Originally posted by ThreeDeuce
Y2K was a current human made scare that was only brought about because computer programmers were too lazy to write dates in 4 numeric values, and only
wrote them in 2. Many people did not think the world was going to end, just that our economic and banking system would fall. Y2K hardly parallels
2012 prophecy.
Funny, there was plenty of prophecy predicting doom in the year 2000, period. Didn't happen (unles, I guess, you want to count the election results
of that year). Nothing will happen in 2012, it'll become 2013, then 2014, and people will find some reason to brit shicks about the year 2020 or
something.
I would think a religious text that a majority of the world believes strongly in its authenticity would have some sort of credibility,
yes...
Well, you're wrong. A document that tells us that otters are a sort of fish and that Babylon will be populated by dragons and satyrs isn't that
"reliable" at all.
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You caught me. I did mean Prolific, one grammar mistake in all of my writings, whereas I'm not going to even point out the gross errors in
the next sentence you wrote.
I wasn't trying to be a spelling nazi, I just really didn't know what you were saying.
If you not thinking the Hopi civilization was important enough to give credence to their prophecies, maybe you should think of what future
civilizations will think of us, or just go back and read my "small-minded" comment again.
Friend, I don't lend credence to
any prophecies, period. My point is that, in terms of scale, the Hopi are pretty far from either the Maya or
the Sumerians.
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Doesn't sound all that dramatic? According to the Maya, the last world was Destroyed at the end of the last Long Count. Nope, total
destruction isn't dramatic at all.....
And according to archaeology, geology, paleontology, dendrochronology, and lots of other -ologies that I'm sure to be leaving out, the Maya were full
of it on that count. Seriously, I give a lot of criticism to people who think ancient civilizations couldn't stack rocks without outside help, but
that doesn't mean i'm going to pretend these civilizations were omniscient superbeings, either.
The Maya made some stuff up in their version of a creation myth. Pretty much every culture made stuff up for that purpose, since, unsurprisingly, no
one was there to see it all happen.
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The idea that a civilization as astrologically advanced as the Mayans would devote so much effort and knowledge into developing a calendar, and
then you regard it as "inconsequental", and having no meaning is indeed "small-minded" and unintelligent in my book. Do they Mayans seem like a
people who would waste all of their time on something frivilous?
Considering all the mind-numblingly ridiculous things people worldwide do for their religious beliefs? Yeah. The Maya also murdered people to please
their gods. Christians used to believe bathing to be a sinful act. Traditional Buddhism maintains that to ejaculate during coitus causes you to lose a
portion of your soul, and that female orgasm is a form of vampirism, best avoided.
So do I think the Maya would chalk up a calendar system that had no real meaning outside of occasionally giving them a religious holiday? Sure do!
The Sun is almost reborn, as the precession of the season begins again. You have to understand that to ancient people, braving through the
winter and seeing the coming of the spring was very akin to rebirth..
Ever been to south Mexico in December? Winter / Summer is a conceit of the far northern hemispheres, where seasons go to extremes like that. You
don't have winter or summer in Chiapas or Belize; you have hot and moist, and hot and dry.
Of course these people would have noticed that days vary in length through the year (again, not by much at their location, but noticable.) However, it
lacked the cultural significance ascribed to it by Europeans, northern Asians, and North American Indians, simply because the chance wasn't that
dramatic. it was a measuring system.
Do not forget that every calendar is Astrological, and not purely mathematical. So, it is not merely math or numbers, but is how we progress
over time and through the solar system.
Astrological? Do you mean astronomical? Very different words
And yes, they are mathematical. The movement of the sun is the major factor in the Gregorian / Julian (and Mayan) calendar, while many others are
lunar. Some follow the constellations (zodiacal calendars; there's your astrology
) However, ALL do this mathematically, by measuring the times
that these things are in the sky.
So, since you believe that theres nothing personally that you could do to affect anything in the world, it is probably better that you believe in
nothing, and sit on your butt and do nothing.... gotta love that logic.
Cheers!
Not what I said. I said that if Kulkulkan decides to re-engineer the universe, I can't stop him. Again, very different words.
Then again, I have absolutely zero evidence of such a being, while there's lots of evidence of the last "doomsday" being pure hokum. So yeah, I'm
not going to jump off a cliff with you and believe in the Maya's imaginary being just 'cause it's popular to do so.
