tim_from_pa

It is relevant. In the beginning, the Lord created Adam and his race to rule over this Earth. This is our domain. God expected Adam to eat of the tree of life and live forever, but instead, Satan deceived Eve to eat of the wrong tree. The underlying purpose is so that Satan and his minions can control and inherit what was supposed to be mankind's domain - but that part is another topic. And thus we are all familiar with sin, death and so forth in which the entire Bible is about bringing back that which was lost in the garden and to restore everything. So the entire Bible is the Lord, thorough a people and purpose, working to this end and in the meantime mankind gets the lesson that we cannot do it all or rule ourselves (and that's obvious as things are getting worse by the year). It all ends with the end times and a new heaven and earth, but again, God is laying the foundation over time to achieve that end.

I'll add my two cents. The apparent motions of the sun moon and stars in the heavens are like giant clock hands. As a matter of fact, the clock is based on an average solar position at your location. So they are God's signs to announce the timing of His feasts and yes, perhaps events that are prophetic, but the positions in themselves are not what is causing the action. This is where secular scientists misunderstand their purpose and then scoff as if we don't know what causes an eclipse. I'll give an example. You may have an appointment at 10am. So when the big hand is at the 12 and little hand at the 10, it's significant that there's an appointment. But not every position like this has meaning in and of itself. Likewise, the Lord is using the cyclical motion of the heavens, which are predictable, to time when events happen, or God's "appointment". Now as a bonus here, I laugh when people say that there's a lunar eclipse at Tabernacles, or Solar Eclipse at the start of Nisan like today as if its a rare event. Then, that shows they know nothing about these calendars. After all, what phase of the moon does a lunar eclipse happen? And when is Tabernacles? etc etc. The real issue is not that it happens on the feasts, but rather it's not on every feast so like an appointment we pick up our eyes and ears a bit to watch.

Here's photos I took to entertain the OP this time using a tennis ball, but I did not tilt the ruler earlier. When the ball is near, it's about it's real size 2.5", when far, the umbra is closer to 2". Yes, I know my deck railing needs a paint job. LOL

No, that's wrong because the checked one shows a point source which I also showed. What about points of light from the top or the bottom of the sun (a disk source)? We can reverse this. Hold your hand over a distant object. If you move your hand closer the object, it covers less. If you move your hand closer to your eyes, it will cover more. What your drawing effectively shows is as I move further from my hand (or moving it closer to the object) that it covers MORE of the objects in the distance. That's clearly wrong. The sun is a half degree in angular size, so anything covering that must also be that same size or larger from your vantage point. I don't understand what you don't understand about that. My experiment with the ruler shown clearly about the umbra. And BTW, what do you mean "What they feed us"? In that case, I am one of the "theys" because I am geometrically correct on this. I'm telling ya, I am into astronomy, navigation and make sundials (and I can make them work anywhere on this spherical earth by calculation) and shadows are a big thing when considering them. Now I know what I am talking about. Why? because they work.

Here's the drawings:

Actually, it depends on the geometry of the situation. Fortunately the sun is out this morning so I managed to get photos before it goes away. They are calling for clouds and rain. In the first photo I hold a ruler up close to the paper - I traced lines on the paper the width of the ruler and you can see a sharp shadow. About 6 feet away from the paper the shadow is "about the same size" but about half of it is penumbra (this otherwise makes a "fuzzy" shadow I was talking about). The actual dark area is only half the width of the lines and I would expect that as geometrically speaking the triangle made by the width of this ruler would come to a point 12' away. The penumbra actually expands which is why the "fuzzy shadow" looks roughly the same size (see dotted line area of my drawing in the next post memory was too large). I was about half that distance thus half the size for the umbra. I included a diagram to show the triangles (next post) I am talking about. An eyeball within that triangular area would not see the sun at all. The penumbra region one would see a partial blockage of the sun and beyond that the sun is not blocked at all. Now, all that said, if the light was a point source (see my second drawing) the shadow would get larger.

