From: ptrei@bistromath.mitre.org (Peter Trei)
Subject: Re: The End of the World - Again
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 18:35:03 GMT

In article <weydAC_00WBL42I2Bo@andrew.cmu.edu> Shawn Clayton Knight <knightster+@CMU.EDU> writes:
>Hi guys!  I'm back.  I had unsubscribed but a friend told me yinz were
>discussing eschatology, one of my pet topics, so here I am.

Perhaps you could clear some things up...

[...]

>When the Thirteenth Baktun ends (a Baktun is 144,000 days ~= 400 years),
>the Great Cycle ends.  The universe flows in Great Cycles.  At the end
>of these, Civilization is destroyed along with the rest of the universe.

>Anyhow.  December 22, 2012 is referenced as "13.0.0.0.0" in the Mayan
>Long Count calendar.  [...] This is the last day of the universe as we
>know it.  If we interpret this symbolically, the "day after," the
>structure of the world in which we live, and civilization, will have
>been almost unrecognizably altered.

      The world has been through a lot of 5200-year "Great Cycles"
since it cooled, and human civilisation already existed in 3200 BC,
albeit in limited areas. If the world ended then, no one noticed. 

>Do I believe this?  Not necessarily.  Will I be home with loved ones on
>those 2 days?  You bet your life.  Will my defenses be up?  Oh yes.

>The Mayans were a scientifically advanced civilization.  I find it hard
>to imagine their spiritual advancement could have been far behind.  Of
>all the predictions for the End Time, I think I trust theirs the most. 

     Why should you trust their predictions over Western ones? The
writer of Revelation lived in a far more advanced civilisation.

      The Maya had pretty good astronomy and math, and a writing
system.  Beyond those, I'd hardly consider them scientifically or
technologically advanced.  As far as I know, they had no metallurgy -
they used only native copper, silver, and gold. They did not have the
wheel, plow, or arch. In almost every aspect, they were far behind the
inhabitants of Uruk, and ahead of them in none.

>Personally, I think the only bearing this all has is this:

>When the end of the world eventually happens, be ready.  [...] Start
>now.  Then when the BIG DAY happens, your karmic debt or whatever you
>wish to call it will be squared away.

>Short form: Don't worry so much about the end of the world.  Worry
>about today, and the life you lead.  Lead it to the fullest,
>magickally and mundanely, that you possibly can.

      That's good advice. Can I expand on it a bit?

Do both of these:

1. Live each day on the assumption that Final Judgement is coming
   tommorrow.

c2. Live each day on the assumption the the world will go on forever.

    There is a dangerous tendency for millenniumists (sp?) to ignore
the business of living. In the recent Korean Christian panic people
were selling their possessions and donating all the the church.
Closer to home, at least one Reagan adminstration official claimed
that we didn't need to worry about the environment because the end of
the world is at hand.

    You may die tommorrow. If the immortalists get things straightend
out, you may last as long as the universe. With these prospects, I
think the only thing to do is to act so that if your life is examined
at any point, the Examiner(s) would say "This is a Good Person."


    On the general subject of eschatology: 

* Why do you think that EOTW theories are so pervasive? Are there any
counter-examples, mythologies where the world is eternal? (Personally,
I was quite upset I found that the Steady State hypothesis had become
untenable :-).

* Why do the overwhelming majority of EOTW predictions take place
within the lifetime of the predictor and/or his immediate audience? 

							Peter Trei
							ptrei@mitre.org
"World without end. Amen."