Would a 24 hour warning of earthquakes help any

• Have you read the Wikipedia article about the causes of earthquakes and the article about the geography of Nepal which describes how the Indian tectonic plate is pushing under the Eurasian plate, which has been going on for millions of years and will continue for millions more- so the earthquakes are going to keep reoccurring. Injuries can be reduced by better building design, disaster drill & disaster relief. As Rev Eric Delv said in the show it is partly about finance to rebuild / replace existing buildings.
  See "Earthquake country alliance" which recommends the best way to reduce injuries is to follow the "Drop, cover, hold on" routine. It says most injuries from Earthquakes are from flying debris rather than from collapsing buildings so dropping to the floor and crawling under a table for protection is the best you can do. Trying to run out into the open leaves you more vulnerable.
  http://www.earthquakecountry.i...
  What if science & technology could give a 24 hour warning of an earthquake, what sort of response strategy could be drawn up ? Kathmandu has over 1 million people, could you really evacuate a whole city in 24 hours, where would they go ? Would it just cause panic and looting if there was an attempt to evacuate ? Could people in the most dodgy buildings be moved away from them ? Is it even possible to communicate a warning to 1 million people in a few hours?
  Is it about having durable structures - heavy duty furniture frames that people can dive under for protection.

Shaunti Feldhahn

• I like the idea about, "focus on the best in your spouse", also her idea about not getting too focussed on what you see as the problem. Try to refocus on a future holiday, book , film, outing, music. The internet can provide endless distraction.
  Hope that the clouds will clear, persevere
  1 Peter 4v8, "Love covers over a multitude of sins"
  Shaunti Feldhahn made a good point about, "Maybe there is a more charitable interpretation or explanation for their behaviour" ?
  I think it is helpful to ask, "What is your sticking point ?" or to think, "What is their sticking point ?" Have I really got an accurate idea about why they did that or am I fearing the worst? Well there are probably many factors in their decision.
  Tolerate each others tantrums. Think of Jesus words in John 8 - let he who is without sin throw the first stone, then neither do I. [ easy to excuse your own tantrums but other's remarks jar ] People say stuff in the heat of the moment that was exaggerated, OTT and they didn't mean it, they regret it but then find it difficult to apologize. They were trying to persuade you to do something but what they did was counterproductive.
  Think of the more moderate, euphemistic thing they probably meant to say but were too angry to. eg
  "You are impossible"="I can't think what to say to you, help me out here"
  "I hate you"="I love you (mostly ) but I'm really annoyed you did that, please don't do it again"
  Just accept that stuff happens, nothing is perfect, shrug forget it, 1 Cor 13v4," love keeps no record of wrongs." move on, tell yourself- that was yesterday, try and find something they will like to hear today.
  Sometimes it is loving to say, " zip it, skip it"
  "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." (Prov. 15:1)
  Practice gratitude, choose to make it a habit.
  Look both ways -Things could be better but they could be worse
  I see Shuanti Feldhahn has a Youtube channel, see video, "Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages - Shaunti Feldhahn's Latest Research"

john 8v7

 I agree with one of the points Gervais made," if I could change one thing for a better world, it would be for all mankind to adhere to this little gem: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I assure you, no more stones would ever be thrown." ( John 8v7 and v11 "Then neither do I ") Maybe a real God would do his own terminating ? Acts 12v23 has Herod being struck down by an angel of the Lord, Romans 12v19 "Do not take revenge,"It is mine to avenge, I will repay" quoting Deuteronomy 32v35 However a few more strategic terminations in history might have saved millions of innocent lives.

I smell a rat on Mt Ararat & Aragats

The old 'scriptural' texts are so vague that they can be bent to mean anything you want but there is no detailed description in the Bible [or any other religious text prior to 1492 ] of the world as we see it today. There is no mention in scripture of the agricultural revolution, industrial revolution, space age or information age, no mention of other continents eg North America, Australia or Antartica, no mention of how to make lenses to improve eyesight or to make microscopes & telescopes to start finding out about stuff to improve human welfare through technology.

The water flow in the Euphrates & Tigris are now controlled by the many dams built across it in the last 3 decades, you don't read about hydroelectric in the Bible.

