Noah’s Ark has been something that a lot of people have claimed to find for the past few decades. There are several sites and curiosities on satellite images, most of which while compelling aren’t hardball evidence of something wooden being constructed.
Until just today, actually. What is interesting are some of the photos. They show that something that is wooden is encased up there in the glacier. Is it an “ark”? That remains to be confirmed. A wooden structure purporting to be it has never been found before.
A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say wooden remains they have discovered on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey are the remains of Noah’s Ark.
The group claims that carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old, meaning they date to around the same time the ark was said to be afloat. Mt. Ararat has long been suspected as the final resting place of the craft by evangelicals and literalists hoping to validate biblical stories.
Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah’s Ark Ministries International research team that made the discovery, said: “It’s not 100 percent that it is Noah’s Ark, but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it.”
Wing-Cheung added that local officials will ask the Turkish government to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status, to protect the site while further archaeological excavation is carried out.
However, the group has not revealed the location of the site beyond saying that it is 12,000 feet up the mountain. It has also failed to produce exterior photos of the structure.
I think what would really convince me of something being up there is when they can provide those exterior photos. They could be inside of anything wooden up there. A house, a barn, a storage silo of some kind, etc. Until then, I am still curious, and still skeptical.
Also, this video is really interesting. You can see that they keep knocking on the structure to verify that it’s wood. There appears to be grains or seeds on the ground of one of the rooms also.
What’ll it be?
I’d like one battle royale about the nature of reality with cheese, extra onions.
What side of the fence do you fall on? Watch part1 and part2 (after the jump) and decide for yourself.
From left to right: Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, and The Rational Response Squad
It was a warm Saturday night in New York City as a mixed crowd of atheists and Christians converged on Calvary Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan for the first “Nightline Face-Off.” And it wasn’t long before temperatures began to rise inside the auditorium.
The question for our debate was “Does God Exist?” and both sides went at the issue with a series of passionate declarations and critical attacks on the arguments of their opponents. It was a clean but unflinching contest.
part1
For more than 90 minutes, they battled over the main arguments of evolution, historical evidence and the existence of God. The audience, which was divided between Christians and atheists, asked penetrating questions, and there were also a number of contributions submitted by viewers at ABCNEWS.com.
A goat is being held in jail at this time. Before getting into details, a quick look into the folklore’s definition may help to quantify other situations a bit more…
….Popular shapeshifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), the fox spirits East Asia (including the Japanese kitsune), and the gods, goddesses, and demons of numerous mythologies, such as the Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus. It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals and plants.
So those are a few examples of how widespread the concept has been throughout the world. For many, the belief of such practices have not died, which results in the BBC story below. Profane or sacred? That depends on your point of view….where and when.
Many Nigerians believe that magicians can turn themselves into goats
Police in Nigeria are holding a goat handed to them by a vigilante group, which said it was a car thief who had used witchcraft to change shape. A police spokesman in Kwara State has been quoted as saying that the “armed robbery suspect” would remain in custody until investigations were over.
But another police spokesman told the BBC the goat was being held in case its owner claimed it. The belief in witchcraft and the power to change shapes is common in Nigeria.
Police reform activists have condemned the “arrest”, saying it highlights the low education levels of many Nigerian police officers.
Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper has a picture of the goat and reports that police paraded it in front of journalists in the Kwara state capital Ilorin on Thursday.
But this was denied by national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu. “The vigilante group arrested the goat and took it to the police, then they told the media.” The next morning journalists turned up demanding to see the goat, he said.
Old frescos and architecture are interesting. We pass them in towns and cities, walking by banks and court buildings occupying blocks of development. Because they are ingrained into our routine of everyday visual cues, the iconic idea becomes a familiarity while their intentions and origins remain detached.
Looking at the meaning of the word “apotheosis” reveals further information.
a-poth-e-o-sis
–noun, plural -ses
1. the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.
2. the ideal example; epitome; quintessence: This poem is the apotheosis of lyric expression.
That’s neat….so it’s not just the depiction of an ascension into a higher realm, but perhaps the additional elevation into godhood, like a story from greek mythology.
After finding this out, it makes me wonder how many people that frequent the building know that they pass under a fresco that depicts the first US president in this way. I myself wouldn’t have, until looking into this just a little today.
Something that interests me between different cultures, and even within a culture is the coexistence of the acceptable and taboo. A friendly gesture by a group is an insult to another. What is sacred to one is seen as insane by the next person. The video explores one example of this in northern Greece.
A firewalking festival called the Anastenaria, revolves around a set of ancient icons that worshippers believe have special powers – to purify, heal, and protect. But others view the ritual as sacrilege.
At this point in time we estimate the Milky Way contains about 500 thousand million stars, and that the universe contains roughly 100 billion galaxies. If we factor our galaxy as being average in size, we come to an estimate of roughly 100 million billion earth-like planets that may exist and be conducive to life.
By method of dissemination, it surfaces the question of the effect on human species if interaction with life from one of these planets were a reality. Commerce, manufacturing, social class, energy mining, and virtually every other strata of the earth would experience a shift. None would feel the shock waves of this as much as an individual’s beliefs about the world around them. That’s why I find this story below interesting.
Aliens could be out there, and believing that the universe may contain extraterrestrial life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican’s chief astronomer says.
The vastness of the universe – with its hundred billion galaxies and trillions of stars – means there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones, the Rev Jose Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit who directs the Vatican Observatory, says.
