Submitted by Terence Blackett
The Khajuraho Monument
As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will all these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the world?” Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in My Name, claiming that ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come…”
“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ [as] spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand – then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equaled again. “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the Elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the very Elect. See, I have told you ahead of time…”
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man…” Matthew 24:4-26 (New International Version, ©2010)
“As it was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed… (Luke 17:28-30 Ibid, ©2010).
Can anyone deny that we are indeed the Matthew chapter 24 generation? At no other time in all of recorded human history has there been a need for a more urgent call to arms. Yet the weapons of our warfare are NOT* guns and bullets but the last bastions of “TRUTH”, Righteousness, Morality and a decision that “If God be God – then serve Him – but if Satan be ‘god’ then serve him”. There can be no sitting on the fence any longer. There is no middle ground or 3rd way!
Clearly this is an “Age” of so-called faith without works; men want freedom without accountability; seeking happiness without holiness; searching for riches without a moral compass of integrity and knocking on the door of “Paradise” but without having soul purity. This is the days of Lot!
In our modern world, men have seen the graphic nature of an exploding nuclear bomb and the horrific devastation it can cause, but who has ever heard of fire and brimstone raining down from the heavens completely annihilating the two cities of Sodom & Gomorrah because of its inhumanity, its treatment of the poor, its licentious perverted sexual appetites and its false economic security caused by affluenza and the need to get rich or DIE* trying. Science can give us natural (if not inhuman) phenomenon but the destruction wrought in the days of Lot was a “supernatural” act of God-like proportion brought to bear upon men because of disobedience and a complete disregard for the Law of God.
One writer puts it so succinctly – “Never did this message apply with greater force than it applies today. More and more the world is setting at naught the claims of God. Men have become bold in transgression. The wickedness of the inhabitants of the world has almost filled up the measure of their iniquity. This earth has almost reached the place where God will permit the destroyer to work his will upon it. The substitution of the laws of men for the Law of God, the exaltation, by merely human authority, of Sunday in place of the Bible Sabbath, is the last act in the drama. When this substitution becomes universal, God will reveal Himself. He will arise in His majesty to shake terribly the earth. He will come out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the world for their iniquity, and the earth shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover her slain.”
Yet with all the warnings, signs, wonders and portents we are witnessing today – men’s hearts are still hardened against the things of God. Let it be clear that God shall act decisively at some point in the near future just as He did in the days of Lot. When earthly rebellion has reached tipping-point; where political leaders in cahoots with religious false prophets do malicious violence to God’s Holy Law by instituting man-made laws and decrees such as laws that redefine marriage and the family; legalize the killing of helpless babies through abortion and infanticide; gives a nod of approval to rampant prostitution through salacious pornography, paedophilia and incest and where the ultimate worship of Sunday is enacted as the law of the land and men both great and small are expected to worship according to the legislation in the land – hence we can see why God uses the tragedy of Lot as a viral resource reminder for us to understand the gravity, parity, polarity and the penalty for devilish transgression.
As we survey a postmodern world in major social, economic and religious upheaval, it is easy to see the correlation between the days of Lot and the days we now live in. We are reminded that “In the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]. For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. [They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (Amplified Bible)
Just as in the days of Lot, he escaped the inferno with his wife and two daughters – so we too must do the same. Sadly, Lot’s wife disobeyed the commands given to her and perished as a result. Lot’s wife is representative of that major class of people in the last days who are “almost saved but entirely lost” due to compromise, wanting to do things their own way and really didn’t have a true change of heart.
Rampant sexual perversion, socio-material affluenza compounded by moral and religious breakdown epitomizes the days in which we currently live and just as Sodom was given a long rope – it had to be reeled in. Finally God had heard the prayer requests of Abraham and would not have destroyed the cities of the plain had He been able to find even [10] righteous people there – in the end, their cup of iniquity was full and annihilation and complete destruction was the only just course of action for a God who will only tolerate so much and no more!
So there’s no counter-argument, “For God’s [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative. For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them. For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks).”
“So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification], because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile and godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves]. And by them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and reptiles.”
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin], because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it)…”
“For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one. And the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another – men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.”
“And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome, until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers, slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents. [They were] without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless [and] merciless. Though they are fully aware of God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them.” Romans 1:18-32 (Amplified Bible)
This is the pathetic state affairs our world finds itself in and if Christ is not the answer – then tell me what is!!!
This excerpt is insightful.
TB, I whole-heartedly concur with ‘almost’ every word you have posted, the exception been your SDA perspective on the Sabbath vs Sunday debate, which I’ve already engaged you on extensively!
Be that as it may, unfortunately, the scoffers will no doubt continue scoffing at the absolute truth of God’s Word, confirmed by historic veracity, and only wilfull ignorance, coupled with unnatural affection for this world’s appitites: “Do NOT love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world (system) the love of the Father is NOT in him. For all that is in the world – the Lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the PRIDE of life, (which) is NOT of the Father, but is of the world. And the world (system) IS passing away, and the lust of it, BUT he who does the will of God abides forever.” ( I John 2: 15-17) emphasis added.
Sadly, the IMPACT BIAS, and FOCALISM, of the sinful nature of man’s distorted brain, aided and abetted by ‘demonic’ imposition, without the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, through Christ, cannot resist nor fight against the spiritual warfare that’s literally raging throughout the world, today, in an unprecendented convergeance of events, like never before, truly the unfolding of Jesus’ summary in Matthew 24.
ONLY, the Lord Jesus Christ, IS the answer!
@ Zoe
By the end of this very year it will all be much clearer.
Life on Mother Earth is at the end of its “three score and ten”. The living systems that together comprise life on earth are all showing the effects of entropy. All that is needed now is a major failure of one of her vital organs such as energy supply, weather patterns, food chain, tectonic plate stability, extra terrestrial impact, or idiotic human nuclear misstep (either by war or by CERNS).
It is as inevitable as Great Granny’s death.
The Bushman has always been fascinated by the assertion that only the physical intervention of BBE will prevent the total implosion of the life systems of earth. Clearly not the kind of ‘passing’ where one lies in bed and expires with a smile.
Even MME must by now, recognize that there is no long term future in our physical existence on this earth (despite all his brilliant scientists- LOL).
As the Bushman has been saying all along, what we have here is a masterful plan in which everything has been going EXACTLY as designed. Our mother earth has been nothing but a temporary crucible which has been designed to provide, FOR A TIME, a perfect environment for the development of a unique characteristic which CANNOT be otherwise created.
A characteristic called RIGHTEOUS (GODLY) CHARACTER.
Mother earth has performed her role excellently and with grace and style- and have essentially finished her race.
This must be a most frustrating message for those whose whole outlook and focus has been on “storing up treasures” in this crucible….. but for those who have been praying for “thy kingdom to come”…. it must be a time of great excitement and wonder.
@ Terence
A most appropriate post.
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one good day when i can be bothered to finish reading dah BOOK (introductory article) i may find out what it’s all about! in the meantime, only a Bajan! LOL!!
i cudda swear dis was bout homosexuality but, i may b wrong cos, i caan get out my mine d thought uh one little white one i c d udda day present a programme on dis same subjik hay on British tv. boy look no more dan about 25 n was happy to boast how he, as a homosexual, had had MORE DAN 50 partners, aready! i was ready to peuke pun he but i couldn’t get through the tele!
but wha dis really about, doe!
I will not deny rampant perversion, not onyl sexual, but in allocation of resources, administration of countries and greed.
I will not deny that the Earth is a body in itself, part of a larger body in the Universe and that she must clean herself by various ways, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, hloods and volcanoes.
But, I will dissent from any opinion that life will end abruptly.
Life, even after a major disaster, will go on, even if only in tthe forms of micro-organisms.
Life, of mankind MAY (no one knows the future), continue in a much changed form, whether backwards in technology, to subsidistence living, or even more advanced by a few, but it will probably survive and further eveolve, as the Earth cleans itself and evolves.
So I disagree that while most of us die and our souls continue in their spiritual ‘life’, that the Earth will not go on.
Surely it will.
There will be no magic coming. God is already here, all around us and our souls are already in the midst of development, preparing for the next spiritual path.
That is where we differ.
The ‘magic coming’ is in one’s eyes, when one realises the futility of materialistic hoarding and relies on spiritual growth, in whatever form that will take for the invidividual, no one’s ‘GOD’ being greater than any other’s.
Crusoe, dat’s heavy boe but, is it true?!
has anybody hay, had any experiences of a ghostly nature?!
It seems we have Bush Tea who is using science (Entropy) to explain a position he has been consistence in bringing to BU over the years and Zoe and TB are more inclined to revert to their faith, the good book.
When science and the religions intercept, watch out!
@ David
LOL…. a bushman using science ….sounds ‘oxymoronish’ to Bushie.
@ Crusoe
You position (one of eternal optimism) is well understood. What else can one believe when all of one’s hopes and dreams are built on the relatively short time that we exists on our earth.
Unfortunately, the scientific data (and now the increasingly obvious reality) says very much that the Bushman is right.
As to the continuation of the ‘earth’ afterward, do you mean in the same way that granny’s skeletal remains may linger around for decades or even centuries after her life systems close down? When we speak of the end of our earth’s time we are speaking of the end of the delicately balanced LIFE systems which support our existence here.
I hope that you are right Crusoe, cause the bushman have enjoyed a blessed life ….. but then again Bushie had been hoping that our youthful PM would have been around for a few more years too…. but some things are obvious.
@ crusoe
Well said!
Crusoe, I’ve shifted my response here from the ‘Bajans, HIV And Aids’ thread, re ‘The End-Of-Civilization Question, Does embracing homosexuality really cause societies to fail?
Of course, you scoffed at this, with your ‘economist’ out look and mind-set, obviously, genuinely ignorant of the historic facts on such matters.
Here are a few comments from secular historians, on this issue of ancient civilizations, and the obvious causes of their demise.
As Brian Fitzpatrick observes:
“MOST societies through history, even the wealthiest and mightest, have eventually collapsed and died. Why?”
“Why don’t they just continue to evolve and flourish forever as knowledge and technology grow? What allows some cultures to continuually bloom, and others to wither?
“This question- normally one of mere historical and academic concern- is increasingly relevant to millions of Americans as they behold their beloved nation struggling in the grip of unprecedented financial, political, cultural and moral conflict.”
“Indeed, many are warning that America is not immune to the forces and influences that have caused other great empires to self-destruct.”
“In particular, traditional-minded voices point to Americ’a rapid growth of homosexuality – not only its prevalence, but its virtual celebration – as errily reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah, the ancient cities whose destruction due to rampant immorality is described in the Old Testament of the Bible.”
“From the time of this nation’s founding all the way up until the current era, mainstream Americans held the Bible to be their ultimate guidebok, and the ‘Judeo-Christian values’ it espoused as their highest principles.”
“Today, however- especially throughout the elite realms of academia, science, government and news and entertainment media – the Bible no longer retains the statue and universal credibility it once did. In its place, we listen to sociologists, scientists and other reseachers and ‘experts’.”
“But what if the findings of ‘experts’ – not necessarily those in thrall to irrational socialistic and atheistic philosophies, but those more in sync with the basic values that founded America and Western Civilization as a whole – lined up perfectly with those of the Bible?”
“Such would present a powerful message – warning – to the current generation of Americans, particularly regarding the dangers of sexual anarchy and homosexuality.”
While Fitzpatrick is writing specifically to Americans, the application in ‘principle’ that he is using, has a world wide significance to every culture, AND to those of us here in Barbados and our Caribbean region as well, as ALL of humankind, suffer from the same debilitating malady, SIN, and its devastating consequences, bar none!
It is extremely important to remember, that while Almighty God judges people individually, His Word, the Bible, emphatically affirms that He also judges socities collectively. For example, Jude 7, says God judged and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah AND the surrounding cities for giving themselves over to sexual immorality.
As Fitzpartick goes on to say:
“Depending on the reader’s worldview, the preceding resonates either as strongly worded truth, or as an ancient fairy tale. But religious skeptics might be surprised to discover that the findings of the greatest researchers of cultural decline are strinkingly similar to Paul’s.”
‘Sex and Culture’
“Perhaps the definitive work on the rise and fall of civilization was published in 1934 by Oxford anthropologist J.D. Unwin, in “Sex and Culture,” Unwin studied 86 human civilizations, ranging from tiny South Sea island principalities to mighty Rome. He found that a society’s destiny is linked inseparably to limits imposed on sexual expression and that those sexual constraints correlate directly to its theological sophistication and religious commitment.”
“Unwin noted that the most primitive societies had only rudimentary spiritual beliefs and virtually no restrictions on sexual expression, wheras societies with more sophisticated theologies placed greater restrictions on sexual expression, and achieved greater social development.”
“In particular, cultures that adopt what Unwin dubbed “absolute monogamy” proved to be most virgorous, economically, productive, artistically creative, scientifically innovative and geographically expansive societies on earth.”
This is just a glimmer of the historic facts and reality of ancient socities, and what happened to them in direct relation to their sexual practices and values, bearing in mind that this in-depth research was conducted by ‘secular’ historians, not with any particular religious bias.
More a bit later on the facts, regarding why so many ancient civilizations, crumbled, fell, and came to utter runination.
@Bush tea
You are correct that it is difficult for a human being who yearns to live could embrace the the concept you have dumped on the table.
Very difficult indeed.
@ Crusoe wrote “But, I will dissent from any opinion that life will end abruptly.”
It is possible that the Earth could be hit by an Asteroid.
The reality is that there will continue to be catastrophic events year after year just as it has been from the beginning.
The possibility exist that we could have years where multiple events happen simultaneously and cause death and destruction,disease and famines but that is the nature of things on this Earth.
There will be no “end of life on Earth” in my lifetime.Trust me.
@ David .”Very difficult indeed.”
I know that Sir, ….and it pains me to say it.
Must have been the identical experience that the doctors had when they broke the news to our beloved PM early last year…..
@ Zoe
Are you sure that homosexuality is a primary CAUSE of the imminent end of a society? or is it a symptom and therefore a clear sign?
Pain, for example, is often a prelude to death but is is not usually the CAUSE – but rather a symptom of the real fundamental cause(s).
Zoe,
I have not scoffed, merely presented an alternative viewpoint.
As for the decline of the ‘American Empire’ I would suggest that also has more to do with gross mismanagement, failed philosophy than merely the perceived increase of sexual issues. Indeed, to blame it on a select few issues, is ludicrous from a logical standpoint.
One may select specific parts of the society as a cause per se, of disintegration, but that is disingenuous.
As Fitzpatrick then goes on to say:
“Absolute monogamy is a very strict moral code. Under absolute monogamy, sex can occur only within one-man/one woman marriage. Premarital and extramarital sex are not tolerated and divorce is probihited.”
“Understandably, the only societies that practice absolute monigamy are the ones that take their religion very seriously. Whether monotheistic or polytheistic, they believe devoutly in God or gods, and they order their society according to divine moral laws.”
“Unwin himself was raised in Christian England, but he did not appear to be a believer in orthodox Christianity. Nevertheless, he was honest enough to acknowledge what his research revealed – that absolutr monigamy, the key to societal health, is deeply consistent with the sexual regulations laid out in the Bible, particularly in the moral code Unwin described as “Pauline.”
“Unwin’s contemporary, British historian Arnold Toynbee, was more explicit about the centrality of religion in history. Toynbee’s masterpiece, his 12 volume “Study of History,” charted the rise and fall of 26 civilizations. In Toynbee’s view. “The course of human history consist of a series of encounters…in which each man or woman or child…is challenged by God to make the free choice between God’s will and refusing to do it.”
“Why exactly does absolute monogamy, the Pauline moral code, bring vitality to a society? Absolute monigamy fosters cultural growth by solving what anthropologist Margaret Mead called the “central problem of every society” – that is, to “define appropriate roles for the man.: Monogamous civilizations require that men choose either lifelong celibacy or the responsibilities of a husband: fidility, breadwinning and fatherhood. Most men choose to marry, to their good fortune, because married men tend to be healthier, happier and more productive than bachelors.”
“Those commited husbands create stabe marriages, which offer the greatest opportunity for raising healthy, productive children who can keep a society strong and growing.”
“Likewise, the great economist Joseph Schumpeter attributes the success of capitalism not to the entrepreneur’s lust for mony or status, but to his love of family. To Schumpeter, the central pillar of any healthy civilization is the self-sacrificing maried man who doesn’t spend his income on his pleasures, but prefers “to work and save primarily for wife and children.”
“And in “Family and Civilization,” Harvard historian Carle Zimmerman concludes that “the creative periods in civilization have been based upon” the strongest form of family, which he terms, the “domestic” type:”
“The demostic family afforfs a comparatively stable social structure and yet frees the individual sufficiently from family influence to perform the creative work necessary for a great civilization.”
All of these comments, coming from men, economist, historians, and the absolute significance of a society rooted in God’s moral code, a monogamous family unit, in order for the entire society to function coherently, that is, economically, educationally, heathly, simply cannot be reasonablt refuted, it can be ignored, but the reality of the historic facts, one way or the other, shows that only God’s way will bring true prosperiety, and a strong cohesive society.
Reson for Decline.
“If devotion to God, a Pauline moral code, and strong marriages and families are the key to cultural success, then what causes civilizations to decline?”
