Nov 28, 2005 06:28 am that IS interesting. any more to share?
The sky is falling, the sky is falling...
Posted on Nov 28, 2005 06:14 am
dbmasters
Administrator Since: Apr 03, 2002
OK, maybe not, but is the end of the world coming?
I've been noticing interesting parallels (as every generation does) to biblical accounts and signs of the end times, or the coming of Christ...it always talks about the good ol' "wars and rumors of wars" but eh, wars are sadly a part of every day life...
But, what about the earthquakes it says signify the next coming of Christ and the recent Indonisian, the destruction by storms it speaks of and the recent hurricanes and tsunamis...
Also the dozens and dozens of times it speaks of the rebuilding of Babylon into a religious and freedom center for the world...anyone take a guess on where the original Babylon was located? You guesses it...in modern day Iraq...is this the start of the rebuilding?
How about the words of the rebuilding of the Roman empire as indicated by the recent expansion of the European Union and the signing of it's Constitution (is that what they call it?) in...ummmm, ROME.
Of course there is much more, but these are the ones that kind of stood out to me, I find them interesting.
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Nov 28, 2005 06:28 am that IS interesting. any more to share?
Nov 28, 2005 06:30 am Not any nearly as compelling.
There are other signs, such as the coming of false Christs, which there are many and always have been.
"famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes" which are more and more common it seems, tho "fortymile" will come up with science to explain that...which is valid.
Paul, in his books, warned of the increase of false teachings...seems many people these days are twisting the truth to justify their horrific acts.
There is also some comment, tho the exact quotes escape me at this moment, about Israel, and a land to the north or northeast, being ravaged by terrorism, which is where schools, temples and train stations have been recently bombed and assaulted, northern most from Israel is Russia...
Some biblical authors have talked about Israel being justified and having a nation of it's own...which happened in the 40's...
So, there is more...but those first three, and the part about Russia, I found most interesting.
Nov 28, 2005 07:31 am the European Constition was supposed to be formed in Brussels I thought? or am I wrong?
Nov 28, 2005 07:33 am Actually, during additional research this morning, I had read that as well, but read somewhere else it was Rome...maybe something else was adopted in Rome, I'll have to recheck.
Nov 28, 2005 07:56 am Mark 13:7 (New King James Version)
7 But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet.
I also should mention I base my perspective on creation and the "I'll be there soon" on:
2 Peter 3:8 (New King James Version)
8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
(actually I believe we're still in the 6th day of creation)
However it's my understanding that according to Sir Isaac Newton we still have until 2060 :)
But because "no body knows the hour of his coming" all predictions have to be wrong so as soon as someone thinks they know when he's coming, he won't...we would have to wait for a time when nobody expects him.
I do get bothered by cult messiahs... none of ever seem to remember that if some one is here long enough to proclaim "I am the Lord" then they arn't...
Nov 28, 2005 08:00 am I also should add...
If you're a christian, don't worry about it. The end of the world isn't your problem.
Nov 28, 2005 08:01 am Yes, the "wars and rumors of wars" is always taken out of context, which is why I looke beyond that.
I am not sure how we can be in the sixth day when God had already rested on the seventh...so, I suspect perhaps the 8th...
"But because "no body knows the hour of his coming" all predictions have to be wrong" - not sure if I agree with that, though I understand the thought process you are running on there...since we are human, and do have free thought, the concept of "lucky guess" would still apply...however, I would suggest that the odds of anybody picking the exact specific day and time would be astronomical and the person that didn't wouldn't be around very long to celebrate their victory anyway...
Oh, and I agree, not worrying about it, just find some of these parallels rather interesting.
Nov 28, 2005 10:58 am Pretty crazy how a collection of books and scrolls that were written down nearly 2000 years ago can be so morally timeless, as well as predict the future.
Revelations speaks of a military/spiritual power coming from the north (supposedly north of israel). I've heard of many speculations as to what this power is (everywhere from Iraq, to Iran, to the former Soviet Union, to the Catholic Church, to the *gasp* United States). It'll be interesting if I'm still around to see who/what that power ends up being.
