FIVE REASONS THE WORLD WILL NOT, I REPEAT NOT, END ON, ABOUT OR NEAR DECEMBER 21, 2012, DESPITE WHAT YOU SEE AND HEAR ON THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL, THE HISTORY CHANNEL, THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL OR THE PLAYBOY CHANNEL (IF THAT CHANNEL STILL EXISTS AND THEY HAVE OPINED ON THE SUBJECT)
Now, I am Roman Catholic, and I hold my Christian beliefs sincerely, deeply and in great faith. The Bible tells me – no, wait – Jesus tells me that the world will end but no one knows when. In fact, He says that the Father has not revealed the time even to Him.
About The End, Jesus says: “But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone.” - The Gospel of Saint Matthew 24:36
Let’s save that discussion for another time though I simply believe that the Father could easily hold back one fact from the Son while He was on earth as The Son of Man.
So, I know that the world will not end as we know it on December 21, 2012 simply because we are not allowed to know the day this all ends – anymore than we are allowed to know the day that will be our last on Earth. Who among us could live with that knowledge without losing his mind?
But I have researched this December 21st issue and have found five reasons why the world will not end on that date in The Year of Our Lord 2012.
1. Just as with Y2K (that hand-wringing, suicide-causing bust of an apocalypse fostered on us by those who would believe Chicken Little crying, “The sky is falling!”), 2012 has been analyzed as well and the science of the end of the Earth has been studied thoroughly. The result: it’s all a crock of bovine solid waste. When asked if the Mayan calendar is true, here’s what scientists at NASA have to say:
“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.”
Well, Dang-It-All, nobody on TV ever says that, do they? No, and there is a reason they only want you aware of one side of the argument. They love “fear mongering” the hoi polloi. Fear mongering (or scaremongering) is the use of fear to influence the opinions and actions of others towards some specific end … such as having more people watching a TV show, thereby raising their Nielsen ratings and thus allowing that network or channel to charge more for advertising and make subsequently larger profits. The hoi polloi are just you and me, folks – it is Greek for “the many.”
2. When asked could some kind of phenomena occur where planets align in a way that could impact Earth, NASA says no, not in the next few decades anyway.
“There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence, either.”
Shucks – those rational, thoughtful, fact-seeking scientists just ruin everybody’s pleasure in being afraid. As you know, many people enjoy being frightened (when there is no factual basis for that fear) or there would be no horror movies or novels, which are certainly popular. Well, for a year I was REALLY, REALLY afraid and I did not enjoy nary a moment of that fear. I enjoyed the friendships I made while wearing my country’s uniform, standing for her in a combat zone and living with a great bunch of selfless, giving men – that sort of pleasure. Real fear has no pleasure – just some quite, personal satisfaction of not falling prey to it.
3. Will Planet X or Eris approach the Earth and threaten our planet with destruction?
“Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. [What? A hoax perpetrated on the Internet? What will they think of next?] There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.”
Hmmmm. Four billion miles – well, that is just a tad bit too far to drive for a pizza and a six-pack.
Did you hear that “Whump!”? Well, that was another world- ending theory shot to death by facts.
4. When NASA was asked if the Earth is in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012, that organization said that it was unlikely.
“The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.”
So, all you heroes out there don’t have to go out in the yard with your old baseball mitts and try to save the world by catching something hard, fast and hot dropping out of the sky.
Facts on the Internet trump lies and unsupported theories on the Internet every time.
5. Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012? Nope. Here we go again.
“Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 timeframe and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.”
I suppose it will be a “casual” cycle rather than a “heavy wash” cycle.
As to the world ending proclamation, NASA says, “Where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.”
See you folks on December 22, 2012, “the good Lord willing and the Eno River[1] don’t rise.” Every body will be there.
[1] The Eno River is only a hop, skip and a splash from my house in Durham County.
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