# Rare Six Planet Alignment Heralds Doomsday



## Metryq

*Rare Six Planet Alignment Heralds Doomsday*

Didn't we already do this one a number of years back—the Jupiter effect, or some such nonsense? The UFOs didn't show up on the predicted date to pick up everyone, either.


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## Nik

ROFLMAO !!

"Now I don't want to ruin how the world ends, but I will give you a hint: something about gravity fields and planets hitting each other. You ever seen a planet hit another one?"

snarky mode:
Those planets are in stable solar orbits !! They are literally tens of millions of miles apart, which is why they look like bright dots instead of disks. And, yes, they've done this line-up before, many, many times before, and, surprise, we're still here...

Yeah, we so did the Jupiter Effect and, although (IIRC) Earth's Magneto-tail *did* connect with Jupiter's no harm came of it. No second Venus emerged from the Great Red Spot, there were no super-tides, showers of comets, eruptions of sentient green goo and/or landings of Greys from Zeta Reticuli...
/


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## Interference

... or all of that happened while I was asleep and was gone when I woke up - like Santa Claus.


Incidentally, does all this mean we're doomed again or are we just doomed - still?


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## Dave

As Douglas Adams would say "DON'T PANIC."


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## Heck Tate

Is there any cosmological event which DOESN'T herald a doomsday of some kind?  I've heard that when two Cheerios in a bowl of milk drift towards one another, it's actually a sign of the fabric of the universe being ripped asunder.


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## J-WO

Further evidence that science just isn't taught well enough.


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## Starbeast

*March 10, 1982*​


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## Cayal

If this is Heavan...why do I still have my annoying work colleagues here?


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## Vertigo

That'll probably be something to do with that horned and tailed red bloke behind you


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## J Riff

Yea. You'd think that, at least once, one of these predictions would come true. Then the Earth would tilt on its axis and we would be sucked into space as the mountains crumbled. But no, instead we get miserable rain and ten-dollar cigarettes.


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## DrMclony

[BJFurther evidence that human sacrifice just isn't taught well enough.[/B]

mwahahahaaaaaa Appease the sky gods!  



hehehe


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## mosaix

Unfortunately, for the sane ones on this planet, one day something will happen on one of these 'Doomsdays': a giant volcano erupting, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami and then we'll never hear the end of it.

To take up J-Wo's point about science not being taught well enough, I think that's partly correct but just imagine, if these nutters don't listen properly to sound science as adults, how poorly they paid attention as kids.


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## Ursa major

The answer to mosaix's problem is that we all adopt a date when doomsday might come. So if it does, a Chrons person will be the New Prophet and all will be all right, give or take the Doomsday, obviously (oh, and the law that says everyone must produce puns, if I happened to have selected the correct day ).


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## Starbeast

I don't know why people worry about a "Doomsday", when it happens, it happens.

Besides, no one will be prepared for when it finally arrives.

Just live your life day-by-day, work on improving yourself and help who you can.


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## Metryq

Starbeast, but if one doesn't know _when_ doomsday is coming, one can't indulge in all the drama, hysterics, and crisis that life is all about. (At least for some people.)


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## Vertigo

Funnily enough their was a Horizon documentary on Beeb 4 tonight all about the past Horizons that have looked at various Armageddon scenarios over the years. From the dinosaur killing meteorite to pandemics. Quite entertaining really, at the end the presenter commented that maybe there is something in the human pyche that somehow needs to have catstrophes to fear.


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## Dave

Vertigo said:


> ...the presenter commented that maybe there is something in the human pyche that somehow needs to have catstrophes to fear.


The sheer number of disaster stories in the Bible would also support that - Noah and the Ark, Joseph and the Seven Year Famine.

Rather than needing something to fear, I'd say it was a real and valid fear. Our ancient human history is one of colonisation and rapid population expansion followed by frequent collapses due to environmental factors. Since the crunch seemed to come out of nowhere they would be given supernatural explanations, but were most likely climate related, which, in turn could have explanations in volcanic or astronomical activity. The stories would be told and re-told of the day the animals left the plains or the fish left the ocean. These events would weigh heavily on the leaders of a human populations. Attempts to predict such events or to mitigate them by forward planning would naturally be important to the survival of the tribe.


