Saturday, December 22, 2012

World Doesn’t End; Life Goes On

The world did not come to an end on Friday, contrary to claims of end-time theorists who claimed that the Mayans had prophesied the end of the world since their calendar ended on the 21st. However, it turns out that it was simply the beginning of another cycle, rather than the end of an old ones.

There has been a cottage industry of claims predicting the end of the world and all of them have one thing in common – they were all wrong. In 2011, the preacher Harold Camping claimed that Jesus would return on May 21st around 6:00 p.m., causing many people to spend their life savings promoting the end of the world. However, that day came and went as well.

The failure of the December 21st predictions have not deterred others; for instance, end time prophets now claim that a once in a generation space storm will cause even more damage than Hurricane Katrina at some point next year.

But there is a lot of money to be made from people who believe that the world is about to come to an end. For instance, the owners of former Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin’s bunker offered $500 for 1,000 people to shelter on Friday. The bunker was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. A 50% refund was offered in the event that nothing happened. However, the promoters still made a tidy sum of $250,000 from the stunt.

The December 21st theory originated with the notion that Nibiru, a planet supposedly discovered by the Sumerians, was headed for the Earth in May 2003. However, nothing happened and the date was moved forward to 2012.

It was also widely believed in end times circles that planetary alignments could disrupt the Earth. However, three such alignments happened in 1962, 1982, and 2000 with no major consequences; however, that has not stopped certain people.

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