2012: Mayans, Nostradamus & The Bible

http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/full.php?news=14815

There has been much talk of late about the supposed doomsday prediction of December 21, 2012 as reflected in the Mayan long calendar. Most of the ancient Mayan codices were burned by Spanish monks in 1521 as works of the devil. A few survived including the so called Dresden Codex. This 74 page codex written on tree bark and apparently from the famous Mayan temple and observatory at Chichen Itza was sent by Cortes to Emperor Charles V in 1519. Somehow it found its way to the Royal Library at the Court of Saxony in Dresden where it was purchased from a private collector by Johann Christian Goetze. While it was damaged by the fire bombing of Dresden during WWII, much has survived.

From this work, which was written between 1200 and 1250 AD, numerous astronomical and calendar data points were found including information on eclipses, the transit of the planet Venus as well as information on the motion of the moon, stars and the sun. It has been determined by research scholars that the Mayan long count calendar ends on 13.0.0.0.0 which equates to our date of December 21, 2012 at 10AM GMT. On that day it has been surmised the end will come.

According to my research, many have tried to tie this upcoming apocalyptic winter solstice day with a solar shift, solar storms, and a transit of Venus as well as with severe earthquakes. Is there any truth to these allegations? According to some astronomers, on this day our solar system will intersect with the Galactic Equator which only happens every 26,000 years. Since the Mayan calendar began in 3114 BC, they had never experienced anything like this before. The Mayans called this event the Sacred Tree. This alignment with the center of the galaxy also allows for maximum mass and thus maximum gravity.

According to the National Earthquake Information Service of the US Geological Survey, earthquakes have gradually increased from 1 severe quake between 1890 and 1899 to 765 from 2000-2004. Could this be due to our solar systems movement towards this Galactic Equator?

NASA predicts that a terrific solar storm will hit the earth in 2012 which will be 30-50 percent greater than anything before it. I believe that there has been global warming over the past decades but it is related to sunspot activity on the sun not carbon dioxide emissions. The sun has gotten hotter and that has affected the earth. A massive solar blast from the sun in 2012 could burn up the earth as could a collision with an asteroid or a comet.

There has even been talk of a polar shift which could disrupt the functioning of the entire earth and could change the axis of rotation. Such a shift has taken place in our geologic past and could happen again. If it happened on December, 21, 2012, it would truly be a day to remember.

This apocalyptic date of December 21, 2012 is also supposedly found in Hopi myths, the I-Ching, Aztec writings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Roman Oracles, writing of Seneca Elders, the chief Shaman of the Cherokee Tribe in NC, and even the writings of Nostradamus, The Russian mathematician Sergey Smelyakov of Khartov University taking the constant Phi (1.6180339), the so called Golden Mean or the Fibonacci sequence, and applying it to solar activity and planetary orbits, found that everything seemed to spiral in on itself on December 21, 2012 implying a time implosion or point of bifurcation.

The planet Venus is set to make a transit across the face of the sun on December 21, 2012 which happens very infrequently. It did happen recently, however, on June 8, 2004 which means it will happen again in eight years which is very unusual but predicted by the Mayans.

I cannot tell you for certain that the earth will be consumed by fire in 2012 or that there will be a polar shift or severe earthquakes, but I can tell you with certainty that one day in the not too distant future it will be consumed by fire and experience a polar shift and severe earthquakes. I can say that because the word of God says so and it did beginning over 2700 years ago, long before the Mayans or the Aztecs or the Hopi or the Seneca or the I-Ching or Nostradamus.

Once before because of its sin the earth was destroyed by water in the Great Flood of Noah's day but the Bible says that the world will be destroyed again, this time by fire.

"The present heavens and earth, by His word, are being reserved for fire, kept for the Day of Judgment and the destruction of ungodly men" (2Peter 3:7).

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up" (2Peter 3:10).

"The sun scorched men with fire" (Revelation 16:8).

"A third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up. A great mountain (asteroid?) burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died and a third of the ships were destroyed. And a great star (comet?) fell from heaven burning like a torch and it fell on a third of the rivers and springs of water (Revelation 8:7-11).

"The inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men are left" (Isaiah 24:6).

"The hills melt and the earth is burned up" (Nahum 1:5).

Once again, many have associated December 21, 2012 with a shift in the poles as well as signs in the sky. What does the Bible tell us about these events?

