Biblical Geography

One of the best apologetics (defense of the truth) for the Bible is the fact that as near as anyone can tell the places it describes actually existed or exists the way the Bible says it did. Since the Bible is real and tells things that actually happens a great deal can be better understood by looking at the geography it describes. It used to be that you would need to use books that had to be constantly updated as new information is learned but now the Internet and Google's mapping technologies you can study Biblical geography very, very easily. I found this site called BibleMap.org and it is a Biblical Geographic Information System (GIS) where you choose a book and chapter into a search field and each point mentioned in the passage you referenced is displayed on a map and the passage is displayed. It's great. It leverages GoogleMaps and is a great tool and based on Sattllight data.

Another great tool I found is a site called Bible Geocoding. Geocoding is a technique used in GIS where locations and data about that location is assigned to its appropriate coordinates on a map. I did a lot of that in my first job when I finished college. Now it has been done just about every single identifiable location found in the Bible. If a Biblical location is unidentifiable it is only because after so many centuries, we can't find it any more. This site does show us that there are many location where we know where they are now. This site also leverages GoogleMaps, but it also allows you to download Kmz files that are input files for GoogleEarth. Why is that awesome? Glad you asked. KML files are XML files that contain geographic information. The files can be loaded in GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth. GoogleEarth is a 3D mapping system. With it, you can look at Biblical locations in beautiful 3D and even fly over and through those locals as if you were in an airplane. Excited yet? Bible Geocoding also allows you to view or download the data by books of the Bible or all the data in one file.

The one drawback for both tools is that you have to have a live internet connection to use them.

"Rent-A-Negro"

I just read an insightful and humorous post about how Black people are being invited to attend rich people's parties. I think everyone should read it.

http://blacksnob.blogspot.com/2008/12/damali-ayos-vision-finally-becomes.html

A Possible Explanation for Genesis 1:6-8

At my church's Bible Study we have been looking at Genesis again. Chapter 1, verses 6-8 has gotten my attention:

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

The question that came up for me is that the Bible says that God made the sky separate water from water. The water underneath the sky was gathered into "seas" (vs 9 and 10)

And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

What about the water above the sky. We know that this water comes into play during the 40 days/nights flood of Noah's day. Genesis 7:11-12 says:

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

But before the flood where was this water? I read a paper back in 2002 that attempted to address this problem and it tried to equate Neanderthals with the Nephilim from Genesis 6. I'll save the Neanderthal question for another post. However, I think the article did make a good stab at explaining what the Bible means about "water" above the sky. The theory set forth was that it was a giant ice sheet in orbit around the earth - a canopy. It was further theorized that the this canopy of ice shielded the earth from a lot more cosmic radiation than what is filtered out today. This would not only explain where the water that flooded the earth came from, but also why before the flood people aged extremely more slowly than after the flood.

I don't think the answer is a canopy, but a ring - like the rings around Saturn. Some astronauts and scientist report a faint ring even today. Saturn's and Uranus' rings are made of mostly ice, dust, and rocks. If the earth had a ring, and if were mostly ice, it could more than explain where some of the flood waters came from. This isn't something scientist agree on. Some who do hypothesize a ring, think it was only temporary and was formed from a meteor impact hitting the earth and tossing debris into orbit. Another theory was that a small comet could have gotten too close to the earth's gravitational field, broke into pieces and formed a temporary ring. Don't forget an object orbiting another is just caught in is gravitational field and is slowly falling into it.
Eventually, both theories end with the contents of the ring burning up in earth's atmosphere.

It's just a theory. But whether or not you reject the idea that a ring of ice used to encircle the earth, there is good evidence that there was a ring of some kind that affected the climate and life on the earth at some point in the past.

There is such a thing as several invisible rings that circle the earth. The earth has a core of mostly made of iron and nickel. This make the earth attractive to charged particles like electrons. This is why we "ground" electrical systems by running a wire to the ground. What we have is a spinning, hunking-huge charged-metallic sphere which gives rise to the earth's magnetic field called our magnetosphere. This field is not just fun to play with - magnetizing smaller pieces of metal to make toys, speakers, microphones, and what-not, but it also helps protects us from cosmic radiation and high-energy radiations that would be deadly to life on earth. God knew what he was doing.


