End times postponed

5/18/2012

According to the ancient Mayan calendar, as interpreted by New Age thinkers, the world is supposed to end this Dec. 21 (Dec. 23 by another reckoning). Retailers have expressed fears that distressed shoppers would not buy for the holidays until after the date they thought they would drop into eternity.

Rest easy. The end of the world is off until further notice. That's merry news for the Christmas shopping season, that great driver of the U.S. economy.

The Washington Post reports that archaeologists in Guatemala have discovered a building whose walls display "calendars that destroy any notion of the Mayans predicting the end of the world in 2012." Why are humans dupes for such fears?

We may see a cataclysm one day, but it's beyond the power of Mayans or Nostradamus or tea leaves to predict. As the man for whom Christmas is named said: "Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone."