Cosmic Trigger to the Flood

[Floodnut]

[FONT=&quot]The Principle of Causation[/FONT]
In creation, God spoke and brought it to pass. The world was created, ex nihilo, out of nothing. In contrast, the event of the Flood was foretold 120 years in advance. Certainly God spoke and it was so. He could easily have simply spoken and everyone would have ceased to exist except for Noah and his family, but instead he chose to use a flood. That flood of water however did not simply appear out of nothing. Natural evidence seems to point to certain causes possible for such a flood. What might have been the forces of the universe designed by God to bring about the Flood?
Does the Bible allow a mechanism of cause? Does the Bible suggest or allow any “natural” trigger for the Flood? Peter points out that the earth is now armed, as it were, for destruction by fire just like it had been armed for destruction by flood. It is now set in store for a fire disaster, just as it was set in store for a flood disaster (II Peter 2).
Peter’s words could be paraphrased, “By the original creative word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water, and yet within the water, whereby the world that then was perished” (v. 5 & 6). God by the design of the original created system brought in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.
This suggests a device or mechanism that God had already prepared and lined up, ready in the wings for the time of his choosing. In other words, the Flood was not an afterthought that God came up with when he saw how wicked man had become, as if He then spoke and brought it to pass.
No, rather the Flood was a result of potentialities set in place at the Creation of the World, as Peter said. This is no less a miracle, but it is the apparent declaration of Peter.
Furthermore, Noah was warned of things “not seen as yet.” This is not to say that they did not already exist. The earth with its waters and its crust, as well as the planets and motion of objects of the Solar system were all part of a design, “set in store” to produce a cataclysm at the time of God’s choosing.

Note these key words in Peter.
On the one hand, “By the Word of God, the heavens were [created] of old, . . .
whereby, or by which the world that then existed
perished, being overflooded with water.”
On the other hand: “By the same word, the heavens and earth which are now preserved,
Are reserved unto fire until the day of judgment. . . .”
Just like the world today is held in readiness to be judged by fire, so the world of the Flood was held in readiness to be judged by the Flood. The mechanisms were in place, ready to be triggered for judgment in the great Flood. This text seems to allow, indeed, to encourage the idea of the miraculous employment by God of natural forces designed in creation to bring about the Flood, just as there are even now, natural forces designed in creation to bring out the coming Fire.
This matter is a fulcrum influencing the nature of the world of the Flood: the balance between the use of natural processes in contrast to an entirely miraculous, supernatural decree, in violation of natural processes, apart from any astronomical, tectonic, geophysical forces, that is to say by decree only.
Some creationist writers seem to pooh-pooh the idea of any mechanism such as a near miss of a giant asteroid, or of a primordial planet passing passed close to the earth and shattering to shower the earth and the moon with meteors that triggered the flood.
However, the same writers allow earthquakes, volcanoes, hydraulic effects, uplifts, and even catastrophic plate tectonics but not cosmic near misses. There seems to be no difficulty or dichotomy between seismic upheavals and so on as opposed to mere divine decree. But to suggest a cosmic mechanism is treated as if it were an infringement on the requisite supernaturalistic cause for the Flood.
Other mechanisms have wide acceptance, such as waters sweeping back and forth: fabulous tidal surges along with tsunamis. After six weeks the earth was entirely covered by a universal shoreless ocean, just like the first day of Creation (Genesis 1:2). The waters of the Flood included more than just the rain that is currently in the clouds. If all the rain presently in clouds fell to the earth, it would be over in an hour or less and it would only produce one inch of rain over the entire surface of the earth.
There had to be more than mere rain. But the flood was not just a result of waters appearing out of nothing, ex nihilo. “The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights” (Genesis 7:11,12).
A near miss of a large cosmic object along with a major impact barrage would cause a convulsing of the crust, plate tectonics, wild tsunamis, lava flows, eruptions of subterranean water, and the contact of cold water with heat sources producing tremendous clouds of steam. The impact of objects in the seas would send vast amounts of water splashing up into the skies, and that water would pour back down upon the earth, in blobs, in rains, in ice chunks, and in snow.
Such a near miss, if not highly probable, is certainly possible and allowable.

