Can you tell me if this is true?

Question

This girl at school told me that she watched the history channel and it was talking about how everything the mayans predicted has come true. How they predicted the wars and how they have happened. The now predict that the end of the world will be in the year 2015. Another girl told me that scientists proved that the end of the world will actually be 2012....i'm confused and a little scared.

Answer 1

No one can predict the end of the world. Only God Himself knows when the world will end. Don't let these false predictions scare you - no need to be scared about mans' predictions. There is no way for any person to predict or foretell the end of the world - no need to be worried or scared.

Answer 2

A scientist cannot prove that something will happen in the future, only hypothesize based on observation. Perhaps the Mayans made such hypotheses, based on observation, and these turned out to be correct. Did they make any "predictions" that were not correct? Did they fail to predict occurrences that should have been predicted, given the accuracy of their predictions? Answer that, and you have either coincidence or astute science.

Scientists cannot prove that something will happen in the future, they also can only hypothesize. In this case, you look at the body of scientific evidence. Who are these scientists? What do other scientists think of their hypotheses? What is the data, and how does it support the hypothesis?

By viewing things critically, you can come to your own conclusions and decide whether or not you will agree with that hypothesis, or disagree. That is what I encourage you to do, instead of remaining confused and scared.

Answer 3

actually, the Maya's never predicted anything concrete about 2012. That may have something to do with our ill knowledge about Maya culture: when the Spanish ransacked the land, they burnt literally every Maya book they could find. Only a handful of scriptures survived. And in them, there's not a clue about what happens when the Maya calendar ends.

So what awaits us in 2012 basically is an open question. And as with so many open questions, countless doom preachers, semi-prophets and other crackpots pop up to provide an answer. The interpretation you hear most: 2012 will mark the coming of a new, glorious age of wisdom and peace. It will be Age Of Aquarius at last, with a world full of peace, love and understanding.

The reasoning behind this is actually not that stupid. The Maya's didn't really believed in endings: their conception of time was circular, with every end being the beginning of something new. So, 2012 shouldn't be an exception.

Also, the Maya's had a highly developed philosophy of the cosmos. They saw the cosmos as the true mother of things. Consequently, the Maya's thought the cosmos is all around us, and within us. Every plant, every animal, every man is sheer Cosmos.

So, New Age philosophers say, December 21st 2012 will be the day on which this inner cosmos is reconnected to the divine outer cosmos. The Sun will mount its unique position to form a `gateway' between the Universe and the souls of every living creature on Earth. Our linear conception of time will crumble, and with it, fear and hatred will vanish. It will be purification at it's very best, when everyone is soaked in cosmic understanding and divine love.

So there it is: on December 20th, you'll kick your dog, yell at your spouse and cheat on cards. But a day later, you'll be calmed down into a peaceful dude with nothing but love and understanding to guide you in life. Even though it's mid-winter, it'll be summer of love for all humanity.

Other doomsayers foresee doom and destruction. December 21st will be the day the Earth will be destroyed. Some think it will be because of some nuclear war, some say it will be because it's biblical judgment day. Even others take the ending of the Maya calendar more literally, and claim the Universe will just cease to exist. Zzzzp!, gone.

There's something to be said in favor of such sinister scenario's, too. The Maya divided their Long Count into five lumps of time, called Great Cycles. And every cycle had a well defined end. For example, after period number one, a Jaguar came by and ate everyone on Earth. Well, it's the Maya saying this, not me!

The second cycle ended in air, the third in fire, the fourth in flood. And what about the last period, the stretch of time we're in? The Earth will be destroyed by earthquakes, is the interpretation some scholars give to the etchy-sketchy remains of the Maya culture. That needs emphasizing, because the last word on Maya timekeeping isn't said yet: almost every year new books on the issue are published.



So, what are we to make of it all? Will it be time's up in 2012? Well: we at Exit Mundi wouldn't bet on it.

Don't forget: there are many, many religions predicting some kind of end to the world. And the Maya prediction attracts a lot of attention now, merely because their end date is so well-defined, and because the Maya Deadline is only a couple of time-ticks away.

And what about that awesome phenomenon of the Sun sitting in the heart of the Tree of Life? Well, that happened before. The Sun passes the Tree every 25,800 years. That's a lot of years, but since the Earth exists for an astonishing 4,5 billion years, the Earth survived the `divine event' more than 150,000 times already!

What's more, the last six times the phenomenon occurred, modern humans already walked the planet. Obviously, it didn't have much effect on our spiritual lives. It certainly didn't stop the Spanish from butchering some 800,000 Maya's in the sixteenth century.

Answer 4

I wouldn't be. Many people in many diffrent time periods have predicted the end of the world and none have been right. Some just predict cataclysmic events that also never happen. Many people believed the world was going to end when 1/1/00 rolled around.

Answer 5

Wow you have no idea how many predictions about the end of the world there were in history.... the world would have ended hundreds of times by now! I think the last time it was supposed to be over for us was the millenium (2000).

Answer 6

December 21, 2012

Mayanism's popularity in the New Age movement stems from the ending of the current baktun cycle of the Maya calendar in 2012, which many New Agers believe will create a global "consciousness shift" and the beginning of a new age. The relevance of this modern belief to actual traditional Maya beliefs is strongly debated.

Answer 7

Partly true.

The Mayans actuallly predicted the downfall of their own society. They knew that the Spaniards would arrive to Ammerica in 1546 and that they would bring disease and war with them. Sure enough, they arrived in 1546 with gun powder and horses. The Mayans died out within 50 years... But, this could be what is called a self-fulfilling prophency - "knowing" that they were going to die out, perhaps they failed to put up much of a fight???

The Mayan prediction is only that the 5th cycle of the sun is ending. That only means that our Sun is going to rise in what they referred to as the Dark Region - an area in our galaxy that is devoid of stars. They beleived that this was the entrance to their underworld. It is NOT the end of time - it is the end of an era and the beginning of another. It is beleived that this era will usher in a new level of human conciousness. This is scheduled to occur Dec 21, 2012.

Fear not, dear. Instead, rejoice that mankind will FINALLY reach a new level in conciousness...

Answer 8

Scientists have proven nothing about the end of the world. The closest they've come is their discovering that an asteroid will come near earth in 2029, and may strike us in 2036. I like to think of it this way: since the beginning of time, people have predicted that the earth was going to end within their lifetimes. For the past 2,000 years, Christians have believed that their generation was *the* generation that Jesus was going to come back. We're still waiting. My point? Everybody who's predicted the end of the world has been wrong.

Answer 9

I wouldn't be afraid. The Jehovah"s Witnesses have predicted the end several times and it hasn't happened. They predicted 1914, then 1915, then 1918, then 1925, then 1975, then sometime around the start of the millennium (2000).

Only God knows when.

Answer 10

The Mayan calendar ends on December 22, 2012. Yes they are predicting the end of the current cycle of the world then. Stop being superstitious and don't worry. And IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE AT ALL.

Answer 11

The prediction is, we will be hit by a comet in 2012 and this is when the Mayan calender ends. Bible code has same prediction, but God says, He will tear it to pieces.