The End of the World Quiz: Kiss your butts good-bye!

By Tim Cerantola

The end of the world is coming very, very soon. I know this, because it’s almost the year 2012 and besides, it’s written right on the front page of one of those supermarket tabloids. It’s true.  The headline even specified the exact day and time, “The end of the world is coming December 23, 2012 - at midnight.”  I wonder, is that Eastern Standard time? (Check your local listings for your end of the world).

Anyway, it's the end of the world. That’s what it said, right there on the front page - just below the picture of Pedro, the chicken juggling goat boy.

Even some TV evangelists have jumped on the 2012 doom and gloom bandwagon. I suppose they feel disappointed that doomsday 2000 never happened. So this time, they’re hitching their religious death wagons to the Mayan Calendar event instead. They’d hate to miss out on any chance of global destruction. I guess god must be pretty pissed-off.

Mind you, it is a very thoughtful god who gives out exact dates and times. That way, his followers will know when to get ready to bite the big cookie. Really, it’s nice of the “Big Guy in the Sky” to be so precise and punctual about ending the world. But that’s god for you. He’s such a nice, capable and skillful supreme being. (He was very creative as a child you know).

Now as I see it, there are some big advantages to having a specific date or event on which to end the world and the beginning of the winter solstice suits me fine. Think about it, if the end were to come on some random date and time like August 26th, 2023 at 1:42 pm - it would surprise the living crap out of everyone.

Hey, if I were a follower of that particular death cult, I’d be really ticked about the timing. I need a nice round number or a seasonal event that’s easy to remember. Without it, I wouldn’t be prepared. I probably wouldn’t be wearing clean underwear. My mother always warned me I should wear clean underwear just in case of emergency - not that they’d be clean for very long if the world were exploding.

Anyways, I’ve often wondered how mankind’s (and womankind’s) collective end will happen.

Will our sun go nova?

Perhaps we’ll have another devastating global flood?

Or maybe a giant asteroid will crash head on into the earth and smash our world into a billion, trillion bits to float freely in the frigid airless vacuum of space? Ouch… that sounds pretty grim.

Now my personal favourite end of the world scenario has always been alien attack and destruction of our planet by space invasion. (I guess all those Star Trek repeats really messed up my brain). The idea of multi-tentacled, one-eyed space aliens zapping humanity into mammal dust has always appealed to my pessimistic side.

If you’ve ever read what the most famous psychics have to say about the end of the world, you’ll find that many of them have also picked the year 2012 for mankind to collectively take a dirt nap.

The famed psychic, Edgar Cayce, hinted that Armageddon would be upon us early in the twenty first century. Known as “the sleeping prophet” because his prediction methodology involved weird, otherworldly sleepy trances, Edgar Cayce would lie down and get all dozy and bug-eyed before popping off with his brand of doom and gloom.

I’m sure I could do the same.

 1  |  2