Nov 28, 2005 02:16 pm I look at it this way: if all of that NASTY stuff written in the bible about the apocolypse is true, then that also means that all of the GOOD stuff in the bible must be true as well. That would mean that Jesus will indeed come back to earth and claim those that believe, and lead them to eternal life with Him.
Sounds like a good gig to me....
Nov 28, 2005 02:31 pm [quote]
Learn to swim.
Cuz I’m praying for rain
And I’m praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.
Mom please flush it all away.
I wanna watch it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.
Time to bring it down again.
Don’t just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.
I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t
Welcome any change, my friend.
I wanna see it all come down.[/quote]
What he said .
Nov 28, 2005 02:56 pm The Arc was built by amateurs, the Titanic was built by professionals!
Nov 28, 2005 03:27 pm as resident quasi-atheist, i will provide a respectful counterpoint, an alternate way of viewing it, while not dissing the religios way.
i would be classified as an atheist (although i do have some scientifically-inspired spiritual ideas) but i gotta say, i find this whole thing very interesting anyway. maybe on a different level, though. i kind of see it as a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
the jews and arabs have been bickering since time immemorial. the jews were the christian god's favored clan (christianity began as a tribal religion, and like all tribal religions, thier god was THIER god alone, initially, until a dude came along (forget his name, but not jesus) who became a convert and did a new thing: spread the religion outside tribal boundaries, made it all inclusive: unprecedented in the history of the world).
anyway, because of this whole thing, because it began as a tribal religion, stuff ends up in the bible about promised lands for the jews and such. and then you have another ethnic group (tribe) in the same geographic area, claiming the same land, which develops its own religion, and prophecies revolving around these conflicts end up written into the bible, and then supporters for the next two thousand years reference these prophecies and keep the battles alive, looking to the book itself to support it all. you can see the middle east prophecies as a feedback loop. the other stuff can be seen as nature doing what nature does: kickin' it with the natural disasters.
i just think its fascinating on the level of psychology and self-fulfilling prophecies alone.
i confess that i am a bit ignorant over when islam really emerged (when did muhammad live?) and over the israeli squabble, but i think--leaving religion out of it for a sec--that i got that stuff sort of right?
Nov 28, 2005 03:35 pm "famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes" which are more and more common it seems, tho "fortymile" will come up with science to explain that...which is valid."
--actually, i only sort of can. although much of the increasing frequency is an illusion (because we're much more connected and aware than ever before, and news is lightning fast, and theres a MARKET for fear and disaster in the news) some of it we may be causing ourselves. i dont know what i think about global warming: there are two competing theories--change in solar output leads to increased or reduced cloud cover, changing reflectivity and thus warmth of earth, versus the greenhouse effect. both may be operating. this is all still unclear, despite what the media says. but if we ARE responsible for global warming, then that would be useful for people arguing for the end times, in a way i find hard to explain. it all comes back to humans, in that case. sort of casusing our own destruction by living in a sick way: good fuel for end times speculation. and famines, clearly: cant argue that population size and kinds of governance has an effect there. so that gets back to us too. the christian god said 'go forth and multiply' (almost as if that directive leads to the circumstances that bring about the end, all part of some sort of grand plan.)
i like how db used my name in quotes, to invalidate me before i even spoke :)but i have no interest in being right or wrong on these issues.
Nov 28, 2005 04:35 pm Actually, I put your name in quotes cuz it's a handle, or username, or nickname, I doubt that is what you sign your checks with...sometimes I quote username, sometimes I don't...perhaps it was a subconscience invalidation... :-p
Nov 28, 2005 05:13 pm I do have to agree with Forty about the marketing of fear, but also in the the Bible it speaks of increase of knowledge as well.
The EU is also now policing the border between Egypt and the Gaza strip. Supposedly they are also as well as the quartet trying to move Palestinans into Jerusalem, stating that Israel is holding up the peace process.
