The Business of Life

The Real Apocalypse in 2012

Lately it seems normally credible cable TV channels (History, Biography, CNN, MSNBC, Discovery, and others) have been offering up programs that all take the position that our world will end in 2012. These programs cite the ancient Mayan and Egyptian civilizations as having first put forth such dire predictions. Supporting evidence comes from the obscure quatrains of Nostradamus, and even the Freemasons get to weigh in because of "mysterious" carvings on 16th century Gothic cathedrals in Europe. The various prognosticators say that our world will end due to an alignment of our sun within the "black hole" of the Milky Way, causing massive and cataclysmic destruction... earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, fires, and electromagnetic disruption of all forms of communications. I watched a few of these programs over the holidays and came away with decidedly mixed feelings.

First, I am puzzled at how bereft of sanity we must be to actually place credence in the ability of these sages to forecast our future when most of their age still believed the world was flat! Somehow we should accept a prediction from a civilization that had yet to devise a common method for charting a journey across the English Channel. While they somehow avoided various purges and being burned at the stake by coddling up to royalty with favorable predictions, we should suspend disbelief and agree that their visions of a future 500 years away are highly accurate. Come on, we are only kidding ourselves!

Second, I wonder if some of these ancient civilizations and soothsayers aren't themselves laughing at our gullibility. I wonder if an Egyptian architect wouldn't say, "Hey stupid, there are 2012 steps in the Great Pyramid because it took that many to get from one level to the next." A Mayan chief might say, "Our calendar didn't go beyond 2012 because our carver died and we didn't have a replacement trained." I wonder if one of those "mysterious" Freemason stone-carvers wouldn't say, "Folks I put the lion next to the sheep because I thought it looked good above the door. As far as the scene with the sheep's head in the lion's mouth... well, it's what the lions like to eat." The point is that some of our interpretations are far-fetched and indicative of people with an awful lot of time on their hands. We are supposed to believe that obscure monuments in backwater European towns were built precisely to point to this impending apocalypse. Come on, our search for meaning can't be that far afield can it?

Finally, if the much-heralded Nostradamus were alive today he might well say that we are headed for a catastrophic end at some future date, but I doubt he'd couch his predictions with references to "lakes of fire" and "lions in waiting". Instead of some one-time astrological event being put forth as the impending end of humanity, he might say it's more likely that:

• We'll ruin things by paying less attention to our children's education than we do to the next episode of American Idol.
• We'll ruin things by mortgaging our future and burdening our children with unconscionable debt in order to sacrifice those same children to prop up corrupt governments.
• We'll ruin things by continuing the cycle of generational poverty and having over 50% of children raised in single parent households.
• We'll ruin things by so discouraging our children with all manner of greed and selfish behaviors that a lifetime of quiet dignity, honest labor and public service is unthinkable.
• We'll ruin things by ignoring all manner of ecological warnings in favor of immediate satisfaction of our wants, leaving our children to face irreversible changes to this delicate planet.
• We'll ruin things by engaging in foreign wars that serve to create more hatred and ideological intolerance among children of all nationalities, guaranteeing the continuation of acts of terrorism by the disenfranchised and retaliation by the powerful.

I doubt that Nostradamus would need a single reference to a lake, an animal, a light in the distance, or the alignment of the stars. No, he would simply say that our continued reluctance to create a lasting legacy that protects future generations is the surest ticket to oblivion. We don't need any heavenly crashes to occur when we do such a fine job of screwing things up right here on Earth.

Labels: 2012, apocalypse, Egyptian civilization, end times, Freemasons, History Channel, Mayan civilization, Nostradamus

posted by Tom Hagerty @ 11:07 AM