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## TheEndIsNigh

You'll all be sorry.

This doom and gloom business isn't easy you know. We prophets never get any thanks and the pay is appalling. It wouldn't be so bad but the constant abuse and ridicule would make a saint swear.

I tell you; if it wasn't for the fact I'm such a bubbly, optimistic and forward thinking kind of guy, all this skepticism would really get me down.

Fortunately, the one great compensation, is the smug satisfaction I will have of being able to say. 

"I told you so."

However, these are just local planetary problems. I speak of a ...


(I could see an argument for the gravitational pull causing an Earthquake/Super volcano effect. Look out California I say. Oh, but wait, why didn't it happen last time? - Damn)

(Although, today would have been a much better day to predict such things would happen)


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## Allanon

*MARCH 15th 2036*

*At around 19:31:07*

*Give or take a millisecond!!!*​That's my prediction. ​


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## Dave

Ursa major said:


> ...we all adopt a date when doomsday might come. So if it does, a Chrons person will be the New Prophet...


Allanon has already been beaten to this by someone just this week I'm afraid. 

Scientist Raffaele Bendandi, who died more than 30 years ago, is reported to have predicted that a quake would strike Rome on 11 May 2011. Many residents in the Italian capital, Rome, took the day off work over fears the city would be struck by an earthquake and left the city. Their civil protection agency urged people to stay saying it is impossible to predict earthquakes. The people who are the guardians of Bendandi's papers say there is no reference to this, but still the myth persisted.

Then what happened? Well, there were two large quakes in the Spanish town of Lorca on 11 May 2011. Nine people were killed when a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck the town, just two hours after one measuring 4.4. Now people are saying that Raffaele Bendandi was some kind of New Prophet. Despite the fact that he was 2000 km out (even if it was ever true to begin with!)

I think that demonstrates precisely how these things develop. Having said that, if I lived in Rome and everyone else had left the city for the day, would I be the only person who stayed behind just to prove a point? There is a certain herd instinct at play here I think.


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## skeptical

I hereby predict that you will all meet your personal doom within 100 years.  None of you will survive.

Does this make me the new prophet?


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## Ursa major

skeptical said:


> Does this make me the new prophet?


I'm at a loss how to reply to your message without risking looking unbalanced. 





​


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## Vladd67

skeptical said:


> Does this make me the new prophet?



Well I'm at a loss.


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## mosaix

skeptical said:


> Does this make me the new prophet?



If you're a genuine prophet you should already know the answer...


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## Interference

Which reminds me of a joke Nostradamus used to tell ....


.... and people are still telling it .....


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## Nik

{Cough}

Noah seems to have been lifted wholesale from the much older Gilgamesh epics.

( Not plagiarism, but fan fic ;-)


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## Heck Tate

Actually you guys are all wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZZ3mieX-I4

Judgement Day comes in 4 days.  May 21, 2011 is the second coming of Christ according to calculations some guy made using the bible.  Sinners will burn in Hell, the good will go to heaven, and Christians won't know what happened until someone else tells them.  If it seems like they're wrong, like perhaps if zombie Jesus doesn't come back to scold us all, it's just because the devil has closed your mind to reality.


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## Dave

Heck Tate said:


> Judgement Day comes in 4 days.  May 21, 2011 is the second coming of Christ according to calculations some guy made using the bible.


No doubt using a begat-ridden genealogy with precisely 20 years between each generation. Do you think he took account of leap-years?


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## Heck Tate

It's the same fool-proof method which gave us the REAL age of the Earth (6,000 years ).


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## RJM Corbet

Allanon said:


> *MARCH 15th 2036*
> 
> *At around 19:31:07*
> 
> *Give or take a millisecond!!!*​That's my prediction. ​



That's it? C'mon ... why? How? Please tell all ... errr ... I hope


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## J-WO

I'll probably be checking out Twitter when the rapture comes. Best way to experience it.


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## Nik

I'd probably sleep through it...

A chimney-shattering thunderstorm, a truck-smash on the door-step, earthquakes in UK and Athens...

I hear about it at breakfast...


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## J-WO

The Breakfast of Apocalypse!!!


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## Ursa major

But will the world break fast, too fast for us to eat our breakfasts?


