"Artic" should be "Arctic."
Was pastor Russell right about ANYTHING?
by bohm 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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glenster
Sorry for the long posts, but let me take a better run at this (copied from
"Who is this Russell that the winds and the seas don't obey him?" at the next
link).
http://gtw6437.tripod.com/id12.html1913 This involves five different quotes of Russell's, each made in one of
five different years--1883 to 1913. I put this on the time line in the time of
the last quote because the claim is implied on the page at the next link that
the combination of quotes show Russell predicted global warming.
http://www.pastor-russell.com/legacy/warming.html
The context of the 1913 quotes, such as "Last winter was called the 'straw hat
season' of Alaska, because of the higher temperature than ever before known," is
at the next link.
http://www.biblestudents.net/htdb/r5159.htm
Global warming is a fact, but it's weird that the Wikipedia article on Russell
currently (Aug., 2009) echoes the previous article in crediting him for predict-
ing global warming. The Wikipedia misinformation seems to be due to editing by
an overly-ambitious Russell fan who used quote-mining and eliminated most of
what Russell actually wrote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell
The claim that what he predicted about the polar ice caps is the current sci-
entific understanding of global warming needs to include Russell's qualifying
conditions, especially if the claim is that Russell was so accurate that it's
compelling evidence that God communicated through him.
As noted before, Russell predicted a period of trouble--that 1874 to 1914,
initiated by an invisible return of Jesus, would be 40 years of the worst trou-
ble the world has known. Returns of invisible people are very difficult to
prove beyond an arbitrary possibility, but it wasn't the worst 40 years on
earth. (See "Signs of the End" at 1987.)
Russell guessed about the possibility (didn't predict) that his 40 year period
of trouble could end with drastically different climate than that hospitable to
human life--"fearful signs." It didn't. ("Zion's Watch Tower," Aug., 1896, p.
189)
He predicted that when the 40 years was over in 1914, the next millenium would
be initiated by the visible return of Jesus, which he predicted would happen in
Oct., 1914, then Oct., 1915, and finally a few years after 1916. That millenium
would be immediately preceded then accompanied by climate changes such as the
shrinking of the polar ice caps which would move toward the equator (I don't
know why) "Without affecting the torrid zone," which he claimed was already un-
derway in 1903 and 1913. ("Zion's Watch Tower," Sept., 1883, p.8, May, 1903, p.
131, Jan., 1913, p.11)
He claimed that the climate changes would be the kind that would lead to a
Garden of Eden-type climate by the end of that millenium--the end of "Cyclones,
earthquakes, thunderbolts, and alternations of drouth and deluge, and of bliz-
zards of cold and simoons of heat." ("Zion's Watch Tower," Sept., 1886, p.1)
(A "drouth" is a "drought" and a "simoon" is "a hot dry violent dust-laden wind
from Asian and African deserts.")
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drouth
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simoon
That didn't happen--Jesus didn't appear a few years after 1916 or since so
that millenium didn't begin. Russell's claim hinges on that having been immin-
ent so it's disqualified. But just to be thorough, we currently have global
warming which has caused the polar ice caps to get smaller, if not drift toward
the equator, but has heated up the rest of the planet, too, not excluding the
"torrid zone." Global warming hasn't stopped the occurrence of earthquakes, and
is expected to cause increases in extreme weather events such as the rest of
those Russell listed, not end them. Weather conditions didn't became typical of
Paradise, and Paradise isn't what an alarmed scientific community expects global
warming to create.
According to Wikipedia articles about the "Instrumental temperature record"
and "Global warming," our current global warming problem is due to human activi-
ty "since the mid-20th century," not acts of God to create Paradise since the
late 1800's. There was a phase of global warming in Russell's day due to solar
radiation and volcanoes, which might be interpreted as acts of God. But there
was a cooling plateau from 1945 to 1976 mostly attributed to sulphate aerosol,
and a temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century due to fossil
fuel burning and deforestation.
