Ah apocalypse and the end of days

[nadinbrzezinski]

as usual the good folks at the prophecy channel (formerly known as the history channel) are going over how we are at the end of days. But in their prattle they did say something that is significant and scary. Those who live their lives based on these prophecies... can actually bring this about if they are in the possitions to do so. THey were talking of messianic Jews, Muslims and of course Fundamentalist Christians. And there you have it... this is the real danger of these ideas. No, not that they exist. After all the War Book adn the Book of Revelations were most likely referring to ... Rome, and the mark of the beast to well again ROME.

Of course now they are going over all the calendars pointing to the end of the world in 2012. So what happens when we wake up on January First 2013? Will this messianic fervor die out, or wait... we still have 2033 to talk about...

Ain't it grand to live in messianic times? By the way... we had this happen in oh around 1000... so there you have it.

[liberal_at_heart]

1. I find it ironic that Christians are using the Myan calendar to support their end of days theory

They reject anything that isn't Christian. They reject anything that doesn't come from the bible or from the church so why do they use the Myan calendar to support their dooms day theory?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Not just Mayan, they are using

a slew of other "calendars" and prophecies based on powerful astronomical observations by the ancients.

Now if you ask a literalist... the Maya who?

I got to admit though, I completely forgot about the sons of light and the sons of darkness... damn will be useful in one novel I am writing, first draft... after all one of the two cultures is down right religious, while the other is secular... talk of a clash of civilizations.

Well for my religious folks who have adopted a lot of the practices of the ancient world, talking of these interlopers as the sons of darkness is not that crazy.

:-)

Why I actually bother with watching this... and every so often they say something of ahem, value.

Sara Palin anyone as a crazy who's world view is informed by these books...

[jbnow]

Well the date they chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus

on a pagan holiday, Saturnalia, honoring Saturn. Saturnalia was a several day celebration and 12/25 was the last day and biggest celebration... and even before that it was a day honoring the son-god, Mithra.

If Jesus was actually a person experts (in history of the time and of astronomy/astrology) look at all the given clues and all pick either March ir September 7BC to 2BC as his birth date
I want us to celebrate it in September. Travel would be so much easier
but we wouldn't want to anger Mithra or Saturn

[old mark]

25. Early christianity competed with Mithraism - a religion held by many

Roman military men, beginning around the year 80.It died out in the 4th century. They celebrated December 25th.

Some of what became christianity seems to have come from Zoroasterianism, a Persian religion worshiping Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Light, the One Uncreated Creator. That religion included the concept of free will and the idea that humanity was created to fight evil and do good to protect all creation.

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


See the linked Wiki article for some background in this still extant Irananian religion.

mark

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

44. Or, simply, the winter solstice.

[jbnow]

11. Well the date they chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus

on a pagan holiday, Saturnalia, honoring Saturn. Saturnalia was a several day celebration and 12/25 was the last day and biggest celebration... and even before that it was a day honoring the son-god, Mithra.

If Jesus was actually a person experts (in history of the time and of astronomy/astrology) look at all the given clues and all pick either March ir September 7BC to 2BC as his birth date
I want us to celebrate it in September. Travel would be so much easier

[Nay]

12. A couple of fundies at work are doing this very thing. I had the impulse

to ask them just what the heck they were gonna do if the world DID go into a cataclysm on 12/12/12, because wouldn't that mean their Christian religion was total bunk, and they should turn to Mayan religion?

And never mind the whole mindset that welcomes the end of the world in any form -- ppl like that should have NO planning capacities in government because...they either don't think there is a future, or they would be happy to bring the end of the world about because they so desire to die and fly off to heaven.

[GoCubsGo]

20. Too bad they don't actually listen to the Mayans

They say that when one calendar ends, they just start a new one. But, I guess into the Christers' fear and doom message.

[cali]

22. Most religions and cultures have an end time facet, though

eschatology is one of, if not the most, well defined.

[GoCubsGo]

23. Very true

But, my point is that they're using the calendar of a culture that doesn't have the end time facet in their attempts to prove that the end is near. Pretty ironic, for sure.

[cali]

24. I don't see that Christians are using Mayan culture to prove the end is near

In fact, most of the people latching onto that are secular new age apocalyticists and then of course there's Hollywood.