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## skeptical

Personally, I am planning to talk to you all on Sunday!


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## J-WO

I'm planning to eat you all by Sunday.


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## RJM Corbet

MummeeEEE!!!


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## Dave

Well, if you don't sleep through it, you can catch the party: US atheists plan Rapture Party.


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## Starbeast

I thought atheists don't believe in anything, except that maybe humans evolved from gases in space. Of course they are probably mocking the doomsayer.


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## mosaix

Dave said:


> Well, if you don't sleep through it, you can catch the party: US atheists plan Rapture Party.




I thought this was excellent:

_An atheist and entrepreneur from North Hampshire, Bart Centre, is enjoying a boost in business for Eternal Earth-bound Pets, which he set up to look after the pets of those who believe they will be raptured.

He has more than 250 clients who are paying up to $135 (£83) to have their pets picked up and cared for after the rapture.

They would be disappointed twice, he told the Wall Street Journal. "Once because they weren't raptured and again because I don't do refunds."_

Why don't I ever think of things like that?


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## J-WO

Starbeast said:


> I thought atheists don't believe in anything, except that maybe humans evolved from gases in space.




Yep, that's the very core of our creed- humans are space gas.


Regarding these May-rapture people, the failure of the world to end will, previous studies of these things show, probably only strengthen their belief. Basically, there'll be some back-peddling and everyone will say that their prayer and belief saved the Earth, if only for a little while.

Tradegy is, there's all these people out there whothrew away their life savings and their kid's college funds over this. Silly sods.


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## alchemist

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?


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## skeptical

Well, here in NZ it is two hours after the set moment, and no-one has been taken.  We must be a very sinful lot!


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## J-WO

Must be those LOTR films.


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## Perpetual Man

J-WO said:


> Regarding these May-rapture people, the failure of the world to end will, previous studies of these things show, probably only strengthen their belief. Basically, there'll be some back-peddling and everyone will say that their prayer and belief saved the Earth, if only for a little while.



I know this is probably just what they will say, in the past it has been what happened... but... but... if they follow exactly what they are saying, then this is not something that they would want putting off... it's the reward for all they have been waiting for... so why pray to save the Earth.

Sometimes their 'logic' hurts


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## PTeppic

Has the evangelist who did the maths allowed for the change of calendar to/from Julian/Gregorian? Otherwise we're still almost a fortnight away...


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## RJM Corbet

PTeppic said:


> Has the evangelist who did the maths allowed for the change of calendar to/from Julian/Gregorian? Otherwise we're still almost a fortnight away...



Sshhh -- he'll hear you


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## Dave

PTeppic said:


> Has the evangelist who did the maths allowed for the change of calendar to/from Julian/Gregorian? Otherwise we're still almost a fortnight away...





> Mr Camping has predicted an apocalypse once before, in 1994...


What difference is a fortnight? He was 17 years out last time!


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## Pyan

PTeppic said:


> Has the evangelist who did the maths allowed for the change of calendar to/from Julian/Gregorian? Otherwise we're still almost a fortnight away...



Not to mention Summer Time....


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## RJM Corbet

Slightly off topic: the predicted Rome earthquake. There was a fatal earthquake in Spain that same day. Pretty close, in global terms ...


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## Dave

And a few hundred thousand years is nothing at all in geological terms...


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## TheEndIsNigh

Starbeast said:


> I thought atheists don't believe in anything, except that maybe humans evolved from gases in space. Of course they are probably mocking the doomsayer.


 
No, it's the other way round. We evolve into space gas: end.



alchemist said:


> Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?


 
Yep, we've been here all the time.



skeptical said:


> Well, here in NZ it is two hours after the set moment, and no-one has been taken. We must be a very sinful lot!


 
I feel for your 'none' loss.



Perpetual Man said:


> I know this is probably just what they will say, in the past it has been what happened... but... but... if they follow exactly what they are saying, then this is not something that they would want putting off... it's the reward for all they have been waiting for... so why pray to save the Earth.
> 
> Sometimes their 'logic' hurts


 
Exactly. a fine point point, well made Perp.

That isn't to say my own predictions are any less valid of course.


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## Metryq

Anyone who's been raptured and isn't here, please raise your hand... I thought so.


