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What Do Skeptics Say About the End of the World? |
Not everyone believes that the world is going to end in 2012 or 2025 or anytime soon. However, many doomsday scenarios have been suggested including reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, severe solar storms, a 90 degree flip of the rotation of the earth’s axis, comets crashing into the earth, and lethal rays coming from the Milky Way Galaxy.
Robert T. Carroll, who writes The Skeptics Dictionary online, is one of these End-Of-Days-Skeptics. He is particularly critical of the Illuminati, which was a secret society in Bavaria in the late eighteenth century. They were a group of republicans that were intent on trying to abolish the monarchies through the means of subterfuge, secrecy, and conspiracy.
This group is believed to still exist and consist of the rich individuals in the world including large conglomerates of Jewish Bankers. They have been said to infiltrate every government and every aspect of society. They are also thought to be responsible for every evil including the hastening of the coming of the Anti-Christ. Robert T. Carroll debunks this by trying to prove that the actual Illuminati Secret Society was vanquished fifteen years after it was created in the late 18th century.
There has even been theories put forth that the members of the Illumnati are extraterrestrial creatures, which of course amuses skeptics to no end!
Dr. David Morrison is a scientist who is going to great lengths to debunk some of the theories about the imminent arrival of the End of the World. One of the theories he debunks is that that the Earth can shift poles. A reversal in the rotation of the Earth is impossible because it has never happened and it never will. It is apparently not physically possible for a magnetic reversal to happen and apparently even if it did it would not cause any harm to life on earth.
It was a metaphysicist called Kevin Peacock who first came up with the scientific explanation for this in 2012. This theory also includes references to the rising of the lost continent of Atlantis from the bottom of the sea, massive geothermal incidents, and the arrival of an Interplanetary Ark on our planet.
There is also a big misconception that an alignment of planets might cause this pole shift in 2012. There is no alignment of planets similar to the Harmonic Convergence that we saw a few years ago that could cause this.
There has also been a report from Fox News that in 2012 a powerful solar storm could shut down the U.S. for Months. Dr. David Morrison also tells us that there is absolutely no reason to expect this type of storm in the near future and certainly not in 2012 specifically. The whole 2012 disaster scenario is a hoax fueled by ads for the Hollywood science-fiction disaster film 2012.
Another thing that Morrison debunks is the idea that the Mayan Calendar ending is a prediction of the end of the world. Along with some other historians and scholars, he simply believes that the calendar simply ends because it does and that does not signify any doomsday prophecy.
Yet another theory is that a comet or asteroid is due to hit the earth in 2012. The last big impact was 65 million years and that blast led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today, NASA astronomers have a program called the Space Guard, which can find these large asteroids near to earth and warn us years in advance before they hit the earth. So far as people can see so far nothing is predicted to hit the earth in 2012.
Yet another very strange theory that is debunked by NASA scientists is evidence of an extra unknown planet named Nibiru. According to conspiracy theorists, it enters our solar system and disrupts life on earth.
A minister named Mark Blitz, who promotes the Old Testament roots of Christianity, suggests a rare string of lunar and solar eclipses said to fall on God's annual holy days seven years from now could herald what's come to be known as the "Second Coming" of Jesus. A skeptic named Joe Kovacs wrote that this is clearly ridiculous as we have had as many as three or four eclipses a year in recent years and the world has not ended then!
There is also, according to Dutch scientists, too much focus on the consequences of global warming. A study done in the United Kingdom points out that 88% of people believe that global warming is a done deal and that we are doomed. This is thanks to films, such an Inconvenient Truth and The Eleventh Hour. Critics of these films say that the statistics in them were inaccurate.
Along with the global warming theory is the melting of the ice caps theory, which is also related to high temperatures. An Arctic specialist Mark Serreze says that the Artic would not lose all of its ice until at least the year 2070, if we were to believe the current statistics about the program.
Is focusing too much on the End of the World a negative activity? A fascination with the end of the world has a dark side. NASA scientist David Morrison, host of the Web site Ask an Astrobiologist, told the Los Angeles Times last month that he had heard from two teenagers so concerned about 2012 that they were "thinking of ending their lives."
Another thing that Skeptics are quick to point out is that the End of the World is big business. For instance, the Online Rapture Index gets 13 million hits per months. This is a number that is probably going get bigger as 2012 approaches.
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