Fascination with disaster

[Wren]

cant...read...russian.../dies

Its Hungarian

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert.php?lang=eng

English version.

[Priran]

i like how egocentric the idea of the end of the world is totally equated to the end of humanity, as if the world would fail to exist without humans lol

more like humans won't go extinct without the destruction of the world

which is still egocentric

[Maguspk]

I am going to rape, pillage and burn everything on 12/21/12.

I decided this 2 years ago in my Spanish V class after watching a video on the Mayans and them stating that this was the date of the end of the world.

It is very believable and I think it's a safe bet to put all my evil chips in on that day.

Watch out sexy ladies.

[Kuya]

i like how egocentric the idea of the end of the world is totally equated to the end of humanity, as if the world would fail to exist without humans lol

more like humans won't go extinct without the destruction of the world

which is still egocentric

Humans can't be egocentric, its not like we've placed ourselves as the most superior lifeform in the universe, RIGHT??

[Kaelan]

'Nostradamites' have a nasty habit of changing their predictions after they don't happen

It's been lolpredicted to be the end of the world at least like 50 different times before, as early as the 1900s(I'm sure probably way more than that, I'm just making a conservative estimate). The sun burning out isn't a threat for at least another billion years

12/21/12 reminds me of people panicking over 06/06/06 <_<

BUT THIS TIME THEY COULD BE RIGHT, CAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN WE'LL ALL SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST, AMIRITE?

[Kuya]

OMG Y2K

RUN FOR YOUR LIEF

[Maguspk]

'Nostradamites' have a nasty habit of changing their predictions after they don't happen

It's been lolpredicted to be the end of the world at least like 50 different times before, as early as the 1900s(I'm sure probably way more than that, I'm just making a conservative estimate). The sun burning out isn't a threat for at least another billion years

12/21/12 reminds me of people panicking over 06/06/06 <_<

BUT THIS TIME THEY COULD BE RIGHT, CAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN WE'LL ALL SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST, AMIRITE?

Choosing to ignore 12/21/12 just because Nostradamus' prophecies are vague and can be applied to lots of things is kinda odd.

For one, Mayans and French Fortune Tellers are two very different things. And unlike the French Fortune Teller, the Mayans had the most precise clock system in the world, and to this date up in the most accurate. Iirc, it's something like milliseconds off the actual time and it's been going for hundreds upon hundreds of years...

You can't simply ignore the very unique clock system the Mayans had that was so accurate that it remains accurate even in this day in age. Something that complex definetely holds more credibility than a French man predicting the obvious rise of Monarchs/Tyrants or very vague descriptions of natural disasters.

[Sine]

Just viewed the whole mayan video. It was intriguing for the first half. The guy was very composed when referring to what he'd learned and read that was textbook factual, but towards the end, he got kinda loopy for what he didn't exactly know. I kinda lost respect for it at that moment, but still the first half was ok.

[Jer]

Global warming is not as bad as some of the people are making it out to be, and for the most part it is not humans doing it. The Earth has been *much* warmer in the past, and it goes through warming/cooling trends. The fact that this current swing started during our Industrial Period is something that people jump on. Even in the graphs that was presented to Congress (? or whichever governing body it was) that tried to convince them of global warming had outright lies that they were called on. One was the flattening of the previous warm periods to make it look like this was a unique event that had never happened before and never to this extent.

[Kuya]

Global warming is not as bad as some of the people are making it out to be, and for the most part it is not humans doing it.

Wether or not we are causing global warming should not deter us from changing the way we view nature and the way we live our lives in order to preserve it. Lets face it, nature's rules hardly apply to us anymore, so what other choice do we have but to control ourselves.

[Priran]

Global warming is not as bad as some of the people are making it out to be, and for the most part it is not humans doing it. The Earth has been *much* warmer in the past, and it goes through warming/cooling trends. The fact that this current swing started during our Industrial Period is something that people jump on. Even in the graphs that was presented to Congress (? or whichever governing body it was) that tried to convince them of global warming had outright lies that they were called on. One was the flattening of the previous warm periods to make it look like this was a unique event that had never happened before and never to this extent.

http://www.meaus.com/100-al-gore-2005.JPEG

ONCE AND FOR ALL.

