Scriptural Necessity

Deuteronomy 22
8 When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.

A battlement for your roof. Some modern translations say "fence" instead of battlement. It is true, the law is talking about safety. From the law of the battlement on the roof, we can understand the need to build things in a safe manner, so that an ordinary person will be safe from harm, even if they make a mistake, such as slipping and falling.

Modern day law-breakers take the application of this law, that is, to looking after the public safety, and throw away the law itself. The reason is that most houses today have peaked roofs. Even houses with flat roofs almost never have any stairs to give people access to the roof. So they say there is no need; people will only go on the roof in special circumstances. They say the law was only applicable to the houses that were built back at the time the law was given, which did have flat roofs.

They have gotten it exactly backwards! Instead of saying, "our houses are different now, so we don't need to obey the law", we should be saying "let us build our houses in such a way that we can keep the law!" In the case of building a battlement, this means building our houses with flat roofs, and some sort of stairway or other easy access to the roof.

There are many benefits to having a flat roof and easy access to the roof. There are no drawbacks. Not one. I will discuss these benefits below, after quoting some of the discoveries others have made.

Physical Benefits

Some fellow believers were obviously pondering the topic of flat roofs. Here is what Troy and Genie posted on the topic:

Flat roof design:

1. A roof is designated as flat id its slope is less than ten degrees.
2. Flat roofs have traditionally been used in hot climates where water accumulation is not a problem.
3. They were generally unkown in northern climated before the end of the last century.

Advantages of flat roof design:

1. No space lost below roof, i.e. no dead space
2. Less material is used than in a sloped roof
3. The rooftop is potentially useful as a terrace, or sleeping porch
4. Potentially pleasing appearance
5. Easier to build than a sloped roof

Disadvantages of flat roof design:

1. Roof elements can not overlap, hence waterproofing must be more complex, and more thorough
2. Drainage is not automatic
3. Support of snow load must be insured

Weatherproofing the flat roof:

1. The flat roof relied on some kind of membrane for keeping moisture out. In dry climates this is done with clay tiles, but in Canada asphalt, or rubber is necessary.
2. Flat roofs are never actually flat, a subtle slope directs standing moisture to drains at edges, or inside.

Flat roof structure depends on the spanning capability of the substrate. The following are approximate spanning abilities of common decking systems in Canada:

1. Plywood- 40 cm to 60 cm
2. 5 cm tongue and groove cedar boards- 1.2 m
3. Metal corrugated decking- up to 4 m
4. Precast gypsum planks- up to 1 m

— posted as the page Flat roof building notes on the YHVH.name website.

Hear what Jason Hammond, an artist in Michigan, has to say:

One of the things that most people ask me about when I show them my plans or tell them about my house is the flat roof. Can you have a flat roof in Minnesota? Aren't you worried about the weight of the snow and leaking? Of course those all things that I thought about when we first looked at a flat roof as an option but they are also worries that I found are quickly put to rest with a little knowledge.

Snow obviously can add a lot of weight to the roof of your home in the winter time but a when you design a home with a flat roof it's important to get a structural engineer involved to help calculate weight loads so the roof structure is properly sized to handle the additional weight snow poses. A flat roof is never actually truly flat but rather most often uses a system of tapered insulation to create a slight slope. Leaky roofs are more often the result of poor execution, design or materials rather than it is as a result of the style of the roof.

What you never seem to hear about flat roofs are all the great benefits they have over pitched roofs. Flat roofs are generally better insulated than pitched roofs which leads to reduced heating and cooling needs. Although they generally cost more to install they usually last much longer before needing to be replaced and can reduce your heating and cooling needs. Many flat roofs can be designed and engineered to incorporate green areas that reduce the over-all Carbon foot print of the home, as well as utilizing the space for functional or entertaining purposes. And if that doesn't convince you than maybe this will — most insurance companies offer a discount on your rates if you have a flat roofs as they are less likely to suffer from wind or hail damage and often times more resistant to fire.

