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Religion in America.
Source: BIBLE REVIEW Vol. XVIII No. 03 Jun 2002
Even though interest in spiritual matters increased sharply after 11 SEP 01, they fell below the pre-911 levels, according to a poll take by a leading research center on religion. The numbers indicate 78 percent of Americans became more religious in November 2001, but just six months later it had dropped to 37 percent. Sixty-seven percent of surveyed Americans further stated that they consider the United States a Christian nation, but 84 percent believe that people can be good Americans if they have no religious faith.
Seventy-five percent said many religions lead to eternal life, compared to the mere 18 percent who believe their own religion is the "one true faith." Only five percent view the September attacks as a sign that God no longer protects the United States. Yet sixty-five percent believe that religion is a significant cause of war.
To see the complete report go to: http://www.people-press.org/reports
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Scientific knowledge passed down through legend and folklore.
SOURCE: LA TIMES 14 July 2002
University of Washington Geophysicist Ruth Ludwin researches the folklore of the Northwest American and Canadian Indians for verification of the date of a massive earthquake said to have occurred on 26 Jan 1700. Professor Ludwin found Washington state’s Hoh and Makah Indian legends tell about a “great storm and hail and flashes of lightning in the darkened, blackened sky and a great crushing ‘thunder-noise’ everywhere. There was also a great shaking, jumping and trembling of the earth beneath and rolling up of the great waters.” The Makah Indians, whose land sits on the Neah Bay at the northwest tip of Washington state, also have a versionthat ends with a thunderbird delivering a huge whale to the mouth of the river as a meal for a tribe who had been starving.
Research shows that groves of red cedars and spruces along the Washington coast had been drowned in saltwater sometime in the late 1600’s or early 1700’s, due to the land dropping several feet as a result of a mega-thrust quake. It is believed to have ruptured the Canadian subduction zone, where two tectonic plates overlap, and it was theorized that one huge quake would have been responsible for the both a tsunami in Japan and these “ghost forests” on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Radiocarbon dating of tree stumps along the coast og Washington indicates they died sometime between August 1699 and May 1700. This would signify that tribes not only bore witness to the event, but passed down scientific knowledge through their legend and folklore.
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NEWGRANGE SITE IN IRELAND VERY POPULAR
Source: Michael Fox @ http://www.Knowth.com
The old system of taking advance bookings for admission to the chamber at Newgrange for the Winter Solstice experience has been abandoned, Dúchas the body who manage the Megalithic site at Newgrange have introduced an open draw system.
Application forms are available at the reception desk in the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre, in September each year 50 names are drawn, 10 names for each morning the chamber is illuminated by the winter solstice sunrise, two places in the chamber are awarded to each of the names drawn. Applications forms are valid for one draw only.
For images of Newgrange http://www.knowth.com/newgrange-images.htm
For books relating to Newgrange and Neolithic Ireland http://www.knowth.com/books.htm
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Asteroid Comes Dangerously Close To Earth
SOURCE: LA TIMES 21 June 2002
An asteroid, a little larger than a football field, just missed hitting the Earth on 14 June 2002. Scientists say that it passed a mere 75,000 miles from the surface of our planet and is one of the closest near misses of an object this size. Unfortunately, it wasn’t detected until three days after it had passed our fragile planet. With a diameter of 50 to120 yards and provisionally named 2002 MN, it was traveling faster than 23,000 mph when it was finally spotted. If it had impacted the earth it would have easily destroyed a major metropolitan area like Los Angeles or New York City. The amount of damage caused by such an impact would be determined by what the asteroid is made of, varying from stone to solid metal. If an asteroid is about one mile in length, it could potentially destroy all civilization as we know it and cause a planetary extinction of all life. Such asteroids impact Erath every million years or so and the type that just missed us on 14 June 2002, hits our planet every several hundred years.
Editors Note: As you read this it must be made clear, there are no deep space warning devices placed anywhere in our solar system that would warn us of impending doom. The government will never fund any serious research into solving the very dangerous Near Earth Asteroid problem unless the citizens of our planet insist that immediate action be taken. Scientists clearly state, “It’s not a matter of if we are impacted, but when we are struck by an NEA.”
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Astronomers Say Asteroid to Pass Near Earth
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESSS 24 JUL 02
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - An asteroid more than a mile across could strike the Earth in 2019, even tough it will likely just pass by on 01 FEB 2019. Of course, there is a slight chance the asteroid, dubbed 2002 NT7, causing a global catastrophe, astronomers said.
However, they stress the odds of such an encounter are about 1-in-250,000 - and shrinking.
"One way or another, this thing is coming off the risk page," said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's near-Earth object program office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Astronomers with the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Project used a New Mexico telescope to discover the space rock on July 9, when it was about 84 million miles from Earth. More than 100 follow-up observations have allowed astronomers to calculate six other potential impact dates in 2044, 2053, 2060 and 2078. The asteroid will remain in the sights of astronomers for another year at least, allowing them to further refine their estimates of its trajectory on its 837-day orbit around the sun.
"At that point, if it's still a threat, I'd start to get a little concerned, but not before then," said Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass.
In other cases where potentially Earth-crossing asteroids have been discovered, it has typically taken just days or weeks to determine they pose no threat. This asteroid, however, is larger than most and has attracted more interest. Were the paths of 2002 NT7 and the Earth to cross, the object would cause widespread devastation. It would enter the atmosphere at nearly 64,000 mph and strike with the explosive energy of 1.2 million megatons of TNT, according to JPL estimates.
"We really wouldn't want this object to fall on us," Williams said.
