The End of the World is Maybe Nigh

You know I have lost count of the number of times the world has been prophesied to end, still here after 2012 all that doom and gloom for that year all based upon the Mayan calendar because it finished in that year obviously nobody ordered new calendars 2013.  I sure the Spanish invasion probably put a dent in orders.

This time it is some chap on Youtube talking about the transit of Mercury passing in front of the Sun and the number three:

The Prophetico released a video last week analysing the correlation between the alignment of the planets and star constellations, suggesting this natural phenomenon could be of grave significance.

Mercury’s rare passing in front of the Sun on Monday, May 9 occurs only around 13 times a century and last took place in 2006.

What I love is that he is hedging his bets which is rare for a doomsayer:

The Prophetico explains that the moon will be exactly three days old at the time of Monday’s 7.5-hour Mercury transit which is significant as it is related to sex sins in the Bible.

The Prophetico warns that this could be a sign that this could be interpreted as the end times for humanity.

It is shame he brought in the Bible a book that has been translated many times and heavily edited by various different incarnations of the Church and not actually written down until several hundred of years after the events described in the book.  Lost in translation ring any bells.  Excerpt from Wikipedia below:

...the original Greek writings and manuscripts written by the original authors of the New Testament, have not survived. But historically copies exist of those original autographs, transmitted and preserved in a number of manuscript traditions. When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they sometimes wrote notes on the margins of the page (marginal glosses) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about the text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions and additions.

The Bible has become like modern day statistics which if you cherry pick what you want from the data you can reach the answer you were looking for.

Back to the 'Prophetico' the newspaper Express web article says:

The website summarises: “Judah will have to suffer in exile, although with the understanding that God will eventually thrash their enemies.

However I cannot find his website anywhere and the domain name is up for sale so perhaps he is leaning towards it ending.  Considering the quote above I think Judah is a reference to Edward Snowden it so fits with the text.  Oh look there's me cherry picking too, it is practically a national past time.

The main problem I have with any numbers or calendaring relating to ancient books written by man is the issue of the actual age of the planet.  Which at rough count is four and half billion years old or written in number form: 4,500,000,000 Okay I admit it does not sit well on the calendar and it is going to be a long year to say on a regular basis.  Taking any calendaring system produced by man in this context is arbitrary at best.

The other issue I have is man's arrogance assuming that we are somehow special in all the universe, to be put our existence into context:

...the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s.

Astronomers are still working on the age of the universe but their best guess it about fourteen billion years old, so when someone pops up in the media says the world is going to end based upon the Bible and some arbitrary number systems we have come up with, I take it with a pinch of salt.

Real ways the world could end:

• Yellowstone national park volcano erupts that would be bad
• Bloody big asteroid smashes into the planet bad also
• I could die, it would be the end of world for me, very bad
• Earth, the alien TV show could be cancelled - okay probably not real

These are just a few of the potential disasters waiting round the corner.  If the world does end tomorrow I will happy in the fact that I will not have to get up early to go to work.  Of course if I am dead it will not matter at all, I am sure the universe can get along without me it certainly did before I was born.

It is all a matter of perspective and so the best course of action is to have fun.