Well.   That was a hoot.  And a long read.

In answer to your questions Vastet- on why this post is still alive and kicking after 2 years? And why so many "special" people are attracted to it?  Try googling "shifting poles".

I was trying to find the name of a book I read 20 years ago on this topic (not 2012 related).  The book was fairly detailed regarding precession and the earths tilted axis.  The authors' (I think there were 2) theory was that a large planetary mass interrupted earth's orbit every 30-some thousand years (I think - as I said, I read the book when I was a kid).  

Didn't find the book.  Found this Forum.

Leah:  energy=conciousness?  How is this a fact? 

Everyone else (especially Bob with the great pipes who seems to have some background in gravitational pull):

What would happen if a planet  the size of Mars had an orbit that brought it close to the Earth once every 30-some thousand years?  Is it possible for planetary bodies with fixed orbits to cross solar systems?

That's pretty sweet. I'm going to archive the link in my email for when I can use it.
Do you happen to know a good program for observing interactions between fictional solar elements? ie: creating a solar system that is stable.

"In answer to your questions Vastet- on why this post is still alive and kicking after 2 years? And why so many "special" people are attracted to it?  Try googling "shifting poles"."

Well that helps explain the interest, but not the focus. I've noticed a rather large number of one-time visitors coming here to this thread. I wonder who is sending them.

I have been researching the Mayan Calender since the early 90's when I first heard about it from the TV show Xfiles.  I grew up in a time where the world was going to be blown up from Nuclear War at anytime and Nostradamus had predicted that the world would be destroyed at the arrival of Halley's comet.  But those predictions never came true and yet Nostradamus's predictions keep changing to meet the times, or for whom ever is interpreting them this week.  Because I was let down soooooo many times by predictions from media sources I have become a skeptic of everything and choose my sources of information very carefully. 

Now that more and more people are paying attention to the end of the Mayan calender thanks to Hollywood and scare tactics we are seeing a surge of people making their own interpretation of what is going to happen, but you also have a surge in people actually doing research into this matter.  Some things cannot be denied that are going to happen on Dec 21, 2012 and now that we are starting to recognize that these events are unravelling before us it is creating a large amount of new questions.

A celestial event is going to happen for sure.  The earth is going to align with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy along with our sun and the sun will be at solar max.  This we know, but how did the Anceint Mayan people know this over 5,000 years ago without computers or even telescopes?

So we know some event is going to happen but how did so many anceint cultures know it as well?  These ancient cultures had no means of communicating with each other that we know of.  The Mayans and the Egyptians built their pyramids to alignment with the same star systems on the exact same day, How did they communicate with each other, how did they do it without Telescopes or computers? We may never know that answer but they left time enduring structures that have lasted to that special day maybe as a warning.  But what about the religions of the world, they wrote books to keep their records, some of which were destroyed and some of which have been re-written.  Many books of the Bible are not included in the new or old testiment, they have been excluded based on their relevance.

Here are some curious points of observation; I would love to be able to verify most of these for myself but I can't.

The I Ching turns out to actually be a mathmatical Algorithm that runs out on the particular day.  "Book of Changes"

The Mayan Calender ends and there is a five day period before either the next ones starts or they believed it was the end.  Curiously enough if you had a large global event take place suddenly like a 10 degree shift it would take the world around five days to change it's shape to accomadate the new rotation. Seas would have to move, mountains would rise and fall through plate techtonics, massive volcanic erruptions, massive world wide earth quakes.

The Jewish Kaballa said that the planet jupiter would be struck 21 times and it would signal the arrival of the Messiah, that book is around 2000 years old.  Not being a religious person I can say this means nothing to me but in 1994 Jupiter was hit 21 times by Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet.  I do find it interesting that in 1994 this happened and 7 years later we went to war in Iraq and counquered it.  Is that the 7 years of Tribulation referred to in the bible, I know we have had the emergence of disease, natural disasters, and war over that period of time? Then if we went to war in 2001 that would fulfill another prophecy of an 11year long world war that ends in 2012.  I have been told that the Jewish people believe that their Messiah is alive now, that would mean for Christian's the second coming of Christ.  I have heard many people say that Obama is the Anti-Christ and I have heard referred to as a savior or prophet.  But I do find it interesting that you have a Bastard son raised by Muslim men now in charge of the most powerful country in the world with even where he was born being disputed.  No qualifications to be president and won an election with a silver tongue and the promise of peace, and while he goes around the planet talking about peace he is doing nothing but escalating a war in the middle east.  Just so happens that this is where Judism, Christianity, and the Muslim religions believe that the final battle will be fought.  Also you have Iran developing long range missle systems and Nuclear weapons and yet no country can or will stop them even though they have threatened to completely destroy Israel.

If you read any of Edgar Cayce predictions he tells of earth changes and that the western united states would be broken up into s series of Islands and that Nebraska would be ocean front property by his reincarnation in 2100.  He said that this would be caused from the earth shifting like it has in the past.  To most people this sounds like just another wild Nostradomus Prophecy but you cannot deny his accuracy of some of his other predictions. He said that the nile didn't used to run North and South like it does now but instead ran across the Sahara desert.  This wasn't proven or even known until the 80's when it was detected by Satellite photos. There are several other times he was correct but even himself cautioned to be skeptical because the free will of men can change the course of history.

