Originally posted by Before2017Victor
Am I stupid?
What's with this freaking date?!?
I am freaking about here a bit.
Given all the "end of the world" scenarios, it's no wonder. And the really bad science shows on doomsday and 2012 on the Discovery channel aren't
helping at all. Their share of the market has been dropping and they've boosted their ratings with the "doom and gloom and asteroids and big scary
things" shows.
So, of course, they make more of them because that's what brings the viewers.
Does anybody know anything for sure about this date?
Is there anything that can comfort me?
Sure!
I've lived through a number of these "Cosmic alignment dates"/"Armageddon dates"/"Raising consciousness dates"/ etc. Some of them (like the
Planetary Alignment in 1998 and the 1982 "Jupiter Effect") were promoted heavily by authors and New Age philosophers. Others, like Y2K were based
on a bad understanding of the situation (I had to certify a load of sand (no, I'm not kidding) as being "Y2K safe".) The people who know about the
dates spend the weeks leading up to the event in a state of panic and the day (often) in a state of complete funk and then tend to avoid thinking
about it afterwards. Civilizations don't collapse on those days,
Mayans had a number of calendars. One of them completes its cycle in 2012. Inscriptions on their monuments indicates things happening beyond 2012 --
so they themselves didn't believe in a world ending then or a cosmic consciousness then or anything other than "hey, George -- gotta restart the
calendar."
* The Earth doesn't know it's 2012. The Earth is around 5 billion years old and doesn't respond to odd numbers set in calendars by various
civilizations.
* Humans find numbers significant. Solar systems, galaxies, and planets don't.
* The universe didn't find 1988 particularly powerful or overwhelming in spite of Hal Lindsey's very popular book, "The Late, Great Planet Earth."
* The conqueror from the east did not show up in August of 1999 as predicted by Nostradamus.
* In spite of John Wesley's belief, the world didn't end in 1794.
* Jehovah's Witnesses kept predicting the end of the world in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994 (among others.) I think they've
given up setting dates now but I'm not sure of this.
* The Hale-Bopp comet did not bring about the end of the world although members of the "Heaven's Gate" cult committed suicide because they thought
the world was ending.
...and so on and so forth.
Ten famous failed events here:
listverse.com...
None of 15 predictions of "the world is ending this year" came true in 2006:
www.religioustolerance.org...
There's lots more out there. Just search for "failed predictions" and you'll soon see how many people get on ego trips about esoteric
knowledge.
The Mayans today have no particular belief about 2012. As far as they're concerned it's another year.
Don't let it scare you. If you obsess on it, you'll stress yourself out and end up with panic attacks. Pick something else to focus on --
something you can do something about (such as local efforts to clean up and restore environments or help endangered species.) Something that requires
"hands on" and involvement with the world.