So can someone relieve my fear about the 21st?

[Dr Jones]

You have to remember that doomsday predictions come and go all the time. So logically the chances of a doomsday actually happening on a day that people expect it, are lower than it happening on some random day.

Why is that? I mean, isn't there just a big chance that the world will end 22. december 2012 compared to the 21st?

 

[Skratt]

A meteor will strike the earth approximately 800 years from now and wipe out all life on this planet. At what point does that statement become an issue for you or for mankind in general?

If you can answer that question to yourself honestly, you will find the source of your anxiety. Only then can you start to overcome it.

 

[The Stonker]

Sure I will relieve your stress.

THE WORLD WILL END NOW!

See? It didn't end.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

Dooms day predictions don't bother me. Most of the time they are just too ridiculous to even worry about. No...what you should really be afraid of is what this planet is capable of doing to us. Or what's lurking out there in the universe.

The potability of a fairly close Gamma Ray burst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst) happening for example should be particularly worrying...yeah it's a really long shot but if it did happen then there's nothing that anyone could do. There's even a case to be made for this already having happened in the past. (a long long time before the dinosaurs all kicked the bucket there was a mass extinction that wiped out something close to 99% of all species on earth at the time. We don't know what exactly caused it but it DID happen and one of the best explanations would be if a Gamma ray burst happened relatively close to earth)

My view on it? If you really think about it just being alive is terrifying. It's best to just accept it, move on, and enjoy life.

 

[The Human Torch]

To put it into context for you, check out this website: http://transmitters_revenge.tripod.com/doomsday_list.html

Basically we are doomed every week on average. So yeah, take it with a truckload of salt and rest assured that the planet has been around for a few billion years and will continue to exists for a few billion more. You will always have idiots calling for the end of the world, either because they want to profit from it somehow or because they are just plain retarded.

 

[freddi91]

You have to remember that doomsday predictions come and go all the time. So logically the chances of a doomsday actually happening on a day that people expect it, are lower than it happening on some random day.

interestingly enough, this means that especially on days that are prophesized, you should feel safer, not more endangered.

I hold the same opnion about "friday the 13th", after as a kid I found out that this omnious date can happen more than once a year, and thus was put on the "bogus" list in my book.

 

[Ph33nix]

according to the Jewish calender it has been less than 7000 years since genesis let alone the flood

 

[JemothSkarii]

Look, I have a very simple thing that should relieve you. My friends and I were having a drink, my friends having Oak Chocolate Milk while I had an Ice Break Iced Coffee. The expiration dates on their cartons was May 21st, with mine being May 25th.
Why should that relieve you?
Even the bigger corporations believe we'll make it XD

 

[Macgyvercas]

I'm not one with a faith. And logic tells me the chance of such a thing happening is the same on any given day, and that it's astronomically low.

Still, everytime I hear one of these doomsday predictions it DOES freak me out to a certain extent. A couple years ago during my senior year of high school it was some twat with a book saying a giant tsunami would hit the east coast, I was freaked out all school day. Hell during the oil spill some half-baked loon came up with a story that a methane bubble would be released from the gulf and wipe out the planet in a giant fireball, that kept me up all night after reading it.

It's silly to worry about such things. True or not. I know this. Anyone wanna take a solid stab at reassuring me the sun will still rise the 22nd? Because I'm sure I'm not the only one with just a tinge of anxiety about doomsday predictions.

EDIT: Really didn't mean to go about this from a religious point of view. More like how these kinds of bullshit end of the world crap can really fuck with some peoples heads, regardless of weather a religion is tied to it or not.

A further question: Am I really the only fool with just a tiny bit of anxiety about it?

Isaac Newton himself said that it was impossible for the apocalypse to happen before 2060.

But still, I'll tell you the same thing I told a friend who takes this seriously.

1) We don't know the exact date of the flood because the Bible is not meant to be AND WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE used as a history book. Thus, when they talk about time, it's not time in the sense that we use.

