Alright. So, there's been a lot of rumors floating about that prophecy tells of the world ending sometime in the year 2012. These claims are backed by advocates of this theory with three sources which all seem to be in agreeance on the particular day. Those three sources being the Bible, the Mayans, and Nostradamus.
Problem is: It's all hooey. And I'll break it down into itty bitty bite-sized fragments to demonstrate why. Lets start with...
NOSTRADAMUS
Apparently, 2012 advocates posit that the (in?)famous "seer", Michel de Nostradamus, predicted that 2012 would be the year we'd all go kerplowy. We're going to ignore the fact that the majority of scholars concur that Nostradamus's quatrains (predictions) are inaccurate and the only ones that line up to anything relevant in history is due to misinterpretation, mistranslation, or exegesis/eisegesis (basically, what many people do with the Bible -- see below -- when they want it to say something that it does not say.) We're going to pretend that everything Nostradamus ever said about the future of this world came true, for the sake of argument.
No matter which way you toss the dice, Nostradamus did not predict Game Over: Insert Another Token for the year 2012. Actually, he predicts a very different date, which can be argued to be the end of the world, but is more likely the end of his apparent "visions":
"Many times in the week I am overtaken by an ecstasy; having rendered my nocturnal studies agreeable through long calculation, I have composed books of prophecies, of which each contains one hundred astronomical quatrains of prophecies. I have sought to polish them a bit obscurely. They are perpetual prophecies, for they extend from now to the year 3797."
Note for the anal: You can also render the translation of 3797 to be 3786.
In fact, if you believe the Nostradamus propaganda, it is impossible for the world to end in 2012.
"In the year 1999 and seven months,
From the sky will come the great King of Terror.
He will bring back to life the King of the Mongols;
Before and after war reigns.
The war will last seven and twenty years."
Unless my math is wrong (and it's not), the numbers simply do not coincide with a 2012 end game. You'd think a dude that can see into the year 3797 would relay something about 2012, but... nothing.
THE BIBLE
Advocates of the 2012 Game Over theory posit that the Bible has a secret message which indicates that Armageddon will come at approximately 2012 Anno Domini. This one, I always found kind of bizarre because it's completely contradictory to a very cut and dry verse found in Matthew 24:34-36:
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."
Got that? No man or angel knows when the end of the world will come. I find it hard to believe that angels wouldn't know when the world's going to end when it's in the Bible, itself.
So, where did this theory come from? Well, nothing from the Bible, actually. Actually, it stems from...
THE MAYANS
See, this one is retarded. Because the entire basis of it is rooted in the Maya Calendar. The problem with that is that there is more than one kind of Mayan calendar! There's actually a good few. But for some reason, the Mayan Long Count Calendar is super slick lube for 2012 advocates.
Most advocates of the 2012 End Game nonsense probably don't even know how the Long Count calendar works. But I do and I'm going to explain it to you (or try to.)
The Long Count calendar is actually quite similar to our system of days, weeks, months, years, et cetera. Except for the Mayans, it was broken down into: K'in, Winal, Tun, Ka'tun and Bak'tun.
A K'in is roughly one day.
A Winal is 20 K'ins.
A Tun is 18 Winals (or 360 K'ins.)
A Ka'tun is 20 Tuns (or 360 Winals or 72,000 K'ins.)
A Bak'tun is 20 Ka'tuns (or 400 Tuns or 7,200 Winals or 144,000 K'ins.)
The math isn't as important as realizing that one Bak'tun equals an obscenely long period of time.To put into perspective, you could live four lifetimes and likely still not see one change of Bak'tun.
Now, the Long Count calendar works much like an odometer when it comes to the aforementioned measurements. I'll give you an example by using today's date:
12.19.17.17.17
Note: For those of you who bothered to cross-examine my math and are scratching your heads, wondering why there's an extra day between now and and December 21, 2012 -- a 2012 leap year is the culprit. For those of you who didn't cross-examine it, shame on you for taking my word as gospel and not doing your own homework. <3
The 12 represents the Bak'tun, the 19 represents the Ka'tun, the first 17 represents the Tun, the second 17 represents the Winal and the last 17 represents the K'in. It goes in order from largest number on the left.
In three days, the 17 at the end will have hit 20 because for every day (K'in) that goes by, the number raises to the right. However, once it reaches 20, it resets to 0 instead of actually being 20. And instead, the number to the left of it goes up one.
However, as the Winal in that column is already 17 and Winals peak at 18 (as opposed to 20 like the others), it will also reset to 0 and the next column will raise to 18. So, in three days, we will have:
12.19.18.0.0
The process will then begin with the 0 on the far right going up by one per day for 720 days, which will apparently be doomsday. If you bothered to do the calculations, you'll find that December 21, 2012 is represented by the Mayan Long Count calendar as:
13.0.0.0.0
First thing that jumps out to me is that there are no Ka'tuns, Tuns, Winals or K'ins. Imagine chronicling every day from August 11, 3114 Before Christ to December 21, 2012 Anno Domini. Why is it inconceivable to presume that the dude got bored? Got married? Died? Got a life?
"Here is an example you can try: Begin counting seconds. Note what happens at 100 seconds. Is that moment more or less significant than any other moment? What about 1000 seconds?" -- 2012hoax.org (which is great additional reading, by the way.)
Note: If you read the above link, you'll also find that there is a bit of contention, but it seems that 13 or 20 Bak'tuns represents a Pik'tun. Whichever way it goes, it debunks the entire myth of this 2012 nonsense.
Mind you that the Mayans do not in any way predict anything to happen on this day. It simply stops. There is no pertinence to this date and to assign some kind of magic phenomenon to this date is not logical. It's clear that anyone propagating the 2012 myth has a great mind for science fiction, but not for science. And don't even get me started on clowns like Terence McKenna.
This has been a cordial message from the magnificent Ripplemagne, urging you to stfu about 2012.