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"2012" a Miscalculation; Actual Calendar Ends 2220
boombaard writes "News is spreading quickly here that scientists writing in a popular science periodical (Dutch) have debunked the 2012 date (google translation linked) featuring so prominently in doomsday predictions/speculation across the web.
On 2012-12-21, the sun will appear where you would normally be able to see the 'galactic equator' of the Milky Way; an occurrence deemed special because it happens 'only' once every 25.800 years, on the winter solstice. However, even if you ignore the fact that there is no actual galactic equator, just an observed one, and that the visual effect is pretty much the same for an entire decade surrounding that date, there are major problems with the way the Maya Calendar is being read by doomsday prophets." I wonder what Amazon's return policy on a box full of 3 doomsday wolves shirts is?
Have the past, current and this calculation all taken into account all the calendar changes made throughout history?
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
The Mayans were amateurs when it comes to doomsday calendars. We have a doomsday once every 365 days (except on leap years) when our calendar hits December 31.
Oh. Wait. It's not doomsday? It's just the end of the calendar cycle? Oh. Maybe the Mayan calendar's ending is the same thing and not the end of the world...
Yeah.
major problems with the way the Maya Calendar is being read by doomsday prophets
When someone reads the Mayan Calendar and predicts the end of times... I don't think the date is the most important detail they got wrong.
Your post is incredibly relevant considering that the Mayan calendar simply starts over at that time rather than predicting the end. The Apocalyptic prediction from the calendar was simply speculation that arose from not knowing the language. There's not exactly a Mayan Rosetta Stone so even all that we know about the language is still premature.
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Yup. It's the Mayan Y2K bug. Good thing their calendar is based on mechanical circles. People discussing a 2012 apocalypse are discussing where a circle begins and ends.
District 9 was good this year!
...and...uh...
So was...um...
Well, District 9 was good this year.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
They've read them, of course. They just conveniently ignore them.
Well, why should that part of the bible be any different?
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
You say that as if they conveniently ignore the entire Bible. They don't, quite... they usually have a few passages that they conveniently claim to mean something that they don't really, then they repeat those parts over and over to drown out anyone who contradicts them.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
they usually have a few passages that they conveniently claim to mean something that they don't really, then they repeat those parts over and over to drown out anyone who contradicts them.
Almost everyone who calls themselves a "Christian" today does exactly this. They ignore all the contradictions, God-driven violence and slavery in the Old Testament, they ignore that Jesus said not one jot of the law would pass away, they ignore the prohibiition on divorce and remarriage, they ignore the contradictory accounts of the resurrection, they ignore Jesus' claim to have come to put the world to the sword...
The bits they don't ignore entirely they interpret bizarrely, typically dropping the Jewish context and inserting thier own fantasies.
It is unfortunately extremely difficult for people like this to even see the words on the page in front of them and interpret them as they would an ordinary text, which is all it is. The act of reading gets replaced by the act of interpretation, so that it is almost impossible for the person so aflicted to so much as consider the possibility that the words might have other meanings than the interpretation they are comfortable with.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
The only science here is bullshit.
They can't even get basic facts right. The so-called "alignment" is 6 degrees off, and happens twice a year.
The last rollover of a b'akt'un cycle was in 1618. Did anybody notice?
...laura
Most modern societies also worship corn - they just process the hell out of it first.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Go to your local Walmart and count how many products contain "high fructose corn syrup"
Now who's the corn-worshiping culture?
No sig for the moment.
"If a civilization is so fucking retarded that it worships an invisible man in the sky, then one can't really take their prediction of the end of the world seriously, don't you think?"
There, fixed that for you, typos and all.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
...all the rest were burned because they could contain "Heresay"
Heresy.
(No one bothered to translate. Burn first ask questions later).
I think it was a pretty safe assumption that Mayan texts weren't going to be talking about salvation through Christ and the Holy Roman church. I don't agree with the burnings, but I don't think the Spanish erred in assuming they were going to find heresy in the texts.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Long story short, mods are pricks.
If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention.