Re: "Everything They Say is Utter Nonsense" / Reality Check

On Fri, 7 Jun 2002 23:28:55 +0000 (UTC), Bill Nelson wrote:
> Sure, there are various cataclysmic myths. It is not surprising, given
> that most ancient "worlds" were less than 100 miles across. To them,
> any local disaster would be "worldwide".

You need to educate yourself. There are lots of evidence for a
_worldwide_ cataclysm at some point in our history.

Repost from sci.geo.geology
<...>
In the second book of his history, Herodotus relates his conversations
with Egyptian priests on his visit to Egypt some time during the
second half of the fifth century before the present era. The
priests asserted that within historical ages and since Egypt become a
kingdom, "four times in this 1 period (so they told me) the sun rose
contrary to his wont; twice he rose were he now sets, and
twice he set where he now rises"[1]

The Magical Papyrus Harris speaks of a cosmic upheaval of fire and
water when "the south becomes north, and the Earth turns over."[2] 

In the Papyrus Ipuwer it is similarly stated that "the land turns
round (over) as does a potter's wheel" and the "Earth turned upside
down."[3]

The texts found in the pyramids say that the luminary "ceased to live
in the occident, and shines, a new one, in the orient".[4]

In the tomb of Senmut, the architect of Queen Hatshepsut, a panel on
the ceiling shows the celestial sphere with the signs of the zodiac
and other constellations in "a reversed orientation" of the
southern sky.[5] The center of this panel is occupied by the
Orion-Sirius group, in which orion appears west of Sirius instead of
east. "The orientation of the southern panel is such that the
person in the tomb looking at it has to lift his head and face north,
not south."  "With the reversed orientation of the south panel,
Orion, the most conspicuous constellation of the southern sky,
appeared to be moving eastward, i.e., in the wrong direction."[6]

Plato wrote in his dialog, "The Statesman" (Politicus): "I mean the
change in the rising and setting of the sun and the other heavenly
bodies, how in those times they used to set in the quarter where they
now rise, and used to rise where they now set... the god at the time
of the quarrel, you recall, changed all that to the present system as
a testimony in favor of Atreus. At certain periods the universe has
it's present circular motion, and at other periods it revolves in the
reverse direction. Of all the changes which take place in the heavens
this reversal is the greatest and most complet."[7] The reversal of
the movement of the sun in the sky was not a peaceful event, it was an
act of wrath and destruction. Plato proceeded: "There is at that time
great destruction of animals in general, and only a small part of the
human race survives."[15]

Caius Julius Solinus, a Latin author of the third century wrote of the
people living on the southern borders of Egypt: "The inhabitants of
this country say that they have it from their ancestors that the sun
now sets where it formerly rose."[8]

"The Chines say that it is only since a new order of things has come
about that the stars move from east to west."[9]

In the Syrian city Ugarit (Ras Shamra) was found a poem dedicated to
the planet-godess Anat, who "massacred the population of the Levant"
and who "exchanged the two dawns and the position of the stars."[10] 

The hieroglyphics of the Mexicans describe four movements of the sun,
'nahui ollin tonatiuh'. " The Indian authors translate 'ollin' by
'motions of the sun.' When they find the number 'nahui' added,
they render 'nahui ollin' by the words 'sun (tonatiuh) in his four
motions.'"[11] These "four motions" refer to "four prehistoric suns"
or "world ages," with shifting cardinal points.[12]

The Eskimos of Greenland told missionaries that in ancient time the
earth turned over and the people who lived then become antipodes.[13] 

The Koran speaks of the Lord "of two easts and two wests"[14] 

<...> 
WHEN HUMANS WERE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

At one point during the last 400,000 years, the human population
worldwide was reduced to only about 10,000 breeding men and
women - the size of a very small town. What caused this population
"bottleneck"? Did a population crash engulf the entire globe. If not,
who was spared?

