Posts by rockhound

12

Where's the beef?

by rockhound in

jehovahs witnesses look to their watchtower magazine each week for new light that would set the course for current "truth".

in looking back over the last 40 years of my association, "new lights" batteries ran out many times and had to be replaced with even newer ones.

some how this made sense to me at the time, but as time past, i began to wonder just how these "new light" articles could be called meat in due season.

rockhound

It is error only,and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry- Thomas Paine

Rockhound

12

Where's the beef?

by rockhound in

jehovahs witnesses look to their watchtower magazine each week for new light that would set the course for current "truth".

in looking back over the last 40 years of my association, "new lights" batteries ran out many times and had to be replaced with even newer ones.

some how this made sense to me at the time, but as time past, i began to wonder just how these "new light" articles could be called meat in due season.

It's important to remember that" a text without a context, is a pretext". When examining any text, expecially such controversial texts as Matthew 23:36 and 24:34 , we need to ask 1. Who was the writer? 2. When was he writing ? 3. What was he trying to convey? 4. Who were the readers? 5. How did the readers understand what was writtened? 6. What was the historical setting? The Who we are concerned with in Matthew 24:32-34 is the generation that Jesus said would not pass away until all these things have happened.

I found the information in the book "Prophecy: the year 2000 and beyond?" by Gene Fadeley quite thought provoking,

his reasoning to be sound, and very helpful in examining the text above.

Please check out the following:

In the Hebrew scriptures, what did the time statements "long time", "at hand", "near", "soon" mean? Note the following examples:

Numbers 24:17--- Balaam prophesied concerning Christ " I see him, but not now, I behold him, but not near", He was speaking 1400

years before Christ, and stated that this event was "not near".

Daniel 8:26--- Daniel was told in a vision (530 BC) about the death of Antiochus (165 B C) "but seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future" This prophecy was fulfilled 365 years later, and Daniel was told that it concerned "the distant future".

Jer.29:10, 28---Jeremiah told the captives in babylon that "it will be a long time" He was speaking of the duration of their captivity that lasted 70 years....Jeremiah, as Gods spokesman, told the people that it was a long time when its duration was 70 years.

If 1400 years is "not near", 365 years is in "the distant future", and 70 years is a "long time", then what does "at hand", "near", and "soon" mean? These statements are used repeatedly in the new testament. If something is not at least within the lifetime of the individual, it is not "near".

In Matthew 24: 32-34, how did Jesus use the word "near"? He said "Now learn this from the fig tree: As soon as it's twigs get tender, and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened". The events Jesus described would occur in the first century during the lifetime of some who were standing there.

Jesus, immediately before he was crucified instructed, " Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, "the teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house". (Matthew 26:18) Jesus was in the last week before his death.

The night before he was crucified, Jesus returned to the disciples and asked to them "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners". The word "near" was used to denote a short period of time in that first century generation.

Jesus answered the disciple's Questions in Matthew 24 and he described all the events that would occur in the destruction of the temple, city of Jerusalem, land of Israel, and the ending of the old covenant system. He declared "I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened".

These terrible events were to occur in the first century during the lifetimes of some of the people to whom he was speaking. That is why Jesus, on his way to his death turned to the woman and said to them "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me: weep for yourselves and your children".(Luke 23:28) He knew how badly the Romans would destroy the rebellious Jewish nation within forty years in AD 70.

We must understand what the text meant, before we can possible make any present day application. Peter stated "the end of all things is near" (1 Peter 4:7) The Jewish nation was not expecting the destruction. The Christians though, were expecting the destruction even though they would not know the day of hour. Jesus told his disciples "When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written" (Luke 21:20-22)

The first century Christians were to expect these events to occur within some of theior lifetimes. Jesus said to them,"I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened". (Matthew 24:34) These events happened in the first century.