References to look at:
Would a Saturn-like ring system around planet Earth remain stable?
The earth's ring
Running Rings Around Earth
Rings around Earth shaped past climate: study
Can Planet Earth Ever Have Rings?
Does the Earth have rings?
Magnetosphere

Our Son

Well, God is blessing my wife and I with a new bouncing baby boy! It was confirmed yesterday when Mitsouky took her ultrasound. I thought I would share his first pictures! I would have done the same with my daughter's ultrasounds but I did not have a blog then. So permit me this indulgence. I thank God so much. I only desire that my children love God and dedicate their lives to His service. Name? Oh, his name will be Matthias Ezekiel McElhaney. Here is a little special way to show his first pictures.

Herose Webisode Series 1: Destiny

Well the webisode series called Destiny, set in the the same world as the Heroes television series is now complete. I have created a playlist that contains all 4 episodes. Enjoy them below.



Also it has been announce that to fill in the gap left between Volumes 3 and 4 in the main series, another webisode series starts December 15, 2oo8 called The Recruit. Here is a promo for the series below.

SNL: Finally Parodys Obama

I was reading the Black Snob blog and it was brought to my attention that Saturday Night Live has finally made a joke on Obama. They did it by using the one quality that makes it extremely hard to make fun of him: his unflappability. It's extremely difficult to make fun of someone who's feathers are hard to ruffle.

"A Day That Will Live On In Infamy"

On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. It's one of the watershed events in History that defined and affected everything that came after it. My paternal grandmother had a cousin that was stationed there during the attack. When he was ordered to stay at his post on steel-hulled ship, risking his life, his feet were badly burned yet his life was spared. When he was later sent back home to Georgia, he was given special shoes that he had to wear until his feet healed. He was persecuted and mistreated by white people when he returned to Georgia. They ridiculed him because of his shoes. There were many American heroes that day at Pearl Harbor. Some of them were African-American. At that time the Navy and the rest of the American military was segregated and although they never experienced the freedom they fought for, African-American soldiers and sailors still fought for America.

Tron: A Metaphor for Christ

I recently had the chance to see the movie Tron on the G4 Network. It's part of their "Movies that Don't Suck" series. Although Tron was released in 1982, it still holds up well, extremely well. I'm going to write this as if you have seen it already. It's the first movie I remember in where a person enters into a computer generated world inside a computer. Long before the characters in Matrix, Flynn played by Jeff Bridges was digitized into a computer and saved the digital world populated by "programs". Each program was represented by an actor wearing clothes that light up. I still think they look cool. Further, each programs looks like the human character that wrote it. A couple of days after seeing the film again, I realized that it is a great metaphor for Jesus. Like Flynn entered into his own creation and "sacrificed" himself to distract the mainframe so Tron could destroy it, Jesus entered our dimension...his creation, becoming like us so he could die in our place to pay the debts we have incurred for the sins we have committed, that we do commit, and that we will commit. This is the gospel in a nutshell.


Tron - Movie Trailer - The most amazing bloopers are here

Here is a clip for you...one of my favorite scenes, followed by a flash game base on that scene.




The game:

Heroes: Destiny Part 4

Here is the fourth webisode. It's called "Escape". Next week I will post a playlist containing all the episodes.

Heroes Destiny Part 3

The third part of the webisode series is called "Capture"

Pangea - Biblical Evidence

I'm not sure how much anyone really stops to consider how much the Bible and science really line up. A lot of people think that there is only geological "evidence" of evolution and in no way do geology supports anything in the Bible. Of course this is wrong. Ever looked at the Atlantic Coasts of the African and South American continents? They look like fit together like pieces of a puzzle because they do. Genesis 1:9-10 says:

And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

From this verse we notice what seems to be a contradiction. The Bible says all the seas were gathered in one place and so was dry ground. Today we know that this is not the case. We have six continents completely surrounded by water. I don't include Europe as a single continent because it's not surrounded by water. Therefore either the Bible is wrong or at one time all the continents were actually one continent and some how they broke apart into separate pieces and moved into their present positions. Crazy? For years some folks thought it was crazy. The answer to the puzzle is amazing. We have a scientific that has been around for many, many years: Platetechtonics (see picture on the right). Our planet is not static at all. The land masses are sitting on a molten rock and they surf the surface of it like surf boards on water. The original continent referred to as "Pangea" (a possible picture is on the left) broke up into separate pieces and moved apart from one another. Today these land masses are still moving. When one techtonic plate hits another or moves pass another we get earthquakes, mountains, and volcanoes. For example, I live in California. The reason why we have earthquakes is that almost half of California is on the Pacific Ocean plate and the other is on the North American plate. Where the two plates meet, is where the San Andreas fault is. It almost runs the entire length of the state. The plates are slipping past one another. When the plates move relative to one another. we have eathquakes and the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco is actually getting smaller very, very slower. When we have large, powerful earthquakes, earthquake faults move a lot and very quickly - an inch is a far distance for a fault to move. It is important to also realize that what seems like contiguous plates are not. For example the North American plate, has other faults and fissures. For example, both the Mississippi River and New York City sit on faults...they just haven't moved in centuries. This means that when they do move they will be large and destructive earthquakes. I've heard that the last time there was a major eathquake in the vicinity of the Mississippi River, the river flowed backwards! Also India is sometimes called a "sub-continent" because it's on a different plate than Asia. At one point that plate hit the Eurasian plate and thus creating the Himalayan mountain range. And the Pacific plate and the North America plate colliding created the Rocky Mountain rage.

I know what some people my choose to argue: If here were people on the earth at the time that Pangea broke up, why doesn't the Bible mention it? The Bible does in Genesis 10:25 which says

Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.

In Hebrew the word translated divided is related to the name "Peleg".I believe that when the Bible mentions that "the earth was divided" its is referring to the super continent began splitting into multiple continents. There is no reason to think that continental drift has ever moved faster than it does today but there is no reason to think that it could not move quickly. The continents are still moving. the Atlantic Ocean is getting bigger and the Pacific is getting smaller...almost immeasureably slowly. Below is a graphic of what some scientist think the break up of Pangea may have looked like if you sped it up and looked at it from orbit.

Should Morality Be Determined Relativistically?

Over the past several weeks morality has been debated over and over. Same-sex marriage has been defended by saying that we can't legislate morality. They say we can't have moral absolutes. They say that no one has the right to tell another that what they do or say is right or wrong. I saw a video today that made me wonder why then we can judge Islamic culture the way we do if these arguments are correct. I mean we chastise Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and many other so-called third-world countries based on their human rights abuses including against women. Why is what they doing is wrong? Without an absolute moral standard, what can we use to judge societies where it's okay to beat one's wife? Why is it wrong to beat your wife? If she makes you angry or disobeys you as her husband, why can't you beat her until she submits...as long you don't hit her in the face. According to Muhammad Al-'Arifi this is acceptable. Watch him in his own words:



Now, the God of the Bible says this behavior is wrong. He says that wife and husband are equal. He gives the husband charge and authority in a household. It's not "lordship". He has the authority so he can serve not dictate. I plan to write more about this in the future. The problem I want to focus in on now is the issue what moral authority you will submit yourself to: The God of the Bible or someone/something else. Muhammad Al-'Arifi uses a different authority. His tells him and other Muslim men that they should beat their wives so that they submit and Muslim women that it is okay to be violently abused by their husbands, fathers, and brothers. The God of the Bible tells us, men, to protects our mothers, wives, and sisters. And tells women that when they submit to their God-fearing husbands it is because they are trusting in God and obeying God.

