lol - at first I was looking at it, wondering what science fiction futuristic discussion you were starting, Kappa, and then I realized 2012 is only 3 years away!  Agh!!

wow.  Nah, no belief in apocalyptic dates, but I find it amusing to hear about the strange worries people come up with.  Like we don't have enough to bother with.

Any interesting reasons for the date?

I've never understood why people think the end of the Mayan Calendar means the end of the world.

If I understand it correctly, the Mayans created the most precise and exact calendar ever.  It was perfect.  They created the calendar up to 2012 and then stopped.  To some, this means that is the end of the world.

But the way I look at it is this... the Mayans had to stop somewhere.  I mean, they can't create a calendar that goes to infinity, right?  So they had to pick an arbitrary end date.  And, as you say above, if 2012 is the end of one of the longest cycles of the calendar, then that sounds like a good end date to me.

The Mayan Calendar is precise because they were good at math, right?  But to predict the end of the world is more like mysticism.  Math does not equal mysticism.

Well apparantly (just having looek it up on Wikipedia) the 2012 appocalypse theory is based on a missinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, and is a complete fabrication in an attempt to cash in. SO I guess nothing is going to happpen. At the ends of earlier mayan calendar epochs though, there have been major calamities such as earthquakes and the arrival of the Spanish, or so I recall from earlier readings...

The history behind the ending of previous cycles in the Mayan calendar might have something to do with it, Elanorgold.

Youthworker, I didn't realize the Mayan's stopped their calendar at 2012, but it seems as logical as any other date.

Does anyone remember Y2K? Man, what a let-down that was...although I hear there could have been some major problems with some technologies that were prevented because companies were warned of the potential issues in time.

Apparently there were major changes in the early Christian world after the year 1000, because everyone had assumed it was the date of the Second Coming. When it wasn't, there had to be a major paradigm shift.

 Well if it does happen, I hope it happens quick. As Woody Allen says:

"I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

Interestingly enough, it will co-incide with the end of Barak Obama's first term as president. Hmmmmm....??? 

 ooh trishcuit- very sneaky coincidence!!  I wonder!

Millennialism is a stong feature of  some branches of Christianity and many other religions have also believed that we are livng in the "end time," Hindus for example beleive the in "yugas" and that we living in the kali yuga a degenerate era which predates the end of the world.

Many of early Christians beleived that the end of the earth would come very soon within a few generations.

Many Christians beleived the end of the earth would come in 1666.

Jehovahs Witnesses beleived the earth was to end  in 1874,  1914, 1925 and 1975.

I think religions have predicted the end of the earth as a way to solidify the faith.  We must reconcile ourselves to the idea that we remember the past, experience the present, but we cannot know the future.

YouthWorker, the Mayan calendar didn't stop any more than the Gregorian calendar stops at any certain point. The Mayan calendar is just more complex and includes various cycles of different lengths meant to measure both linear and cyclical time. 2012 is the end of a major cycle and as Elenorgold says above, there has been major transformational events that happened at the end of other major cycles in the Mayan calendar. I don't think these indicate an apocalypse, but you have to admit we're already at a time of tremendous shift and change in our world! Perhaps that's what was being propheized? (cue mysterious, spacy music)

From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar

The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar forms the basis for a New Age belief, first forecast by José Argüelles, that a cataclysm will take place on or about December 21, 2012, a forecast that mainstream Mayanist scholars consider a misinterpretation, yet is commonly referenced in pop-culture media as the 2012 problem. ^[12][13]

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. in Crystal River, Florida. To render December 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in." ^[13]

 Thanks Xango -- I was reading the back of some book in Indigo about 2012 and it said the Mayan calendar ended, as did a couple other books.  I thought that was ridiculous -- how can a calendar end?

Thanks for the more detailed info.

Living in the apocalypse might be cool. I'd like to see what happens.

I'd be with you, kr, except that I believe the apocalyptic nature would be such that we'd be in no position to be observers, or would really really wish we were in no position to be observers.

Be careful what you wish for.