Some hold that a transition occurs in verse 36, to change from the discussion of the destruction of Jerusaleml to a discussiion concerning the end of the world. There is nothing in context that has anything to do with the destruction of the earth or the universe. The destruction of the earth or universe is not to be found in the questions of the disciples, nor in the answer of Jesus. The age that was about to end was the Jewish age. Jesus had one focus. There was no transition away from that main topic. END QUOTE

Remember,if we pull a scripture out of it's context we can jump to all kinds of conclusions, as the Society has, and end up with a lot of egg on our face. For a long time now, the Society, as well a many other religious groups have been reading these scriptures this way and that, with disasterous results. The lights went out for thousands of Witnesses in 1914, 1925, etc.etc.etc. Each time the announced END didn't come the brothers packed up their spiritual bags and hit the road. Been there, Done that.

I hope you find this information useful. ROCKHOUND

12

Where's the beef?

by rockhound in

jehovahs witnesses look to their watchtower magazine each week for new light that would set the course for current "truth".

in looking back over the last 40 years of my association, "new lights" batteries ran out many times and had to be replaced with even newer ones.

some how this made sense to me at the time, but as time past, i began to wonder just how these "new light" articles could be called meat in due season.

rockhound

Hi Flash! Thanks for your response to my post. In your comments, you listed nine different things that the Witnesses have right and are all things the churches are Not teaching. I thought I would take a look and see if these nine beliefs are unique to Witnesses.

Jehovah is not a trinity

Jesus is God's first creation

The Angelic rebellion is the source of all our troubles

The Great Tribulation and Armageddon are literal and coming

God will use the worlds governments to destroy world religion

The Thousand Year reign is real

The resurrection is the only hope for the dead on earth

144,000 are a literal Heavenly Government

Satan and his Demons have a finite time to exist and will be terminated 1. Jehovah is not a trinity

The belief that God is a single being is held by both Muslims and Jews,
who insist that Allah and Jehovah are single entities.
It is also held by pseudo-Christian cults such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons - - -
and by various aberrant Christian groups who also deny the deity of Christ.
Some Pentecostals claim that God is a single being and
that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are God's three "titles" or "offices."
2. Jesus is God's first creation

Immanuel is the highest Spirit that God could create. He is in every way God's most perfect image, so far as any created spirit can possess the Creator's perfection. He is not God, as is so generally taught today by the false religions, but the first created "Son of God", and as such, His highest and most perfect Creature.

Except for the first created Son of God, the entire spirit world was brought into existence not by direct divine creation, as was God's first-born Son, but was called into being through that Son upon Whom God had conferred creative power. Just as a human race has the source of its corporeal existence in the first man of that race, so the whole spirit world owes its spiritual physical existence to Immanuel.

Excerpt from Chapter Two

There is no question that Jesus was the first to be brought forth of all creation. This is not speaking of God playing the part of a son; this is speaking of the first created being. Not a pretend being, an actual created being. The very first, and the only one that God Himself personally created. This very first created being was the pioneer of life, a trail-blazer. Acts 3:15 (Moffatt Translation) says: "and you killed the pioneer of Life?"

of the Book

Spiritual Teachings and Universal Truths 3.The Angelic rebellion is the source of all our troubles

a). The historical Fall - First one third of the angels rebelled against God. They became proud of their own glory and beauty, and sought to displace God on His throne. They corrupted themselves. Second, the first human couple, Adam and Eve, led into deception by the Adversary, also rebelled against God. They disobeyed His commandment and tried to become their own gods.

b). This disobedience brought something completely new into being, which was not part of God's original order. God has not created evil, nor did He create flawed creatures. They flawed, changed and corrupted their own nature. In fact, everything is changed by their choice. All their descendants bear both the image of God and also this corruption. We have children like ourselves.

2. SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH GOD'S CREATURES.We can be targets of cruel acts from other people or from Satan's rebel army. Both fallen human beings and fallen spirit beings (angels who have rebelled) have the capacity to make decisions that damage themselves and othersSuffering can also be caused by Satan and demons. Job's life story is a vivid example of how a good person can suffer incredible tragedy because of satanic attack. God allowed Satan to take away Job's possessions, his family, and his health (Job 1,2). 4. The Great Tribulation and Armageddon are literal and coming

HOW NEAR IS ARMAGEDDON? Announcing: "FINAL SIGNS... MARCH TO ARMAGEDDON.". The Tim
LaHaye School of Prophecy will convene its first classes in January 2002. ...

