# The end of the world is 5/21/2011! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 11, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819 "2010-10-11T20:15:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/41 "2010-10-15T16:57:09Z")
> [@Philster](#): > > > [@Scuba\_Ben](#): > > > > Aw bugger. One of the two probable dates for my wedding is in June 2011, and having the Apocalypse happen first would be oh so embarrassing. For starters, the mothers involved have agreed on long dresses, which would be thoroughly uncomfortable after the EOTW event. > > Either way, your world is over. You haven’t met my lady, have you? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/42 "2010-10-16T12:26:47Z")
> [@Scuba\_Ben](#): > > > [@monavis](#): > > > > I would like to know whose May date it is, since there are many time zones, someone’s world will end before ours! I guess it will give the people in Hawaii a few hours longer than in Europe? > > Jerusalem time, of course. UTC +2 if I remember correctly. That would mean the other time zones would have a longer time to repent and convert! The date wouldn’t be the same for them. Just as Dec.21st 2012 will be different in different time zones..New Yorkers will have less time than the people in California. Not fair!!! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Aeschbocker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4af34b/32.png) [@Larry\_Aeschbocker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Aeschbocker)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/43 "2010-12-10T19:35:19Z")
Harold Camping claims that May 21, 2011 will be the end of the world as we know it. One of his proofs is the 1 day = 1000 yrs explaination, which is applied to the great flood of Noahs day. According to Mr Camping, God told Noah that in 7 days God would destroy the earth. 7 days later the flood came, so the corellation would be that 7000 yrs from the date of the start of the flood, the end of the world as we know it, will come to pass, which is projected as May 21, 2011. The error here, is that God told Noah 7 days prior to the flood, hence in essence God is saying that the world will end 7000 yrs from “that” particular date that He first said it to Noah , which projected forward is on May 14, 2011. One side note: If the world were to end on any particular day, you have to understand that there is only one split second of time that it is the same date in the entire world, (somewhere in the vicinity of the international date line). So the chances are that if the world suddenly comes to an end , it will most likely be on two different dates, depending on where you’re at. ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/44 "2010-12-10T19:45:47Z")
**Larry** , this is the first I’ve ever heard of the 1 day = 1000 years as we know “day” and “years” applied to the Noah flood. What are the reasonings leading to that application? Also, I am at a loss to understand how a specific date in the Gregorian calendar can be derived from a story over 3000 years old when nobody was using a pure solar calendar. Also also, I would appreciate help understanding how the flood of Noah can be The Determinant Of the End Times ™ and not the flood of Gilgamesh. There are parallels between the stories suggesting that the Noah story is a rework of the Gilgamesh story, so it’s the older Sumerian incident that determines the end times. How much advance notice did the Gilgamesh version give the hero? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Aeschbocker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4af34b/32.png) [@Larry\_Aeschbocker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Aeschbocker)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/45 "2010-12-11T00:54:22Z")
> [@Scuba\_Ben](#): > > **Larry** , this is the first I’ve ever heard of the 1 day = 1000 years as we know “day” and “years” applied to the Noah flood. What are the reasonings leading to that application? > > Also, I am at a loss to understand how a specific date in the Gregorian calendar can be derived from a story over 3000 years old when nobody was using a pure solar calendar. > > Also also, I would appreciate help understanding how the flood of Noah can be The Determinant Of the End Times ™ and not the flood of Gilgamesh. There are parallels between the stories suggesting that the Noah story is a rework of the Gilgamesh story, so it’s the older Sumerian incident that determines the end times. How much advance notice did the Gilgamesh version give the hero? The 1 day / 1000 yrs is drawn from 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 8. Specifically as to how Mr. Camping arrived at finding the dates he has said he has figured out, you will have to read all of his literature. Sorry that is all the help I can give you as to your queries. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/46 "2010-12-11T06:29:14Z")
The End of the World will come as a complete surprise, because God is just not that into numerology. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/47 "2010-12-11T11:13:43Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Good point - can we push this to the following Monday? Sometime after 10:00 - I’ve got meetings until then. > > Regards, > Shodan Dude, what are you _thinking??_ If the world’s gonna end, I want it to end in time so that I don’t have to _go_ to my damned meetings. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/48 "2010-12-11T12:13:59Z")
I actually recently found that old book I mentioned. It also talks about the 1000 years equaling one day. That’s why God rests for 1000 years. Though I did get the date wrong: he believed the Messiah would come in 1980, and that the “end of the world” was not literal–just the end of the old ways. The reason God would rest for 1000 years is that the Messiah had finally come. The book is strange–it has two quotes from the New Testament (at least one of which looks like it was added after the fact), and a mention of some Rabbonic code that says that the Hebrew for “Messiah Jesus” encodes the date of the founding of modern Israel. Yet, at the end, he refers to the Messiah as a newcomer, and otherwise identifies as a Jew. If any of this interests you enough to check it out, the author is F. Jacob Yacovsky, and is entitled _The Missing 200 Years: God’s Timetable_. It’s available on Amazon in used form only, for around $5. I’d welcome someone else interpreting it, or any information on the author, or the publisher, Sar Sholem of Jerusalem, which is oddly located in Florida. ---