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## Vertigo

Boring... yeah I'm still here and nothing much happening


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## RJM Corbet

Hi honey. Sorry about the house ...


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## HareBrain

RJM Corbet said:


> Slightly off topic: the predicted Rome earthquake. There was a fatal earthquake in Spain that same day. Pretty close, in global terms ...


 
And an eruption of Mt Etna (or was that the day after?) Whilst I have no reason to think there's any connection with the Rome prediction, I'm surprised the coincidence didn't draw more comment. Your post is the first reference to it I've seen. (Mind, I haven't looked that hard.)


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## RJM Corbet

I missed the eruption altogether.

Listen to Graham Hancock on You Tube everyone ...


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## chopper

rapture=staying in the premier league. only 24 hours out, then....


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## Starbeast

J-WO said:


> Regarding these May-rapture people, tradegy is, there's all these people out there whothrew away their life savings and their kid's college funds over this. Silly sods.


 
Let us not forget those who joined the "Heaven's Gate" cult, they wanted to escape the world's end by killing themselves to enter the next level of human development, so they could be collected by a space ship that was following closely behind a passing comet in 1997.


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## mosaix

RJM Corbet said:


> Slightly off topic: the predicted Rome earthquake. There was a fatal earthquake in Spain that same day. Pretty close, in global terms ...



There are earthquakes somewhere every day on the planet.

I predict that there will be one tomorrow.


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## Dave

HareBrain said:


> Your post is the first reference to it I've seen. (Mind, I haven't looked that hard.)


Look at post #20 in this thread.


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## Dave

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13489641



> We are here because we care about these people," the newspaper quoted James Bynum, a church deacon, as saying. "It's easy to mock them. But you can go kick puppies, too. But why?


Well, puppies are helpless and don't have a choice. These people are incredibly stupid, that's the difference. But I do feel sorry for the children who's parents have spent their college funds. They didn't have a choice in parents.



> Mr Bauer, a tractor-trailer driver, who took the week off work for the voyage.


Only took the one week off work then? I think at least some of them were hedging their bets then.


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## RJM Corbet

Dave said:


> And a few hundred thousand years is nothing at all in geological terms...



Sure Dave. But it SOUNDS close. It was in the general area -- Mediterranean -- on the same day. And then Mt Etna erupted too. C'mon, give us doom freaks a bone.

Mr Bauer. Ha ha, very amusing. He'll probably be buying a few pints too, out of his short paycheck, if he's a betting man ...


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## Dave

RJM Corbet said:


> Sure Dave. But it SOUNDS close.


And that is exactly my point concerning these predictions. See my comments in your http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/531726-2012-prophecy.html#post1495635 thread. It sounds close, but...





mosaix said:


> There are earthquakes somewhere every day on the planet. I predict that there will be one tomorrow.


 Iceland just had some earthquakes and a volcanic eruption. Mosaix is the new Prophet!


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## HareBrain

Dave said:


> Look at post #20 in this thread.


 
Oh. Er ... look at the bit I put in parentheses


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## Teresa Edgerton

Dave said:


> Well, puppies are helpless and don't have a choice. These people are incredibly stupid, that's the difference.



But do people have a choice whether to be stupid or not?  I'm not sure that they even have a choice whether or not to be gullible.

We had a small earthquake here today (or actually now it was yesterday).  But we have small earthquakes here quite often, and this one was so small that I didn't even feel it.  Hardly apocalyptic.


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## TheEndIsNigh

So a, 

'Let's face the music, and dance' 

moment.



> Irving Berlin:
> 
> Soon,
> we'll be without the moon.
> Humming a diff'rent tune.
> And then....


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## Stephen Palmer

Wasn't all this comprehensively dealt with by that superb film _The Dark Crystal_ ?


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## HareBrain

Dave said:


> Well, puppies are helpless and don't have a choice. These people are incredibly stupid, that's the difference. But I do feel sorry for the children who's parents have spent their college funds. They didn't have a choice in parents.


 


Teresa Edgerton said:


> But do people have a choice whether to be stupid or not? I'm not sure that they even have a choice whether or not to be gullible.


