Penn & Teller - 2012 [video]

reply to post by Diplomat


Those are pretty much the same things, aren't they? Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I'm just really confused, but you seem to have a tautologous argument going on there on your first paragraph. Your really just stating what I stated, saying it again with different words and using it like it would invalidate the same thing but in my own words? And then you contradict yourself right after it.

What I am seeing you say is:
"I have done a lot of research (extensive research), so I know well enough about the subject to tell people that they could understand this subject that I understand very well through a very compact 30 minute long episode of a program/show named Penn & Teller. x2 [repeat] Oh no, although I learned things from the research on 2012, I tell everyone its bull# and that they can learn its bull# in a bull# program that teaches nothing because this was really all I learned from researching."

Please don't get offended. You seem to be very contradictory in your statements.

Well, I just said that you said it because you asked who have said it before. It's not a pitty, I think we are getting somewhere, although I know it sounds confusing.

You say that you want to debate. And I say that although I've researched quite a bit I know really nothing about it. The only thing I know is that it must have something special about it because there are so many people naturally talking about it, it seems like it just stays with them. Just like you, right? Coming here after having it in your head, eager to share more about it.

Where are your arguments that nothing is going to happen? You want to debate about something that you don't believe is true. This simply doesn't make sense, do you want me to convince you that something is happening? Stop being lazy and do more research I say.

Please again, don't get offended. I'm trying to be critically constructive.

Again, its something thats out there and that attracts the attention of a lot of people. I think its an interesting phenomena and if you think about it its so real that we are spending precious hours of our life with it already. Its interesting that the concept came up at this time anyhow, anthropologically speaking.

And just to let you know, if you don't believe in prophecies if you think about it mathematics in itself is pretty prophetic. Let's count, shall we? 1, 2, 3, ... what comes next? Prophesying! If you didn't really understand the secret is in time. There is no future, there is only now.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Geladinhu]

reply to post by Diplomat


You can't debunk a potentially approaching event before that date even passes. Ie "spiritual ascension."

Neither you nor Pen & Teller even know what a "spiritual ascension" is. You think of it like a religion. I know it is a science.

Penn and Teller are awesome, very funny take on all of the 2012 hype. Thanks for posting, I enjoyed this so much. I am very amused at how so many take the Mayan calendar prediction as solid fact. I personally think the only way the world will end in 2012 is if Nancy Pelosi is elected president. Also, I think Patrick may be the guy making all of the crop circles that predict Earth's destruction by a giant solar flare.

You can't disprove most vague 2012 theories, as they have nothing testable at this time, the only test will come on the date provided (if there is one given, and the theory is not some even vaguer 'gradual 'cosmic' shift of conciousness mumbo jumbo), the world very well could end that year.

What we can say however is that no-one so far has providing any serious compelling evidence for the wilder claims.

One of my favorite 2012 myths is the one about the alignment of the planets on Dec 21 2012 somehow being special, where the 2012 theorists forget to mention that the alignment takes place every Dec 21.

reply to post by harpsounds


You mean the Sun lining up with galactic center? No, that doesn't happen every year, it happens very rarely, but it does happen on the date given in Dec 2012.

I'm not saying it's the end of the world or anything like, or even that any specific will happen on that day. The positioning is just like a clock striking the exact moment of midnight, and it only lasts for a very brief moment if you want to get technical about it. The changes happen around it. And I think a shift in consciousness is becoming self-evident whether or not you think the alignment has anything to do with it. But again I'm talking about things I know you haven't really looked into or practiced much yourself.

Originally posted by bsbray11
reply to post by harpsounds

 

You mean the Sun lining up with galactic center? No, that doesn't happen every year, it happens very rarely, but it does happen on the date given in Dec 2012.

I'm not saying it's the end of the world or anything like, or even that any specific will happen on that day. The positioning is just like a clock striking the exact moment of midnight, and it only lasts for a very brief moment if you want to get technical about it. The changes happen around it.

Could you give a source for your claim that it doesn't happen every year? My sources all say otherwise:

hoth.ccssc.org...

It just so happens that in the year 2012, as the Sun would be on the winter solstice as seen from Earth, it will also happen to be fairly close to the plane of the Galactic equator. If you drew a line from the Earth to the Sun at that day, you could keep the line going and end up reasonably close to the center of the Milky Way galaxy. (If you want to know where that is in your sky, it's in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.)

My response to this is pretty much a big, "So what?" By the late 1990s, you could draw the same line on the winter solstice of that year, and land pretty close to the Galactic center. Works for the summer solstice, too, though in that case the line would go from the Sun to the Earth to the Galactic center. You could keep doing that every year on the solstices up through oh, the 2020s or so, depending how close you want to come. Nothing disastrous has been happening on the winter solstices that I've noticed. As I understand it, in 2012 the line will be closest to the Galactic center than in any of these other years.

en.wikipedia.org...

