Sunday, February 8, 2009

"Satan's Rapture," "Survive2012," "maya12-21-2012"... where is their evidence?

Problemo numero uno with getting your quackery from the internet is that, on the internet, people can say anything that they want to. Without citation. Without peer review. And, virtually, without criticism.

Take "Survive 2012," one of the most popular (according to Google) websites built on the fabrication of 2012 apocalypticism. They seem to get thousands of hits a week- and yet the actual content of the website is essentially evidence-free. The author of the website, a Mr. Bast, offers a rather unusual list of things that "might" happen in 2012. Some things on the list of things that we are warned might befall us are pure howlers:
  • "Rise of the machines."
  • "Time travel error."
  • "Solar System falls apart (butterfly effect)."
  • "Alien Invasion."
And, of course, not so much as a peep about why we should fear any of these things happening specifically towards the end of 2012. And my money is still on the line that they won't.

Some of the things they list are things that sound scary, but actually aren't:
And the rest is just junk. But thankfully, the website's administrator offers his own, personal completely wild guesswork, complete with no citations or evidence. He calls it the "Bast Theory." I won't be talking much about the content of his conclusions since his premises are all wrong, but even if they weren't his conclusion (that ancient superadvanced civilizations cleverly encoded a warning about the end of the world in a completely unrelated myriad of global myths; you'd think they would want it to be a bit more obvious) is still a little odd. But, I said that his premises are all wrong, and here they are:
"In its purest form my theory is based on these assumptions:
  • Ancient cultures communicated with each other in some way
  • Mysterious Elders have appeared from time to time to guide us
  • Pyramids and mounds had a purpose other than burying royalty
  • Evolution doesn't generally occur in small stages
  • Global cataclysms have occurred within the last 12,000 years
  • Our galactic neighbourhood could be more dangerous than is commonly acknowledged"
First premise: no evidence whatsoever. You would think that this would be the sort of thing they would want to keep better evidence of. And if they all communicated, why are they all so different? Where is the lingua franca of 12,000 BCE? Or 5,000 BCE? Or even 2,000 BCE?

Second premise: no evidence at all. Never even heard that phrase "Mysterious Elders" before. I don't know what he's talking about there, but it sounds like he may have read a few too many science fiction novels.

Third premise: of course they weren't. Way to knock down a straw man that exists only in the lay understanding of the pyramids. The main purpose of the pyramids seems to have been to make pharoahs' tombs thief-proof, or to serve as proxy tombs for kings who were sure to die long before the actual structure's completion. So, this guy isn't even qualified enough an Egyptologist to be making the kinds of wild claims he makes. He doesn't even have ten seconds to spare on Google.

Fourth: wrong.

Fifth: really, which ones? And if they have, please show me which principle of logic permits you to infer a future event purely from a past event with no kind of connecting modus ponens (that's usually the part where you supply the "causal relationship," or, the "evidence").

Sixth: please, please tell us about this so that you can get a Nobel Prize for revolutionizing astronomy and the rest of us can start building our Cosmic Ray bunkers. Otherwise, stop trying to scare people and actually talk about what you know, rather than what you guess.

So, Survive2012 is a joke. It offers you either complete nonsense, complete nonsense that sounds scary but isn't, or complete nonsense that percolates exclusively upwards from the imagination of the one and only Mr. Bast. I won't even get into the part about dragons.

"Satan's Rapture," which someone alluded to on a comment on the post directly below this one, is frankly completely incoherent. I can barely scroll through it at a normal reading pace without feeling like I'm about to have a seizure from all the bright colors, exclamation points, and pictures that have nothing to do with what is being talked about. To the person who commented on my previous post, please point out where exactly on this website some kind of substantive content is written, or some kind of evidence for anything is actually offered. To me it looks like some kind of Biblical fundamentalist writing apologetics about the "Rapture" or the "Second Coming," which doesn't make any sense because the early Christians reported with succinct clarity that no one would know the day or the hour of his Coming, which is of course exactly what the 2012 apocalypticists claim to offer.

Maya-12-21-2012.com is a little bit better because they offer helpful pictures (also because you can read it without having to take eye drops), like this one:
So, since these people apparently claim to have access to the precise information I have been asking for all along (and it's not like they would just make stuff up, right?), it should be very easy for people who actually believe anything that website says to find Nibiru, get me its declination and right ascension, show it to me, take my money, and save the world.

So please, please, tell me: where is the evidence? Any of you?

4 comments:

charlie McNeel said...

super impose the birds eye view of "Stonehenge" with that of the supposed orbiting path of "Planet X". If the outer circle of stones at Stonehenge could represent the zodiac calender and the central stone column could represent the sun, could the "U" shaped larger stone structure represent the path of the orbit of the supposed "Nibiru"?
by chuck_chako

GoodNewsAtheism said...

Yes. Yes it could. Now go look where you just testably hypothesized that Nibiru could be, go perform the science- the experiment -go look! And find it! And come claim your money! Or, don't find it, and consider the idea falsified.

Unknown said...

As the webmaster of maya12-21-2012.com and in5d,com, I never claimed that any of the information on my websites is the final word and if nothing else, I encourage people to seek their own truths in any given category. My main intention is to open people's minds and to get them to look inside themselves for anwers. No one can enlighten another person, but sometimes, we can help to fascilitate that journey with though-provoking articles.

PS: I agree...I don't like small font either!

SkrappJaw said...

The thing about Bible prophecy is that it is VERY accurate, and is only be verified as complete when it happens. You are right about the day or hour being unknown. Unknown even to Christ himself. But in order to understand Christ's second coming and the resurrection, you must understand the Jewish feast/holy days. Though we are no longer bound to observing them according to Torah/law of the old testament, we are to continue to observe them in order to not be caught off guard when "the" rapture happens. There is good information on Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur that you may find interesting. Rosh Hashanna's start is set by the viewing of the first cresent moon by 2 witnesses and is known as the time they no not the day or hour. This is has been tradition for milleniums by the Jews. We need to be awake and know that we are to be ready and know the day is near. Signs in the heavens are markers that God set at the time of creation for Moedim. Appointments and seasons. We know what season the feasts are in, but the day and hour have to be witnessed by 2. Don't be caught off guard when it happens. God loves you all and wishes for us to sit at his dinner table during that tribulation time and not to be suffering here on earth.

Nibiru isn't the kingdom of God or anything like that, but a distraction of Satan. Let no man deceive you and seek the face of Adonai(God) and the truth of salvation in his son Jesus(Yeshua).

Here is a web page I was just reading that explains some of the bible prophecy and how we really are getting close to the day of the Lord. The season is near. Don't be caught sleeping or else his return will be like a thief in the night.
http://www.christconnection.net/id3.html