There are tons of varieties of flat or low sloped roofs to choose from. In our case we looked at several roofing options from ballasted (which uses gravel to hold down the roofing material to rubber membrane usually know as EPDM and CSPE, but ultimately we selected a PVC roofing material called Duro-Last which is made of a thermoplastic, reinforce membrane then custom cut to fit the size of each project. I love the idea that there are no job site seams which minimizes the risk for human error. As well the product comes in a white finish which works to reflect the heat of the summer sun vs. attracting and collecting it (like dark colored roofing materials), giving it the highest retained reflectivity of any single-ply membrane rated by the EPA's ENERGY STAR® program. As well Duro-Last is can be completely recyclable at the end of i's life cycle which has earned it the U.S. Green Building Council seal of approval.

I contacted Duro-Last directly and they provided me with a list of certified installers in the area who were able to give me an estimate. Since most of this stuff is used in a commercial capacity this was one group of sub-contractors who were by no means puzzled by the modern nature of our house. We selected the Fridley Roofing Company to do the installation of our roof as they are among the top installers of Duro-Last roofing in the country and came on a good recommendation from the manufacturer. Now I'm getting excited to watch the installation of the roof and see the process in action.

— Posted by Jason Hammond on June 20th, 2007, From the Ground Up

A few years ago I travelled across the Canadian prairies in the month of February. The prairies are famous for the large amounts of snow they get. I saw many warehouses. Warehouses are built by smart businessmen, who spend their money wisely. You know what? Every single warehouse had a flat roof. These were huge warehouses, too. Keeping the goods inside dry and safe. I guess the businessmen hadn't heard about snow loads and leaks. Why, those warehouse builders must be dumb as rocks. And those insurance agents that charge LESS insurance for flat roofed homes, they must be ninnies! No wonder the insurance rates keep going up! I jest, I jest.

A conventional home-builder friend of mine said that a flat roof is very hard to keep free of leaks. If you use good technique, leaks are not an issue. Then he said you would have to put in extra work to make the building stronger, so it can support the flat roof. This is true. But that isn't a bad thing. God wants families to live in the same house, on the same land, for generation after generation. Putting in the time and effort to build a good house is also good incentive to stick around, instead of playing real estate hop-scotch.

Leviticus 25
23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.

Micah 4
4 But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of יהוה of hosts hath spoken it.

As believers, our lives are governed by that giant clock in the sky, consisting of sun, moon, and stars. A flat roof makes it easier to observe the sky at night. A flat roof gives us a place to put our sukkah's at the feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles). A flat roof turns your house into a lookout tower, always a useful thing. A flat roof increases the usable square footage of your house, with the same ecological footprint. The battlement commanded to be built around the house turns your house into a fortress, easy to defend when the Moabites come raiding. Very few houses built today are easy to defend. Nor are they built to last; they are designed to be destroyed and rebuilt in thirty years. A flat roofed home will be built to last. The savings in maintenance and heating costs will more than repay the greater up-front investment in a flat roof.

Building a house with a flat roof might cost more money and take more effort, but that isn't a problem when you are obeying יהוה's other commandments. In fact, it is a material asset. At the end of the day, most people who object to flat roofs seem to object to the slightly higher initial cost of designing and building the house. Man's ways are not God's ways. Look to the long term, not the short term.]]> http://reactor-core.org/~djw/myblog/archives/2008/10/24/T12_14_56/ 2008-10-24T12:14:56-08:00 Ted Walther Thanks to John Bryant for passing on the information yesterday.

With the current economic collapse and fright on the stock market, demand has outstripped supply of gold (at the official prices) by more than ten times. People are trying (too late) to switch their assets into something inflation-proof. But gold supplies are very limited. Good luck buying more than a coin or two at a time. In response to the high demand, enterprising forgers are making fake gold bars and coins and selling them on the market.

The Density Test to Catch Fraud

Everyone is familiar with the concept of density; how much weight will fit into a given volume. The more weight fits into a volume, the greater the density. Every substance has a unique density that helps identify it. The very concept of density was invented twenty-two hundred years ago by the Greek philosopher Archimedes for the purpose of detecting fake, impure, or diluted gold. Lead is less dense than gold. When lead is mixed with gold, the overall density of the lump of metal goes down. Archimedes used this fact to catch a dishonest goldsmith in the act of fraud.