I'm not trying to equate the moral question of wife-beating to endorsing homosexuality. They are clearly not the same in many important ways. But from the point of view of what God says, they are both clearly sinful attitudes and actions in His sight. I've blogged many of the scriptures that show what God says about homosexuality. Many try to use the argument that homosexuality is condoned by God (no where in the Bible can we find that) because the people love one another. This is not a good enough reason to ignore scripture (no reason is good enough). If you ask the Muslim man who beats his wife if he loves her, of course he will say he does. If you ask Muslim women being beat by her husbands if they love her, I'm sure many of those women will answer "yes". By what authority can you say that they are wrong? I have the word of God. What do you have?

Here are some scriptures showing husbands how to treat their wives:

Ephesians 5:25-33

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

1 Peter 3:7

Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

In the context of 1 Peter 3:7, "weaker partner" only means that the woman does not carry the same level of accountability as the man of a household. God holds him accountable.


Here is the issue. If I use the Bible to condemn wife-beating, then I must condemn everything God condemns. Including those sins I find myself committing. You can't pick out only those things that ruffle your own sensibilities. Because no one stands innocent in God's sight. Romans 3: 19-26 says:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, the only way we can be found righteous in the sight of God is through Jesus. We trust in Him and God consider our debts to Him canceled. That is the good news. Do you wanna pay for your sins? Or do you want Jesus to have paid for them? Personally, I'd rather accept the payment that Jesus made for us rather than try to pay for my sins on my own - through eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire described in the book of Revelation. But that's me. Each to their own.

No where in the Bible does it say that you receive Christ and all your problems disappear. It really is like being released from "The Matrix" as seen in the movie. Like, Neo you get to see reality as it truly is and you are free. You are a work in progress. God constantly refined and improves us so that we are more like Jesus Christ. Here are some scriptures that tell us so much and give me much encouragement.

Romans 8:28-30 says:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Ephesians 2:10 says:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Philippians 1:4-6 says:

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

A Useful ASP.Net Tool

Introduction
As some of you may know, I am a computer programmer. One of my hobbies is mugen, so I sometimes spend time trying to find new characters, stages, and such. I was thinking the other day about a bunch of characters I would love to find. Some of them are being developed right now by folks all over the world. I made playlist of videos these creators have created showing the characters that I am interested in. I put the playlist on my other blog: "Favorite Fiction". Every once a while I've been "googling" for these characters to see if they are complete or not. It got me thinking: "it sure would be nice if i had tool where I can take a list of my characters and search for them all with one click." I don't want to just put them all in a seach field but I want to run 10 searches for 10 characters and get 10 different result set. Unfortunately, I could find no such software. So I thought, I'd write one.

Features
So what I did make a program that is password protected (I can add users later on), and the user can then load up a comma-delineated text file containing all the items to look for search along with other key words that are to be applied to every search. Users can also decide which kinds of Google search engines they want to use: web, video, image, book, or patent. The list is then the fed to the Google search code and each search result is displayed in a separate browser window. The implementation I have on the Internet only works for Access because the server does not allow searches for the other files.

Future Enhancements
I'd like to make it smarter. Like maybe allow the user to have a list of sites that are excluded or a list of sites that must be in the results. The search criteria is generic. It can take any comma-delineated file. I would like to augment it so that it can take an Excel Spreadsheet or an Access database. Also I would like to do something more interesting, like actually open the best websites matching queries. I'd like to try to make a desktop version that does not run on a webserver. I also would like to give users a more options as to how to view their results.

Wanna try it?
Just go to the url where the site is: http://aspspider.net/mmcelhaney
I've put a sample csv file in Google documents: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pZNlMN4Sbndo-jY4cDpc0JA
You can e-mail me to get a sample Access database.

You can e-mail me to get the password and username to get into the application at mmcelha@aol.com and I can send you the information and answer any questions you may have.

Step-by-step Tutorial
1. Allow popups from www.aspspider.net
2. Download the sample Access database
3. Go to www.aspspider.net/mmcelhaney
4. Enter the username and password I will give you.









5. Click the Login button and you will see the following screen:












6. Select the kinds of searches you want to do. Enter the keywords for all the searches. Make sure you put a check into the "Use Local Paths" check boxes so that the application will use the path on the server. Select the checkbox by "Access".