Having watched part of the BBC's Biography of Earth narrated by Iain Stewart last night, we could well be approaching the end of the human race. We might not even know about it until seconds before it happened, if a massive meteor struck Earth again, or some such. To paraphrase Dr. Stewart (side note: I  men with Scottish accents), when we talk about saving the earth with respect to pollution and climate change, we really aren't talking about saving the earth at all. The earth is resilient.

It's us who might need saving.

Welcome friends, to another episode of "As the TEOTWAWKI turns".

This week's episode finds us at the Royal Mayan Observatory, where a scribe works feverishly on calulations for the Mayan Illustrated Swimsuit calendar. We now join the episode, in progress...

Master Quezawhatchmacallit:

"Well scribe, how goes the calculations?"

Scribe Totequawhosawhatsit:

"Not too bad Master, but I have to say I'm getting very weary of doing nothing but complex, exacting, astronomical calculations. I nearly tore my groin picking up the compass stone yesterday"

Master Quezawhatchmacallit:

"Ummm, that stone is over three tons. We have a moving company to do that."

Scribe Totequawhosawhatsit:

"I wish you'd told me that before I did my nails. Anyways, I really would like to get away from this for awhile, take a break, maybe take in the Pan-mesoAmerican Ti Pitziil championships? I promise I will definatly get back to it right after the game, or may Vucub Hunahpu tear out my heart and feed it to Xbalanque!"

Master Quezawhatchmacallit:

"Oh please, like he isn't going to anyways.. Still lets see what you've done so far. What date are you up to now?"

Scribe Totequawhosawhatsit:

"Ummm, let's see... three turns of the Inner Wheel, circumnavigate the Well of Souls, second planiting of the Purple Potatoes, carry the three.... here we are. 2012, December 21."

Master Quezawhatchmacallit:

"2012? Oi Von Daniken! What ever possessed you to go all the way to 2012? Do you know how many slaves we'll have to sacrifice? Why didn't you stop at, oh 1600 or so?"

Scribe Totequawhosawhatsit:

"I'm a bureaucrat. They told me to start, but nobody told me to stop. Oh BTW, you owe me for overtime... 25years straight."

Master Quezawhatchmacallit:

"I'll have to consult the collective agreement. In the meantime, put down that chisel and get your loincloth. You've done enough on that claendar for this year's budget. There'll be a whole new priesthood before that one needs updating again. You and I, we're going to play some golf."

Scribe Totequawhosawhatsit:

"But Master, what if someone asks why we stop here? Why 2012? Why December 21? What do we tell them?"

Master Quezawhatchmacallit:

"What we tell them is, we tell them nothing. Executive privilege, mysteries of the Gods, whatever. It's none of their business. It's not like it's the end of the world."

Scribe Totequawhosawhatsit:

"I like the way you think.

Umm, just one more question, Master..."

Master Quezawhatchmacallit:

"Whaaat... always with the questions. What is it now?

Scribe Totequawhosawhatsit:

"Master.... what is.... golf?"

Hee hee hee.... Witch, you make me laugh!!

My two cents worth is simply that everyone keeps saying 'cycle'.  Last time I checked, cycles just start over... they don't really end.

LOL

"get your loincloth" ???

Are they naked?

Hey Kappa, I'm just thinking that based on everything I know about the apocalypse that I've learned from video games makes it look like pretty sweet time to be around in. Then again, are there going to be video games during the apocalypse?...

Witch, I smell a sitcom

Little Mayan on the Prairies?

HA, I love that Witch, excellent!

Especially the part about how they know to call the years "2012" and "1600". And I'm also partial to their names.

Understood kr. I was basing it on having seen computer-generated footage of the probable results of the chixulub meteor hitting earth...crater the size of a small European country, molten rock bits flying into the atmosphere and then raining down to set all the vegetation alight. Plus, reactionary earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions worldwide. So, obviously we are thinking about it with different perspectives.

I'd chose to be at the impact site. You wouldn't even have time to be afraid before you were vapourized.