"The stars will fall from the sky" (Matthew 24:29).

If the earth shifts on its axis and we are thrown around, the stars will appear to fall but it will actually be us that are moving.

"The earth is broken asunder. The earth is split through. The earth is shaken violently. Thee earth reels to and fro like a drunkard and it totters like a shack "(Isaiah 24:19-20).

Once again a shift in the polar axis might tear the earth apart.

"There will be great earthquakes. The sun became black like sackcloth; the moon became like blood.The stars of the sky fell to the earth... The sky split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up.every mountain and island moved out of their place' (Revelation 6:12-14).

More shaking of the earth.

"There will be great earthquakes and in various places plagues and famines and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. There will be signs in the sun and the moon and stars and upon the earth great dismay among nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves. Men fainting from fear as the powers of heaven will be shaken" (Luke 21:9, 25-26).

Here we see the Bible tell us about signs in the heavens spoken of in relation to December 21, 2012. But what do we do when we see these things happening?

"When you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I say to you that this generation will not pass away until all things take place.But when these things begin to take place straighten up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:31,32, 28).

God assures us that:

"Heaven and earth will pass away but My words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).

Some people ask why God takes so long to punish the ungodly:

"The Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness but is patient toward you not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2Peter 3:9).

Remember this as the end fast approaches.
_________________
"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.

Thousands Worldwide Prepare for the Apocalypse, Expected in 2012

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=5301284&page=1

Note From Alien - While there is no biblical evidence to support anything happening in 2012 - people's expectations for something to happen in the year 2012 is something that should be watched. The subject of 2012 is a great opportunity to explore and share with people about what the Bible says about the future. Only time will tell if 2012 plays a significant role in God's plan for the last days.

Two years ago, Patrick Geryl, then 51, quit his job as a laboratory worker for a French oil company. He'd saved up just enough money to last him until December 2012. After that, he thought, he wouldn't need it anyway.

Instead, Geryl, a soft-spoken man who had studied chemistry in his younger years, started preparing for the apocalypse. He founded a "survival group" for likeminded men and women, aimed at living through the catastrophe he knew was coming.

He started gathering materials necessary to survive � water purifiers, wheelbarrows (with spare tires), dust masks and vegetable seeds. His list of survival goods runs 11 pages long.

"You have to understand, there will be nothing, nothing left," Geryl told ABC News from his home in Antwerp, Belgium. "We will have to start an entire civilization from scratch."

That's because Geryl believes the world as we know it will end in 2012. He points to the ancient Mayan cyclical calendars, the longest of which last renewed itself approximately 5,125 years ago and is set to end again, supposedly with catastrophic consequences, in 2012. He speaks of the ancient Egyptians, who, he claims, saw 2012 as a year of great change too. And he points to science: NASA predicts a sharp increase in the number of sunspots and sun flares for 2012, he said, sure to cause electrical failures and satellite disruptions.

All this adds up, Geryl said, to unprecedented catastrophe. First, a polar reversal will cause the north to become the south and the sun to rise in the west. Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years. Only the prepared will survive, Geryl said, and not even all of them.

These may sound like the ravings of a madman, or perhaps the head of a small apocalyptic sect. But Geryl is not the only one who believes in the apocalypse. Thousands of people worldwide seem to be preparing, in one way or another, for the end of days in 2012. Survival groups exist in Europe, Canada and the United States. A simple Google search for "2012" and "the end of the world" brings up nearly 300,000 hits. And the video-sharing Web site YouTube hosts more than 65,000 clips informing and warning viewers about their fate in 2012.

"It's bigger than Y2K," said Mark van Stone, a specialist of Mayan hieroglyphic writings and author of a forthcoming book on 2012. "The year is like a pop song or a popular movie. You type in 2012, and you get hundreds of thousands of hits."

Dennis McClung, 28, a project manager for Home Depot from Phoenix, Ariz., runs one of the Web sites dedicated to 2012, an online survival supply store, which sells gas masks, knife kits, bullet-proof vests and more.

"I'm not a firm believer in one specific prophecy," said McClung, who runs his site with his wife, Danielle. "But I think we ought to be prepared for anything."

