The stone the builders rejected became a stumbling block

The geological society of America says, " Karst geology played a major role in Jerusalem's selection by David for his capital," Bramnik says. It proved to be a wise decision. One of David's successors, King Hezekiah, watched as the warlike Assyrian horde, a group of vastly superior warriors toppled city after city in the region. Fearing that they'd soon come for Jerusalem, he too took advantage of the limestone bedrock and dug a 550 meter-long (1804 feet) tunnel that rerouted the spring's water inside the city's fortified walls."
  So were there tombs with limestone stones blocking the doorway?
 Wikipedia article on limestone says," Most limestone is composed of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera." Hence life on Earth is much older than the 6000 years the Babble suggests. Check mate, get past that one Jesus. The limestone the builders rejected becomes a stumbling block for Christians that they can not roll out the way. Maybe there was a sink hole in the tomb that Jesus fell down and then was flushed away by an underground stream. People couldn't see the hole in the dark? 
The folk in Matthew 27v52 who looked like white ghosts were merely miners covered in white chalk and gypsum ?

Solar Eclipse myths

Interesting article. Was it by Justin Brierley or Jonathan McLatchie ?

I think it is a reasonable question to ask if there are signs of supernatural design in the observable universe.

Dara O Briain on BBC Stargazing live series 5:5,' Eclipse live' mentioned some of the many myths about why the sun appears darkened (at 25 minutes-29 minutes) 

The Hindu myth is that Vishnu beheaded demon Rahu (who is drawn as a serpent) but Rahu's head still eats the Sun occasionally. However the sun always falls out of Rahu's throat.

The vikings thought a chariot dragged the sun across the sky and Odin sent a pair of wolfs to try to eat the sun.

In Vietnam it was a giant toad who tried to gobble the sun.

Matthew 24v29 tries to link,"The sun will be darkened" to 'end times'. Why was it not written,"The sun will not darken for billions of years but it will at times appear hidden behind the moon as viewed from Earth ?"

We know today that eclipses are not omens or portents of doom.

Matthew 24v29, "the moon will not give its light" but the moon just reflects sun light - a fact that was unknown when NT was written

Matthew 24v29,"Stars will fall from the sky" but the fact is that stars are too far away and too massive to fall to Earth. If the text meant meteorite then why didn't it just say,"piece of rock"

Matthew 24v27, "lightning that comes from the east is visible in the west" but how far can a flash of lightning be seen, 100 miles? maybe 2000 miles if you are in the ISS ?

2000 years ago there were many things which were too small to be seen by the naked eye due to either being actually microscopic or just too far away. There were many bits of information about such things which could have been revealed by supernatural revelation to indicate the existence of a god but none were. Science advanced by very gradual advances in careful observation and small steps in reasoning.

I still go to church sometimes for the music, to socialize, because it is part of the whole story of our history, as a look back to how people used to imagine the world, to see if the minister is willing to offer pros and cons or just one side of the debate.
It is interesting to read what the Bible and other scriptures had to say about the natural world, to understand the claims they were making but in the light of 21st century knowledge their ideas about natural history have to be seen as babble whose value to modern civilization is as museum pieces.

Lamentations on PI

Lamentations

1 King 7v23 has PI=3
This pretty much sums up the limited standard of thought of the scriptures.
“He made a Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure round it”

Repeated again in 2 Chronicles 4v2

This is not the authorship of a creator of a finely tuned universe.
This is the authorship of a primate with a slightly bigger brain than the other great apes

Lamentations 1v4 says the priests of Zion groan but as far as I know no author in the Bible moans about the error of making PI=3. No criticism from Jesus, no correction.

Isaiah 40v22,”He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth”, he pulls the chain and his people receive the turd of god.

Isaiah 40v14,”Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him and who taught him the right way?” Well they should be sacked, whoever it was cause PI=3 ain’t close enough.

Re Isaiah 40v12,”with the breadth of his hands marked off the heavens”

If god’s hands were big enough to be useful for measuring the heavens, and yet god was close enough for the Earth to appear to him as a circle rather than a point of light then we should be able to see these super massive hands. The hands of god should block out the stars beyond, so from this I deduce that the hand’s of god are not only invisible but also see through / transparent.

Isaiah 40v27, “Why do you complain O Israel,”My way is hidden from the Lord”
It would have been a decent excuse that God was so far away that the Earth could not be seen due to the glare of the sun: like how astronomers have trouble finding exoplanets around other stars. Thus God didn’t know what was happening on Earth otherwise he would have prevented suffering.

If god was close enough then the Earth should have appeared as a three dimensional sphere.

Maybe it is just that god is merely an idol that can be nailed down (Isaiah 41v7)

The author’s idea of the size of the Earth was limited to the Middle East. Isaiah 41v8-9,”But you, O Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners i called you” A circle with corners whose circumference divided by diameter = 3 ?
Obviously babble.

The extremely mixed news

I find many ideas in the Bible quite interesting and it makes some worthy points e.g 2 Peter 1v5-9 encourages the reader to behave in a way which displays qualities of goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, brotherly kindness, love

However I think then that 1 Peter 2v18 should have said, "Masters, no longer keep slaves but consider them employees, giving them a fair days pay for a fair days work, treat them well so that they will want to stay and work for you but let them leave if they wish"

With reference to point 4, wouldn't it be fairer to say the news was decidedly mixed ?

2 Peter 2v7, "Now to you who believe, this stone is precious, But to those who do not believe. "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone"(quoting Psalm 118v22), and, "but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall" (quoting Isaiah 8v14) They stumble because they disobey the message- which is also what they were destined for."

I would have thought that the idea that Jesus was going to save a small percentage of the human race for heaven (but leave the majority to weep forever in suffering) was at best extremely mixed news. In a way it could be quite a relief if you found yourself to be one of the lucky few but would you be troubled at the thought of the fate of the majority ?

If Jesus had won the victory over Hades then wouldn't he have completely abolished it? The rejects could just have become tortoises & hares on the new Earth or ceased to exist ?

2 Peter 2v4 "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to Tartarus, putting them into gloomy dungeons ( chains of darkness)"

Google definition of Tartarus: a sunless abyss, below Hades, in which Zeus imprisoned the Titans.

Charles Dickens', "A tale of two cities" 1859

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

Hillary Duff, Stranger... similar to Ogden Nash poem

Ogden Nash wrote some similar ideas to the lyrics of this song in his poem from 1935
"What almost every woman knows sooner or later" (about husbands)
It ends:
When you are alone with them they ignore all the minor courtesies and as for airs and graces, they utterly lack them
But when there are a lot of people around they hand you so many chairs and ashtrays and sandwiches and butter you with such bowings and scrapings that you want to smack them.
Husbands are indeed an irritating form of life
And yet through some quirk of providence most of them are really very deeply ensconced  in the affection of their wife.

The poem starts:
Husbands are things that women have to get used to putting up with
And with whom the breakfast and sup with...
...And when it is a question of walking five miles to play golf they are very energetic
But when it is a question of doing anything useful around the house they are very lethargic 
And then they tell you that women are unreasonable and don't know anything about logic
And they never want to get up or go to bed at the same time as you do
And they are brave and calm and collected about the ailments
 of the woman they have promised to honour and cherish
But the moment they get a sniffle or stomachache of their own why you'd think they were about to perish...