2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist
Moderator: Super Moderators
Think I read every Clive Cussler novel ever written.
Broadband is back up and hopefully everything else gets back to some semblance of normalcy soon.
And yes, the ice is kept at 11F. I've been wearing a winter jacket, gloves and a toque all summer long. Winter is going to be a bitch...........
Broadband is back up and hopefully everything else gets back to some semblance of normalcy soon.
And yes, the ice is kept at 11F. I've been wearing a winter jacket, gloves and a toque all summer long. Winter is going to be a bitch...........
Still an Original Pirate since Aug 2000
Wanna ride the Zamboni?
Wanna ride the Zamboni?
Countdown to ... doomsday
The end of the world is here ... again
When humanity's end arrives, Clif High plans to take to his plywood ark to survive.
As for the rest of us?
"I don't give a s---, my boat won't sink," says the modern Doomsday prophet.
"Every person's karma (is dealt with) alone. They're all dead."
Or at least 98% of us, reasons the Washington state 'Time Monk', who's become a celebrity among those searching for the next great Armageddon.
Dec. 21, 2009, marks a three-year countdown to mankind's next predicted end -- Dec 21, 2012. It's then that the 5,125-year cycle of the Mayan calendar ends.
Some believe it can only mean the ancient culture pinpointed 2012 as Doomsday, brought on by a rare galactic alignment of the earth, the sun and the center of the galaxy.
But Maya scholar John Major, and other experts, say attaching Doomsday to the end of the calendar is wrong. And astronomy professors point out the end of the cycle of the calendar simply means it turns around and starts over.
However, anxiety among the easily frazzled will likely increase over the next 36 months.
So much so, NASA has been getting emails from teenagers who are worried the world is doomed.
"I think when you lie on the Internet and scare children in order to make a buck, that is ethically wrong," NASA official David Morrison recently told West Virginia's Charleston Gazette.
But Clif High makes no apologies, saying he's not making any money by spreading fear.
He developed the Web Bot Project -- a software program the 57-year-old programmer says scans chat forums, looking for keywords with emotional ties. He sees them as telltale slips most of us don't even know we're making, as our intuition sends out signals we're not even aware of.
High says by charting these algorithms, and tapping into society's collective unconscious, his halfpasthuman.com site can predict major events -- including a sunspot disaster in December 2012.
"All humans are psychic to some degree," he explains from his home near Olympia, Wash.
He's so sure that, on a limited budget, he's building a 26-foot boat where he and a few friends can ride out the cosmic storm. Towed behind will be another vessel, carrying supplies.
"I accept the fear. I eat it," he points out.
The wealthy have already invested money in buying caves, High says, without divulging names.
But perhaps what they're really hiding from is the 'anti-Santa'.
Little Rock, Ar., author and radio broadcaster Corey Deitz, in his 2012 Guide Book or How To Make the End of the World Fun (2012guidebook.com) suggests doomsday may be delivered from an evil Saint Nick, who will emerge on December 21, 2012.
"To be honest, the man is two bricks shy of a chimney," says Deitz of the real Santa's ability to fight back and save humanity. "It wouldn't take much to push him over the edge."
Besides other possibilities -- including black holes, viruses and earthquakes -- humorist Deitz says mankind can't overlook other possibilities, including deadly penguins or exploding celebrities.
Expect the list of fears to only grow from there over the next three years.
---
Seeing is believing?
The world is obsessed with Hollywood, so why shouldn't we trust the movies to point out the many ways our story could end?
Here are the top ten ways scriptwriters choose to seal our doom -- and reasons why we'll survive.
1. Alien invasion
While they'll likely just get the flu and die (War of the Worlds) we'd just need to show them John Travolta's Battlefield Earth and they'd leave us in peace.
2. Nuclear War
While once at the top of the fear charts in the days of Dr. Strangelove, this old favorite has dropped down the list in recent years. The countdown always seems to stop with just seconds to spare.
3. Resources Dry Up
Mad Max saw a world where the loss ofenergy resources turned us into gangs of thieves and murderers. But if weekend shopping in a big box store hasn't turned us that way by now, nothing will.
4. Zombies
Always a popular way to end the world, it's clear all you have to do to survive is either a) run or b) hit them hard on the head.