“Zimmernan warns of “periods of family decay in which civilization is suferring internally from the laxk of a basic belief in the forces which make it work.” Unwin’s explanation would be that if people lose their faith in God, they tend to lose their motivation to live by the strict moral code.”
“In “This Present Age,” sociologist Robert Nisbet writes: “What sociologists are prone to call social disintegration is really nothing more than the spectacle of a rising number of individuals playing fast and loose with other indiviuduals in relationships of trust and responsibility.” Moral standards begin to erode when a society’s members chafe at the disciple imposed by absolute monogamy and begin to gratify their personal impluses without regard for the consequences inflicted on others.”
“In other words, in an amoral, hedonistic society, you can’t trust the people you need to trust, not even your spouse. Moreover, if people can make and break relationships at will, with no legal repercussions or social stigma, they are much more likely to abandon their marriages – at their children’s expense – when the going gets tough. Husbands with roving eyes are much more likely to trade in their wives for new models.”
“Thus, the founder of Harvard’s sociology department, Pitirim Sorokin, warned that if individualistic selfishness and self-seeking are not checked, a society will lapse into a state of “sexual anarchy.” In “The American Sex Revoution,” Sorokin writes that “both man and society are degarded” as a culture becomes “sexually obsessed”:
“The members of such a society are habituated to look at the opposite sex as a mere instrument for pleasure…to these individuals, talk of human dignity, religious and moral commandments, rules of decency is just bosh…the society degrades the values of womanhood and manhood, of motherhood and fatherhood and venerable age, of marriage and family, and even of love itself.”
“The predictable results? Divorce, desertion and deviance become commonplace when “what used to be considered morally rephensible is now recommended as positive value; what was once called demoralization is now styled moral progress and new freedom.” The parallel to the men Paul wrote about, who approve of others who commit heinous sins, is striking. Whereas, Sorokin described this condition as “moral schizophrenia.” Paul said nations in this condition were on the brink of divine judgment.”
How long does it take for cultural disintegration to set it?
“Unwin observed that civilizations cease to grow within three generations after retreating from absolute monogamy. If they fail to return to monogamy, they will continue to slide into individualism and hendonism, and civil disorder will ensue.”
“Likewise, in his “Social and Cultural Dynamics,” Sorokin, who studied 1, 623 “internal disturbances in Greco-Roman and European history,” found that sexual permissiveness almost always precedes or accompanies “an explosion of sociopolitical disturbances.”
“Such selfish, undisciplined societies meet ugly fates. Unwin found that EVERY society, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, that rejects absolute monogamy either becomes a stagnant cultural backwater or collapses altogether.”
“Toynbee famously wrote, “Civilizations die by sucide, not by murder.” And Sorokin warned that America, in the 1960s, was committing national suicide by sexual indulgence, predicting that as sex outside of marriage became more commonplace, Americans’ birthrate would decline even as illegitimacy increased.”
“Unwin might agree with Toynbee that some civilizations die by suicide, but he would also point out that many civilizations do indeed die by murder. Civilizations that have turned permanently away from absolute monogamy have often been conquered and absorbed by more vigorous civilizations, he documents. For example, after descending into rampant materialism and licentiousness, the first great Western civilization, Greece, was conquered by Rome in the second century B.C.”
“After all, writes Anne Glyne-Jones in “Holding Up a Mirror: How Civilizations Decline”:
“They were, in Roman eyes, an effete and effeminate people who deserved nothing better.”
Where then does homosexuality fit into cultural decline? Is it just a rightwing “old wives’ tale” that an increase in homosexuality signals the decline of a civilization – or is it actually true?
“Will Durant, author of the 11 Volume series “The Story of Civilization,” obseved that homosexual behavior becomes more prevalent as societies go into decline. Unwin noted that as “the historical evidence [suggest] that homosexuality is a habit that appears in a society…that has been absolutely monogamous, and is relaxing.” And Zimmerman wrote that “Homosexuality is always present in society, but in trustee and domestic family types it is strongly repressed. In late atomistic family systems it becomes much the fashion…”
“If Durant, Unwin and Zimmerman are correct, the increasing prominence of homosexual behavior and its radical legitimization – almost to the point of verneration – in American society confirms ominously that the nation has strayed far from the “straight and narrow” moral path that invigorates civilizations.”
When we couple the Biblical imperative by Almighty God, that this type of abased sexual behavior, will surely bring HIS divine judgment, as it DID upon Sodom, Gomorrah, and its surrounding cities, WITH the historic EVIDENCE of other ancient civilizations, as carefully presented by Unwin, Durant, and Zimmerman, what are we to honestly, objectively, and coherently believe and conclude?
That the FOUNDATIONAL security of any society, whether ancient or modern, REST upon its moral integrity, of monogamous marriages, as our Creator, Almighty God ordained, AND, that when the core values of any society, are ERODED, by amoral practices, such as homosexuality and other deviant lifestyles, they WILL ultimately fail, sooner or later, because they have VIOLATED the absolute foundation upon which any society can hope to flourish and prosper.
Economic and financial stability, is only sustainable WHEN the FOUNDATONAL aspects of God ordained MORALITY is soundly in place, as every other aspect of a society, revolves around this absolute TRUTH.
Why are religions so obsessed with sex and the “end ” of the world?
@ Sargeant
because they have nothing better to do and their lives are very boring. Thew are more caught up with death and lack of sex that they have a death wish. LOL And it is mainly Christians who are the culprits. I am sooo glad that I am not one to believe in this nonsense.
Correction @ Jack spratt
These long and boring sermons are becoming real old , Terrence please change the subject or else I will have to stop coming here. Leave preaching for the church , there is a time and a place for every thing. David this blog is becoming tooo religious for my liking.
LOL! Islangal, so i in d only one den! lol! i still doan know wha it about but den i couldn’t b bothered to read it anyway! anyway, i sure David know wha he mene!
Man wiv no name
Many of these preachers have got something hiding in the closet. Look how many of these god men end up getting exposed with prostitutes, outside wimmen and udda menz. Stupes ……..dis is bare shite talk bout de end of de world. Wunna Christians ask other religions eff dem believe in this pupp Wunna did wrong before and wunna wrong again. It is wunna world gine cum to an end when wunna stop breeding (no pun intended).
@islandgirl
Politics and religion always seem to it not so?
The day we become so intolerant of the views of others then BU would no longer serve a purpose and it would be BU packing it in.
@Islandgal246
No need to run away you can always ignore the posts that you don’t like as there are many other subjects which one can discuss e.g. gardening; politics; law; commerce; culture; farming etc. the list is endless.
BTW I bought the book that you recommended Exotic Gardens of the Eastern Caribbean and for good measure I also purchased a companion book Tropical Homes of the Eastern Caribbean by the same authors.
They were delivered free to my home at a very affordable price
@Islandgal246,
There is nothing wrong with this blog. Just do what I do and you will continue to enjoy it.
Read and respond to only things that interest you.
to besides you name real sweet so we doan want you to lef we out.
@Sargeant and Hants
thank you for your sound advice …..I am just fed up with Terrence rantings about same old same old. I just wish he would come with something original for a change. Sarge I hope you enjoy your books and I hope that you and Hants can visit my garden one day.
@Terrence……Why attribute the results of our actions to the ‘wrath of God? Is this God really full of wrath? Weren’t we created with the capacities to distinguish wrong from right hence make choices? Could it be that this ‘impending’ judgement be a result of our collective wrong-doing? Are we not manufacturers of misery? Didn’t we cultivate or permitted all manner of foul conditions to thrive in our realm and now we are hoping for God at a moment’s notice to change that which has been fixed… [for the elect sake?] Could it be that this is where the path to least resistance on which most of us trod has led us today? Shouldn’t we stop blaming ‘God?’
Do you really think that our evil actions can really destroy a planet that has been in place for eons? Isn’t such thinking the height of arrogance?
Maybe the vibration on this planet is changing and our Great Mother Earth can no longer carry so much evil and one way or another she is ridding herself of such dead weight! Maybe that’s where this ascension ‘thing’ comes into play thru our evolution into higher Konsciousness.
**********
@Zoeeeeeeeee! How you doing my ‘sincere’ christian brother?
Zoe & Terrence……Why is it that in the midst of geological calamities, should the one who is on the roof top stay there and not go back into the house? Would you say that the rooftop would be a safe place to be in a rain/snow/firestorm or earthquake?
Hey Zoe….look how your friends were digging a hole for Iran but forgot to dig one for themselves? While they were busy inciting Iranian revolution, their long-term ‘friends’ were falling around them….Now ain’t that sum’ting?
@Islandgal 246
I may take you up on that offer as I will be visiting soon, my ticket was bought a few weeks ago.
The US just vetoed a resolution brought to the UNSC by Arab nations which condemns Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. Oddly enough Britain supported the resolution. Wouldn’t this make a good talking point topic for those interested in the Middle-East situation?
Hi Hopi-Hops, It’s nice to hear you in a some what docile mood, and, the great American empire is on its way out, only a matter of time, they have DUG a pit for themselves, especially when it came to forcing Israel to give up their rightful, covenanted, God -given land to the Palestinians, not to mention the Godless agenda of the Homosexual/lesbian agenda, removing the Commandments of God from schools, etc, etc, and other rampant SIN, that permeates this nation.
Voices from the Past.
“If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for honor of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth, if men possessed of these excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent FOUNDATION.” – Samuel Adams – emphasis added.
This AIN’T SO NO MORE!
“The FOUNDATION of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private MORALITY…the propitious smiles of Heaven can NEVER be expected on a nation that disregards the ETERNAL rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ORDAINED…”- George Washington- emphasis added.
“The general dissolution of PRINCIPLES and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. When people are virtuous they CANNOT be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.” – Samuel Adams – emphasis added.
Sadly, America has lost such virtuous thinkers, putting its trust in its military might, O’ what a hoax, a lie from the pit of Hell, instead of trusting on the Only One, Almighty God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for guidance, they are trusting in their ‘guided missiles’ can’t work, won’t work, that’s why America is NOT mentioned in End-Time prophetic Scripture!
@Zoe….. you see me here in a ‘somewhat docile mood’ yet you wanna rile me up with your senseless comment about ‘ISRAHELL.’ Zoe do you really believe that’s the reason why the US is going down…because she no longer support Israhell? What more should the US do? Every year Israhell gets her guaranteed billions coupled with what they steal and you think that America should do more? Zoe, do you think that charging interest on paper and computer generated money for which you have not toiled is fair and honourable? Does your God approve of that Zoe?
Ref.. Gatekeepers piece, don’t you think it is ‘sick & shameful’ that the US vetoes every vote that hold Israhell’s feet to the fire? Maybe that’s why the US is going doing?
BUT
The Cosmic forces are all in alignment with the ridding of scum like Israhell, the US and their other subversive cohorts from this realm.
So have no fear Zoe because we have entered an era where “HATRED IS FALLING FROM GRACE, AND FREEDOM IS BREAKING HER CHAINS.”
……….the great American empire is on its way out, only a matter of time, they have DUG a pit for themselves, especially when it came to forcing Israel to give up their rightful, covenanted, God -given land to the Palestinians,…..
Sadly, America has lost such virtuous thinkers, putting its trust in its military might, O’ what a hoax, a lie from the pit of Hell, instead of trusting on the Only One, Almighty God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for guidance, they are trusting in their ‘guided missiles’ can’t work, won’t work, that’s why America is NOT mentioned in End-Time prophetic Scripture!
But isn’t it ironic that it is the great USA that defends Israel?
Billions go to the Jewish State in military aid every year that could pay many salaries and their debt.
The same USA who vetoed every UNSC resolutions on the illegally expanding settlements.
They have surely dug their hole!!
Quoting Zoe: “Absolute monogamy is a very strict moral code. Under absolute monogamy, sex can occur only within one-man/one woman marriage. Premarital and extramarital sex are not tolerated and divorce is probihited.” “Understandably, the only societies that practice absolute monigamy are the ones that take their religion very seriously.”
But Zoe absolutely monogamy has NEVER existed.
Hopi, It was only a matter of time before you vented from your ‘Cosmic Demonic’ hole of darkness, spewing out, as usual, incoherent, Pan-African, Egyptology, based on absolutely NO historic worth whatsoever, utter foolishness!
Ever heard of someone who gives with one hand to help, then brakes your jawbone with the other?
Almighty God swore, in His soverienghty, that WHOEVER separates or divides MY LAND, ISRAEL, will be judged. England felt His judgment when Churchhill, by the stroke of a pen, gave away 75% of the mandated land, for the state of Israel, which created the true Palestinian state, Trans-Jordan, it wasn’t long before the British Empire FELL APART!
America is no different, time and again, U.S. presidents have forced Israel to give up their rightful land, for the sake of so-called peace, EACH and EVERY time this happens, some natural disaster HITS American soil, FACTS, EVIDENCE, that God does not lie!
You think any of you LEFTIST, can ever bring any logical, coherent, FACTS, to support your ignorant rantings!? Rather than senseless ‘Redhering, Strawmanized FOLLY!?
hi Islan, n thanks for the response. I’m inclined to agree with u n, funnily enough, i was thinking the other day how Bajans need to stop breeding so profusely, just as u alluded to. i can never forget my immense embarassment hay in Englan when, every time i red a book on Bim, how it always stated dat Bim was d most densely populated countries in d worle, n Bajans were nothing but christians at dat time. i used tuh fine it intensley imbarassing n hoped dat none uh my white classmates would ever c dah too! is like d shock i got when i fine out d facks uh life. I thought, “no, my mother could never do dah”, but den i was very small!
Tech, Bimbro (my bredda) says ‘hi’!
@ islandgal246
“I am just fed up with Ter(r)ence rantings about same old same old. I just wish he would come with something original for a change…”
Oh dear me… well, I guess I am staying true to script… The ‘ole cliche of pleasing some of the people some of the time – and not pleasing ALL* the people all the time surely applies here…
Please forgive me for staying “TRUE” to my faith and my beliefs but I am sure that most of us have earned that most fundamental of “HUMAN RITES”…
But look here – if you want something NEW* (given that there is nothing NEW* under the sun) – try this on for size:-
http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/depleted_uranium_iraq_afghanistan_balkans.html
This should make your day!!!
The CRYPTIC reasoning for posting the link in the post to “islandgal246″ is to highlight the sinister nature of “EVIL” in our world and the reason why this and other kinds of “EVIL” are perpetuated because we sanction it by our “S.H.I.T” ( Strategic High Intensity Training) in “SILENCE” and so-called “GOOD” men refuse to nothing!!!
I will be damned in HELL* if I am ever quiet on any front on any subject of moral/ethical/spiritual worth or value and that affects me, my family, my kids or those I love (my neighbor is also included here)…
The day is surely coming when men of true conviction, moral and spiritual power will “RISE” up to not only condemn the policies of governments leaders and others but will draw a line in the sand…
As we can see, the “down-draft” is already blowing across the “ISLAMIC” lands and will be coming to a town or village near you lot very soon…
But on the issue of “down-draft” – let me cite the real reason for my previous post to “islandgal246″…
Most of the “INTELLIGENT” folks on BU are aware that “something” or “somebody” out there is trying “DAMN” hard to kill ALL* of us – for one reason and one reason alone – (DEPOPULATION)…
Islandgal246, I believe you should LOVE* {LOL} my next article and find it inciteful as I will be focusing on the “issue” of “EUGENICS” and population control and how the forces that are at work in our world is set on the destruction of “TWO-THIRDS” of humanity…
BTW – have a look at this piece of “RESEARCH” and ask yourself why you have to come to BU* to read the “TRUTH” about most subject areas given that you have a print & visual media in BIM*, notwithstanding, satellite and cable TV, but no one is elucidating what BU does… I wonder why?
GO FIGURE!!!
Anyway, for the skeptics:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_uranium18.htm
Here’s a collaboration of 100′s of GOOD FOLKS* from around the world…. SEE VIDEO BELOW***
Time to WAKE UP FOLKS!!!
@Zoe……..I’m trying to maintain my calm as I really see no need to fight with you BUT how many ‘jews’ have you ever dealt with since you’ve been spawned? How can you constantly defend this vile, despicable state called Israel? It seems like your entry into heaven is contingent on your constant defense of Pangloss’ dirty bunch.
Can’t you see that their aim is to control the whole world and look how their despotic friends are crumbling around them. They want to get at Iran so bad, but that will be their demise. Since when does a foundation built on ‘sand’ withstand the test of time?
Look at how they are raising price of oil and basing this price hike on ‘FEAR’ alone. The oil is still being pumped and moving along, yet the price is being spiked. Look at how they are playing with people’s lives by speculating on food [ungodly] & creating havoc on the world market.
Zoe, look at how they have ruined financial markets and people’s lives simultaneously.
All over this planet they’re dipping their hands in peoples pockets, just because they’re ‘god’s chosen.’ Oh how foul Zoe!
The M.E. is erupting because they want to shake off the treacherous beast from around their necks. They no longer want to have zionist installed dicktators ruling their lives. They want their freedom and their democracy but I don’t think that democracy is what we see here in the west, where we are free to poison ourselves to death with the bilge that the zionist pigs hold up infront of us thru its media, freedom to do as we please without regard to the laws of nature, freedom to lie, cheat & steal without regard of the consequences, freedom to have our youth prostitute themselves at the alter of ‘success.’
Zoe theirs is a different kind of freedom. Not everyone wants to be like the West. Not everyone wants to embrace your brand of christianity.
