"I'm not the messiah!" Says food activist

Cult declares british food activist "messiah", much to his chagrin


"While he struggles to cope with this unwanted anointment, his friends and family are more tickled by the situation.

"They think it's hilarious," he said. "My parents came to visit recently, and they brought clothes that said 'he's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy'. To them, it's just amusing.""- Parents of Patel



Its like Monty Python's life of Brian. Man people can be retarded when it comes to religion! i wish someone walked up to me and told me I was a 8,000,000 year old alien who has been hibernating in the himalayas.

Hehe, thats a cute story

I find it interesting how teh last 10 years have been filled with stories of armageddon, (Y2K, killer bees, nuclear terrorism/9-11, avian flu, 2012)....

I dont quite get why so many people are convinced about the end of times, the comings of messiahs, and things of those natures..

It sure is funny to read about though

canadin wrote:

I find it interesting how teh last 10 years have been filled with stories of armageddon, (Y2K, killer bees, nuclear terrorism/9-11, avian flu, 2012)....

I dont quite get why so many people are convinced about the end of times

I love watching people talk about 2012. So funny because there are a million different ideas. Favorite show on 2012 is The Nostradomis Effect on History channel. Ohhhhhh Yaaaa!

I swear everytime someone brings up the 2012 thing seriously, I want to kick them in the face with knowledge.

Short version is that in daily use, MAyans would describe dates using 3 different calendars of different lengths that would all come back to the starting point once every 52 years. Now, although very few people lived for 52 years then, they needed some way to tell a date more than 52 years ahead/behind you.

So they had the various Long Count calendars they work with a set of units:
Days Long Count period Approx solar years
1 = 1 K'in
20 = 20 K'in = 1 Winal 0.055
360 = 18 Winal = 1 Tun 1
7,200 = 20 Tun = 1 K'atun 19.7
144,000 = 20 K'atun = 1 B'ak'tun 394.3

December 21, 2012 or thereabouts will be 13.0.0.0.0 in the MAyan long count, i.e. the start of the 13th baktun. This is really just he same thing as when 1999 became 2000 and we all went "oh look at that all the numbers in the year changed!". The "cycle" doesn't even end at 13, the baktun numbering allows for going up to 20 of them before you go to the next higher unit of time which is equal to 20 baktuns. At that point, it will be 1.0.0.0.0.0 and then it just keeps going. The same way 1999 turning into 2000 didn't cause the world to end despite the fact we changed to a new millennium (yes I realize the millennium technically didn't start til 2001).

Seriously, that takes like 3 seconds to look up, but hordes of people (Not any of us I hope) believe the whole "Mayan's predicted the end of the world!!!" thing.

Away from that rant, people believe they are living in the end of days for a lot of reasons. Sometimes its exceptionalism, (Yeah I'm awesome, so obviously I have to be born in the most important times.) Other times it just has things to do with 'significant' dates, Like the year 2000, or 2012. Most often though it just has to do with the preponderance of information people have access to compared to our ancestors.

A reuters poll this year showed that something like 90% of people believe that there are significantly more natural disasters in the world currently than at any point in history. The fact is however, that its about average or perhaps even lower than during most of human civilization. There are just more people, and people hear more about it. *Shrug.* Anyways, /rant.

Easily the smartest thing I've read/been taught today Caros. +rep (if we had this feature )

I found some other very interesting notes about the whole 2012 thing, I thought you guys would find them interesting.

The Kali Yuga (Hinduism. A period of moral descent) and the Mayan Long count calendar start dates are only 12 years apart. Kali: 3102 bc and Mayan: 3114 bc. The Mayan long count calendar "Stops" at 2012, while the Kali Yuga calendar goes for about 432,000 years, compared to the 5125 of the Mayans.

The Yuga's (Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga) make up a world age (sounds like a video game? haha) which exists between creation and destruction. Those events take place once every 4,320,000 years.

I just thought I'd throw that out there, cause you know modern Hinduism is only about 3100 years old.