No Doomsday; Media shouldn’t project flawed and baseless predictions

There is widespread and unnecessary fear of doomsday on December 21, 2012. Some people worry about a Maya prophesies of the end of the world, others fear a variety of astronomical threats such as collision with a rogue planet.

The media instead of educating masses for the last couple of months had been televising reports about the Mayan civilisation predictions about the doomsday.

The constant televising of the message has resulted into forming a belief of several people that the dreadful story is actually true and end of the time is as near as a day after tomorrow. The people had been waiting for the coming Friday when either one way or the other the story could get unfold.

Many people believing in the news reports over media had been scared, especially those who had seen a Hollywood movie ‘2012’ that was released last year.

A calendar used by the ancient Mayan civilisation, dating back more than 4,000 years, ends on Friday, December 23, 2012 – with many believing it coincides with the end of days. The Mayan civilisation existed in what we now know as Mexico and its descendants still live there today.

It is vital to mention here that the Muslim religious scholars have categorically rejected the baseless prophecies of Mayan civilization, criticizing the role of media in projecting such flawed and unauthenticated predictions creating terror among the general public importantly at times when there is severe depression and chaos already prevailing in the society.

There has been so much speculation that people are on the verge of doomsday that even NASA was compelled to publish an official rebuttal on its website, reassuring the public that the world is not about to end.

It stated, “The world will not end in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.”

The last major prediction of impending doom coincided with the turn of the millennium, when people around the world panicked over reports that planes would fall from the sky and computers would crash – yet nothing happened.

This rash of concern seems to be the result of too many conspiracy theories and sensational stories featured on the Internet and irresponsible news outlets. Astronomical objects are so distant that they cannot threaten the Earth. Please don’t be afraid of the Sun or the planets or comets or asteroids. The universe is not your enemy.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Dec 20 2012. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.