Understanding faith & human history

There is a lot of talk about two historical issues:

1. How can the Bible be "accurate" (and the Qur'an) when so many incredible events are documented?

2. Do we as adults, and our children as students, really understand human history (whether of our country or of the world), and related to this question, how can anyone understand genuine history when whoever is in power cooks the books?

Here is the most essential thing to remember and help you to understand how to learn about and correctly perceive history.

When it comes to human history, even the best of history courses, books and curriculum barely convey one percent of the truth of that time. That's correct, you are reading right, even the best of history books, classes, teachers, and even original source material (letters or archaeology of the time for example) do NOT convey 99 percent of the truth, but only 1 percent. Wow, you paranoids are probably saying, who is "hiding the truth," aliens? Ha ha, no, nothing so dire. It is simple human nature that no one can understand the previous generation of humans, say nothing of humans many generations ago. That is because it is increasingly impossible for humans to understand themselves when you live under totally different circumstances.

Here is an easy example, one you can see as a living case study today. When Americans read about the Founding Fathers, for example, you cannot at all comprehend what life was during that time because, just for one example, they had no electricity. The entire world lacked electricity. But it was not "a lack," because they had what they needed to cope, which was fuel and fire. So much of their life day by day, you know, the way people actually lived day to day between glamorous "historical" events was that a lot of people had to keep busy gathering and storing fuel (usually wood) and the means to utilize it (for cooking and heating) when needed. It is impossible to imagine just that one fact of life today.

It is impossible to imagine because even in poor countries that lack electricity for the public (like Haiti, and that is one reason the landscape is so denuded is that every tree that could be burnt for fuel was long ago cut down), people still know electricity exists and also have access to it via places that have it, like refrigeration in stores. You see, when I point out there was NO electricity I mean it, there was no electricity anywhere in human history up until the past one hundred years. You cannot compare even a poor country where most people have no electricity to those times because 1) electricity does exist in the structure around them (main street lights, the grocery stores, other public places such as schools) and 2) in a way, people were "wealthier" in fuel and heat/lighting in times when they had a cycle by which they harvested and stored wood than people today who lack both that cycle AND electricity. So you cannot look at an electricity deprived place like Haiti and say "hmm, it must have been like that during the American Revolution" and during "colonial times." No, it was not like that at all because no electricity was "the normal" and not "the lack."

So you cannot read the historical facts about Thomas Jefferson, for example, no matter how numerous the facts and how accurate they are, and yet have any genuine comprehension of those times because modern humans cannot imagine the human context as it really was. Modern humans look back with two simultaneous errors: glamorizing certain aspects of human life, and demonizing/diminishing the good qualities of that life. Thus one might think that if someone in Haiti suffers due to lack of electricity in their home, that "it must have been like that in colonial times." No, my friends, it was not like that. No household, no matter how poor, suffered in that respect if they had able bodied men and women who gathered, chopped and stored the wood. They lived the life of the times, which was the back breaking work but the satisfaction of having one's sufficient supply of fuel, gathered by one's own family's hands.

I can now list for you all sorts of fuel issues (such as not understanding the horror of whaling without understanding how whale oil relieved so many poor people of back breaking work) that are just a small part of the backdrop of many eras of human history, but I've made my point and don't want to distract. Just the single issue of not understanding (and in fact, when it is mentioned, demonizing or making it look more primitive than it was) how life was totally different when people ALL had to self gather fuel demonstrates to you that understanding Thomas Jefferson, for example, is more than figuring he was rich enough (or had slaves) to light candles when he sat at his desk to write. Everyone was in the same boat: everyone had responsibility to collect fuel for their household, or they suffered and died, and all of humanity has always been organized around the need for fuel (since that is a cornerstone of food and shelter, of course). That was the normal and one cannot jump to the conclusion that those were "worse" times than today, because they "lacked electricity." More to the point, to really "get" history one must understand the normal of the time one is studying in those boring everyday contexts because that shaped everything.

A bigger example is that one cannot understand (just like the mistake of over-whaling) the world busting error of Communism without understanding how the people were actually living at the time. You cannot understand how people in Russia could have made the incredibly stupid error of Communism without understanding how people lived (and suffered) day to day, including the excesses of the Tsars. I'm not going to go into all this but just remind you that people are perfectly able to go from one horribly unjust situation to another opposite and even more unjust situation (remember, Communists threw out God, who is the only Truth that anyone ever really has).