5. Killer Computers
While artificial intelligence may hold menace in the worlds of The Terminator and The Matrix, here in reality, most modern computers regularly crash and our cell phones keep hitting dead zones.
6. Pandemic
Will a 12 Monkeys-type virus wipe us out? Na, we can always use time travel to go back and find a cure.
7. Global Warming/Cooling
While Waterworld and The Day After Tomorrow may make us say "no" to plastic, we'll ultimately survive by counting on survival techniques learned in Scouts and Guides. You were a Guide or Scout right? Oh, crap.
8. Geomagnetic Screw-up
In The Core, Earth's magnetic field becomes messed up and everything goes wrong. For most of us, that's just another Monday.
9. Deep Impact
If Armageddon proved anything when it comes to a deadly impact with an asteroid, it's that America will save us all.
10. Solar Activity
The sun attacks us in the movie 2012, but what we really should be keeping an eye on is that sneaky, no good moon.
---
Wrong, wrong and wrong
Since the beginning of time, expiry dates have been hand stamped on the world.
If it wasn't heralded by the first clap of thunder over our hairy ancestors it's now being forewarned by the melting of icebergs in the North.
But as humans, we suck at accurately predicting our end-times.
Here's a list of some of the notorious dates we lived through.
Around 2800 BC: An unearthed Assyrian clay tablet reportedly talked about humanity coming to a speedy end. But the writer expired long before the world.
634 BC: Romans fear their city will fall after 120 years.
389 BC: Having gotten it previously wrong, Romans figure the real date is around 389 BC: Wrong again.
First Century: Some followers of Jesus believe he will return to Earth soon after his death.
247: Thanks to Roman persecution, many Christians believe the end is upon them.
365: Hilary of Poitiers predicts an end to humanity.
Easter Eve, 793: The Bishop of Toledo writes about end-times panic, after a Spanish monk prophesises doom and gloom.
800: Multiple learned sources predict Doomsday.
806: Another bishop pegs this date as the real eve of destruction.
1000: Some researchers say panic sweeps across Europe as the dawn of a new Millenium arrives. Others argue most people aren't even aware of the date.
1184: More than a few prophets believe the Antichrist will arrive on this date.
1284: Again religious leaders get the date wrong for the arrival of the Antichrist.
Feb., 1420: A Czech prophet marks this date as the end of days.
Feb. 1, 1524: London astrologers pick this date as Doomsday -- heralded by floods in the city. An estimated 20,000 people leave their homes in panic.
1532: After getting reports of bloody crosses in the sky next to comets, a Viennese bishop says the end is nigh.
Oct. 19, 1533: A mathematician gets his numbers wrong by calculating this will be Judgement Day.
1532, 1544, 1801 and 1814: A French astrologer tries to even the odds by picking four different end-of-world dates. All are wrong.
Around 1555: Influential French theologian Pierre d'Ailly figures the world will come crashing down at this time.
July 22, 1556: A rumour swirls that our would will end on "Magdalene's Day." But everyone lives another day to brood and worry.
1584: Astrologer Cyprian Leowitz predicts another end of everything.
1603: Year Dominican monk Tomasso Campanella said the sun would ram into the Earth.
1656: Physician Helisaeus Roeslin foresees mankind going up in a blaze.
1657: Date believed by many to signal the Apocalyptic battle and the defeat of the Antichrist.
1689: A Camisard prophet predicts Judgement Day will take place in this year.
1694: Cultists leave from Germany to America in the hopes of greeting Jesus back to Earth. They are not happy campers when He doesn't appear.
1700: Puritans believe this will be the true date of man's ultimate destiny.
1982: The year of a Grand Conjunction, when the planets line up. Some believe it is a clear mark of disaster. Though the year did give us Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, so perhaps it did signal humanity's decline.
Jan. 1, 2000: The 'millenium bug' is supposed to cause a massive computer meltdown. Planes are supposed to fall from the sky and even your TV cable is in peril.
Jan., 2000: An American Christian group picks this month for global economic chaos.
--
Believe it or not...
Winter Solstice on December 21, 2012 -- precisely at 11:11 AM Universal Time -- marks the completion of the 5,125 year Great Cycle of the Ancient Maya Long Count Calendar.