 

[laptoppop]

This sounds VERY interesting. I'd love to see it. Just cut and paste - post it here, using multiple posts if you have to to get it all over.

Looking forward to it!

 

[Floodnut]

This sounds VERY interesting. I'd love to see it. Just cut and paste - post it here, using multiple posts if you have to to get it all over.

Looking forward to it!

So, OK, I redid the OP with the first of several sections on this issue.

 

[busterdog]

One of the best metaphors for what you are talking about is the Red Sea crossing.

There is a land bridge below the surface between Aqaba and Midian, which would appear to be the site of the crossing. On either side, the sea is thousands of feet deep.

This piece of "geology" was part of the miracle. It is explainable, though it does not explain the entire miracle. Yet, at the same time, when facing the sea in that place, it would probably be completely unexpected. That it took an age of history to build it underwater change very little about its miraculous existence in that time and in that place, despite our perspective, which makes it seem natural.

But, loaves and fishes feeding 5,000. Or Lazarus standing in a grave. I am not expecting an explanation any time soon.

 

[busterdog]

http://www.christianforums.com/t5584145-origins-we-are-from-another-galaxy.html

Worth a look. The site is a mix of really interesting and really nuts.

However, the notion of even a galactric trigger for planetary events is kind of provocative. The idea that you can tie a pole shift on Uranus to a galactic collision strains the imagination. But, it is still interesting.

 

[Floodnut]

http://www.christianforums.com/t5584145-origins-we-are-from-another-galaxy.html

Worth a look. The site is a mix of really interesting and really nuts.

However, the notion of even a galactric trigger for planetary events is kind of provocative. The idea that you can tie a pole shift on Uranus to a galactic collision strains the imagination. But, it is still interesting.

Oh, I am aware that the idea is provocative, yet, I would really appreciate comments on this passage which is just a part of a longer whole.

 

[busterdog]

Oh, I am aware that the idea is provocative, yet, I would really appreciate comments on this passage which is just a part of a longer whole.

Well, most of the ideas are ones I am not terribly familiar with.

One issue is the idea of the electric universe. The argument is that these various heavenly bodies are connected by more than a very weak gravitational effect. Obviously that doesnt play well in academia.

I am not vouching for the idea. But, neither am I happy with the idea that conventional understanding is all that comprehensive either.

There has of course been some question why it is that these galaxies stay in the proper shape in the first place.

One of the more outlandish ideas is that the ancients somehow encoded these patterns of galactic interference recurring like every 11,000 or 22,000 years or something like that. Thats' the Graham Hancock thing. I will go as far as to say that there was more sophistication pre-Noah that convention will admit and that severe catastrophism is well embedded in human consciousness from that period. The idea that there is some pattern is an idea worth thinking about,but who knows what that is.

 

[Floodnut]

I try to imagine what would happen if something the size of the moon was to pass by the earth at HIGH SPEED. It would have a gravitational pull not just on the oceans, but on the crust itself.

 

[busterdog]

I try to imagine what would happen if something the size of the moon was to pass by the earth at HIGH SPEED. It would have a gravitational pull not just on the oceans, but on the crust itself.

Missler has this story about the moons of Mars. One of them is extremely dark colored and small. However, Jonathan Swift apparently wrote of it in his works of fiction. THe question is how anyone had any idea about its existence before the 20th century age of high powered telescopes. One theory is that it was close enogh to see at one point. That would have been a bad hair day indeed.

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2003/479/print/

Uniformitarianism Fallacy

Most scientists take for granted that the movements of the planets and other objects in our solar system manifest an unchanging uniformity through time. These movements, however, also manifest minute variations that have, so far, eluded any consistent conjectures.

