The dire prediction of Doomsday descending upon us as a result of a Mayan Calendar Prediction is really no different than the countless other “apocalyptic” scenarios we’ve been hearing about for years. As a society, we seem to be a bit obsessed with the perilous calls from various places that the world is going to end. Some brashly blow it off as bunk, but a surprising 15% of people surveyed for a Reuters poll this May said they believed in the Mayan Doomsday prophecy.

The believers of the Mayan Doomsday prophecy are apparently in good company.  A Pew Research Center poll taken in 2010, around the time religious leader Harold Camping was predicting his belief the world was going to end, a substantial 41% of people in the U.S. believed Jesus would return to Earth by 2050.

With several apocalyptic predictions having come and gone, why do some still believe and even prepare for future doomsday predictions?

According to New Scientist, who looked at the issue back in May 2012, the most basic explanation is simple – if it is part of your religious beliefs, you believe in the prediction that is tied to your faith. Whether it is the Rapture, Armageddon, or End of Days if it is a teaching of your basic beliefs then you are more likely to be on board.

An interesting aside to the faith based explanations is how the doomsday or apocalyptic experience is interpreted. While some of fundamentalist beliefs describe the end of days as a time of fire and brimstone as we are judged for our time here on Earth, others see the end as something different.  It could be a financial collapse, natural disaster, a global pandemic or the shutdown of the government that turns the world upside down – in other words it’s not the “end of times” as we once knew it. The new interpretation sees people working with their faith and their guide and their strength to prepare for survival in the new world.

VIDEO: NASA's answer to potential questions arising on December 22nd.

According to Dr. Doug Weaver, Associate Professor of Religion and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Religion and Baylor University who wrote about the topic in the Washington Post, the more peril we see in the world the more we focus on the prophecies the world will end. Interestingly, for some as the days continue past the date projected as an end, they view their faith as having “triumphed” over the situation and feel empowered. And, in order to explain how their faith may have gotten a date wrong they will find new ways to interpret the prophecy as Harold Camping did – they may say dates were miscalculated or even more interestingly redefine  the Rapture as having converted more or saved more souls through the attention generated.

The more fundamentalist religious people simply have to find a way to reconcile their belief with the world continuing.

Aside from Religion, there is another reason for believing in, or at least being fascinated by Doomsday Prophecies. Curiosity, plain and simple. The New Scientist article notes “predictions feed the human desire to know the unknown or to explain the world around us.” Indeed for some, given the perils in the world today from the Japanese Tsunami to earthquakes in China and tornados or blizzards tearing up the Midwestern U.S it may help make those events explainable – our time is coming.

Lorenzo DiTommaso, associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal put it this way to New Scientist:

“Within its limitations, apocalypticism is very rational. It’s a world view that explains time, space and human existence. It’s not science - it’s not universal or repeatable – but it does explain things.”

Our view of the apocalypse, doomsday or “end of times” is a complex mix of faith and our basic natural behavior of wanting to know what’s next. Dr. Weaver  describes a great experience he had in his Washington Post Q&A:

“I knew an 88 year old devout believer who said ‘I don’t want to be in that box and be cold.’ In other words, I don’t want to die. Being lifted up in this fashion on Saturday (referring to the earlier Camping prediction) is the ultimate way of avoiding physical death.”

Sounds like this 88 year old can’t wait to see what awaits him on the other side, and when you put it that way it’s an interesting thought that some see their faith as strong enough to save them from doomsday, and in fact carry them to the other side without dying.

We have been exploring the idea of the end of the world thanks to the Mayan Calendar, which lists Friday, 12/21 as the day doomsday will go down. 

Join Discovery.com every week for more updates and news on the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy, video (if you dare) and discussion boards to sound off with your opinion.

Find out more at:

Curiosity’s Mayan Calendar

Discovery News – Mayan Doomsday is Not the Apocalypse: Wide Angle

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