 
Teresa's point is very important. The parents who spent their children's college funds also didn't have a choice about their parents, or the culture they grew up in, their genes and experiences, nature and nurture. We find it frustrating that people raised in a culture of superstition and non-science can't switch to examining all their beliefs through the lens of the scientific method, because we think that if we were raised in such an environment, that's what we would do. But if we'd been raised in any other environment than our own, we wouldn't be us, so we can't say that. Imagine how difficult it would be to change the very pattern of the way you see the world when you haven't even been given an incentive or impetus to do so. It's no use blaming the stupid for being stupid. We're largely stuck with them, and will be for generations yet, even if we're fortunate and their world-view doesn't take over.

Conscious, rational thought has been around for a relatively short period of time, and it's fighting millions of years of reinforcement of emotional and subconcious influences. For all its strengths, it is in some ways very fragile.


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## Nik

The down-side of conscious, rational thought is that it can be very dangerous to the local culture, which may react to restore the 'status quo'.

Step out of line in many cultures and, if their equivalent of the 'Spanish Inquisition' doesn't get you, some local fire-brand preacher will call jihad on your arse...


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## Ursa major

Dave said:


> Iceland just had some earthquakes and a volcanic eruption. Mosaix is the new Prophet!


 
* Expects to see some ashen-faced folk on  the news. *





​


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## mosaix

HareBrain said:


> We find it frustrating that people raised in a culture of superstition and non-science can't switch to examining all their beliefs through the lens of the scientific method,



I take your point, Harebrain. But we're talking about the USA of the twenty first century, the nation that put men on the Moon, not England in medieval times.


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## HareBrain

mosaix said:


> I take your point, Harebrain. But we're talking about the USA of the twenty first century, the nation that put men on the Moon, not England in medieval times.


 
The American nation didn't put men on the moon. A collection of scientists and engineers backed by government money did so.

I have a friend who is in most ways a very modern and rational-seeming guy, and uses all the modern gadgets. But he seriously believes, at some level, that if he doesn't arrange his remote controls on the arm of his chair in a particular manner when he watches his football team play, they will lose.

How many people here still do the "touch wood" thing?

By 1953, Britain had developed the jet engine. But a survey done before the coronation revealed that more than 50% of the population believed either that the Queen was descended from, or received her mandate from, God. (I heard this ages ago on a reputable radio programme, but can't find any reference on the net, so you're well within your rights to treat it as apocryphal).

My point is that scientific advancements _and the mindset associated with them _belong to relatively few people at present. The rest of the population goes along with the benefits, but are still partly mired in magical thinking and irrationality, with fear as the root cause. It's the human condition. It will change, but slowly.


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## mosaix

Harebrain, I agree with everything that you say. 

When I was talking about the American nation (and I hasten to add that this pertains to the British Nation as well) I was really referring to a population that had been through a modern educational system and therefore had been presented with the facts and so have a choice.

In my view it's choice not necessarily cultural conditioning.


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## mosaix

HareBrain said:


> I have a friend who is in most ways a very modern and rational-seeming guy, and uses all the modern gadgets. But he seriously believes, at some level, that if he doesn't arrange his remote controls on the arm of his chair in a particular manner when he watches his football team play, they will lose.



That could be OCD.


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## HareBrain

mosaix said:


> When I was talking about the American nation (and I hasten to add that this pertains to the British Nation as well) I was really referring to a population that had been through a modern educational system and therefore had been presented with the facts and so have a choice.
> 
> In my view it's choice not necessarily cultural conditioning.


 
I agree that's what should happen. But as Paul Simon wrote, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." And often this is cultural conditioning, because what is more comforting and stable than home and the ideas associated with it? Even rebels find it hard to shake off the influence of early childhood.

Obviously facts and logic can build up to the point where they erode and overrun that resistance, but I don't think it's as simple as a free-will choice between knowledge and sticking your head in the sand.

What I think might help would be teaching children about how they think, how they process information, what consciousness is and does. This is a field that underpins everything else we know, but in my experience most people aren't even aware of it as a subject for (self-)study.

