Looking back...at the Mayan calendar

We are well into the 21st century and the technological era. In the last five decades human knowledge has advanced way beyond the realms of imagination of our ancestors.  Never before has humanity pooled and shared so much knowledge and made it available, freely, to so many.

The true age of enlightenment is nigh!

It is ironic then  that we are still surrounded by so many people who refuse to absorb the available knowledge to make sense of their existence and place in nature.

c, vancouverobserver.com

People who are religious, conservative, stubborn and lazy and believe our ancestors knew something we don't know.

People who look back in time for inspiration and guidance to their future.

People who believe, through blind faith, that ancient scribes (writers) had the inexplicable and exclusive rights to communicate with gods that were mere figments of their own imagination.

And no matter how many times science proves our ancestors wrong and misguided, those people continue to refuse to allow their minds to evolve and  discard all myth and superstition.

Let us look at the Mayan Calendar fiasco:

Some 5200 years ago the Mayan society commissioned a group of scholars to create a calendar that would be used as a tool to date and record their history.

Those early astronomers already had a rudimentary knowledge of the movement of stars - through observation - and in short, knew that every 365 days the celestial pattern in their night sky would repeat itself exactly. Hence, the yearly calendar was created.

Clever for the time?

Most certainly.

Divine and mystical?

Most certainly not.

And so to all those who believed the Mayans were privy to knowledge from the cosmos and the oncoming Apocalypse, I say;

"Get a life", or better still, "get an education."

***

Worse still, and much more dangerous, are those same conservative/religious people who not only believe in our ancestors ability to communicate with gods, but also believe we should live by, and impose on others, the beliefs of those ancient scribes - who were at best mere mortals and at worse self-indulgent drug users ( scribes were the artists of their time and we all know what artists are like).


HISTORY should not be used by backward-looking individuals with no sense or imagination, as a guide to moral standards and wholesome living.

HISTORY is a recording (often incorrect) of the past, not an instruction manual for the future.

HISTORY - important as it is - should only be used to learn from past mistakes in order not to repeat them and to continue work-in-progress research.

HISTORY is yesterday - today's memory. Tomorrow, where we should set our sights, is today's dream.

Sleep well...

:)