Posted on 11/29/2012 6:32:18 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Lu Zhengai is so scared by the Mayan apocalypse, that’s he’s spent all his money - $160,000 - on building his very own Noah’s Ark.
The barely sea worthy boat, which he claims will save him and his family when flood waters destroy his house, was designed by Lu himself, measures 65 feet and will weigh 80 tons when finished, according to Chinese media.
Land lubber Lu, who lives in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region of China – thousands of miles from the sea, began building the boat out of fear for the “doomsday” floods, predicted by the Maya calendar for December 21, 2012.
“I’m afraid that when the end of the world comes in 2012, flood waters will destroy my house, so I took my life savings and invested in the construction of this boat. When the time comes everyone can take refuge in it,” he told the Chinese News Service.
But Lu is not alone, in August the New York Daily News reported that another Chinese man spent two years creating a very different Noah’s Ark – a tough, buoyant yellow ball, perhaps better designed to cope with tsunamis and giant ocean swells than Lu’s flat bottomed barge.
Meanwhile in France, believers in the apocalypse have flooded to Pic de Bugarach, a mountain in the south west of the country, convinced that when doomsday strikes a space ship may burst out of the hillside and aliens will carry them off to safety.
Hundreds of police and firefighters have already been drafted in to control access to the tiny village at the foot of the mountain.
Known as the ‘upside down mountain’ it’s a geological oddity with the lower layers of rock mysteriously younger than those on top. It’s also riddled with caves and set apart from the rest of the Pyrenees range, a lone outcrop of rock. Sounds and odd light effects which apparently come from the mountain have led some to believe that its linked to aliens and doubles up as a UFO landing pad and even a “UFO underground car park,” the leftwing, independent mayor of 36 years, Jean-Pierre Delord explained to the British newspaper the Guardian.
The doomsday prediction stems from interpretations of the Mayan Long Count calendar, which is due to end on December 21st.
Scientists and researchers have been trying to persuade believers that December 21, 2012 does not mean the end of the world. Experts in the Mayan calendar say Maya made many prophecies about the future but didn’t predict an apocalypse for the end of this year.
Experts stressed that the Maya culture, which flourished from 300 to 900 AD, was interested in many future events well beyond December 2012.
“The Maya long count system is like a car odometer. My first car only had six wheels so it went up to 99,999.9 miles. That didn’t mean it would explode after reaching 100,000 miles,” anthropologist Geoffrey Braswell from the University of California told the Daily Mail.
Apocalyptic visions and predictions are not uncommon and are not limited to Mayan thought. The latest bout of came from Ronald Weinland, an end-of-the-world American preacher, who believed Jesus Christ would reappear and the world would end on May 27, 2012.
....“The Maya long count system is like a car odometer. My first car only had six wheels so it went up to 99,999.9 miles. That didn’t mean it would explode after reaching 100,000 miles”
He managed to save $160,000 in China?
Interesting.
The Chinese “Miller’s Tale”
After Dec. 21st comes and passes without incident, this guy is going to have many nights sleeping on the couch for blowing all that money.
If the guy would read the Bible, he wouldn’t waste his time building an ark. The next time the world is destroyed, it will not be by flood. Instead, Mr. Lu would be better off doing a Chinese fire drill.
The Mayans didn’t account for leap years, so their calendar has already ended. There is one person most responsible for this hoax: Nancy Lieder. She claimed a hypothetical rouge planet called Nibiru would pass through the inner solar system in 2003 and wipe out 2/3 of the population. When this didn’t happen, she just changed the date to 2012 in order to get a few more years of ill-deserved fame. She claims to channel aliens from Zeta Reticuli through an implant in her head. People have actually killed themselves over this. This lady should be in jail for spreading panic, especially if there are any more deaths.
Ping.
I am an "end-of-the-world preacher," since the Bible tells me to be. For instance, my sermon this past Sunday (for the Last Sunday of the Church Year) was called "The End of the World's Coming." However, I put the "end-of-the-world" theme within the context of the whole Christian message, and, further, I am not so silly as to try to put a date on the end of the world, since Jesus specifically says that that is something we cannot know.
Ironically on December 22 Lu Zhengai's ark will be struck by lightning and he will be the only fatality in the Mayan apocalypse.
Respectfully disagree.
If we truly believe in freedom of speech, it applies not only to the clear-thinking, but to the nut jobs, too.
The responsibility lies within each of us to sort through all the garbage that is thrown at us. As long as those who choose to follow her false philosophy do it out of free will and not compulsion, their fate is of their own choosing.
We are living in a society that has lost its way, that no longer shares a common ethos, that is spiritually blowing with the wind. However, I still adhere to the principles set down in the Bill of Rights.
Therefore, I have to grant those freedoms to others as I claim them for myself.
Maybe that's why it's disappeared from the History Channel--it was making Obama look bad.
Zeta Reticuli aliens? Implant in her head? Ohhhhh boy.
“What’s a cubit?”
“How long can you tread water?”
I certainly see your point, and I’m torn on the issue myself. But there are reasonable limits to free speech, like when it results in deaths, or a conspiracy to commit a crime. She has committed fraud, and has profited from it. Maybe it’s setting a bad precedent, but in this case it may be warrented.
We ain’t outta here in ten minutes, we won’t need no rocket to fly through space.
“Doesn’t look end of the world sturdy to me.”
I don’t think it would survive very long. It doesn’t seem to have been designed by someone who knows anything about boats.
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