[liberal_at_heart]

32. My dad believes it and he is evangelical Christian

He had been running around like crazy trying to convert me, my husband, and our children. He was pushing pretty hard. It's because he's afraid if we don't convert before 2012 our souls will be lost. It had created alot of tension in the house. We finally had to have a talk with him and he has backed off trying to convert us. I'm sure he spends time at night praying that we will convert, but as long as he is not actively trying to convert us I don't care what he prays.

[deutsey]

34. They apparently don't read their Bibles

Jesus said no one (not even he) knows when the end of the world will be; only God does. I think that's in Matthew, but I can't say for certain at the moment.

[apocalypsehow]

2. ?

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. The Nostradamus Effect

[Hissyspit]

5. "Before The Deluge"

Written By Jackson Browne

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature

While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other's heart for refuge
In the troubled years that came
Before the deluge

Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered

And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept
Before the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal it's secrets by and by
By and by--
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

Some of them were angry
At the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them
Only to be confused
By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour

And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live
After the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal it's secrets by and by
By and by--
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Jackson Browne is one of my favorite singers

thanks

[dysfunctional press]

7. what happens in 2033?

first i've heard of that year being mentioned.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. The crucifixion happened in 33 AD

1033 was also big in messianic thought, after 1000 fizzled out.

Well here we will have 2012 (most likely) fizzle out... so the next one will be the 2000 years since the crucifixion.

[SpiralHawk]

16. You nailed it

bEwaRe 3033 aLSo

[dysfunctional press]

30. christians are about the biggest fucktards going..

it figures that it would have something to do with their ignorant myths.

[cali]

31. it's hardly just Christians with active end time/millennial/apocalyptic

myths.

[dysfunctional press]

33. they seem to have the most, and they have to keep adjusting them when nothing happens.

morans, every single one of them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. I wish millennial insanity was limited to one group

alas it is not. You just live with the best known in the west. But this fever is not limited to Christianity.

[dysfunctional press]

38. who other than christians would care about the 2000th aniversary...

of the mythical death of their mythical christ...?

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. Let me see,

Millenialism is not limited to Christianity. Let me tell you, some Jews are Messianic Jews and want to build a temple.

Then there is Islam.

But hey branch out and look at Hindu religion... which does expect the end to come soon.

Did I mention Shinto?

What about many native American Traditions?

No, they are not fixed on the return of the Christian messiah and the end of days and the thousand year reign, but that does not make them less millenial and crazy thinking.

[dysfunctional press]

43. what calendar do non-christians base their millennialism on...?

what 2,000 year-old incident(s) are shinto and hinduism basing their apocalyptic fears on..?

[LeftinOH]

26. Joan Rivers turns 100 -n/t

[thelordofhell]

9. The Nostradumbass Effect

The feeling that your Christian world is ending on the Mayan cycle calendar date because some crazy French dude said so in a vaguely worded poem.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. You know what is histerically funny?

Nostradamus was writing about HIS OWN TIME. Just that you cannot call the king and asshole and expect to live...

THe Mayan calendar... I guerss the world comes to an end every December 31st

And the Book of Revelations? It is about ROME...

But they like to pass this as facts... But for a writer who writes fiction and is interested in what is going on in the real world, their point that if your life is driven by this believes is dangerous... well DUH... Sarah Palin anyone? What about George Bush?

[AllentownJake]

13. No one will know the day or the hour

I wish they would read their own book.

[cali]

14. Actually, 1000 wasn't a particularly big year for apocalyptic movements

aka millenarianism. There was far more and far better documented Millenarian activity in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. The Anabaptist John of Leyden who set up his own Millenarian society in Munster in the mid 16th century is an example of such activity. There are many more. Of course, Millenarianism is no longer defined by scholars as relegated to Christianity. It's widely recognized within the field that many other religions and cultures have end time myths and movements rooted within those myths. There's also secular apocalypticism. In any case, anyone interested in this field at all, should read the seminal work on Christian Millenarianism, In Pursuit of the Millennium by British historian Norman Cohn. It's a fantastic and rigorous book with what is widely considered the best definition of Millenarian movements.

[cali]

15. I'd also like to point out that no apocalyptic movement has ever done

anything but fail spectacularly. It's rare- and I do mean rare- for any apocalyptic movement to gain purchase within the wider societal context. These are inevitably, despite Revelations and other texts, small, intense movements that flame and die out quickly. One of the definitions that Cohn put forth is that Millenarian thought encompasses transformation by supernatural means and that said transformation is imminent.