Just watch the changes that are coming Zoe. Mubarak helped to strangle and suffocate the Palestinians but watch the sweeping changes that are coming to that region. Removal of all western controlled puppets.
And yes, your zionists friends little circumcised pricks are pissing their pants right about now.
Amerikka is not falling because she does not honor your parasitic friends, she’s falling because of her history which goes back to her birth [born in sin & shaped in iniquity, remember that?] because of the decimation of the Natives and her treatment of BLACK PEOPLE…now how about that for ‘truth.’
And their silly little, stupid puppet BaRat, while waffling around has to wait for his instructions. How disgraceful!
BUT, Zoe, Hopi has no fear…the Ankhcestors have spoken and there’s a GREATER FORCE at play on this planet and this force is ushering in an unprecedented change on this planet. Those who have sucked the blood of this planet as well as the blood of the inhabitants of this planet without regard for those affected, are losing their grip. Those who rose to dominion thru’ repression, subjugagtion, pillaging and outright killing of the indigenous peoples of this planet are facing their comeuppance.
Zoe, I hold fast to no religious belief as I honour that which preceded all these mind-controlling doctrines [including yours], neither do I hold any political ideology so to call me a ‘liberal’ is folly. What I honour is based in the REGENERATIVE PROCESS!
So I welcome with open arms these planetary changes and the fall of ALL WESTERN nations that have hindered PEACE. To hell with them and their poisoning of this planet!
Anedj Herack!
Dave, i caan read red pun green man!
Hopi, You feel much better now, having spewed forth from your venomous hatred of Jews, and Leftest ideological venom of all things Western, as being inherently evil and wicked; and your blinded, misinformation on what Middle Eastern, Islamists ‘democracy’ vis-a-vis Western democracy is really all about! Really!
Hopi, do you have any idea what Islamic, Caliphate controlled Sharia law, really entails? Is this what you call FREEDOM? To CUT OFF the ‘clits’ of innocent little girls, and where the Koran specifically states that a Muslim husband has the RIGHT to slap and beat his WIFE, to keep her in subjection like a DOG, is this what the Israeli government does to its little girls, have them emasculated in their childhood, and treat them like DOGS, as is the practice in Islamic ruled countries?
All Muslim men know, is ‘Yearing for Death and Suicide’ as is confirmed by a leading Islamist:
“If faith, a belief, is not watered and irrigated by blood, it does not grow.” – Ali Benhadj, a leading Algerian Islamist.
“One of the most frightening manifestations of this DEATH cult is the way it infected contemporary Palestinian culture. The outcome of the Camp David talks in July 2000 demonstrates this haunting reality. Israeli prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians 95 percent of their negotiating demands. He offered them their own sovereign state in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, more than 90 percent of the West Bank, and a capital in Jerusalem. He also offered them sovereignty over all Arab parts of East Jerusalem, over all of the Old City except the Jewish Quarter, and over the Temple Mount, with Jweish sovereignty only over the Western Wall below the Mount.”
“This was more than Israel had ever offered before and, most likely, ever would again. The Palestinians had a chance to enter a new era of peace, with their own state, on incredibly generous terms. Instead they chose DEATH.”
“Yasser Arafat rewarded the Israelis for their offer by initiating an onslaught of TERROR that became known as the al-Aqsa Intifada. On the principle that mudering a Jew was a Muslim obligation, the Palestinians strapped bombs onto themselves, boarded Israeli buses and went into Israeli cafes and discotheques, and BLEW themselves up alongside innocent Jews. The deadly suicide massacres began with the bombing of a Tel Aviv disco catering to teenagers in June 2001. The suicide bombing quickly escalated. Mass murder became an every day affair in Israel. Palestinian children BLEW themselves into smithereens while parents celebrated, proud that their offspring had become SHADID (martyrs).” (UNITED IN HATE, The Left’s Romance With Tyranny and Terror, pp. 105,106) emphasis added.
The ONLY religion, that wants, through DEATH, to control the world, IS Islam, NOT the Jews, nor Christianity.
Hopi, you are so blinded with HATRED for Jews, and all Western values, through vicious indoctrination of RABID propaganda, ‘Turnspeak’ twisting and cynical inverting of historic FACTS, that you CAN’T see the trees from the jungle.
It must be HELL living in your mind and heart, seething, boiling over with such diabolical, Satanic Cosmic HOGWASH, against the most vilified ethnic group of people, EVER, who ARE the true and genuine REFUGEES, as they had to flee from Arab, Muslim controlled countries, where they lived for CENTURIES, as citizens, robbed and pillaged, tortued and KILLED, like dogs, and only had ONE single place to call HOME, their ancient Jewish homeland, Israel, and the vehement, ancient HATRED, against the most dispersed people across the world EVER, only want to live peacefully in their rightful HOME LAND, and the Satanically inspired Islamist, radical Jihadists, who live for DEATH, as that is all they know from Allah, and you come with this crap, about wanting freedom, they know NO such liberty, UNTIL they went to live in Western civilization!
We can write about all that these scientist have researched and concluded, we can study all the religions we want and yet we are to believe that we only use 10% of our mental capacity.
Bush tea believes that the world will soon meet it’s death. But although we live, we do not even understand what life is. Although we die we do not know death.
What if life and death are not what we have been taught to believe they are? For that is what we base our love or fear of life and death on; something we have learnt.
I for one know that their is a lot more to life and to learn about living, than what most of us believe as truth. I also get a sense that there is so much more to death than the finality and fear that we are taught from young to expect.
Because we humans are common in nature/spirit and form perhaps we share something called an indivisible duality.
Our physical elements are literally from the soil and even as we live, we shed aspects of our skin that returns to the soil and new flesh grows based on the minerals we ingest, again from the soil and air.
We all urinate, defecate and this goes into the rivers, water table, oceans and evaporates to rain again, for us to drink again and continue the cycle.
Perhaps because we perceive ourselves as individuals, we miss out on our unifying qualities.
Perhaps death is really the giving up of our individual character and awareness and yet allows us to share in the experience of others that live on.
Just a thought or two.
Peace
@ Zoe.
Some choice ones for you to digest.
* “The cause of unrest in Palestine, and the only cause, arises from the Zionist movement, and from our promises and pledges in regard to it.”
—Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 14 June 1921.
* “A Zionist state in Palestine can only be installed and maintained by force and we should not be a party to it…”
—President Franklin Roosevelt, 5 March 1945, Department of State’s Foreign Relations, 1945, Volume III.
* “Because we took the land this gives us the image of being bad, of being aggressive. The Jews always considered that the land belonged to them, but in fact it belonged to the Arabs. I would go further: I would say the original source of this conflict lies with Israel, with the Jews — and you can quote me.”
—Yehoshofat Harkabi, former Israeli Chief of Military Intelligence, in “Peace Won’t be a Plane Ticket to Cairo,” International Armed Forces Journal, October 1973, p.30.
* “Let us not today fling accusations at the murderers. Who are we that we should argue against their hatred? For eight years now they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their very eyes, we turn into our homestead the land and the villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.”
—Moshe Dayan, 1953, quoted by Uri Avneri in Israel without Zionists, p. 134.
* “I don’t understand your optimism. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country.”
—David Ben Gurion, 1956, quoted by Nahum Goldmann in The Jewish Paradox, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p.99.
* “It seemed to me to be symptomatic of a certain blindness to the human reactions of others that so many Israelis professed not to understand why the Arabs who had been driven from their lands should continue to hate and try to injure those who had driven them out.”
—General E.L.M. Burns, Chief of Staff of UNTSO, Between Arab and Israeli, p. 162.
Peace
Oh and a couple more for you to sleep on;
# “We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village.”
—Moshe Dyan, March 19, 1969, speech at the Technion in Haifa, “Israel” quoted in Haaretz, April 4, 1969. (385 villages have been destroyed within pre-1967 Israel…)
# Ben Gurion, referring to American Jews, called them “Human dust.”
—cf. Israel: Utopia incorporated, Uri Davis, Zed Press, London, 1977, p. 19.
Peace
For those who are hooked on Wikileaks here is what is coming:
WikiLeaks books roundup – reviews
Inside WikiLeaks by Daniel Domscheit-Berg; WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: ‘his significance transcends his personality’. Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos/Antonio Olmos
Of the making of books about WikiLeaks, there is apparently no end. Even as these two dropped on to the doormat, two more turned up on my Kindle. And that’s just at the "popular" end of the market. Already one can hear the grinding of academic presses as scholars and essayists set to work, assessing the Meaning Of It All. Never before in the history of mankind (as Churchill might say) has so much trouble been caused by so few people.
Search the Guardian bookshop
The most extraordinary revelation in Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s book is how tiny the WikiLeaks operation has been from the beginning. For most of its brief life, it seems to have had a core of only four full-time people with a variable number of part-time supporters, groupies and hangers-on. All in all it’s a sobering case study in how mastery of software skills and cryptography can create something capable of infuriating – if not exactly humbling – a superpower.
Domscheit-Berg is a computer scientist who worked in IT security prior to devoting himself to WikiLeaks at the end of 2007. He left in September 2010, exhausted and embittered by the stress of working with the site’s founder, Julian Assange. His is an intensely personal account of what it was like to be at the epicentre of an internet phenomenon. He portrays himself as a relatively straightforward and idealistic hacker who was mesmerised by a flawed genius, and captivated by that genius’s vision of creating a world in which no government or corporation could hide things from the rest of us.
Most of the mainstream media has had a go at profiling Julian Assange, but Domscheit-Berg’s portrayal of the WikiLeaks founder is the most insightful to date. Many journalists have commented on his brilliant, wilful, erratic, paranoid personae, but none has lived with him on a day-to-day basis, as Domscheit-Berg did. "Julian often behaved," he writes at one point, "as though he had been raised by wolves rather than by other human beings. Whenever I cooked, the food would not, for instance, end up being shared equally between us. What mattered was who was quicker off the mark. If there were four slices of Spam, he would eat three and leave one for me if I was too slow."
This indifference to the needs of others, together with a maniacal self-centredness and an amazing ability to concentrate on technical problems, is par for the course for computer geniuses. (Think of the portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, in the film The Social Network, or of the early Bill Gates.) It’s what enables them to create things, to conjure up unimaginable constructs by sheer force of intellect and will. But it’s also what makes them incapable of managing things on a day-to-day basis – and that, in a nutshell, is the burden of Domscheit-Berg’s complaint. As he tells it, the task of running and financing a complex operation was difficult enough without having a capricious, secretive and often uncontactable boss who can – and often does – countermand the carefully laid arrangements of subordinates.
David Leigh and Luke Harding have produced an All the President’s Men for our times. It tells the story of how the Guardian got involved in some of the biggest revelations in recent journalistic history, and chronicles how the Afghan and Iraq war logs and US diplomatic cables came to be published. It’s a rattling page-turner that has Guardian dogs learning lots of new tricks (though they never quite mastered the art of using disposable mobile phones). It also highlights the fact that the paper was probably the best available collaborator for WikiLeaks because it’s one of the few journalistic organisations that has taken data journalism seriously and has formidable in-house technical expertise.
One of the lessons of the evolution of WikiLeaks is that the facts rarely speak for themselves. Initially the vision was that all that was needed was to publish information that someone wished to keep secret – that the act of publication was sufficient in itself. What that implied was that WikiLeaks merely needed to construct a secure conduit that would enable whistleblowers to upload stuff without betraying their identities.
Experience showed, however, that often mere revelation was not enough: the world yawned and turned away. Often the leaked material was complex and unintelligible to the lay browser. It needed expert interpretation – and corroboration. So gradually it dawned on Assange and his colleagues that the best way of making an impact on the world might be to collaborate with journalistic organisations, which could provide the interpretation and the checking needed to ensure that people believed what was being leaked. This is the value that the Guardian, the New York Times, Der Spiegel and the other media partners added to the vast troves of documents that Assange brought to them.
But if it turned out that WikiLeaks needed conventional journalism, it has also become clear that conventional journalism needs what WikiLeaks created, namely a secure technology for enabling people to upload confidential material that they believe should be in the public domain. So it’s important that serious media organisations now build that kind of technology themselves, just in case WikiLeaks is overcome by the fragility of its finances, its managerial problems or the legal vulnerability of its founder. In a world increasingly dominated by secretive, unaccountable corporations and in which authoritarian regimes continue to flourish, we will need robust technologies for ensuring that some secrets cannot be kept.
The media’s obsession with Assange is understandable, for he is indeed an amazingly complex and fascinating individual. It’s impossible to read either of these books without being alternately moved and revolted by his behaviour – at least as recounted by those who have had to deal with him. But his significance transcends his personality. Assange unleashed a genie that can’t be rebottled. As a result of his work, governments everywhere are faced with a tough choice: to live with a WikiLeakable world or to shut down the net. Not bad for an Australian hacker of no fixed abode.
Secret society
By John Lloyd
Published: February 18 2011 22:11 | Last updated: February 18 2011 22:11
Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website, by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Jonathan Cape, RRP£9.99, 304 pages
WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, by David Leigh and Luke Harding, Guardian Books, RRP£9.99, 352 pages
WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency, by Micah L Sifry, OR Books, RRP£9.99, 224 pages
Julian Assange, the founder, face and spirit of WikiLeaks, marches to the beat of his own drum. That drum summons him to wage war on governments by exposing their vast stores of secret information on the internet. He has, it seems, succeeded beyond even his most elevated hopes: he is now a world figure, maybe even a world-historical one. Yet he’s also a failure.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
‘Osama bin Laden’ by Michael Scheuer – Feb-18
Rumsfeld’s new memoir ‘Known and Unknown’ reviewed by Andrew J Bacevich – Feb-11
Day of the debutant – Feb-04
Caught in the web – Jan-28
Caste of millions – Jan-21
John Gray’s ‘The Immortalization Commission’ – Jan-21
The character of Assange and his organisation, and the material they have released, are fascinating in almost equal measure. Assange’s Australian childhood was one of constant disruption: an unknown father, a kindly stepfather who left, and a mother who fled from city to city with her son to avoid a vengeful former lover. In his teens, Assange immersed himself in the world of computer programming and then hacking and, bit by bit, he gathered together the threads of his view of the conspiratorial nature of governance.
Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006 with the aim of providing a platform for the reception of as much confidential material from governments and their agencies as possible. Among its early successes, it leaked a report in 2007 on the corrupt practices of Daniel Arap Moi, the Kenyan leader, and in 2008 Rudolf Elmer, a whistleblower within the Zurich-based Julius Baer bank, leaked a cache of documents detailing clients’ tax-dodging. Yet WikiLeaks was struggling to make the impact Assange hoped.
Then, in 2010, it hit pay dirt through US Private First Class Bradley Manning. In some ways, Manning was Assange’s doppelgänger: he too had a disturbed childhood, and was an idealist and dreamt of a better world. Assigned to a communications base in Iraq, he was horrified by the cynicism and casual brutality. He decided to strive for a better world by leaking the secret cables to which, as a PFC, he had amazing access.
His first leak was a video filmed in 2007 of US soldiers in a helicopter shooting men on a Baghdad street, two of whom turned out to be Reuters employees. He uploaded it on to a Lady Gaga CD, and sent it to WikiLeaks. Logs – vast hoards of stories – from Iraq and Afghanistan followed, and finally 250,000 US diplomatic cables. The helicopter video created a sensation; the cables turned Assange and his organisation into superstars. Manning, reported to the authorities by a journalist to whom he had confided his theft, is now in solitary confinement at the US Marines’ base at Quantico, Virginia, locked up for 23 out of 24 hours, constantly prodded awake and only two people (a lawyer and a friend) are allowed to visit.
The publication of several hundred of those cables in November 2010 has been explosive; its effect on journalism, diplomacy and our understanding of the world will take time to fully comprehend. However, the first books about WikiLeaks and its founder, published this month, offer insights into the organisation and the man behind it.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s Inside WikiLeaks, a ghosted work from Assange’s closest collaborator and one-time closest friend, is marked by the haste of its composition and his burning resentment of Assange. For years, Domscheit-Berg was editor, proselytiser, organiser and PR man. But his impatience, then anger, then rage over Assange’s increasingly autocratic and capricious behaviour grew too much for him: he confronted Assange and demanded he change; instead, he was fired. His book has an inevitable tone of self-justification but from it we learn how tiny and disorganised WikiLeaks was.
Above all, though, the book’s aim is to make clear that Assange is a real pain to be around, more so because his aims and his actions clash so fantastically. Although an avatar of collaboration, Assange retreats, most of the time wordlessly, to his computer (even during meals) and repels all who attempt criticism; a visionary for a transparent world, he disguises and shrouds in secrecy movements, dates, locations and facts about his past and about the capacity of WikiLeaks.
Assange has imagination, energy and brilliance, concedes Domscheit-Berg, but he is “so paranoid, so power hungry, so megalomaniac”. It is a view at least in part shared by others who have worked with him, such as Nick Davies, the well-known Guardian investigative reporter, and Bill Keller, the editor of The New York Times. Davies, who first contacted Assange for The Guardian and came to regard him as a friend, later refused to deal with him, citing betrayal of trust over Assange’s sharing of information with the UK’s Channel Four News. Keller wrote, in a long New York Times magazine essay published in January, of Assange’s “bombast and dark conspiracy theories”, and stressed the distance he put between his paper and WikiLeaks when publishing the diplomatic cables, treating it as far as possible like any other source.
