ON DOOMSDAY

I recently finished reading a book entitled Apocalypse 2012 and it has me mildly terrified of the future. Essentially, the world is going to go through a profound change on December 21, 2012. There are many ways this could occur.

The "supervolcano" under Yellowstone might explode, spewing radioactive lava all over the place, annihilating most of the western United States and causing a nuclear winter situation for the rest of the world. Solar flares may cause a huge disruption in the earth's magnetic field - not to mention somehow being linked to hurricanes and earthquakes.

But all of that is like three and a half years away. Plenty of time for me to stock up on canned food and clean water. No problem. Until I read the part about many of the Western religions hinting at an end around the same time. Hmmm...that's odd, I follow a Western religion...which prophesies a Rapture in which believers ascend to heaven, then three and a half years of relative stability before three and a half years of things like supervolcanoes exploding. Let's do a little rudimentary calendar check here...it would appear that three and a half years before December 21, 2012 is.....June 21, 2009. You know, a week from Sunday.

Okay, okay, the writers of the Bible certainly didn't have access to the calendar system we now use and take for granted. Surely there's another interpretation...let's see...the book of Revelations says it will be a period of 1260 days, 42 lunar months of relative stability before the bad stuff hits. And a little more rudimentary calendar checking...1260 days before December 21, 2012 is July 10, 2009.

Also known as my birthday.

Am I a theologian or mathematician? No. I've always been interested in eschatology - the study of end times - so this all strikes a chord with me. Do I really believe that a few minutes of counting days led me, of all people, to successfully predict what people have been trying to predict for millennia? Absolutely not. Furthermore, I know that you can use math to prove almost anything if you can manipulate the numbers correctly. And my final disclaimer - I'm also a person who believes that Easy Mac and Tuna is high cuisine.

Still, reading this last night before bed really threw me for a loop. I am a believer, and as such, would likely be raptured - but still, I'd miss the last season of "Lost!"