Such questions arise from a surprising observation: Human DNA is
remarkably uniform everywhere humans are found. This hidden genetic
uniformity is difficult to believe if one strolls through a
cosmopolitan city like New York or Paris. Nevertheless, compared to
the DNA of the great apes, whose mutation rates should be close to
ours, human genes on the average show far fewer mutations. Human
DNA from Tokyo and London is more alike than that from two lowland
gorillas occupying the same forest in West Africa. Harvard
anthropologist M. Ruvolo has commented: "It is a mystery that none of
us can explain."

The clear implication is that humans recently squeezed through a
population bottleneck, during which many accumulated mutations were
wiped out. In a sense, the human race began anew during the last
400,000 years. Unfortunately, DNA analysis cannot say where the very
grim reaper came from. [15]
<...>
 
A great many facts point to rapid, catastrophic burial of the plants
and animals which are found as fossils today.

Fossil caves, fissures, mass burial sites, and sedimentary strata
discovered in Europe and America were jammed with masses of mixed
bones of many sorts of animals from widely separated and differing
climatic zones, for example:[16] Cumberland Cavern in Maryland,
containing remains of animals from cold northern regions, warm, damp
semi-tropical regions, and from more arid environments, Norfolk
forest-beds in England, which contain remains of temperate zone
plants, and large numbers of both northern cold-climate and tropical
warm-climate animals, all mixed together, rock fissures in England and
France contain masses of broken bones of many kinds of
animals from both cold and temperate zones.

The Baltic amber deposits and the Geisaltal lignite seams in Germany
contain fossil insect, plant and animal remains which must have been
collected by some cataclysmic process from different areas all over
the earth, from near arctic to tropical zones, and transported from
Africa, the East Indies, and South America to be dumped in northern
Europe. [17]

Numerous fossil graveyards contain stupendous quantities of fossilized
bones of many different kinds of animals thrown together in jumbled
masses so as to be explainable only in terms of catastrophic water
action of vast proportions. These include the Agate Spring Quarry in
Nebraska, the Siwalik Hills fossil beds in India, and the fossil fish
graveyard strata of Lompoc, California, the Old Red sandstone in
Scotland, and many other fish graveyards in Italy, Germany,
Switzerland,
etc. [18]

In many locations in the world are found extensive rock strata
containing sometimes billions of fossilized animals, frequently
densely packed together. They often display evidence of terror and
struggle.

References:

[1] Herodotus, Bk. ii, 142 (transl. A. D. Godley, 1921).
[2] H.O.Lange, "Der Magische Papyrus Harris," K. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab (1927), p.58.
[3] Papyrus Ipuwer 2:8. Cf Lange´s (German) translation of the papyrus 
    (Sitzungsberichte d. Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften (1903), pp. 601-610).
[4] L. Speelers, Les Textes des Pyramides (1923), I.
[5] A. Pogo, "The Astronomical Ceiling Decoration in the Tomb of
    Senmut (XVIIIth Dynasty)," Isis (1930), p. 306.
[6] Ibid, pp. 306, 315, 316.
[7] Plato, The Statesman or Politicus (transl. H.N. Fowler, 1925), pp.49, 53.
[8] Solinus, Polyhistor, xxxii.
[9] Bellamy, Moons, Myths and Man, p. 69.
[10] C. Virolleaud, "La déesse Anat," Mission de Ras Shamra, Vol. IV (1938).
[11] Humboldt, Researches, I, 351.
[12] Seler, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, II, 799
[13] Olrik, RagnarÃk, p 407.
[14] Koran, Sura LV.
[15] Gibbons, Ann; "The Mystery of Humanity's Missing Mutations," Science, 267:35, 1995.
[16] Velikovsky, Immanuel, Earth in Upheaval (Dell Pub. Co., Inc., New York, 1955), pp. 50-60. pp. 154-161
[17] Nilsson, Heribert (Synthetische Artbildung, Verlag C.W.K.
     Gleerup, Lund, Sweden, 1953), reprint of English summary published by
     Evolution Protest Movement of North America, Victoria, B.C., 1953, pp. 1194-1196
[18] Velikovsky, Immanuel, ref. 16 above, pp. 18-22, 64-69, 78-81.
<...>

John Doe