I believe it is based around the fact the 21st Dec 2012 marks the end of the current cycle in the Mayan long count calander, which has been interpreted marking the date of the end of the world. While an interesting theory, it is poorly grounded at best, even if you're willing to let go of all rational thought. Presumably the theory has gained support because exotic seems to equal true in the new age world. French prophet Nostradamus predicted the end of the world several times and hasn't been right to date. Christian adventists were so bad at predicting the end of days that after a few failed attempts they decided to save face and say it could happen at any time. If I were you I'd wait until December 2012 and ask your dad to give you free range of his credit card. It's not like he's going to have to pay any of it back.

No, I don't think it can or will happen.

People sometimes try to confuse arguements like this to keep the discussion murky and therefore open. What is meant by the end of the world?... complete destruction of Earth? That could only happen by something infintessimally unlikely, like the earth being struck by an asteroid so big that it breaks up the planet. There's no way that will happen -- the Earth has been hit by big asteroids millions of times, particularly early in the planet's history, and it never destroyed the planet. Besides, we would see a threat like that coming decades in advance. Heck, the Earth has survived for 4.6 billion years in a solar system that was much more hostile in the early stages, so it seems crazy to think that something unseen will happen 4 years from now to do what 4,600,000,000 years of history hasn't done yet. Even a manmade disaster like a full-scale nuclear war won't destroy the planet, let alone wipe out humans. And global warming isn't going to be noticeably different in just 4 years than it is now.

But if you mean something much less catastrophic, manmade or natural, that has a distinct effect on Earth's inhabitants or ecology, then sure, something could happen. Not likely, but maybe. I'm thinking here of something like a flu pandemic that kills a lot of people, or another world war, or a catastrophic volcanic eruption, something like that. That isn't destroying the planet in my books, but if people were going to accept that as an end-of-the-world scenario, then sure, something like that is possible. Not likely, but possible.

A few years ago, when the calendar rolled from 1999 to 2000, a lot of people predicted an end of the world type catastrophe, saying computers around the world would get mixed up and shut down, leading to social anarchy. My brother in law even stocked up his cabin in the mountains well in advance and got ready to take his family there to avoid the savage hoardes. (Not sure if they actually went up to the cabin or not). Turns out the world didn't end afterall, and I think it's a safe bet to say it won't in 4 years time either.

-Don

I agree with corymbosa, the end of the world is based mostly from Mayan Calendar. It is also along the idea the planet X, (which from the start was a comet and is now claimed to be a brown dwarf star populated with lizard people) the so-called Nibiru will make its appearance. The end of the world according to the so-called Mayan Calendar has been going on since early 1990. Earlier predictions and the appearance of planet Nibiru was going to happen on 1990, then 1991, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003, and finally 2007. How these people made up their mind the Earth was going to end on this date is beyond me and why people still taken them seriously stumps me.

I like corymbosa advice, go into a buying spree. ;-)

Forgot to add, this subject is way off topic. DonÂt be surprised that someone will complain and the forum will close this thread.

It's complete nonsense. Don't give it a second thought.

>Forgot to add, this subject is way off topic.
>DonÂt be surprised that someone will complain
>and the forum will close this thread.

-"ask your dad to give you free range of his credit card" to buy carnivorous plants. :-) Just make sure they arrive before the 21st... just in case.

Like the others indicated, 2012 will simply be the end of the Mayan mathematical progression that set their calender count up. The Mayans were quite good at math, but they simply did not set up their math to progress beyong a certain day count, so they simply would need to return to the beginning and start counting over.

Several other civilizations predict the end of the world as well, like the Indians who believe that one of their Goddesses, Kali will destroy the world and another Indian God will stop her and remake the world again... creating a new cycle. Right now is the cycle of Kali....

Destroy or end are rather final words, however; if we look at things from a subjective point of view we can see that a civilization might determine the world as ending when their civilization is no longer present. The other civilizations would go on as if nothing had happened, but for one group of people, their world has literally ended when their civilization is taken over or destroyed by another. In that context, the "world" has ended several times by the reckoning of many different people.

I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens. Will someone push a red button? Will a big rock hit Earth? Will the Sun supernova by freak chance? Who knows, but why worry about it since their is little that most of us could do about it unless we know in advance what will happen and how it will occur.