Every year for the last 2000 years or so, on the winter solstice, the Earth, Sun and the galactic equator come into alignment, and every year, precession pushes the Sun's position a little way further through the Milky Way's band.

(start about 1:10 for an astronomers comment on alignments)

And I think a shift in consciousness is becoming self-evident whether or not you think the alignment has anything to do with it. But again I'm talking about things I know you haven't really looked into or practiced much yourself.

So I just have to accept it's 'self-evident'? No evidence here, true believers only? Why is 2012 or even recent times so special? How about the rise of the Greek philosophers, or the Enlightenment, or the many other times other the thousands of years of written history that people could say that 'consciousness' has shifted?

It's also quite a presumption on your part to conclude I haven't 'really looked into' these topics. How were you able to deduce that from my post? I am no expert by far, but I have read a number of books on the topic, by both believers and skeptics, and read most of the theories that are discussed widely in conspiracy/new age movements.

As for practicing it myself, what exactly am I supposed to be practicing here?

Originally posted by harpsounds
Could you give a source for your claim that it doesn't happen every year? My sources all say otherwise

The eclipse is the path traveled by the sun, moon, and planets through the sky. Twelve constellations lie along the ecliptic, and the sun passes through all twelve during the course of one year. The ecliptic cross over the Milky Way at a 60 degree angle near the constellation Sagittarius. As such, it forms a cross with the Milky Way, and this cosmic cross was called the Sacred Tree by the ancient Maya. (The cross form was also known as the "crossroads." Amazingly, the center of this cosmic cross, that is right where the ecliptic crosses over the Milky Way is exactly where the December solstice sun will be in A.D. 2012. This alignment occurs only once every 25,800 years.

link

It's like a solstice within a solstice, and yes, I also understand we will be brought into closer alignment with galactic center this time.


So what? If you really don't want to understand, then don't worry about it. There is no point in arguing about it.


And I think a shift in consciousness is becoming self-evident whether or not you think the alignment has anything to do with it. But again I'm talking about things I know you haven't really looked into or practiced much yourself.

So I just have to accept it's 'self-evident'? No evidence here, true believers only?

Something like that. I could point to Dr. William Tiller's scientific work as an example. He's a tenured professor at MIT. This is what quantum physics and Jungian psychology are pointing to us, the truly "final frontier" is consciousness itself. That consciousness has been totally neglected by most science so far. And while ancient philosophies like Hinduism are gaining popularity, as I'm even reading about in news threads, and that I myself have personally benefited from studying, even Western scientists are beginning to realize that once you begin seriously studying and considering the nature of your own consciousness, some very paradigm-shattering truths become self-evident. Psychologists like Carl Jung have also discovered the things I am talking about, and he wrote about them in books like "Man and His Symbols."

How about the rise of the Greek philosophers, or the Enlightenment, or the many other times other the thousands of years of written history that people could say that 'consciousness' has shifted?

I will answer but first let me ask you: Why must you take such a hostile tone towards me, simply because I am trying to give you something to think about and be the first to introduce you to certain information?

I am no expert by far, but I have read a number of books on the topic, by both believers and skeptics, and read most of the theories that are discussed widely in conspiracy/new age movements

What defines "new age"?

As for practicing it myself, what exactly am I supposed to be practicing here?

Practicing getting up better each morning.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by bsbray11]

reply to post by bsbray11


your wrong alignments with the galactic equator, and with the zero meridian of galactic longitude happen every year, not just in 2012.The center of the galaxy in our sky is in the constellation Sagittarius, The sun and the earth line up all the time with center of the galaxy.Now if your creating an plane through the center of the galaxy(splitting it in to halves).It's perhaps worth pointing out that the sun is not passing through the equatorial plane of the galaxy at that time; we're well away from it, and moving farther away. In fact interesting fact recently it was decided where actually in a bar spiraled galaxy and not a regular spiral galaxy so many previous estimations were wrong.


Thought id add this in here i found it and its fun to play with its a 3d view of our galaxy.

www.3dgalaxymap.com...

[edit on 8/22/09 by dragonridr]

reply to post by dragonridr


Ok, I went to Wikipedia (a natural battle-ground for anything controversial), and this cleared it up for me assuming the information is accurate:

Just as the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere is currently in the constellation of Pisces, so the winter solstice is currently in the constellation of Sagittarius, which happens to be the constellation intersected by the galactic equator. Every year for the last 2000 years or so, on the winter solstice, the Earth, Sun and the galactic equator come into alignment, and every year, precession pushes the Sun's position a little way further through the Milky Way's band.