So whenever you read anything from history, whether from one hundred years ago or thousands of years ago, one cannot really understand it at all, despite the accurate "facts," (and those are lacking enough in modern education) without understanding the normal life people led in those times. Without understanding normality of day to day existence, no history is genuinely comprehended, whether of a person, an action, or those times in general. Most of history "is what it is" of millions of people leading normal lives of necessity in those times. The "dramatic" events are always punctuation marks, not the full sentences of those times.

Now, more urgently, to get to understanding how the Bible (and the Qur'an) can be so "accurate" when such marvelous events are recorded there. There are two reasons you can be assured they are accurate, but let us focus on the Bible since that what I will cite from. The first reason is that God knows humans far better than they understand themselves (obviously, since God not only made humans all all life and all the universe, but he knows the answers to all "what if" scenarios as he is the All Knowing) and thus God knows that humans need written Truth as they can barely interpret reality of events they are living at that very time, say nothing of the past. That is why God carved for Moses the Ten Commandments. It's not like people could not memorize ten things, duh. God as All Knowing knew that people can barely record and comprehend their own history from generation to generation. So God gave the first great history lesson in his many talks with Moses, and that became the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Moses learned about early faith history and the events of God's hand (such as creation) from God, and then had what he learned inscribed. God is therefore, through Moses, both providing the truth of what happened prior to the Exodus and also demonstrating to all people how to record (witness to) human and faith history with accuracy and truth.

The second reason one can rely on the Bible is that things that seem "wrong" or "unlikely" are no longer unlikely if one actually understands the context of the event. I'll give you an obvious example right here.

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision....Then the Lord led him outside and said, "Look at the heavens and, if you can, count the stars." And he said to him, "So shall your posterity be" (Genesis 15:1, 5).

Now, here is an example where a modern person who is an unbeliever (or weak in faith) can say, "Ha. God promised Abraham that he will have as many descendants as there are stars in the heavens, and that's obviously bogus because there are trillions of stars and there's never been more than a few million Jews. So obviously those Jews wrote this to look important."

Um, slight problem. That's first of all not what God said. The main point is that God promised that Abraham's descendants would be uncountable, and God meant those who believe in God due to their spiritual (Jewish and Christian) lineage to God from Abraham forward.

But here's the history lesson context point I am going to make. "Back then," before the telescope was invented, people did not realize that there are trillions of stars. They thought there was the number of stars that they could see with their own eyes and count, in theory. They did not realize that the Milky Way (the part of our galaxy that we can see like a fuzzy band across the dark sky) is fuzzy because its trillions of stars. People thought stars were just as they were, exceedingly numerous, but all visible in the sky, and thus in theory countable, but too many to have the human time to count and many so faint that they are not clear in vision. So the number of stars meant to people before the telescope was invented, "thousands and thousands and thousands..."

To understand the conversation between Abraham and God, you would have to do this. Walk outside on a clear, dark night where your visibility of the stars is maximized. Imagine God saying that you will have as many descendants as the stars that are right in front of you, in your vision, that you could, in theory, count. You have to forget all the stars that actually exist (outside your vision) and you have to forget that there are many stars that you cannot see, as they are too dim, too distant, and are part of the fuzzy nebulae and galactic clouds. You would nonetheless be wowed and impressed, and have the accuracy of God's message, knowing your descendants will be as numerous as the stars you can see in the sky at that moment and if you had the time that you could count based on your own eyes. THAT was God's point.

You see, God is very precise when speaking to humans. He stoops down to talk, but not at all in a condescending way, in the lingo and frame of reference of people at the time. He speaks their language, but always uplifting, always so they, the humans, better know God. God is not making a promise he cannot keep, which if you misunderstand by using modern knowledge to ruin the analogy God is using, you falsely assume. God did not say "Someday astronomers and computer scientists will be able to look with enhanced vision and know that there are trillions and trillions of uncountable stars and that's how many Jews will descend from you." I mean, duh, could that be any clearer? God took Abraham outside and had him look at the stars that he could see in his sight and understand that his descendants, his FAITH descendants, will be that numerous (as the stars he can actually see with his eyes above the horizon) and uncountable (as the faith and knowledge of God goes on and on and on....)