In a chapter devoted to it, Domscheit-Berg describes Assange’s treatment of women as reactionary, which is telling in the context of the rape charges now outstanding against Assange in Sweden. Assange was never one for obscenities or lad-chat but he would refuse any woman the right to question him. Domscheit-Berg claims that Assange would “never be able to accept a woman who was truly his equal” and he would “boast about how many children he had fathered”.
David Leigh and Luke Harding, the Guardian reporters who wrote WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, are alive to what Assange can do to those around him but concentrate more on what the leaks do for freedom of information. The Guardian was one of five newspapers (including Le Monde, The New York Times, El Pais and Der Spiegel) that published information from WikiLeaks. Its strongly liberal stance put it in the first rank of publishers of often incendiary revelations but, like Domscheit-Berg, it couldn’t get on with Assange. During a meal in a London restaurant, Leigh told Assange that they wished to disguise the identities of Afghans who had provided information to the US authorities. Assange replied: “Well, they’re informants, so, if they get killed, they’ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.” It was an index of how far apart the paper and the leaker were.
WikiLeaks is the most workmanlike of this first slew of books, the narrative marshalled into clear lines by Leigh, the paper’s investigations editor, and Harding, its Moscow correspondent. The book concentrates too much on how The Guardian covered the story, with self-serving riffs on the dedication, tirelessness, skill and imagination of the team: such qualities are best discovered, not insisted upon. Still, it’s by far the best in describing the content and, to a degree, the importance of the revelations. It throws out intriguing lines of thought about the future for newspapers and also shows – though it could have done more on this – that Assange is no liberal in the Guardian mould.
In his 2006 essay “Conspiracy as Governance”, Assange outlined his philosophy that governments use secrecy and exchange of information within a closed network to the detriment of the people. Their disruption is thus a civic duty, and disruption is best effected by prompting leaks. In a blog posted in December 2006, Assange expanded on the idea, writing that: “The more secretive or unjust an organisation is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in … decreased ability to hold on to power.”
Assange’s philosophy, much of it adumbrated before WikiLeaks took off, has been subjected to a critical review by the philosopher Peter Ludlow of Northwestern University. Ludlow, who had previously seen Assange as a “prophet of the ‘information wants to be free’ hacker ethic”, now poses sceptical, and useful, questions. Can’t some government “conspiracies”, such as secret manoeuvres aimed to produce a peace settlement, be benign? Is Assange sure there’s no fatal fallout for the informants? Don’t these leaks spur agencies to tighten their protocols on secrecy? Isn’t WikiLeaks – its base constantly shifting, its informants (supposedly) anonymous, its encryption uncrackable – itself a conspiracy? And hasn’t it become a very powerful one, holding the lives of many actors and the fate of many diplomatic and military projects in its hands?
Assange’s aim is not reform but destruction. In WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency, Micah L Sifry writes: “To Assange, the goal of transparency is not to enable better behaviour by governments or corporations but to make it impossible for ‘the conspiracy to think, act and adapt.’” Sifry’s book is not particularly enlightening about WikiLeaks but does considerably expand our understanding of the burgeoning world that has grown so quickly from the internet. Citing a plethora of websites, he argues that much of the most valuable work on the internet is by activists who seek, in one way or another, to open up state and corporate affairs. Some of these activist-scholars, such as Professor Tim Wu, who was appointed adviser to the Federal Trade Commission last week, even work with the Obama administration in the belief that they can add flesh to the bones of the president’s commitment to an open government (something Sifry is grumpily sceptical about).
Sifry believes that it is in the activities of such reformists that we can glimpse a better relationship between power and the people. Those in power may recognise the necessity of aligning private deeds with public declarations (since both will end up on the internet) and citizens better understand the dilemmas and contradictions of power and seek a fuller partnership in their resolution. That’s a noble, inspiring vision: it isn’t that of Julian Assange.
We have gained a great deal from these leaks so far. In a book just published in Italy (WikiLeaks dalla A alla Z) a collection of highly entertaining cables on prime minister Silvio Berlusconi are brought together, salted with the harsher view that he increasingly acts as Russia’s cheerleader and speculation that he may be benefiting personally from its oil revenues. It is good that we know about which regimes and individuals are considered corrupt and tyrannous; that the Saudis want the US to “cut off the head of the (Iranian) snake”; that China is losing patience with North Korea, and may acquiesce in a union between north and south; that the US forces and authorities can do little to stop torture in Iraq.
As the Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler writes in his essay “A Free Irresponsible Press”, due to be published shortly in the Harvard Civil Liberties Law Review, WikiLeaks fulfils the criteria of a whistleblower in the public interest. Benkler believes that any attempt at suppression or prosecution of Assange would be batted away by the Supreme Court on the basis that the first amendment to the US constitution forbids any kind of censorship.
It would seem that the editors of the five newspapers that published the cables, ready to embarrass but not to destroy, have succeeded in forcing the Leninist Assange into their reformist mould: and in doing so, have added value. WikiLeaks has not (as I previously thought, and wrote) dumped all the logs and cables on to the internet: the five publications have been highly selective and the cables have been extensively redacted. However, the question remains: who can decide if and when the thousands of documents that WikiLeaks retains are released? It is an important question, barely touched on by these books.
Taken together, these books left me thinking less of Assange but more highly of his organisation. In large part because of his own repelling nature, Assange finds himself at once lionised and gutted. He has attracted celebrity supporters – Jemima Khan, John Pilger, Michael Moore (Domscheit-Berg says that Assange has always despised Moore, who contributed $20,000 to his defence fund). But key assistants have left him; WikiLeaks is inactive. Domscheit-Berg and others, including The New York Times, are starting competitor leak sites.
Assange will be back in court later this month to learn if he is to be deported to Sweden to stand trial for minor rape. It’s been not the least of his unattractive features – and of some of his supporters – that he has painted the charges, and the women bringing them, as inspired by the CIA, or some such agency. Assange has needed to see himself as a solitary iconoclast, grasping the essential nature of the tyrannies that oppress us, possessing the key to our liberation. Instead, very much tamed and contained by his publishing partners, he’s given a substantial heft to our better understanding of the way the world is managed, and maybe, in time, a more sympathetic comprehension of the contradictions, compromises and contrasting goals with which governments must juggle.
It must make him sick.
John Lloyd is an FT contributing editor
Can anyone clarify which bits of the bible Barbados is referenced in.
Cornell Campbell & U Roy – I Shall Not Be Moved, I Shall Not Remove
Breaking news.
There are reports of numerous fatalities after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake rocked the New Zealand city of Christchurch Tuesday (New Zealand time).
Thanks Hants, this report is calling it to be a 7.1 quake.
David this is a big one too. My boy Rawle has a problem.
“Magistrate Weekes instructed White, who is also on bail on a charge of murdering Julene Bryan on May 15, 2007, not to say anything more.”
David this is like a script from Law and Order or CSI.
Hopefully the truth will out.
@Hants
Many of these politicians are all the same. Don’t know the facts in this case but Rawle ‘Diabolical’ Eastmond has been dealing with his outside thing for years. One can only wonder being the bad diabetic that he is how he is able to do it.
You live by the sword you die by the sword.
David
The woman was out on bail on a murder charge? Where does she live? Canada?
Hey Random Thoughts maybe you are correct and Bajan politicians can die from outside nookie.
@Sargeant
Making a general comment the Barbados Court System is a messy place to deal but it serves the establishment and the lawyers of course to (using your term) paper over the shit.
David the twist to this story is the murder charge.
Don’t know the whole story but it seems this is not the kind of woman you he should be dealing with.
I feel sorry for him and his family.
He was a good boy back in the day.
@Hants
Understand the point unfortunately it is a stretch to expect the Nation to provide the background.
He is still a good boy using today’s standards.
@Sargeant I was thinking the same thing.
I didn’t know you could get bail on a murder charge in Barbados.
Here is a note received from an anonymous person, BU is unable to verify:
This outside woman thing has always been a national pastime in Barbados.
Unfortunately Rawle seems to have made a very bad choice.
.
The Congos – Jah Solid Foundation
(aka Them No Know Jah)
#
Hants | February 22, 2011 at 12:12 AM |
Breaking news.
There are reports of numerous fatalities after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake rocked the New Zealand city of Christchurch Tuesday (New Zealand time).
I wonder what (according to Zoe’s logic) did those Kiwis did to deserve this…..
Can’t wait on Zoe’s take on this….
@Techy… ROFLMFAO….
DAVID@BU
In an interesting twist: “Two IRANIAN* warships have entered the Suez Canal on their way to the Mediterranean Sea, Canal officials said Tuesday. “They entered the canal at 0545 (0345 GMT),” the officials told reporters…”
Israeli PM Ben. Netanyahu apparently is saying this is a PROVOCATIVE* act of war…
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142457
What is even more STRANGE* David, on Sunday it was reported that an “earthquake” measuring 5.9 on the Richter Scale shook up residents at the entrance to the Suez Canal early Monday morning (actually just before DAWN*)….
The thing was Iran was preparing to move warships to Syria but it was denied that same morning and TODAY it’s being reported that the ship have actually passed through the SUEZ CANAL* ( the 1st time since 1979) on route to SYRIA ( stay tuned)…
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the NZ earthquake could have been have MAN_MADE* on the back of the SUEZ QUAKE* because why not a day before or a day after the IRANIAN* military flotilla…
Research also suggest that as far back as of Dec. 26th 2004, that the USGS* knew of the undersea earthquake and did not warn the Indonesian government and the end-result was catastrophic lost of life in the 100′s of thousands (ONE-SWOOP MASS DEPOPULATION)…
The USGS* did provide “REAL_TIME” info the NZ quake….
SEE:- http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_b0001iet_tz.html
Surely, the angels which hold the 4 WINDS* are gradually loosing the winds resulting in political strife, earthquakes, unnatural phenomena and wars BLOWING* across the land…
The endgame approaches!!!
@ DAVID
M. Gaddafi is currently doing a theatrical RANT* of Spielberg proportions on all major networks…
Ya’ gotta’ LUV* this guy…
He should be a theme park attraction down in Florida’s Disney World!!!
@TMB: “Unconfirmed reports suggest that the NZ earthquake could have been have MAN_MADE* on the back of the SUEZ QUAKE* because why not a day before or a day after the IRANIAN* military flotilla…
Could anyone please explain to all of us how humans could possibly create directed earthquakes at particular times?
Modern physics understanding appreciated….
I wonder how many times in the history of mankind, has the phrase “the world is coming to an end” been used.
They must have worn out that phrase and the accompanying rhetoric with WWI and WWII, Korean War, Seven Day War,Vietnam War, Gulf War I & II….etc.
Not to mention the ‘Great Flood’…….and all the other stories…….just wondering!
Foreknowledge of A Natural Disaster: Washington was aware that a deadly Tidal Wave was building up in the Indian Ocean by Michel Chossudovsky…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO412C.html
Earthquakes: Natural or Man-Made?
http://newdawnmagazine.com.au/Articles/Earthquakes_Natural_or_Man_Made.html
Top 5 Ways to Cause a Man-Made Earthquake….
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/top-5-ways-that/
Terence Blackett,
Excuse my ignorance, but do you not have anything better to do?
@TMB: “Earthquakes: Natural or Man-Made? (URL to article provided.)
Has this “paper” been peer reviewed?
@TMB: “Top 5 Ways to Cause a Man-Made Earthquake….
Yes. Wired Magazine makes you think (unfortunatly it isn’t generally available here in Bim…)
But, this doesn’t explain how to create an earthquake “on demand” or “at a particular distant location”.
My question stands.
Can you answer?
@ DAVID
Hold on to your hat but is this a FORETASTE* and the making of PHASE 2 of the economic cycle…
Bank Run In… Korea
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/18/2011 16:45 -0500
When one thinks of South Korea one tends to think of stable government and an even more stable financial system. That may change very soon. According to JoongAng Daily, “more than a thousand customers lined up in front of the Busan II Savings Bank located in Busan yesterday as soon as the nation’s financial regulator announced a six-month business suspension of Busan Savings Bank and its affiliate Daejeon Mutual Savings Bank.” And not helping the mood was a bank employee who told the crowd that “You won’t be allowed to withdraw your money if you are just standing there without a queue ticket number.”
Needless to say, most promptly got a number. Those that didn’t tried to get their cash at an ATM. Unsuccessfully: “Those without a ticket then headed to the automated teller machines to withdraw their money, but the machines quickly ran out of cash.”
And while the bank run at Busan was driven by capital inadequacy (shockingly Korea still hasn’t figure out that the best way to mask liabilities surpassing assets is through pervasive fraud and suspension of all common sense accounting rules: they should promptly consult with Tim Geithner and Sheila Bair on the issue), it may promptly spread to the entire banking system. “Analysts expressed concerns that public panic about savings banks could spread. “The fears of depositors are mounting, which could lead to bank runs at a number of savings banks, and it could eventually spread to the entire savings bank industry,” said Jung Sung-tae, a researcher at LG Economic Institute.” But fear not, for the Korean government is one step ahead: “A way to secure capital [for savings banks] is to establish a joint account holding fund amounting to 10 trillion won,” explained Kim Seok-dong, FSC chairman. “This problem will be closely discussed with the National Assembly.” Any day now Korea will end up with its own version of a taxpayer funded capital block hole, a/k/a in the US as the FDIC, and all problems will be promptly brushed under the rug. We can’t wait until this brilliant idea comes to China (advised by Goldman Sachs no doubt). We just wonder if it will be before or after the Chinese bank run hits…
From JoongAng:
“I’ve saved 40 million won ($35,810) over my whole life. That money was going to be used for my grandson’s marriage but I cannot trust these people [bank employees] saying that I am guaranteed to get my money back,” said Cho So-young, 79.
Although operations of three of Busan Savings Bank’s four affiliates were not suspended, there are fears that they could be hit by a bank run on their deposits.
In the case of Busan II Savings Bank, its capital adequacy ratio stood at 6.0 percent as of the end of 2010, but its liabilities exceeded assets by 12.5 billion won.
Two other affiliates, Jungang Busan Savings Bank and Jeonju Savings Bank, have capital adequacy ratios of 3.6 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively. But they are unlikely to avoid a suspension of business if a bank run occurs.
The state-run Korea Finance Corporation and four commercial banks – Woori, Kookmin, Shinhan and Hana – have decided to inject 2 trillion won of emergency liquidity into the savings bank sector.
In addition, the government has decided to extend the amount of loans that can be borrowed by the Korea Federation of Savings Banks to support savings banks from the current 600 billion won to 3 trillion won.
Financial authorities are currently working to establish a joint deposit insurance account as a safety net for other financial sectors to curb the spread of possible financial risks from the savings banks. Funds for a joint deposit insurance account would be collected by financial institutions.
It is refreshing to see that both US banking insolvency, and its means of dealing with problems (insert head firmly and deeply in sand) are spreading across the world. And with that in mind, and a drink in hand, we now await for the daily trickle of press releases from the FDIC describing today’s roster of Failure Friday banks, which have really failed in not realizing that the only way to avoid bankruptcy is to merge with everyone else who is just as insolvent and become a systemic risk.
@Anonus
LOLLLLL ROFLMAO you are too funny! This is Terrence’s pulpit. He is probably a regular at Hyde Park. I am sure when he speaks his eyes have this glazed look in them. LOL BU is home to all and many. When I see any post by him I smile because that is another one I won’t read because it is too long and rambling.
@ CH
The question you are asking me – seeks what kind of answer???
My opinion?
Or seismological research?
@TMB: “The question you are asking me – seeks what kind of answer???” “My opinion?” “Or seismological research?”
I (and many) seek the truth; no matter where it leads.
My questions:
Do you actually believe that humans can create directed earthquakes?
If so, do you have evidence supporting this claim?
Arkansas cities feel unexplained surge in earthquakes…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110217/ap_on_re_us/us_arkansas_earthquakes
@ CH
“Do you actually believe that humans can create directed earthquakes?”
Consensus suggest that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE*…
If we are capable of putting a satellite into outer space that can ZOOM* in on a cockroach in Chinatown NY – go figure!!!
If Craig Venter can create “ARTIFICIAL LIFE” in a lab (with doomsday repercussions) anything is possible!!!
If GENETIC MODIFICATION & ENGINEERING can create new hybrid life forms including the possibility of CLONED HUMAN LIFE – what can any of us say?
Following the evidence would suggest that we have created the technology to create RAINFALL, HURRICANES, EARTHQUAKES etc… The problem is – HOW DO YOU OUT-RIGHTLY COME INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN WITH THOSE KIND OF ADMISSIONS?
Conspiracy theorists are already having a field day with this stuff – can you imagine if someone were to get their hands on documented proof that our governments have been manipulating NATURE* through insidious means?
I just love how these ‘educated Christians ‘make BOLD claims but pussyfoot around the direct answers to direct questions…..stuuuuuupse!!
There is NOTHING wrong with saying I DON”T KNOW!!
@TMB: “Consensus suggest that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE*…
Consensus is wrong.
How do you, for example, take any object with any mass to C (the speed of light) without using infinite energy?
@TMB: “If Craig Venter can create “ARTIFICIAL LIFE” in a lab (with doomsday repercussions) anything is possible!!!
Not true. What CV did is what Mother Nature does every day. This does not mean that anything is possible.
