The ancients usually relied on the sky itself (star navigation), they didn't have 10,000 street lights or huge buildings lit like a Christmas tree, they really had no choice, but to look at the sky and they literally mastered the sky in terms of predicting when each solstice would come and so forth.

The one thing that separates us from the ancients is that they looked at the sky for years, even centuries, day in and day out.

We pick up a telescope or go somewhere with a large telescope, take a peek and then our curiosity is satisfied, but most of our time is dedicated to modern-day life and quite obviously, many of us (despite the number of amateur and professional astronomers) really don't look at the sky that often.

Perhaps they couldn't predict anything in the future, neither can we.

Disasters (depending on what you consider to be a disaster) happen everyday, but a disaster that could essentially kill all life on Earth as some doomsayers are saying, there's no way.

Perhaps a new virus, maybe a surprise from an unseen space-rock, but those are things that could literally occur at any time.

I simply say that we (meaning the modern population) should shut their mouths and open their minds and stop taking everything that the ancients ever wrote or drawn out of context.

That's the problem with our society today, we rush to a conclusion and we take things way out of context and then we believe that we're correct, even when we're wrong.

Excuse me while I go paint myself yellow and sing the SpongeBob theme.

Like I have said before, the earth is over 4 billion years old…and even if the Mayan's did predict disaster in 2012 (they didn't of course) it would mean nothing. There is nothing that could cause a disaster to that extent in just two years from now. They didn't even have telescopes…I mean seriously? We sent humans to the moon, we don't give our current day in age enough credibility.

No, really. Most of the 2012 theories have little to no truth behind them. Besides if 2012 was the end, I wouldn't get to see the movie that comes out that year and that would make me very angry.

There are lots of long range plans being made at NASA and at other government agencies.

Monument 6 from Tortuguero is currently generating discussion as it includes the only known inscription depicting the end of the current 13-baktun ERA in 2012. "The Thirteenth Bak'tun" will be finished (on) Four Ahaw, the Third of K'ank'in. ? will occur. (It will be) the descent(?) of the Nine Support (?) God(s) to the ?."

That certainly doesn't sound like a prediction of the end of the world. It is the only known mention by the Maya of the 2012 date. Those who study the Mayan civilization, and the modern Maya themselves say that they had no prediction of the end of the world and that finishing a long count cycle was an occasion to celebrate.

When it comes to choosing between believing a bunch of delusional con artists or EVERY legitimate scientist in the world, I'll stick with the scientists every time. I am a scientist and I have children and grandchildren. I am not the least bit concerned about anything unusual happening in 2012.

Her 'evidence' consists of the telepathic conversations she has with aliens from Zeta Reticuli. Seriously. She has a long history of saying the strangest things, and when it is pointed out that what she says doesn't make sense, claims that the aliens in her head are smarter than us.

I suggest taking a look at abhota.info to help you with some of your fears. You will see the same claims be made several times through out history. That page points them all out.

For some more info on where it originated take a look at wikipedia's entry on the 2012 phenomenon. Wikipedia always gives the least biased perspective on things.

Remember that the Maya were big into astrology. Astronomy is science, astrology is an excuse to look for a purpose for us being here. Even after science has given us the reason that we are all here, human beings have always been perplexed with spiritual guidence, prophets, and the end of the world. If we were to discover some hidden meaning behind a Mayan artifact (which we probably won't), it would still be meaningless.

Science has proven the world to be around for more than 4 billion years (4,000,000,0000 yrs), and has said that it will be around for 4 billion more.

I would also like to mention that Nasa can somehow note the positions of most debris flying around in space…they can calculate the chances of impact, and if there is any chance…they can calculate where it will impact (Please note that nothing is scheduled to impact us in 2012 or even in our lifetimes).Thats some pretty advanced stuff…stuff the Maya would never have been able to do. Calculating the positions of venus seems fairly elementary to us…pretty impressive for them, but not significant to us.

The thing is, these are rare events. The laws of probability are really on our side, and as long as your kids exercise a little care and caution (watch for traffic, don't climb power poles, stay away from blowfish sushi, that sort of thing), there's no reason to think that they won't live long lives. Whether they're happy is pretty much up to them.

There is no doomsday. It's a chimera, a fake. The authors of this site have collected accurate, scientifically-grounded information that supports this conclusion. I encourage you to read it, and further, seek confirmation from other sources: geologists, physicists, astronomers. Get someone to explain Kepler's work on orbits to you, take your kids to a science museum and a planetarium, ask around at a college. As in all matters, education goes a long way towards dispelling the fear.

I have four children. They range in age from 14 to 4. I expect all of them to live long and healthy lives.

Why? Because the hoaxers keep tossing out these ideas that have absolutely no basis in rational fact. They keep lying, and lying and lying, and spreading their rumors of death and destruction. But when you examine their claims, when you start to take them apart, piece by piece, you find that they are empty, hollow, and just figments of their imagination.