They believe that during this seven year period there will be a great tribulation during which time, God will select and seal 144,000 literal Jews (who are sexually celibate) who will take the Gospel of the Kingdom to the whole world, converting innumerable souls to Christ.

The war of Armageddon, a literal war of nations against literal Israel, which occurs near the end of the seven year period, is brought to a halt by Christ's return with His Church. Then literal Israel accepts the Lord as the Messiah and enters with Him as His covenant people into the 1,000 year (millennial) reign on earth, known as the Kingdom Age.
5. God will use the worlds governments to destroy world religion

The divine judgment inflicted follows a pattern and principle. Ancient Babylon was used to bring affliction upon the people of Israel as were Assyria and Egypt, but eventually these same nations that God used were themselves the objects of judgment because they did not act for God, but for themselves.

Verse 17 states the principle that God uses the blasphemous actions of world religions and governments to fulfill His own purposes. The plan of the ages unfolds majestically and Scripture shows that God permits the increasing increments of wickedness until the cup of iniquity overflows, then judgment comes.

In the declaration "God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose," there is another indication of God?s use of the forces of evil as instruments of his own purposes of judgment (Jer 25:9-14; cf. Lk 20:18). Nothing will distract them from their united effort to destroy the prostitute until God?s purposes given through the prophets are fulfilled (cf. 10:7; 11:18). 213

6.The thousand year reign is real

Then when the thousand years are expired, Satan will be released

from his prison and will be allowed to go out and deceive the

nations for a little season.

He will be permitted to go out and deceive the

nations; because there will be nations in the four corners of the

world! The whole world is not going to be destroyed when Jesus

comes. The truth is that Jesus is coming to save the planet! He is

coming to save the world and there will be people still alive in it!

7.The resurection is the only hope for the dead on earth

19. The Resurrections

We believe the only hope of eternal life for mortal man lies in the resurrection; thru the indwelling (now) of the Holy Spirit; and that there shall be a bodily resurrection of the just and unjust?the just to eternal life as spirit beings upon earth, the unjust to receive the second and final death in hell (Gehenna) fire in which they shall perish in eternal punishment.

8. 144,000 are a literal Heavenly Government

Not that 144,000 is a literal number, but it is the number of divine government ascribed to a select called and chosen company who reign with Christ upon His throne. As the spirit of revelation and understanding floods our minds, we are left without question as to the meaning of all this. Notice, now, the position of God?s kings and priests. To him that overcometh to be a son of God is granted to sit with Christ in His throne, even as Jesus overcame and is set down with His Father in His throne (Rev. 3:21; 21:7). The manchild is caught up to God and to His throne and rules all nations with a rod of iron (Rev. 12:5). The 144,000 stand with the Lamb on mount Zion (Rev. 14:1).

You will notice especially that the overcomer sits on Christ?s throne. The manchild rules the nations from the throne of God. The 144,000 reign with the Lamb from the heavenly mount Zion.

Sp

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES "Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..

9.Satan and his Demons have a finite time to exist and will be terminated

Jesus said that Hell (Hades: lake of fire) was actually created for Satan and his angels, (Matthew 25:41). The tormented souls of the dead will curiously gather to witness Satan?s entry into hell. Isaiah 14:9 declares that "Hell (Gahena: the grave) from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. 10 All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? 11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave."

But one more event must take place. Revelation 20:7, "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison," and will go out again to deceive the earth. This time, however, he will meet his final doom.

After the death of her witness father, a dear friend of ours told us her mother, in deep depression, said "This wasn't supposed to happen.The new system should have come by now"

Depression is not unique to this heart broken sister. A witness in our old hall was out in service one day with four pioneer sisters. One sister commented that she had forgotten her Prozac, and in a flash, each of the other sisters reached for their Prozac and offered her one.

The book "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck offers some practical wisdom. "Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing." "It is because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems....It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Those things that hurt, instruct." Fearing the pain involved, almost all of us , to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid problems....We even take drugs to assist us in ignoring them, so that by deadening ourselves to the pain, we can forget the problems that cause the pain. "We attempt to skirt around problems rather than meet them head on."