I hope this has helped!

Important brief oil message for young people

Really, the message is for everyone concerned about the environment and the petrochemical business/oil use, but as always, I am trying to better inform young people who often do not get this information in schools.



Many on the left try to demonize the use of oil. I need to share with you one point that never gets mentioned. Oil is used in the manufacture of virtually every product humans use today, in addition to its use as a source of fuel and energy. You must ask yourself, "What did modern society use before they discovered oil?" One answer is, that is why the whales were slaughtered out of the seas. Yes, young people, oil was viewed as the savior to the few whales left after the height of their hunting. Whales were not hunted for food at all. They were rendered (reduced through cooking and boiling) for their oil. That is what lit lamps, made candles (not bees wax, as romantic folks like to think), cosmetics and virtually every manufacturing process that existed before the age of petroleum, live whales were hunted and killed for "energy" and for manufactured "goods."



So before you listen to those who make the use of an inert natural ingredient from the ground look so evil, you must remember that those of us who are older and know our history remember when whales were reduced to oil worldwide. It is so odd that people from the extreme left make the use of petroleum look so evil when it was the great tragedy of the use of the world's whales, driven to near extinction, from which they have not recovered (there used to be millions of whales in the ocean and now there are only a few handfuls, in comparison) that made petroleum the hero, not the villain. I'd include the references but if you want to research this it is easy to do, since that is too depressing a time for me to want to recall even for a few minutes.



But I wanted to help you avoid some erroneous and cloudy thinking by the extreme left who have not only short term memories, but are flawed memories. It's not like people were hunting whale for sushi. People weren't "eating whale blubber," they were boiling whales down for the use of the oil in industrial and home usage for every day needs that are now filled by use of petrochemicals.



I hope this helps. Do try to have more discernment to dig into why things happened the way they did, and not why poorly educated extremists who have become "mainstream" try to brainwash you into their own ignorance and inflation! As always, with fond thoughts of our youth, who just might help get the country and the world out of the mess it is in, if they don't fall for the propaganda that distracts from the real dire issues (such as the pollution and death of the oceans due to lack of proper sewage treatment and pollution runoff control, overfishing coupled with lack of restocking, etc). But the cynical politicians and "saviors" don't want to talk about those problems, since they haven't figured out how to make more money and win more political power by addressing the REAL problems. All the best to you, my readers!

Important pollution article, 1.7 billion pounds worth

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-cigarette-butts-0618-nujun18,0,5021273.story

snip

Experts say cigarette butts rank at the very top of litter problems—not just for their ubiquity, but for their toxicity and non-biodegradable nature.

The things stick around in sewers and soil for years, even decades.

Sanitation workers can't clean them up fast enough, and volunteer cleanup crews can only pick up so many, every so often.

"It's about cleanliness," said Chicago Park District superintendent Tim Mitchell. "People have been using North Avenue Beach as an ashtray. By leaving cigarette butts on the beach, that adds to the pollution of the lake, and that's our greatest natural resource."Not that Chicago's streets have it any easier. Walk down a busy stretch of the Loop and it's not unusual to count up hundreds of butts in a blocklong stretch. That butts turn up with such abundance irks Matt Smith, spokesman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation."Smokers tend not to be very courteous with their material disposal," Smith said. "It gets thrown down and we have to sweep it up with our regular street debris. It's an ongoing problem; it's dirty and a remnant of someone's habit."

snip

Estimates on how long it takes a cigarette butt to turn into a fine powder vary, but the consensus places it at somewhere between 10 and 15 years.

Yet butts don't biodegrade, they only break down.

The distinction is important to environmentalists, who say butts end up as a plastic residue that stays in ecosystems for decades.

A substance that biodegrades, by contrast, is usually organic: plant or animal matter neutralized by enzymes or sunlight.

The bottom line: Old cigarette butts only get diluted or buried. They never truly vanish.A

n estimated 1.7 billion pounds of cigarette butts accumulate in lakes, oceans, on beaches and the rest of the planet annually, according to the New Jersey-based American Littoral Society, a coastal environmental organization.

