When a thread starts with the number "2012" it usually contains two things, a doomsday theory and Mayans. In this thread i will try to only talk about one of them.

All great ancient civilizations have talked about ages, and most of them refer to the age we are currently living in as the third age. So what does that mean? what defines the start and end of an age? For some reason most people assume that an age ends in chaos and destruction, and that the new age starts when the destruction ends. This causes humans to start over as kids every time a new age comes. The ancient Egyptians talked allot about this, as did many other civilizations.

I will not get into the beginning of the age we are living in, but rather the end. 2012, i do believe that 2012 will be the end of the age we are living in, and i do base that date on the Mayans, among others. Some people will argue that the Mayans just put end of the calender at 2012 just because it had to end some time, and that makes sense, right?
If you ask me, it makes very little sense. Our calender ends when the last day of the year has passed, this makes sense, because when the last day has passed,a new "age" or in this case, "year" stars. So why would the Mayans just pick a random date to end their calender. They could at least let the year run out before ending the calender, right? But they did not, and the reason for that is because the "age" did not end at the same time as the end of the "year"

So what is it that defines the end of the age? Since i have mentioned the Mayans in this thread now, i can't say that it will be Alien invasion, meteors or any other form of doomsday theory, so lets take a look at the different ages instead.

There are many different forms of "ages", all of us have lived to see countless ages pass by. The sun rising i the morning is the start of an age, the sun setting at night is the end of an age. This age we call "day". A month is a unit of time corresponding approximately to one cycle of the moon's phases. This is an age.
A year is an age, a decade is an age, the list goes on. And if we look at the different ages we soon notice that every one of them is a way to measure time by "counting" events. The Mayans where good at this, and so when they ended the calender it is a very specific reason, it was NOT because they could see into the future and see what was going to happen, it is no more a prophesy then if i where to tell you when the sun would rise next.

We know that every age starts and ends with a celestial event, so why would the end of the Mayan calender mean anything other then a celestial reoccurring event?
I know some might be thinking it could be "planet X" "Nibiru" or whatever you feel like calling it, but there are enough threads about this so i won't get into it in here.

There is another celestial event that is due though. The alignment of the "mundane" and "divine" cross. It happens every 13 000 years, and the last time it happened was around 11 000 bc. So what is this alignment, and what terrible destructive powers will it have on our planet?

In the sky there is a great cross that it is formed from the centre of the galaxy to the edge of the galaxy, and from the centre point of our celestial equator to the southern point of our celestial equator. That is the divine cross.
Down here on the earth, we have the mundane cross, that is formed by the angles between equinox and solstices and so forth.

These two crosses are due to align. The effects is as far as i know. Nothing at all.

-Wodan

What defines an end of an age is called 'hindsight'.

P.S. The great 'celestial alignment' will look no different than it looked thousands of years ago.

According to LotR, this is the fourth age.

Hey there Thule, does this help?
Lets put this baby to rest hey, once and for all
So much is said by so many people about the Mayans and 2012, the question you asked was about how does an age end, Well here is what some have said about the Mayan calendar and what it actually predicts for 2012. This is why I am not the slightest bit worries about 2012, why I would almost bet my life I will see you all here 2013, providing I don't get struck by lightning or something.

NOTE: The astronomer Philip Plait has stated very clearly that the Mayan calendar does not end in 2012 at all, that it is like the odometer on your car, as each section of the odometer reaches 9 and then clicks over to 0, the next number to it starts a new cycle, so that when all the numbers again reach 0 all the way across the odometer - the last number will change from 1 to 2 and the new cycle starts all over again.


THE MAYAN CALENDAR DOES NOT END IN 2012

KEEP READING!!!

The date December 21st, 2012 A.D. (13.0.0.0.0 in the Long Count), represents an extremely close conjunction of the Winter Solstice Sun with the crossing point of the Galactic Equator (Equator of the Milky Way) and the Ecliptic (path of the Sun), what that ancient Maya recognized as the Sacred Tree. This is an event that has been coming to
resonance very slowly over thousands and thousands of years. It will come to resolution at exactly 11:11 am GMT.

The Tzolkin is a 260-day calendar based around the period of human gestation. It is composed of 20 day-signs, each of which has 13 variations, and was (and still is) used to determine character traits and time harmonics, in a similar way to Western astrology. The Maya also used a 365-day calendar called the Haab, and a Venus calendar, plus others. They measured long time periods by means of a Long Count, in which one 360-day year (a "Tun"), consists of 18 x 20-day "months" ("Uinals"). Twenty of these Tuns is a Katun; 20 Katuns is a Baktun (nearly 400 years); and 13 Baktuns adds up to a "Great Cycle" of 1,872,000 days, ( 5200 Tuns, or about 5125 years).

Mayan scholars have been attempting to correlate the Long Count with our Western Gregorian calendar, since the beginning of this century. There has been massive variation in the suggested correlations, but as early as 1905, Goodman suggested a correlation only 3 days from the most popular one today. Known as the GMT correlation, or "correlation # 584283", this was finalized in 1950, and puts the start of the Great Cycle ( day 0.0.0.0.0) on 11th August 3114 BC, and the end-date (known as 13.0.0.0.0.) as 21st December 2012.

Jose Arguelles has pointed out that the Tzolkin is a harmonic of the Great Cycle, and can be used to map history, as if it is measuring not individual gestation but species gestation, since 5 Great Cycles add to exactly 26,000 Tuns; the "Grand Year" or precession of the equinoxes - a higher harmonic of 260.

NOTE: The astronomer Philip Plait has stated very clearly that the Mayan calendar does not end in 2012 at all, that it is like the odometer on your car, as each section of the odometer reaches 9 and then clicks over to 0, the next number to it starts a new cycle, so that when all the numbers again reach 0 all the way across the odometer - the last number will change from 1 to 2 and the new cycle starts all over again.

http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm

There have been doomsday prophesies since their have been people. Remember the Jupiter Effect? The list of failed doomsday prophesies is a long one.

If there is a doomsday, it will come as something nobody expected or predicted. Everybody has one of their own. Personally, I don't know anybody over a hundred.

The actual age precessional that the sun rises in the fishes,she has arrived at the end.
Soon our star will begin another cycle and therefore to another age to another humanity.
nothing won't perhaps happen
great changes will perhaps happen
we can wait only

check doomsday 2012 -the end of days on you tube.it seems that it wasn't just the mayans that were prophecising some future event.but like a lot of these doomsday prophets,they are always very vague and open to interpretation.there will always be wars,diseases,natural disasters and the like.

Its not the future that amazes me. Its the prescion of a people, some 3,000 years ago, with no telescopes, to predict a GLACTICAL allignment. The solar/luner eclipes is impressive but still deep inside the relm of possibilty. 400 years ago people thought that every thing revolved around us, andthey thought the world was flat. we had telescopes and dident make the gelactic equator discovery until about 70 years ago. but for them to be that accurate, i think the mistery is in mayan people. Thats whats amazing.