The question in the title of this article can be answered quickly: No, we are not all going to die on December 21, 2012. Will there be natural disasters somewhere? Probably, as there are somewhere in the world every day, on whatever scale. If a beaver's dam is demolished by a flood, to the beaver that's clearly a "natural disaster." But we need not worry about the "End of the Word" in December.
This apocalyptic mythology surrounding the purported end of the Mayan calendar cycle can be forensically dissected to demonstrate where it came from and where it is faulty. One such dissection may be found in the paper of University of Kansas anthropologist Dr. John Hoopes entitled, "A critical history of 2012 mythology," published in the "Oxford IX" International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy Proceedings (IAU Symposium No. 278, 2011).
"To summarize the criticism of the 'End of the World' paradigm associated with the Maya, the dating is defective, the mythology surrounding the Mayan calendar is flawed, and the conclusions are erroneous."
In the meantime, I am currently composing a monograph on the religious and mythological parallels between the Old and New Worlds that contains much fascinating material. In this regard, I must proffer my opinion as concerns Hoopes's derision of previous scholars and researchers in this field as "crackpots."
For example, Lord Kingsborough was not a "crackpot" simply because he attempted to trace the Mesoamerican culture to the "Lost Tribes of Israel." Kingsborough was a pioneer in his day who suffered great hardship to make sure that the surviving Mexican codices were made available to the public. After spending much of his fortune on the massive, expensively produced volumes called Antiquities of Mexico, Kingsborough ended up dying from the harsh conditions of a British debtor's prison, with no assistance from the European elite, apparently, who had benefited from his labors.
Today, many people still must rely on Kingsborough's enormous and costly publications in order to study the codices. I myself have consulted his original large and brilliantly hand-illustrated volumes, in the special library at UCLA. His interpretation through Judeo-Christian eyes is entirely understandable, especially since the parallels between the Old and New World appeared to be astonishing. For a bibliolater and believer in the biblical god, what else could it be? And he was obviously not alone, as the original Christian invaders themselves remarked with great astonishment upon these commonalities as well, and had likewise traced them to either Jews or to Christ himself as the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl proselytizing the "Indians." Indeed, the missionary St. Thomas - also equated with Quetzalcoatl - was said to have flown on the back of an eagle to the Americas, thus explaining the similarities.
As a response, Dr. Hoopes has written me in a private email the following (published here with his permission):
Yes, I think you're right. "Crackpot" is too harsh for Kingsborough. He was operating with a flawed interpretation but is to be commended for nonetheless putting a huge amount of documentation into the hands of scholars. I think I'd be okay with a similar fanatic doing likewise today.
Kingsborough was building on hypotheses suggested by no less of a scholar than Humboldt. The fact that these interpretations swayed Joseph Smith, Jr. and the even the U.S. Congress (with the Indian Removal Act of 1830) shows that other intelligent men found these myths compelling, too. Do you know the work of Josiah Priest (especially American Antiquities)? I think it's essential for putting this work in context. None other than Brasseur de Bourboug (discoverer of the Popol Vuh) thought he saw connections. The legacy of these ideas is still with us today...
In any event, Hoopes's paper represents an important study of the 2012 mythology into the current era, including the works of Santillana & Von Dechend, Terence McKenna, Carlos Castaneda, Jose Arguelles and others. Hoopes concludes:
The 2012 phenomenon is an astrological and cultural event, not an astronomical one. Apart from the winter solstice and the proximity of the sun to the galactic center of the Milky Way (something invisible to the naked eye that has been occurring every December for over a decade), there is little special that happens on December 21, 2012. However, assertions that the ancient Maya associated this date with unique astronomical events are unconvincing. The hullaballoo is a projection of present-day astrological concerns on an ancient culture by earnest believers in New Age lore. It is primarily a manifestation of pop culture.
The 2012 phenomenon is both amusing and disconcerting. The latter, because it casts suspicion on scholars.... The public's perception of scholars has been colored by a string of individuals who have identified themselves as credentialed scholars while engaging in unfounded and even pseudoscientific speculation....
The 2012 phenomenon brings a fascinating intersection of astronomy and culture. At the very least, it has made a huge audience aware of Maya calendrics and the winter solstice.... As with flying saucers for Jung, the 2012 phenomenon may be far more interesting as a window into our contemporary culture - especially how our scholarship is consumed in ways we intend or not - than for anything its reality reveals about the ancient Maya.
