We got word today that a bunch of new agers are climbing a mountain in France. They’re doing this to communicate with aliens who will save them from extinction when the world ends on December 21, 2012. It turns out they’re not all that unique as we are obsessed with the end of the world.
An awesome infographic from My Free Email Search details all the failed attempts at predicting the end of the world. If you thought end of the world predictions were something new, think again. The first recorded end of the world prediction is from the Assyrians in 2800 B.C. The cause of the end for them: bribery and corruption. If that was the case, every nation on earth would have been destroyed over and over again for the past 2,000 years.
Not surprisingly, a lot of predictions from Christian believers in the early days after Jesus had died. Various popes predicted the end of the world for various reasons including math and the rise of Islam. Other Christians believed the end would come in 1033, a thousand years after the death of Jesus.
Predictions started getting more common in the 20th century with noted evangelists Harold Camping and Pat Robertson both predicting the end of the world. After Robertson wrongly predicted the end twice, he got out of that race. As we all know though, Camping kept going and predicted the end of the world six times with last year’s predictions causing the biggest ruckus.
We’re not done with predictions yet though. We still have the Mayan calendar set for later this year and a few others in the far off future. Of course, the future predictions are a bit more based in science, but still way off. One prediction has the earth succumbing to overpopulation while another blames it on an asteroid.
Thankfully, there are only two predictions that are spot on and we won’t be around to witness it anyway. The two end of the world predictions see our sun burning out in a billion years or the universe just stops working. Check out the full infographic for the rundown.