Jenkins suggests that the Maya based their calendar on observations of the "dark rift", a band of black dust clouds in the Milky Way, which the Maya called the Xibalba be or Black Road.[21] Jenkins claims that the Maya were aware of where the ecliptic intersected the Black Road and gave this position in the sky a special significance in their cosmology.[22] According to the hypothesis, the Sun precisely aligns with this intersection point at the winter solstice of 2012.[22] Jenkins claimed that the classical Mayans anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind.[23] New Age proponents of the galactic alignment hypothesis argue that, just as astrology uses the positions of stars and planets to make claims of future events, the Mayans plotted their calendars with the objective of preparing for significant world events.[24]

en.wikipedia.org...

This stuff is not really what I was looking to talk about, though. I come from the "other side" of the issue, the transformation in progress. Which is why ATS had to create a new forum called "Psychology, Philosophy and Metaphysics" for an increasing stream of transcendental threads, and which is why Hindu beliefs are beginning to take hold in the West, and why parallels are being drawn between Eastern philosophies and quantum physics, and why scientists at MIT are beginning to explore consciousness and awareness themselves as forms of energy. These things are all related, with many others, and they move in a common though subtle direction.

Those were the kinds of subjects I'm more interested in discussing, as far as this spiritual ascension goes. Nothing specific has to happen on that date in Dec. 2012 to make me happy. Something else is happening around that date, like I said, that may or may not be related to the date itself.

reply to post by bsbray11


It's nice to see a clear, concise point-of-view from a long-time ATS member.

This is a subject that is full of differing ideologies, of course.

I admit I skimmed a bit, before posting. What I saw was mostly the science, and how the FACTS of natural processes, are at play, and the notion of some date as SPECIFIC as 12 december, 2012 is a bit dodgy.

This is the BANE of all previous "doomsday" or "apocalyptic" so-called prophesies....

Penn & Teller (I happen to be a fan, BTW, just for full disclosure) thoroughly blew away the nonsense that mostly surrounds the many and varied "theories" that have cropped up re: 2012.

Just as numerous "end-of-days" predictions have been seen to be wrong....

WHY do people love to cling to this one??? Especially, when it is full of so much bogus "pseudo-science"??

reply to post by weedwhacker


Want the simple answer as to why people cling to this doomsday scenario.Mostly money people have all ready forgotten the end of the world was post poned.Do you remember people claiming in 2000 the world would be destroyed than when it didn't happen they blamed it on our calendar.Saying that the start of the new millennium wasn't actually until 2001.Then that rolled around and nothing again.So now 2012 got picked up on partly do to the Mayan calender which by the way doesn't stop in 2012 its a revolving calender so it moves on to the next age. And when 2012 rolls around my guess is they'll have the same millennium thing start in 3000.

reply to post by dragonridr


Hmm.. You said you had a simple answer for why so many of us post things like this, and then you string together a bunch of things without explaining what they have to do with either one another or why anyone is posting here. Am I making money? (No.) Did I freak out about y2k? (No.) Am I freaking now? (No.)

I appreciate the attempt to rationalize what you are seeing, but you should probably try again.

Originally posted by bsbray11
reply to post by Diplomat

 

You can't debunk a potentially approaching event before that date even passes. Ie "spiritual ascension."

Neither you nor Pen & Teller even know what a "spiritual ascension" is. You think of it like a religion. I know it is a science.

Actually I do know what a "spiritual ascension" is and the supposed science surrounding it because I have done a lot of research on the different 2012 theories, and one of them is that we will spiritually ascend into the next dimension.

Originally posted by bsbray11
reply to post by harpsounds

 

You mean the Sun lining up with galactic center? No, that doesn't happen every year, it happens very rarely, but it does happen on the date given in Dec 2012.

Nope. It doesn't. I have talked to many educated scientists and astrologers, many of whom have about 0.00001% chance of being involved with any type of conspiracy, and they ALL say that in December of 2012 our solar system will be NOWHERE NEAR the galactic plane. They say we are currently millions and millions of miles ABOVE the galactic plane and there is NO WAY we could end up "passing through" it in 2012.

Edit to add: Now I see that you're talking about "alignment" with the galactic plane, not actually "crossing through the Dark Rift" as a lot of people believe. They are both irrelevant though, because we won't be anywhere near the galactic plane in 2012 to pass through it, and the alignment doesn't mean anything because it happens every year. I don't see how an "alignment" would cause anything anyways, but I do see how something could possibly happen if we passed through the galactic plane, which we are nowhere near right now though.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Diplomat]

reply to post by dragonridr


YES!!!

This is the point, as you said, and I 'quote':

So now 2012 got picked up on partly do to the Mayan calender which by the way doesn't stop in 2012 its a revolving calender so it moves on to the next age.

