NASA has had so many calls from worried people that the world is ending next year they put up a website, the first time they have done that. Of course, there is a long history of religious predictions about the end of the world and I can't help put wonder how much these fears NASA is now fielding are the result of apocalyptic religious imagination.

Here's one item of Q & A from the website:

Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

We need to keep teaching science and people need to sort out their science from their science fiction and religion.

They're so entertaining. I cant wait until December 13, 2012. It'll be so much fun. :)

Well, a bunch of apocalyptic conspiracy theorists will be disappointed. Nothing other than that.

uh, that's December 21st

I'm a little dyslexic -- 12 -- 21 -- it's all the same to me. The world just never seems to end. That's really disappointing for me because I expect to be worth my (substantial) weight in gold when civilization ends because *I* know how to grow my own food, milk cows and all that other survival type stuff. :)

Yup, yup, yup. I will be sitting in quietly in a corner, trying to keep a grin off my face, as Dec 21, 2012 rolls past. I have promised myself not to say anything snarky or mean, and not look too smug.

Some tiny part of me will feel sorry for my TBM relatives.

I have a brother in a miserable marriage, that is holding it together in hopes Jesus comes soon and straightens everything out.

He will really be crushed when it is up to him to make his own decisions about his life.

My father is a John Bircher from when that paranoid organization first started, and expects Jesus to smite his political enemies and confirm that dad was right all along.

I am starting to get a little angry that those asshats in Salt Lake City don't do something to help reassure their flock, but probably they prefer frightened, angry people - so much easier to manipulate.

They would be building that new mall--a long term beautification project for the city--if the end times were upon us.

"wpuldn't be building..." "wouldn't"

The world will not end in 2012/Stupid will end in 2012.

I'm not holding my breath.

What do they know?

Timothy

This cracked me up. You can skip the ad preceding it.

http://www.theonion.com/video/nasa-scientists-plan-to-approach-girl-by-2018,14400/

P.S. I do know its just another Y2K party.

I found this interesting.

44 well-known failed predictions of the end of the earth, second coming, rature..etc.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm

Oddly enough, my Shila was JW back then. At the behest of her mother, she didn't finish HS, but got married and started a family at age 15 because the end was coming in 1975 (same year she turned 16).

She's still recovering (with my help and some great wine, I might add). ;)

Ron

I was going to church in 1999 (after a long inactivity). One of the women in my ward gave a talk near the end of the year about the problems that could occur with Y2K on Dec 31, 1999. She talked about how some people were preparing with guns to protect their food storage because if the computers around the world went haywire it would disrupt the flow of commerce and supply of food to supermarkets. It was an enormous scare for the whole ward.

During those days I always got "Y2K" and "KY" confused whenever I talked about Y2K. A little embarrassing. I think of it fondly as the KY incident that never was.

A KY incident could result in a rash of friction burns :-)

Repent Sinners! The end is nigh.

Whatever nigh means...

I think that word (nigh) alone should tell you how bogus end-time predictions are, it's obviously an old form of the word "near" and if the end was nigh back then it sure didn't happen and probably won't now.

Did that make sense to anyone besides me?

I'm sure 2012 "The end of the world" is going to be a non-event just like Y2K was.

Of course the world doesn't end in 2012. I opened a can of food yesterday that had an expiration date of 2013. So there will definitely be a 2013. Not so sure about 2014. . .

"Q:Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
"A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012."

First of all "end" does not always mean "cease to exist," and the question does not ask if the calendar itself will vanish. The common alarmism is that the world or time itself will end (here = "cease to exist"), not the calendar. The NASA answer jumps to this second meaning (though that's not what the question asks) but continues in the confused terms of calendars themselves. No, my wall calendar does not supernova (go poof) when it expires (nb, does not mean "dies").

To get its point across, NASA should just go ahead and issue another official Mayan long-count calendar beginning 2013...

Writers in that field often use three words where one will do and use jargon when plain language would suffice.

The end is nigh...nye, nie, oh shoot, whatever...

I drive across wide open western states a lot, and this guy is on AM radio everywhere on a show called "Family Radio"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping

He says the end is May 21, 2011




but he has been wrong before, callers tease him about it 8-)

roflmao Wrote: [in part]
-------------------------------------------------------

> I drive across wide open western states a lot, and
> this guy is on AM radio everywhere on a show
> called "Family Radio"
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping
>
> He says the end is May 21, 2011
>
LOL! Imagine how his board is going to light up on May 22, 2011. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon."

Born 1957, end of world coming with assassination of John Kennedy. Next end coming with hippies. Next end coming 1975(?) Next end coming with the failure of Carter Administration. Next end about 1980, 1983. Then world government in 1990s brings end. Then Y2K guaranteed end of world for sure. 9/11 in 2001 had to be the real end. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan actual end of all things. Economic crash 2008, definitely the last word. Now, 2012 is sure to be the end.

Goddamit, I just wish the end of the world would end.

LOL!

I actually had someone I work with ask me today If I was scared about keeping my children safe if the world ended in 2012. I couldn't help but giggle a little and say I didn't put any stock in that kind of thing. Sad thing was she was really serious.

They don't know that. I think it was kinda stupid to dignify this with a response.

I think we should hold an exmo party that night. Seems like a good night to get drunk, no?

I promise to start the party on 5/22/2011
!!!!!