Sorry. Pet topic 


Edit: on the OCD thing, I don't think so. He doesn't display any other signs that I've seen. But he is controlling, which is probably one of the prerequisites for someone heavily influenced by magical thinking and superstition. I think what probably happened is that at some point in the past, he noticed a possible link between his remote controls (which are after all "controls") and a couple of less-than-inevitable victories, and the association stuck and reinforced itself as most superstitions do. At a subconscious level, he wants to have control of the game.


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## Dave

I do take your point HairBrain, but whether it is by Choice or Cultural Conditioning is largely irrelevant since I was commenting on a quote comparing them with puppies. Surely, even Humans conditioned by years of indoctrination have more free will than a puppy does. They at least should have more intelligence. They should use it sometime. And this was not a sect from an isolated community from some rural backwater with some 17th Century religious doctrine. If you read the report people travelled independently from all over the USA. The followers of Mr. Camping had the funds to advertise this worldwide. To do that they must have held down decent jobs, presumably within 21st Century technology and culture.


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## J-WO

I was reading this letter Bill Hicks wrote to a friend, in which he talked about being raised a Baptist. It was near-impossible to think critically about his faith, because the whole game has an inbuilt self-monitoring system, namely, Satan. Suddenly, your own thoughts becomes an _exterior invasion_, something to be avoided at all costs.

I was raised CoE, so consequently none of my parents or teachers really had their heart in it, but it was only, say, five years ago that the notion of the Devil gave me a slight chill, even though I knew the whole thing to be daft. Though that could have something to do with all those Hammer films...

In think its this mental mechanism that allows fully intelligent, sometimes _brilliant_ people to believe a man like Camping.


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## mosaix

I see the guy now says that he was 5 months out and now says 21st October.


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## Ursa major

That's not entirely accurate, mosaix. 

As this is such an important subject, I went to an unimpeachable** source: Wikipedia. There it states that May 21st was Rapture and Judgement Day but that the actual end of the world is 21st October.

I suppose the identification of a day of Rapture was quite clever: if his followers complain that they haven't undergone Rapture, he could tell them that they proved unworthy. Identifying the end of the world, by contrast, is asking for trouble, particularly on 22nd of October and after. And I think he might have mentioned that May 21st was only going to be a spiritual day of rapture before the (non-)event.




** - I think I'm right in saying that one cannot impeach a website. * Goes to check on Wiki.... *


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## Interference

Which makes one wonder ....


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## Interference

mosaix said:


> I see the guy now says that he was 5 months out and now says 21st October.



Wouldn't it be fun if he was six months out in the other direction and it's already happened and this is what follows "life".


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## Nik

D'uh, I managed to accidentally falsify my church-school's religion at the age of 7. One innocent query prompted a faith-failure cascade...

Not surprisingly, they out-placed me to a local grammar school with almost indecent haste and a *very* carefully worded reference...

There, I learned I had a scientific bent plus a knack of asking unfortunate questions.

I slowly came to realise that very few people have the opportunity to shed their juvenile indoctrination. As the above post mentioned, it can be near-impossible to think critically about your faith. Worse, faced with the gaps and contradictions of scripture, many develop narrower and narrower outlooks, bordering on OCD...


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## Interference

Christian Doctrine: It isn't for Man to know the hour of his death. (nor woman, neither)

(Therefore all "Judeo-Christian" doom-sayers, at least, are liars and frauds)

Common Sense: God is gonna give us a date for the End Of The World but we're expected to draw our own conclusions and decide accordingly about things that are actually going to affect our loves and our futures?

Frivolity: Why warn the sinners?  They'll only repent and clutter up Heaven for the rest of us, going around with their "Oh, I was _such_ a sinner before I saw the light" holier-than-thou attitudes ....


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## RJM Corbet

J-WO said:


> ... In think its this mental mechanism that allows fully intelligent, sometimes _brilliant_ people to believe ...



And you can include Isaac Newton on that list -- the second most influential person in history, according to Wiki's top 100: below Mohammed and above Jesus, Buddha and Confucius, in that order ...


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## TheEndIsNigh

'Pretty' obvious why the old guy got it wrong :-

When he did his prediction, there was no way he would have known about Lara Croft.

Oh, but maybe he should have seen that coming too.


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## RJM Corbet

Storms, floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, Jerusalem surrounded by armies, Newton's prediction, the Maya prediction -- it does make you wonder. Sorry. It does make ME wonder ...


