Well, there's been a lot of evidence, it's pretty amazing and I'm astonished by it. Apparently you don't have as open a mind as I do :P
On the contrary - I have a very open mind.. however, I am also skeptical, and critical. I think about what's plausible. If we are to take that the mayans have truly predicted the end of the world - and I'll take your point, you're not panicked or yelling about it like some others have in the past - the end of the world in more of a 'gradual' sense, that means that in some way, the mayans are capable of determining the future.
Now, without the opportunity to speak to an ancient mayan, or read more of their destroyed literature, we have to think about how they came up with their predictions. If it is truly an ability to tell the future, I would examine all of the other people on the planet that have foretold events in the days to come, accurately. Going from a scientific perspective... that number would be zero. So going from this number of other civilizations or people that have been able to scrye the future, it makes idea that the mayans were capable of this ability much less likely.
A more plausible, simple explanation, is that it is part of their religious culture. The end of the Mayan calendar may not mean *anything*, it is a lot of what people are reading into it. You take a look at Occam's razor:
The explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.
The one that is the most simple, and makes the most sense, is that they were regular religious predictions of an ancient society, that have no bearing on reality. Don't confuse skepticism with not being open minded.
What has come out, has been truth.
Again, make a prediction vague enough and you can interpret it any way you see fit.
try to make the world a better place as a precaution.
So, if the mayan calendar wasn't predicting the end of the world, you wouldn't be trying to make the world better? I don't believe that - but I'm just trying to point out that really.. we're all trying to do that anyway. Why do we need a long dead civilization to tell us how to live?
it just seems that we're going around in circles with this
I'd be inclined to agree. You seem far too accepting of tenuous evidence & unlikely to budge from your point of view, however as you said:
It could be wavered if you prove me wrong on every little thing
Every little thing, and proving them negative to boot. That's an almost impossible criteria to fulfill, which I would say, is unreasonable. You seem obsessed more with possibility then probability. If this is going in circles, it's because you're not willing to consider the logic in the dissenting point of view.
As for me; if you could provide one prediction that the mayans made that is so incredibly specific that it could not apply to any other event or date; I think that would constitute a real ability that the mayans had to predict the future. And yes, that may also be a difficult task, but if someone told me they turn bricks of lead into quartz in an instant, I would certainly ask to bear witness to it in a variety of controlled circumstances. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.