9 years ago
Thursday, December 20, 2012
END OF THE WORLD:Some believe Friday is doomsday on the Mayan calendar
There may be no one left on Earth to say TGIF this week.
Some believe the world is coming to an end Friday -- on 12/21/12 -- which is when an important phase on the ancient calendar of the Mayan people terminates.
Mayans don't buy it.
At least the ones living in the city of Merida, Mexico, don't. Neither does anyone in the Mayan village of Yaxuna. They know the calendar their ancestors left them is about to absolve a key phase -- the end of an era and the heralding of a new one -- but they don't think we're all gonna die.
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"It's an era. We are lucky to see how it ends," said wood carver Santos Esteban in Yaxuna, a sleepy village of fewer than 700 Mayans, located in a territory that once belonged to the ancient kingdom founded around 2000 B.C.
He feels it is a momentous occasion and is looking forward to the start of the new age. He is not afraid.
"Lots of people say it's the end of the world, but we don't believe that," he said.
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People in his village will keep living much as they have, preferring hand-built, palm-thatch huts to concrete buildings and baking tortillas on an open flame.
For those less optimistic than the Mayans, an "official" website in the United States has collected links to all the doomsday articles and videos Internet users can consume.
December212012.com also offers tips on survival and advertisements for the needed gear -- from gas masks to first aid kits and hand-crank radios. Comments are welcome on its Facebook page, which has more than 14,000 likes, and website owner "John" from near Louisville, Kentucky, sends out tweets under the handle @December212012.
On the doomsday Facebook page -- in between gloomy superstitious links and user comments -- John has confessed that he does not really believe the world will end on Friday but thinks that a new era could dawn that may include some improvements for the world. That new era, however, might require a good bit of destruction as well.
John asked posters not to take the whole thing too seriously.
"PLEASE PEOPLE. . . I'm begging you. Do not overreact or make any rash decisions regarding Dec 21st. Anyone who knows anything about the 2012 prophecies, including myself, does not believes that the world is going to end," the Facebook page says.
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Gunmaker Ryan Croft in Asheville, North Carolina, does take the prediction seriously. He is building a special assault rifle to deal with any signs of doom lurking around the corner.
He doesn't think life on Earth will come to a complete end Friday. "I'm not planning for the world to go away," Croft told CNN affiliate WHNS.
However, he thinks the day could mark the beginning of cataclysmic times introduced by a disaster. That may call for drastic measures, Croft said.
His new rifle, a hybrid of an AR-15 and an AK-47, is designed to be easy to use, the Gulf War veteran said. Trouble in the United States could ensue in the wake of an economic catastrophe, he thinks.
"I taught about economic collapse and how it actually looks on the ground," he said. "People want to act like it can't happen or doesn't happen, and it happens around the world. There are places on fire right now."
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