I thought what was happening was that we were entering into another "age" kind of like how we have just entered into the Year of the Ox in the Chinese calendar.  A friend of mine who is into this said that we were entering into a water cycle which is typified with harmony, peace and moderation etc.  He said that what he had been reading was that there would be a shift in world wide attitudes and in fact the increase in the violence shown in the past few months was kind of the last sparks of the old energy releasing before the new era was upon us.  I specifically remember this conversation because it accorded with Obama's Chinese sign of Ox which means steadfastness and calmness and peace.  I also thought that it was interesting that Neo posted his thread under Religion about this other prophet (God - I am sorry Neo I can't remember his name) that is supposed to be coming to tell the world the meaning of life which has a very similar message of peace, love, harmony (same message as was brought by Jesus and most of the other great prophets). 

For sure. We are due for a worldwide shift in attitudes. Maybe that's what the apocalypse really means, and not some cataclysmic event. I hope, anyway.

And I'm not fussy: it doesn't have to be 2012. But the sooner the better: we don't want things to go irretrievably to hell and miss a great opportunity here.

 i'm in agreement with the "cash in" theory, mainly because i know that 2012 is a movie, coming out soon. if you want to know about it, youtube "2012 trailer" or something, its a really good preview. 

all in all, though, i don't believe the world is going to end in 2012. y2k was completely wrong, too. you know, maybe its just that i can't perceive the world ending when i am 18. 

although the way the environment is headed, maybe 2012 will be some sort of disaster. though i don't know how the mayans could have predicted that, unless they knew how the human race would turn out.

Well the Mayans did invent chocolate, so I wouldn't be surprised if they knew how the world was going to end as well.

 All hail CHOCOLATE!!

Just wait another hundred years and we'll have a pretty dang awesome Rush CD.

We've taken care of everything
The words you hear, the songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes
It's one for all and all for one
We work together, common sons
Never need to wonder how or why

We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls

Look around at this world we've made
Equality our stock in trade
Come and join the Brotherhood of Man
Oh, what a nice, contented world
Let the banners be unfurled
Hold the Red Star proudly high in hand

We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls
 

Ah the Cult of Rush

Have I mentioned I am one the elect.  Oh, yeah, for verily they appeared at my little rural high school before they were cool, heck before cool was even invented.   There were explosions of light, much dry ice smoke and enlightenment from the magic herb.

I stood mesmerized upon the wooden floor, with its strange painted circles, mumbling "look at the pretty lights" when suddenly there was a flash and looking up I was struck by the awareness that Geddy Lee's great nose was pointed in MY direction!

I am the Chosen!

LB

Days of barefoot freedom, racing with the waves,
Nights of starlit secrets, crackling driftwood flames,
Drinking by the lighthouse, smoking on the pier,
Still, we saw the magic was fading every year.
     Rush, Lakeside Park

 ahh, Geddy's nose. You are indeed Chosen,

 wow a new expleteive. GREAT GEDDY'S NOSE! WILL YA LOOK AT THAT!

When I was but a wee child I listened to a Christian Rock artist named Steve Camp and the lyrics of the song were:

"Will we live 'till 1990 or will the bomb kill us all by then"

If you remember the Highlander movies I think the last one was set in 2020.  When I was in grade six I starred ina a Psalty and Friends Christmas play and it was called Christmas 2020.  We were supposed to be so far advanced and we weren't.

I have not watched the Back to the Future series for awhile but I suspect that the years where Marty and his girlfriend were married and had kids and flew around on hover crafts skateboards are not far off from where we are now 'cause it was about 1985 and Marty and his girlfriend were in grade 12 so by 2009 that is 24 years so all Marty's and his girlfriend's kids would be grown up by now.

We think that things will change so much in the future and they really don't.  Our guesses about the future are guesses only.   Revelation says no man knows the day or the hour so even if God planned for the apocolypse to come in 2012 (and that apocolypse was not a metaphor) that a man guessed the "correct" date God would change it.

Yeah the only one that seems to hold water is George Orwell's 1984.  And increasingly so.

I know, trishcuit, eek.

I am obviously not in the know because I have no idea what you are talking about with the "cult of Rush" and Geddy's nose. Would someone care to enlighten me?

As an aside, I was at Chapters yesterday and noticed 3 books with 2012 in the title: 2 in the "parapsychology" section (from which I never buy anything and probably never will) and one in the "New and Hot" section...perhaps that is the one on which the rumoured movie will be based? At any rate, this looks like "cashing in" to me.