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## Interference

RJM Corbet said:


> And you can include Isaac Newton on that list -- the second most influential person in history, according to Wiki's top 100: below Mohammed and above Jesus, Buddha and Confucius, in that order ...



Odd.  No mention of Gene Roddenberry?  Very odd ....


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## RJM Corbet

Interference said:


> Odd.  No mention of Gene Roddenberry?  Very odd ....



Seriously? (I wear full armour! )


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## Interference

One of the most influential people in history, even Shakespeare quotes some Star Trek episodes, "The Conscience of the King", "By Any Other Name" and "Mirror, Mirror" to name but three - though, to be fair, I think he may have been reading Snow White at the time as well - and quotes him with "Take him away", which appears often in Trek and once in King Lear.

And how often has a BMW driver thrown up in his beamer?

Ok, Newton gave us gravity, but Gene Roddenberry showed us how to take it with us everywhere in the universe.

At precisely the same strength.


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## RJM Corbet

Interference said:


> One of the most influential people in history, even Shakespeare quotes some Star Trek episodes, "The Conscience of the King", "By Any Other Name" and "Mirror, Mirror" to name but three - though, to be fair, I think he may have been reading Snow White at the time as well - and quotes him with "Take him away", which appears often in Trek and once in King Lear.
> 
> And how often has a BMW driver thrown up in his beamer?



Lucky I wore it ...


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## Interference

Lucky it warn't red.


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## Dave

Apocalypse 'predictor' Harold Camping has apologised for getting it wrong... again!

After incorrectly predicting the apocalypse twice in one year - May 21st and October 21st 2011 - the 90-year-old recently wrote on his church's official website that "...when it comes to trying to recognize the truth of prophecy, we're finding that it is very, very difficult."

I find making prophecies difficult too, but then I don't ask for money to advertise mine.


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## Interference

And that's where so many of us make our mistake.


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## Ursa major

The least Harold Camping could have done is to foresee the difficulties he'd have. (Apart from anything else, no-one has yet _provably_ succeeded in identifying the day the Earth, or the human race, ceases to be, so any attempt to do so must be a long shot.)


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## Interference

What gets me is that these are Christians of some sort and the whole "not knowing the hour" thing seems to be  skillfully side-stepped, for some reason.  A cynic might even think they had mammon in mind.  Nahhh..... Shurely not.

Biblical prophesy is mostly about _what_ will happen and almost never about when.


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## mosaix

Dave said:


> After incorrectly predicting the apocalypse twice in one year - May 21st and October 21st 2011 - the 90-year-old recently wrote on his church's official website that "...when it comes to trying to recognize the truth of prophecy, we're finding that it is very, very difficult."



Some people just can't admit that they are just plain wrong. 

I think it was Emperor Hirohito of Japan who, when surrendering at the end of the WWII, told the population that "the war hadn't progressed as we would have hoped."


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## The Ace

mosaix said:


> Some people just can't admit that they are just plain wrong.
> 
> I think it was Emperor Hirohito of Japan who, when surrendering at the end of the WWII, told the population that "the war hadn't progressed as we would have hoped."



It was.  That was understatement rather than mendacity though.   With the navy feeding the fishes, the army all but wiped out, both air arms shot to sh*t and the cities that weren't burning reduced to radioactive ash, he didn't really need to belabour the point.


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## hopewrites

Interference said:


> What gets me is that these are Christians of some sort and the whole "not knowing the hour" thing seems to be  skillfully side-stepped, for some reason.  A cynic might even think they had mammon in mind.  Nahhh..... Shurely not.
> 
> Biblical prophesy is mostly about _what_ will happen and almost never about when.


well as far as I'm concerned that's the point. It's like reverse psychology on God. Say you have an important date, a party, or anything big planed where you most definitely don't want the world to end, all you have to do is find enough plausible reason for the world to end, then get enough people to believe you and Done! the world cant end because then all the people who believed you would say "i knew it" and God said "no one will know" so his hands are tied.


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## Interference

In fact, the more we say "this is the date on which the world will end," the less likely it is to happen and the less likely that God will have to say, "Ok, guys, I was wrong, you got the date bang on."

