Will the World Really End December 2012 or Is This Just a Myth? Is the End Near?

Will the world really end December 2012 or is this just a myth? Is the end near?

I have learned that there is much controversy about what will happen in December 2012, with sources like the Mayan calendar and ancient astrologic predictions claiming that a major change will occur in our society whereas more professional sources like NASA claiming that there is no actual evidence to prove that prophecies are true. The Mayan society is recognized for its advanced technology when regarding astronomy, given that the Mayans have apparently devised a calendar more than five millennia ago. The question baffles me like no other. For the research project, I decided to pursue the question; Will the world really end December 2012? This question deserves to be examined because the more people that are aware of our earth's history and scientific methodology, the more influence scientific observations will have on society as a whole. I suspect that through my findings, I will be able to suggest whether this question is a myth or a proven fact.

Before I could comprehend what the impact of the end of the world would have on our society, I needed to know the foundation of December 2012 and how it would impact our existence. I started by reading that the Mayan calendar ends in December 2012, influencing some people in associating it with an apocalyptic scenario supported by a variety of theories pointing toward the belief that the world will end in the last month of 2012. Although it is difficult to determine whether a notable change will actually take place in 2012 or not, it is virtually impossible for one not to feel intrigued consequent to coming across all the information gathered through time.

I discovered that present day historians have accurately identified the date when the Mayan calendar will end: December 23, 2012 (Henderson, p. 273). Many people have attempted to come up with an interpretation concerning the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in December 2012.

After learning more about the history of the date, I wanted to know how our society has reacted and deal with the presumed end of days. Society has virtually been obsessed with an apocalyptic scenario related to December 2012, given that people from almost all domains have gotten involved in studying the concept. Some have even seen the opportunity of gaining profits from exploiting the story, with Roland Emmerich's 2009 motion picture 2012 being among that year's best box office movies. Although the film might not be among the best ever produced, its inspiration can be considered rather interesting ("APOCALYPSE NOW; Dire Predictions," 2009, p. 28). It is not necessary that Emmerich took advantage of audiences that attended his film, but that he simply provided the public with what it wanted to see ("THE END IS. 2012," 2009, p. 18).

Some consider that the end of the world will actually take place in 2012, others believe that society as we know it will experience an improvement, and others use a variety of legends (that are more or less extremist in nature) to create an association between their theories and December 2012. Most people would agree that the second group is particularly optimist, while the other two put across negatively. There is however, another group of people that simply cannot find any correlation between their future and December 2012 (Richards, p. 193).

I found that people's attitudes regarding December 2012 are actually related to fear rather than being related to confusion. This story has produced great tension among the masses, having people even more vulnerable to receiving false information. Although certain individuals have tried to raise the public's awareness concerning