2012: Relax! It’s Only a Movie

The 2012 movie, this past weekend’s box-office bonanza, has fueled interest in The End of the World. Yawn. Here we go again.

Every now and then, there is some kind of prediction or omen that the world is going to end, causing confusion and panic. Indeed, if you read Twitter and Facebook status updates, the new movie has triggered a whole new wave of speculation. The producers of the movie must shoulder a big share of the blame for this, although they must be loving the free publicity. Unfortunately, a lot of young people are buying into this.

[To promote the film 2012,] the [Columbia] studio launched a viral marketing website operated by the fictional Institute for Human Continuity, where filmgoers could register for a lottery number to be part of a small population that would be rescued from the global destruction. David Morrison of NASA has received over 1000 inquiries from people who thought the website was genuine and has condemned it, saying "I've even had cases of teenagers writing to me saying they are contemplating suicide because they don't want to see the world end. I think when you lie on the Internet and scare children in order to make a buck, that is ethically wrong."

This marketing is unconscionable if it is causing people to consider suicide. Folks, it’s only a movie! There have been End of the World predictions before, with each “doomsday” date passing without incident. To wit:

December 31, 1999: Countdown to the New Millennium --
That New Year’s Eve was certainly fun, but was it the End of the World just because of an arbitrary turn of the Western calendar? Oh, well. At least the bottled water industry and the disaster kit industry made a killing.

1988: Hal Lindsey, in his best-selling book, The Late Great Planet Earth, predicted the Rapture would happen during this year. Former NASA engineer Edgar C. Whisenant pinned it down to between September 11 and Sept. 13. Nothing happened. Unbowed, Lindsey still predicted that these are the end times. Whisenant died in 2001.
(Okay, I admit this one has a lot of weird coincidences but 1988 passed and we’re still here.)

1919: Meteorologist Albert Porta predicted six planets would come together on December 19, creating a cataclysmic event that would explode the Earth.

1914: Jehovah's Witnesses said this was the doomsday year. When nothing happened, they followed by a series of later dates. In the 1990s, Jehovah's Witnesses quietly abandoned a prediction that people alive in 1914 would live to see the Second Coming of Christ.

May 19, 1910: Halley’s Comet was scheduled to brush the earth with its tail. Doomsday devotees were stirred up. The day passed with no apocalypse, but the night sky was sure pretty.

March 21, 1844: Baptist minister William Miller pinpointed this doomsday date and gathered followers to wait with him in prayer. The day came and went. Miller said, “I confess my error and acknowledge my disappointment.” The date was reset for October 21, 1844. Again, “doomsday” passed without incident. The followers went on to establish the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

Need I go on? The Middle Ages were predicated on a popular belief in the imminent demise of the world. For centuries, the Book of Revelation has been misinterpreted as a predictor of the apocalypse. (Don’t get me started on that one.) Even the early Christians thought Christ’s second coming would be in their lifetime. Indeed, the author of the Gospel of Mark wrote his gospel to help his community deal with their persecution and the apparent delay in Christ’s coming.

As for the current 2012 craze:

The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of beliefs and proposals positing that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur in the year 2012. The forecast is based primarily on what is said to be the end-date of the Mayan Long Count calendar, which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as terminating on December 21 or 23, 2012. Arguments supporting these scenarios are drawn from a mixture of archaeoastronomical speculation, alternative interpretations of mythology, numerological constructions, and alleged prophecies from extraterrestrial beings.

Mainstream Mayanist scholars argue that the idea that the Long Count calendar "ends" in 2012 misrepresents Maya history. To the modern Maya, 2012 is largely irrelevant, and classic Maya sources on the subject are scarce and contradictory, suggesting that there was little if any universal agreement among them about what, if anything, the date might mean.

I’m obviously a non-believer in Doomsday. Sorry, but I’m just too busy living. I believe that on the day we are born God gives each of us a clean slate to work with, and we need not fear man-made predictions of apocalypse and doom. The only thing we know for sure is that we will die; we can’t avoid that. So until that time, why not fill up our lives with love and laughter and peace while working to make this world a better place? With God’s grace, the future is bright and filled with hope.

For I know well the plans I have in mind for you,
says the Lord,
plans for your welfare, not for woe!
Plans to give you a future filled with hope.
- Jeremiah 29:11-13