Therefore, I make my Big Prediction: *The World Will End Tomorrow!*

That should keep us going as long as Chrons has a following


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## TheEndIsNigh

Dave said:


> Apocalypse 'predictor' Harold Camping has apologised for getting it wrong... again!
> 
> After incorrectly predicting the apocalypse twice in one year - May 21st and October 21st 2011 - the 90-year-old recently wrote on his church's official website that "...when it comes to trying to recognize the truth of prophecy, we're finding that it is very, very difficult."
> 
> I find making prophecies difficult too, but then I don't ask for money to advertise mine.


 
I hadn't realis...

All donations will be gratefully received.



Interference said:


> And that's where so many of us make our mistake.


 
No longer though. I see a rewarding, if short, future ahead.



Interference said:


> In fact, the more we say "this is the date on which the world will end," the less likely it is to happen and the less likely that God will have to say, "Ok, guys, I was wrong, you got the date bang on."
> 
> Therefore, I make my Big Prediction: *The World Will End Tomorrow!*
> 
> That should keep us going as long as Chrons has a following


 
Technically for this form of prediction, it should be the day after tomorrow. 

The precise predicting of the end of everything is, by its very nature, extremely difficult: if not impossible. However, rest un-assured, it will be soon. 

The only consolation, if that makes anyone any happier, is that the end will not be restricted to our tiny locale, but will include every other point in the universe too.

The important thing is that,given the short time we all have left, we are all suitably prepared for what, if those that know about these things (???) are correct, fairly unpleasant.


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## Interference

As for predicting Natsy Things, that's pretty darned easy.  If your predictions are around for long enough (centuries, rather than hours) practically anything you make up can seem to correlate with some historical sequence of events, and the rest can be shrink-fitted to comply.  Of course, the more we know about worldwide affairs, the easier this becomes.  I suspect that when we come to encounter other civilisations on other planets, their local politics will become included in our predictions.  Re-spell a word here, re-interpret a context there, you know the sort of thing.

A lot of people confuse "The End Of The World" with "The End Of The Universe", as anyone watching Doctor Who over the years will have spotted.  Were the World to end tomorrow, I doubt the Universe would take very long to get over its loss (hours, rather than aeons).

But here's a thought for ego-centric humanity to take along with it into that long good night: What would make a Universe end?  A Universe of dimensions beyond counting (or possibly 11) wherein things occur of what we wot not, but which undoubtedly have an intimate bearing on all that we can sense.  A Universe that has three dimensions of Space, three dimensions (at least, by my under-informed reckoning) of Time and yet more directions we can't perceive that lead to dimensions within and surrounding all the other fundamental fabrics essential for any existence that requires more than just chemistry and physics.

What can there possibly be that is great enough to unravel the string of all existence?  Can a spider dismantle an ocean liner?  Can a god, goddess, God, Gaia or Dr Strange reduce the infinite to the infinitessimal or a doughnut to the hole in its middle?  Can anything, however powerful, obliterate the very thing that contains its atoms?

If we are right about one thing, and I see no reason to doubt this, that nothing can be destroyed but only converted or transformed into something else, then the Universe, at least, is indestructible.  It will merely take on another form and other lifes will emerge to ponder its durability.

And it's only those lifes (and lives) that will end when that Universe's use-by date is reached.

And I still say it's due, for us, tomorrow.

I can tell you what time, if you like


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## Ursa major

The end of the Universe?

It's a no-'braner....


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## Interference

You have a meme streak.


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## Metryq

Zombie physicists: Branes!


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## Dave

It turns out Harold Camping was only a few days out!

*Asteroid 2005 YU55 to Approach Earth on November 8, 2011*
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news171.html

Before you get your coats on, maybe not!


> _from AOL News_
> "We're extremely confident, 100% confident, that this is not a threat," said the manager of Nasa's Near Earth Object Programme, Don Yeomans...
> 
> Both the Earth and Moon are safe - "this time", said Jay Melosh, professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University...
> 
> Scientists have been tracking the slowly spinning, spherical, dark-coloured object since its discovery in 2005 and are positive it will not do any damage. "We know the orbit of this object very well," Mr Yeomans said.



Watch the skies for 2028 when asteroid (153814) 2001 WN5 will pass to within 0.6 lunar distances.


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