If I may jump in here, a penny and a light bulb is not a good model because the sun's angular size is about 0.5 degrees. A light bulb is more of a point source. A penny is 0.75" in diameter so about 7 feet away it will appear 0.5 degrees looking from a point that distance and it can cover the sun. If you are closer, it's greater than 0.5 degrees and can cover more of the sun so there's more latitude left or right you can see the sun covered. If we bring our eyes right up to the penny, it would be the entire 0.75" width of the penny blocking the sun. Conversely, if we are further than 7' away from the penny, it will only partly cover the sun because the angular diameter is less than 0.5 degrees. This simulates an inferior planet transiting the sun as a "little dark spot" in front of the sun. So yes, as one moves further away from the shadow of the penny, the umbra will get smaller and smaller until its nonexistent. As an amateur astronomer and gnomonist myself, shadow "edges" are big things in the gnomon of a sundial. There's been elaborate theory how to find the true edge of the shadow and thus the center of the sun for your local meridian, but the simplest way is to use a line or rod to cast the shadow, and then we know the true center of the sun. But even this has it's limitations as such a gnomon on a sundial if one is too far away the shadow eventually become non-existent for all practical purposes as it becomes smaller and smaller (fuzzier) with distance. If the sun shines tomorrow, I will take pictures using a penny to show that the shadow does get smaller at various distances - thus the same with the moon. It's all geometry and trigonometry, actually. In the meantime, did you see my illustration? I think someone else posted the same type showing the umbra and penumbra of the moon.

It's all in the geometry. The umbra of the shadow is the region where the moon totally covers the sun. The penumbra is only a partly covered sun (and would appear to be, for example, a crescent sun). The moon's umbra only extends so far out into space so that as one gets further from the moon in front of the sun, the umbra at some point is non-existent, I.e., the moon can no longer cover all of the sun, so it's only a partial blockage of the sun (when a plant like Mercury goes across the sun, we can see a little black dot and it's called a transit). When we are close to the moon, the shadow is so much bigger approaching the diameter of the moon. The Earth lies between the two extremes and thus the shadow is smaller than the moon, but there is still an area where the sun is totally covered. See the attached picture.

Yep, IMO and from what I know (and I won't be so proud as to say that I am always right), I agree 110% with what you say. You have a good handle as to what is happening.

Do you listen to the parapolitical/paranormal talk show host Clyde Lewis? (the show is called Ground Zero). If you don't, you'd probably like him. You can see if your local station has it on, or again download one of these radio apps and search him out and his shows are weekdays 7-10 Pacific time. Now past the promo, I said this because he (and others I'm finding) are seeing that they are playing around with genetics and big on human-computer mutations (cyborgs). Already, when you think of it, people are attached to their screens and smart phones, etc. so a lot of what they think and feel are heavily influenced. Clyde gets into Bible prophecy as well and while he can compete with any end-time preacher's knowledge, he's more concerned tackling these subjects as a talk show host making people aware what's all happening. He gets into the political realm of things as well. As for books, I'm re-reading "Birthright" by Timothy Alberino. Pretty heavy stuff for the average person, but he confirms what I both believed and suspected for awhile now as being into Old Earth Creationism, the angelic beings in the world before, the destruction and recreation of the earth etc and all ending with this same topic where humans are headed. Of course I do not believe the Lord will not let it get past a certain point, but rather what's in the end is the same spirit behind Genesis 6 or to put it another way, "As in the days of Noah..."