7. Click the "Get Search List" Button













8. Hit the "Run Search Query" button and all the searches will be done and a window for each search will pop up with the results. Here is an example of search results.













Video Demo

The video demonstration is based on the program running in the Visual Studio dot Net 2005 environment so I did not click the program over to use Server paths. If you run it, it should be in Server Settings as I have stated in the above steps.





Disclaimers
This tool is not affiliated with Google, Electrobyte, or any Mugen creator.

Need to Test ASP.Net?

I have found a great web hosting site that allows you to sign up, maintain, and test websites for free. It's called ASP Spider dot Net. There are some limitations. But for most of those you can find a work-around. The best things about it is that you can test your ASP.Net code if you are a web developer. The worst thing about it is that your account is only good for 90 days at a time and then you have to reload your site and sign up for another account. Some things that I have found that you can't do include deleting files from the ASP.Net website. You can't ask for more than what the site offers for free.

Bible Basics: Trinity

Recently, Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries went to England for about a week. While he was there he debated and interacted with a few prominent Islamic apologists. He represented us well, and more importantly he well-represented God. In one of his meeting he debated a Muslim apologist named Abdullah al-Andalusi on the radio in England. They discussed the doctrine of the Trinity. As an historically-orthodox Christian, Dr. White defended the teaching. He was kind enough to post a video of the interaction on YouTube:



I've got to point out that I did not like the Abdullah al-Andalusi's arguments at all. It boiled down to: I don't understand the Trinity, many "Christians" as well as Islam outright reject it, and therefore it can't be true. A weak argument. Dr. White argued from the scriptures. Abdullah failed to show why White's reasoning was wrong. No one understands the structure of the atomic nucleus, yet we know it truly exists. There is sound Biblical evidence for the believing the Trinity. Dr. White did a great job defending it and teaching it. All of the "best" arguments used against the Trinity raised by Muslims were brought to bear and defeated. It's important to remember that many of these arguments are used by Oneness Pentecostals, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, and other groups. For these reasons, I posted this video.

Chocolate Rain

I'm not sure if you have seen the "Chocolate Rain" video that have gone viral and been all over the web. Recently, an even funnier version of it has surfaced: "Chad Vader singing 'Chocolate Rain'". I've attached posted both video in the following playlist. It's all for fun!

"End of the World" - Simulation

What would happen if a meteor or comet, about the size of a small moon, hit our planet? When I was in college, I studied the question from the point of view of astronomy and physics. I've even seen a few computer simulations. I have found a great simulation on the internet. The video is in Japanese because it was made by Japanese scientists. It's good because you don't have to understand the narration to see how totally messed up we would be if something like this happened!

Lost Footage of Bruce Lee?

Well, most likely not. But when I first saw it, I was hoping that it was. It's cool. It's someone who looks like Bruce Lee playing ping pong with Nunchucks instead of a paddle! Real or staged or CGI? Well, it's being used to advertise the best Nokia cell phone that I have ever seen. I'd bet that it's not even available state-side yet, considering the commercial is not in English. What do you think? Reel footage or fake? I want to find out more about that phone too.

Voted for Obama? This Guy says "Repent!"

Copernicus - found!

For nearly 500 years, no one has known for sure where Copernicus was buried. Copernicus is credited as the first European to realize that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. According to an article I just read, a skeleton was found in a church in 2005. They were able to confirm it to be Copernicus two different ways. Forensic reconstructions match portraits of Copernicus painted while he was living. Second, DNA from hairs in a book that had been owned by him, match the DNA of the skeleton. The age of the person who died even matches the age we know Copernicus was when he died: 70. The one thing about the article I hated is that it says:

His ideas challenged the Bible, the church and past theories, and they had important consequences for future thinkers, including Galileo, Descartes and Newton.

In no way did Copernicus and Galileo heliocentric hypothesis, now a proven fact, challenge the Bible. It does challenge the church. No where does the Bible teach that sun revolves around the earth or that it is flat. That was a doctrine that the Catholic church taught as dogma for centuries and killed some people who challenged those ideas as heretics. The church is to blame for that, not the Bible.