Before the density test, gold was debased with lead. Lead is very dense, cheap, and easy to work with because of its low melting point. But it isn't as dense as gold. The density test will catch it every time.

To successfully overcome the density test, you need to mix gold with a substance that is exactly as dense as the gold itself is. Since nothing has the exact density of gold, forgers approximate it by mixing something of higher density, with something of lower density, so the result is exactly the density of gold.

The difficulty in faking gold is in finding substances denser than gold. Almost everything is less dense than gold. Most things that are denser than gold are also more expensive than gold. A hundred years ago, platinum was cheaper than gold, so forgers used platinum. Now platinum, which is denser than gold, is also much more expensive than gold, so you don't see forgers using this technique.

It was brought to my attention today that modern forgers are using tungsten instead, covering a granulated tungsten core with a thin coating of real gold. Tungsten has a density of 19.25 gms/cc, compared to gold at 17.19 gms/cc.

Tungsten is cheaper than gold, but it wasn't used in the past because it was so hard to work with. Tungsten has a melting point 1000° higher than most commercial furnaces and kilns can provide. A new technique has come into vogue. The tungsten, which is hard to melt, pour, or forge, is turned into powder. Then the powder is mixed with something such as resin, epoxy, or clay and pressed into cakes of the right size and shape. The result, if you mixed the tungsten powder and resin in the right ratio, is something with the same density as gold.

New Tests to Defeat Gold Fraud

Electrical Resistance

Every substance has a characteristic electrical resistance. You can measure this with a cheap $5 voltmeter bought at any electronics shop. Divide the voltage drop across the coin by the weight of the coin to get the resistance of the coin. If the resistance doesn't match that of gold, you have a fake!

Thermal Conductivity

Gold is extremely thermally conductive. Every substance has a characteristic thermal conductivity that can be used to identify it. To test it, you need two temperature probes, a hot plate, and a stopwatch. This equipment should cost less than $100 at any electronics shop. Heat up the hotplate. Put one temperature probe on the hot plate. Then let the edge of the coin touch the hot plate. Put the other temperature probe at the top of the coin. Use the stopwatch to measure how long it takes for the top of the coin to get ten degrees hotter. Divide that number by the weight of the coin. The number will tell you the thermal conductivity of the coin. If the conductivity doesn't match that of gold, you have a fake!

Spectrometer

Spectrometers, spectroscopes, spectrographs, and mass spectrograms are destructive tests, making them unsuitable for rare coins. Also, they are expensive, requiring bulky, expensive machinery.

Reflective spectroscopy (as opposed to emissive) is useless, because the coating of the coin is probably pure gold.

MRI and radioactive emission spectroscopy are non-destructive tests that can be done, but they are very expensive and require bulky machinery.

Magnetic Field Test

A test suggested by John Sokol is to put the coin next to an electric coil and watch the effect it has on the magnetic field generated by the coil. This is called the AC (Alternating Current) magnetic field eddy current test. The fingerprint of this test is also unique for most substances. The equipment needed should cost less than $100 for this test. This is a theoretical test; if there is interested parties, we could spend the time to work up the design and parts list.

X-Ray Density

Fire some xrays through the coin and see how many make it through the coin. That will tell you a lot about the metal. Cost of the equipment, same as a dental x-ray machine, $10,000 and up.

Acoustic Resonance

This test must be tuned to the specific coin, such as a krugerrand or gold maple leaf. You find the resonant frequency of the coin. For the particular weight and size of the coin, the resonant frequency will tell you a lot about the composition of the coin. This test could identify a coin through 1/4 mile of water.

For further reading on detecting fraudulent coins, I recommend the website of Dr. Ilya Prokopov.

The information on thermal conductivity and electrical resistance was inspired by the silent computing work done by John Sokol. John Sokol was consulted on the spectroscopy, sonar, radar, xray, and magnetic field aspects of testing for gold.]]> http://reactor-core.org/~djw/myblog/archives/2008/09/13/T21_57_53/ 2008-09-13T21:57:53-08:00 Ted Walther The Reactor Core library has a new addition today: the full text of La Vita Sobra, The Sober Life, by Alvise Luigi Cornaro.