And for those who believe it, marks the end of the world.
The end of the world is here ... again
When humanity's end arrives, Clif High plans to take to his plywood ark to survive.
As for the rest of us?
"I don't give a s---, my boat won't sink," says the modern Doomsday prophet.
"Every person's karma (is dealt with) alone. They're all dead."
Or at least 98% of us, reasons the Washington state 'Time Monk', who's become a celebrity among those searching for the next great Armageddon.
Dec. 21, 2009, marks a three-year countdown to mankind's next predicted end -- Dec 21, 2012. It's then that the 5,125-year cycle of the Mayan calendar ends.
Some believe it can only mean the ancient culture pinpointed 2012 as Doomsday, brought on by a rare galactic alignment of the earth, the sun and the center of the galaxy.
But Maya scholar John Major, and other experts, say attaching Doomsday to the end of the calendar is wrong. And astronomy professors point out the end of the cycle of the calendar simply means it turns around and starts over.
However, anxiety among the easily frazzled will likely increase over the next 36 months.
So much so, NASA has been getting emails from teenagers who are worried the world is doomed.
"I think when you lie on the Internet and scare children in order to make a buck, that is ethically wrong," NASA official David Morrison recently told West Virginia's Charleston Gazette.
But Clif High makes no apologies, saying he's not making any money by spreading fear.
He developed the Web Bot Project -- a software program the 57-year-old programmer says scans chat forums, looking for keywords with emotional ties. He sees them as telltale slips most of us don't even know we're making, as our intuition sends out signals we're not even aware of.
High says by charting these algorithms, and tapping into society's collective unconscious, his halfpasthuman.com site can predict major events -- including a sunspot disaster in December 2012.
"All humans are psychic to some degree," he explains from his home near Olympia, Wash.
He's so sure that, on a limited budget, he's building a 26-foot boat where he and a few friends can ride out the cosmic storm. Towed behind will be another vessel, carrying supplies.
"I accept the fear. I eat it," he points out.
The wealthy have already invested money in buying caves, High says, without divulging names.
But perhaps what they're really hiding from is the 'anti-Santa'.
Little Rock, Ar., author and radio broadcaster Corey Deitz, in his 2012 Guide Book or How To Make the End of the World Fun (2012guidebook.com) suggests doomsday may be delivered from an evil Saint Nick, who will emerge on December 21, 2012.
"To be honest, the man is two bricks shy of a chimney," says Deitz of the real Santa's ability to fight back and save humanity. "It wouldn't take much to push him over the edge."
Besides other possibilities -- including black holes, viruses and earthquakes -- humorist Deitz says mankind can't overlook other possibilities, including deadly penguins or exploding celebrities.
Expect the list of fears to only grow from there over the next three years.
---
Seeing is believing?
The world is obsessed with Hollywood, so why shouldn't we trust the movies to point out the many ways our story could end?
Here are the top ten ways scriptwriters choose to seal our doom -- and reasons why we'll survive.
1. Alien invasion
While they'll likely just get the flu and die (War of the Worlds) we'd just need to show them John Travolta's Battlefield Earth and they'd leave us in peace.
2. Nuclear War
While once at the top of the fear charts in the days of Dr. Strangelove, this old favorite has dropped down the list in recent years. The countdown always seems to stop with just seconds to spare.
3. Resources Dry Up
Mad Max saw a world where the loss ofenergy resources turned us into gangs of thieves and murderers. But if weekend shopping in a big box store hasn't turned us that way by now, nothing will.
4. Zombies
Always a popular way to end the world, it's clear all you have to do to survive is either a) run or b) hit them hard on the head.
5. Killer Computers
While artificial intelligence may hold menace in the worlds of The Terminator and The Matrix, here in reality, most modern computers regularly crash and our cell phones keep hitting dead zones.
6. Pandemic
Will a 12 Monkeys-type virus wipe us out? Na, we can always use time travel to go back and find a cure.
7. Global Warming/Cooling
While Waterworld and The Day After Tomorrow may make us say "no" to plastic, we'll ultimately survive by counting on survival techniques learned in Scouts and Guides. You were a Guide or Scout right? Oh, crap.