The scientific conclusion as to what 2012 truly represents reflects there will be no "end of the world." Therefore, to counter this perspective, I have crafted a presentation entitled "2012: A New Beginning," focusing on the above-mentioned religious and mythological parallels that reveal a unity of human culture we can examine and enjoy, rather than emphasizing our differences and possible self-fulfilling destruction.
Further Reading
A critical history of 2012 mythology
Our Lord and Savior Quetzalcoatl
Who are the Anunnaki? What is the Planet Nibiru?
-
|2012-10-26 01:55:58 TartarusDavid Flynn was an author who wrote about the mysterious monuments of Cydonia on Mars, and somehow tied it in with stuff from the Bible.
He also seems to have been a believer in "bible codes", the 2012 prophecy and such, which I'm guessing is why you brought him up.
-
|2012-10-25 04:45:25 moriyah - 12/21/1212/21/12 will institute the greatest fraud perpetrated in history. That is the beginning of the end. All churches and their agents are complicit.
99.999% will believe the fraud even till the end.
This will be very exciting for a few but not for most.
For most it will be nothing but terror, delusion and deception.
-
|2012-11-02 17:59:56 Vikram - You never knowHumans are in the habit of predicting (same as wanting/fearing IMO) the end of the world.
This could point to the 'sudden violent death' pattern in the collective psyche, trying to manifest on a mass scale.
Sudden death is not a stranger to our world anyway. Happens all the time. Air crashes, train/car/road accidents etc. Long list.
And sometimes the sudden death is totally without any cause -- that could have been known in advance through some kind of a 'scientific analysis'.
So 2012 'predictions' IMO - unscientific or whatever - they point to patterns that exist within and without us.
Patterns that are potent and always ready to manifest.
-
|2012-11-22 06:54:20 AnonymousHumans were an angelic race.
They were not created as a fallen sinful race. They are a race of angels that was put here to guard this planet and to protect its shields and to help restore and heal them because they had been damaged by races that we refer to as the fallen angelic races.
Right now, what we are dealing with is the situation that for many thousands of years this planet has been under siege.
There has been a deadline to that siege. There has been a time that was waited for and the bible told us about this time. It was the time when the planetary star gates would open, the portions of the planetary scalar template that open between this space time place and other space time places in the higher heavens.
This is that time!”
(Dance For Love 2002, Greece)
This is what the end of time means that the planet has been under siege for eons of time and that's about to end on December 21 2012 from then on.
-
|2012-12-16 18:11:47 maria - we are all humanshow do the mayans know if they were humans and i know for sure that god is the only one who knows and that jesus doesnt even know. im scared that it will actually really happen
-
|2012-12-17 17:30:45 Anonymouswe can say no and say yes that we are going to die however we do not know bc the only person who knows that is the world itself so i guess we will find out december 21,2012..........................
-
|2012-12-19 04:21:17 Anonymous - Everyone Dies :(NO Human knows weather the worlds going to end on December 21st, 2012. The only person who knows is GOD ! But people are going to believe what they want to. But everyone comes on this world for a purpose. That is to live & to die. But no one wants to know their death. All I have to say is believewhat you want to believe. We shall see Friday.
-
|2012-12-21 12:01:26 gerardas - not end of the worldlisten ppl are soooo fu**ing stupid did u read the bible of god what he was write there was only one end of the but it will never ganna happen now an in uk and its 21 of december and am still alive
-
|2013-01-15 20:47:37 Vikram Madan - On Death"Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings"....writes Jim Morrison.
If awareness ends, that is not death. Since the 'dead person' is not around to know that it has occurred.
Death occurs only if you stay alive after death. And are aware that death has taken you over.
And it's not necessarily a bad thing. Might give you wings.
A collective death, if it has occurred, as per the above mentioned perspective ---- it could give us wings.
Wings and best wishes to all.
Probably about the same as the reactions of the countless other doomsday believers throughout history- they get upset for a while and then just come up with a new date ("last prediction was wrong, but this one's a sure thing"
I quite liked the Neil deGrasse Tyson video, especially the part when he points out that our sun aligns with the galactic centre every year but nothing special happens.
Also, on the galactic centre, one significant question for the doomsday believers should be, how in the world is something around 25 000 light years away supposed to have an effect on our planet?