For the past few years there have been rumblings in the scientific press about calorie restriction diets. Mice and rats who had their calorie intake cut in half would live twice as long, age twice as slowly, and were much healthier. People have of course, been wanting to know how to apply this information to their lives. Who doesn't want to be healthy and then live twice as long? The scientific press has been stubbornly silent. Experiments on humans are costly. They are still waiting for the results to come in from the calorie restriction experiments on monkeys.

Fear not! The Word of God comes to our rescue. The proper calorie restriction diet for humans boils down to Quantity, and Quality. In 1482 A.D., Italian nobleman Alvise Luigi Cornaro went on a calorie restriction diet recommended by his doctors. He lived to be 102 years old, in good health. He was mentally keen right up to the day he passed away peacefully in his rocking chair.

When already in his eighties, Luigi wrote down the secret to his long and healthy life. That writing is presented today as the book La Vita Sobra, The Sober Life.

I recommend reading it; it is a good read. But for the impatient, here is a summary:

Luigi only ate kosher meats, and followed other Torah laws. As a citizen of a heavily Catholic country in the middle ages, he couldn't openly advocate people follow the Torah. He would have been burned at the stake as a suspected convert to Judaism. But when you look at the list of meat Luigi ate, it is 100% kosher!

His daily diet consisted of bread, eggs, cheese, butter, vegetable soup, and wine. Meat was an occasional treat. By weight, he drank slightly more wine as he ate. 14 ounces of wine is about two glasses of wine.

This is great news, because these foods are ALL spoken of favorably in the Bible.

Some modern diet people have looked at Luigi's diet and wondered about how much better he would have done if he followed the "raw" diet, and not eaten the bread at all. One example is in this article: Dr. Stanley Bass, Natural Hygienist writes on Luigi Cornaro. The article itself is inconsistent, since Luigi's own words show that he did eat chicken and fish. Perhaps the mistake shows a vegetarian bias on the part of Dr. Stanley Bass. Then the article implies that Luigi didn't eat "fresh" foods. Good grief! Nothing in Luigi's articles implies that he ate anything but freshly made foods. Certainly the vegetable soup would have been made fresh every day. But if you reject bread and dairy products, then they wouldn't count as "fresh" I suppose.

I believe the raw food fad is exactly that, a fad. It is true many foods are missing the nutrients and vitamins we need. But our body as an alchemical ability, in common with other living creatures, to transmute elements and create the necessary vitamins and nutrients. We just have to give our bodies sufficient feedstock to manufacture what it needs. Whole grain rye bread is excellent. So are eggs and milk products. So is vegetable soup. So is meat. Everything in moderation.

Sadly, today I finished reading a book by Paul Nison, Health According to the Scriptures. The book preaches Torah observance, but then sticks in raw food and vegetarianism as the ideal diets without any scriptural support. Further, it advocates mushrooms (leprosy) and seaweed (algae) in his dietary plan.

Paul Nison did make good points, which Luigi Cornaro already wrote about; eat twice a day, and don't overeat. Paul Nison also made the good point that God's People anciently observed a twelve hour day from sunrise to sunset. This means the hours change with the seasons. Based on the practice in the tabernacle of sacrificing the daily offering at the third and the ninth hour, Paul advocates we eat at the same time. This sounds like a good practice and I plan to follow it as soon as I am able. Another good thing Paul Nison wrote is, sleep when it is dark. Don't use electric lights if you can help it, but go to sleep at a good hour, and wake at a good hour. This puts us back in tune with יהוה's clock.

Summary:

• eat only twice a day, at the third and ninth hours after sunset
• only eat kosher foods, such as bread, eggs, cheese, butter, and wine
• only eat as much food as you need; Luigi needed 12 ounces per day
• sleep when it gets dark

Scriptural Support:

Proverbs 30:8-9
8 Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:
9 Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is יהוה? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.

