Ragnorok, Dr. Who, Christianity, and You

[Dream]

In the YOUTUBE thread, NativeAstral posted [youtube]zi7LdZwXCEU[/youtube]

The end of civilization is something that each empire is aware of and wants to avoid. In Norse myth the Ragnarok is part of an eternal cycle. (You know we discuss this concept of catastrophe a lot on the site.) Recently BBC had an article about the Nazca, a native South-American nation that died because of logging too many trees. The Mayans probably knew about it.

In a book Dragons by Peter J. Hogarth, I read that dragons in various cultures are often related to the end or beginning of the world. (Ever watched Dragonball b-t-w?) In Norse mythology, the world-end event is called Ragnarök. Imagine that the dragon is possibly a scary story sent forward by multiple cultures in order to warn us, (probably where they got the concept of the 'Bad Wolf' for the latest Dr. Who series. I wonder who writes those episodes. Hmm? The dragon type is like the bad wolf graffiti, found throughout time and space in Dr. Who to warn him against the robots). The dragon appears along with terrible destruction. Always in time of transition of the height of civilization a terrible decision must be made by someone. Imagine that the dragon symbol is there for them, to warn them. In Dr. Who, it is the Doctor, a Time Lord that is faced with the decision.

In Christianity the new heaven and earth are intended to last forever, and the dragon is defeated. This is one big difference between the Pagan symbology and Christianity, in that Christianity does not accept Ragnorok as an unavoidable event. The Christian message of unity must have been very attractive to European pagans, a message of peace and hope. In effect, maybe one reason so many Pagans joined was they saw Christianity as an effort to bottle-up Ragnorok (sort of un-do Pandora's mistake). I think that peace and avoiding Ragnorok continues today to be one of the major factors in any religious decision.

First there will come three winters during which the world will be embroiled in war; then the Monstrous Winter equal in length to three normal winters but analleviated by summer. The sun and moon will be swallowed, and the mountains will shudder...A few gods will have survived, or will be raised from the dead, and will return to the heaven of Asgurd. A man and a woman, too, will have escaped oblivion. And so the universe can begin again.

--Dragons by Peter J. Hogarth, recounting the story of Ragnorok.

At this time, many people are concerned about some sort of terrible end of civilization. Our worldwide civilization right now is so big and strong that to a medeival citizen it would have seemed indestructible! Not so, because it seems that Fenrir's hunger grew to match. Apparently we cannot grow so large that we become indestructible.

Ok, I'm done musing. What do you feel is the best way to avoid the end of our civilization? What is your interpretation of the warning posed by the dragons plastered all over the place?

 

[iBrian]

Has anyone else read the Mayan Prophecies book?

I found it to be an absolute load of garbage - it seems the logic goes like this:

1. We found a picture of the Mayans
2. We coloured in some of the picture and assigned numbers to the colours
3. By adding these up, we came up with a figure a bit like the number of days in a year
4. So we decided we'd put the solar cycle in the colours instead, and came up with exact dates for ages.
5. The scientific and historical community hate us because we're sooo right and they're morons

The only value of any kind was when they transcribed a section of local shamanic lore, which was seriously interesting - described how serpents were considered spirits of learning, because they are often decorated with geometric patterns, that when copied, were used as a basis for numbers - or something like that.

 

[Dream]

Mayan prophecies? No but I'd check the bargain bin. My favorite part of the above post is "4. So we decided we'd put the solar cycle in the colours instead, and came up with exact dates for ages." ha ha ha

Someone once told me that Mayan and Egyptian cultures were aware of each other. It seems likely to me. They both built pyramids for one thing, and the Mayan paintings were really weird and had snakes in them just like Egyptian paintings did. They both had a lot of sand and both lived in relatively warm climates and relied heavily upon rivers. They share many other commonalities as well.

 

[bgruagach]

One thing to keep in mind about the 2012 stuff is that the Mayans themselves deny they predicted anything like the end of the world. (Apocalyptic predictions are apparently a modern non-Mayan detail that was appended to rumours about the Mayan calendar.)

There's an article about it at Modern Mayans: 2012 ‘end of the world scenario’ false | Trends Updates

 

[shawn]

End of the world??????????
NOT.
End of an age and the beginning of another....... yes.
There may be some earth changes during this time due to turbulence,gravitational anomalies and electromagnetic phenomena in the galactic region of space that our solar system and hence planet is traveling through, but our journey will continue.
Beware of the political/religious charlatans and schemers who seek to use such times and events to further their evil plans.

 

[Raven]

Or their bank accounts.

 

[Dream]

Or their...Pokemon card collections. Gotta catch'm all they say. Glad you bumped this thread, because I hadn't read Bgruagach's post. So the Myans don't agree with Mel Gibson's movie? Guess there's no point in watching it then.