From the "Collected Works of C G. Jung" we find this statement. "Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering." Dr. Peck continues "When we avoid the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that problems demand from us....If you move out to another human being, there is always the risks that that person will move away from you, leaving you more painfully alone than you were before, love anything that lives- a person, a pet, a plant, and it will die.Trust anybody and you may be hurt; depend on anyone and that one may let you down. The price of cathexis is pain. If someone is determined not to risk pain, then such a person must do without many things: having children, getting married, the ecstasy of sex, the hope of ambition, friendship - all that makes life alive, meaningful and significant. Move out or grow in any dimension and pain as well as joy will be your reward. A full life will be full of pain."

"The essence of life is change, a panoply of growth and decay. Elect life and growth, and you elect change and the prospect of death....I have said that the attempt to avoid legitimate suffering lies at the root of all emotional illness. Not surprisingly, most psychotherapy patients (and probably most nonpatients, since nerosis is the norm rather than the exception) have a problem, whether they are young or old in facing the reality of death squarely and clearly.... If we can live with the knowlidge that death is our constant companion, traveling on our "left shoulder," then death can become in the words of Don Juan, our "ally," still fearsome but continually a source of wise counsel. With death's counsel, the constant awareness of the limit of our time to live and love, we can always be guided to make the best use of our time and live life to the fullest. But if we are unwilling to fully face the fearsome presence of death on our left shoulder, we deprive ourselves of its counsel and cannot possibly live or love with clarity."

"Truth is reality"...The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world - the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misperceptions and illusions - the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions. Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost....We are daily bombarded with new information as to the nature of reality. If we are to incorporate this information, we must continually revise our maps, and sometimes when enough new information has accumulated, we must make very major revisions. The process of making revisions, particularly major revisions, is painful, sometimes excruciatingly painful.And herein lies the major source of many of the ills of mankind. What happens when one has striven long and hard to develope a working view of the world, a seemingly useful, workable map, and then is confronted with new information suggesting that that view is wrong and the map needs to be largely redrawn? The painful effort required seems frightening, almost overwhelming. What we do more often than not, and usually unconsciously, is to ignore the new information. Often this act of ignoring is much more passive. We may denounce the new information as false, dangerous, heretical, the work of the devil. We may actually crusade against it, and even attempt to manipulate the world so as to make it conform to our view of reality. Rather than try to change the map, an individual may try to destroy the new reality. Sadly, such a person may expend much more energy ultimately in defending an outmoded view of the world than would have been required to revise and correct it in the first place."...If in our laziness and fear of suffering we massively defend our awareness, then it will come to pass that our understanding of the world will bear little or no relation to reality. Because our actions are based on our understanding, our behavior will then become unrealistic. When this occurs to a sufficient degree our fellow citizens will recognize that we are "Out of touch with reality", and will deem us mentally ill even though we ourselves are most liklely convinced of our sanity.But long before matters have proceeded to this extreme, and we have been served notice by our unconscious of our increasing maladjustment. Such notice is served by our unconscious through a variety of means: bad dreams, anxiety attacks, depressions, and other symptoms. Although our conscious mind has denied reality, our unconscious, which is omniscient, knows the triue score and attempts to help us out by stimulating, through symptom formation, our conscious mind to the awareness that something is wrong. I have already pointed out in this brief discussion of depression...that depressive symptoms are a sign to the suffering individual that all is not right with him or her and major adjustments need to be made....The unpleasant symptoms of mental illness serve to notify people that they have taken the wrong path, that their spirits are not growing and are in grave jeopardy."

Much of the depression among the witnesses today is the result of false hopes and wrong directions the Society has given in the past and that never came true. The maps they trusted in have led them to many dead end roads. Many have revised their maps and are traveling in new directions. Others do not want to go through the pain ( Crisis of Conscience) of facing the reality: 1975 did not bring about the start of Armagedon, Millions now living will never die (they are all dead), 1914 generation is almost all gone, the anxiety of Armagedon not coming year after year, and so on and so on. Can we look back at the history of one failed prediction after another and tell people at the door that we have the "Truth" this year, but not really 10 years ago or 10 years before that?

