11 December 2012

No, the world is not ending on Dec 21st

That someone in the Vatican had to waste three seconds to respond to this is slightly embarrassing to the Church.

Vatican: World not ending, despite Maya prediction 

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican's top astronomer has some assurances to offer: The world won't be ending in about two weeks, despite predictions to the contrary. 

The Rev. Jose Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, wrote in Wednesday's Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that "it's not even worth discussing" doomsday scenarios based on the Mayan calendar that are flooding the Internet ahead of the purported Dec. 21 apocalypse.

Yes, Funes wrote, the universe is expanding and if some models are correct, will at one point "break away" — but not for billions of years. But he said Christians profoundly believe that "death can never have the last word." The Mayan Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. The Mayans wrote that the significant 13th Baktun ends Dec. 21.

Just b/c the Mayan astrologers came to the end of their calendar doesn't mean that the world is ending. Calendars run out of dates every year around Dec. 31st. Has the world ended yet? 
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4 comments:

  1. Hence the Internet meme that states that everyone else just gets a new calendar. Besides, doesn't Scripture have something to say about the day and hour? ;)

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  2. Anonymous4:40 AM

    Y2K panic again...

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  3. Anonymous9:44 PM

    I thought that if you recalculate the date for the prior to adjustment Julian calendar the date was a couple of years ago anyway.

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    Replies
    1. Good point. I hadn't thought of that. "Dec 21, 2012" wasn't "Dec 21, 2012" back when the Mayans carved their calendar.

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