Furthermore, careful observations of the objects in our solar system indicate that it has been-at least at times-a rather rough neighborhood. Take a look at the Moon through binoculars and you will see a lot of bruises. Or examine any of the photographs from our space probes. You see craters and other evidences of collisions and catastrophes.

There is evidence that the present orbits were not always so. And some of the changes appear to have occurred during the memory of mankind.

The Mysteries of Mars

Why did so many of the early cultures worship the Planet Mars? They were terrified of this strange planet. It was called the "God of War." Why? (The term "martial arts" is still in our working vocabulary.) And there are other mysteries that seem to be associated with this strange planet.

The 360-Day Year

All early calendars appear to be based on a 360-day calendar: the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Hebrews, Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Chinese, Mayans, Hindus, Carthaginians, Etruscans, and Teutons all had calendars based on a 360-day year; typically, twelve 30-day months.

In ancient Chaldea, the calendar was based on a 360-day year. It is from this Babylonian tradition that we have 360 degrees in a circle, 60 minutes to an hour, 60 seconds in each minute, etc.

The Biblical Year Is 360 Days

It is also significant that the Biblical year is also based on a 360-day year reckoning.1 This critical insight unlocks several incredible prophecies which the reader is urged to discover-- in particular, the remarkable "70 Weeks" prophecy of Daniel 9, which is undoubtedly the most amazing passage in the Bible.2

All Calendars Change in 701 B.C.

In 701 B.C., Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome, reorganized the original calendar of 360 days per year by adding five days per year. King Hezekiah, Numa's contemporary, reorganized his Jewish calendar by adding a month each Jewish leap year (on a cycle of seven every 19 years). 3

The Roman year began with March, the month named after Mars. (They later reorganized their calendar in 364 B.C. to begin on January 1st.) Most of the early cultures organized their calendars around either March or October. Why? Why was any change necessary after 701 B.C.? What happened to affect all the calendars after that year?

Mars Interferes?

The recent space age discovery of "orbital resonance"-the tendency of orbits to synchronize on a multiple of one another--has led to a fascinating conjecture that the orbits of the Earth and the Planet Mars were once on resonant orbits of 360 days and 720 days, respectively. A computer analysis has suggested that this could yield orbital interactions that would include a near pass-by on a multiple of 54 years, and this would occur on either March 25 or October 25. Such near pass-bys would transfer energy, altering the orbits of each. 4

In near proximity, such pass-bys would be accompanied by meteors, severe land tides, earthquakes, etc., and this would help explain why all the ancient cultures were so terrified by the Planet Mars5 and why calendars tended to reflect either March or October.6 A series of such pass-bys could also explain a number of the "catastrophes" of ancient history, including the famous "long day of Joshua" and several other Biblical episodes.7

Stability appears to have been attained during the last near pass-by in 701 B.C., resulting in Earth's and Mars' present orbits of 365 1/4 days and 687 days, respectively. Provocative, but where's the evidence?

Swift to the Rescue

This remarkable conjecture, that Mars made pass-bys near the Earth, would seem to be corroborated by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) in his famous fantasy known as Gulliver's Travels. In his third voyage, Gulliver visits the land of Laputa, where the astronomers brag that they know all about the two moons of Mars.8 Their highly detailed description includes the size, the rotation, the revolutions, etc., of each of the two moons.

What makes this particular allusion so provocative is that the two moons of Mars were not discovered by astronomers until 151 years after Swift's publication of Gulliver's Travels in 1726. It was in 1877 that Asaph Hall, using a new telescope at the U.S. Naval Observatory, shocked the astronomical world by discovering the two moons of Mars.

What makes the two moons so difficult to see is that they are only about 8 miles in diameter and have an albedo (reflectivity) of only 3%. They are the darkest objects in the solar system: they are almost black. The two moons are also unique in their rotations and one of them is the only object in the solar system that orbits in reverse.9 For Swift to have "guessed" these correctly is absurd.