“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Mr Funes said in an interview with Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, headlined: “The extraterrestrial is my brother.”
“Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God’s creative freedom,” he said.
“Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother’ and ‘sister’, why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation.”
I’m in agreement with most of what is said in this short video segment. While it is a compelling and logical viewpoint that a portion of what is reality can be attributed to an illusion woven by ego, I’d simultaneously make a debate for cases where “evil” has been documented to exist externally from perception.
When you deal with metaphysical issues such as this, you often run into the debacle of where the control ends. Sure, we can say that we are slaves to our intrinsic subjectivity, but any axiom offered may also be brought into the presumption that it only exists as a more sophisticated Matryoshka doll.
……Your ego, referred to in Hebrew as Yetzer Hara (destructive force), is the self-centered, immediate-gratification-at-any-cost part of your personality.
The mystical sources say the Yetzer Hara covers your essence like mud on a windshield. It’s given to you at birth and dies along with the body. In the interim, it wreaks havoc. It speaks to you in the first person saying things like:
“If someone gets more recognition and honor than me, I’ll just die”
“I don’t really have to prepare for the meeting, maybe I’ll catch a movie”
“Just one more piece of double chocolate cheesecake and that will be it.”
The wraps have come off one of Westminster Abbey’s least known treasures, a medieval marble pavement foretelling the end of the world, while conservation experts consider how to preserve the ancient stones for the next 740 years.
Few modern visitors have ever seen it, although since 1268 kings and princes, queens and cardinals have walked across a symbol laden mosaic as intricate as a piece of jewelery.
It is made up of rare marbles and gemstones, including some recycled from monuments 1,000 years older, and pieces of colored glass, set in complex allegorical patterns into a framework of Purbeck marble cut as intricately as a jigsaw puzzle.
“When this floor was new it would have blazed with color,” Vanessa Simeoni, the abbey’s head of conservation said. “The materials were chosen for their brilliance and shine, and the quality of the craftsmanship is actually shocking, the ultimate that could be achieved.”
The mosaics are known as Cosmati work, after the four generations of a Roman family of marble workers who perfected the technique. The Westminster one, regarded as the finest north of the Alps, uniquely has an inscription boasting of its makers – and a cryptic message about the end of the world.
Heheh. My friend Ovi sent this out on our messageboard last week, and I thought it would be a good thing to share on this blog. The humor and the irony of the points made in this video had me rolling with laughter, especially the comment about mammon. At the same time, I take a similar viewpoint to the video citing that real improvement and change starts with the individual, not the system.
Some of the United Kingdom’s most storied soil was disturbed Monday for the first time in more than four decades as archaeologists worked to solve the enduring riddle of Stonehenge: When and why was the prehistoric monument built?
The excavation project, set to last until April 11, is designed to unearth materials that can be used to establish a more specific date for when the mysterious first set of bluestones was put in place at Stonehenge, one of Britain’s best known and least understood landmarks.
The bluestones are the smaller of the large rocks installed at Stonehenge.
The UN World Heritage site, a favorite with visitors the world over, has become popular with Druids, modern-day pagans, and New Agers, who attach mystical significance to the strangely shaped circle of stones. But there remains great debate about the actual purpose of the structure.
The dig will be led by Timothy Darvill, a leading Stonehenge scholar from Bournemouth University, and Geoffrey Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries.
2012 is sometimes claimed to be a great year of spiritual transformation (or apocalypse). Many esoteric sources interpret the completion of the thirteenth B’ak’tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar (which occurs on December 21 by the most widely held correlation) to mean there will be a major change in world order.
Accordingly, several eclectic authors claim that a major, world-changing event will take place in 2012:
-The 1997 book The Bible Code claims that, according to certain algorithms of the Bible code, a meteor, asteroid or comet will collide with the Earth.
-The 2006 book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck discusses theories of a possible global awakening to psychic connection by the year 2012, creating a noosphere.
Other prophecies and apocalyptic writings and hypotheses for this year include:
Tibetan monks, nuns and other Tibetan supporters stage a candlelight vigil by walking around the Swyambhunath Stupa in Katmandu. The march was another display of solidarity with Tibetans in Tibet, and occurred shortly after the protest on Monday.
The unrest has created shock waves in another volatile region on China’s periphery, shaking up the presidential election in Taiwan and sapping support for the candidate Beijing had hoped would win handily. The suppression of Tibet protests by Chinese security forces, as well as missteps by the Nationalist Party, which Beijing favors, have nearly erased what had seemed like an insuperable lead for Ma Ying-jeou, the Harvard-educated lawyer who has been the front-runner in the race.
Concern that China’s crackdown could herald a tougher line on outlying regions that Beijing claims as sovereign territory, including Taiwan, has become the most contested campaign issue ahead of Saturday’s election.
On Thursday, China acknowledged for the first time that security forces had opened fire on Tibetan protesters in Sichuan Province, while also saying that protests had spread to several areas of China where ethnic Tibetans live.
Even if Mr. Ma wins, the election may now give him a weaker mandate for his goal of pursuing closer economic ties and reduced diplomatic tensions with China.
April 27, 2010 | category: 
Old frescos and architecture are interesting. We pass them in towns and cities, walking by banks and court buildings occupying blocks of development. Because they are ingrained into our routine of everyday visual cues, the iconic idea becomes a familiarity while their intentions and origins remain detached.
“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Mr Funes said in an interview with Vatican newspaper 