Nov 28, 2005 05:20 pm Yeah, you can argue the whole chaos theory side of it, that chaos (some equate it to entropy, which some define loosely as a measure of chaos) is only increasing as time goes by. Some scientists say that the universe was perpetual and perfect until the fall of adam which would in turn require some sort of savior or works or whatever to save the human race from utter destruction from sin (Romans 3:23 "the wages of sin is death"). Once Adam and Eve committed the original sin (others may argue the timeclock was imposed when the 'christian god' saw that the people during Noah's time were evil and he decided to destroy them with the flood), the earth (and everything associated with it, universe, etc) was then put on a time clock. As time goes by, genetics, ecosystems, etc., through whatever factors they are influenced by, are constantly generating more and more chaos (cancer, global warming, natural disasters, wars, etc) and will continue to do so until the apocalypse occurs and Christ returns to earth to establish his kingdom on earth with those that have accepted him as their savior (and in turn, returning the earth to a "perfect" or pre-flood state in which the universe is not dying).
Makes sense to me I guess. The study of thermodynamics suggests that an isolated system (say the universe), if not at a stable equilibrium state, which it isn't, will generate entropy (or chaos) and will continue to do so until the entropy cannot be increased whatsoever without removing the isolation on the system... then you have reached stable equilibrium. Kinda scary to think about really. Science just said that everything will get worse...lol. I watched some videos published by Kenneth Copeland, where he had a creation scientist come in and give the Christian View of how the earth was created and stuff. Some say Kenneth Copeland is "out there" as far as his beliefs and stuff go, but the videos were pretty interesting, nonetheless. They were done with Dr. Carl Baugh and can be found at www.kcm.org if anybody's interested.
Nov 28, 2005 05:32 pm Global warming is one of those things that would happen if we all did whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, but technology is curbing global warming so much that it's probably immeasurable except on a grand scale (i.e. over the last 4000 years or so).
I do get a kick out of the people who say the earth's average temperature has gone up 4 degrees C in the last 10 years or something like that and that at this rate, in 300 years, the earth will be totally covered with water. How do they know it isn't cyclical? Do they have hundreds of years of temperature data to support their claims? no.
Nov 28, 2005 05:35 pm Average temperature of earth increases and decreases in cycles, when the temp increases, it seems the storms increase...as evidenced by the recent few years we are on the upside of that cycle right now...based on what fortymile...or, excuse me, "fortymile" says, a small increase in temp can trigger storms increasingly...so, it all kinda makes sense...
Nov 28, 2005 06:30 pm my Sixth Day Pre-Adventism :)
Genesis 2:4 (King James Version)
4These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
and
Genesis 5:1 (King James Version)
1This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
basically Gen 5:1 really starts "history" but it all occures "In the day God created man..."
so basically it's a nonliniar story... as far as we're concerned.
Nov 28, 2005 07:21 pm hmm... just to clear something up:
kenneth: the earth is not a thermodynamically isolated system. you said 'universe,' not earth, so i think youre aware of that, nevertheless, the rest of your post seemed to suggest that chaos should increase on earth, based on thermodynamic laws.
the earth is a closed system, with continuous energetic input from the sun. this generally works against entropy, which is strictly defined as an increase in disorder in a system. entropy ends up correlating with heat, but heat is not the overt measure of disorder, as i understand it: entropy deals more with 'mixedness' of materials and loss of potential energy.
anwyay, it is true that you still have entropy working all the time, even on earth. things do tend to fall apart without energetic input, and there are many things that can interfere with that. (if youre an animal species being starved out its niche, you have lost your influx.) and social systems have social equivalents of energy influx. the sun takes care of continuous energy influx on earth, but the same 'thermodynamic' laws seem to also apply to social systems: the government doesnt work unless people DO STUFF (some would argue it doesnt work even then).
things falling apart socially on this planet might have something to do with just the sheer confusion of it all. a republican perspective is embedded here: you have tons of groups all operating according to thier own personal moralities, and this equates to the entire social system not getting an influx of energy as a whole. instead, little chunks of society are receiving 'energetic' benefits at the expense of other chunks. this can be a recipe for chaos, unless the chunks learn to, basically, share. this has never happened in the history of the world, but humans have come the closest. aside from true symbionts and co-dependent systems, like plants/animals utilizing each others' byproducts.
i hope i didnt just invent all that.