A lot of misconceptions about "Christian Nationalism" not only out there in the world, but even here. Of course with any ideologue one can take it to extremes whether right or left. However, I think the extremes have been coming from what has been in power lately and the rhetoric that goes with it as the pot would say to the kettle. From my understanding, it's more people, like me, that rather see Christian and moral values practiced more and more instead of the crazy tangents people have been going off on and teaching some of the kids. It's funny this topic was brought up today because here's something I just read this morning. Towards the end it reads more like a sermon, but when followers of Jesus take his teaching seriously, they are not a threat to anyone and only help to bring peace and joy. https://redstate.com/jerrywilson/2024/03/18/christian-nationalism-is-not-what-the-left-says-it-is-n2171573

This is an interesting question. Yes, most do believe in 3.5 years ministry as I do as well. But I heard the two year as well as the 5 year (proposed by Sir Isaac Newton). I think the thing we have to admit is that we believe in evidence of any matter (including one's faith in Jesus Christ) does not prove anything, and for those scientific minded folks out there this all falls under pseudoscience. However, this does not mean there is not one fact about the whole question. Of course Jesus' ministry lasted such and such a time but again, each has evidence that shows how long they think it was. So a person has to be made up in their own mind if their evidence outweighs another's (in which the facts do not show it's necessarily factual). In my case, I found evidence to my satisfaction that the Lord's time on this earth fit a specific Biblical number (a multiple of 153) and with that information I could calculate his actual birth and death days. I found too many "mathematical coincidences" to just be ignored, and the number of such evidences seems to me to outweigh other such theories, but to some may still not be perfect (and the feeling is mutual). Thus, I will not proclaim such info as fact, but only what I believe based on evidence. I would hope that others can see the same way and be prepared to change their view(s) if need be as I have already. This is the whole point of faith. It's based on evidence, but not necessarily a provable fact. And if we are blatantly honest, that's what most of science even is: they hit the hypothesis stage and even theory, but fall short of becoming law because there's always an exception it seems. It depends how stringent one makes their criteria.

If anyone who read this noticed, this writing talks about a flat earth. I don't know what got into people since the COVID, but in the last 3-4 years this ignorant belief really took off. They even contort scripture that supposedly speaks of a flat earth when in fact, the bible does not state directly the shape of the earth, nor does it say how old it is or how long creation took. (I subscribe to the gap theory which does not contradict science). I had some nasty run-ins with flat earthers who think we believe what we do about a spherical earth "because we were told" (as the pot would say to the kettle) and otherwise they put zero trust in any authority, history, science, mathematical evidence or whatever as if millions of people could cover this up for thousands of years. I was threatened twice by them, and I had one so much as say 2+2=5 he distrusted authority so much (when in reality, the shape of the earth or 2+2 are purely mathematical concepts easily proven). So I finally realized this goes beyond evidence. It's a fundamental contrariness that says a square is a triangle and when you see 2 on a ruler they will call it 5. This IMO are one of the many Satanic deceptions in these end times to both confuse people, get them fighting and to otherwise give the bible a bad name which atheists and skeptics have troubles to begin with. Just a heads up when I saw a "flat earth" in that writing I would be cautious of the motive.

That's a valid point, and I won't deny that given that only God's Spirit can work in any of us (God makes the first move). And maybe the ones who had died is the evidence that God already chosen them. Likewise, while generations and nations prior to Christ could not have come to Him, while they get their first chance later, are we to get ours here by virtue of the generation we were born in? After all, God's complete (written) Word is now here so there is really no excuse if a person has access. After all, they can read it and study it. But one can be certain that if the Holy Spirit did not work on a baby, their "classification" for want of a better term is the same as those who have not heard the true gospel. We can be sure of that much without assuming the Holy Spirit did anything with that baby.

No, we should not baptize babies because they do not understand what it's about. People ought to be baptized when they believe. You can do your own research, but I believe that practice started because infant mortality traditionally was high and that was a way to guarantee eternal life for them. Today people introduce other doctrines to assure the babies all go to heaven, i.e. "age of accountability" doctrines and the like - despite the scriptural criteria that the only way to God is through Christ which babies did not make that choice either (and who knows what they would have done)? I think the Lord treats babies the same way those who never heard the true gospel: they are resurrected to the Great White Throne judgment, a post "mini-millennium" of sorts for them to be given their first chance, as they were resurrected physically aka "general resurrection". But not everyone agrees with this, and I won't make it a Christian vs non-Christian issue (rather, its an understanding issue) but other than the infant baptism and "age of accountability" doctrines, people really don't know where babies go otherwise.