Apparently, we only have a year to go before the end of the world. That’s right. December 21st, 2012, will be the last day for us all. Says so in the goofy Mayan calendar, right? That’s a good thing to base your life on – an ancient calendar… oh boy.

There are a number of problems with anyone believing that the Mayans were able to predict the end of the world. First off, (and this is the thing most people just completely overlook) the Mayan calendar works in cycles. When it comes to the end of a cycle, it starts going backwards. So even though the calendar “ends” in 2012, that doesn’t mean the world ends. It means that the calendar stops, and then reverses. It’s NOT predicting the end of the world.

Furthermore, why would we bother basing anything on what the Mayans think? 600 years ago we didn’t even know they existed. They were completely cut off from the rest of the world. They had no opportunity to trade goods, or, more importantly, trade ideas. It would be ridiculous to base any prediction for the end of the world on an isolationist society. Even if the Mayans did believe that the world would end in 2012, I’m sure they believed all sorts of goofy things. You can’t pick and choose which parts of their culture to follow, and expect it to have any validity.

Its a bit silly to me. So many of the people who say that the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world are also Christians. But in the Bible it clearly says on numerous occasions that humans will not know when the end of the world will be. God tells us that “it will be soon”, but “soon” for God is probably pretty long for the rest of us. If you are a Christian, how can you believe that we know when the world will end?

Perhaps the world will change. The world as we know it might end. If the Mayans forgot to add in leap-years to their cycles, we may be looking at January 20, 2013. Hey – that’s the inauguration of the president. No matter who gets elected, that date will certainly be the end of the world as we know it. Iran is close to getting nukes. Israel is getting frustrated with all the unrest in the middle east. And just earlier this week, Kim Jong Il died. The world could very well drastically change in 2012.

In any case, I find it absurd to live your life based on what might happen. We can’t predict the end of the world any more than we can predict what will happen tomorrow. Live your life, don’t worry about nonsense like this. If you really believe something terrible is going to happen… well… stockpile guns and freeze-dried food. Ha… ok, Glenn Beck.