 Kappa: Modern astronomers believe this?

What astronomers?  Why?

What kind of apocalypse are they predicting for 2012?  An asteroid?  I thought the biggest apocalyptic scenarios of today's science were Earth-based anyway - global warming, or even the magnetic shift (which some attention-mongers have tried to place on 2012 but is really more likely to be 2050 or something).

I don't remember Y2K, but recently browsing the old comments on a website I go to I found some guy saying that it would be the collapse of human civilization as we know it and we would start EATING EACH OTHER to stay alive.  Seriously.  I LOL'd quite a bit after that 

YouthWorker: That's not mysticism.  That's superstition.

Mysticism has to do with finding the divine experience in the world without making up any cock-and-bull stories about it, unless they're metaphors...

trischcuit: Wow you're right - guess who's probably coming back in 2012?  SARAH PALIN 

pleroma: I heard of some UFO cult that believed the world would end in 1967.  Yeah, there have been lots of end of the world dates.  Anyone remember 06/06/06 (June 6th, 2006)?

kr: Depends what kind of apocalypse.  If humanity was wiped out, completely, or the Earth was just blown up, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy style, no-one would be in any position to observe (then again, you would get to see the Vogon ships at least).  Then there's the other kind where it's just civilization that collapses, leaving a "post-apocalyptic" world, so one could survive and witness the entirety of the event.

Witch: LOL PURE GENIUS 

elizabeth: Yeah, that's the New Age version.  Somehow, by a complete Deus Ex Machina, war and injustice and nastiness will all end on this foreordained date, because of the Mayan calendar.  That's as unreasonably optimistic, really, as the end of the world is pessimistic.  Paradigm shifts have to come about because of people's conscious efforts, no-one's going to be enlightened just like that.

On the other hand, so many issues are piling up and colliding... religious war, religion vs. science, global warming, poverty... it looks like something big is going to happen, something cataclysmic, not necessarily as soon as 2012 but who knows?  Maybe 2012 is going to be a choice - a Turning Point, like in the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale (look it up, or, if you have a lot to do, don't; it's not great literature or anything, but it has a few interesting ideas like that one).  I just don't think the stars can decide what choice we will make, when that day comes.

I think I need a bit of updating on this 'cult of Rush' too.  Is this some sort of inside joke?  In the meantime, here's another song...

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane and Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak, grunt, no, strength, Ladder start to clatter with fear fight down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site. 
Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck.

Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing! Fine, then. 
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it'll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself. 
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right, right. 
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign towers. 
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. 
Locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood letting. 
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate.
Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step down.
Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no fear cavalier. 
Renegade steer clear! 
A tournament, tournament, a tournament of lies. 
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

The other night I dreamt of knives, continental drift divide. 
Mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. 
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam book neck, right? Right.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it. can't I have some time alone?
It's the end of the world as we know it can't I have some time alone? and I feel fine...fine...

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it. can't I have some time alone?
It's the end of the world as we know it can't I have some time alone? and I feel fine...fine...

and here's the Great Big Sea version (better, in my opinion)

The live version isn't even their original, but it's the only one I could find that's not an AMV (Anime Music Video) or a Doctor Who tribute.

 On the other hand, here's one with the Ninja Turtles.  You cannot beat the Ninja Turtles.

Sigh, Kappa and ShamanWolf, you make me feel so old

From that compendium of all knowledge Wikipedia...

Rush (band)

As for the nose, well

a picture is worth a thousand words (thankfully)..

'...Instead of the grateful joy that I expected, they were words of quiet rejection!
Instead of praise, sullen dismissal. I watched in shock and horror as Father Brown ground my precious instrument to splinters beneath his feet...'

Yes, we know, it's nothing new
It's just a waste of time
We have no need for ancient ways
The world is doing fine
Another toy that helped destroy
The elder race of man
Forget about your silly whim
It doesn't fit the plan

Rush, 2112

Hey Shamanwolf, I think you might have missed the part where I said the news program cut to a modern astronomer LAUGHING at the 2012 predictions. I'm sure most, if not all, astronomers think that the 2012 paranoia is completely out to lunch. I have no idea where the guy-on-the-soapbox who got recorded for CBC radio came up with his evidence that astronomers were agreeing with the whacked-out 2012 theories. He probably just made it up.