8. Geomagnetic Screw-up
In The Core, Earth's magnetic field becomes messed up and everything goes wrong. For most of us, that's just another Monday.
9. Deep Impact
If Armageddon proved anything when it comes to a deadly impact with an asteroid, it's that America will save us all.
10. Solar Activity
The sun attacks us in the movie 2012, but what we really should be keeping an eye on is that sneaky, no good moon.
---
Wrong, wrong and wrong
Since the beginning of time, expiry dates have been hand stamped on the world.
If it wasn't heralded by the first clap of thunder over our hairy ancestors it's now being forewarned by the melting of icebergs in the North.
But as humans, we suck at accurately predicting our end-times.
Here's a list of some of the notorious dates we lived through.
Around 2800 BC: An unearthed Assyrian clay tablet reportedly talked about humanity coming to a speedy end. But the writer expired long before the world.
634 BC: Romans fear their city will fall after 120 years.
389 BC: Having gotten it previously wrong, Romans figure the real date is around 389 BC: Wrong again.
First Century: Some followers of Jesus believe he will return to Earth soon after his death.
247: Thanks to Roman persecution, many Christians believe the end is upon them.
365: Hilary of Poitiers predicts an end to humanity.
Easter Eve, 793: The Bishop of Toledo writes about end-times panic, after a Spanish monk prophesises doom and gloom.
800: Multiple learned sources predict Doomsday.
806: Another bishop pegs this date as the real eve of destruction.
1000: Some researchers say panic sweeps across Europe as the dawn of a new Millenium arrives. Others argue most people aren't even aware of the date.
1184: More than a few prophets believe the Antichrist will arrive on this date.
1284: Again religious leaders get the date wrong for the arrival of the Antichrist.
Feb., 1420: A Czech prophet marks this date as the end of days.
Feb. 1, 1524: London astrologers pick this date as Doomsday -- heralded by floods in the city. An estimated 20,000 people leave their homes in panic.
1532: After getting reports of bloody crosses in the sky next to comets, a Viennese bishop says the end is nigh.
Oct. 19, 1533: A mathematician gets his numbers wrong by calculating this will be Judgement Day.
1532, 1544, 1801 and 1814: A French astrologer tries to even the odds by picking four different end-of-world dates. All are wrong.
Around 1555: Influential French theologian Pierre d'Ailly figures the world will come crashing down at this time.
July 22, 1556: A rumour swirls that our would will end on "Magdalene's Day." But everyone lives another day to brood and worry.
1584: Astrologer Cyprian Leowitz predicts another end of everything.
1603: Year Dominican monk Tomasso Campanella said the sun would ram into the Earth.
1656: Physician Helisaeus Roeslin foresees mankind going up in a blaze.
1657: Date believed by many to signal the Apocalyptic battle and the defeat of the Antichrist.
1689: A Camisard prophet predicts Judgement Day will take place in this year.
1694: Cultists leave from Germany to America in the hopes of greeting Jesus back to Earth. They are not happy campers when He doesn't appear.
1700: Puritans believe this will be the true date of man's ultimate destiny.
1982: The year of a Grand Conjunction, when the planets line up. Some believe it is a clear mark of disaster. Though the year did give us Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, so perhaps it did signal humanity's decline.
Jan. 1, 2000: The 'millenium bug' is supposed to cause a massive computer meltdown. Planes are supposed to fall from the sky and even your TV cable is in peril.
Jan., 2000: An American Christian group picks this month for global economic chaos.
--
Believe it or not...
Winter Solstice on December 21, 2012 -- precisely at 11:11 AM Universal Time -- marks the completion of the 5,125 year Great Cycle of the Ancient Maya Long Count Calendar.
And for those who believe it, marks the end of the world.
Still an Original Pirate since Aug 2000
Wanna ride the Zamboni?
Wanna ride the Zamboni?
--
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... =printable
Biblical scholar's date for rapture: May 21, 2011
Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 1, 2010
Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012.
"That date has not one stitch of biblical authority," Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. "It's like a fairy tale."
The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.
The Mayans and the recent Hollywood movie "2012" have put the apocalypse in the popular mind this year, but Camping has been at this business for a long time. And while Armageddon is pop science or big-screen entertainment to many, Camping has followers from the Bay Area to China.