Nov 28, 2005 10:49 pm Starts out with religion and such. Ventures into global warming. I shall indeed hold my tungue on these matter's. Although I do agree global warming is bunk. But then I have been around long enough to see the cycle's dB is talking about. I wait patiently here in the great white north for one of my favorite things in life. A 6 foot snow drift outside my door. Well maybe not right outside my door, but a little bit down the driveway. Havent seen one of those in these part's since I met my wife over 20 years ago.
Nov 28, 2005 11:47 pm [quote]That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane -
Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn -
world serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs. Feed it up a knock,
speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height,
down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for
hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the furies
breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered
crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population,
common group, but it'll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its
own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the
reverent in the right - right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright
light, feeling pretty psyched.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn,
return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning,
blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle,
light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh,
this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament,
a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
and I decline.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite.
Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic,
slam, but neck, right? Right.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine...fine...[/quote]
any questions? hahahaha
after seeing Tommy Boy about one hundred times, this song always makes me laugh.
Nov 29, 2005 05:36 am I miss 6 foot snow drifts and blizzards of 2-3 feet of snow in a few hours...it's been years...
Nov 29, 2005 11:10 am ah yes, the big drifts that I haven't seen for... 10 years? long time.
Yeah, I didn't say the earth was isolated because it isn't (from energy input from the sun, very small gravitational effects from the sun, etc). A system is isolated when there are NO interactions with its environment, so nobody would say that the earth is thermodynamically isolated. The universe; however, may be considered isolated in that we know nothing more in existence than the universe. So the energy of the universe, on the whole, cannot increase or decrease without interactions with something outside the universe. And is the universe in stable equilibrium (i.e. entropy is at a maximum for the given energy level, there are no intermolecular changes occurring inside the system, etc)? Certainly not. So the entropy of the universe MUST increase due to the non-decrease of entropy principle until the single stable equilibrium state of the universe is reached. In other words, something in the universe MUST be increasing entropy somehow, and at a greater rate than something else in the universe is losing entropy.
The logical solution is that the earth is increasing in entropy because... well, we're here. So yeah, the earth would be a closed non-isolated system and as a whole would be generating entropy at a rate much faster than what other planets (say jupiter or something) is losing entropy (if it is losing entropy at all).
I should mention that energy (internal, potential, and kinetic included) and entropy are not necessarily proportional to each other in changes. They are actually quite separate and different properties. It is possible to alter energy without affecting entropy in a significant way.
Example: a weight being lifted by a pulley/rope system, the entropy of the weight has negligibly changed, but the total energy (internal + kinetic + potential) of the weight has drastically changed. Yeah, very simplistic example, but true, nonetheless.
Nov 29, 2005 03:23 pm 'I should mention that energy (internal, potential, and kinetic included) and entropy are not necessarily proportional to each other in changes. They are actually quite separate and different properties. It is possible to alter energy without affecting entropy in a significant way.'
--i didnt mean lifting an object. i was talking about particles. if the best definition of entropy is mixed-upedness, i like the gas in a box illustration. in a way, isnt there less potential energy that the box system can do once gas, formerly restrained to just one side of the box, becomes free to fill the whole thing? the differential between the two halves has been shot, killing the possibility for any useful work to be done. increasing entropy has led to a loss of potential energy within the box system.
i hope you would explain from here on: "So the energy of the universe, on the whole..." in that paragraph. that whole paragraph. i dont completely follow you. cant even an isolated system bleed away its low entropy state if all the things within it (which are themselves a bunch of little closed systems) gain entropy as they exchange energy with thier local surroundings within the whole 'isolated system?' i mean, stars bleed away thier relatively low entropy state to the vacuum of space in the form of radiation: but that radiation can not be turned back into stars, so that would seem to be an increase in entropy right there, happening all through this isolated system of the universe.
if i still dont understand the ins and outs of entropy i am going to be very mad at entropy.
Nov 29, 2005 04:00 pm Ok,if global temperature is regulated by the movement of ocean currents,and moves like a giant conveyer belt from warm area's until it reaches the polar regions then sinks down and heads back again due to the water being less salty.What wil happen if it slows down or stops?Warm sea not getting to cold poles?Another ice age? DOH! Better hang on to those jumpers.
