Doomsday Prophecy
It seems like every few years, someone comes out with a new doomsday prophecy. The latest apocalyptic craze places Earth's final day on Dec. 21, 2012 -- the end of the Great Cycle in the Mayan calendar. But whether the supposed agent of doom is aliens, asteroids, floods or earthquakes, the outcome is always the same -- the Earth manages to endure. Such predictions are nothing new. In the first century A.D., early Christians believed Jesus would return to Earth, bringing an end to life as they knew it, as described in Mark 13:24-26: "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory."
Doomsday Prophecy
Since then, there has been no shortage of apocalyptic forecasts. But why? Why do people continue to predict the end of the world, and why do others insist on believing them? Perhaps some zealots feel the need to justify their preconceived worldviews through revelations about the latest celestial event or natural disaster. And maybe those who trust such doomsayers are simply hopeful for an escape from a world that seems cruel or chaotic. Whatever the case, you're sure to enjoy our list of 10 doomsday prophecies.
This story has a side note that is almost as interesting as the prophecy itself. A small group of psychologists and students organized by University of Minnesota social psychologist Leon Festinger infiltrated the Seekers in an effort to study and better understand apocalyptic cults. Festinger revealed his findings in the 1956 book, "When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World." This work was an early exploration of the psychologist's now-famous theory of "cognitive dissonance," a term that refers to the human tendency to rationalize when one's thoughts and actions are in disagreement.
The 2009 movie, "2012," is a 158-minute showcase of apocalyptic eye candy, with enough death and destruction to bring up the question, "What's so bad about 2012?" It depends on who you ask. The fear is based on the way some people interpret the Mayan Long Count calendar, which is divided into Great Cycles lasting approximately 5,125 years. One of these cycles ends on Dec. 21, 2012, giving some doomsdayers the ammunition they need to declare the impending apocalypse. They also have numerous theories about how exactly the world will end. Some claim that a mysterious planet known as Nibiru, Planet X or Eris, or a large meteor, will collide with Earth. Another popular theory is that the Earth's magnetic poles will reverse, causing the planet's rotation to reverse as well.
The Bible is pretty clear about doomsday prophecies: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father," reads Mark 13:32. But that hasn't stopped some believers from trying to make predictions anyway. One such man is Harold Camping, a retired engineer who believes that the Bible is a numerical code book that can be deciphered to reveal clues about the end times. Camping, the founder of the independent ministry Family Radio International first predicted that the world would end in September 1994. But when the apocalypse failed to materialize, he attributed the error to incomplete research.
Camping recently gained additional attention for his latest doomsday prediction: May 21, 2011. In an interview with New York Magazine on May 11, 2011, the 89-year-old was brimming with confidence, saying, "God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question at all." Camping was so certain that his ministry spent millions of dollars plastering the Judgement Day message on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 recreational vehicles as a warning to the general public. When May 21 came and went without interruption, Camping did what any good doomsayer would -- he blamed the mistake on a mathematical error and moved the date back to October 21.
William Miller and the Millerites may sound like a good name for a 1960s pop act, but in the 1840s, they were a fairly successful doomsday cult. That is, if you measure success by the number of followers, not the eventual occurrence of the predicted apocalypse.
Miller was a product of the Second Great Awakening, a period of intense religious revival from which several modern denominations were born, including the Mormons and the Seventh Day Adventists. A farmer-turned-preacher, Miller crested this wave of spiritual fervor with his prediction that Jesus would return to Earth in March 1843. He derived his prophecy from a complex system of mathematical calculations and promoted it by giving sermons and passing out pamphlets during the 1830s and early 1840s. Scholars estimate that of the some 1 million people who heard his message, about 100,000 actually chose to follow him. As March 1843 neared, many of these believers sold all of their possessions, donned white robes, and climbed to the tops of mountains and hills to await their rapture into heaven. When nothing happened, Miller moved the date to October 1844, which also proved to be a bust, leading some to label the non-event "The Great Disappointment." Most of the preacher's followers then abandoned him, and some went on to form the Adventist Church.