Try reading about.Wikipedia about the Southeastern Anatolia Project (Turkish: Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) is a multi-sector integrated regional development project based on the concept of sustainable development for the 9 million people (2005) living in the Southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey. GAP's basic aim is to eliminate regional development disparities by raising people's income level and living standards; and to contribute to such national development targets as social stability and economic growth by enhancing the productive and employment generating capacity of the rural sector.

Before constructing the dams for this scheme archaeological surveys of the sites were carried out and found many ancient relics such as at Nevali Cori where they found  Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) dating back to 7000 BCE.

Look at the Wikipedia article on Mt Aragats (which is not too far from Mt Ararat) on the Armenian highlands. The Western and Southern slopes of Mt. Aragats are home to many petroglyphs dating from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age.

Note that Reverend James Ussher used Bible genealogy to work out that the Bible puts the Noah's flood at 2300 BCE.  There are many reasons to think that the Bible is a collection of myth, fiction, fantasy, wild imaginings. It is more interesting to see it that way, more plausible. The Noah's flood is probably a revised version of the Gilgamesh flood epic. It would be only natural for people writing in Babylonia to talk about the Armenian Highland  where the Euphrates starts out. However I read the oldest Hebrew texts only have the word "rrt" which was later rendered Ararat but no one is sure.

I smell a rat on Mt Ararat

• There is a good Wikipedia article about Mt Ararat. It is a supervolcano which is thought to have erupted around 2400 BCE. Rev James Ussher used Babble genealogy to place Noah's flood at 2300 BCE so how come Noah hadn't seen or heard of the eruption. In any case Mt Ararat is the highest peak in the Armenian Highlands/plateau at 5137m, the next two are over 1000metres lower with Aragats at 4095m and Suphan at 4058m.
  
  Genesis 8v4 "on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the Ark came to rest on the Mts of Ararat v5but only by the 10th month did the mountain peaks become visible" So I recon that says the Ark was right at the top of the highest Mountain. Lesser Ararat is a peak close by but is 3896m and greater Ararat would have been clearly visible before an ark came to rest on the lesser one ( except if it was really foggy )
  
  Youtube video Mount Ararat 2014 on DArtolomeo channel has hikers on filming from the peak and looks like most directions other peaks are too far away to see, except for a ridge which is maybe to lesser Ararat.
  
  How far could the dove have flown in search of dry land ?
  Genesis 8v6 has Noah wait a further 40 days after the 1st day of 10th Month = until the 10th day of 11th Month.. There are a further two weeks elapse messing around with the dove in v10 & v 12 which would take the date to 24th of 11th Month, minimum.
  Genesis 8v13 says that on the first day of the first month of Noah's year 601 the land was dry. At any rate back in v9 this would only leave the dove 7 days to travel in search of dry land = 3.5 days each way. I read that the maximum a pigeon can travel in a day is 90 miles, so it could only have time to survey out 315 miles which can hardly justify the claim that it showed water was over all the surface of the Earth. [ Always remembering that the Ark was supposed to be on the highest peak in the region which would be over 1000 metres uncovered even before any other peaks were visible in extreme distance. ( the dove wasn't too bright, talk about bird brained )]
  Anyway Mt Shkhara in Georgia near the S.E of Black Sea is 5193m and lie about 210 miles away as the crow flies  so might have been reachable by a dove with holyspirit GPS guidance. [Probably the dove just flew a few hundred yards down the mountain and hung out for a few days then flew back with a leaf ]
  For the avoidance of doubt; I smell a rat,  I think it is quite possible none of the Noah story is real except for Mt Ararat.

God a projection of our own failings.

Do Gods reflect the human tendency to vastly over rate their own performance and to vastly under value other people's worth ?
The gods criticise humans for not observing an irrelevant pointless code of conduct and then excuse themselves of genocide. The gods act hypocritically, they condemn humans for failing to look after their fellow man yet with hold the information & technology which would have dramatically improved human quality of life ( information they must have had if omnipotent as claimed )
The characters in the Bible are only interested in looking after kith & kin & close friends but everyone else can be damned as far as they are concerned.
The Bible stories were written by men and give men priority over women.

