Yes, I did steal the title for this post from the Wim Wenders movie about the world ending in 1999. Funny how the world didn't end back then, isn't it? I mean, Nostradamus' king of terror was supposed to drop out of the sky in July of that year and then there was the Y2K hysteria. I remember watching the New Year's Eve festivities in countries time zones ahead of me. No planes fell out of the sky, no power outages, no toasters killing their owners, just a lot of people celebrating. Yet here in this country, in spite of nothing happening in Asia, Europe, Australia, people still took to their bunkers for the night, missing the biggest party of the century. I'm sure some of them still haven't run out of the toilet paper they stockpiled in 1999.
My point is, it didn't happen. It didn't happen in 1975, when the Jehovah's Witnesses went public with their end of the world prediction. People sold their houses and went to live in a big JW complex waiting for the end. They found themselves alive and homeless. Come to think of it, they had a 1999 apocalypse prediction too. That didn't happen either.
It didn't happen in 1988, when the doom and gloom sayers were claiming the 40th anniversary of Israel was the end. So many people were predicting the Rapture that year. But, humanity survived.
Various diseases were supposed to be the end. SARS was going to kill us all. We're all going to die from MRSA, which won't even make most carriers sick. Plague! Famine! Pestilence! We're all going to die!
At the moment, all the people who are disappointed they didn't die in the Y2K hysteria are embracing 2012 hysteria. Once again, we are all going to die. Planet X is going to jump from behind the Sun and crush us! Nibiru is coming! Dark Matter! Dark Rifts! Comets! The Rapture! They Mayan Calender! The blue star of the Hopis! It's the end!
*sigh*
OK, the meme keeps growing that we're all going to die. The Christians are dying for the Rapture, the Apocalypse, the final battle. They want to look down from Heaven after being Raptured and spit on those left behind and act self satisfied. Sadly, the very people with this attitude will never make it into Heaven and if there is such a thing as the Rapture, they wouldn't be going, as there's a major difference between being righteous and self righteous. But that's another blog post entirely.
Currently, I'm still seeing spam from Harold Camping's group, about how the Rapture is going to be in May and the end of days in October of this year. Of course, he said all of this was going to happen in 1994, too. But you know, he had to keep selling books and as he's president of Family Radio Stations, he has to keep fear going, to keep his listeners, to make some bucks. After all, he does tell his listeners to abandon their religions and listen to him. So like, you can end up the 3% that are going to be Raptured. Now, I don't believe in the Rapture, it is something invented by John Nelson Darby in the 1800s. But I do believe those who believe in it say 33% are going to be raised to Heaven bodily. If I'm wrong, please correct me.
The Rapture has come and gone so many times, I've lost count. I do feel that those of you waiting to be Raptured had better not hold your breath. For one thing, Jesus didn't keep his promise to his disciples about coming back. Matthew 13:30 states, "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." Once again, this is a different subject entirely.
The other big end of the world scenario for 2011 is Comet Elenin. It's going to pass way too close to the Earth and its tail is going to kill us all! Yeah, that's what they said about Halley's Comet back in the day. In 1910 it came within 0.15 AU of Earth and our orbit actually did pass through the tail. People sold snake oil to keep people "safe" from the effects of the comet. Others out to make a quick buck were selling comet insurance. Nothing happened. No one died from cosmic dust, radiation, any of that. We didn't end up deformed, except for the people who drank the elixirs. We didn't become sterile. Scientists say that the tail of the comet actually helped to clean the atmosphere.
But, tell that to the true believers. They are all upset about Comet Elenin. We're all going to die! It's going to pass within 0.48 AU of Earth. As in, just over three times as far away as Halley's Comet was. As in, 21,000,000 miles away from Earth. Hardly a near miss. But because this is a comet that was just discovered, the fear mongers are all claiming it's going to kill us. Passing through the tail is going to do great damage to our planet. I'm not entirely sure the tail is long enough to even pass near the Earth. But hey, it's a new comet, just discovered, so it has to be Nibiru, right? No, really. Google it. The number of people insisting Elenin is Nibiru is astounding. Someone on You Tube is also claiming this will cause pole shift. No, really.
Yet no one is talking about Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova. Maybe because it's so hard to say. This is going to pass Earth in August and talk about near misses, it's going to be at least twice as close as Halley's Comet was in 1910. This one is going to come as close as 0.0601 AU to 0.0767 AU from Earth. As in, a mere 5,500,000 miles away. So, chances are we are getting some comet tail this year. But not from Comet Elenin.
45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova passes by the planet every 5.252 years. It is a very short orbit comet. If you look at models, it looks like it's going to hit us. But it's not. Yet no one is talking about this one, because it isn't exciting. It's old news. It's been around for many, many years. New and shiny is always the danger, not old and common. But the fact is, it's still not going to hit us.
Another reason that this comet isn't getting doomsday press is, it's going to be at its closest in the middle of August, 2011. AUGUST??? Doesn't this comet know that all the doom and gloom prophecies for the latter half of the year are either September or October? Which is why Elenin is so scary. It will pass in October, very close to when Harold Camping claims the end will be.
See the meme at work here? Elenin is hardly a threat, but it fits into the monthly frame for which the end of the world is predicted the most. Nothing happens in August, other than people heading to the nearest beach. Well, if you're headed to the beach this year in August, you might see this comet. Depends on where in the world you are. The Southern Hemisphere for viewing in July and August and the UK for viewing in September in the pre-dawn hours. The best viewing for August, when it's at its closest, will be in New Zealand. But, this comet is a horizon hugger for most of us. Figures, doesn't it? The biggest threat in the form of a comet and most of us won't even be able to see it. Which of course, makes it less of a threat. Right? Well, that seems to be the logic at any rate.
So let's say we're still alive in November. No comet hit us. The tail of 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova didn't turn us all into zombie mutants, looking for the normals who took the comet elixir, so we can eat their brains. The doomsday prophets still have 2012 to look forward to.
Ah yes, 2012. The promise of what Y2K was supposed to be. The end of time. Whose time, I wonder? Certainly not the clock the universe goes by. It is still expanding and stars are still being born. Oh yeah, that's right. It's the end of a cycle on the Mayan Long Count calendar.
The Mayan Long Count calendar is a complicated thing, calculated in base 20. We count in decimal, or base 10. As a result, there are 20 baktuns or cycles of 144,000 days in the Mayan Long Count Calendar. December 21, 2012 marks the end of the 13th baktun. Which means, December 22 starts the 14th. But not to those who are praying for death. Oh no. Those who felt cheated each time in their lives the end was predicted and it didn't happen are going to have their day. It had BETTER happen this time. SOMETHING had better happen this time. Or what? You have to start living and stop worrying about dying?
You know, when I think about it, the 2012 predictions are a blog post in themselves. So I shall leave that for another day.