2) "13,023th anniversary of creation". Please, don't make me laugh. Just going by observation of the Andromeda Galaxy, we can go back 2.54 million years, using fossil evidence of australopithecus, we can go back at least 3.5 million years, using rock anaylsis for the age of Earth we can go back 4.6 billion years, and if we go with scientists estimate on the age of the universe, that's 14 billion years.

3) Anniversary of Christ's crucifixion: See point one.

4) Camping is using logic (i.e. math) to try and determine something that is completely and 100% illogical.

 

[gellert1984]

I had a christian upbringing. While I got over it for the most part rarely (as in years apart) I'll hear something that'll put the willies up me for a couple of hours, this rapture thing isn't one of them but I certainly understand people having concerns about it. It's kind of the ultimate boogeyman, believe in god or else you go to hell, by the way you can't prove god exists because he's so powerful and anything that seems to indicate god doesnt exist was just put there by god to test you.

I know it sounds daft but it does kinda freak me out at times.

Captcha = small shireven, I dont remember Reven being shy...or particularly small, did Bioware get it wrong?

 

[minnull]

I've always imagined, as I assume everyone else has, that when the end of the world approaches or the Christ/Buddah/Mohammed return to earth to give a message that it will be done with a sort of supernatural element that can not be refuted. E.G, the sky cracks open to reveal a portal into a lake of fire and a portal into a place full of sunshine and our favorite 70's musicians. If this is, in fact, a real message that the world is going to end next week then I'm going to be pissed at how unimaginative the whole process was.

But to go back about what my fears are about the 21st; I have none. If the world ends on the 21st then it'll all happen to quick for me to comprehend my reaction to whats happening and I'm not about to spend a week thinking about something that in all likeliness is not going to happen. But it does bring up an excellent question. If we knew for DAMN SURE that the world was going to end in a week, what WOULD be our reactions? I'd stop going to work and wearing button shirts, thats for DAMN SURE.

 

[scorptatious]

I know how you feel. Even though part of me believes that these doomsday predictions are fake, there is still a part of me that's a little worried about whether it's true or not. It passes though, and you really should look at past examples of people claiming the world's going to end. So far, none of them had came true.

 

[Demonicdan]

He predicted it from certain numbers in the bible, I could get some random numbers from it in some big sum and "prove" that the world will end tomorrow. It's just a shameless attempt to convert some people, on their website it is quick to remind you just how easy it is to pick up a leaflet and confess some sins.

 

[Wilko316]

You're gonna hear this kind of crap all the time mate, don't take any of it seriously. The world was supposed to end in the year 2000, 2001, 2003, 2007 and if I remember correctly Nostradamus predicted the end in 2563. I guess it's only natural to feel some kind of fear, I used to get it about 2012 because of all the hype around it and what people were saying was misleading me.
If you still feel scared, then just read what people have said on here, there are incredibly smart people in the Escapist who know what they're talking about.

 

[Wilko316]

My kitchen calendar ended last December. I'm still here.

/Thread.

 

[Toaster Hunter]

Nothing is going to happen. This isn't the first end of the world prophesy, and it won't be the last.

These types of predictions have a 0% success rate, so statistically you are fine.

 

[eggmiester]

er... what prophecy is this?

 

[loremazd]

Ehh, actually having faith is one of the reasons I dont pay any attention to doomsday stuff.

It's pretty specific: No one knows when the world will end, do not believe people who predict it.

 

[Griffolion]

Just as you said, use your logic. People have been predicting that the world is going to end since, well, a long time ago.
Also, someone here quoted the bible before:
"No one knows when that day or hour will come-not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father"
So there's that too?

I agree with you, and that quote pretty much sums it up. If you're a Christian (I am) then the bible says no'one knows when that day will come, it will happen one day like a thief in the night.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

My birthday's on the 27th. Ergo the world won't end on the 21st. Simple. It is, however, my 21st birthday. So it could be a simple mistranslation meaning that the world will end on my 21st in May 2011?