Even with December 2012 still 4� years away, McClung said business is booming. His Web site, which features an "official 2012 countdown" clock and exhorts customers to "be smart, be ready," averages several thousand visitors a week. McClung's best-sellers, he said, are emergency medical supplies and water purifiers.

"I get a lot of hits from India. I get a lot of hits from the Netherlands," McClung said. "But my No. 1 customer is the U.S."

One of those customers is Thomas Lehmann, a 25-year-old factory worker from Cape Girardeau, Mo. Lehmann said he started researching 2012 when he was 12 years old, and still spends about two hours a day reading about the topic both online and in books. He said he is saving money for survival gear.

"Whatever happens, I'm just trying to be prepared for it," Lehmann said. "I'm just learning to be independent of the system. I mean electricity, vehicles, alternate sources of energy. I'm learning to live without gas, basically be self-reliant."

"If this stuff does happen," Lehmann said, adding, "I have a way to eat. I can hunt, I can fish and I can purify water. I think it's people in the big cities that need to be worried. People that can't provide for themselves."

But for all the hype, there is little evidence the ancient Maya ever intended for the end of their calendar to be read as a portent for disaster.

"These prophecies of doom really don't have any basis in what we know about the Maya," said Stephen Houston, a professor of anthropology at Brown University and a specialist of Maya hieroglyphic writing. "The Maya descriptions barely talk about this event."

Instead, Houston said, the Maya saw their "long count" � the longest of their cyclical calendars � coming to an end in 2012 but also beginning anew on that date, without disastrous consequences.

"Really, it's a conversion of people's anxieties about our times, and finding some remote mythological precedent or prediction of it," Houston said about the origins of the current 2012 myths. "People like to believe that ancient wisdom is somehow predicting this time of upheaval."

John Hall, a professor of sociology at the University of California Davis who is writing a book on the history of apocalyptic ideas, agreed. He said movements predicting the end of the world often reflect a much larger nervousness about the state of our society.

"Terrorism, 9/11, ecological disasters, floods and earthquakes," Hall said. "[There is] a sense that modern civilization has had its run. Those kinds of anxieties are much more widely shared than simply among people who believe in the exact date."

To Lehmann, though, those very events are warnings of what's to come.

"We had Hurricane Katrina, the recent cyclone in Myanmar," Lehmann said. "We've got major flooding in Iowa. We're always going to have natural disasters. But they are picking up quite frequently now."

Lehmann said he eventually hoped to move away from Cape Girardeau, built on the banks of the Mississippi River, to the higher plains of southwest Missouri to keep safe from the floods sure to follow the earthquakes of 2012.

Geryl and his Belgian and Dutch followers have similar intentions, though their plan will take them much farther from home. They are looking to buy a plot of land high up in African mountains, where they'll be able to withstand the monstrous tidal waves and wait out the cloud of volcanic dust that they said would block out the sun.

Geryl said the group has recently zeroed in on a location, but won't reveal his find for fear of tipping off rival survival groups in the United States and Canada. On that land, Geryl's group, whose core membership consists of 16 people but whose wait list supposedly lists hundreds, will build concrete dwellings or outfit caves for survival.

After the cloud clears, Geryl said, they will attempt to create a new, better civilization.

"A guiding principle will be to keep the world population as small as possible so as not to get into the same problems we face now," Geryl said, adding that the group is currently looking for sponsors and hopes to move to Africa in 2011. "There is too little oil, too little grain in the world now. Those are the kinds of problems we want to avoid."

One of the group's members, Jan, a 57-year-old carpenter from Amsterdam whose name has been changed because he doesn't want to be identified in the press, recently drove five hours to attend one of Geryl's meetings in Antwerp.

"I thought, if there's a chance that we can start a new civilization, I want to contribute," Jan told ABC News. "Because whether I make it or not, and there's only a small chance I will, this is important."

Jan, who has never been married and has no children, said he has lost friends over 2012.

"All the people I've ever told about this have declared me crazy," he said. "It makes people feel uncomfortable. Now I just keep it to myself."

Geryl said he found comfort in sharing his knowledge with others. Since "discovering" what the future holds, he has written three books on 2012 and maintains a Web site on the subject.

When asked what would happen if December 2012 were to come and go without the earthquakes and tsunamis of his predictions, Geryl fell silent.

"I don't really contemplate that possibility," he said. "My predictions are so spectacular, they can't possibly be wrong."
_________________
"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.