A unique astronomical event is a surefire way to inspire a doomsday prophecy. Enter Halley's Comet, a ball of icy dust that is visible from Earth every 76 years. When this celestial body was scheduled to make a pass in 1910, the claims of impassioned astronomers at Chicago's Yerkes Observatory inspired fear in a surprising number of people. They insisted that the comet's tail was made of poisonous cyanogen gas, and when Earth passed through it on May 18, the toxic fumes would cause widespread death. Some opportunists tried to profit from the hysteria, selling "comet pills," masks and bottled oxygen intended to help people survive the noxious Armageddon.
Why wait for the apocalypse if you can make it happen yourself? This was the mindset of the Japanese doomsday prophet Shoko Asahara. Born Chizuo Matsumoto in 1955, Asahara was completely blind in one eye and partially sightless in the other. His rise as a cult leader began after he was arrested in 1982 for selling fake cures from his traditional Chinese apothecary business. The would-be prophet was reportedly crushed by the incident, which left him embarrassed and bankrupt.
Marshall Applewhite, with his piercing, wide-eyed stare, looks like a man who was destined to lead a doomsday sect. He was the leader of Heaven's Gate, a cult founded in Texas during the early 1970s. The group soon moved to the American southwest where Applewhite began to preach about a spaceship that would spare true believers from the apocalypse and take them to the heavenly "Level Above Human." After two decades proselytizing in the desert, Heaven's Gate moved to California where they started a Web consulting business called "Higher Source" to fund their activities. There they lived in a sprawling Spanish-style house and reportedly watched episodes of "X-Files" and "Star Trek" religiously.
Heaven's Gate took a grim turn in 1997, the year that the comet Hale-Bopp shined brightly in the night sky. It all started on Nov. 14, 1996, when Applewhite and his followers were listening to Art Bell's "Coast to Coast," a radio show dedicated to UFO topics. During the program, an amateur astronomer called in and claimed to have photographed a mysterious object hiding in Hale-Bopp's tail. This was all the evidence that Applewhite needed to confirm his spaceship prophecy from the 1970s. He and his group soon began preparations to board the UFO through the execution of a mass suicide. When police entered the California compound on March 26, 1997, they found 39 bodies dressed in black tunics with a cloth draped over their heads. They had killed themselves with a cocktail of vodka and barbiturates, or by smothering themselves with plastic bags.
The year 2000 sparked a number of doomsday scares, but none was more prominent than the supposed Y2K computer glitch. The problem was this: When computer codes were first written, dates were abbreviated to two digits in order to save memory; for example, "1998" would simply be written as "98." This system worked just fine until 2000, when the date code "00" threatened to cause inaccurate calculations. A 1998 feature story from Microsoft offers an excellent example to illustrate the perceived problem:
So far, my journey through Mexico has taken me to the place where the Maya calendar began, as well as the place of origin for the many myths about ancient Maya beliefs. All I needed now was to read the original doomsday prophecy that so many people are talking about.
That record is contained in Monument 6 from the Maya archeological site of El Tortuguero, located in the Mexican state of Tabasco about 30 miles southeast of Villahermosa. Due to rising worldwide interest in the prophecy, the stone tablets were recently moved to Villahermosa and are now on permanent display at El Museo Regional de Anthropologia de Carlos Pellicer Cámara (named after the Mexican poet and traveler who first discovered the inscriptions in 1958).
The doomsday prophecy does spares four regional rail lines: Manayunk/Norristown, Trenton, Paoli/Malvern and Lansdale. These were identified because they provide the maximum geographic coverage and serve the greatest number of passengers.
December 21, 2012 -- the end date in the ancient Mayan calendar. Will it bring the Apocalypse? However you choose to characterize THE END, recent tsunamis, earthquakes, and revolutions certainly make the notion of impending global calamity seem feasible. But this isn't the first time society has entertained end-times speculation. Click ahead to see some of the most notorious prophets and doomsday groups in history.By Jennifer Leigh ParkerPosted 5 April 2011 041b061a72