Face the Pain!! The real "TRUTH" is that these dreams and hopes were not true then or now. They were never a part of real truth, and our subconscious minds are shouting out loud and clear "Fix It" "Something is very Wrong". At what point in our lives do we finally take the needle and dig the splinter out that is hurting us. The Problem doesn't get better unless we face the pain that must be endured to make things get better.

Rockhound

3

Quotations from the past

by rockhound in

it occured to me last evening, while reading "famous quotes", that if the word government was replaced by the word religion, how many of these quotations would apply to the watchtower society and it's members.. we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

--dr. martin luther king jr. .

the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

rockhound

It occured to me last evening, while reading "Famous Quotes", that if the word government was replaced by the word religion, how many of these quotations would apply to the Watchtower society and it's members.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. --Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
--Haile Selassie

Truth never plays false roles of any kind, which is why people are so surprised when meeting it. Everyone must decide whether he wants the uncompromising truth or a counterfeit version of truth. Real wisdom consists of recommending the truth to yourself at every opportunity.
--Vernon Howard

Logic is the beginning of wisdom; not the end.
--Spock Star Trek VI Final Frontier

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
--General George S. Patton

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy U.S. Democratic politician and president

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt
--Bergen Evans The Natural History of Nonsense

Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions
--Earl Gray Stevens

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt
--Bertrand Russell

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.

--Arthur C. Clarke

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. ~Napoleon Bonaparte
"What luck for the rulers that men do not think."

-Adolf Hitler

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out...without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.
--H. L. Mencken

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear
--Harry S. Truman

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave national emergency ... Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real."
General Douglas MacArthur, 1957

Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves. ~Author Unknown
"The great masses of the people at the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously evil ... they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big."

Adolph Hitler

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." -Noam Chomsky, Linguist, foreign policy critic

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.

Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done, And I am Caesar!" - Julius Caesar

Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945 - - "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."Added 8/30/04 via Intellectual Properties

Relationships of all kinds are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto some of it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost.
--Kaleel Jamison

The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a great lie than to a small one. Adolf Hitler
German Nazi dictator, orator, & politician (1889 - 1945)

Everyone likes to say, "Hitler did this", and, "Hitler did that". But the truth is Hitler did very little. He was a world class tyrant, but the evil actually done by the Third Reich, from the death camps to WW2 was all done by German citizens who were afraid to question if what they were told by their government was the truth or not, and who because they did not want to admit to themselves that they were afraid to question the government, refused to see the truth behind the Reichstag Fire, refused to see the invasion by Poland was a staged fake, and followed Hitler into national disaster.
History does seem to repeat itself would't you say?

11

Creative days

by rockhound in

genesis records that on the fifth creative day, the waters of the earth would teem with living creatures, and every winged bird would fill the sky.

at the beginning of the sixth creataive day, all the creatures that move along the ground were created.

keeping these texts in mind, i'd like to share with you some of my observations about this wonderful earth that have convinced me that the creative days of genesis were far longer than the 7,000 year long periods we were taught as jehovah's witnesses.

rockhound

Genesis records that on the fifth creative day, the waters of the earth would teem with living creatures, and every winged bird would fill the sky. At the beginning of the sixth creataive day, all the creatures that move along the ground were created. Keeping these texts in mind, I'd like to share with you some of my observations about this wonderful earth that have convinced me that the creative days of Genesis were far longer than the 7,000 year long periods we were taught as Jehovah's Witnesses.

Peter Firstbrook, in "The Geology of Everest" wrote, "When mountaineers stand on the summit of Everest and pose for the photograph of their lifetime, they are standing on the remains of marine fossil over 50 million years old...within a few hundred meters of the summit are sedimentary rocks (clay, silt, and the carbonate (chalky) remains of marine animals). This layer is affectionately known as the 'Yellow Band' by Everest climbers. The very top of the mountain is made from much purer limestone, mixed within sandy layers."