Sometimes it is hard to understand who to believe. I understand that. Who should you believe? There are these two groups of people saying exactly the opposite things, and both groups appear to have facts and figures to back them up. However, appearances can be deceiving. When you start looking into the facts, you'll find that one group (the scientists who study this stuff) go to primary sources… they go and examine the ruins in Mexico and Guatemala. They argue amongst themselves over the tiniest details. They cross-check each other's work. They winnow out the bad ideas from the good ones, they reject suppositions that have no evidence in favor of theories, which do.

On the other hand, the hoaxers just quote each other. Someone comes along with a degree in Art History and claims he's a reincarnated Mayan king from the 7th century, and suddenly all of the new age wackos are quoting him, treating him like the royalty he claims to be.

Meanwhile scholars look at what he publishes and snigger at the vast and multiple errors in fact he spouts as "the truth".

Me, I put my money on the people who can put men on the moon, who can invent things like computers, and networks, who can tell you down to a few decades how old a piece of cloth is. This is not a matter of faith, this is a matter of fact.

Not all ideas are equal.

As for dealing with your fear: yeah, we're all gonna die…someday, somehow. Personally, I hope to be the first man to be verifiably killed by a meteorite. I think the best thing to do is become used to the idea of impermanence: change is inevitable, all things have beginnings and endings, none of us are exempt…that sort of thing. The stars themselves have definite lifetimes, so how should it be different for any of us?

Yeah, death is scary stuff, and often it's terribly random and meaningless. But the best defense against that fear is to use your life to do something beautiful and creative, something that leaves the world in better shape than you found it.

The first thing you should understand is that "The Maya" is an artificial group. It is a designation given to the people of an area who had some similarities in their cultures, but who were not a single people by any means. Many of the various people who were labelled "Mayan" actually spoke different languages (or different dialects, at least).

The "Mayan Civilization" consisted of communities that were more or less organized into feudal city-states. Each community center had its own king and priesthood. They sometimes traded with each other, but frequently also warred with each other. The Maya in Guatemala belong to the "Kiche Maya" group. There are about 33 identified dialects within the Mayan language group.

So because of this, and because the priesthood in each city-state was eager to please the king, the mythology of each city-state was frequently 'adjusted' to cast the local king in a good light.

The AM/PM confusion just illustrates how sloppy the research of the proponent sites has been. The only part of the world where the solstice occurs at 11:12 PM is in parts of the pacific ocean up through Siberia.

Monument six at Tortuguero is the one and only reference to the so-called 'end date', and it probably has something to do with an anniversary date of the temple that it is associated with. It does not reference the 'end of the world' at all.

Mayanist scholars dispute the claim that 12/21/2012 (or whenever the end of the current cycle actually falls) represented anything to the Maya other than an excuse for a big party.

Regarding your question, I would like to point out the assumption in it:

why would so many different cultures say that something is going to happen?

The assumption on your part is that many different cultures say that something is going to happen. In fact, as far as we can tell, the only culture that said that anything is going to happen was the ancient Maya, and all that they expected to happen is that their calendars would reach a round number. They made no predictions for that date.

Frequently referenced cultures that supposedly listed the year 2012 as "significant", such as the ancient Egyptians, ancient Sumerians, ancient Chinese, Native Americans (including the Hopi), ancient Hindu, etc., etc., are all incorrect. These claims are made up. They are false.

As far as your second question, read the Mayan Prediction page, and pay particular attention to the section titled 'What the Mayans actually say'

Your point about when the solstice occurs is correct, and illustrates another set of problems with the so-called prediction:

1) The moment of the solstice is closer to 11:12 AM Universal time (i.e. Greenwich Mean Time) than it is to 11:11. See http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.php (Note: The U.S. Naval Observatory modified that page after one of our members pointed out that they had not updated the time of the solstice to correctly reflect the variations in earth's rotation)
2) The time is frequently cited as 11:12 PM. That is incorrect. The page above lists the times in "military" (24 hour clock) format, so 11:12 PM would be listed as 23:12, not 11:12.
3) The moment of the solstice arrives at 5:12 AM in Palenque Mexico (they are 6 hours ahead of GMT). http://www.worldtimezones.com/mexico/chiapas/palenque

A friend of mine said that "2012 is easy to debunk" because none of the claims hold water, and while it is true that none of the claims are valid, the fact that there are so many claims being made causes people to succumb to the "where there's smoke, there's fire" fallacy (a.k.a., "hasty conclusion" or "jumping to a conclusion").

We have examined all of the claims of ancient cultures somehow predicting 2012 as being a doomsday. As of now we have found absolutely no support for this claim from any reputable source.

Thanks a bunch!!!