[Shadida]

He's serial. Fear manbearpig.

[Heroic]

He's serial. Fear manbearpig.

Nothing more cereal than a guy that actually is the manbearpig eh?

[Jer]

[.img]http://www.meaus.com/100-al-gore-2005.JPEG[/img]

ONCE AND FOR ALL.

I'm.... confused. I don't know whether you're being sarcastic or actually supporting what he says.

[Priran]

[.img]http://www.meaus.com/100-al-gore-2005.JPEG[/img]

ONCE AND FOR ALL.

I'm.... confused. I don't know whether you're being sarcastic or actually supporting what he says.

neither, I am tanasinn

[Kaelan]

Choosing to ignore 12/21/12 just because Nostradamus' prophecies are vague and can be applied to lots of things is kinda odd.

Took a while to find what I was looking for, couldn't remember where I had it saved. Anyways, here's some reading material you might find interesting. I don't expect you should need to read all or even most of it, it pretty much follows, as you would expect, the exact same patterns. But still, here's the entire list if you're curious:

A favorite subject of prophets has always been the end of mankind and/or the demise of our planet and/or the collapse of the entire universe. Part of the technique, for some, is to place the date far enough ahead that when The End fails to arrive, the oracle is no longer around to have to explain why. Others, often to encourage the surrender of property and other worldly chattels by the Believers, prepare excuses well in advance and manage to survive the great disappointment that often follows a failed prediction. In any case, the resilient fans never discredit the notion; they merely redesign the details and settle back once more to confidently await doom.

Here is a short list of some rather interesting end-of-the-world prognostications, beginning with biblical references and ending with some contemporary seers and their doomsayings. Judging from the record earned by the soothsayers in this matter, we may safely assume that our planet will continue very much the same as it is for some considerable period into the future.

A.D. 992 - In the year 960, scholar Bernard of Thuringia caused great alarm in Europe when he confidently announced that his calculations gave the world only thirty-two more years before The End. His own end, fortunately for him, occurred before that event was to have taken place.

December 31, A.D. 999 - The biblical Apocrypha says that the Last Judgment (and therefore, one supposes, the end of the world) would occur one thousand years after the birth of Jesus Christ. When the day arrived, though it is doubtful that there was all the panic that was reported by later accounts, a certain degree of apprehension was probably experienced. It was said that land was left uncultivated in that final year, since there would obviously be no need for crops. According to the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, public documents of that era began, "As the world is now drawing to a close . . ." Modern authorities suspect that historians Voltaire and Gibbon may have created or at least embellished this tale to prove the credulous nature of medieval Christians.

Significantly, Pope Sylvester II and Emperor Otto III momentarily mended their considerable political differences in anticipation of a certain leveling of those matters.

A.D. 1033 - Theorists pressed to explain the A.D. 999 bust decided that the 1,000 years should have been figured from the death of Christ rather than from his birth. Bust number two followed.

September 1186 - An astrologer known as John of Toledo in 1179 circulated pamphlets advertising the world's end when all the (known) planets were in Libra. (If the sun was included in this requirement, this should have occurred on September 23 at 16:15 GMT, or at that same hour on October 3 in the new calendar.) In Constantinople, the Byzantine Emperor walled up his windows, and in England the Archbishop of Canterbury called for a day of atonement. Though the alignment of planets took place, The End did not.

A.D. 1260 - Joaquim of Flore worked out a splendid calculation that definitely pinpointed A.D. 1260 as The Date. Joaquim had a bent pin.

February 1, 1524 - This was one of the most pervasive Doomsday-by-Flood expectations ever recorded. In June of 1523, astrologers in London predicted that The End would begin in London with a deluge. Some 20,000 persons left their homes, and the Prior of St. Bartholomew's built a fortress in which he stocked enough food and water for a two-month wait. When the dreaded date failed to provide even a rain shower in a city where precipitation is very much to be expected, the astrologers recalculated and discovered they'd been a mere one hundred years off. (On the same day in 1624, astrologers were again disappointed to discover that they were still dry and alive.)

