[Martyn*]

http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-mayan-...191950240.html

"'What you have here is astronomy driven by religion," he said.

[najinaji]

The researchers said they think it might have been used to keep track of which deity was overseeing the moon at particular times.

Quite sweet, though it's still puzzling to think that people actually used to (and many still do) believe this sort of thing. Overall, very interesting.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by najinaji)
Quite sweet, though it's still puzzling to think that people actually used to (and many still do) believe this sort of thing. Overall, very interesting.

What do you mean?

[najinaji]

(Original post by Martyn*)
What do you mean?

When I see all these tales about gods (ancient and 'modern') and their various roles, the rituals devoted to them and so on, I'm pretty baffled by it all. Using an example, it's pretty obvious that Thor does not, and never did exist. Yet people believed he did.

[CJM13]

http://img.anongallery.org/img/3/0/j...ice-giants.jpg

[Vixen47]

"...Mayan calendar, which has gotten some attention recently because of doomsday warnings that it predicts the end of the world this December."
They obviously haven't done their research.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by Vixen47)
"...Mayan calendar, which has gotten some attention recently because of doomsday warnings that it predicts the end of the world this December."
They obviously haven't done their research.

They are saying that the Mayan calendar has got attention because of the doomsday warnings, not because they themselves believe that it predicts the end of the world.

[Octohedral]

(Original post by najinaji)
When I see all these tales about gods (ancient and 'modern') and their various roles, the rituals devoted to them and so on, I'm pretty baffled by it all. Using an example, it's pretty obvious that Thor does not, and never did exist. Yet people believed he did.

It seems obvious to us, but remember that the majority of the ancient world had little or no education (and the ones that did tended to lose their superstition quite quickly). Also;

1. Communication was limited. In a city you could probably send a rider with a message to another city and it would take a few days, but many villagers wouldn't travel far outside their village.
2. The natural elements meant life or death. A bad frost or plague could wipe out a town.
3. Gods made more sense than any other available explanation - would you believe in atoms if we didn't have authoritative textbooks and a hundred year history?
4. Humans are genetically programmed to anthropomorphise inanimate objects.

Obviously this is a generalisation of the BC world, but superstition makes perfect sense societally, it's just not true.

[Vixen47]

(Original post by Martyn*)
They are saying that the Mayan calendar has got attention because of the doomsday warnings, not because they themselves believe that it predicts the end of the world.

The Mayans didn't say anything about doomsday occurring this December.

[Martyn*]

(Original post by Vixen47)
The Mayans didn't say anything about doomsday occurring this December.

The article is not implicit in saying that. The article says that the Mayan calendar has received attention on account of the end of the world warnings that it predicts. They are not implicit in agreeing with that assumption I don't think.

[Snagprophet]

I like how the Mayans had leap years to make the calender accurate.

[Fenrirs_space]

I just want to see how the 'doomsday theorists' try to spin this one