But are we going to blindly follow every prediction Paul the Octopus makes because of his fame, in the same way that one may follow every prediction Newton made because of his fame, or are we going to conclude that what he does is 'just a prediction, not an absolute certainty'.

Personally, "end of the world" is sort of a dumb statement, if you think about it.
Nothing we do to this planet will kill it. It will always renew itself.
The only thing (to my knowledge) that can actually put a permanent end to the world, is the Sun, or possibly a collision with the Moon, which just isn't going to work, since the Moon is actually moving away from us.

The only threat that we can possible prevent is a threat that was created by ourselves. We are, indeed, our own worst enemy. However if nature selects us, as it did with the Dinosaurs and the creatures before them, then there's nothing that we can say, or do about it.

Prophecies are tricky, considering of course that many of these ancient "prophecies" can be related to practically anything.
A midget gets ran over by a Monster Truck, driven by Madonna and Elvis. Nostradamus predicted it.

The fact is this: We humans enjoy taking every little thing and blowing it out of proportion and out of context.
It's good business and it makes for some good tall-tales.

What is in "The Bible" actually varies. The decision making process happened multiple times, by different groups.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Bible for a list and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon for way more than you probably want to know.

'Armageddon' refers to a specific battle in the book of Revelation in the Bible. According to some interpretations of that book, the 'Second Coming' is supposed to be preceeded by a huge armed conflict at the mountain named Megiddo. Megiddo is a small mountain on which ancient forts were built that guarded the main highway, the Via Maris, that connected Egypt with Mesopotamia. It is the site of several pivotal battles throughout history, and is today primarily interesting because of the archaeological value.

Completely off-topic to 2012, I know, but the OP's post reminded me of this and now it's bugging me because I can't remember where that estimation/prophecy/prediction came from.

I'm going to address the rest of your question with a categorical statement: The History Channel has become one of the most offensive fear-mongering sources of bad science and bad information available in the media or on the internet. It is right up there with the "Weekly World News", in my opinion. I look forward to their next documentary on how "Bat Boy" is busy fighting terrorism in the sewers of New York City.

Here's the problem: The "Lost Book of Nostradamus" cannot be traced to Nostradamus. Most scholars feel that it cannot be dated any earlier than 1689, more than 100 years after Nostradamus' death, which is a problem for the people who would like to claim that Nostradamus wrote it.

I recommend the wikipedia entry on it for more information.

Isaac Newton was a smart guy, but he was also subject to his own metaphysical beliefs and prejudices. He believed in Arianism, which was considered heresy in Newton's time, so he outwardly maintained a facade of Christianity, but secretly held his own beliefs that Jesus was not divine. He was also an alchemist… a discipline which we know today is pseudo-science.

So, simply because Newton believed that something would happen does not mean that we should also believe it. Newton also did not say that 2060 was the end date, but rather that according to his calculations, it could not occur before that date.