--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "hugheshugo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "hugheshugo" > > <richardhughes103@> wrote: > > Her impressions were of a metereorite > > > > strike. > > > > > > Excellent, I feel vindicated for not having taken out a pension > > > scheme. > > > > LOL. It's good to hear humor when these kinds of > > predictions come up. > > > > Anything is possible, of course. But I have to admit > > that I'm kinda jaundiced because of 1) a fascination > > with spiritual history, and 2) something a previous > > spiritual teacher said on the subject. > > > > History tells us that such predictions about the end > > of the world (or the near-end) have been around since > > the *beginning* of the world. They appear in every age > > and in every culture and tradition. > > > > What the teacher said may hint as to why. He suggested > > that another word for obsessing on apocalypse fantasies > > is self-importance. The bottom lines of the phenomenon > > are "I'm so important that important events are going > > to happen during my lifetime" and "I'm more important > > than you are because I know what's coming and you do > > not." > > I like that idea, it must give people a sense of self importance to > feel that God is angry with us. Especially interesting is the way > people re-adjust their beliefs when the apocalypse doesn't happen. I > would hate to be in that situation, sooo embarassing.
Not if you're a true True Believer. There is a classic work of religious sociology called "When Prophecy Fails," by Leon Festinger. He studied a modern spiritual group that predicted the end of the world on a certain date, and what became of them when it didn't happen. Utterly fascinating. > The predictions from revelations have been said to be about > to unfold so many times now. I'm a bit of an amateur medievalist. They were about to unfold at the turn of the first millennium, too, and at almost every other time in European history. > I read that in 1999 people were selling their > houses in America and moving to Jerusalem to await the last > trump! I wonder if they are still there and what they think > of the worlds refusal to end. PMT has a strange effect on > people (that's "pre-millenial tension" obviously). :-) > Everyone agrees it's going to be 2012 now of course, something > to do with the Mayan calendar ending. But others say it's not > the end but the dawn of a new golden age, some TMers I know > assume that it's the AofE as predicted by MMY. We'll see, I > hope so but don't feel like putting a bet on it. As the cheerleader said in "American Beauty," "Everything that's meant to happen does, eventually." I'm just not convinced that there is even one person on planet Earth who *knows* what is "meant to happen." > > Meteors, schmeteors...one good mutant virus could wipe > > out all human life on the planet in less than a month. > > Change is the reality of the relative. But it's unset- > > tling for many people to *live* with the idea of change > > as the only predictable thing in the universe, and so > > they (IMO) glom onto those who claim to be able to > > predict the *nature* of that change. > > Call me weird but I would love to witness a huge meteor impact > it must be quite a spectacle. As pay-per-view goes, however, if it's a big one it would be rather a short-lived phenomenon. They tend to explode with the force of several nuclear blasts. > We know it's going to happen sooner or later as there are so > many things out there that could hit us. And it's not like > it hasn't happened before several times, we wouldn't even be > here if the dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out. Hmm there's a > thought that puts it all into perspective. We might still be here, but we'd probably still be the dinosaurs' idea of junk food. :-) > > And while occasionally some of them get it right, I've > > never encountered anyone who did better than a coin > > flip at predicting hard, concrete events in the future, > > and nailing them down to a specific date. Most of the > > claims of "My predictions are X% accurate" are about > > hazy, general stuff that anyone with half a brain could > > have predicted, just watching the News. > > > > Me, I'm just underwhelmed by the whole thing. I've never > > had much of a fascination with "knowing the future" > > because that would take all the FUN out of it, man. > > My future has always turned out pretty well when it > > became Now, and I suspect it will continue to do so. > > Unless it doesn't. And if that's the case, why do I > > want to mess up *this* Now worrying about it? > > I agree, let's stick with the mystery, unless tanhlxns friend > can foretell next weeks lottery numbers in which case I predict > my life will change quite a bit. You forget the predictors' "out" -- "Oh, I couldn't use my ability to 'see' for *that*; that would be adharmic." :-)
