I'm posting this to warn all and sundry that some of you may not get Christmas presents in 2012. This will come about because some of your loved ones may believe that the world will end on December 21 of that year. Some nonsense about a Mayan calendar prophecy.
No sooner had I finished reading Ron Rosenbaum's Slate article on this subject (May 22), than I read the following in Erasmus's The Praise of Folly. Coincidence?? You decide.
"The next to be placed among the regiment of fools are such as make a trade of telling or inquiring after incredible stories of miracles and prodigies: never doubting that a lie will choke them, they will muster up a thousand several strange relations of spirits, ghosts, apparitions, raising of the devil, and such like bugbears of superstition, which the farther they are from being probably true, the more greedily they are swallowed, and the more devoutly believed. And these absurdities do not only bring an empty pleasure, and cheap divertisement, but they are a good trade, and procure a comfortable income to such priests and friars as by this craft get their gain."
Don't be fooled. If I'm lucky enough to be alive, I'll be having a party on December 22, 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment