The End of The World

[Mr Rhino]

I was just watching a movie with my sister and she began to tell me about her friend who "heard that the earth was going to end in 2012". I told her that it was a load of BS and asked, out of curiosity, how this might come to pass. So, she phoned her friend to get more information.

So.. it turns out that the Mayan calendar ends on Dec 21, 2012 (which we both agreed was a bummer to happen a couple days before Christmas). At the end of this calendar is the end of the great cycle... a period of 26,000 years that will apparently culminate in a sudden switch that will "change everything".

We tend to spend a great deal of time arguing about how intelligent these ancient civilizations were. We talk about how they found a way to have running water and to construct massive pyramids with astounding accuracy. I will not argue that they did not. What I will argue, is that they also used to perform human sacrifices:

The usual method of such a sacrifice was decapitation in a public ceremony. Aside from decapitation, the favored method in Postclassic times was a trick acquired from the Mexican cultures to the north, the removal of the heart. Women and children were sacrificed just as often as men The intended victim was stripped and painted blue before being led to a courtyard or temple where the victim would be placed face-up over a convex altar-like stone also painted blue. The arms and legs of the victim were held by specially designated priests while a fourth, called the nacom, would penetrate the victim's chest with a flint knife just below the left breast. Reaching inside the chest cavity, the nacom would pull out the still beating heart and hand it to another priest, who would then smear the blood on that idol to which the sacrifice had been made. If the sacrifice had taken place on the top of a pyramid, the corpse would be thrown to the courtyard below where priests of lower rank would skin the victim except for the hands and feet. The skin would then be worn by the officiating priest who would solemnly dance among the spectators. If the victim had been an especially brave warrior his body might be butchered and eaten by the nobles and other spectators.

This culture killed people to appease their gods. They would eat human flesh because they believed that it would make them stronger. Are we seriously going to follow their lead on this one because they developed math and understood the motion of the stars? Wait.... didn't we do that independently? Oh.. and didn't we invent calculus and modern physics. Didn't we also develop the scientific process to help provide proof by thorough determination rather than coincidence? The answer is yes.. we did.

So why does modern man insist on finding new ways to predict the end of the world? The reason (in my honest opinion): they want there to be a predictable end of the world because that would be proof of a higher power. If there is really a set date in which the earth will self destruct according to ancient prophecy, it will imply that the prophets were right and there is a God that will save our eternal souls (or cast them into a lake of fire if your a Christian) and we will, in essence, live forever. Our fear of death makes us want to believe that the end of the world, as a predestined event, will happen on schedule.

I figure this scenario is far more likely:

More Reading:
http://ambergriscaye.com/museum/digit14.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture (about Mayans as well)