The End of the World

I rolled into work this morning, sat down, and checked my e-mail. One of the scrolling adds in my AOL browser that caught my attention was about a Russian sect, lead by some guy Pyotr Kuznetsov, who was holding up in a cave in preparation for the end of the world sometime in May of next year.

This sect is completely fucked because, as we well know from history, the Russian winter isn't exactly tremendously hospitable. But the real reason this story caught my eye, other than my morbid interest in the various theoretical end of the world scenarios, I had a very vivid dream about the end of the world last night.

I almost never remember my dreams and, when I do remember them they are usually relatively explainable and occur in settings I am familiar with. This dream occurred in a setting I had never seen before with people I didn't know. I was older and I had three children. I was prepared for Armageddon and believed it was going to come about through military conflict. I was able to convince some of my neighborhood friends that they need to take precautions. I took my family into the basement of my house (which was not the house I live in now) and went to sleep for the night knowing civilization will have come to an end by the next day.

Then I woke up, grabbed a mint to get the taste of cigarette smoke out of my mouth (I hate that morning cigarette taste... I'm trying to quit) and went back to sleep.

The end of the world has supposedly come and gone hundreds, maybe thousands of times through history. In the year 1000, people believed that the book of Revelation revealed the end of the world would come at exactly midnight. Some people climbed mountains to greet Christ. Other people got into barrels in preparation for a flood. Some even committed suicide in fear... I wonder if God will take out the earth exactly at midnight one time-zone at a time. I'm gonna jump on a plane and fly west when I hear God just owned England.

In 1999 there was similar nonsense flying about. There was a scare that computers would crash worldwide, networks would go down, and the world would plunge into self-destructive chaos, Jesus Christ would hack into our defense mainframe and turn our nukes on our self... I think I remember that one. You can see just a few of the dozens of doomsday scenarios that were predicted to occur in the year 2000 by clicking here.

The new date of choice for the end of the world is 2012 for several reasons:

The Mayan calendar, a ridiculously accurate astronomical measure of time, ends on December 21st, 2012.

Unless you are an academic versed in Mesoamerican history you have no idea what their calendar really says. Here's the truth in a nutshell; the Mayans used the Milky Way galaxy for everything from building cities to wiping their ass. There's a dark spot in the Milky Way galaxy which is basically a mass of cosmic dust. The dark spot in the Milky Way galaxy represented a gateway into the underworld to the Mayans. Additionally, solstice are hugely important to agricultural civilizations to determine planting cycles. The spring solstice is when you're supposed to plant stuff. The winter solstice is when you're fucked for a few months... December 21st, 2012 is when the winter solstice precisely overlaps with the earths alignment to the dark spot in the Milky Way galaxy on the Mayan calendar... so, to the Mayans, this meant; "I'm passing into the underworld while being completely fucked... I'm gonna get owned."

Now, does the calendar SAY that's the end of the world? No, it doesn't... but it's probably a good fucking place to stop writing colanders some 2300 years in the future. To the Mayan's it would have been like finishing a long-ass book. The guy was like; "Yeah, well... someone else can write volume 2 some 2 millennia from now. I'm done."

From a practical modern standpoint; is the world gonna end because our 2012 winter solstice will occur on the same date that we're pointing toward a mass of space dust billions of light-years away? Probably not.

Scholars who study Nostradamus' predictions believe that a commit is on a collision course with earth some time in 2012.

Nostradamus has said a lot of freaky shit. There have been numerous documentaries made about his predictions, particularly his doomsday predictions. However, in my research, I was unable to nail down an academic interpretation of his quatrains. I happened across many websites that say; "Nostradomas predicted..." or "experts believe Nostradamus predicted..." but no actual experts doing any actual predicting. In fact, most of what I found was people trying to sell books on Nostradamus end of the world predictions... "Here's our website, Nostradamus says you're gonna die! Buy my book and find out when and how!"

Anyone who is interested in the future aught to take a lesson from history. In World War 2 the German propaganda machine printed Nostradamus predictions on leaflets that they dropped over the countries they were at war with. The predictions basically said; "Nostradamus says we're gonna win, give up now." With the quatrain and interpretation printed in the appropriate language. A little known fact; America immediately followed in the footsteps of the Germans and did the exact same thing. They printed his predictions on leaflets with their OWN interpretations and showered them on countries to increase the morale of local resistance fighters.

There is also a little known interpretation of Nostradamus predictions. It is believed by some academics that Nostradamus was not writing about the future at all. He was, instead writing about events of his time period... he was like a political opinion blogger of the 1500's. Just as we might see someone write something like; "Bush is sending more troops to Iraq! This will result in the Muslims viewing us as American invaders. They will strike back at us even worse than September 11th!" Nostradamus may have just been saying something like "The Duke of Luke and that Duke of Bo must command the General. Enos will fail while looking out over a hill of daisies."... or "The Dukes of Hazard will get in the General Lee from Deputy Enos while he's distracted by Daisy Duke."

If you type into any internet search engine the term "end of the world" 2012 is the most common listed year for that very special event.

All I have to say to this is; DUH! The internet was big pre 2000 but no where near the size that it is today. If you typed in "end of the world" into a search engine in 1997 I guarantee the year 2000 would be the top listed date. After 2012, there will most certainly be a new date.

If you understand anything about how search engines work you know that basically saying that the world will end in 2012 based on that dates ranking in Google is not LIKE saying, it is EXACTLY saying; "I think the world will end in 2012 because 2012 is most popular."

If you have any understanding of science or religion you should know that the end of the world could come at any second on any day. A super-virus could emerge and wash through humanity like the black plague of centuries ago. Jesus could come down and start playing duck-duck-goose to determine who gets into heaven and who doesn't. A comet could collide with earth and wipe out every living thing. Satan could possess Vladimir Putin and launch every nuke in his arsenal.

It's ok to have a barrel around in case of a flood... but there's no sense in climbing into it unless you see the water's rising. Here are some "end of the world" scenarios that have come and gone. There will always be doomsday predictions and, when it happens, as all things must come to an end, it's likely no one will see it coming.

Tagged with: Armageddon, Devil, Doomsday, Dream, End of the World, Jesus, Religion