@TMB… Respectfully, you might want to understand the sciences a bit more before making the claims you do….
@ CH
In April 1997, key players in Bill Clinton’s administration held a discourse at the University of Georgia in Atlanta…
Here’s Senator SAM NUNN’s response to a specific question:
Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week’s scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B’nai Brith…
A: ……. “Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic-specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off EARTHQUAKES*, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves….
SEE:
http://www.fas.org/news/usa/1997/04/bmd970429d.htm
These claims have the undertones of a mentally unstable individual obsessed by religion.
Terrence will you go and take your medication please.
@TMB… I didn’t ask you to post some URL quoting a politician talking about earthquakes…
I asked for someone knowledgeable to speak about the question if directed earthquakes were even possible.
But, let me please quote your quote: “Others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off EARTHQUAKES*, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves….
Who are these “others”? Has their research been peer reviewed? Or is it all “Top Secret”?
As an aside, “Alvin Toeffler” doesn’t appear to exist….
@ CH
Understanding the science is frankly immaterial…
Science has created technologies which undermine human existence. And although scientific advances have proven beneficial in some ways to human existence – the antithesis has been so much more sinister…
The reality is that scientists are fallible human beings with weaknesses and shortcomings, biases and prejudices and oftentimes flawed theoretical positions they base in so-called factual, empirical science…
The ominous nature of science has created a “brave new world”; so-called intelligent design; “The Manhattan Project” and military technology that can incinerate an entire planet; “PHARMACEUTICAL ‘death’ CONCOCTIONS”; gene therapy which can possibly could get out of hand; video game technology that’s damaging the minds of our youth; Frankenstein foods created by Monsanto et al … the LIST* is endless!!! These ramifications of scientific manipulation is all too evident in our world and I personally have very little FAITH* in science!!!
@ CH
This is arbitrary conjecture which you would have to take up with those who are clearly know a whole lot more than you or I…
If powerful political figures make CLAIMS* to a specific effect – we have a choice to either accept or reject their positions…
Either way, it will not change OUTCOMES*, FACTS or whether the INFO* is qualitatively substantiated by any outside 2nd or 3rd group…
To keep it REAL* – you and I both know that things do not work like that in the real world anyway….
@Chris
As a scientist it is understandable that you need to be able to disprove the hypothesis. However we live in a world where there is a place for the circumstantial. We discussed the subject of man made quakes after Haiti when Bush Tea and Micro Mock Engineer enlightened us on some technologies out there. Will have to do a search to see what we can find.
@ CH
You and I have debated the dichotomy which exist between SCIENCE* & FAITH**…
We have looked at Quantum physics/mechanics/theory as a way of explaining the deeper meaning of LIFE* and the EXPRESSION* of Biblical FAITH* within the debate of time-space distanciation…
If we are both honest – there are more questions than answers…
The key is that no human being possess ULTIMATE* knowledge!!!
That rest with the CREATOR* GOD* in whom I believe…
But I will leave you with a little something for our next discussion (as it’s time for a late dinner)…
See video below….
@BU.David: “As a scientist it is understandable that you need to be able to disprove the hypothesis.
Not entirely correct. What I need is for the hypothesis to be proven. A different thing.
@BUD: “However we live in a world where there is a place for the circumstantial.
“Circumstantial” simply means observational. However, observations must be truly independent to be taken seriously.
@BUD: “We discussed the subject of man made quakes after Haiti when Bush Tea and Micro Mock Engineer enlightened us on some technologies out there.
Which I thought I had debunked at that time.
@BUD: “Will have to do a search to see what we can find.
Please do so.
If I am wrong, I want to know about it.
If you et al are wrong, I don’t want anyone mislead.
@TMB: “Understanding the science is frankly immaterial…
Really?
@TMB: “That rest with the CREATOR* GOD* in whom I believe…
But if your god created everything, did he not also create the Sciences?
Is not, based on your above, studying science studying god?
Why would you close your mind to your god’s gift?
@Chris
Is there a hypothesis on the table?
The example of using the hypothesis example was to appreciate how the mind of a scientist works.
Sorry David… Yes, there is a hypothesis on the table.
How do the scientists approach it?
How do those who believe approach it?
Very different approaches.
@Chris:
Do you entertain Quantum Physics?
If Yes, why, but with no reason except that it satisfies all known observations?
If No, because it improvable with current techniques.
Science is, and always has been in a flux, and if you at this particular point in time believe you hold the immutable truth, then I will tell you are not even a pretend scientist, but merely a fellow traveller of the vox scientificii, which is not science because there is no acceptance of doubt.
@ST: “…Do you entertain Quantum Physics?
Yes.
@ST: “If Yes, why, but with no reason except that it satisfies all known observations?
For exactly that reason. Plus, it so far has satisfied all new tests put against it.
@ST: “Science is, and always has been in a flux…
I agree with this completely. That’s why Science is so exciting and healthy! We simple stupid humans will not (cannot) know everything absolutely.
@ST: “…and if you at this particular point in time believe you hold the immutable truth, then I will tell you are not even a pretend scientist, but merely a fellow traveller of the vox scientificii, which is not science because there is no acceptance of doubt.
I never said I hold the immutable truth. I welcome people to challenge what I believe and say.
Just as I hope other people will welcome it when I challenge their claims based on their believe structures….
@ chris
Thanks for your candid response. it explains with clarity how you can be in two places at the same time.
If you ask me .God was the first Known scientist. He made people outta dirt. Something only a mad scientist can do. He created the world in Seven days. According to legend. To think that people actually believe that this vast geographical hemisphere was created in seven days . He told Noahto build an ark and put animals of every kind along with his family members to avoid being drown in the world flood . Ladies and gentleman. The world as we know it today is still being in creation. through evolution. it has been and will continue to do so forever and ever. World without end ,inother words “World that is in continual evolution
Amen
” !
@Zoe……..You and your nonsense talk about FGM, how about Rabbis having sex with little children [boys & girls].
Zoe, I hope that Gadaffi set ablaze his oil fields because I’m really getting sick of this shite right about now. Tunisia & Egypt uprising were warranted but there’s some sinister shite going down now. Yemenis needs to get rid of their western jackass too but there’s a time bomb ticking somewhere. Right now the west is repackaging pure crap and trading it on their markets, they’ve literally run out of steam and their plan was to have made headway into Afghanistan about now, but all they’re coming up with is pure, unrelenting resistance from the those BRAVE Taliban. They’re mad as hell that they can’t get their grimmy hands on those minerals so now they’re turning their attention to the M.E. I say to Ghaddafi bun it to rass! His problem is that he wants to be everybody’s friend…can’t work.
Stinking Cameron just scurried over to Egypt but he too should have been greeted with a few soles bearing some foul camel fuel. Don’t let the bloodsuckers into your country. DON’T DO IT! Stop putting your money into European bank and the US. Right now they’re so broke they’ll hold onto your money and say it all about human rights. When you lay with DOGS you get up with fleas. Let Saddam be your example.
Zoe, look how those Muslim brothers are about to reuinte…watch Iran ship sail thru the Suez without let or hindrance and watch the lying dogs froth at the mouth….you gotta stop em! they’re carrying nuclear weapons!oohh they wanna kill us! As usual nothing but LIES from their craws.
And just watch the Egyptians without let or hindrance, they sail thru. Ain’t that beautiful Zoe! Wah you think?
Enough for now!
@ David ♚ (c/o BU)
Please note: My comment [#comment-ref-223769] is awaiting moderation. The Congos – Jah Solid Foundation
I don’t buy this shit that is being drummed up about Libya either … Husein might be a good example but if you stick closer to home you can speak to those who are still available, Aristide and Noreiga … so-called regime change, by any means necessary …! Would like to hear Cahvez’s view on all this …!
@Kiki
You are probably using a new version browser which is giving WP trouble. When in doubt use FF.
@mwan
Thanks for the feedback.
Hopi, there have been only a few things able to unite Arabs in all their history. The most important unifier was Mohammad and the initial impact of Islam. But over time, even religion could not hold
the different Arab tribes together.
In our present era, the most powerful unifying factor of all has arisen. Nothing can unite the waring Muslim factions like their age-old hatred for Jews and the reborn State of Israel. To Muslims, the State of Israel’s existence in the midst of what they consider their sacred sphere of the world is the ultimate sacrilege. It is an insult to Allah that must be revenged. To the Muslim, the FACT that Israel has BEATEN them in FIVE WARS threatens the veracity of the Koran, which promises them victory over the infidels, especially when it is a “Jihad to liberate their third holiest site – Jerusalem.” This is terible “humiliation” that must be avenged for the sake and honor of Allah and the Koran. This escalates into a passion that cannot be fathomed by the West.
Hopi, listen to the prophetic scenario on exactly what began in 1948/9 only hours after the official sanctioned statehood of Israel by the League of Nations, the precusor to the UN, with the combined military might of the Arab/Mulim nations, to annihilate Israel and the Jews, and every time they attempt to WIPE Israel off the earth, they are soundly defeated, EVERY TIME, why is this SO?
Armageddon: The Climax of Hate!
“They say, ‘Come, LET US WIPE THEM OUT AS A NATION; LET THE NAME OF ISRAEL BE REMEMBERED NO MORE,” They conspire with one accord, against You they make a covenant – tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites (The Arabs), Moab and Hagrites, Gebal and Ammon and Amalek (Jordan), Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre (Lebanon); Assyria (Syria) also joined them…” (Psalm 83: 4-8, Emphasis added)
Hopi, the above from Psalms taken from the Old Testament, (1000-300 B.C) literally sounds as though it was written within the last 63 years, applying ALL that has been said in HATRED against the modern day state of Israel, by its Arab/Muslim HATERS, dosen’t it, but, Almighty God’s prophetic declarations NEVER FAIL, as HE knows and forsees ALL things, spoken through His prophets, as He divinely ispired them to record these and other End-Time events, ALL consistently unfoldring as He said it would.
Let us read on from His Word, the Bible:
“The Word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: “Have you not noticed that these people ( Israel’s neighboring nations ate saying, “The LORD has rejected the two families he chose’? SO THEY DESPISE MY PEOPLE AND NO LONGER REGARD THEM AS A NATION>” ‘This is what the LORD says: “If I have not established MY COVENANT with day and night and FIXED LAWS of heaven and earth, then I will eject the descendants of Jacob and David My servant and will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I WILL bring them back from captivity and have compassion of them.” (Jeremiah 33: 23-26 Emphasis added)
Hopi, hear what Almighty God then says to the Haters of Israel, the Arab/Muslim people.
“I WILL lay waste your cities, and you will become a desolution. Then you will KNOW than I am the LORD. BECAUSE YOU (the Arab people) HAVE HAD EVERLASTING ENMITY and have delivered the sons of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, at the time of the punishment of the end-time, therefore, as I LIVE, ” declares the LORD God, “I will give YOU over to bloodshed, and bloodshed WILL pursue you, since you have NOT hated bloodshed, theirfore bloodshed will pursue you.” (Ezekiel 35: 4-6 Emphasis added).
Overview of Prophetic Scenario
Hopi, beginning 3400 years ago and continuing into the next 1400 years, the Hebrew prophets of Almighty God, predicted a PRICISE sequence of events would fit together. All the elements of this predicted pattern would lead to a cataclysmic WAR of such magnitude that it will almost end life on this planet.
Hopi, the scenarion, has and IS literally unfolding exactly as the LORD God said it would, especially re Israel and its ancient HATERS of its very existence on earth, now formenting daily, for the beginning of World War III, plus the other convergeance of economic crisis, the devaluation of the US dollar, etc, etc, AND it is with the rebirth of Israel, that IS the KEY sign and factor, May 15, 1948, when the miraculous return of the Jews to their ancient homeland, having been scattered throughout the world, especially in Arab nations, that the END-TIME events unfold rapidly.
It WAS when Jerusalem was finally recaptured by Israel in the 1967, six day war, for the first time in over 2000 years, that Islam’s Jihad for Jerusalem began in earnest, hear again the Word of God on Jerusalem.
“Behold, I am going to make JERUSALEM a cup that causes INTOXICATION to ALL surrounding peoples; and when the siege is AGAINST Jerusalem,, it will also be against Judah (the Jews). And it will come about in that DAY (season) that I will make JERUSALEM a BURDENSOME stone for ALL the peoples; who ATTEMPT to lift it will be SEVERELY injured. And ALL the nations of the earth will be gathered (for WAR) because of IT.” (Zechariah 12: 2-3 Emphasis added)
As prophesied in God’s Word, the Bible, Israel has regained control of its ancient Capital city, Jerusalem, amid tremendous opposition from surrounding nations. Like the prophet Zachariah forsaw some 2450 years ago, Jerusalem will cause all of the neighboring natins (which are Muslim today) to become intoxicated with religious passion to possess it.
The metaphor, “a cup that causes INTOXICATION” is used in the Bible to illustrate OUT OF CONTROL religious passions. Just as a drunk person acts emotionally without reason, so it was predicted the neighboring states would be intoxicated with this Islamist driven, vehement hatred against Israel, and Jerusalem. (THE EVERLASTING HATRED, The Roots of Jihad, pp. 225-229)
Hopi, we can speculate, spiritualize, form all kinds of humanistic, spiritualistic concepts and biased opinions on this unfolding crisis in the Middle East, and other world events, BUT, there is only one Divinely inspired source of absolute revelation that gives us exactly the reasons why, and how this will all play out, and it would have been IMPOSSIBLE, even improble for any one man or group of ancient men, to have seen these events, so graphically clear and precise, over THOUSANDS of years ago, UNLESS Almighty God, gave and revealed it to them, and this is what HE DID. It can be scoffed at, rediculed, but it simplu cannot be refuted, as it has, and continues to unfold with:
Logical consistency
Empirical adequacy, and,
Experiential relevancy.
@ Zoe ….or any other familiar with the Bible….
Can you post the exact verse that relates to….’Hopi, hear what Almighty God then says to the Haters of Israel, the Arab/Muslim people.
Did he actually describe the Arab/Muslim people in the Bible?
Did God actually single out and describe the Arab/Muslim people as the ‘Haters of Israel’?
Can’t help you there Technician, but perhaps someone can point me to the exact passage in revelations that declares that in the latter days there will be those that claim to be Jews but are not. They would be in fact the synagogue of Satan.
Peace
@Zoe…………..God DID NOT SAY THAT re[Tech query]. Didn’t I tell you before that it were many different people that conspired & write this bible in their favour. Why do you have more than 1 version of the bible. The bible that makes Black people the servant of everyone else. The only god that could have said something like that was the god of the ‘jew.’
If the arabs/muslims can unite against the state of israhell, that’s a great unification. Won’t you agree?
Zoe you don’t need no divinely inspired source of revelation for what’s going on in the M.E. Open your eyes and see the game of total economic destabalisation for full spectrum dominance.
But I’m not too worried about that region Zoe, because I know that my sand nigger cousins ain’t like us land niggers who just love being in the company of our enemy. We love to ‘forgive’ and forget who our enemy is but not the Arabs…they have elephant memory. Do you remember the crusades? They won’t roll over and play dead Zoe, they die for their beliefs so I don’t think it will be easy for western ‘powers’ to totally control that region.
Redshield is mad about the fact that they can’t get any blood money[interest,,late fees etc] from their banks. They don’t engage in thievery like your christian cohorts and ‘jew’ overlords.
So keep your ears to the ground Zoe. Had you honoured your Black Ancestors you’d be able to tune into a frequency higher than google.
@maat…..I don’t think that’s in the bk of revelation, I think that’s somewhere in 1 of those gospels, but I stand to be corrected by that Pauline Zoe.
Someone on BU recently wrote…..
History is written by the Victors !!
Food for thought.
Why? Is it the n word?
Do you know who the descendants of Edom and the Ishmalites are? Do you know who are the descendants of Moab, Hagmites, Gebal, ammon and Amalek are? Who are the descendants of Tyre and Assyria?
BTW, the above et al were the ancient people in the OT, that were sworn enemies of Israel, haters of the Jews, which has continued for thousands of years, and vehementy intensified with Mohammad and the founding of Islam in the seventh century A.D, and has NEVER stopped, right up until today!
BTW, note carefully, who are identified in Psalm 84: 4-8, as saying,
“Come, LET US WIPE THEM OUT AS A NATION…” The haters of Israel.
BTW, who are the present day ‘nations’ surrounding the State of Israel? That repeatedly and openly declare that their INTENT, is to WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE MAP?
BTW, who are the descendants TODAY, of the ancient haters of Israel in the OT? That are continuously carrying on the TERROR, and vehement HATRED against Israel and Jews, that started WAY back in the Old Testament, thousands of years ago?
Hops, As spiritually deceived and confused as you are, don’t tell me, you are that dum intellectually, to believe that Jews wrote thousands of years in advance, the OT, giving specific details, events, grapic descriptions of numerous historic predictions, (proleptically speaking) before they came to pass, AND, then in only what can be described as MIRACULOUS, actually carried out, lived out ALL that, according to YOUR fantabulous imagination, was planned by them in such minute detail before , then setting about to play out ALL these incredible, amazing feats, like a well orchastrated play?
Come now Hopi, only a demented jackass would fabricate such utter HOGWASH as you have!
Zoe…..how old is the Bible? And please remind me of a few events that came to pass?
Good nite Zoe!