Proverbs 23:21 For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

Challenge to Vegetarians: I challenge any raw foodist or vegetarian to spend a twelve hour day lifting hay bales or doing a forty mile forced march without resorting to bread and potatoes to provide the raw sugar energy that the body needs to perform such activities. When you do a lot of physical exertion, your dietary needs go up, and your body is capable of handling the so called "bad foods" that the dieticians want us to eliminate completely. Bread is a blessing from God.

I want to tell you as briefly as I can what I expect of you. I would ask you to forget the political aspect of the programme. Political consequences of this struggle there are, but you are not to concern yourself with them. If you do, you will miss the true result and also miss the political consequences, and when the real heat of the struggle is touched you will be found wanting. I am therefore anxious, even if it frightens you, to explain to you the true nature of the struggle. It is a struggle deeply religious for the Hindus. We are endeavouring to rid Hinduism of its greatest blot. The prejudice we have to fight against is an age-long prejudice. The struggle for the opening of the roads round the temple which we hold to be public to the unapproachables is but a small skirmish in the big battle. If our struggle was to end with the opening of the roads in Vykom you may be sure I would not have bothered my head about it. If, therefore you think that the struggle is to end with opening of the roads in Vykom to the unapproachables you are mistaken. The road must be opened. It has got to be opened. But that will be the beginning of the end. The end is to get all such roads throughout Travancore to be opened to the unapproachables; and not only that, but we expect that our efforts may result in amelioration of the general condition of the untouchables and unapproachables. That will require tremendous sacrifice. For our aim is not to do things by violence to oppenents. That will be conversion by violence or compulsion; and if we import compulsion in matters of religion, there is no doubt that we shall be committing suicide. We should carry on this struggle on the lines of strict non-violence, i.e. by suffering in our own persons. That is the meaning of Satyagraha. The question is whether you are capable of every suffering that may be imposed upon you or may be your lot in the journey towards the goal. Even whilst you are suffering you may have no bitterness — no trace of it — against your opponents. And I tell you it is not a mechanical act at all. On the contrary I want you to feel like loving your opponents, and the way to do it is to give them the same credit for honesty of purpose which you would claim for yourself. I know that it is a difficult task. I confess that it was a difficult task for me yesterday whilst I was talking to those friends who insisted on their right to exclude the unapproachables from the temple roads. I confess there was selfishness behind their talk. How then was I to credit them with honesty of purpose? I was thinking of this thing yesterday and also this morning, and this is what I did. I asked myself: Wherein was their selfishness or self-interest? It is true that they have their ends to serve. But so have we our ends to serve. Only we consider our ends to be pure and, therefore, selfless. But who is to determine where selflessness ends and selfishness begins? Selflessness may be the purest form of selfishness. I do not say this for the sake of argument. But that is what I really feel. I am considering their condition of mind from their point of view and not my own. Had they not been Hindu they would not have talked as they did yesterday. And immediately we begin to think of things as our opponents think of them, we shall be able to do them full justice. I know that this requires a detached state of mind, and it is a state very difficult to reach. Nevertheless for a Satyagrahi it is absolutely essential. Three-fourths of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world will disappear, if we step into the shoes of our adversaries and understand their standpoint. We will then agree with our adversaries quickly or think of them charitably. In our case there is no question of our agreeing with them quickly as our ideals are radically different. But we may be charitable to them and believe that they actually mean what they say. They do not want to open the roads to the unapproachables. Now whether it is their self-interest or ignorance that tells them to say so, we really believe that it is wrong of them to say so. Our business, therefore, is to show them that they are in the wrong and we should do so by our suffering. I have found that mere appeal to reason does not answer where prejudices are age-long and based on supposed religious authority. Reason has to be strengthened by suffering and suffering opens the eyes of understanding. Therefore, there must be no trace of compulsion in our acts. We must not be impatient, and we must have an undying faith in the means we are adopting. The means we are adopting just now are that we approach the four barricades, and as we are stopped, there we sit down and spin away from day to day, and we must believe that through it the roads must be opened. I know that it is a difficult and slow process. But if you believe in the efficacy of Satyagraha, you will rejoice in this slow torture and suffering, and you will not feel the discomfort of your position as you go and sit in the boiling sun from day to day. If you have faith in the cause and the means and in God the hot sun will be cool for you. You must not be tired and say, how long, and never get irritated. That is only a small portion of your penance for the sin for which Hinduism is responsible.

