MOUNTAINS ARE shaking. A massive earthquake has left over 2,400 dead in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, and Tibet at last count, and that number will almost certainly grow in the hours ahead. Meanwhile, a volcano in Chile has unexpectedly erupted for the first time in 40 years, spewing a cloud of ash that’s reached southern Brazil.
What’s more, people spotted something that looked like a giant in the cloud and some locals are convinced that it was a manifestation of the god of the volcano.
This isn’t surprising. Mountains and volcanoes have been considered the abode of gods since the dawn of time. In fact, Eden was on “the holy mountain of God” (Ezekiel 28:13-14). And the climactic battle between the armies of heaven and the forces of Antichrist will be at Armageddon — har-mo’ed — the “mount of assembly” in the Holy Land, Mount Zion.
See Cris Putnam’s excellent five-part article Armageddon: The OT Background to the Battle for the Cosmic Mountain. See also this paper by Dr. Michael S. Heiser, The Divine Council and Biblical Theology.
Also: A virtual reality app that promises to reunite users with dead loved ones; Chinese scientists change human DNA for the first time; ETs and faith; personhood vs. human exceptionalism; H5N2 avian flu continues to spread; and fighting disease with cyborg cow sperm (cow sperm?).
Visit the P.I.D. Radio Facebook page. Find links to the articles we discuss at P.I.D. News, discuss the topics at the P.I.D. Radio Cafe, and make time to listen to some of the great Christian podcasters at the Revelations Radio Network.
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of possible interest: http://www.wtsbooks.com/god-heaven-and-har-magedon-meredith-kline-9781597524780
http://www.meredithkline.com/files/articles/39-2-pp207-222_JETS.pdf
totally agree about DailyMail… my “go to” instead of drudge even though articles sometimes seem written by someone with English as a second language and the gross sexy photos … more US news and more immediate posts of news
Very interesting indeed! I will check those out.
– Derek
Hey guys,
Just wanted to comment on the Prometheus analogy. I don’t think Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) was meant to be taken as a Christian. I know she wore a cross, but from what I can recall it was more spiritual than anything. In the opening scenes she was shown to always believed the creators were Ancient Aliens according to the movie. I think it could be interpreted as possibly science vs religion, yet also loosely interpreted by Christians that she represents us. However, I immediately identified her with a believer of panspermia and that was her religion.
Roy
Just thought that I’d add a couple of notes to this episode.
1) Again, you’ve rallied against vaccination programs. Ms. Gilbert, as a former lab tech (maybe more, I couldn’t tell from one history you told), you surely know that not all vaccines are equally effective. Some, such as smallpox, are remarkably effect. Some, such as HIV, are still not effective. We learn more every day. Doubtless they would be more effective if there was more research on the processes involved.
You should also be aware that adjuvants only supplement the work of vaccine active ingredients. We still don’t know a lot about how they work but they often really boost the effectiveness of vaccine with little to no known side effects (mostly, probably, because they are used in nano- to micro-gram quantities). You probably absorb more aluminum, mercury, and soap into your body every week than you get in a vaccine so exposure arguments of that type are highly dubious.
Finally, vaccines may not be completely effective but they still do a lot of good. They’d do a lot more good if large numbers of people weren’t spreading bad science about them. Andrew Wakefield lied about the autism effect (possibly to promote his own vaccine) and the US is not putting HIV into vaccines to kill off Africans or Pakistanis or the like (their own men are doing that job very well without our help, thank you very much).
2) I do not believe that the parting (then closing) of the Sea of Reeds was performed just so that God had the chance to kill off even more Egyptians than he had just gotten done killing. If you examine the text closely, you’ll see that it closely resembles the berit ceremony such as the one the Abraham performed in Gen 15. The berit is a covenant ceremony between two parties. Biblically, it was usually between God and man. In the case of the parting of the Sea of Reeds, it was God with the Hebrews. The Sea of Reeds was, symbolically, the body of Tiamat slain and split open by Yahoweh. The columns of dust and fire were the lamp and censer that precede the convenanteers through the split sides of the carcass. The people passing through the Sea were various tribes in Egypt and one people on the other side.
As for Ba’al Zafon, it is important to keep in mind that Zafon was a name for the sacred mountain of the gods. In that, it was little different from Sinai or Horeb and was probably, at various times, claimed as Yahoweh’s sacred mountain. Also, ba’al can simply mean “husband” or “lord”. As such, it applied to Yahoweh as well as Ba’al. Thus, it is likely that the reason that the parting of the Sea of Reeds took place near Ba’al Zafon is that it meant that the berit was occurring at the base of the mountain of Yahoweh. Under the name of Zafon, it probably wouldn’t have meant much, theologically, to the Egyptians who died in the Sea of Reeds.
3) Yes, Terry Shiavo died a terrible death by dehydration. Fortunately, it is very, very unlikely that she felt anything. She wasn’t just brain-dead. Her brain had actually degraded significantly over the years on life support. Had she not been on life support, she would have died years before. The state of Florida does not allow a legal assisted death in cases like this. Therefore, the only alternative is to keep a person like this on life support until they die an unnatural death or to take them off and allow them to die of (usually) dehydration. Don’t blame her husband for the crude manner of her death. Blame the state for not allowing a kinder method of dying or, better yet, blame God. After all, he could have intervened at any time but obviously felt that a horrific death was better than a painless one or healing recovery.
4) Back up your DDT claims with studies! It took only a few minutes of searching for DDT information on the internet to find that much of what you claimed about DDT was wrong. A) At least 21 african nations continue to spray with DDT. It hasn’t helped their mosquito situation much because B) most of the mosquitoes have developed a resistance to DDT by now. C) There was also a very good reason (beyond saving the birds) that we’ve tried to stop DDT use around the world: it affects humans. It makes them sick and it can kill them. Oh, our skin is much better at resisting DDT than insect exoskeletons are but we breathe it in when sprayed and we eat the cows that eat the grass on which DDT was sprayed and we eat the chickens and fish that eat the insects which did absorb the DDT. It bioaccumulates and, worse, it stores and persists in the fat in our bodies. Worse, worse, it moves from fat tissue into milk and into our breast-fed infants. And did I mention that ~240 mg of DDT per kilogram of body weight is lethal in humans. It only takes 6 – 10 mg of DDT per kilogram to make us seriously ill with neurological effects and, because it accumulates in the fat, it can persist for a fairly long time. It is not a good way to go about reducing mosquito-borne diseases.
At least you took the time to mention that malaria and Lassa fever sicken millions of people each year and kill thousands to tens of thousands.
Oh, and “Prometheus” – bad movie! I suspect that science, religion, and decent plotlines all spontaneously ignite if they get too close to this movie. There are far worse movies but the scars from this one are fresher.