Fossils of ammonites have been found encased inside the solid rock of the Himalayan mountain range. These fossils are not deposited on the mountain sides as debris from a global flood, but are actually embeded deep with the mountain rock mass. The story reads much the same throughout the American and Canadian Rockies. "Canadian Rockhound", a geological magazine reports that, "The town of Field lies in the shadow of Mount Stephen in British Columbia. Around 1886, a geologist working for the Geological Survey of Canada climbed Mount Stephen and high above the town of Field, he discovered a vast storehouse of fossils. Scattered above the tree line were millions of yellowish-coloured slabs of trilobites...There are about 170 species of fossils now

recognized from this site. Similar sites have been found in other parts of the world such as China, but not nearly as abundant, although always near a mountain top. In the January 1999 issue of National Geographic magazine, contributing writer, Douglas Chadwick, described that while in the Bighorn Mountains near the Wyoming-Montana line, he and Don Minchow, a local spelunker (cave explorer), were deep within Bighown Cave, and found clams. Then they began noticing sections of coral. Though close to a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, and 5,000 feet higher, they had made their way to a warm water reef. Thrust upward from seas that covered North America's interior during the Mississippian epoch, this thick limestone layer, the Madison Formation, is a part of a geologic landscape that reaches from Idaho to the Dakotas and north into Canada."

Was this coral reef part of the debris of a global flood? I think not! When my wife and I visited the Lewis and Clark Caverns in the Rocky Mountains of Montana this summer, we found, encased in the boulders along the foot path to the cave, fossils of Horn Coral, Crinoids, Brachiopods and Castropods. These are all marine creatures that once lived in a ancient inland sea, and are now part of solid rock, on a mountain top in Montana. Some would say that all these fossils are thr result of the flood of Noah's day, but how could this be? There weren't any trilobites or ammonites in Noah's day. Rock strata earthwide shows that the trilobites were long extinct before the ammonites showed up, and the ammonites finally disappeared with the dinosaurs. How could these marine creatures be part of the debris of a global flood?

The January 1993 issue of National Geographic magazine, on page 16 and 17, shows spread-eagled against an almost vertical rock face, Argentine geologist, Ricardo Alonso. In this two page photograph, he is pointing at three sets of ancient footprints. The text reads, "About 65 million years ago, long before tectonic forces tilted the landscape of the Andes, dinosaurs walked here along the wave-rippled shore of an inland sea." The rock face all around these footprints is fine ripple mudstone. Fine ripple mudstone looks like the ripples on a sandy beach, and forms as a result of running water over horizontal surfaces, not on vertical cliff faces.

My point is this, long before the Himalaya Mountains, Rockies or Andes were forced into their current positions by forces deep within the earth, the ammonites and trilobites were already created in the fifth creative day, and they died, were fossilized in the sea beds, and were slowly but surely lifted to their present great height by tectonic plate movements.

The dinosaurs that roamed all over the earth were very much a part of the "creatures that move along the ground" tha were created at the beginning of the sixth creative day. The dinosaurs that made footprints in the mud that became solid rock high up in the Andes Mountains were very much alive before the Andes Mountains formed. Were these dinosaur footprints the result of global flood waters? Reason says, "No!" The hard evidence is there for all of us to examine. From all corners of the earth, the story is the same. These land and sea creatures dominated our planet for far longer than just a few thousand years.

In the past, my wife and I have never had a realistic view about the fossils, and the wonderful earth we live upon. We would always mentally block out the comments of scientists that speak that the dinosaurs dominated this earth for millions of years, and that they disappeared 65 million years ago. Who can speak with certainty about such large numbers? What I am now sure of is that the distant past is a lot closer to what scientists have been telling us than what I have always thought.

We had always believed that the earth building processes were long over, and things are what they are. To our surprise, we have found that everything on this planet is still in a process of change. Think about it! When the earth shakes, when volcanos erupt, when one huge tectonic plate dives beneath another, to in time melt back into lava deep within the earth, the evidence is that these processes have never stopped and probably never will.

Scientists are now using global positioning devices to monitor the Himalaya Mountains, the Rockies and Andes. These instruments can tell within one quarter of an inch the movement of these mountain ranges. These mountain ranges are still moving upward, and the whole Himalyan mountain rance is still being pushed northward.

Our lifetimes are so short that we fail to take note of this very slow movement. After examining the evidence so far, I now feel it has taken millions of years for these great mountain ranges to be pushed up to their present great heights from the seabeds that they once were, and in the process they carried within them the remains of the creatures of the past, great and small with them.

Thanks for listening...Rockhound.