Maya calendar savvy suggests apocalypse is farther in the future than December
By Matt Crenson
For those of us who hate Christmas, it’s kind of comforting to hear that the world is going to end on December 21. If the jig truly is up, there’s no need to go through the tedious holiday rituals of shopping, making travel arrangements and festooning the boughs of doomed evergreens.
What a wonderful life that would be. But alas, the apocalypse is not coming on the third Friday in December.
To be fair, most of the originators and/or perpetuators of the 2012 prophecy, widely publicized by movies, books, TV documentaries and of course the Internet, don’t claim the world is going to end December 21. Their contention is that the ancient Maya, who were great prognosticators of the future and just possibly in communication with supremely intelligent extraterrestrials, predicted an apocalyptic transformation of humanity on or around that date. The world’s people, or maybe just a select few enlightened ones, would elevate themselves from this corrupt, materialistic existence to a state of harmonious enlightenment.