‘History is written by the victors.”
Well, in this case, Israel was for thousands of years, the dispersed VICTIMS, scattered througout the nations of the world, exactly as prophesied in the Word of God, the Bible. Their dispersion in 135 A.D, by emperor Hadrian of Rome, lasted right through until, the 19th century, VICTIMS of abuse, pillage, murder, and second class citizens in the Arab countries they lived in for hundreds of years, and had to FLEE, from their homes, businesses, properties, for Israel, the only place that historically and rightfully IS their homeland.
BTW, tell me how they the Jews, in Israel, since 1948, have so well orchastrated their persecution and repeated TERRORISM from their Arab/Muslim HATERS, they wrote all of this too?
Also, when Almighty God, of historic divine revelation, SPOKE that once He brought them back to Israel, AFTER multiplied centuries of DISPERSION, that they would NEVER AGAIN be uprooted from their ancient Capital, Jerusalem, and no matter how hard the HATERS of Israel try, in combined force, these Islamists Jihadists, CANNOT defeat the Jew, or every remove them again from their, God-given homeland.
So, Hopi et al, you can HUFF and PUFF, rant and rage, together with your sand coloured Islamists brothers, BUT, you nor them, will EVER be able to EVER again defeat Israel, yes, it may appear, as the Word of God states, that Jerusalem will be trodden down by its enemies, when all seems to be lost, the KING OF KINGS, and LORD OF LORDS, Jesus Christ, will make His Glorious, Majestic appearance in the sky, and just by the breath of His Omnipotent mouth, will DESTROY all of the enemies of Israel, and the arrayed Anti-Christ, Satanic World Government, it is only a matter of time, not in the too distant future either, it is around the corner, just wait and see!
Zoe……..Israel was NEVER any dispersed victim. That a damn lie! These AshkeNAZIS poured out of Europe and stole land..PLAIN & SIMPLE, ZOE…. BUT since you haven’t brought anything to sway me toward that vile sect which you so defend, have it your way. They’re gonna get the armageddon that they’re looking for. But in due course of time we will see you and your ilk EAT your words. So far I’ve seen some good come out of that Egyptian revolt….they’re opening up the borders with the Palestinians so that they can at least have some humanity brought back to their life…the humanity that ‘god’s chosen’ with the aid of Mubarak robbed them of’.
Hopi, You are wilfully ignorant of the historic FACTS, from 135 A.D, throughout the following centuries, of the dispersion of the Jews, until, their miraculous regathering by Almighty God, exactly as He promised He would, inspite of their terribly failing Him, back to their ancient homeland, Israel, in May 14, 1948.
Hopi, lets look at some of the facts, numbers, math, taken from the Old Testament dates and prophecies, concerning Israel’s rebirth in modern times, May 14, 1948.
The utterly miraculous regathering of Jews from the North, East, etc, as Almighty God declared He would do, in bringng them back HOME, to Israel, are strikingly supported by the FACTS and math, when carefully analysized; as predicted 2,500 years in advance.
2, 520 years X 360 days/year = 907, 200 days.
907, 200 days = 2,483 ‘modern’ exact (365.24225) years + 304 days ‘left over’
Therefore, we take,
July 15, 537 B.C.
+ 1 year (because there is no year 0)
+ 2, 483 years
+304 days = May 14, 1948, the exact day Israel was officially proclaimed a State, by Jewish leader, David Ben Gurion.
Hopi, only the Omnipotent hand of Almighty God, NOT man, could fulfill with such amazing accuracy, HIS prophetic declaration on the people, the Jews and their modern-day State, Israel, after multiplied centuries of dispersion, from this, their ancient home land, ISRAEL!
Now, Hopi, lets have a brief look at the Lord Jesus Christ, and His fulfillment of OT prophecies concerning Himself as Messiah, which came to pass exactly as spoken from the Old Testament.
The numbers, (math) when computed from the OT text, work out exactly to the day Jesus entered into Jerusalem, AND, it was the ONLY time, that He officially presented Himself to Israel (the Jews) as their Messiah.
Daniel prophesied that after this, that Jesus, Messiah, would be violently murdered, NOT for Himself, BUT, for the sins of all of mankind.
Let us look at the numbers (math) as taken from Daniel and Nehemiah, bearing in mind, that a year in the Bible always refers to a Jewish year of 360 days, the prophecy was written in Babylon, which also used a 360-day year.
69 ‘sevens’ = 69x 7 Jewish years = 483 Jewish years.
483 Jewish years = 483 x 360 days = 173, 880 days.
Therefore, we need to add 173, 880 days to the start date of 1 Nisan, 445 B.C. to see the date of the prophecy, 173, 880 days = 476 ‘modern’ (365.25 days) year + 21 days ‘left over’
So, again, we take: Nisan 1, 445 B.C. + 1 year (because there is no year 0) + 476 year, and this comes out to March 14, 32 A.D.
From this date, add 2 days (because there is no leap year every 400 years and we passed two of them) and add the 21 days we had ‘left over’
The result is Sunday, April 6, A.D. 32, ‘Palm Sunday’ the exact day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Confirmed by the NT Gospel narrative accounts.
Hopi, only wilfully intellectually DISHONEST people, could deny the absolute reality, of these FACTS, that ONLY Almighty God, the One True and Living God, could FULFILL His Word, as declared HUNDREDS of years before, re His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in such exact detail, dates, etc.
Oh, BTW, there are Ten Bible Prophecies fulfilled in recent times, AFTER 1948, when Israel became an independent Nation for the second time in history. These prophecies foretold of modern Israel’s stunning military victories, and of its transition from a DESERT wasteland, to one of the most prosperous nations, ever!
@Zoe: “So, again, we take: Nisan 1, 445 B.C. + 1 year (because there is no year 0)
LOL…
You and your people can’t even get the maths right…
Zero exists.
Deal with it….
@Zoe: “Oh, BTW, there are Ten Bible Prophecies fulfilled in recent times, AFTER 1948, when Israel became an independent Nation for the second time in history.
Could you please document your claim for all observing?
One by one (by one) would be fine.
Hopi, a few more amazing facts concerning the ‘promised’ land, that Almighty God, covenanted to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, the Jews, as an Everlasting Possession, the nation of Israel.
The Prophecy of “Rejuvenation”
“Certainly, the Land;s bountifulness was magnificant for the first 1500 years after the Exodus from Egypt. Certainly, the subsequent 1800 year-long miracle of DEFICIENCY and DEPRIVATION was impressive in its own right ( besides the ‘unexpectedness’ of its appearance and the absence of scientific explanation to account for this phenomenon). Yet, several other miracles were appended and these miracles were most remarkable due, also, to there SUDDEN and rationally inexplicable appearance. After 1800 years of drought and with no apparent scientific explanation, the hills began BLOSSOMING at the turn of the 20th Century. You must pay attention to what follows: For more than 1500 years the HolyLand blossomed, and for the next 1800 years it didn’t rain for the Jews in Palestine. It didn’t rain for the Romans. It didn’t rain for e Mongols. It didn’t rain for the Crusaders. It didn’t rain for the Turks. It didn’t rain for ANYBODY for 1800 years. And THEN, for no apparent reason, at the turn of the 20th Century, for the first time in nearly two millennia, the Holy Land suddenly began to experience normal amounts of rainfall, amounts necessary to sustain life. Also, with no apparent scientific explanation, earthquakes stopped killing people. Can any one believe that these events were simply acts of happenstance?”
“If this sudden resumption of rain wasn’t remarkable enough, another momumental event occurred. After prolonged absence of 1800 years- and again, withy no reasonable explanation – the Jews suddenly begin resettling the Holy Land in the early 1900s. Millions would return to the Holy Land in the 20th Century. So now, in the beginning of the 20th Century, with no logical explanation:”
* Suddenly and coincidentally, 1800 years of horrible drought end.
* Suddenly and coincendentally, the rains begin.
* Suddenly and coincendentally, the reoccurring destructive earthquakes stop killing people.
* Suddenly and coincendentally, the ‘randomly’ appearing lovust plagues also disappear.
* Suddenly and coincendentally, the Land begins to blossom.\
* Suddenly and coincendentally, Jews return to the Land in the thousands, without a cohesive and rational explanation, millions of Jews will follow.
“Do all these events really crop up so suddenly, coincendentally, and without scientific explanation? These events appear to occur without rhyme or reason only if one doesn’t study Torah and is, thus OBLIVIOUS to prophecy. A person who is OBLIVIOUS to Torah would NEVER be able to note how these unusual series of events are FORETOLD in the greatest of detail. Such a person would NEVER be able to note how these unusual series of events COMBINE into one magnificent and Divinely orchastrated pattern. On the other hand, the one who studies will note how Torah even describes the societal conditions under which these miracles unfold.”
We are told by the Almighty:
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Almighty…the mountaimns will drip the nectar fruits…I WILL BRING BACK the captives of My people Israel and they will rebuild the desolate cities and SETTLE them; they will plant vineyards and drink wine; they will cultivate gardens and eat their fruit. I WILL PLANT THEM UPON THEIR LAND and they will NEVER BE UPROOTED FROM THEIR LAND that I HAVE GIVEN THEM.” (Amos 9: 13-15 Emphasis added)
“And so it happened that for 660,000 days there was virtually no rainfal and for 660,000 days there were many, many resultant deaths. THEN, as the Bible describes, in anticipation of many, many returing Jews, the Land suddenly begins to blossom once AGAIN.” (PROPHECIES For The Era of Muslim Terror, A Torah Perspective on World Events, pp. 34,35 Emphasis added)
This is just skimming the surface of the historic FACTS, pertaining to the Jews, their ancient homeland, that became a virtual, barren, desert, with no rainfall, during their EXILE from it, AND, that it only starts to rain, and flourish AGAIN, WHEN, Almighty God brings back to it, His covenanted people the Jews, and its absolutely amazing developments, in literally every sphere of life, over the last 63 years since its statehood, in the 20th Century, IS a marval to behold, especially in the FACE of the most virulent, vehement, vicious ATTACKS upon this tinny small area of land, relative to the vast amounts of MILLIONS of square miles of land covering the Arab/Muslim nations, who only DESIRE ANNIHILATION of this Jewish state and Jews, BUT, they CAN’T, and NEVER WILL BE ABLE to defeat Israel, because, Almighty God, will NEVER AGAIN, as He declared, allow them Iarael to be uprooted!
Halsall, Yes, zero exist, but can you kindly explain how ‘Zero year’ exist?
Do enlighten us, please, how do you number ‘Zero years(s)?
@Hopi… Zoe talks to you…
“Hopi, a few more amazing facts concerning the ‘promised’ land, that Almighty God, covenanted to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, the Jews, as an Everlasting Possession, the nation of Israel.
Why are those who are very certain they are in the favour of God so very needy?
Uncertain minds want to know….
@Zoe: “Do enlighten us, please, how do you number ‘Zero years(s)?
“T minus 10 seconds…
“T minus 5 seconds…
“Ignition…
“Lift-off!!!
Here are (2) of Ten Bible prophecies fulfilled since the Jewish State of Israel was established in May, 1948.
1. The ruins of Israel would be rebuilt.
Bible passage: Amos 9:11, 13
Written: About 750 B.C.
Fulfilled: Late 1900s
“In Amos 9: 11, 13, the prophet said that God would restore the land of David. ( King David ruled Israel from about 1010 BC to about 970 BC). The land of David – Israel – was conquered and destroyed by the Babylonians, Assyrians and Romans, The land has been in RUINS for much of the past 2000 years. The Jews, who had been scattered throughout the world, began to return in large numbers during the past hundred years. Since then, they have been rebuilding many of Israel’s ancient cities. Amos also said there would be continuous planting and harvesting. During the past 100 years, the Jews have been using advanced farming and irrigation techniques to turn BARREN land into productive farmland. Toda, Israel is a source of food for many countries.”
Here is Amos 9: 11,13
“In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repare its broken places, RESTORE its RUINS, and BUILD it as it used to be,” … “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountaina and flow from all hills.”
2. Ezekiel prophecsied the modern-day Israel
Bible passage: Ezekiel 36: 11
Written: between 593-571 BC.
Fulfilled: late 1900s
“In Ezekiel 36: 11, the prophet said that there would come a time when Israel would be more prosperous than it was in the past. The Bible describes Israel as being a prosperous nation during the time of King David and King Solomon about 3000 years ago. But, Ezekiel knew a very different Israel. In Ezekiel’s day (he lived about 2600 years ago), the nothern Kindgom of Israel already had been decimated by the Assyrians, and the southern Kingdom (called Judah) was being destroyed by the Babylonians. In the centuries that followed these destructions, Jews rebuilt the city of Jerusalem, but the homeland was destoyed again, by the omans, about 1900 years ago. Since then, a majority of Jews from around the world moved to Israel and they have been rebuilding the country once again. Today, Israel again is an independent nation, as it was in the days of King David, and it IS one of the world’s most prosperous countries. In 1999, Israel had the highest per capita Gross Domestic Product of any nearby cpuntry, even though the surrounding countries have many oil resources.”
Here is Ezekiel 36: 11
“I will increase the number of men and animals upon you, and they will be fruitfull and become numerous. I will settle people on you as in the past, and will make you PROSPEROUS more than BEFORE. Then you will KNOW that I am the LORD.” (Ezekiel 36:11 Emphasis added)
The correlation between the Old Testament prophecies, uttered by God’s divinely inspired men, the amazing gap of over 2000 years, between the dated prophecies, and their fulfillment, in Israel today, beginning only 63 years ago, (1948) is credible, warranted proof, of the veracity and reliability of Almighty God’s written Word, the Bible!
Come now, Halsall,
T minus 10 seconds,
T Minus 5 seconds,
Ignition
Lift-off!
This IS NOT the same thing as ‘Zero year(s) is IT?!
Re Israel, similarly, Almighty God announces:
“But, you, the mountains of ISRAEL – you will give forth blossoming branches and produce your luscious fruit for MY PEOPLE ISRAEL – For they are SOON TO ARRIVE…The land will be tilled and sown. I WILL make the people numerous- the entire House of Israel. The cities will be inhabited and ruins will be rebuilt…I WILL make it better than it ever WAS…They will inherit the land which will be theirs for a possession and the Land WILL NEVER AGAIN be bereaved of THEM.” (Ezekkiel 36: 8-12 Emphasis added)
Here Almighty God provides us with two more, great prophecies about Israel and their Land.
“AS an aside consider a few non-agricultural creations: the cell phone technology, most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems, the Pentium MMX Chip technology, the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor, voice mail technology, and the AOL Instant Messenger ICO. On a per-capita basis, Israel leads the world in the number of published books & scientific papers, start-up companies, NASDAQ listed companies, museums, and college degrees. Israel also has the highest concentration of hi-tec companies and one of the highest rates of filed patents. Recent developments also include: the first ingestible video camera (so small it fits inside a pill), a device that helps the heart pump blood (through a sophisticated system of sensors), the first fully computerized, no-radiation instrumentation for detecting breast cancer, the ClearLight device that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct (without damaging surrounding skin or tissue), and a laerge-scale solar-powered electricity generating plant in California. Israel’s $100 billio9n economy is larger than ALL of its immediate neighbors combined and Israel’s living standards already exceed that of England.”
Another look at the no rainfall for 1800 years, and then, when the Jews start returing to their homeland, BOOM, the hand of Almighty God, starts favor once again, for its rightful inhabitants.
“It is mind-boggling: NO RAIN for 1800 years, and then, just as incredible, rains begin to suddenly fall simply becauser Jews are once again returing to Israel. NO RAIN and, then, the sudden resumption of rain- both happening as predicted. This IS beyond the realm of coincidence: 1800 years of drought, in and of itself, is an unbelievable miracle and a very mighty prophecy – especially in a region which produced such bounty during its first 1500 years. This most prolonged drought ends ‘unexpectedly’ – again, as predicted – WHEN Jews begin returning to the Lans in great numbers. This IS a double prophecy who SIPERNATURAL qualities can never be captured by our limited languages.”
The development is neither logical NOR statistically probable.
* A once firtile land that suffers drought
* 1800 years of starvation and DESERT conditions
* Then the surprising resumption of RAIN
* Then the sudden GREENING of the Land
* Just as suddenly, the ultimate RETURN of millions of Jews.
To those skeptics, scoffers, and unbelievers, DON’T MESS with Almighty God, and with Israel, let HIM deal with the wicked, godless Jews, and He will, as to the soveriegn NATION of Israel, He has an Everlasting Covenant, with this ‘entity’ and whoever messes with them, to ANNIHILATE them off the map, will ultimately FEEL His Wrath!
@Zoe: “This IS NOT the same thing as ‘Zero year(s) is IT?!
Sigh… Yes, it is…
Time is relative.
Albert Einstein (a Jew) taught us this.
@Zoe: “Here are (2) of Ten Bible prophecies fulfilled since the Jewish State of Israel was established in May, 1948.
Care to provide examples for the other eight?
@ Zoe
So through your years of serious Bible Study you have divined that God decreed that Christ would be born on his first birthday!
(WOW .. both an immaculate conception and delivery, two miracles for the price of one)
So your research begs the question is the intelligent designer of the whole universe a grade C- maths student, or could your own biblical hermeneutics concievably be at fault?
Which is it, are you or God wrong in your written calculations?
The answer should be interesting, for those who give a toss.
