The Mayans never referred to themselves as Mayans. In fact they never even used the word. In fact the word Maya was given to Christopher Columbus in 1502. It's a complete error that they're even called Mayan at all.
we're taking about a large civilization that consisted over over 30 different ethnic groups, with just as many different languages.
but Mayans is what they're called today, and today there are more Mayans living, then there was in the past.
Of course like any groups of people, they're very complex. Thought about many things, entertained many ideas.
but as far as the mayans predicting a doomsday, or an shift awaking to happen in Dec. of 2012. Never happened.
In fact many scholars such as Prof. John Hoopes point out that that rumor started in 1966 from a book, tittled "The Maya" by Michael D. Coe it was the first widely available book on the mayan.
and is the starting point for your top 2012 authors in Meme. In that book Coe has an opinion on the mayan, whereas he makes the claim that what they believe is is that earth was created on 3000 BCE and on the 13th baktun cycle Dec 24th 2012 (although he first said 2011) there will be an "armageddon"
It's suspected that this armageddon stuff only appeared after christian missionaries began their conquest. Keeping in mind, Coe never produced any Mayan text as a primary source.

You see many authors jumping on this cultural Meme 2012 in the latest paperback sellout nonsense, acting as if the Mayan calendar is some new secret knowledge, when in fact the working of the Mayan calendar were fired out in great details over a 100 years ago by JT Goodman.
The main reason people seem so concerned with 2012 is because they might actually live to see it.

So what exactly does happen on Dec 24th 2012

The Mayan were great astronomers.

Able to measure extremely large points in time.

with the view that life happens in cycles, this measuring of time, gives one a since of purpose.

we can go out into the night sky and with our naked eye view the center of our milky way galaxy. The Mayans referred to this as the "dark rift" and or a tree, or road. a place where "stars are born"

we live in a spiral galaxy, the milky way. we're out on one of the spinning arms of this galaxy of ours. our whole solar system is moving, in an up and down wave pattern on the arm, branch of our galaxy.

when our branch of the galaxy is above the galactic equator, since the arm moves up and down. it takes 24,000 year for our arm/branch of the galaxy to flatten out, to be centered on the galactic equator, which we've been in for a while now. It takes 36 years for our Sun to pass through the galactic equator. another 24,000 years for our branch and solar system to reach bottom, and another 24,000 to be back at center again. which our solar system being billions of years old, has done countless of times.

bottom line. Being able to measure 24,000 year long periods, is quite a remarkable feat, indeed. But is completely insignificant from any other view point in the galaxy. ie. nothing happens at all. On Dec 24th 2012 we have our regular solstice, where te Sun from our perspective on Earth, because our our rotation on our axis, the Sun appears to stop, and then go the other way. where it "dies for 3 days and than is born again"
So we have a normal solstice that we do every year, and 2012 is approximately half of 36 years, but not in actuality. meaning its; not really even the day that we're actually in perfect galactic center.

I hope this clears up te Meme.

any questions, feel free to ask.

lots of typos, should have proof read first, sorry about that

this is gonna be off track but why do you keep leaving and comming back to bloop - it just sounds like u do... i dk the whole story if you do or do not.

wrong thread

That was fully explained on one of the tommy's back, or gone threads

sum up: I left for a year, I was very busy, and did not have time for bloop
plus bloop had recently crashed and was going threw any changes.
perfect timing for me to take a break from bloop. for one year. like i said.
I came back, was eminently attacked, or a superficial personal level.
I thought, even though some asked me to come back, that I Really don't have time for this type of nonsense. so i left. but then had a change of heart. ie its not fair to those that do want me to keep my previous promise. its not fair for them, for me to get tired of such nonsense bickering over nothing at all and leave. when i made a promise to others. I will keep my promise.
but if bloop's population doesn't double in one years time. I'll leave, and the next time it will be only for that reason, and i wont be returning. I just see no point in investing my time in a website that is going no where.
if even half of the 500 bloop members were nice, and intelligent. I could live with that. but i just don't have time for such petty kids shit coming from the likes of that gay dude, & skull, estella, and a few others that jump in on trendy whore ass bitch shit bandwagons of insults, that at times can be fun, when the topic isn't completely lost sight of. It's that school yard bully crowd of kids crap i rally don't have time for. and they're not even good or clever in the shit talking, it's so stupid and pathetic.

ohhh okay - i just had to ask... i wonder how many are on this diary site, i am glad steve made this diary. but it sure isnt the same anymore, i signed up in 2004 but i lost it cuz at the time you had 30 days or your diary gets removed...

now i am kinda curious how many bloopers are here

thanks for explaining :-)

2004 is when i came to bloop to, bec inthewire crashed

you to?

i have expereinced the umm both crashes, this diary i have went through the recent crash, i had another diary for stupid reason i removed it then i left bloop for like 6 months and i missed it lol then i had FO cuz of the whole dear annoymous then i decided to go public, i had my up and downs too lol but i love my faves too much to leave agian! so total of leaving bloop since 2004 this would be my third... because like i said the 1st one i lost cuz i didnt have much computer access

Without even reading all the responses to this ...

