our Gregorian 2012 (give or take 8). This signifies Ken’s correct answer that the calendar began in 3114BC even though this predates the Mayan culture (ie no Mayan culture was around in 3114BC to give that the name of ‘year 1′.
Oklatona is very confused between the Aztec and Mayan cultures and her answer should not be regarded as factual.
The Mayan calendar does not ”suddenly” stop as Infected would have you believe.
Counting to infinity is a rather new concept for mankind. There is an African tribe in existance today who count only to 8. The Mayans counted up to 13 baktuns. Then they started over again at 1. To us, this is over 5,000 years.
Nothing mysterious, nothing magical forcasting doomsday. For the Mayans, the Sun rising out of the alligator jaws was to be a time of great celebration.
The doomsday hoaxes have many causes. 1- Persons like yourself are not educated in cultures of history. 2- Persons lack the desire to research this or many other topics. 3- Persons lack the mental ability to conduct proper research. They have never developed the mental ability to open a book or walk to the local library to seek knowledge and truth. 4- The internet is filled with disinformation which these persons will simply accept as true instead of researching the facts behind them. 5- Money. End of the world scams are proven to be one of the fastest and easiest get-rich-quick markets in history. 6- The market for these hoaxes is huge. For the reasons outlined above. Persons lack education and research skills/desire. Combine these factors with the delusion that many have that they were especially created by god to witness the end of days. They are special creatures and their lives now have a purpose. They feed off of the end of the world hoaxes.
The hoax seems most persistant in the United States where education levels are at an all time low. Persons would rather type their homework questions into y/a than turn a few pages in their school textbooks to find the answer themselves.
This is not the first end of the world hoax (as research will show) and it will certainly not be the last unless education levels rise drastically, which is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Astrogeek has a really good answer. I don’t know that I can improve on it other than to add that the Mayan Long Count Calendar isn’t ending. They didn’t predict the end of the world. It is only the end of the current cycle or “age” of that calendar.
The Hysteria Channel has thrown in imaginary predictions attributed to Nostradamus and the Bible for good measure. None of these (Mayans, Nostradamus, or the Bible) predicted any 2012 doomsday.
The 2012 Doomsday proponents are simply using the end of the calendar cycle as an opportune time to set a new doomsday and sell more books. Unfortunately, it seems to be working, on the gullible at least.
Edit: I see someone is giving 5 thumbs down to everyone who has the brains to know that the 2012 tripe is exactly that, tripe. Well, I’m in good company, give me my 5 thumbs down.
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/19/no-doomsday-in-2012/
http://www.etsu.edu/physics/etsuobs/starprty/22099dgl/planalign.htm
Like everyone else said, the Mayan calendar ends December-something, 2012.
But of course, this ‘doomsday’ crap is ridiculous. They’re even going to make a movie about it. Everyone seems so worked up about it and it just makes me laugh.
Failure of the 2000 and 2006 doomsday beliefs.
These predictions are scare tactics, conspiracy theories, and chances to make money from books and movies.
Ever since the Y2K and 6/6/6 (June 6, 2006) End of the World scenarios did not pan out, the scare mongers, conspiracy theorists, book sellers, and television executives have been touting the 2012 End of the World scenario. When 2012 does not happen either, I am sure they will think of something else.
“But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.” (Mark 13:32-33)
Jesus told us in no uncertain terms that we were not to know when the end of the world would come but that we were always to be ready.
The early Christian Church thought that Jesus was going to return at any moment. Only after a couple of centuries did the Church realize that it may be 2,000 or 4,000 or 8,000 years before Jesus returns.
The Catholic Church wisely follows Jesus’ advice and teaches that each of us should live as if we will meet our maker in the next ten minutes and that we need to work to make the world a better place for our 100 X great-grandchildren.
Do not worry about the end of the world. Trust God to make sure everything happens to plan. Just be ready to meet God at any time.
For more information, about what Catholics believe about the end of the world, see: http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0993.asp
Here is also what NASA thinks about the 2012 End of the World scenario: http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/StarFAQ18.htm#q306
With love in Christ.
The Mayan calender.