The Apocalypse: 5 Things You Didn't Know

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"One of the major clues in the Qur'an is the arrival of an animal so hairy that you can't tell if it's coming or going " 

Some Hindus regard 2012 as the year an avatar -- a god in human form -- will appear on earth and usher in a new age, one presumably favorable to the Hindu faithful.

Meanwhile, alien devotees believe that 2012 is the year when those aliens who first gave human civilization a kick start will return to see how we’ve done. Some believe they’ll give us another boost or two if we haven’t lived up to potential, while others expect mass slavery as punishment for our slacker ways.

Finally, Nostradamus predicted the apocalypse for 2012, but you’ll have to wait until 2013 to see how it ends. What a cliffhanger.

3- Nostradamus never accurately predicted an event

Nostradamus, the 16th century apothecary, gets a lot of press for making accurate predictions on virtually every major event since he died in 1566. But his followers consistently commit three overwhelming flaws. The first is that some of them work from poor French translations. The second lies in interpretation -- Nostradamus was no idiot, and his quatrains are so ambiguous that they allow for the extraction of virtually any event. The third, and most damaging to his status as a ”seer,” is that his followers engage in “postdiction” -- it is only after a major world event occurs that his believers begin to search his works for the ”prediction.”

If Nostradamus can’t be understood prior to an event, he can't be said to have predicted it. An alleged, loosely interpreted prediction ex post facto is not only without any merit, it also fails to qualify as a prediction.

At his core, Nostradamus was little more than a thief and a plagiarist who stole from the likes of classical historians Livy and Plutarch, medieval chronicler Jean Froissart, and every contributor to the Mirabilis Liber, a book of predictions that dealt with Christianity and the French Revolution.

4- Many scenarios feature an ambiguously evil duo

Talk about your major, high-profile players. I don’t care who you are, if you run into either Gog or Magog, say your prayers. Variously represented as people, monsters, demons, or nations, Gog and Magog are a force to behold.

Although first appearing in the Hebrew bible, they’re featured heavily in the New Testament, which provides what is by far the western world’s most influential apocalyptic vision. Revelations (20:7-8) defines them as the nations in the four quarters of the earth, which Satan sets out to attack and destroy by deception (sounds a lot like Ezekiel in the Old Testament).

In Islam, their arrival is one of the major clues of the coming apocalypse. Once again, according to scholar Gharm-Allah El-Ghamdy, "Gog and Magog (two hidden tribes of people) will break free of the dam that holds them back and ravage the earth. They will drink all the water, and kill people until Allah sends against them a worm which will wipe them out."

Other scholars have identified Gog and Magog as Koka and Vikoka, servants of an apocalyptic demon in a minor purana in Hinduism called the Kalki Purana. They have also been identified, with some challenge from the research community, as representing Russia, the Mongols, the nations of Europe, the Goths, the Khazars, and the Jews.

All told, Gog and Magog most often are situated as the fall guys, the greatest enemies against whichever organization is making the prophecy.

5- The end is near when a hairy animal approaches

In Islam, both hadith (hadith is a collection of oral tales that relate the life of Mohammed) and the Qur'an feature numerous clues to the coming apocalypse.

One of the major clues in the Qur'an is the arrival of an animal so hairy that you can’t tell if it’s coming or going (in Arabic, he is described as Dab-ba). His appearance coincides with a large number of Muslims who have turned away from Islam (apostasies) and this animal will beckon them “back to Islam,” according to the scholar Gharm-Allah El-Ghamdy.