And to understand the full impact of all those butts, it helps to know what goes into one. The 12,000 strands in a typical filter might resemble cotton, but they're made of something else entirely: a plastic called cellulose acetate, bound to outer paper layers by glue. And because that tiny filter you flick from your fingers is attached to a tobacco product potent enough to earn a Surgeon General's warning, it contains a host of potent chemicals. Among them: carcinogens such as benzopyrene and formaldehyde; poisons such as arsenic, lead, acetone, toluene, cadmium, nicotine and benzene; and hazardous chemicals such as butane and ammonia.If only the dangers stopped there. Butts still containing traces of lit tobacco pose a serious fire hazard; extinguished ones are a threat to marine life and a temptation to toddlers on playgrounds, who tend to put most anything in their mouths.

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I think it has to start sinking in with people that everything they discard, even what they pee into the toilet, is filled with chemicals and toxins that do not naturally "break down."

It is mindboggling that 1.7 BILLION pounds of the toxic components of cigarettes are thrown away and enter the ecosystem where they linger and do not "break down" into "harmless organic" components.

People have to start picking up after themselves, no matter how "small" or "inconvenient" or you are going to small and inconvenient yourselves right off of this planet.

USA acts to stem overfishing of sharks

http://www.sportfishingmag.com/news/news/noaa-announces-new-conservation-measures-to-prevent-overfishing-of-sandbar-and-other-sharks--1000059901.html

snip

NOAA Fisheries has outlined new measures to prevent overfishing and rebuild the number of sandbar and other shark species. The number of sandbar sharks are between 20 and 38 percent of the population in the early 20th century before fishing began on sharks. Recent stock assessments indicate that sandbar, porbeagle, and dusky sharks are severely overfished and therefore drastic measures need to be taken to begin rebuilding. It has been illegal to catch dusky sharks since 2000, but these sharks are taken incidentally when fishermen seek other species.

Sandbar sharks are one of the most valuable shark species caught commercially in the Atlantic Ocean. They make up the majority of the current commercial shark landings and are prized for their fins, which are the main ingredient in dishes such as shark fin soup.

Mexicans slaughter 100 million or more sharks?!!!

Read this article. It's mindblogging. Apparently 100 million or more sharks are killed by Mexican "fishermen" each year, just to cut their fins off for Chinese soup, and they toss the rest of the body to rot. At this rate they are wiping out their own oceanic treasure and ruining it for everyone else. Sharks are essential in the ocean ecosystem.

Unbelievable. Surely someone can come up with jobs that don't involve wiping out entire species for their fin so that Chinese can eat $300 a bowl shark fin soup, or peddling drugs. I'm exaggerating a bit but not so much?

http://www.surfline.com/surfnews/surfwire.cfm?id=15116

We must restore the oceans

I was reading about a group of Chilean students who found a treasure trove of whale fossils while on an expedition. Chile might make the entire area a national monument.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070629/sc_nm/chile_whales_dc_1;_ylt=ApX7xVQ.ydkeY3aosBN_qAPmWMcF
Also on Yahoo, I'd been reading about the oldest known right whale fossil, 5-6 million years old, on exhibit in Japan.

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I often am "homesick" for the way the earth's oceans used to be, not all that long ago. One only has to go back several hundred years, not millions of years, to find a time when the oceans were clean and healthy and teeming with life. Can anyone beside me really imagine the time when MILLIONS of whales thrived in the oceans? And there was a richness of every kind of fish? There were healthy coral reefs and oceanic animals, from dolphins to octopuses, who were numerous and not under unnatural stress.

When you compare that image, one that wasn't all that long ago, to what we have today, everyone should feel angry, sad, starved, and robbed. Except we cannot blame "climate change" for this, and we can't fix it with "carbon credits" or "concerts to save the oceans." There has to be an international, collective will to steward the oceans to thrive again. This can only be done by cleaning up the pollution (both effluent and physical garbage, ranging from plastics to fish netting) and by paying those who earned their living at fishing to now work as global "restockers" and shepherds of the sea. Rather than fighting over diminishing quotas and robbing people of their fishing heritage, I'd like to see money go to fishermen to work for national oceanographic institutes of countries to work at cleaning the oceans of garbage, improving habitats for natural breeding of ocean wildlife, and restocking. It can (and must) be done. If the earth's landscape is our farm and our body, the oceans are our souls and our blood, just as our clean air is our lungs. We must start a radical renewal of the oceans to their cleanest and most thriving state, and stop quarreling while engaging in the long defeat.