It was cleverly reminded to us in the Penn & Teller Bulls**t! video, that airs on Showtime as a regular series on Pay Cable, so, [color=cyan]moderators, I am NOT avoiding any auto-censors!!

Thanks, dragonridr, for reaffirming the simple fact that, as in the common "Western" calendar that we are familiar with, that happens to repeat, or "flip", after 31 December to begin a repeat in 1 January.....the Maya simply had a longer period, in THEIR version of marking time.

I could be mistaken, but didn't the Maya also count in a base-12 numerology system???

I mean, their entire mindset may have (Maya have???) been entirely different from ours....and, anyway, reason this "prophecy" of apocalypse based merely on the 'Mayan' calendar is silly is....their ENTIRE civilization collapsed when, again??

Oh, yes....HUNDREDS of years ago. Reason? Best left up to those who are schooled in the study of the lost civilizatons. DID their "calendar" result in the destruction of their civilization??? Well....NO!!!!

Honestly, of ALL the possible "EOTWAWKI" scenarios, up to and including "WormWood" and "Planet X", this one takes the cake for idiocy!!!

A calendar??? THIS, the basis for a 'belief' in the EOTW???

For the staunch believers....can't you think of any OTHER ancient, failed civilizations who may have had calendars???

OH! Well, the Maya were SO GOOD, they were SO ACCURATE!!! Yeah....very disciplined, likely religious=based astronomical observations, likely because the Maya, who had a VERY religious society, to the extent thay they would sacrifice VIRGINS to appease their imaginary "gods"....and who happened to be crack mathematicians...

I'm sorry, but religious piety and meticulous observational techniques to the point of obsessive-compulsiveness for exactness....does NOT equate to some sort of ability to PREDICT THE FUTURE!!!!!!!!!

THIS is the reality, of the "Mayan Calendar", and its "predictions"!!!

BS!!!!

But, believe, if it makes you feel better.....knock yourselves out! I will be enjoying myself, instead.

Originally posted by Diplomat
Actually I do know what a "spiritual ascension" is and the supposed science surrounding it because I have done a lot of research on the different 2012 theories, and one of them is that we will spiritually ascend into the next dimension.

You say you understand what spiritual ascension is and then you suggest you think it's that we will ascend into some "other dimension." That leads me to believe that no, you don't understand it, but maybe if you elaborate on what exactly you mean I will see I've made a mistake. I could list off several members of completely different philosophical backgrounds here at ATS and we would all have a consensus, in so many differing words, of what exactly it is, what combinations of things and behaviors illustrate its nature, and what it accomplishes and how. How you put it, doesn't sound anything like what I am talking about.

People tell me that the Mayan calendar supposedly "ends" on 12/21/2012, and I tell them SO WHAT?

Seriously, SO WHAT? Just because people think that some ancient calendar "ends" that somehow means that Planet-X's are going to swing by Earth, or that pole-shifts will happen on that date, or that we're all going to magically graduate to a new invisible dimension that no one can even prove exists... ? I don't see how you go from an ancient calendar ending to all of that nonsense.

I have even heard actual Mayan testimony that the calendar ending doesn't mean anything. People just make it mean what they want it to mean, simple as that.

Originally posted by bsbray11

You say you understand what spiritual ascension is and then you suggest you think it's that we will ascend into some "other dimension." That leads me to believe that no, you don't understand it, but maybe if you elaborate on what exactly you mean I will see I've made a mistake. I could list off several members of completely different philosophical backgrounds here at ATS and we would all have a consensus, in so many differing words, of what exactly it is, what combinations of things and behaviors illustrate its nature, and what it accomplishes and how. How you put it, doesn't sound anything like what I am talking about.

Well then fine, go ahead and add your little technical "ascension theory" on top of all the other ridiculous 2012 theories and we'll wait and see which one is correct! lol... maybe they're ALL correct.

Originally posted by Diplomat
Nope. It doesn't. I have talked to many educated scientists and astrologers, many of whom have about 0.00001% chance of being involved with any type of conspiracy, and they ALL say that in December of 2012 our solar system will be NOWHERE NEAR the galactic plane. They say we are currently millions and millions of miles ABOVE the galactic plane and there is NO WAY we could end up "passing through" it in 2012.

Unfortunately you have misinterpreted what I was saying. I was talking about alignments. Even after you figured this out yourself, you left this in your post. I find that interesting.

and the alignment doesn't mean anything because it happens every year

Then I guess I will just say that date simply had significance to the Mayans.

reply to post by bsbray11


Of course I left that part in my post because it's still true. Even though you weren't talking about crossing through the Dark Rift, that is a very common 2012 theory, and the fact is that we are nowhere near the Dark Rift aka Galactic Plane and won't be close for many many many years after 2012.