Yet the telescopes of his day were inadequate to have actually seen these objects. But then how could he have known what the astronomers of his day did not? Swift, in order to embroider his satirical fiction, undoubtedly drew upon ancient records he probably assumed were simply legends, not realizing that they were actually eye witness accounts of ancient sightings when Mars was close enough for the two moons of Mars to be viewed with the naked eye!

 

[Floodnut]

There is some intriguing material. What if, IN THE PRE-FLOOD world everything in space was more visible? Were there MORE COMETS then? God is stretching out the heavens. Could things have been closer?
Even if they were not physically closer, what if human eyesight was more acute and people were able to see more that was out there in space, or what if there was some physical property to the atmosphere that improved the vision of space.

 

[Floodnut]

There seems to be not much comment about this section of my article in any particular point, rather just about the idea of PRE-Flood and ancient astronomy. Anything to say about specifics in the article?

 

[keyarch]

There is some intriguing material. What if, IN THE PRE-FLOOD world everything in space was more visible? Were there MORE COMETS then? God is stretching out the heavens. Could things have been closer?
Even if they were not physically closer, what if human eyesight was more acute and people were able to see more that was out there in space, or what if there was some physical property to the atmosphere that improved the vision of space.

In studying the Hebrew words for heaven, there is definitely a distinction between the upper heaven where the stars are and the lower heaven of our atmosphere that was created in Genesis 1:6-8. The stretching of heaven that you find in the following passages is in reference to the lower heaven and not the cosmos. I have not found any passages that talk about the stretching of the upper heaven, and I have no reason to think our view was much if any different than it is now.

Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, 51:13,
Jeremiah 10:12, 51:15,
Zechariah 12:1.​

My study on heaven: www.genesistruth.org/documents/heaven.pdf​

 

[Floodnut]

If not closer, then what about more comets? What did the surface of the moon look like? Of course, Key's perspective is that the astronomical universe is old, so the moon could have been covered with impact scars for millions of years before BIOLOGICAL LIFE was created on the very good earth. But IF the whole universe was created just 6000 years ago, what would the surface of the moon look like?

 

[keyarch]

If not closer, then what about more comets? What did the surface of the moon look like? Of course, Key's perspective is that the astronomical universe is old, so the moon could have been covered with impact scars for millions of years before BIOLOGICAL LIFE was created on the very good earth. But IF the whole universe was created just 6000 years ago, what would the surface of the moon look like?

Here's something to ponder.
No matter how old the universe is, the sun and moon were set into place on the fourth day some 6,000 years ago. God could have recently created them or merely brought them from another place in the universe at that time, but their placement and the moon's orbits is young.
My perspective on the universe is that it was created in an ongoing process (not a big bang all at once) so there are going to be varying ages for everything. There could be parts of it (say a galaxy) that is all the same age.

 

[Floodnut]

Do you see how Peter is saying that the PLANET IS ARMED for destruction by FIRE, just like it was armed from the Creation of the World for destruction by Water. The world of Noah's day was on the precipice of a Flood, and likewise the world of our day is on the edge of destruction by FIRE.

 

[plainswolf]

Do you see how Peter is saying that the PLANET IS ARMED for destruction by FIRE, just like it was armed from the Creation of the World for destruction by Water. The world of Noah's day was on the precipice of a Flood, and likewise the world of our day is on the edge of destruction by FIRE.

Very interesting that you mention this, as also you mentioned before the possibility of comets.. The Catholic Church has some very, very interesting prophecies concerning this very thing, so indulge me a little if you will as even Catholics are not bound to believe in "private revelation" (of course some of these could fall into "public Prhophetic revelation"). but it's interesting stuff nonetheless.

Part of the Third Secret of Fatima given to three young shepherd children in 1917 (Church approved): "we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!'". - The message given to the Children was three-fold and a request was made to the Church (to the Pope), promising the conversion of Russia and a period of true peace in the world when this was done. And of severe consequences for the world if this request was delayed too long.

