Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck7
Lemailtre,
My question is... why does a large majority of unbelievers pay attention to an ancient calandar but not the Word of God..which prophesied the same things except a date.?
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As I mentioned above the Mayan calendar was extremely accurate. From 700 BC, when they adopted a solar calender to 46 BC the Romans used a calender with one year equal to 365 days. However, as best as modern astronomers can determine a year is actually 365.24218967 days so by 46 BC the Roman calender was way out of sync with the seasons and Ceaser decreed a new calender that had a leap year every 4'th year bringing the length of a year by the Julian calender to 356.25 days. However, while an improvement, the Julian calender still resulted in an error of one day every 128 years. By the 16'th century it was off by 8 days and the Catholic Church under Pope Gregory XIII , needing a precise date for the celebration of Easter, created a new calender that essentially removed 3 leap days every 400 years resulting in a calender with one year equal to 365.2425 days. This would mean it would take 3300 years before it was off by a day. At first only a few Catholic countries in Europe adopted it but by the 18'th century, in Protestant countries, by sticking with the Julian calender they were out of sync with the seasons by an intolerable 11 days and the reluctantly adopted the Gregorian calender which we still use today.
The Mayan calender was extremely complicated and was based on a system of cycles of years. The Mayan calender produced a derived length for one year of 365.242036 days, slightly better than the Gregorian calender. The precision of their calender and skill in astronomical observations allowed them to predict the Earth-Sun-Galactic Center alignment on the Winter Solstice in 2012 a thousand years ago. This no doubt enhances the credibility of the Mayans in the eyes of many people who make the mistake of thinking that just because they could predict when a particular astronomical event will occur, they could also predict what if any implications this would have for the Earth. This date just represents the end of a long cycle in the Mayan system and I do not believe the Mayans actually ever said precisely what would happen. You can rest assured though that it will be just like any other day since the relative positions of the Earth, Sun and Galactic Center will not affect the Earth in any way.
Another reason that this date gets more attention than the predictions of some Christians is because it gives an actual date. A prediction with an exact date of when something is going to take place is always much more compelling than some vague prediction that something will happen at some unknown time in the future.
A Christian View Point of 12-21-2012
