It is an odd and arbitrary quirk of history that most of the world celebrates the beginning of a new year on the first day of January. The name “January” derives from the Roman god, Janus, depicted with two faces, one looking forward into the future and one facing behind, into the past. It was Julius Caesar who, in 46 AD while reorganizing the calendar, decreed that the year would begin on the first day of January. By the 18th century most of the Christian western world had also adopted this date.
Reflecting on the year just gone by is customary for many of us in January, and media rides this wave of cogitation and sentiment with presentations and opinions on the events of the past year which were “significant,” though a quick read of opinions from years gone by reveals a difficulty in assigning significance to the historical perspective from such close proximity, like declaring how a cake will taste right after closing the oven door. Yet the challenge of understanding even the events which have come to pass does not seem to deter many from peering into the future and passing judgment there as well.
The Year 2012 has been a target of speculation for decades and it joins a host of other dates given the dubious honor of hosting the end of the world. This year the apocalypse is tied to a controversial interpretation of a few stone fragments from the Mayan civilization inscribed with a calendar which apparently ends on the 21st of December. Adding fuel to the speculation is the astronomical myth, debunked by NASA, that the earth will somehow align with the center of the galaxy on that date and the resulting gravitational tides will create destruction through earthquakes, volcanic activity, the violent shift of the earth’s poles or a host of other disasters. The fact is, the earth and the sun align with the approximate center of the Galaxy every December.
The desire for apocalypse may be an archetype of the human condition. Almost every religion and culture on earth has spawned, at one time or another, a belief in some kind of doomsday scenario. Often in the religious scenarios a just and vengeful god destroys the earth while preserving a chosen few to carry on. Most Americans are familiar with the Christian view of Armageddon. Many in the Muslim world hold similar beliefs and the Quran describes the splitting of the moon, falling stars and the heavens being rolled up. Many Hindus believe that we are living in the fourth and final period of the earth’s current age and that sweeping change will occur with the advent of a new age. Many Buddhists believe in a future war that will end as a golden age begins. Some Native Americans, notably the Hopi, believe that it is they who are the chosen ones who will survive the coming apocalypse.
Apocalypse is a fascinating topic, and a profitable one. Thousands of books have been written and movies made dealing with the subject, but it is the age of Information which has created the latest confluence of belief focusing on 2012. Before we start digging our underground bunkers and duct taping our windows this year, it might behoove us to take a look at some of the other dates in history when the world was surely to end.
In 1000 AD, Catholic Church authorities believed that Jesus would return. When this did not happen, the birth of Jesus was recalibrated and a new date set for 1033. In 1843 William Miller convinced his followers that the world would end between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. The date was moved to October 22nd and when the world still failed to end, some members split from the group to form the Seventh Day Adventists. In 1876 Charles Russell, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, predicted that Christ would return in 1914. The group has predicted at least seven other dates for Armageddon since then. For a more modern, “scientific” prediction, astrophysicists Stephen Plagemann and John Gribbin claimed in 1974 that an alignment of Jupiter on March 10, 1982 would cause devastating earthquakes. Let’s not forget Y2K and the run on canned goods and dried beans at Sam’s Club. Finally we have the prediction by evangelist Harold Camping that the Rapture would occur on May 21st and, again, on October 21st of last year.
The world will undoubtedly end at some point; civilization even sooner. Barring manmade disaster, a direct hit by an asteroid, the eruption of a super-volcano or a coronal mass ejection from the sun, in a few billion years the sun will grow into a red giant and completely engulf earth’s orbit. If we are still here, perhaps we will have found a new home by then, but in the meantime, no one can say for certain when Jesus will return or when the next mass extinction event will occur. No one can say for certain whether any of the predicted events for 2012 will occur or whether any of us will be among the chosen few to survive them. Personally, I am not about to make a prediction for the world’s end, but I do predict that I will need a new truck sometime in 2012. If you are among those convinced that the world will end this year – and if you have a serviceable truck that you aren’t planning to use after the apocalypse, please remember to sign the title and drop it off at the newspaper sometime next December.
