Of Bible codes, quatrains, casting bones, reading tea leaves, bring the goat entrails, four horses

[Skidmore]

These past several weeks, television programming appears to largely devoted to programs making the case for Armageddon and the world ending in 2012 interspersed among documentaries glorifying the "War on Terror" and the "clash of cultures." Explosions, blood, mayhem, famine, plagues, pestilence, comets, asteroids, meteorites, earthquakes, black holes, gamma ray bursts, and sepulchuric voices promising cataclysms on gargantuan scale with only cockroaches left standing. Speculated scenarios of doom were all cleverly interspersed between the very real footage of current wars and carnage laying lands and continents to waste without their aid while holding out the promise of a Messiah.

Just bring the goat entrails and let's get it finished! Doomsday prophets are overselling the end of the world. The viewer is invited to consider the benefits of a post-monotheistic world where religious adherents with vested interests did not seek to actively play out apocalyptic mythology against the backdrop of the political spin passed down through time as historical fact in the liturgical writings of the "Big Three." The faithful of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, all the self-styled "chosen of God," forsake free will and offer passively offer themselves to be shackled by the corrupt words of political and religious leaders alike.

The thunderings of ancient prophets claiming to divine the Great Mystery of the universe are flimsy scaffolding indeed on which to hang the future of mankind. Human history is replete with great cycles of grandeur and devastation. From the ashes of empires, new civilizations have risen. Great ideas, art, technology, and philosophies turned on the arc of each cycle.

While the monotheistic religions fight to assert their primacy and use one another to create the world best suited for the coming of messiahs, they leave behind the true divinity in man--his will and ability to choose. Rejecting the fevered rantings of the doomsdayers perhaps could allow us all to collectively understand that we can choose to end this past millenial cycle of destruction brought by these religions and enter a new age of consciousness. If we don't, who knows "what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born."

[SpiralHawk]

1. For the record: Maya elders, themselves, predict Big Change for 2012, not End of Life

The Mayan elders who actually have responsibility for keeping the tradition of the calendars say that one era ends -- with upheaval -- and then a new era begins. Those are their teachings around 2012. You never hear any of them say that things just END. Those are the thunderings of TV - a republicon MindBoink to sell fear and advertising.

To consider the 2012 teachings more broadly in the context of our hemisphere, as the elders of the Directions tend to agree: The Condor will fly with the eagle. The Condor (South) and Eagle (North) will be joined in a respectful manner by the Quetzal (Central). This is a very old teaching, held in memory long before the Conquistadors arrived to take, and it is very widely held in prayer and reinforced in ceremony in this era. All the colors, all the faiths, all the Ways have an opportunity for respect and free expression in this new era, it is said, even those faiths and ways that have persecuted others. This is a fragment of the change that is coming. So the elders say. Many Daykeepers have been sitting in council in Antigua and elsewhere in recent years. They will come forward to share more widely in time, they say. But the main things they have to advise about making the journey through this time of transition are not sensational, and certainly not for sale. They are eternal: honesty, caring, sharing; basic respect for the Earth which gives us water, food, shelter, clothing, and beauty.

Life will go on, they say. In a different way. But onward...



"Everything is a lesson." - don Alejandro Cirilo Perez, Oxlaj

[Skidmore]

3. I realize that. However, there is a concerted effort being made now

to conflate many mythologies into this preoccupation with ending the world.

[SpiralHawk]

5. Yup, I know....

2012 is a convenient date to hang all kinds of crap upon.

But if you listen to the elders, they say that by their calendar and their reckoning, one Age ends, and another begins -- a momentous shift to be sure that requires each of us to reach deep for core wisdom, and then to apply it.

[warrior1]

2. k&r

That's real deep for so early in the am.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Is this happening to you on several channels, or do you subscribe to the History Channel theory

(put forward here) that says this is all on the History Channel, but that the viewership of that channel is so massive that it's an effective method of mass hypnosis for the Illuminati/Templars/churches to use?

[Skidmore]

6. It's beyond the History Channel line-up.

There are several channels, including movie channels, which seem to broadcast apocalyptical claptrap and weapons/war programming in clusters. I've noticed this quite a bit recently. I thought it was dying down around the election time but has picked up again. I'm not suggesting a mass hypnosis, but I do think it keeps this type of thinking bubbling under the surface just enough to foment more conflict. The fault lines between the religions are raw right now and it doesn't take much or many to push situations out of control. There is a really icky vibe in the world right now in spite of the upcoming changing of the guard in this nation.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I'd suggest it's because the programmers aren't very original

and they can spot cheap and easy "what if the world's about to end" sensationalist ideas a mile off, which keep enough viewers with the TV on that they'll get some ad revenue.

I can just about see that something like '24' could have been encouraged by parts of the government keen to get some public acceptance of torture. But of your 'Big 3', only Christianity has a sizeable audience in the US programming you're talking about. I'd be surprised if the churches really have that much influence on the networks that they can get extra apocalyptic speculation shown, in the hope this will drive people to church.

[a la izquierda]

7. As a historian I HATE the history channel.

As a Mexican historian, I take anything said about the Mayan "code" by the history channel with a ginormous grain of salt.
The history channel is not about history and it stopped being about history since about 2001. It's the Fox News version of past events. There are a couple of good programs, but most historians are not nearly as gloom and doom in their daily lives.

[SpiralHawk]

9. History Channel = Winston Smith in the Republicon Ministry of Truth

Rewriting history to eliminate inconvenient realities, and to shape world views so that their can be no WrongThink.