"The period for which reasonably reliable instrumental records of near-surface
temperature exist with quasi-global coverage is generally considered to begin
around 1850." "The United States National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) also
maintains a temperature record since 1880." "Most of the observed warming oc-
curred during two periods: 1910 to 1945 and 1976 to 2000; the cooling/plateau
from 1945 to 1976 has been mostly attributed to sulphate aerosol.
"Certain places, such as the north shore of Alaska, show dramatic rises in
temperature, far above the average for the globe as a whole."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_temperature_record
"Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's
near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected contin-
uation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F)
during the last century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
concludes that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations resulting from human ac-
tivity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation caused most of the observed
temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century. The IPCC also con-
cludes that variations in natural phenomena such as solar radiation and volca-
noes produced most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a
small cooling effect afterward."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
According to Wikipedia: "An increase in global temperature will cause sea
levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, probably
including expansion of subtropical deserts. The continuing retreat of glaciers,
permafrost and sea ice is expected, with warming being strongest in the Arctic.
Other likely effects include increases in the intensity of extreme weather
events, species extinctions, and changes in agricultural yields."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
Russell predicted temperatures around the world would become the same as he
claims, in his 1913 quote, was the case before the flood of Noah's ark, which he
interpreted literally. He used the water canopy idea of Isaac Vail's "The
Earth's Annular System," 1912, to claim that temperatures around the earth got
more varied, and the polar ice caps formed, when a water canopy fell to create
the flood--a "Deluge Effect." Russell claimed that the conditions before the
"Deluge effect" were being recreated as evidenced by the shrinking of the polar
caps in 1913. None of that is taken seriously in science, which neither sees it
as developing since the early 1900's nor expects it to happen later. ("Zion's
Watch Tower," Sept., 1883, p.8)
http://www.biblestudents.net/htdb/r5159.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology
"WHY THE POLAR ICE?
"Geology testifies to a Glacial Period, when great icebergs, carried by floods
of water, rushed from the poles toward the equator. Geologists have traced
great valleys cut by these icebergs. On their findings they base the theory
that the earth was once ice-covered. Instead of attributing the ice to the per-
iod of the Deluge, 4,400 years ago, they add a handful of naughts; and the more
they add, the prouder they feel of their achievements, because they think that
they are getting away from the Bible and discrediting it.
"But scientific Bible students are having their faith in God's Word estab-
lished more and more. Without affecting the torrid zone, the warmer tempera-
ture is now extending itself into the frigid zone quite rapidly. 'Greenland's
Icy Mountains' will soon be things of the past. The poles are warming up. The
ice caps are dissolving. Last winter was called the 'straw hat season' of Alas-
ka, because of the higher temperature than ever before known." ("Zion's Watch
Tower," Sept., 1883, p.8)
http://www.biblestudents.net/htdb/r5159.htm
Russell also claimed that the quick change to disparate temperatures of the
earth caused by the falling of that water canopy "accounts for the remains of
tropical animals and of plant life found imbedded under hundreds of feet of ice
in the polar regions." It doesn't--see the article at the next link. ("Zion's
Watch Tower," Jan., 1913, p.11)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology
Russell compared the effect of the water canopy to that of "the white glass of
a hot-house," a greenhouse. This isn't to be confused with the actual "green-
house effect" that keeps the earth warm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
One change that went on in Russell's lifetime and since that he and others may
have noticed is that urban areas were growing, and some urban areas are warmer
than nearby countryside, but he didn't report that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
The size of polar ice, notably in the Arctic, has gotten bigger and smaller
over the years, currently smaller. Russell probably just saw a report of Alaska
or the Arctic going through a warming period earlier than the current one and
took the idea out of context, embellished it, and considered it a way to make it
seem like the latest discoveries in science supported his hokey prophet routine
about the visible return of Jesus. Russell didn't predict anything about smelly
burning fossil fuel--he just left a smell with his predictions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shrinkage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_ice_packs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica#Effects_of_global_warming -
Tuesday
I would say he was right about one thing "no one knows the day or the hour of thy lord." He certainly didn't.