**Author:** ![Leon497](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Leon497](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leon497)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/49 "2010-12-11T17:15:04Z")
I have always had a big problem with stupid ideas that the list of who beget who was a list of people, it is a list of family names which would be tribe names with each lasting maybe many hundred years. Like saying the Tudors beget so and so in England, or even saying the English beget the Americans or that ancient Persians beget Iranians. Further, the time would just go back to the first people with souls, not the Creation at all. Just as we have soul-less beings on the earth right now they may have had life forms much like ours that did not have a soul till that first one, it developed the highest brain and God gave it a soul at that point. It could have just as easily been a dolphin had their brain developed enough first. That explains why we see some evolution but it can’t explain all we are, or why no other animals speak and write, because a step is left out. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/50 "2010-12-11T18:10:57Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It’s the end of the world as we know it, it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine… > > (Hey, someone had to do it) Thats the day I re-buy that song from Itunes for just 99 cents. I mean, why not? > [@RedWood](#): > > Does it matter? if it’s going to end, why not snooze through it? 😛 …five more minutes, Ma… oh… ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Onimous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@Ann\_Onimous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Onimous)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/51 "2010-12-11T18:43:17Z")
Matthew 25:13 (King James Version) 13Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. Somebody said it, so the 21st is safe. The 22nd, however… (No, wait. I just knocked the 22nd out, too.) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/52 "2010-12-12T15:38:28Z")
It’s time once again to pimp one of my favorite books [Questioning the Millennium](http://www.amazon.com/Questioning-Millennium-Rationalists-Precisely-Arbitrary/dp/0609605410/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292168005&sr=1-1) by Stephen Jay Gould. It’s all there, except for the 5/21/11 or 2012 silliness. Same Silliness, Different Day. ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/53 "2010-12-12T16:08:56Z")
> [@Larry\_Aeschbocker](#): > > The 1 day / 1000 yrs is drawn from 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 8. Specifically as to how Mr. Camping arrived at finding the dates he has said he has figured out, you will have to read all of his literature. Sorry that is all the help I can give you as to your queries. So you’re saying that a 2nd or 3rd century CE work determines the dating system used in literature some 15 or 20 centuries before. Riiiiiiight. Since we’re in MPSIMS not GD, my reply to Mr Camping’s position (and any position based on it) is: :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/54 "2010-12-12T19:22:34Z")
> [@Leon497](#): > > I have always had a big problem with stupid ideas that the list of who beget who was a list of people, it is a list of family names which would be tribe names with each lasting maybe many hundred years. Like saying the Tudors beget so and so in England, or even saying the English beget the Americans or that ancient Persians beget Iranians. Further, the time would just go back to the first people with souls, not the Creation at all. Just as we have soul-less beings on the earth right now they may have had life forms much like ours that did not have a soul till that first one, it developed the highest brain and God gave it a soul at that point. It could have just as easily been a dolphin had their brain developed enough first. That explains why we see some evolution but it can’t explain all we are, or why no other animals speak and write, because a step is left out. Your logical reasoning skills astound me! Explain again how sheep’s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/55 "2010-12-12T20:14:51Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Your logical reasoning skills astound me! Explain again how sheep’s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes. Its an old Irish tradition. If the bladder is full and you abscond with it, then you’re ‘taking the piss’. Much the same logic is employed here; that a poster may be unaware of it merely adds to its entertainment value. 😉 “End of the world? I truly hope that there will be luncheon provided, for I must be fed _stomach pat_ or I stay home…” ---
**Author:** ![PamR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4491bb/32.png) [@PamR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PamR)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/56 "2011-01-03T19:47:12Z")
If a person wants something to be true, it’s very easy to create some kind of code or numbers sequence to make it so. People are more likely to believe in “numbers” theories. If I believed in any doomsday theories at all, I would more likely accept the possibility that the world will end “as we know it” December 2012. As I recall, the Mayan calendar predicts this time for the end, based on very probable events that the Mayans experienced. At December 21, 11.12 GMT during the December solstice the Sun is at the exact center of the Galaxy. According to the Mayas the center of the Galaxy is the cosmic womb: the place of dead, transformation, regeneration and rebirth. This moment shows the end of their calendar. (The end of a cycle is not the same as the end of time). Interesting to note, that some have changed the last date of the Mayan Calendar to 28th October 2011 - claims that original calculations were incorrect. Hmmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/57 "2011-01-03T20:00:13Z")
> [@PamR](#): > > As I recall, the Mayan calendar predicts this time for the end, based on very probable events that the Mayans experienced. _No, it doesn’t._ > [@](#): > > At December 21, 11.12 GMT during the December solstice the Sun is at the exact center of the Galaxy. This is nonsense. [Here is a map of the galaxy. As you can see, our sun is nowhere near the middle.](http://cass.ucsd.edu/public/tutorial/images/mw.jpg) You might say it’s a small unregarded yellow sun far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/58 "2011-01-03T20:07:22Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > _No, it doesn’t._ > This is nonsense. [Here is a map of the galaxy. As you can see, our sun is nowhere near the middle.](http://cass.ucsd.edu/public/tutorial/images/mw.jpg) You might say it’s a small unregarded yellow sun far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy. And it’s mostly harmless. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/59 "2011-01-03T20:21:38Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Dude, what are you _thinking??_ > > If the world’s gonna end, I want it to end in time so that I don’t have to _go_ to my damned meetings. Sorry, but most of the previous week is already scheduled with meetings on the post-End of the World Business Continuity Plan. We’d appreciate your attendance, but if nothing else, at least try to sit in on the program rollout webcast on Friday at 2PM. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819/60 "2011-01-03T20:40:10Z")
> [@PamR](#): > > If I believed in any doomsday theories at all, I would more likely accept the possibility that the world will end “as we know it” December 2012. As I recall, the Mayan calendar predicts this time for the end, based on very probable events that the Mayans experienced. At December 21, 11.12 GMT during the December solstice the Sun is at the exact center of the Galaxy. Since modern theory seems to presume that a supermassive black hole is at the center of the galaxy, that might indeed be a problem. Well, except that we’re apparently nowhere near within rock-throwing distance of the center of the galaxy, of course. Aside from that trival detail, I’m right with ya. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-world-is-5-21-2011/556819.md?page=4)