This just in

[Minimalist]

I remember sex - it has something to do with women.

At times....at times.


The thing is, E.P. we know there have been hits. I've been to Meteor Crater, Arizona and it is mind-boggling.... but there is no indication that it wiped out the mega fauna because it hit in 50,000 BC and they were still prancing around 40,000 years later. So, perhaps they are not quite the doomsday machines which pop culture is portraying them to be? We live in an age of hype. In order to get attention in the media everything must not only be dangerous...it has to be a CATASTROPHE!!!!

It might be easier to take seriously if they'd tone it down a bit.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi War Arrow -

Yeah. I always point people to the aztlan archive, or to New Age Frauds and Plastic Shamans.

The day keepers think its all gringo craziness; and half the "sources" the 2012 folks cite are fictional. Mayanist David Steuart has written a book on it. John Hoopes is trying to work through the anthropology of apocalyptic movements. Me, I just have my guide inside the lunatic fringe.

I know its hard not to get wound up about this crap.
One favorite at NAFPS is the "Fifth Melchisedik" - you'll find him in the humor section.

[E.P. Grondine]

I remember sex - it has something to do with women.

At times....at times.

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

The thing is, E.P. we know there have been hits. I've been to Meteor Crater, Arizona and it is mind-boggling.... but there is no indication that it wiped out the mega fauna because it hit in 50,000 BC and they were still prancing around 40,000 years later. So, perhaps they are not quite the doomsday machines which pop culture is portraying them to be? We live in an age of hype. In order to get attention in the media everything must not only be dangerous...it has to be a CATASTROPHE!!!!

It might be easier to take seriously if they'd tone it down a bit.

The Meteor Crater im;act was around 44,000 BCE, min, if I remember the spike in the INCAL 14C chart correctly. The other two later large iron impactors landed in populated areas.

At least in the recent past, say the last 13,000 years, impacts have actually been MORE than the doomsday machines pop culture makes them out to be.

When I started out on this some 14 years ago, there was a good chance of getting 4 hours warning of a dinosaur killer. The situation is much improved now, but it has not been easy, and there is still has a way to go yet.

Now back to the topic at hand, min: why do you need to put the OT on a trash heap?

[Minimalist]

Because crazy xtian fundies have saddled it with a task it was never intended to fulfill. It is not a astronomy or geography or geology or biology or history text and it was never meant to be. It's a collection of stories edited and re-edited by very worldly priests with a political agenda to make themselves VERY IMPORTANT to a particular society of primitive goatherders.

[dannan14]

It's a collection of stories edited and re-edited by very worldly priests with a political agenda to make themselves VERY IMPORTANT to a particular society of primitive goatherders.

i'm pretty sure they had sheep too.

[kbs2244]

And were not too shabby at the arts of middlemen and merchants.

[Minimalist]

And were not too shabby at the arts of middlemen and merchants.

As part of the Assyrian empire in the 8th/7th century BC, yes. After that the land did not recover economically until Herod the Great.

I'm afraid the modern stereotypes were helped on by Christian discrimination against Jews during the Middle Ages. They were not allowed to own land, for example.

[kbs2244]

I don’t want to get into an argument over dates.
But long before it was an organized nation the Jewish influence seems to have always
wanted to include a port on the Gulf of Aqaba.

There is no pasturage reason for this.
But controlling a trade route from the Red sea to either the Mediterranean or Syria sure would make it worthwhile.

Even today 3 nations share that little piece of water.
It is a natural choke point and you could make some good money buying, selling and transporting stuff.

If we are to put some faith in the Biblical record, Abraham owned camels. Why?
They are not much good for anything but being pack animals.
Maybe a little sideline business?

I believe the land owning probation came much later and in Europe.
It came from the concept of land being an indication of wealth and influence.
So if the Jews couldn’t own land they couldn’t be rich or influential.
They would be forced to live in the cities and be merchants.
They would have to live in big warm city homes on small lots , with money to buy food in winter, while the rich and influential shivered in their drafty rural castle estates and ate potage.

But then none of this has much to do with impacts.

[Minimalist]

But long before it was an organized nation the Jewish influence seems to have always
wanted to include a port on the Gulf of Aqaba.

And you source for this is?

[kbs2244]

Abraham and his camels.
He wandered all through the general area.
They were the over the road trucks of the day.
They would be good for both the Gulf of Aqaba to the Med route and the Euphrates to Syria route.

Even if he was a fictional character, he would have had to have some basis in reality to be a believable character.
If it wasn't him, by name, it was someone, or someones, doing it.

The route was inportant.
Any group coming into power, in any time frame, would want to have a part of it.

[Minimalist]

Abraham and his camels.

Camels were not in general usage for caravans until the first millenium, BC.

http://www.livius.org/caa-can/camel/camel.html

The use of dromedaries in the second millennium BCE by nomadic tribes, as implied in the Biblical book Genesis, is almost certainly unhistorical and shows that Genesis was composed at a later age.

For that matter, Abraham is stated as being from "Ur of the Chaldees" and the Chaldeans did not move in to the region until c 900 BC also. So...in an odd sort of way, the whole thing comes together much to the discomfort of fundies.

[kbs2244]

From another site:

I don’t remember this location being brought up it the debate.
If it was I apologize in advance.

I am still on the fence on this one.

(2min 50 sec. filesize 25 MB, WMV format)

http://www.acadiau.ca/~raeside/CBC_Bloo ... n_2011.wmv