The year 1524 was full of predicted disaster. Belief in this date was very strong throughout Europe. An astrologer impressively named Nicolaus Peranzonus de Monte Sancte Marie, found that a coming conjunction of major planets would occur in Pisces (a water sign) that year, and this strengthened the general belief in a universal final deluge.

George Tannstetter, another astrologer/mathematician at the University of Vienna, was one of very few at that time who denied The End would occur as predicted. He drew up his own horoscope, discovered that he would live beyond 1524, and denied the other calculations were correct. But George was considered a spoilsport, and was ignored.

A "giant flood" was prophesied for February 20 (some say February 2) of 1524 by astrologer Johannes Stoeffler, who employed his skill to establish that date in 1499. Such was the belief in his ability that more than one hundred pamphlets were written and published on his prediction.

The planets involved in this dire conjunction were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, along with the sun. Neptune, unknown then, was also in the sign Pisces. Other major influences, Uranus and the moon, were not. Nor was Pluto, also unknown then. But the date of this conjunction was February 23 (old calendar), not the twentieth.

In response to the 1524 prophecies, in Germany, people set about building boats, while one Count von Iggleheim, obviously a devout believer in Stoeffler's ability, built a three-story ark. In Toulouse, French President Aurial also built himself a huge ark. In some European port cities, the populace took refuge on boats at anchor. When it only rained lightly on the predicted date where von Iggleheim had his ark, the crowd awaiting the deluge ran amok and, with little better to do, stoned the count to death. Hundreds were killed in the resultant stampede. Stoeffler, who had survived the angry mob, re-examined his data and came up with a new date of 1528. This time there was no reaction to his declaration. Sometimes people actually get smart.

Incidentally, the 1878 Encyclopaedia Britannica described 1524 as "a year, as it turned out, distinguished for drought."

1532 - A bishop of Vienna, Frederick Nausea, decided a major disaster was "near" when various strange events were reported to him. He was told that bloody crosses had been seen in the skies along with a comet, that black bread had fallen from midair, and that three suns and a flaming castle had been discerned in the heavens. The story of an eight-year-old girl of Rome whose breasts, he was told, spouted warm water, finally convinced this scholar that the world was due to end, and he so declared to the faithful.

October 3, 1533, at Eight A.M. - Mathematician and Bible student Michael Stifel (known as Stifelius) had calculated an exact date and time for Doomsday from scholarly perusal of the Book of Revelation. When they did not vaporize, the curiously ungrateful citizens of the German town of Lochau, where Stifel had announced the dreaded day, rewarded him with a thorough flogging. He also lost his ecclesiastical living as a result of his prophetic failure.

1533 - Anabaptist Melchior Hoffmann announced in Strasbourg, France, a city which had been chosen by him as the New Jerusalem, that the world would be consumed by flames in 1533. He believed that in New Jerusalem exactly 144,000 persons would live on while two characters named Enoch and Elias would blast flames from their mouths over the rest of the world. The rich and pious who hoped to be included in that number saved destroyed their rent records, forgave their debtors, and gave away their money and goods to the poor. How those commodities were to be used among the flames was not explained, nor did anyone point out that such sacrifices so near The End were hardly meritorious.

The time of cataclysm by fire came and went, and a new apostle named Matthysz arose to encourage those who now expressed slight doubts, telling them it had been slightly postponed. Thus, in February 1534, more than one hundred persons were baptized in Amsterdam in anticipation of the still-expected event. As it turned out, the years 1533 and 1534 were noted for their lack of conflagrations, a fact that might be explained by the public's suddenly increased awareness of danger from fire.

1537 (And also in 1544, 1801, and 1814) - In Dijon, France, a list of prophecies by astrologer Pierre Turrel was published posthumously. His predictions of The End were spread over a period of 277 years, but all were fortunately wrong. He had used four different methods of computation to arrive at the four dates, while assuring his readers that he had strictly orthodox religious beliefs——a very wise move in his day.

1544 See 1537.

1572 - In Britain, a total solar eclipse and a few impressive novas seemed to signal something important. Considerable panic ensued, to no avail.