Then in 1973, a similar Marian event happened to a deaf nun in Akita, Japan (which so far is the last Church approved prophecy to date). Our Lady said "....if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary."

Here is also from Scripture, APOCALYPSE 8-10 "... a great mountain, all ablaze, was cast into the sea. And the third part of the sea became blood. And the third part of those creatures died which had life in the sea: and the third part of the ships was destroyed. And the third angel sounded the trumpet: and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky. And it fell on the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters."

So many Church approved prophecies throughout the ages, many of which speak of a coming comet in the latter days, are saying pretty much the same things that Jonah Prophcied to Ninevah in the Old Testament, but they all speak of both natural and supernatural chastisements and, forcefully stressing penance as a means to avert the chastisements. Basically all say that if we don't pray and do penance, then -- "Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you." - Isaiah: 47:11

 

[ServantofShangDi]

Here's a though:

There are likely hundreds of impact craters all over the world. considering that some have been at different times, what if many of them happened at the same time? There are indications that there were several simultaneous massive impacts, but what if it was even more?

What if dozens of impacts were made on the earth? What's more, we don't know how the earth was shaped then. Dozens or hundreds of simultaneous impacts combined with a massive rain storm and an eruption of water from underground could easily flood the world.

It is interesting to read about the Snowball Earth theory and the theory that once the only land on Earth above water was smaller than Australia and then hear scientists question the plausibility of a global flood.

I sure would appreciated some consistency and not just constant doubts.

 

[keyarch]

Here's a though:

There are likely hundreds of impact craters all over the world. considering that some have been at different times, what if many of them happened at the same time? There are indications that there were several simultaneous massive impacts, but what if it was even more?

What if dozens of impacts were made on the earth? What's more, we don't know how the earth was shaped then. Dozens or hundreds of simultaneous impacts combined with a massive rain storm and an eruption of water from underground could easily flood the world.

It is interesting to read about the Snowball Earth theory and the theory that once the only land on Earth above water was smaller than Australia and then hear scientists question the plausibility of a global flood.

I sure would appreciated some consistency and not just constant doubts.

My thoughts are that the impacts that we see evidence of now are post flood, not the trigger of it, otherwise the catastrophic events surrounding the flood would have filled in the divots.

To me it looks like God used his "finger" to energize the areas of the mid-ocean ridges and they just became linear volcanoes spewing water from the lithosphere (among other things). Meteorites and asteroids had nothing to do with it (in my opinion).

 

[ServantofShangDi]

Who says they would and, indeed, who says some haven't? Some impact craters do, in fact, have water in them. Never mind there's no reason the water would remain in them if there was any at some point.

 

[busterdog]

Chapter 1

Introduction

A revolution is beginning in astronomy and cosmology that will rival the one set off by Copernicus and Galileo. The stream of increasingly bizarre pronouncements coming from astronomers and cosmologists has recently encountered a serious challenge. This challenge is led by a cadre of scientists and engineers, several of whom were Nobel Prize winning pioneers. They are offering simpler, verifiable explanations about the makeup and functioning of the cosmos. Their new ideas, in more ways than one, are electrifying the discourse in astrophysics.​

The defenders of the present cosmological realm are resisting this intrusion into their once exclusive domain. But on-going discoveries about how electric plasma behaves in space are relentlessly forcing dramatic changes in the way we view the universe. The discipline of electric plasma physics – which until lately has been outside the realm of astronomy – is quickly displacing many of the outmoded theories of traditional cosmology and astrophysics. We now know that cosmic space is full of electricity (electric plasma) and over the last several decades the study of this form of matter has developed into an established body of scientific knowledge. ​

Questions and Answers

When we were children, most of us looked up in awe at the night sky at one time or another and asked, “What are stars, Daddy? What lights them up?” He might have answered, “They’re little Suns – just like our Sun, but far, far away.”​

