Mike, what happened in 1990?

Here's a list of failed end-of-the-world predictions

http://www.religioustoleranc e.org/end_wrld.htm

Question to all sociologists and evolutionary biologists (which one day i hope to become =) )

Why are we so interested in apocalyptic 'end of the world' delusionary issues ?

Like how does that factor into the human species cultural and evolutionary past?
- Abhi

Originally Posted by manaya

I agree.

I know several ppl who believe that the americans never landed on the moon.
It seriously makes me question why our species is considered 'intelligent'.

- Abhi

Question for YOU: If we've landed on the moon once, why haven't we ever done it again??? It's like you spend millions and millions of dollars and year and years of research to get there and then forget about ever doing it again.

Originally Posted by Duarch

Question for YOU: If we've landed on the moon once, why haven't we ever done it again??? It's like you spend millions and millions of dollars and year and years of research to get there and then forget about ever doing it again.

I don't see a point in going back to the moon. Why would you want to go back just to land? I think concentrating on finishing the International Space Station would be the top priority.

Originally Posted by Duarch

Question for YOU: If we've landed on the moon once, why haven't we ever done it again??? It's like you spend millions and millions of dollars and year and years of research to get there and then forget about ever doing it again.

Why go back again? To get more rocks?

Right now research is being done to get a permanent research station on the moon (ie looking for natural water sources on the moon).

Give your head a shake if you honestly think that the moon landings never happened. You can see the leftover equipment with a good enough telescope for crying out loud!

As for the original topic: No, the 2012 apocalypse is BS. We'll be celebrating the holidays just like every year.

Originally Posted by Duarch

Question for YOU: If we've landed on the moon once, why haven't we ever done it again??? It's like you spend millions and millions of dollars and year and years of research to get there and then forget about ever doing it again.

Like Jhan said, theres no reason. Even if there is water on there, there is nothing we can do about it at this moment in time. The research is being built on, and I'd say its more important to worry about the Space Station/Mars than it would be to waste time going there again.

****, I wanna die in space.

yea i read somewhere that the alignment of the sun earth and centre of the galaxy already occured in 1998 and nothing happened...so yea 2012 is just hollywood now

Originally Posted by ReDorkulateD

yea i read somewhere that the alignment of the sun earth and centre of the galaxy already occured in 1998 and nothing happened...

And do you find that surprising? What could possibly result from balls of rocks and gas aligning when they're separated by billions and billions of kilometers?

People tend to find events such as the alignment of stars significant because it looks "orderly" to us, since straight lines don't seem to happen "randomly" very often (even though it's not actually random). There's no real basis to believe that anything significant could result from such an occurrence.

Alright. There is simple historical evidence for the world NOT ending in 2012.

We will be entering the 13th cycle of the mayan calendar. That means there have been 12 previous cycles.

The 12th cycle started on September 18, 1618. Historically on that day, nothing happened.

The 11th cycle started on June 15 1224. Historically nothing happened, but obviously the facts are iffy at best... Being it 800 years ago haha

What the hell makes people think that 2012 will be any different. The mayans never predicted the end of the world with their calendar. It goes on and on and on... Jeez it drives me crazy... But I'll watch the movie

@Cheri: In 1990, it was predicted that there'd be a massive solar flare that hit the earth and destroyed technology (kind of like how Y2K was supposed to 'destroy technology.')

"3...2...1...HAPP Y NEW YEAR 2000!"
"QUICK! Flush the toilet and make sure it still works!"

A solar flare did hit, May 24th 1990 I think it was, but it wasn't a big catastrophe. The irony of it is, a massive solar flare hit the earth in 2005 and did disrupt electricity in many parts of the world...but nobody panicked over it in advance.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Here's a list of failed end-of-the-world predictions

http://www.religioustoleranc e.org/end_wrld.htm

The only thing I dislike about this list, is that it gives the impression that all doomsday panics are caused by religious nuts...I mean, neither you nor the site have directly stated this, but someone stumbling along may get the impression. All it takes for all religious scholars to look like buffoons is for one idiot in the bunch to come along and say "The end is near!" but for some reason when one scientist comes along and does this, everyone ignores him. *shrug*

And so I'd just like to emphasize this certainly isn't the case, as this is far from a comprehensive list...I mean, probably the biggest case anyone can remember, Y2K, had purely (misconstrued) scientific evidence, exaggerated by some fanatics...no religion in sight.