1584 - Astrologer Cyprian Leowitz, who had the distinction in 1559 of being included in the official Index of prohibited writers by Pope Paul IV, predicted the end of the world for 1584. Taking no chances, however, he then issued a set of astronomical tables covering celestial events all the way to the year 1614, in the unlikely event that the world would survive. It did.

1588 - The sage Regiomontanus (Johann Müller, 1436-1476), posthumously a victim of enthusiastic crackpots who delighted in attributing occult and magical powers to him, was said to have predicted The End for the year 1588 in an obscure quatrain, but in 1587 Norfolk physician John Harvey reassured his readers that the calculations ascribed to the master were faulty, and the resulting prophecy false. Harvey was right.

1624 See 1524.

1648 - Rabbi Sabbati Zevi, in Smyrna, interpreted the kabala to show that he was the promised Messiah and that his advent, accompanied by spectacular miracles, was due in 1648. By 1665, regardless of the failure of the wonders to appear, Zevi had a huge following, and his date was now changed to 1666. Citizens of Smyrna abandoned their work and prepared to return to Jerusalem, all on the strength of reported miracles by Zevi. Meeting a sharp reversal when arrested by the Sultan for an attempted coup and brought in fetters to Constantinople, the new Messiah sat in prison while followers as far away as Holland, Germany and Hungary began packing up in anticipation of Armageddon. Unfortunately for these faithful, the Sultan converted the capricious Zevi to Islam, and the movement ended.

1654 - Consulting his ephemeris and considering the nova of 1572, physician Helisaeus Roeslin of Alsace decided in 1578 that the world would surely terminate in flames in another seventy-six years. He did not survive to see his prophecy fail. That should have been an evil year indeed. An eclipse of the sun was predicted for August 12 (it actually occurred on the 11th) and that was also widely believed to bring about The End. Many conversions to the True Faith took place, physicians prescribed staying indoors, and the churches were filled.

1665 - With the Black Plague in full force, Quaker Solomon Eccles terrorized the citizens of London yet further with his declaration that the resident pestilence was merely the beginning of The End. He was arrested and jailed when the plague began to abate rather than increasing. Eccles fled to the West Indies upon his release from prison, whereupon he once again exercised his zeal for agitation by inciting the slaves there to revolt. The Crown fetched him back home as a troublemaker, and he died shortly thereafter.

1666 See 1648.

1704 - Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa, without Vatican endorsement, declared The End was to arrive in 1704.

May 19, 1719 - Jacques (also Jakob I) Bernoulli, the first of a famous line of Swiss mathematicians who made their home in Berne, predicted the return of the comet of 1680 and earth-rending results therefrom. The comet did not come back, perhaps for astronomical reasons, but Bernoulli went on to discover a mathematical series now called the Bernoulli Numbers. He is renowned for this and for the eight exceptional mathematicians his line produced in three generations, but not for Doomsday nor for his astronomical calculations.

October 13, 1736 - London was once again targeted for the "beginning of the end," this time by William Whiston. The Thames filled with waiting boatloads of citizens, but it didn't even rain. Another setback.

1757 - Mystic/theologian/spiritist and supreme egocentric Emmanuel Swedenborg, ever willing to be a center of attention for one reason or another, decided after one of his frequent consultations with angels that 1757 was the terminating date of the world. To his chagrin, he was not taken too seriously by anyone, including the angels.

April 5, 1761 - When religious fanatic and soldier William Bell noticed that exactly twenty-eight days had elapsed between a February 8 and a March 8 earthquake in 1761, he naturally concluded that the entire world would crumble in another twenty-eight days, that is, on April 5th. Most suggested that the date should have been four days earlier, in tune with the probability, but many credulous Londoners believed him and snapped up every available boat, taking to the Thames or scurrying out of town as if those actions would save them. History records nothing more of Bell after April 6, when he was tossed into London's madhouse, Bedlam, by a disappointed public.

1774 - English sect leader Joanna Southcott (1750-1814) had the notion that she was pregnant with the New Messiah, whom she proposed to name Shiloh. History records that her pregnancy "came to nothing," nor did the world end as she had prophesied. She left behind a box of mystical notes that were to be opened only after her death with twenty-four bishops present. Perhaps because of a failure to interest that many ecclesiastics of high rank to attend the occasion, the box was not opened and vanished somewhere. She was succeeded by several minor would-be prophets, all of whom tried other End-of-the-World predictions, with the same result. One successor, John Turner, we will meet up ahead.