In Millennial studies there are Roosters and Owls. The Roosters are always wrong.

[Echo In Light]

17. Funny how the $ behind that channel is sooo interested in promoting this

They'll cover any 'conspiracy' to death...well, except for 9/11, of course ;)

As for end of days...I maintain that either nukes or germs will do us in eventually.

[cali]

18. or climate change or a combination of the two you mentioned and climate change

And end-time crap is "sexy". The actual study of Millenarianism? Not so much, particularly as the bulk of it is simply a branch of Medieval studies.

[GoCubsGo]

19. You noticed that, too....

This weekend had a Nostradamus marathon. It was kind of fun watching all these people trying to shoehorn his writings into modern events. A couple of them even insinuated that President Obama is the Antichrist. I found them entertaining for a while. But, all the gushing over a guy who predicted the predictable got a little old. This is worse than the times when they become the "Hitler Channel." At least during those phases, one gets to see some decent WWII clips.

[cali]

21. I want to add a little more about the year 1000

There is dispute about how much millennial activity there was in the year 1000. Cohn thought there was very little and attributed the "myth" of it being a big millennial activity time to the historians and thinkers of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. So do a great many other experts in the field. On the other hand, Richard Landes who directs the Center for Millennial Studies at BU, thinks there was quite a bit of Millennial thought and activity in that year and surrounding years. One thing that is not disputed is that there isn't a lot in the historical record. The scholarly discussions about this are quite interesting.

[Odin2005]

27. I think it's an indicator of the public mood more than anything.

[LibertyLover]

28. There is a program from Britain called "Dark Ages" that

I have on DVD. It was produced around 1999 - 2000 if I remember correctly and supposedly takes place in a small Anglo-Saxon village in the year 999 CE. One of the continuing threads is the coming year 1000. In one episode the main character starts talking about it and says that when the millennium comes Satan and his minions could emerge from hell and take over the earth, issuing huge blasts of fire from their hindquarters, plagues and earthquakes and fire and hail and wind and rain could lash the earth, evil and corruption could stalk all men OR it could just be a regular Tuesday.

It's fun to read some of this 2012 stuff, but every time I start to wonder if it might really be true, I remember the Dark Ages comment and revert to a reality based universe.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Well there were two other periods of this insanity

before. The year 1000... which may or may not been as big as some believe...

And of course the age of discovery... I mean the New World is NOWHERE in a classical map... hence did God make the Americas? Do the indians have souls? Can they be saved? Do they exist in a state of nature or not? That was 200 years of not just discovery, but to a point millennial insanity...

It is one of those periods of Human History that is fascinating since it is a good indicator of the instanity that may come if we ever actually make contact with ET... (I don't think it is a coincidence that the Catholic Church has done the pre-emtive of telling us that ET does not contradict dogma)

But I'd say our present one (perhaps since we are living through it) is not as bad as it could be. At least we aren't burning people or declaring what is correct thought. (And remember the year 1000 came out of a very dark period in European History... in a way they had seen Armageddon, aka the Black Death)

[KatyMan]

29. We watched that one too

Amazing how in the beginning they point out that they aren't judging just presenting the "facts" and theories, and proceed to have an hour long show with no skeptical guests. And how many of the assertations were prefaced with "some say" and "some believe". And what's this webbot or whatever thing they were talking about? No reference to whether it was real or not, said it was invented by someone named Cliff in the 90s and started mining data then, and now predicts the future. And the Tim McKenna stuff was laughable. Oh well, I enjoy those shows because it's good fiction, like the ghost shows. I find it hard to believe that people buy it (actually, I don't, sadly).

[Taverner]

37. I always found it a bit misleading to talk about "prophecy" on a HISTORY channel

[Subdivisions]

39. I can't wait until Dec 22, 2012. The world will still be here and the 2012

prophecy will have died a deserving death and we'll never have to hear or talk about it again.

[Forkboy]

40. Maybe the Mayans figured they had taken the calander far enough and that they would finish it later.

:)

[The Straight Story]

42. I remember in the 70's people talking about a new ice age, overpopulation, etc

Would be our end by 2000.

It ain't just the religious people.