Camping, 88, has scrutinized the Bible for almost 70 years and says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Good Book. One night a few years ago, Camping, a civil engineer by trade, crunched the numbers and was stunned at what he'd found: The world will end May 21, 2011.
This is not the first time Camping has made a bold prediction about Judgment Day.
On Sept. 6, 1994, dozens of Camping's believers gathered inside Alameda's Veterans Memorial Building to await the return of Christ, an event Camping had promised for two years. Followers dressed children in their Sunday best and held Bibles open-faced toward heaven.
But the world did not end. Camping allowed that he may have made a mathematical error. He spent the next decade running new calculations, as well as overseeing a media company that has grown significantly in size and reach.
"We are now translated into 48 languages and have been transmitting into China on an AM station without getting jammed once," Camping said. "How can that happen without God's mercy?"
His office is flanked by satellite dishes in the parking lot that transmit his talk show, "Open Forum." In the Bay Area, he's heard on 610 AM, KEAR. Camping says his company owns about 55 stations in the United States alone, and that his message arrives on every continent.
'I'm looking forward to it'
Employees at the Oakland office run printing presses that publish Camping's pamphlets and books, and some wear T-shirts that read, "May 21, 2011." They're happy to talk about the day they believe their souls will be retrieved by Christ.
"I'm looking forward to it," said Ted Solomon, 60, who started listening to Camping in 1997. He's worked at Family Radio since 2004, making sure international translators properly dictate Camping's sermons.
"This world may have had an attraction to me at one time," Solomon said. "But now it's definitely lost its appeal."
Camping is a frail-looking man, and his voice is low and deep, but it can rise to dramatic peaks with a preacher's flair.
As a young man, he owned an East Bay construction business but longed to work as a servant of God. So he hit the books.
"Because I was an engineer, I was very interested in the numbers," he said. "I'd wonder, 'Why did God put this number in, or that number in?' It was not a question of unbelief, it was a question of, 'There must be a reason for it.' "
Code-breaking phenomenon
Camping is not the only man to see truths in the Bible hidden in the numbers. In the late 1990s, a code-breaking phenomenon took off, led by "The Bible Code," written by former Washington Post journalist Michael Drosnin.
Drosnin developed a technique that revealed prophecies within the Bible's text. A handful of biblical scholars have supported Drosnin's theory, lending it an air of legitimacy, and just as many scholars have decried it as farce.
One of Drosnin's more well-known findings is that a meteor will strike Earth in 2012, the same year some people believe the Mayan calendar marks the end of times, and the same year the "2012" action movie surmised the Earth's crust will destabilize and kill most humans.
Meaning in numbers
By Camping's understanding, the Bible was dictated by God and every word and number carries a spiritual significance. He noticed that particular numbers appeared in the Bible at the same time particular themes are discussed.
The number 5, Camping concluded, equals "atonement." Ten is "completeness." Seventeen means "heaven." Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011.
"Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.," he began. "Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that's 1,978 years."
Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days - the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.
Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.
Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500.
Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.
"Five times 10 times 17 is telling you a story," Camping said. "It's the story from the time Christ made payment for your sins until you're completely saved.
"I tell ya, I just about fell off my chair when I realized that," Camping said.
James Kreuger, author of "Secrets of the Apocalypse - Revealed," has been studying the end of times for 40 years and is familiar with Camping's work. While Kreuger agrees that the rapture is indeed coming, he disputes Camping's method.
"For all his learning, Camping makes a classic beginner's mistake when he sets a date for Christ's return," Kreuger wrote in an e-mail. "Jesus himself said in Matthew 24:36, 'Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my father only.' "
'It is going to happen'
Camping's believers will have none of it.
Rick LaCasse, who attended the September 1994 service in Alameda, said that 15 years later, his faith in Camping has only strengthened.
"Evidently, he was wrong," LaCasse allowed, "but this time it is going to happen. There was some doubt last time, but we didn't have any proofs. This time we do."
Would his opinion of Camping change if May 21, 2011, ended without incident?
"I can't even think like that," LaCasse said. "Everything is too positive right now. There's too little time to think like that."
--
This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
racehorse
Madness...
Hot buttered rum, anyone? (while we wait) ;->
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Raggedyann
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