1801 - Astrologer Pierre Turrel (see 1537) chose this date, along with three others, for The End. His first two had already failed by this time. Again, no luck.

1814 - Astrologer Pierre Turrel (remember him?) chose this last date for The End. His three others had already failed, and, again no luck! As author Charles Mackay wryly noted, "the world wagged as merrily as before."

October 14, 1820 - Prophet John Turner was leader of the Southcottian movement in Bradford, England. The specialty of this sect was End-of-the-World prophecies, the first one having been made by the founder of the group, Joanna Southcott, whom we have already met back in 1774. His failed prediction turned his congregation against him, and John Wroe (see 1977, up ahead) took over the movement.

April 3, 1843 (And also July 7, 1843, March 21 and October 22, 1844) - William Miller, founder of the Millerite church, spent fifteen years in careful study of the scriptures and determined that the world would conclude sometime in 1843. He announced this discovery of what he called "the midnight cry" in 1831. When there was a spectacular meteor shower in 1833, it seemed to his followers that his prediction was close to being fulfilled, and they celebrated their imminent demise. Then, as each date he named failed to produce Armageddon, Miller moved it up a bit. The faithful continued to gather by the thousands on hilltops all over America each time one of the new dates would dawn. Finally, on October 22, 1844, the last day that Miller had calculated for The End, the Millerites relaxed their vigils. Five years later, Miller died, still revered and not at all concerned at his failed prophecies.

The movement eventually changed its name and broke up into a number of modern-day churches, among them the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which today has over three million members.

1874 - A date calculated by Charles Taze Russell of the Jehovah's Witnesses (which see) for The End.

1881 - Those who delighted in measuring the various passages of the Great Pyramid of Giza, presumed to be the tomb of Cheops, calculated that all would be over in 1881. Careful remeasuring and some imagination gave a better (but not much better) date of 1936. That was improved upon by other students who decided upon 1953 as the terminal year. Further refinements and improvements of technique are still being made. If we get a new date, we'll let you know.

1881 - Mother Shipton is supposed to have written:

The world to an end will come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.

The prediction, as well as the rhyme, are faulted. A book titled, The Life and Death of Mother Shipton, written in 1684 by Richard Head, was reprinted in a garbled and freely "improved" version in 1862 by Charles Hindley. In 1873 Hindley admitted having forged that rhyme and many others, but his confession caused no lessening of the great alarm in rural England when 1881 arrived.

The world not having ended in that year, the above spurious verse has since been published in a refreshed version which substitutes "nineteen" for "eighteen" and "ninety" for "eighty." The world, according to most authorities, did not end then, either.

1936 - One set of Great Pyramid measurers came up with this date.

1914 - One of three dates the Jehovah's Witnesses promised The End. The others were 1874 and 1975.

1947 - In 1889, "America's Greatest Prophet," John Ballou Newbrough, said that for sure in 1947:

all the present governments, religions and all monied monopolies are to be overthrown and go out of existence. . . . Our present form of so-called Christian religion will overrun America, tear down the American flag, and trample it underfoot. In Europe the disaster will be even more terrible. . . . Hundreds of thousands of people will be killed. . . . All nations will be demolished and the earth be thrown open to all people to go and come as they please.

It wasn't a great year, but it wasn't all that bad.

1953 - Again, a group of Great Pyramid nuts with their tape-measures figured out this year as the last. Back to the King's Chamber, guys.

1974 - Interestingly enough, the conjunction of heavenly bodies that occurred back in 1524 was far, far more powerful than the more recent one described in a silly book titled The Jupiter Effect, written by two otherwise sensible astronomers who, in 1974, predicted dreadful effects on our planet as a result of a March 10, 1982, "alignment" of planets. Other astronomers denied that any effect would be felt, and when the date came and went, as you may have noticed, no one noticed. One of the authors reported that some earthquakes which had occurred in 1980 had been the "premature result of The Jupiter Effect," and the public yawned in amazement.