Not to mention, all that Large Hadron Collider black-hole doomsday stuff...which in theory, could happen (but personally, I believe it's just people exaggerating again).

-------------------

I also missed this post my first time through. Time for matter and anti-matter to collide (inside joke):

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Well I consider Religion and Culture to be overlapping terms(Since Religion is a product of Society)

I think this is a highly non-trivial statement...for two reasons.

1) To someone who believes their given religion is the quote unquote correct religion, this is clearly a false statement, since their religion is independent of culture. Some of their customs, or rituals may be culturally based (ie. eating specific meals), but the religion itself, its scripture and its beliefs, are universal.

Of course the non-believer will say "that's a bunch of crap, someone just fairy-taled all that mumbo-jumbo" and the statement is true, trivial infact.

But who is right? Can you prove either one to be the case? Certainly not, because the second you throw a higher power into the mix, the second there's one thing you can't prove, then the very notion of proof gets tied up in knots.

So what it comes down to is "I'm right because I say so" vs "No I'm right because I say so..." and you have a non-trivial statement.

2) Who's to say culture isn't a product of religion? Infact, it seems as though historically, the following four things had a very intimate relationship:

-Religion
-Politics/Government
-Art
-Music

Any change in one of the four, prompted changes in the other three. I'm not a history buff here, but I think following a brief history of music is enough to see this is the case.

So the point is...why does this fact mean the 4 are 'the same' source? Looking at religion, there are laws/legal issues pertaining to religion, artistic expressions of faith and for instance, church hymns (like the Gregorian Chant), and the same can be noted for the other 3 (ie. inspiration for art and music, the need for certain laws/changes).

For this reason, I don't think we can really conclude society and religion give us 'the same' information. Though there may be some overlap, I think each are important in their own right.

Even though science is pretty much everything the human society knows upto a certain tangible limit!

Now this, I believe is cyclic reasoning...for the simple reason that your notion of 'tangible limit' is one which is based on scientific, or perhaps mathematical principles.

It's like saying "If I only look at this one book I'm holding right now, then it's the only book in the universe!" because who's to say that the scientific method, scientific deduction are the 'be-all and end-all' of truth?

Infact, anyone studying the scientific method will see that rule number 1 is that the scientific method never proves anything true...it just aims to 'approximate' truth.

But even the existence of some 'limiting truth' to approximate is a non-trivial assumption! I won't go into detail about because people are likely already bored enough...but it's just calculus: "Does the limit exist?" is a very reasonable question to ask.

Originally Posted by Mowicz

The only thing I dislike about this list, is that it gives the impression that all doomsday panics are caused by religious nuts...I mean, neither you nor the site have directly stated this, but someone stumbling along may get the impression. All it takes for all religious scholars to look like buffoons is for one idiot in the bunch to come along and say "The end is near!" but for some reason when one scientist comes along and does this, everyone ignores him. *shrug*

And so I'd just like to emphasize this certainly isn't the case, as this is far from a comprehensive list...I mean, probably the biggest case anyone can remember, Y2K, had purely (misconstrued) scientific evidence, exaggerated by some fanatics...no religion in sight.

Not to mention, all that Large Hadron Collider black-hole doomsday stuff...which in theory, could happen (but personally, I believe it's just people exaggerating again).

Yeah, I know. I found that site through a Google search for "end of the world prophecy 1990". It's called religioustolerance.co m so I'm not sure what it's trying to promote. I just thought the list was interesting because there's been SO many end of the world prophecies.

http://www.cracked.com/article_17445...-bullshit.html

Originally Posted by A.Marlowe

http://www.cracked.com/article_17445...-bullshit.html

That dude is an incredible writer. I LOLed almost every paragraph.