Nov 29, 2005 05:18 pm What is in the system doesn't matter as to how energy and entropy changes in it whether the system is a dumbell or a gas particle. Entropy can be measured by how much energy can be extracted from a system with respect to a given reservoir (by means of a heat pump, for example) which is also known as available energy. Thermodynamicists have a very difficult time actually saying WHAT entropy is... except that it's a property of a system, and with Energy, E, and entropy, S, they can define the state of any given system, whether it be stable equilibrium, partial stable equilibrium, metastable equilibrium (as in your gas box with one of two partitions full of gas) etc.
Lol... it's a very tough subject actually. An easy way to think of entropy is chaos, yet it's also something that can be measured and calculated from other known properties of a system.
My comments on your gas-filled box. If it is a perfectly insulated and isolated box, the energy (internal, kinetic, and potential) in the box does not change before or after you remove the partition that allows you to fill the entire box with gas. The potential energy (which is defined as mass*gravity*density) does not change. The entropy does increase till the box reaches stable equilibrium, which in turn decreases the available energy (the ability to do work) of the box with respect to some reservoir at a lower pressure than the box. If the environment was at the same final pressure of the box, you're right in that the ability of the box to do any useful work is lost, thus the box/gas system has no available energy.
I think you meant available energy when you said potential energy, because potential energy is simply something being higher than the datum height.
Once again, if a system is completely isolated, it cannot increase or decrease energy. Yet, if the same system is not in stable equilibrium, it has the ability to increase entropy until it reaches stable equilibrium provided something isn't keeping it from doing so (the partition in the gas box, for example). The gas particles inside the box may exchange energy and such, but as a whole, if the system is isolated, the total energy will not change. It's impossible. The individual gas particles may also lose or gain entropy as they experience collisions with each other... yet, once again, as a whole, the entropy of the system as a whole, cannot lose entropy without an interaction with the environment.
Your example of the stars is a perfect example of available energy. The stars themselves are not isolated because they're losing energy through radiation and such to the environment. It's probably a safe bet to say that they're also decreasing their entropy because their available energy is decreasing with every watt of energy they give off to the environment. In this case though, (as opposed to gas box which has increasing entropy and loses available energy), the star isn't isolated and loses energy AND entropy which overall has an effect of losing available energy too.
Holy crap this is long. Forty, if you want to check out a book that explains stuff better than what you may or may not have learned in undergrad thermo, do a search for things written by Elias P. Gyftopoulos. He wrote a little article for the American Physical Society in 1997 on Entropy that you might find very interesting. He also wrote the textbook we're using for this Thermo class which I'm actually doing homework for (sorta) right now..lol. This class has been kicking my butt all semester...heh.
Nov 29, 2005 08:14 pm man, i dont even know what to do with this information, dont know which of my points were right or wrong, and no longer recall how it applies to the thread topic!
Nov 29, 2005 08:19 pm lol... sorry! I think you still have the general right idea? Just some of your terminology was incorrect.... heh.
Nov 29, 2005 08:48 pm Either way, I want some big ol' snow back here. It's been a long time. The last big snow I can remember that amounted to anything was whe Tuna was maybe 3 year's old and it was the holloween blizzrd of 92 I believe. Before that I think the last big snow we got was in maybe 84 or 85.
I think I'm gonna need a truck again if I keep wishin for big snow.
Nov 29, 2005 09:02 pm I think the last "big snow" we had that I remember was in 92. That was when I was... somewhat illegal to drive still, yet I started up our old faithful wagoneer and drove around (ended up in the ditch at one point, but just backed out) when nobody else could go on the roads yet...lol. Great fun for a 10 year old.
=)
Nov 29, 2005 09:42 pm In Vancouver it was this afternoon - LOL
Nov 29, 2005 09:49 pm lucky dog. I wish I had some huge snowdrifts to get my truck stuck in...
Nov 29, 2005 11:06 pm BeerHunter, how much did you get up there? I heard there was alot of ice as well?
Anyway, send some down here now will ya.
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