I have the GBS version of The End of the World As We Know It, but not the others!

Thanks for the info on Rush, LB.

 The band Rush has (had?) arguably the world's best drummer.

Yep. Neil Peart is absolutely the best.  He is also very humble about it to. 

And the the Spirit of Radio showed you the words of the prophets written on the studio walls.

Well now, about 2012. If you lived in southeastern Australia right now, you would swear the apolcalypse had come already. All due to global warming and the resulting climate changes.  If you were a Polar bear, you'd say somethings going on, like, "In three years, if there are no more ice floes for the seals to calve on, then we Polar bears are in for an apocalypse."  If you are a species of fish that likes cool water, you are now migrating further north and running into other species that don't care to share their territory.  Uh oh, apocalypse now.  And if you as a human live at sea level, in three years, you could well be an environmental refugee.  Something of an apocalypse-like change in your life.  If you are a farmer with land under irrigation and there is no snow pack in the mountains in winter to fill your reservoir, good-bye crops and hello apocalypse for you.  Peak oil is here.  Some say we have three to five years to get our act together to find a good source of energy or hello standard of living (which wouldn't be that bad and may actually bring communities together, which is a good thing).

Then there are all the infectious diseases that spread around the world thanks to global transportation, the current cancer epidemic due to persistant chemical insecticides, etc.  And the neurotoxins and hormone mimickers (sp?).  Children have a higher incidence of cancer now too.  Do you suppose God is trying to remind us of something?  Like stop trying to "one up" God's nature?  Then again, nature will never lose.  If our life support quits in 2012 on this spaceship called Earth, nature will still carry on evolving and revolving.  Bless-ed be Life.

 wow Cassandra. Very sobering.

 Kappa: Oops!

Cassandra: I don't think global warming will COMPLETELY screw us over as early as 2012.  None of the scientific models predict anything that drastic.

If I was a polar bear, of course, I might think differently.

 Wow - Rush pwns. 

I agree with the apocalypse of 2012.  I just want to say that as my 2 cents.

If I wanted to delve into it, I should have read all these carefully-constructed and interesting posts, and opinions given with thoughts and generosity.

Moreover, I wish I had read the original article.  I am seriously interested in end times and basically, the day is coming when we're going to vanish, one way or another, or get into a big mess if we're still here, or it's for our poor children, etc. to bear?

Anyhow, in the past year I have been communicating with a close friend and spiritual advisor, not a Preacher or Minister, but someone unique from another culture and stream of thought.  Holistic and Spiritualism, Science and Nature combined are his specialty, in fact he is an archaeoligist!  He is a predictor too.

All of his contacts and peers are advising that 2012 is the year of our big change, destructruction or demise.  A new American President and other World leaders in place definitely have something to do it, and the Bible is somewhat involved as a back-up reference, just one of many sources and indications.

I've seen war and death up-close, and pointed out that we have been waiting for Armageddon and the end for 50 years.   One big step - 1984 has already passed, if not the year 2000, when the infrastructure of everything was supposed to crash, as Y2K.

Well, he convinced me, and I think we can take it to the bank, and not out of ignorance.  2012 it is then.  Good luck, and if appropriate, God bless y'all.

Live honestly and live well until then.  Keep your integrity, and be kind to others.  Cherish our 'being'.  Accept what we can not change.

 ...and hope it happens quick.

I still think it could be fun living in a post apocalyptic world. Much more interesting than your average dayjob.

 not when you have children who will suffer for it.

Well, it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

So long as you have plenty of bottle caps, you'll be alright.

What does everyone think about organizing a "Welcome to 2013 Wonderparty" to be held sometime say the first week in Jan of 2013?

 Sure, we'll invite Obama.  

If we still have internet then, I'll be online for that.

Actually, climate scientists are frieking out at how fast global climate change is increasing.  They didn't think the ice up north would melt for decades.  Now it looks like it will be gone pdq.