 

I watched the BBC drama,"The Ark" which was their telling of Noah's ark story.
They did have some of the characters ask half intelligent questions but I would have liked to see them ask more rational questions.
 They could have had Noah's family ask questions like:
 "Where is all the water going to come from and where will it drain away to ? "
"If God is love then how could he do an unloving thing like killing everyone especially when most probably hadn't committed a significant crime"
"Wouldn't the honourable thing be to refuse to be part of a plan to wipe out humanity, it isn't their fault that there is competition for scare resources and that demand tends to outstrip supply"
"Wouldn't it be genocide to wipe out all humanity except for one family ? Wouldn't this act be worse than what any human had done ? "
"Would you agree that a better way forward would be to give humanity the information and technology to reduce human suffering , increase quality of life & life span, give them the means to produce, store and distribute ample food, help them generate systems to ensure fairness but also encourage responsible effort"
"Why not just terminate the few delinquent folk by heart attack or lightning bolt or better still only select embryos who will live in a civilized way"

However there is ample reason to think the Noah's flood story was based on the Babyonlian Epic of Gilgamesh myth.
Reverend James Ussher used Bible genealogy  to work out that the Bible stories put Noah's flood at 2300 BCE. There are pyramids built before 2300  BCE and the remains of the Beaker culture in the Rhone valley is before 2300 BCE.There is no evidence for a global flood, only multiple localized flood events. Plate tectonics cause the formation of many shallow seas which were later raised to be dry land or mountains.

Would you Adam and Eve it ?

It would have been interesting if the Bible had photo like quality drawings of the food crops that Adam & Eve ate or somehow an accurate description of them.

BBC show "Kew on a plate" with Kate Humble shows that some of our favourite food crops used to look a lot more like weeds.

Our modern strawberry is a cross between the large white strawberry of Chile and the tiny sweet strawberry of Virginia.

Carrot roots looked very like weed roots, even in the last 1000 years, and used to be more prized for their seeds.

Selective breeding has dramatically improved size and flavour of many of our foods but still we face challenges to protect the crops from pests, disease & to supply enough nutrients ( which requires complex processes such as Haber process powered by gas to provide nitrates and also deep mining to find phosphate. [ Phosphorite deposits are thought to have formed over eons through the process of sediment being washed down from eroding mountain ranges. Phosphorite deposits often occur in extensive layers, which cumulatively cover tens of thousands of square kilometres of the Earth's crust. Does it make sense to say that a God magically put these deposits where they could only be accessed by modern technology? ]

Why didn't a creator God put nitrogen & phosphate fixing nodules on cereal plants so that they would enrich the soil as they grow instead of depleting it or why didn't a creator give them genes to resist the major leaf diseases & to repel insect pests ?
Is there any evidence of such things ever having existed ?
How much conflict has been caused by competition over limited resources, demand outstripping supply ? Why weren't mountains placed more evenly so that each area of land would have a reliable river to provide irrigation water & so that hydroelectric dams could easily be built in modern times ?

Creation might have appeared good at first glance but on getting it home from the shops the limitations have soon become apparent.

It is for freedom that John Loftus has set us free, no longer to be burdened by a yoke of slavery babble nonsense.

For lies to succeed they need to be close enough to reality to be plausible to others but far enough away from reality to make a worthwhile amount of money. However if your lies tell others things they desire to be true then you don't need to be so careful.

I think many christians have made up excuses for most of the stuff the Bible and just hold fast to a few grains of sense & feel good vibes that they can stitch into their personal creed. eg " And when I die i go to a happily ever after with granny and dog"

If you feel trapped by the Christian stories then just get the Bible on Kindle and look up each different word on Wikipedia, however this will just be the same as getting the dictionary on Kindle and looking up each word on Wikipedia.
For a short cut read the books by John Loftus. 
ReWrit Galations 5v1
It is for freedom that John Loftus has set us free, no longer to be burdened by a yoke of slavery babble nonsense. ( added bonus- you don't have to agree with everything he wrote to get to heaven )