I read another theory that we are all following a script that has been preplanned and we are doing our best to bring our own existence to an end by following it.  Once again I think this is far fetched but I cannot say anything about this and nobody else can either.  Another theorist points out the until about 5400 years ago mankind really did not exist the way we do now.  They believed that Atlantis and it's civilization was destroyed at the end of the Last Mayan Calender and the Survivors became who we are now and we are just now re-learning all of their technology that was lost.  Just in time to have our civilization destroyed and the few that survive will create the new generation of mankind. It was the technologically sophisticated survivors of Atlantis that built the pyramids as a warning for generations to come.  But these are all theories and nobody truly knows, they are just theories.

Being a man of science and medicine I find myself a skeptic of pretty much everything that our science cannot prove with hard evidence and even that evidence is constantly being updated, changed, or manipulated.   I caution people to keep an open mind and try to gather all of your information for yourself and DO NOT TRUST media or Government sources for anything. 

My opinion on the topic comes from years of research and watching new events unfold that are supported by different cultures.  I am slowly watching every culture on the planet come together for one specific date whether it's religion or science, things seem to keep unfolding that fit all of the prophecies and our science is just now realizing that something big is about to happen, but until that day comes we can only speculate what that is.  I think everything is starting to come together and we are going to see this planet get thrashed in one way or another, whether it's act of God, Man, or Nature it does not matter.  Our technological advancements have allowed us to rape this planet and since the industrial revolution we have severely over populated the earth to the point that it is not sustainable for life.

Now for another theory/scenario;

One world currency. China stops lending the US money leading to our Financial downfall.  Iran attacks Isreal.  Isreal and US attack Iran. China and Russia back Iran for oil rights.  Armies converge across the Middle East with small scale use of Nuclear Weapons.  Somebody tries to assassinate our president.  War escelates further. Two leaders emerge, one world leader and one believed Messiah while both claim to be Messiah. Planet becomes devided on faith and the largest War in History of mankind breaks out.  Large scale Nuclear War or Global Catastrophy wipes out the planet in the blink of an eye which just happens to be December 21, 2012 as the Mayan Calender runs out or" Judgement day".

If you actually sit down and think about that scenario you can see how something like that could unfold into reality and in the near future.  An event like that would fulfill all prophecies and religions perfectly and there are several doomsday movies that follow a story line just like it.  So I will say it again, gather your own data and you decide where we are and what is going to happen and just remember you can't do anything to change it or stop it no matter what it is.  

For the time being why dont you stop worrying about something you cant control and enjoy your life to it's best.

I wish I could elaborate but that would defeat the purpose.  The idea is to get people to do their own research and quit watching Hollywood or listening to others.  I could stand before you and present the most incredible evidence on the planet and you would either believe it or not, and in fifty years that information could most likely change.  Even if the whole world believed the world was flat somebody out there will challenge it.  People are going to believe what ever they want to believe and thier is no influencing that. 

You ask somebody how they can believe in God even though they have never met them and most of the time you get the answer " I have faith!". But do they ever consider that an Athiest also has faith that there is no God and it's all a lie you have been raised up to believe. 

Physical Life and Physical death are the only true things in life I cannot argue with, of course unless we are all just in a dream which is also another theory.

Find the answers for yourself my friend.  10,000 opinions on a forum will tell you nothing but confuse the hell out of you while you try. 

Even though NASA is being attacked for changing their Global warming data you might want to read about the solar cycles and where we are in our solar system and how that is changing.  Look into just how calm the sun is right now and what happens when that changes and why.

There are no particular effects that occur due to precise alignments of celestial bodies.

For a celestial body to have as a big a gravitational tidal effect on the Earth as the Moon, and it was about the same density as the Moon, it would have to appear bigger than the moon does in the sky. IOW, objects that only appear as stars in the sky cannot have measureable effects on the Earth.

 EDIT: No matter how they 'align', the effects of multiple bodies cannot be greater than the sum of their individual effects. Being aligned just allows their effects to be directly added up. As they go out of alignment, their effects are not as concentrated, but individually remain the same.

An embarrassingly obvious explanation as to why we shouldn't live in fear of an astronomical tragedy in 2012 (or any year really).  If a body the size and distance of the moon has so little an effect - think of the kind of external force it would take to knock us out of orbit - or shift our crust.  

An asteroid maybe - or a meteor may do some major damage, change climate, destroy species.  it's certainly happened before - but there is nothing to indicate that this happens routinely, or within some predictable cycle - if Ancient cultures were so inclined to warn us of any cataclysmic events, than where are the hieroglyphs of rocks falling out of the sky?  Ancient peoples had a religious philosophy closley linked to astrological changes, and why wouldn't they?  Go outside some night , all by yourself, far from the city, and stare up at the sky for awhile.

If you are not humbled, you have no soul.

(Oops, sorry, I forgot this is an atheist site).

 Yes it is.  But to be fair – the bible was written before the Hubble telescope.   God has been bound to the same woefully outdated human conceits we find in the bible.

Carl Sagan's earliest exposure to the mysteries of life would have been through Temple services - it may have been that his unique intellectual integrity began with his need to hold God up to intense scrutiny.

don't worry about such matters. If there were to be consequence at this time then there should also have been one in the past. Science should have detected by now that something did happen thousands of years ago, or at least there should be some evidence that a related event of this kind happened.

We do known that there's no planet in sight that going to crash into this planet. If it were it would also have been detected/seen by now.

Some read-- the Myans seem to denote mental changes, and negative ones at that.

In some cases we,re entering into an age of enlightenment, that might be, but I don't seem to be any smarter today then yesterday --so--so much for that idea. maybe it'll take more time--like 1000 years, so that may leave me out.

Oh, darn. I feel asleep and didn't set my alarm. I hate it when I miss the end of the world.