anyone believe the Mayan doomsday prophecy?

Question

dec 21,2012 is when something catastrphic is supposed to happen. not like end of all things, just really bad. their calandar was actually more accurate than ours, and they forsaw their own demise, so who knows if they were really right.

or, maybe they forsaw their demise and when something bad happened they didnt try to stop it because they thought it was supposed to happen?

i dunno. what do you all thing?

Answer 1

Mickey,

It's not a doomsday prophecy - that's americanization at it's best. No where does it say the world will end and everyone will die. All the mayan information states it talk about the solar system - you know how we keep track of years by how the world rotates around the sun? Like, when the world is at one point in the rotation it's january and when it's another part it's august?

Well, the Mayans had 3 calendars - one for our world, one for the solar system and one for the galaxy we live in. Each calendar had a "year" so to speak - and when the first calendar ended, the world had revolved around the sun. When the second calendar had ended, the solar system had revolved around the galaxy. When the third calendar ends (which takes some ungodly amount of regular earth years, in the hundred thousands) - the galaxy is at the very beggining.

Except - you know how the earth tilts back and forth and thats' how we get seasons?

The galaxy, and solar system, also tilt back and forth in space.

The only thing the 2012 Dec 26 date, the Mayans said: was that this will be the date that the earth, solar system, and galaxy, will all be perfectly at 90 degrees to each other, and every single one of them will be at the "beggining of their next rotation."

It was a funny coincidence, and they stopped their calendar there because they probably figured that hey - since that's the "end of the calendar" well just wait till we get there or close enough before we do the next one.

The Mayans were extremely great mathematicians - people today still cry that all their information was lost, because we are still trying to catch up to what they knew. Except, because they didn't have printing presses and such, this calendar took years of math, obersvation, and literally hundreds of people to note the information. It was a massive project, on par with the Egyptian Pyramids.

So yeah, they probably stopped when they got to a good point.

They did say one thing though: that "human kind will return to nature" at the beggining of the new calendar. Wether they meant that we should, or will, who knows. Their advanced math was creepy in the sense that - like I said - we still haven't gotten as advanced as they were.

Maybe they knew things we don't.

Answer 2

First of all, the Mayan calendar was not more accurate than ours, but was surprisingly accurate, as ancient civilizations go. Apparently they were the first to use the 365 day calendar, at least in one form. Their number system did use a zero, however and this appears to be unrelated to the Eurasian usage.
The calendar certainly was more complicated, using three different methods of calculation. Although the later Mayans recognized that the year was in fact 365 days (and a little longer), this modern Mayan calendar started in or around the 4th century BCE.
In one of the three, the civil or Haab calendar, they divided a 365-day year into eighteen 20-day months followed by a five-day period that was part of no month, but called Wayeb or Uayeb. These days were unlucky. Most experts cannot agree on how the other parts of the calendar worked.
The site listed below is an exhaustive study of how the calendar worked. Whether they truly predicted the end of the world will only be proven when the time comes. If you combibe this end of te world with the Christian view of End Times then things become more interesting.
Considering the Biblical view of the tribulation, which lasts 7 years, and begins with a 7 year peace treaty between Israel and its enemies, it is clear that we don't have much time left to prove it correct. Of course, that's only if you believe that both theories are compatible. Also, at least in one theory, the Rapture, Christ's removal of His church from the world, predates the beginning of the Israeli peace treaty. If both of these occurred this year, then the Mayan calendar has a chance of being spot on. Frankly I woudn't want to be around for the last 7 years, especially the last 3.5

Answer 3

I'm not convinced that it will be the end of the world, HOWEVER, there are several coincidences for that date. For the Mayans, it is like our Gregorian calendar changing from 1999 to 2000. BUT, there will be an astronomical alignment of the Sun and the centre 'line' of the Milky Way that only happens once every 26000 years or so(don't quote me on that number), the new planet we have recently discovered(in 2002), on a massive elliptical orbit, will be close to us then and the oddity that is the Sun-spot Cycle, responsible for magnetic interference that causes blackouts and such, will peak at a very high output(solar flares) in that year also, before dying out to an all time low, possibly heralding the start of the cooling down of the Earth(next Ice Age)that fortunately, takes thousands of years to culminate. These are just some of the things that coincide with the year 2012. Simply the fact that such a race, considered officially to have not been that advanced, could have so accurately seen the coming alignment of the Sun on the 21st Dec 2012 is in itself, amazing. Some speculate it could be the start of the "Age of Aquarius".
You should also keep an eye on Jupiters' "Red Junior", the new red-spot that's baffling scientists currently.

Answer 4

First Bently where are you getting your information? The Messopotamian callender in 3200 BC was divided up into 360 secular days with a 5 day festival week at the end of the year. Therefore it also was a 365 day calender, they just had five days that they didn't consider normal days.

As for 2012, I think that likely something big will happen. I don't pretend to know what it will entail, since this is the sort of thing one can never really know, but I suspect there will be something noteworthy happening on that day.

I hadn't realized that it was Dec. 21 before. That's the solstice, so what is often considered the last day of the year.

Answer 5

Ummm...Yeah, Kind of like the whole world was supposed to come to a standstill on midnight on 12/31/99 because all the computers would not recognize the year '00. People spent millions on "fix it" programs that probably were never needed.

I figured that computers were made by man and "told" what the order was so in facy for all they knew '00 was the next in order after '99. And for the most part I was right!

And how do we know that by predicting their own demise the Mayans didn't in fact cause it to happen? We may never know.

Answer 6

I don't think it is a doomsday prophecy. I believe that the mayan calander leads us into the next Yuga. We are in the lowest phase, Kali Yuga, most people are aware only of the physical aspect of existence, the predominant emphasis of living is material survival, and power is mostly in the hands of men. People's relationship with the spiritual is governed predominantly by superstition and by authority.

You could interpret the ending of the Long Count of the Mayan Calendar on December 21, 2012 to mean a global spiritual transformation, or shift in consciousness. So these two seem to match.

Don't think of it as the end but as a new beginning.

Answer 7

The Mayans were one of the preeminent astronomers in antiquity.
I think that they foresaw an astrological event on that date that they believe to be the end of the current era. It could be anything. A cloud of cosmic dust that obscures our radio signals could suddenly vanish and aliens could pay us a visit. Maybe a comet will be on a collision course with Earth. Heck, there could be a full or partial planetary alignment in our solar system. Truthfully, we won't know what the Mayans prophecy means until its 12/21/2012.

Answer 8

A curious theory about this is that it will not be the end of time but rather a planetary shift in spirituality. Those who are spiritualy attuned will cease their existence of life on this dimension and live in a new dimension with others of like mindedness. All of the rest will remain in the same dreary existence that now exists. This is what is meant when they say Left Behind.

Answer 9

It's actually interpreted as a major change. There's a lot of speculation that this will be close to the time of Ascension. And no, I'm not talking about Jesus floating down from the clouds and gathering his children up to heaven. I'm talking about the shift between third dimension and fourth dimension.

Answer 10

It's not something bad. But a change in the way we think (perception) felt throughout the world. A change in awareness. Maybe it can be percieved as bad because a lot of things will change and sometimes bad things happen when there is change but the end result will be a higher conciousness throughout.