Violent tsunamis surging through mountaintops and thunderous earthquakes bursting apart concrete streets are just some of the elaborate plot devices behind the movie “2012” that made its way into theaters in 2009.
Producers looked to a widely believed myth that catastrophic destruction and natural disasters await the world in December of that year as they proceeded to give the story the ol’ Hollywood spit shine.
Fortunately for us, this is just a movie and it is based on the assumption that when the Mayan calendar ends, so will the entire world.
Not surprisingly, there are a myriad of other theories and ideas surrounding the topic. These include the Earth colliding with a passing planet, or the Earth being sucked into a black hole when it aligns in the middle of the galaxy on that day.
However, none are more famous and awe inspiring as the Mayan end times myth.
Dictionary.com defines myth as “an indirect representation of information that is widely believed as true.”
The world ending in 2012 has no more of a logical basis then the Y2K scare when we thought all computers were going to break down or the 6/6/06 incident, when the devil was supposed to return to Earth.
Ideas such as these belong in the same realm as fantasy and only serve a purpose among book sellers, conspiracy theorists, pop culture enthusiasts and last, but not least, movie producers. When Dec. 21, 2012 comes and goes, they will surely think of something else in its stead.
To contrast this idea, take for example the Jehovah’s Witnesses. No one group of people in history has ever predicted the end of the world so often and been wrong so often. As of 1984, they are 0 of 9.
And in 1995, they took a step further and announced that Armageddon had been postponed until further notice; thank God for that!
The truth is that the Mayan culture has been distorted and repackaged to resemble something that no longer has any base in science or anthropology.
People have been freaking out and predicting the end of the world since the beginning of recorded history.
And yet, the Earth has been getting along just fine for more than four billion years; if there hasn’t been any sign of the end yet, there is no reason to expect it in the near future.