None of us was told that the stars worked electrically. Everyone knew the stars were not electric lights.​

As we grew up, we may have read science books in which astrophysicists declared that stars are continuously burning hydrogen bombs – and that they condensed from spinning clouds of gas and dust. Today they tell us that stars even more massive than our Sun are rotating faster than dentists’ drills. They say that in the cores of galaxies, monstrous invisible Black Holes suck in everything around them, even light – but that “little black holes” spit jets of matter back out. And they claim that 96% of the material in the entire universe is invisible. Are these responses any more believable or satisfying than those that Daddy offered us?​

Can you make sense out of press releases and TV programs that attempt to explain the newest astronomical “discoveries” – things like invisible dark energy, warped 11-dimensional spaces, and black holes that spit out matter? If not, you have lots of company.​

The time to search for some realistic, intelligent, scientific answers has arrived. And those sensible answers are out there for those who are ready to listen.​

Plasma physicists know that 96% of the universe is not made up of “invisible matter” but rather of matter in the plasma state. Electromagnetic forces between electrical charges are many orders of magnitude stronger than Newton’s gravitational force, and we are finding that deep space is filled with electrical charges and magnetic energy. In fact, using the accepted estimated value of the magnetic field strength in the volume between our Sun and its nearest stellar neighbor, this field stores an amount of energy that would keep the Sun radiating for about 200 years.​

Astrophysicists do not study experimental plasma research in graduate school. They rarely take any courses that discuss Maxwell’s equations and electromagnetic field theory. Thus they attempt to explain each new discovery using what they do study – gravity, magnetism, and fluid dynamics – the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century tools of their forefathers, Kepler and Newton. Consequently their methods have not kept up with the science of the Nineteenth Century, let alone the Twenty-First. No wonder they do not understand that many cosmic phenomena are due to forces other than gravity, fluid flow, and the magnetism of lodestones. When questions arise about the failure of their incomplete models, cosmologists often invoke “new properties” of magnetic fields – properties that magnetism simply does not have, or they propose the existence of unobservable entities and forces. They almost never reexamine their basic assumptions or rethink their hypotheses.​

The cosmos in fact does not contain the mysteriously undetectable entities that present astrophysical theories require. Modern, straightforward explanations of all the phenomena astronomers find so enigmatic are now available to us. Anyone interested in astrophysics needs to become aware of the properties of the electric plasma that fills more than 99% of the universe. Ours really is an Electric Sky.​

Alfvén’s Warning

In February 1981, eleven years after Swedish electrical engineer Hannes Alfvén won the Nobel Prize in Physics, he published yet another book. This one was called Cosmic Plasma. By disregarding Alfvén’s new text, as they had his earlier works, the astrophysics community did not heed his warnings that they were working their way down a dead-end path strewn with errors of understanding. The complicated maze that astrophysics has become in the last few years is a direct result of years of ignoring Alfvén’s work and his advice. Hannes Alfvén is the central figure in the emerging electric plasma cosmology.​

All our space probes that have been equipped to detect separated electrical charges – electric plasma – have found it, lots of it. The behavior of these plasma clouds is scalable, that is to say, giant cosmic plasmas behave in much the same way (obey the same physical laws) that small laboratory plasmas do here on Earth. Therefore we are able to create accurate models of cosmic-scale phenomena in the lab and study them.​

Technology and Science

People have great confidence in science these days. Recent advances in medicine, communications technology, computers, chemistry, genetics, and information science have made our lives better. We look at the achievements in these fields of human endeavor and acknowledge them with admiration. “These scientists, doctors and engineers really know what they are doing.”​

