EDITORIAL - Doomsday

Pope Benedict XVI has called on all Christians to ignore doomsday warnings that the world will end on December 21, 2012, as predicted by the ancient Mayan calendar. The admonition is not only correct, it should be extended to all people regardless of religion.

The world will not end on December 21, 2012 just because the Mayans predicted it. If the world does end, it will end, on the day that it will. And only God knows when. The problem is, He is not telling.

And that is why it is always good to be prepared, as God wants us to be prepared, not in the manner in which some people in America are preparing, as documented in the television series on the National Geographic Channel.

If the world is going to end, as it eventually must, no amount of preparation will be sufficient to skirt around that inevitability. Any effort in that direction will be futile. The only preparation worth taking is spiritual.

But spiritual preparation is not something that has to be undertaken only when the end is near. It is an everyday thing, precisely because no one except God knows when the exact day will come.

As to all other predictions, they should be disregarded, including the one about the Mayan calendar. Look, if the Mayans were so hot about predictions, how come they are no longer around to enjoy the fruits of their foretelling prowess.

On the other hand, if the world’s peoples are so concerned about the end of the world, then they better do something real fast about the inexorable demise of the earth in the hands of mankind.

If the end of the world is so scary in the context of predictions such as what the Mayans have reportedly foretold, why is the world not scared enough about the certainty of its demise in the hands of its own inhabitants.

People are killing the earth. That is for sure. But it is a contextual demise that can be reversed, at least for a time, if earth’s inhabitants take care of the earth. The earthly demise in this context is far more scary than anything else and should scare us all to our senses.