...a guy in my class said he went on vacation - and all the 'Mayans' (using quotes, to support your comment about them not ever really having been called Mayans at all) HATE being asked if the world is going to end in 2012. And that they'll tell you the Mayan calendar ends that day because: *Surprise!* It just DOES. They weren't predicting the end of the world. They just stopped making it. lol

december 24 my babies hang up there stockings. an they get real choclate not galaxy shit.

life goes on. people thought Y2K was going to end the world too. There are many people who think that the Mayans never meant that the world would end only that there will be a new beginning, a new dawn of something. That can happen without a sudden massive end to something.

2012 has become whatever one wants it to be. Much the same has Israel is whatever one wishes it to be.

The maya were smart enough to know that life on earth does have cycles, drastic changes it goes through.

The Maya calender however, rad more like astrology. and of course astrology is allegories in astronomy.

So they were able to measure a large time period of 24,000 years. Being able to mark a stellar even that happens only every 24,000 years in just amazing that they did this without modern technology. Amazing still that with all the tech and the whole wold at our finger tips, many still have no clue what the galactic equator is, and that our sun passes through it every 24 thousand years.

stellar event*

The only thing I see happening is the same thing that happened at the beginning of my Mayan Calendar, the poles MAY shift. I do know, that on 12-12-12 since it will be my birthday, I will have the biggest party in the history of parties, and all of bloop is invited haha. Just in case the world ends, at least we will go out in style ;)

The poles will not shift in 2012

waiting for the last moment to live the way you truly wish to live, means that life sucks,lol

My life doesnt suck. I am not a big party person anyway, but I figure if we are all going to die, you better go out in style. Thats all. If I was worried about the world ending, I wouldnt be having children until after 2012. I would feel guilty about bringing my kids into a world that I knew was ending.

You belief is the poles wont shift, mine are that they may.

It was a joke

meaning that in this life we have to do things we may not like. like work, struggle, put up with irrational people, etc etc life sucks

i would love for everyone to be able to do whatever they want, within reason, but what is reason? an opinion?

i'm lost, what was the topic? lol

party? sure love to. 12 12 12 = your satan (joke) lol how many 6's in that? lol

In the late 80's and I believed the poles would shift on May 5th 2000, the planetary alignment.

By the early 90's I no longer believe that.

I learned that we may have had one around 800 million years ago, because at that time we still had the supercontinent rodinia ie all of the continents were connect as one big one, plate tectonics took care of that problem, hence no more supercontinent rodinia, the contents are spread out more equally, which happens on a spinning object. ie we'll never have another pole shift, ever. It's not a belief, it's a fact

Do you mean a polarity shift? I.E. What we think of as north becoming south and vice versa?

Well, the rock record (especially around deep ocean vents where there are basalt flows) shows that the polarity does shift, and it does so without a predictable pattern, nor is there a correlation between the positions of the continent (or super continents, since there have been three recorded, ya know) and the shifts in polarity. So therefore, while we do not understand why the polarity shifts, we do know that it appears to be unrelated to the formation or location of continents, so therefore we cannot say that there will never be another polarity shift.

Or do you mean a different kind of shift?

the one whereas the north pole builds up so much ice, that it topples our rotation, instantly having a new north and south pole. this hasn't happened in that we know in 200 million years, it's suspected that it may have occurred 800 million years ago

For clarification, do you mean the geographical north pole or the magnetic north pole?

geographical

the magnetic polarities change all the time (just ever so slightly) and doesn't kill people

A person should alive live their life the way they truly wish to live. Life could end for any one of us at any moment. Regardless of a date or whats predicted or thought to be predicted for a date. I could get into a fatal car accident in a few moment on the way to a friends wedding, or die in my sleep tonight. One never knows. My gamma installed in me at an early age that a person should never worry about what if's because the worst what if will be at the end of life if you do and you really dont want to be on your death bed wondering what if I had chosen to live different or do something else. Live life fast, but be true to yourself.
Life is way too short to over analyze every choice and option - as nike says - just do it!

We really do need an edit button for the forums :S

absolutely :)

keeping in mind.....

"Life is what happens while we're busy making plans" -John Lennon

ok.. i was always told and everyone else has said that the "date for the world to end" was december 21st 2012.. and now you're saying its the 24th, christmas eve. so which is it?

I don't know, I forgot,lol

could be the start of the solstice on the 21st, or the end of it on the 24th

let me check real quick

21st

thanks