1975 - One of the several dates promised by the Jehovah's Witnesses as The Date. Wrong.

1977 - John Wroe, who is described by the kindliest historian we can find as a "foul-mouthed, ugly, dirty lecher," in 1823 inherited the leadership of the Southcottian sect in England when an End-of-the-World prophecy by John Turner failed. Learning from the example, Wroe took no chances. He made his Armageddon prophecy for 1977. A 1971 book, Prophets Without Honor, says of Wroe:

At a time when thermo-nuclear powers face each other across the Iron and Bamboo Curtains, it is well to remember that——as far as can be judged from the scanty records——John Wroe, indeed, was a true prophet!

1980 - A very old Arabic astrological presage of doom specified that when the planets Saturn and Jupiter would be in conjunction in the sign Libra at 9 degrees, 29 minutes of that sign, we could kiss a big bye-bye to everything——camels, sand, mosques, the whole bag. That astronomical configuration almost took place at midnight of December 31 (new calendar), 1980, a date calculated by astrologers many years ago as the one spoken of. Jupiter was at 9 degrees, 24 minutes, and Saturn was at 9 degrees, 42 minutes, so the calculation was close to correct. However, nary a camel blinked an eye.

1980s - The unsinkable Jeane Dixon, ever optimistic and daring, predicted in 1970 that a comet would strike the earth in the "mid-80's" at a place that she knew, but did not deign to tell. That information was to be held until a "future date." Perhaps she is now prepared to tell us? She said of this event that it "may well become known as one of the worst disasters of the 20th century." But then Jeane also said that, "I feel it will surely be in the 1980's that [an un-named person] will become the first woman president in the United States." Back to that ephemeris, Jeane.

1996 - It has been reasoned by biblical scholars that since one day with God equals one thousand years for Man, and that God labored at the creation of the universe for six days, Man should labor for six thousand years and then take a rest. Thus, using other scripturally derived numbers, the world should end sometime in 1996. It didn't.

July 1999 - In Quatrain X-72, Nostradamus declared:

L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois
Du ciel viendra grand Roy deffraieur
Resusciter le grand Roy d'Angolmois.
Auant apres Mars regner par bon heur.

The year 1999, seven months,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror:
To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols,
Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.

Sure.

But hey, who knows, the next guy could be right!

[Kytele]

That was a very interesting read for me, thank you. =)

[Brendam]

Today is my Tzolk'in Birthday. (The mayan calander)

[Kuya]

Man, humankind is so fascinated with its own demise, its almost depressing.

[Beckwin]

Real Talk on global warming:

-CO2 and CFCs do play a role in Earth's natural greenhouse effect. Add more and yes, Earth gets hotter. No denying it.

-The earth is getting warmer naturally. We had a "little ice age" that ended around 1750 and since then we've seen rises in temperature. This has to do with increased output from the Sun.

-I respect what Al Gore is doing, but he's definitely been sensationalizing. I don't really have a problem with it because he's forcing environmental issues into the mainstream and creating a lot of good scientific debate about it. When you see the pictures of the higher sea levels, there's no way that will happen in 100 years at the current rates. Worst case scenario is 40 cm rise in sea level in 100 years time, not the 8m in Gore's slides (which I believe might be accurate if the icecaps melted completely?). He also shows a barren sea/lake in Russia- the Soviets completely diverted water from it, lol.

-Yes, the earth has been much warmer before. The Cretaceous period was much warmer and had extremely high CO2 levels, and the Eocene period was drastically warmed by a huge methane release from the oceans. However, that's not to say that current nature, humanity and civilization could deal with a rapid temperature increase to those previous levels.

-Humans are definitely making an impact on the natural state of the earth. The hot question is whether we're making enough impact on the warming of the planet to make a difference in a bad way, but there are other things to look at that are just as, if not more, important. Ozone depletion is a huge problem that we can pinpoint in modern times to the late 70s/early 80s, but we know very little about depletion history in geologic time and what exactly the ramifications are. Personally, I see environmental problems as created mostly by the humam population problem and capitalism. I believe global warming is an important issue, but we're going to encounter health and natural resource crisises long before Manhattan becomes Atlantis.