OK Guys And Gals...It's Off.

[kg]

The world is not going to end on December 21. No, not even according to the Mayan calendar. And especially not according to the awesome newly uncovered Mayan calendar -- the oldest known Mayan calendar in existence -- which was recently discovered by Boston University archeologist William Saturno.

What Saturno found turned out to be a well-persevered mural that includes the oldest known Mayan calendar to date. And just like the Maya Long Count calendar, which serves as the basis for the apocalypse myth, this calendar extends indefinitely into the future.

Apocalypse Never

I'll see you at the end of the 17th Baktun (or not!). :P

[AJRC]

Don't try and ruin it for the loonies. I'm sure they'll find some new threat to the world, or will say this new calendar is fake clearly put their by the Illuminati or other shadowy organisation.

[Ice.Maiden]

Grin at AJ.

Yes, I read about the new find Glenn. Fantastic really, considering that the building wasn't buried very deeply.

I think all these people who see an apocalypse looming must WANT something to happen. Even Dr. Saturno, who's heading some of the excavations said: ""We keep looking for endings. The Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change. It's an entirely different mindset."

The numbers on the latest calendar continue indefinitely, so - seems like we can look forward to next year after all! LOL.

[kg]

Just as it's guaranteed that things will change, it's virtually guaranteed that time will go on. Will 'life as we know it' end? Almost certainly. Will that event happen on Dec 21st? I think it unlikely.

Did the Mayans predict it? No, I don't think so. In the Bible it is stated, "No one knows the hour..." That is applicable to more than "the return of the Lord." No one can prognosticate the future, though some might think they can, either through study and interpretation of "texts of fortune," or by ingestion of certain substances that induce 'trances' of various kinds.

Yes, some prognostications come to pass, but most don't and fade into 'comedic' obscurity (though not very comedic to their victims). Those that do come to pass propel the 'art' of prognostication into the limelight and give it legitimacy, but it all boils down to a lucky (or unlucky) guess. Perhaps an educated guess, but still a guess.

My 'guess' is that the Mayans just ran out of room when they made their calender. After all, you'd need a mightily big place to record all those billions of years. As far as I know, the makers of that calender made no reference to any 'event' that was to take place then. That was inferred by those studying the calender.

[AJRC]

Well it's sort of off anyway. The new calendar seems to go 7,000 years into the future. So in the year 9012 all the loonies will come out again and say the world will end. Or more likely they'll just invent a new year like 2019 and say the world will end then. And when it doesn't it'll be the year 2025, and so on ad nauseam.

And i agree, Icey. These people want the world to end, look at all the people who wanted the rapture to happen. Not sure why they want the world to end, what are they going to say "told you so, oh shi..." :grin:

[Ice.Maiden]

:lmao4:

Even when I think of "The Rapture" it makes me grin, but I don't know whether to feel sorry for the gullible souls who gave all their possessions away or not. I don't understand how so-called intelligent people could be so brain-washed in today's world, but there we are.

Yes AJ, there are always those who predict doom and gloom, and as you say - for what? I don't believe that the world's going to end at all. Short of an asteroid smashing into us, even a nuclear disaster'd allow for pockets of folk escaping the inferno - and so it'd all start again.

I'm not even sure that I believe the bible's prophecy Glenn. True, no one'd know the exact hour that Armageddon might strike, but I don't think anyone's going to witness the return of any "god". If it was a man-made decision to wipe most of us out, then the ones who did it might consider themselves to've played "god", but other than that, and short of a monster volcanic eruption or something, I think the world's going to carry on.

[AJRC]

I don't understand how so-called intelligent people could be so brain-washed in today's world, but there we are.

It's called religion, the greatest mind control man ever invented.

I agree, i don't think the world will end. It's rather arrogant to think that after all this time it'll suddenly end in our generation. Maybe these people just need to get a life.

[Ice.Maiden]

I agree with you.

So far, human beings are unique in the universe. I don't think it took millions of years for us to get to where we are today, to just suddenly disappear. It's like these pessimists can't quite believe that we'll go on and on, so have to think up some lurid ending for us all.

Yes, I'm sure that wars and natural disasters'll cull the human race, but many'll live. By the time the world stops turning, we'll have found other planets to inhabit anyway.