Today most people have cell phones. New surgical procedures, hospital techniques, instrumentation, and medicines are saving, prolonging, and improving the quality of our lives. We have digital devices we can put in our pockets that hold 6000 books, more than most people read in a lifetime. Through GPS receivers we can tell exactly where we are anywhere on the surface of Earth. The latest stock market report is available to us while we are mountain climbing in Asia. We flew to the Moon decades ago and we have sent landers to Venus and Mars. We have orbited Jupiter and Saturn and visited several of their moons. Presently another of our interplanetary probes is on its way to Pluto. Four deep-space probes are now near the outer limits of our Sun’s reach – the heliopause. We have orbiting, computer-driven telescopes that can see a thousand times better than the largest earthbound optical observatories of only a few decades ago.​

We have put our faith in scientists and engineers, and it has clearly paid off – except in astronomy (and possibly archeology and geology).​

Why would we want to single out these fields and cast doubt on their results?​

The answer is because there are no tangible, usable products from which we can judge the validity of theories emanating from sciences that deal with events that happened long, long ago and far, far away. Professional astronomers judge their success by the degree to which other astronomers believe and accept their ideas. They do not produce results that we, the public, can physically evaluate: They just send up rockets, take pictures of the night sky, write papers, and tell us impressive stories about how it supposedly works and how it supposedly got there. Most of their recent explanations are counterintuitive and almost impossible to understand. This does not mean everything they claim is necessarily wrong, but how can we actually verify what they are telling us?​

The same question can be raised about the archeologists: They dig holes around the world, they look at bones and shards, they write papers, and they tell impressive stories about mankind’s history. Theoretical geologists also tell impressive stories about how the continents have shifted and how and when the mountains formed.​

Both these groups are considered successful if other archeologists and geologists accept their hypotheses. Popularized versions of their theories are published in Scientific American, Discover, and National Geographic. None of these fields (archeology, geological history, and astronomy) is able to produce results that can be tested experimentally. So how can these researchers judge the correctness of their conclusions without considering a range of possible explanations that are based on different assumptions?​

This book will not specifically address problems in geology or archeology. They are mentioned here only for completeness – to point out that both these branches of science have difficulties similar to astrophysics. There is almost no way to judge the validity of theories that deal exclusively with phenomena that happened long, long ago and far, far away – with things that we cannot directly get our hands on. This is not the fault of the investigators in those areas; it is simply an inherent problem for them. How do they cope with it? This is one of the questions the first few chapters will address.​

There is an important difference between science and technology. An old professor of mine, who was Russian, once said to me, “Do you know how they used to test a new bridge in Russia? They put the engineer who designed it under the bridge, and then they marched the army across it.” Astrophysicists do not design anything that we can march the army across. But today, if you are an engineer who designs a bridge that falls down or a cell phone that does not receive a signal, your failures will quickly be embarrassingly obvious to all. The fruits of technology are real and are testable (do they work?). Most of the results of the science of astrophysics are not testable.​

We ought to question whether our trust is as well placed in the untestable pronouncements of astrophysicists as it is in the work of the engineers and technicians who give those scientists the tools they use. There is no doubt that the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer infrared orbiting telescope, the Chandra orbiting x-ray observatory, SOHO, and the magnificent, new, big, ground-based telescopes are all genuine technical marvels. The images and data that are retrieved from them are stunning in clarity and precise in detail. They produce real and accurate scientific data. But are the published interpretations and hypotheses that attempt to explain this data as accurate as the tools that provide that data in the first place? We must learn to distinguish between the quality of the technical tools that are used and the quality of the scientific conclusions and theories that are being formulated by those who use those tools.​

http://members.cox.net/dascott3/index.htm

Now that the TEs have spit their coffee all over the keyboard, I just thought I would put up a little "electric sky" for your rumination. I don't have a position on whether or not it is correct. And, I am looking for a better site to link with catastrophism and the cosmic trigger idea. The electrical trigger is not all that clear, but it might be kind of fun to dig around on that kind of stuff.

One scientist, perhaps Velikovsky, theorized that certain aspects of Mars are the results of scarring from electrical arcs formed in proxmity to other bodies -- like an arc welder.

We are not vouching for anything here, we are just kicking around some ideas.