World Will End May 21, 2011, Internet Christians Claim

KGarrett wrote:

Well, the nukes thing merely hasn't happened yet.

But the hysteria's gone. I mean, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, when we were supposed to survive nuclear attack by making a shelter under the stairs with sandbags and the kitchen door. There's nothing like that now.

Eh, fair point. I was just feeling nitpicky.

Lady Anne wrote:

On that note...

Looks nice and lulzy. Here's the one I found a while back:

A Brief History of the Apocalypse

Which does have one End of the World scenario I find credible:

Quote :

ca. 4,500,000,000 AD The sun will swell into a red giant star, swallowing Mercury, Venus, Earth, and perhaps Mars. This will be the true end of the world!

Trioculus wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

On that note...

Looks nice and lulzy. Here's the one I found a while back:

A Brief History of the Apocalypse

Which does have one End of the World scenario I find credible:

Quote :

ca. 4,500,000,000 AD The sun will swell into a red giant star, swallowing Mercury, Venus, Earth, and perhaps Mars. This will be the true end of the world!

I love this site. I sent a link to a cousin of mine when she was going on about Camping's first prediction. She used Myspace to put a pox on my house. I wished I had saved the conversation because I reminded her that we were from the same 'house'. She exploded into candy later that day.

Just before Christmas break, I told a kid that the Gregorian calendar was going to end at 11:59:59 PM on December 31. He panicked.

I saw him in the supermarket today. He told me, angrily, that I was a liar because I'd said the world was coming to an end. I told him that no, I'd said the Gregorian calendar was ending, and if he hadn't run off like that, I also would have told him that it started over on January 1 at 12:00:00.

His mother apologized and said he wasn't taking his medication.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Then the Ebola virus was meant to have us all shitting out our kidneys - that didn't happen.

Yeah, it's only an apocalyptic scenario if you live in an African village.

May 21st, 2011? Good. It'll give me something to look forward to for my 45th birthday, other than making sure I've renewed my driver's license.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

grmblfjx wrote:

Umm... why? What difference would that make?

So that they have time to repent and submit themselves to God and be beamed up to heaven with all the other good Christians before this can happen, silly.

I keep thinking it says something about me that I couldn't think of something this obvious.

I just can't figure out what exactly.

Cyberwulf wrote:

But the hysteria's gone. I mean, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, when we were supposed to survive nuclear attack by making a shelter under the stairs with sandbags and the kitchen door. There's nothing like that now.

Haha, my mom did nuclear attack drills in elementary school. Crawl under the desk kids, the deck will save you from the fallout!

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Haha, my mom did nuclear attack drills in elementary school. Crawl under the desk kids, the deck will save you from the fallout!

The alternative was the government telling everyone, "Yeah, nuclear war could break out at any moment and kill everyone, and there isn't a single thing anyone can do to save themselves. But don't let that impact your ordinary lives, citizens!" Sometimes it's okay for someone to tell you horrible lies if it prevents a panic, namely when there really isn't anything people could do to protect themselves.

^ Oh I understand that completely, but I am not sure the nuclear bomb drills were a very believable lie... Surely even a grade schooler could figure out that a particle board desk was not going to make any difference?

The desk isn't meant to protect you from the blast itself. Far enough away from the center and the shockwave would still blast windows inward, though, with potentially lethal shards of glass flying around the classroom that could be stopped by a desk.

It wouldn't do jack shit against the school collapsing in on you, though, which is why earthquake drills crack me up. Fallout? Well, assuming you're upwind...

But a lot of surviving nuclear attacks involves having a lot of good luck that you obviously don't have to begin with if you're under nuclear attack.

Twice-damned if you're in Russia, where the fallout causes spatial anomalies that rip you apart or electrocute you.

Penguin wrote:

It wouldn't do jack shit against the school collapsing in on you, though, which is why earthquake drills crack me up.

Yeah, at some point can we stop pretending that those flimsy desks will save our asses? Even up through high school, when anyone larger than a size 0 couldn't fit more than their heads under the desks, we were still dutifully ducking and covering.

It was an even bigger joke in subjects with no desks. In choir, we had to duck and cover under sad, pathetic stacking plastic chairs. Everyone was rolling on the floor laughing at how little of our bodies fit under the chairs and how screwed we'd all be if something actually happened. One of our more substantial tenors actually got stuck under his chair, which made the evacuation drill equally entertaining.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

^ Oh I understand that completely, but I am not sure the nuclear bomb drills were a very believable lie... Surely even a grade schooler could figure out that a particle board desk was not going to make any difference?

You have to remember, grade schoolers were a lot less sophisticated back then (I should know, I was one, and I clearly remember doing the drills). If your parents and the government said something was good and would save you, you believed them, because why would they lie to you? Your average seven-year-old didn't have the constant media bombardment they do today. There were three TV channels, and that was assuming your family even owned a TV. I grew up in a largely rural area where a lot of people didn't have electricity or indoor plumbing.

Rabid Badger wrote:

You have to remember, grade schoolers were a lot less sophisticated back then (I should know, I was one, and I clearly remember doing the drills).

Hmmm, well, I suppose that makes sense. I will take your word for it.

Penguin wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Then the Ebola virus was meant to have us all shitting out our kidneys - that didn't happen.

Yeah, it's only an apocalyptic scenario if you live in an African village.

Well, Ebola is so dangerous that it kind of looped around; since it kills so fast and is easy to detect (due to the victims being, oh, bleeding out from everywhere), it couldn't spread too far.