Halsall, for someone who claims to be a scientist, with a bent on maths, physics and so on, be informed that the dates (years) quoted from the Biblical text, have no bearing on Einstein’s ‘Time is relative’ as we are dealing here with ‘Calender’ periods of time,
Deal with it!!
Zoe:
Get your head out of that book, and fold a piece of A4 in half.
Along the crease draw a manger.
Consider that the left hand edge is now one year before Christ’s birth (1BC)
Thus the right hand edge is one year after (1AD)
Now place a big fat zero (a halo if you wish) above the boy child.
Geddit?
Remember to let the lord know, whilst on your knees tonight.
Interesting that some are talking about military intervention in Libya, that which was never mentioned for Egypt….I wonder why?
Would not be OIL…would it?
Even if Gaddafi IS a nutter…still a sovereign country.
Somebody is playing some interesting Middle East games.
Are we about to see the dawn of a ‘new day’ in the Arab states?
At least the jobless rate in western countries will go down, because they will all be occupying Arab states…for the military.
Here we go.
RFLMAO
Straight talk, ask, “Which is it, are you or God wrong in your written calculations?”
Tell us, kind Sir, how the calculations from Daniel 9: 24-27, should be correctly worked out and understood? Do please illuminate us all!
Crusoe, Do you know the possible reasons for Obama’s silence re Lybia, before finally speaking, I think it was yesterday?
Obama’s Leftist associations and affiliations are gradually been revealed more and more!
Obama’s former church leader, Rev. Wright, a known radical Liberation Theology exponent, visited Gadafi in Lybia, along with Louis Farrakan, a well known leader of the ‘Nation of Islam’ and his pronouncement, that Obama is, the Messiah, how very interesting are the connections of Obama, and his devious agenda, that’s wrapped in so many different shades of deception!
I’m pretty sure that certain people with a three letter name on this blog knows where to find the ‘Synagogue of Satan’ in the Bible but they cannot explain it away with a long winded rant.
Some reading I did recognised that many influential Romans converted to Judaism before the collapse of the Roman empire and were also scattered abroad at the time of the Jews.
The puzzle has always been, what happened to the wealth of Rome, and where did these previously supposed poor Jews coming into Palestine from all over Europe get their wealth from?
Another interesting point is that it is well known that Israeli money runs the United States and that the privately owned federal reserve has been headed by a succession of alleged Jews. The United States is really an extension of the Roman system of senators, with many symbols taken directly from the Roman empire.
Putting 2 and 2 together one might believe that the wealth of Rome was hidden behind the facade of being Jewish. In many instances someone being raised as Jewish for generations in Europe would not have any idea that their ancestors were in fact wealthy Romans.
These are the false Jews. Families like the Rothchilds and many other global elitist also claim Jewish descent. The Romans were the victors, they are the ones who shaped and manipulated ancient stories into the Bible that so many believe in up to this day.
Peace
@Zoe
Obama’s former church leader, Rev. Wright, a known radical Liberation Theology exponent, visited Gadafi in Lybia, along with Louis Farrakan, a well known leader of the ‘Nation of Islam’ and his pronouncement, that Obama is, the Messiah, how very interesting are the connections of Obama, and his devious agenda, that’s wrapped in so many different shades of deception!
********************
I don’t know if any of the above men speaks for Obama, but who did Condoleeza Rice speak for when she visited? Gaddafi also met with Tony Blair, is Blair a leftist also? For the record Gaddafi met Blair on more than one occasion So did Sarkozy; Berlusconi…..
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/rice-meets-gaddafi-on-historic-visit/2008/09/06/1220121568706.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1552871/Blair-meets-Gaddafi-on-African-farewell-tour.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/07/25/us-france-sarkozy-libya-idUSL2583050020070725
David
Please release my comment from moderation
Zoe:
Understand Daniel, what for?
If after a misspent lifetime of study you still fail miserably to interpret his mystic ramblings and now, according to your recent posts, some other nutter’s tortuous numerology, I think I’m best saving my limited time, tolerance and credulity and keep them all classified with Nostradamus alongside Joseph Smith, Erich von Daniken and other assorted historically irrelevant charlatans.
Somewhat aware, yet piteous of their adherents.
@Zoe…….Do you know that if I was to do the Math as to the Lord’s plan for my birth from thought being year zero to conception to birth it would also be miraculous?
Zoe, do you know that there are some christians who do not feel the same way you do about these ‘jews’? Why do you defend them so much?
If ‘God’ blessed them so much why do they have to do so much evil to hold onto that land? Zoe isn’t it against God’s law to murder, lie,and steal?
Straight talk, Continue smartly in your deluded intellectual ignorance, as you and those of your ilk, pose as paragons of wisdom, commiserating the followers of Christ, talk learnedly and patronisingly about things YOU are grossly ignorant.
If the light that be in you IS DARKNESS, O’ how great is that DARKNESS; professing yourself to be wise, you are a fool!
Here are a few more Bible prophecies re Israel and fulfillment, since 1948; some are in partial fulfillment.
3. Israel will prevail over its enemies
Bible passage: Isaiah 41: 12-14
Written: Between 701-681 BC
Fulfilled: Late 1900s
“In Isaiah 41: 12-14, the prophet said God would help Israel during times of conflict with enemies (if the people have in God). Isaiah said this during a time when the northern kingdom of Israel had already been conquered by the Assyrian Empire. And the southern kingdom, Judah, was about to be conquered by Babylon. (The Bible explains that Israel and Judah lost their independence because so many of the residents had turned to false religions). But, since 1948 when Israel was re-established, Israel has been attacked by much larger countries. And IUstael has prevailed in each of those attacks. This prophecy has found partian fulfillment.”
Here is Isaiah 41: 12-14
“Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all. For I am the LORD your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I Myself will help you,” declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
4. Trees agan would grow in Israel
Bible passage: Isaiah 41: 18-20
Written: Between 701-681 BC
Fulfilled: Late 1900s
“In Isaiah 41: 18-20, the prophet ‘s talk of a future restoration of Israel coincides with an occurrence in modern Israel – the construction of a vast irrigation system to improve framing. The lack of available water, including rain, is one reason why Israel had been a desolate, unproductive during much of the past 2000 years. But, during the 1900s when many Jews returned to their ancient homeland, they built a network of irrigation tems. And during the past century, more than 200 million trees have been planted in Israel.”
Here is Isaiah 41: 18-20
“I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may SEE and KNOW, may consider and UNDERSTAND, that the HAND of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has CREATED IT.”
“In other words, the book of the prophets and their writings were included in the Bible, because they are relevant for us today, because their messages are vital for us.”
“torah prophecies detail some rather alarming and chilling events in the pre-Messianic era. Included in the prophecies of this era are challenges facing the family and soceity such as: disrespect, intergenerational conflicts, and the very painful disintegration of many families, in addition to the challenges to society in dealing with immorality, crime, and perversions in the justice system. Of course, this era has also seen many nations challenging the rights of Jews to Israel. this century has experienced waves of TERRORISM, as well as the death of nearly 200 million people because of wars and murders ordered by just Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. So the Almighty provided the world with prophecies to alert us to the challenges that lie ahead, and to convince conscientious people to take proper precautions to protect those who are dear to them.”
“And now, for the outstanding finale to the chapter: who ever heard of a people who returned to their ancestral homeland, after an ABSENCE of 1800 years? Moreover, who EVER HEARD of a people maintaining their national identity during the many years of their being separated from their land? In fact, who ever heard of a people who for 1800 years were always making plans to return? Eventually, most immigrants assimilate into the host country, and adopt its culture quickly. After three generatins at most, the family’s country of origin amounts to nothing more than insignificant genealogical information. Third -generation children of immigrants do not usually dream of returing to a grandparent’s country of origin in order to take up permanent residency there. …this is one of the aspects of assimilation. Certainly, after an absence of 1800 yars, no person would ever dream of returing to live in the ancestral homeland. After an absence of 1800 years, it is not “normal’ for a people to still ream of rerning to their ancestral home. After an absence of 1800 years, for the same people to actually return to their country of origin – this is definitely baffling.”
“Only the Ultimate Controller of weather and history, Almighty God could have propesied ALL these super-ordinary conditions with their respective sub-miracles. Only the Creator of history could have Created the following miracles:
* A very productive land
*An 1800-year exile
* The prolonged drought and desolation
* The suddeen greening of the Lands, better than EVER
*The ultimate return of Jews to their homeland (after an absence of 1800 years.
“In the face of such overwhelming EVIDENCE, only an intellectually dishonest person could STUBBORNLY persist in maintaining that this series of events occurred by hapenstance. Truly, these stupendous events are incontrovertible PROOF of Almighty God’s active existence, as the Bible itself proclaims.” (PROPHECIES For The Era of Muslim Terror, A Torah Perspective on World Events, pp. 38-40 Emphasis added)
Absolutely!!! Yes, Lord God Almighty, you control ‘nature’ for it IS Your Creation, to fulfill ALL of Your Decrees, throughout history, one way or the other, according Your Eternal Sovereignty!!!
(PROPHECIES For The Era of Muslim Terror, A Torah Perspective on World Events, pp. 38-40 Emphasis added.
Poor Zoe, all credibility was lost when you referenced this book.
Do you really want others to take you seriously when you continue to blatantly expose you obvious biases?
…And you call people ignorant, blind and in darkness??
I see no difference between your rants and those of the Muslim radicals you despise…..two sides of the same coin!!
Lies and big lies bent on promoting hatred against innocent members of the Jewish religion, and the USA too, by persons above.
Lying and Islamic/ist (?) Maat, sins of omission and deception, outright untruths. Thaat is wicked.
To paint “the Jews” as evil, false Jews who control everything??
Don’t blame the ‘Jews’ when BARBADOS develops your Muslim Brotherhood violent issues and falls apart. Blame will be on you yourselves, the ‘Maat and Terrence Blackett and Technician’ Muslim Brotherhood.
Your members are on local radio promoting Islam on the call-in shows, your members defend yourselves from attacks on Barbados Freepress, but here on Barbados Underground you are just as badly in the gutter- you turn around, lie and attack us trying to educate Bajans in wrong tings about Jewish people. I am an innocent man, Jewish are peaceful and we do not participate in this war you all are creating. We are at peace with our local Muslim cousins.
The 2 mouthed thing that some of you are doing here is Hypocrisy. WICKEDNESS. ARE YOU ALL LOCAL?
It is wrong to say ‘peace’ and to lay the foundations of conflict in this island the way you are becoming accustomed to doing.
PLEASE TAKE NOTE BARBADOS, we are NOT responsible!
I will be found on and in my job, not upon the blog, working totally positively for the good of this Island! Don’t care what religion! Don’t care what colour!! Don’t care how much money you got!!! Leave us alone!!!!
Wow…..
Now I am a member of the Muslim Brotherhood…ROFLMAO!!!
There goes my Johnnie Walker Black and coconut water……among so many other vices……..bummer!!
@Zoe…….You still haven’t changed my mind about this wicked, corrupt lot. Instead of putting all your eggs in others’ baskets put them into your own. Stop putting so much confidence in man. I met you as ‘someone else’ but now you’ve morphed into Zoe so all is not lost, you might still come full circle and see that your salvation is contingent on YOUR DEEDS ONLY!
BUT
I wish you LOVE, not the love that Hopi gives but the LOVE in its purest form and I also wish you PEACE, the PEACE that passeth ALL Understanding. Go into the recesses of your MIND because the MIND IS ALL!
@Zoe: “Halsall, for someone who claims to be a scientist, with a bent on maths, physics and so on, be informed that the dates (years) quoted from the Biblical text, have no bearing on Einstein’s ‘Time is relative’ as we are dealing here with ‘Calender’ periods of time, Deal with it!
What I find interesting is in the era the Bible was written the number zero was not understood. Let’s not even talk about negative numbers…
If I have five goats, and you take two away, and someone else takes three away, what am I left with?
Zero. Seems pretty simple to me.
And if I had previously promised a third person one of my goats, what am I left with?
Negative one goats…
You, Zoe, tell us to believe the Bible without question, and yet it was written without this most basic of mathematical understanding….
Halsall, Your foolish arguments on this ‘zero’ thing, are blatantly distractive, used as a ‘redhering’ which CANNOT dismiss the central focus on the Biblical chronological time line, establishing the fact that working from Daniel’s 360 day (years) chronology, (the study of historical records to establish the DATES of past events) puts Jesus correctly in Jerusalem A.D 32 the ‘Palm Sunday’, His exact ‘time’ entry there!
Even hostile witness Wiki, states on this matter, that there was NO Zero year, in the chonological calender dating of years, so, your typical redhering distractives, simply will NOT work, in seeking to strawmanize your intent, as the facts are all there, in simple chronology of dates, years, and logical conclusions, which cannot be disputed!
Your attempt at ‘splitting’ hairs, on this ‘zero’ thing, is stupid, as whether or not in that era, they understood it, is irrelevant to the facts of the matter in hand!
@ Zoe
So if as you say there was no Zero AD, and Christ entered Jerusalem on Palm SundayAD32, this means he was only 30 years old when crucified.
Hopi, “Stop putting so much confidence in man.”
Hops, I put no confidence in any man; my confidence, trust, and resolute FAITH, is IN Almighty God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Almighty Creator, whose historic, divine revelation, as contained in HIS WORD, the Bible, which is forever settled in Heaven, has NEVER FAILED ONCE, in its precise accuracy and fulfillment, of ALL things prophesied and declared therein, NEVER, and will NEVER fail, confirmed by the FACTS and EVIDENCE that simply cannot be refuted, no matter what.
Secondly, your attempt at paraphrasing the Word’s of Jesus, WHO IS the Only One, that can give any of us His Peace, as He said:
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I GIVE unto you, NOT as the world gives do I GIVE you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” ( John 14:27 Emphasis added)
Hopi, I KNOW that Peace, that only Jesus can give, and IT does pass ALL understanding, as NO religious ritual can give that Peace, as it only comes from knowing the Prince of Peace, Himself as ones personal Saviour and Lord, there is nothing like it!
No money can buy it, there is NOTHING in the world that can even come close to this Peace that Jesus gives to those who Love Him.
Thirdly, NO amount of ‘good works’ doing good deeds, can save any ones soul from going to Hell. Why is this so?
“For by GRACE you have been saved through FAITH, and that NOT of yourselves: (Why not? Because) It IS the gift of God, NOT of works ( good deed etc) lest any one should boast.” (Eph. 2: 8,9 Emphasis added)
All other religions, are ‘works’ good deeds oriented, man’s futile attempts at trying to reach God through humanistic/religious efforts, a complete waste of time, as we have nothing to offer God to satisfy His Holy, Just, requirements, in order to be Redeemed from our sinful condition; this is WHY He had to initiate our Salvation, and this He DID, by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, who took our place, bore our SINS, He became our substitute, and PAID IN FULL, the penalty we ALL deserve in Hell, so that, If, we sincerely Repent, and by faith, accept and receive Him into our arts and lives, He gives us His ‘Peace’ that passes ALL understanding, and the Gift of Eternal Life with Him in Heaven when we depart this earthly sojourn.
The biggest LIE that Satan has fostered on mankind, is that we can work for ur salvation, by good works and deeds, a LIE from the pit of hell.
However, once one is Saved, justified, redeemed through the Only Saviour there is, Jesus Christ, THEN, go and do ‘good works’ and good deeds, if, one is trying to earn salvation doing by good works, apart from being Saved through Jesus, it is like ‘putting the cart before the horse’ to pull it, can’t work, won’t work!
So, will Zoe lead us in song? ‘Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war…’
What is the next bar?
‘To secure our oil reserves’…oops
That wrong…right?
‘with the cross…’there we go.
What a world. In centuries mankind has not changed, still full of greed, nutters, haters, bigots.
But, who am I to judge, I can only count for myself and take responsibility for myself.
Crusoe,
“What is the next bar?”
“To secure our oil reserves…oop”
“That wrong-right?”
My friend, continue with your jocular jesting, and facetious joking, instead of worrying about you salvation, continue focusing on secular things, and see where it will get you,
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, (i.e., oil, gold, wealth, etc)and LOSES his own soul. Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36, 37)
Hear Jesus yet again:
“Do NOT lay up for yourselves treasures on EARTH where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do NOT break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21 Emphasis added)
What more glaring example do we have RIGHT NOW, before us, with the Middle East crisis, Mubarak lived like a royal King, HOARDING vast sums of BILLIONS of $$$, yet, he had to RUN away, look at Gaddafi, another tyrrant, whose wealth is untold, today he is fighting like a crab, and the story goes on; look at Berie Mad-OFF, another crab, who now exist like a dog, and the list goes on, and it knows no colour, Arabs, Jews, Europeans, whites, blacks et al, when the Great Depression hit the world in the 1930s, the mega-rich, many of them, who had no time for Jesus, committed suicide, all of their wealth, was gone in a flash, hopelessly, they died in utter dispair.
Hear God’s word, again:
“Come now, you RICH, weep and HOWL for your MISERIES that are coming upon you. Your riches are CORRUPTED, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your GOLD and SILVER are CORRODED, and their corosion will be a WITNESS against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up TREASURE in the last day….you have lived on earth in pleasure and luxury, you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.” (James 5: 1-5 Emphasis added)
“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You LUST and do NOT hav. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the worl (system) IS enmity with God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4: 1-4)
There are also, many poor people who are Godless and wicked as well, poverity does not mean, that a man/woman is right with God because they are poor!