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Engineers Craft Asteroid Killer
SOURCE: Associated Press 06 AUG 02
BOULDER, Colorado (AP) - NASA Scientists have created a $279 million Deep Impact comet mission to intercept and destroy Comet Tempel 1 as it whizzes past the Earth in July 2005. As the object approaches Earth at 22,300 mph, a NASA "impactor spacecraft" mother-ship will launch an 800 pound bullet in a cosmic skeet shoot attempt at breaking up the comet. Scientists hope that impact with this three mile wide comet will produce ice particles unchanged since the formation of our solar system some 4.5 billion years ago.
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Mystery Object Discovered
SOURCE: SKY & TELESCOPE's AstroAlert for Minor Planets 05 SEP 02
Cambridge, Mass. - Since September 5th, the Minor Planet Mailing List (MPML) has been abuzz with speculation about an unidentified 16th- magnitude object. During the next 10 days the object will be moving rapidly across Aries and then Taurus, passing between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.
Bill Yeung discovered the object September 3rd in CCD images taken with an 0.45-meter telescope in Benson, Arizona. The fast-mover was "auto detected" when he analyzed his images with DC-3 Dreams' PinPoint software. Yeung e-mailed the positions to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which quickly posted the object on its Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page under the temporary designation J002E3. But, within a few days the MPC removed the object from that listing; preliminary orbit calculations suggested it was traveling in a large, 50-day orbit around the Earth, not the Sun. It had all the earmarks of being a spent rocket casing or other piece of "space junk" instead of a true minor planet. But what exactly is it? Efforts by Tony Beresford in Australia and other satellite experts have failed to match this object with any known artificial satellite. Photometric measurements by Peter Kusnirak in the Czech Republic failed to show much variation in brightness, as would be expected of a small metallic object, especially if cylindrical. But the big question is, if it is really in Earth orbit, why has it not been detected before? In Yeung's words, 16th magnitude should have made it "a piece of cake" for survey telescopes like LINEAR and NEAT, or for CCD-equipped amateur instruments, to locate long ago.
Finally, late on September 9th, Paul Chodas (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) weighed in with this posting to the MPML:
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"The unusual object J002E3, formerly on the Minor Planet Center NEO confirmation page, has been loaded into our Horizons system so that interested observers can generate ephemerides.... Further observations of the object are highly desirable to help characterize the nature of the object: we will update our orbit solution as they become available.
Sent to us by: Patricia A. Kurtz
www.starfirecreations.com
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Evidence of Ancient Asteroid Hits
SOURCE: Nature Magazine 06 AUG 02
QUEENSLAND, Australia - Scientist from the British Isles and Australia say they have found evidence of a heavy bombardment of asteroids that impacted Earth for a period lasted 200 million years. This barrage of rocks hit most of the solar systems inner planets during the time of it's formation. Even though this all ended approx. 3.8 billion years ago, signs of this event can still be seen on the surface of our moon. The evidence is the isotopes of tungsten contained in the impact debris is of such high ratio, it can only be explained by an extraterrestrial origin.
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Huge Asteroid Hit Discovered
SOURCE: Science Magazine 23 AUG 02
WASHINGTON - Researchers at Stanford University and Louisiana State University say that deposits collected in South Africa and Australia indicate a 12-mile wide asteroid smashed into our young planet 3.47 billion years ago. Rock samples indicate that this is the oldest and most devastating collision our planet ever experienced. This asteroid was twice the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. It would have created a global rain of glass droplets, mile high tidal waves that raced around our planet and millions of tons of dust and vaporized rocks. When this planet wide destruction occured, bacteria was the only form of life on Earth.
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ANCIENT BONE BOX Discovered
SOURCE: Biblical Archaeology Review - November/December 2002
After nearly 2,000 years, historical evidence may have been found that could provide some proof of the existence of Jesus the Christ. An inscription has been found on an ancient bone box, called an ossuary, that reads “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” This container provides the only New Testament-era mention of the central figure of Christianity and is the first-ever archaeological discovery that may corroborate Biblical references to Jesus. The Aramaic words etched on the box’s side show a cursive form of writing used only from about 10 to 70 A.D. The ossuary has been dated to approximately 63 A.D. A full investigation is detailed in the November/December 2002 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Ancient inscriptions are typically found on royal monuments or on lavish tombs, commemorating rulers and other official figures. But Jesus, who was supposedly raised by a carpenter, was a man of the people, so finding documentation of his family is doubly unexpected. In the first century A.D., Jews followed the custom of transferring the bones of their deceased from burial caves to ossuaries. The practice was largely abandoned after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 A.D. The new find is also significant in that it may corroborate the existence of Joseph, Jesus’ father, and James, Jesus’ brother and a leader of the early Christian church in Jerusalem. The family relationships contained on the new find helped experts as certain that the inscription very likely refers to the Biblical James, brother of Jesus (see, for example, Matthew 13:55-56 and Galatians 1:18-19).
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Although all three names were common in ancient times, the statistical probability of their appearing in that combination is exciting. In addition, the mention of a brother is unusual--indicating that this Jesus must have been a well-known figure. Like many ossuaries obtained on the antiquities market, it is empty. Its history prior to its current ownership is not known. The container is one of very few ancient artifacts mentioning New Testament figures. “The James ossuary may be the most important find in the history of New Testament archaeology,” says Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. “It has implications not just for scholarship, but for the world’s understanding of the Bible.”
UPDATE: Scientists believe that the phrase "brother of Jesus" may have been added at a later date. The style of cursive lettering used for this phrase is believed to be less formal than the original "James, son of Joseph." Robert Eisenman, a professor of Middle East religions and archaeology at California State University, Long Beach, stated that, "This box is just too pat, too perfect. In issues of antiquities verification, this is always a warning sign." This may indicate that the ossuary is one more of many faked artifacts that were fabricated many hundreds of years ago and sold to wealthy collectors who thought they were purchasing an actual holy relic.
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