One of the main reasons smallpox was so terrible is that it could incubate for over two weeks, during which you would be spreading it to anyone near you.

Exodia's Right Leg wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Then the Ebola virus was meant to have us all shitting out our kidneys - that didn't happen.

Yeah, it's only an apocalyptic scenario if you live in an African village.

Well, Ebola is so dangerous that it kind of looped around; since it kills so fast and is easy to detect (due to the victims being, oh, bleeding out from everywhere), it couldn't spread too far.

Yes. However, it does spread fast enough to wipe out a village. The thing about Ebola isn't just that its incubation period is fairly short and the symptoms are severe; it's also that it's so damn deadly that the only thing that really seems to stop it is the fact that it kills its victims so fast, it runs out of new hosts to spread to.

I think we're mostly saying the same thing here, though.

I suppose all the dead birds found after New Years, and all the dead fish washing up in Cheasapeak Bay is only serving to make these people happy in their pants. Conspiracy theorists are howling mad (or rather excited as hell) about it, fo' su'. It couldn't possibly be that any of the suggested reasons such as harsh weather and stress from fireworks in the case of the birds ("why doesn't it ever happen around July 4th then?!" Well, because the birds probably aren't also half starved to death at that time of the year) could be the explanation! Oh no, it's the gubbiments sekkrit EMP murder ray tests!

Penguin wrote:

Exodia's Right Leg wrote:

Well, Ebola is so dangerous that it kind of looped around; since it kills so fast and is easy to detect (due to the victims being, oh, bleeding out from everywhere), it couldn't spread too far.

Yes. However, it does spread fast enough to wipe out a village. The thing about Ebola isn't just that its incubation period is fairly short and the symptoms are severe; it's also that it's so damn deadly that the only thing that really seems to stop it is the fact that it kills its victims so fast, it runs out of new hosts to spread to.

Like super AIDS?

That was a real thing, right? When I try to google it all I get is references to that Law and Order episode. I could have sworn there was some panic about a rapid-onset strain of HIV that sort of petered out becasue the victims were dying too fast to spead it.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Exodia's Right Leg wrote:

Well, Ebola is so dangerous that it kind of looped around; since it kills so fast and is easy to detect (due to the victims being, oh, bleeding out from everywhere), it couldn't spread too far.

Yes. However, it does spread fast enough to wipe out a village. The thing about Ebola isn't just that its incubation period is fairly short and the symptoms are severe; it's also that it's so damn deadly that the only thing that really seems to stop it is the fact that it kills its victims so fast, it runs out of new hosts to spread to.

Like super AIDS?

That was a real thing, right? When I try to google it all I get is references to that Law and Order episode. I could have sworn there was some panic about a rapid-onset strain of HIV that sort of petered out becasue the victims were dying too fast to spead it.

There's a vague bell ringing in the back of my mind, but I can't remember if it was just that people were worried something like that would materialize or that it already had.

You would think if the world were going to end it would pick a symmetrical date, like say 11/11/11.

Spotts1701 wrote:

You would think if the world were going to end it would pick a symmetrical date, like say 11/11/11.

One, supposedly we lost a couple hundred years in the dark ages, and two, different cultures use different calendars but the world would end for all of them. Maybe our 21 May 2011 is a perfectly symmetrical date for some obscure jungle tribe and it turns out they are the chosen people.

grmblfjx wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

You would think if the world were going to end it would pick a symmetrical date, like say 11/11/11.

One, supposedly we lost a couple hundred years in the dark ages,

You mean the Gregorian Reform?

Quote :

Gregory dropped 10 days to bring the calendar back into synchronisation with the seasons. Lilius originally proposed that the 10-day correction should be implemented by deleting the Julian leap day on each of its ten occurrences during a period of 40 years, thereby providing for a gradual return of the equinox to 21 March. However, Clavius's opinion was that the correction should take place in one move, and it was this advice which prevailed with Gregory. Accordingly, when the new calendar was put in use, the error accumulated in the 13 centuries since the Council of Nicaea was corrected by a deletion of ten days. The last day of the Julian calendar was Thursday, 4 October 1582 and this was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582 (the cycle of weekdays was not affected).

Quote :

and two, different cultures use different calendars but the world would end for all of them. Maybe our 21 May 2011 is a perfectly symmetrical date for some obscure jungle tribe and it turns out they are the chosen people.

Hm...

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Quote :

Gregorian: Saturday, 21 May 2011
Mayan: Long count = 12.19.18.7.0; tzolkin = 9 Ahau; haab = 8 Zip
French: 2 Prairial an 219 de la Révolution
Islamic: 17 Jumada II 1432
Hebrew: 17 Iyar 5771
Julian: 8 May 2011
ISO: Day 6 of week 20 of 2011
Persian: 31 Ordibehest 1390
Ethiopic: 13 Genbot 2003
Coptic: 13 Bashans 1727
Chinese: Cycle 78, year 28 (Xin-Mao), month 4 (Gui-Si), day 19 (Bing-Zi)
Julian day: 2455703
Day of year: Day 141 of 2011; 224 days remaining in the year
Discordian: Sweetmorn, Discord 68, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3177

Nothing showing up there. But then again, I didn't really expect it too--it's something these cultists pulled out of their ass, after all.

Quote :

If there had been time, Marie Exley would have liked to start a family. Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has less than six months left, which she'll spend spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is almost here.

Lemme guess. Section 8?

Maybe Clinger could have got that discharge if he wore fewer dresses and simply waxed hysterical about how the world was going to end in a matter of months.