Also, they are Rich and Poor, who love the Lord, riches in itself is not evil, it is what one does with their wealth, that matters to God, and they are poor people who Love and trust the Lord, and He lloks after them as well.
Money is not evil in itself, it is the LOVE and LUST, GREED, of IT, that corrups.
“For the LOVE of money IS the ROOT of all kinds of EVIL, for some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and have PIERCED themselves through with many sorrows.” (I Timothy 6: 10 Emphasis added)
Let him who has an ear, hear!
Please…..Zoe..spare us!!
My question is simple, do you enjoy any of the things of this world?
Like nice suits, clothes, a nice house etc.
I can hardly picture you living of the land dressed like how Moses was portrayed, having nothing to do with the things of this world, just going around preaching while awaiting the 2nd coming.
The quotation from the beginning of this thread, taken from Matthew, who Zoe claims was an eyewitness to all that he wrote, proclaims that the disciples went up to Jesus privately, does that mean that they let Matthew in amongst them to witness this conversation and record it, or was Matthew told of this conversation which he wrote about 60 or 70 years later?
Again I ask Zoe where were those writers who witnessed the last supper. They tell us that the disciples were gathered together with Jesus.
They do not mention each other as witnesses and scribes. For instance Matthew does not mention John being there or vica versa, Mark does not mention Luke at any of the events that they supposedly witnessed; Moses gives no indication on where he was hiding in the Garden of Eden to describe all that he wrote about, and at that time only Adam and Eve were around, right?.
Some of us need to take the log out of our eyes before we try to encourage others towards salvation.
Peace
@Zoe ‘My friend, continue with your jocular jesting, and facetious joking, instead of worrying about you salvation, continue focusing on secular things, and see where it will get you”
Just because I speak of the intricacies of politics and economics and the implications therein of current powerplay in the Middle East, does not mean that I do not have my own view of spirituality and (in my own belief) my own view of what you term as ‘salvation’.
How DARE you preusume to put yourself as judge and jury towards others, indeed was this not a prime teaching of the prophet and teacher Jesus of Nazareth?
Your zealotish belief that your and only your beliefs are accruate and correct is not only presumptious, but ludicrous and based on NOTHING other than faith itself, which is fine per se.
BUT, admit it instead of quoting writings, which are opinions in of themselves by various equally zealotish individuals.
Bear in mind that thus far I have been very civil, yet you choose to ridicule, whomever you decide bears any viewpoint other than your own tunnel vision.
I will now revert to the real issue in the Middle East, which is OIL.
If ever oil became irrelevant, there would be no more issues in the Middle East, indeed every (note the word every) country in that region would instantly lose any international political relevance.
The fact is, that the current power play has its roots in the oil needs of the world and the necessity of ensuring that supply is uninterrupted.
Nothing else.
And please, do now come now with the ‘oh solo mio’ crap that you have used thus far, that you are scorned and ridiculed, for then remember to use your own advice before you attempt to fester your extreme ideas upon others.
@Zoe: “Halsall, Your foolish arguments on this ‘zero’ thing, are blatantly distractive, used as a ‘redhering’ which CANNOT dismiss the central focus on the Biblical chronological time line, establishing the fact that working from Daniel’s 360 day (years) chronology, (the study of historical records to establish the DATES of past events)
Earth calling Zoe. Please come in Zoe.
Please forgive me for pointing out that 2000 years ago our instruments, our measurements, and our understanding, were not a good as they are now today.
For example, we now know that the earth revolves around the Sun (not the son) approximately once every 365.256363 days (read: revolutions of the earth). Not every 360.000000 days.
This is why we have leap years (with special cases (such that the year 2000 was a leap year, while 1900 wasn’t and 2100 won’t be) and leap seconds…).
There is an entire scientific discipline dealing with the accurate measurement of time and any “time math” required.
Interestingly, this discipline understands the number zero…
@Zoe: “Even hostile witness Wiki, states on this matter, that there was NO Zero year, in the chonological calender dating of years, so, your typical redhering distractives, simply will NOT work, in seeking to strawmanize your intent, as the facts are all there, in simple chronology of dates, years, and logical conclusions, which cannot be disputed!
You misunderstand (as usual).
I agree that there was no “year Zero” in the Bible.
This is exactly my point.
To say again, why should we trust a document written when even the most basic of numbers — zero — wasn’t understood?
Crusoe, “How DARE you presume to put youself as judge and jury towards others, indeed was this not a prime teaching of the prophet and teacher Jesus of Nazareth?”
FYI, I stand upon the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His Word, the Bible, NOT my own, I can judge no one, but rest assured HE will, and His Word, I therefore, proceed upon His command to His disciples, TO:
“Go into ALL the world and PREACH the Gospel to EVERY creatue. He who BELIEVES and is baptized will be saved, but he who DOES NOT believe will be condemned.” ( Mark 16: 15, 16 Emphasis added.
If that offends you, tuff, you are entirely free to believe whatever non-historical, unsubstantiated, mystical, abstract nonsense you pull out of a ‘hat’ like hot-air, but, this will never stop or prevent me, from declaring the truth of His Word, which HAS and continues to transform multiplied millions around the world every year, with living, real, testimonials.
Nothing that man can do, will stop the devastating erruption presently taking place in the Middle East, and its consequent fall-out, over the world, so continue to try and ‘secure’ what is simply not securable.
Where are you going to run and hide, when the reality further its home, in where ever you live? Which false ‘demon’ god are you going to call on then?
@Zoe: “Where are you going to run and hide, when the reality further its home, in where ever you live? Which false ‘demon’ god are you going to call on then?
I do notice, with interest, that you have quoted a great deal, but have not answered my direct questions…
Hmmmm….
Halsall, “…the entire scientific discipline dealing with accurate measurements of time…” etc, while I understand this point, it STILL remains irrevelant to the facts re the Biblical data, all of which are taken into account by leap years, etc, in arriving at the truth.
Further, as already stated, whether or not, Daniel et al knew about Zero year, is simply not the point, it is a non sequiter, a scientific ‘redhering’ thrown into the facts, to distract from the truth of the math, which is sound and sccurate, regardless of ‘Zero’ year.
Its like one man using centimetres to measure something, while another uses inches, at the end of the day, it matters not whether centimeters or inches are used, as long as the final computation is correct and accurate; and this IS so with the Biblical data.
Deal with man, and stop your scientific jargonized ‘redhering’ nonsense!
@Zoe: “Further, as already stated, whether or not, Daniel et al knew about Zero year, is simply not the point, it is a non sequiter, a scientific ‘redhering’ thrown into the facts, to distract from the truth of the math, which is sound and sccurate, regardless of ‘Zero’ year.
OK… Let’s play this further…
When the Bible was written, was it believed the Earth orbited around the sun?
Or was it believed that the Earth was the centre of the Universe?
(A great man was put in jail for daring to argue the former…)
@Zoe ”FYI, I stand upon the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His Word’
—
Bullshit. the Bible was written by men and hence, corrupt and an abridged version of history, to suit the needs of a select few. Or will we accept that anything written eons ago is unfiltered and ‘clean’, in which case, soo too is the Qu’ran.
Zoe- Which false ‘demon’ god are you going to call on then.
—
I don’t have a false demon, only God.
You Bible toting screamers don’t have sole rights to God , and if that offends you ‘tuff’ , as you say. You also are free to believe whatever ‘you are entirely free to believe whatever abridged-historical, unsubstantiated, mystical, abstract nonsense’ that you wish also.
But the problem is that you Bible-thumpers and your kin the Qu-ran-thumpers are going to go head to head and kill us all, fruitcakes.
Bunch of nutters.
And if you dont like that …tuff.
Familiar?
http://www.youtube.cf/watch?v=4aTgxGqbZrc
Zoe states….
“Go into ALL the world and PREACH the Gospel to EVERY creature. He who BELIEVES and is baptized will be saved, but he who DOES NOT believe will be condemned.” ( Mark 16: 15, 16 Emphasis added.
Zoe goes on to say……
….”If that offends you, tuff, you are entirely free to believe whatever non-historical, unsubstantiated, mystical, abstract nonsense you pull out of a ‘hat’ like hot-air, but, this will never stop or prevent me, from declaring the truth of His Word”…………
Yet still it is also written in Matthew 10, these instructions from Christ……
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet”………..
Then why in Gods name does Zoe still persist to the point of insulting others, to shove his beliefs down their throats, contrary to the instructions given?
@Jack Spratte ‘jack spratt | February 20, 2011 at 12:34 PM | Why are religions so obsessed with sex and the “end ” of the world?’
–
One possible, is that because both have to do with second coming?
Sorry, Luficer made me do that.
Anyway, enough blog entertainment for the night. Have a nice night all. Including Zoe….even if the second coming don’t happen tonight. Lol
Crusoe et al, I’ve posted this many times before, and, I’ll say it again, as it is principled on Logical absolutes, which guide us to ‘think’ ‘reason’ critically, objectively, and coherently, on any given subject matter.
In assessing any religious ‘worldview’ it is necessary to adhere and follow these logical rules and principles.
1. Reason, (that is the ability to think rationally), IS necessary for revelation, (historic facts, evidence) to be coherently understood.
FACT: The only document of antiquity, book, that gives and states with unparalelled wisdom, and knowledge, confirmed by historic veracity, the Origin, Morality, Purpose, and ultimate Destiny of mankind IS, the Bible, the Word of God.
It IS the most read and beloved Book of all time!
2. The structure of justification, IN defending any propositional ‘Truth Claim’ IS coherence, as coherence IS our sole criteria for TRUTH.
FACT: The Only ancient document, book, that passes this test, criteria, overwhelmimgly , unparalelled with any other religious book, is the Bible, God’s Word.
Its revelation, proclamations, and prophetic declarations, are ALL confirmed by:
Logical Consistency
Empirical Adequacy, and
Experiential relevancy,
Unlike any other religious book, ever!
The blowhard scoffers, critics, and uninformed nit-wits, here and elsewher, offer NO substance, essence, whatsoever, NIL- ZERO ignorance, in their attack, denial, and idiotic folly, on God’s Word, the Bible, they only utter baseless, voidless, childlike, HOGWASH, that one would expect from some brainless, moronic twits!
Unless, and until, David stops and blocks me from posting on BU, and he still displays commonsense, and fair-play, thank you David, I’ll never stop proclaiming, declaring, and defending, the Truth of God’s Word, never!
Long live BU, as a forum by which both, sound, rational, intelligent, historic facts and evidence re God’s Word, can be proclaimed, and the absurd, ignorance, and down right stupidity, that flows from some who in utter NO -sense at all, in attacking it!
Ignorance is ignoring to answer the hard questions. It’s like someone trying to shine a light in your eyes. You know it’s there but you keep your eyes shut and cover your ears and say blah. blah .blah.
Peace
For the benefit of other quiet observers, in Matthew 10: 11-15, Jesus said to His disciples:
“Now whatever CITY or TOWN you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out.” (v.11)
“And when you go into a HOUSEHOLD, greet it.” (v.12)
“”If the household is worthy, let your peace come on it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.” (v.13)
“And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that HOUSE or city, shake off the dust from your feet.” (v.14)
“Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of SODOM and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment than for that city.” (v.15).
There is especially ONE, or maybe a few more haters and dispisers of God’s Word here on BU, that would love nothing better than for me to exit BU, and be silent, apart from that ain’t going to happen, the specific passages cited above, speak to the then NT world, where there were NO TV, NO Internet, or mass media communications, available, hence the words, HOUSEHOLD, or City, are used by Jesus in this particular context of “…depart that HOUSE or CITY, shake off the dust from your feet.” (v. 14b).
However, here on BU, apart from the fact that there are many other topics, that I do not post comments on, and obviously there are other commenters, who are quietly, reading what I post et al, plus the fact that we really do not know how many overseas, in other countries, who are also reading quietly, but saying nothing, some been enlightened, PUTS BU as an Internet Blog site, in an entirely different setting, than a ‘Household’ or small city, commonsense would naturally dictate this understanding, but, then again, some don’t even have any commonsense!
In the Word of God, the Bible we read:
“He who speaks truth declares righteousness, But a FALSE witness, deceit.” (Prov. 12:17).
“Though you grind a FOOL in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, Yet his FOOLISHNESS will not DEPART from him.” (Prov. 27: 22 Emphasis added).
Enough said!
@ BU et al
I am gobsmacked to sit and see how this idea of “religion” evokes such potent passions… The remarkable nature of the vitriol suggests that those who are trying to counter arguments against GOD*, FAITH*, THE BIBLE* & other aspects of CHRISTIANITY* clearly have NOT* presented sufficiently LOGICAL* arguments which would in anyway DEBUNK* the authenticity of the “REVEALED SCRIPTURES” as a means to disparage the notion or idea of FAITH*…
Admittedly, there are some very “BRIGHT” folks on BU who hold very arduous yet assiduously arcane concepts while others choose to merely argue from a position of emotional semantics which beclouds their ability to openmindedly analyze specific aspects of Scripture and to elucidate counter-arguments…
ZOE* clearly presents a “TOUGH” fundamentalist Scriptural position that can be hard to reason with, however, his epistemological persuasion has its basis in profound theological thought (something I pray that we are all able to live up to including my dear brother)…
It maybe an uphill climb to suggest to the good folks on BU to observe a certain modicum of emotional detachment when NOT* observed, results in unnecessary arguments, name-calling and psychological pugnaciousness…
Why Christianity Works: An Emotions-Focused Phenomenological Account* by Christian Smith
(University of Notre Dame)
It has been three centuries since Voltaire launched his attacks on the Christian Church, 160 years since Marx reduced religion to a narcotic of the oppressed, 125 years since Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, and nearly 80 years since Freud exposed the illusion of faith as erroneous wish fulfillment in projecting a father figure. The Enlightenment and modernity brought with them profoundly anti-Christian voices and forces, and generations of these same intellectuals have debunked Christianity, deconstructed the church, and foretold the
demise of the Christian faith. Today, more than a few heirs of this secular and secularizing tradition carry on this skeptical cause, inhabiting, in particular, knowledge
class enclaves in higher education, the media, and various highly credentialed professions.
http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/content/68/2/165.full.pdf
Why is it that as soon as you question the Bible, you automatically despise it?
Must we follow blindly as sheep because our fore fathers did?
That is the problem with you ‘christians’ today, especially the fanatics.
You all seem to have a monopoly on the topic where it is what you say and nothing more, yet there are so many divisions who cant even agree on something like the Sabbath.
No one one BU insults others more that Zoe once you dont share his views but I guess as long as you do it in the name of God, it is right.
@ techie
ZOE* is a zealot! That makes it hard for him to not take the crystal staircase… No one (including ZOE*) has a patent on the truth… And yes you are RIGHT* when you say that we have serious “DOCTRINAL” issues when it comes to whether we should observe the SABBATH* or sunday as a day of WORSHIP…
If in the very near future, religious liberty is going to be a major contentious battle over whether we will be forced to observe a SPECIFIC* day – then we would have to accept that all along, ONE POSITION WAS RIGHT AND THE OTHER WRONG!!!
Till then we plod on…
TMB, Thanks for the compliment, I’m not the least bit ashamed of being called a Zealot, especially coming from you, as I’ll never compromise the TRUTH, on HIM, The Lord Jesus Christ, who IS the Eternal personification of TRUTH!
For He said, “I AM the WAY (not one of many ways!) the TRUTH, (All of it, not just some of it!) NO ONE comes to the Father EXCEPT through ME.” (John 14:6 Emphasis added)
Jesus was either the biggest liar, lunatic, and fraud, OR, He was who He claimed to be, the Eternal Son of God, the Only Saviour of mankind, manifestly, witnessed by those EYEWITNESSES, who KNEW Him, personally, and His Resurrected Power, and Glory, without which, there would have been NO indwelling Power that gave unbelievable further WITNESS to this SPIRITUAL reality, right down until today, and NO ONE, by unbelief, hatred against it, or any other devious intent, can EVER STOP its flow, as this glorious manifestation of Jesus’ authority in Heaven and on earth, comes from His Father, the One true, living and soveriegn God, who cannot be approached through any other Mediator, Advocate, and High Priest, than Jesus Christ.
It is for this central Christological, Christocentric, TRUTH, and its attended doctrines, that I contend, and will never compromise!
On the accusation of insulting others here on BU, the record will show, that I’ve been called all sorts of insulting things, expressly, BECAUSE of my uncomprising loyality, faith, and resolute commitment to Jesus and His Word, the Bible, AND, invariably, the insults, and insulting ALWAYS started first, by those scoffers, who could offer no, objective, sound refutation, but, resorted to words derison, redicule and mockery, AND this was launched deliberatly, AT Dictionary, a gentleman, scholar par excellence, a brilliant mind, and a son of our Caribbean region, who WAS repeadtedly INSULTED, over and over again, and NEVER responded, as I DO, well, that is Dictionary, the consummate gentleman he is, I am more a Martin Luther type personality, I do not suffer fools easily, I simply do not have time for that nonsense, come with sound, clear, well thought out, objective, valid, arguments, NOT the crap, and ignorant foolishness, disguised as ‘my opinion’ versus yours, when opinions, that ARE empty of logical content, are nothing more than, just THAT, hot-air, vacuous, venemous, malignant , pustule, BS!