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The written history of the human race is rife with doomsayers, from all ages. In almost every era, there have been prophets, mediums, magi, and religious figures predicting the end of the world. An Assyrian clay tablet dating from 2800 BC suggested the world would end shortly. Many Romans believed the world would end in the 120th year of the founding of Rome. The Essenes, a radical Jewish sect, believed there would be a huge revolt against Roman occupying forces in 6th month of the year 66 AD, which would bring about the end of the world. This was the subject of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Holy Bible. It is still used by many, even today, to predict the end. Since then, many religious 'scholars', psychics, astrologers, astronomers, and just plain nut jobs, such as Charles Manson, Nostradamus, Jeanne Dixon, Pat Robertson, Christopher Columbus, Jerry Falwell, and others, have predicted the end of the world. Luckily, the one thing they all have in common is that they have always been wrong.
Theories abound about how the end will come. A rouge 'hidden' planet named Nibiru (supposedly discovered by the Sumerians) will crash into the earth, a large meteor, or other celestial body will impact on the planet, destroying all life, a nuclear holocaust will occur, Jesus will return and end the world, the Earth will line up with the Galactic Center, the moon, and the sun, bringing about cataclysmic natural disasters that will wipe out all life on Earth, and these are predicted by the Mayan Calendar (more on that in a moment), and dozens of other theories. The only ones that are supported by any scientific evidence are those of scientists that have studied stars, and have documented a typical sun's life history. In all likelihood, our sun will become hotter, eventually too hot to support life on Earth, and will turn into a Red Giant star. This will happen sometime around the year 5,000,000,000 AD, so it's not exactly a high priority right now. And of course, there is the very real possibility of a large meteor striking the earth. This has happened several times in the past, and resulted in mass extinctions. Hopefully, our technology will have progressed enough by that time to detect the threat and deal with it, if and when it ever happens again. The odds are in our favor.
It has only been recently that the Mayan calendar was associated with the end of the world. It has come about from the last episode of the TV show X-Files, where one of the characters mentioned that the Mayan calendar was predicting the end of time. The 'theory' caught on with many groups, and it's popularity has become so great that a new movie, “2012”, was released in 2009, chronicling the end of the human race from natural disasters. The movie makes many references to the Mayan calendar.
Does the Mayan calendar really predict the end of the world in 2012? Actually, the Mayans used several calendars for different purposes. The Tzolkin calendar was based on the female gestation cycle, and consisted of 20 'signs', and 13 'variations'. It is still used today to determine biorhythms, an activity very similar to astrology. Another calendar in popular use with the Mayans, and many other Meso-American cultures, was a 365-day cycle called the Haab. Another one, based on Venus, was also in wide use at the time. For measuring great lengths of time, the Mayans developed a system known as the Long Count. This system divided the year in to 360 days, and was called a Tun. A Tun consisted of 18 twenty-day months, called Uinals. Twenty Tuns made a Katun, and twenty katuns made a baktun (around 400 years on the Gregorian calendar), and 13 baktuns completed one Great Cycle, or
1,872,000 days, or 5200 Tuns. This works out to 5125 years on our calendar. Mayan scholars have been attempting to correlate the Long Count with the current Gregorian calendar for quite some time. In 1905, a GMT Corrrelation was proposed, and finalized in 1950. It is also known as correlation # 584283, and puts the start of the current Great Cycle on August 11, 3114 BC, and the end on December 21, 2012. But, contrary to the doomsayers beliefs, the Long Count does not end there. It simply resets to a new cycle, much like a car odometer. When the last column reaches 9, it resets to 0, and the next column to the left moves to 1, and so on, and so on.... So the Mayan calendar doesn't really predict the end of anything. It just does what any good calendar does...it expresses time.
The bottom line is that calendars, whether in 3114 BC, or now, and well into the future, exist for one purpose, and that is to keep track of the passage of time. They cannot predict future events. Ancient calendars are very interesting and informative to archeologists, and historians, but no calendar in the past comes anywhere near the accuracy of modern calendars. And even now, calendars cannot predict future events. As an example, on my desk, as I write this article, there is a calendar ending on Dec 31, 2010. This does not indicate that Armageddon happened on that date, just that I need to replace the calendar with a current one.
If the end of the world is looming near, there is not much anyone can do about it anyway, so my advice is to sit back, enjoy life, and like the words to one of my favorite songs, “Don't worry....Be happy.”
By: Dr. Joel C. B
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