— M. K. Gandhi. pp 192-194 Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha), published by Schocken Books, New York, 1961.

This is a far cry from those people who are quick to label their near-of-kin as Amalekites, the one race that was to be exterminated whereever they be found.

Gandhi tried hard to reform Hinduism into a more righteous faith. The means he used were called Satyagraha, meaning, holding on to the truth.. That is the essence of the struggle of Torah keepers. We too are Satyagrahi. Because we have a foundation of truth in the Torah delivered by Moses, the lowliest of our number will achieve much more than Mohandas Gandhi.

One final thing to remember about Satyagraha, is that it works best within kinship groups. When faced with an external, alien group that is trying to exterminate your group, non-violent resistance does not work. It is anti-Torah. The concept of clinging to the truth (Satyagraha) has nothing to do with laying down your life before an alien, trying to change his mind. Rachel Corrie, a 23 year old German girl, tried to stop Israeli soldiers from evicting Palestinian Muslims from their homes. She used non-violent resistence by lying down in front of the bulldozers that were to demolish the homes. Israeli soldiers shot and killed her when she refused to get out of the way. The Palestinians were still evicted. In the first place, it was wrong for an alien (Rachel) to interfere in the politics of another group. In the second place, if it had been right of her, she could only have succeeded by the use of overwhelming physical force, including troops, tanks, cannons, and so on.

I hope this New Moon (rosh chodesh) finds you well.]]> http://reactor-core.org/~djw/myblog/archives/2008/07/30/T17_59_00/ 2008-07-30T17:59:00-08:00 Ted Walther For several years I had an article posted to the web, God's Food Laws in Today's World. I incorrectly stated that halibut was kosher. The article is now fixed.

Halibut is a delicious species of fish found off the east and west coasts of North America. Alas, it is delicious in the same way that shrimp, pork, lobster, and oysters are. Halibut is a bottom-feeding, carnivorous fish comparable to flounder.

For a fish to be kosher, or legal to eat under the Law of God, the Torah, it must have fins and scales. The fins and scales must be easily visible to the naked eye, under the "could a naked man in the Garden of Eden do this" rule. Halibut definitely have fins, but they lack scales.

A simple web search will tell you that halibut has scales. However, a deeper search reveals that halibut have tiny scales, not visible to the naked eye with a simple glance. And the "scales" are hidden under a layer of skin, so you wouldn't notice them when you scrape a knife along the skin. When a fish has good scales, if you scrape a knife along the skin, the scales will pop off and fly all ove the place in a very noticeable way.

To get this information I spoke to "Will" at Aero Trading in Prince Rupert, which processes a lot of Pacific Halibut. At his suggestion, I then called the International Pacific Halibut Commission in at the University of Washington.

Canada produces Pacific halibut (hippoglossus stenolepeis) and Atlantic halibut (hippoglossus hippoglossus), which are both not kosher. A photo on the web of a California halibut (paralichthys californicus) does seem to have large, easily visible scales. The Halibut Commission recommended I call them back when one of their experts on California halibut is in. California halibut don't exist any farther north than California, and I don't know how commercially important they are. It is safe to assume that any halibut being sold in stores is Pacific or Atlantic halibut unless the sign says otherwise.

While doing my research, it was alleged that "Canfisco" plant in Prince Rupert, the Canadian Fish Company, is processing some type of halibut and calling it "kosher". Even though they call it kosher, if it went into the fish packing plant without fins and scales, it isn't kosher.

The article is now also updated with better information about tuna, mackerel, sailfish, and flying fish. Previously I had thought these fish also were kosher. Flying fish has a type of gooey slime over its skin that wards off predators. It isn't good for humans to handle flying fish for very long, the goo affects us as well. Why do we want to eat them again?

Keep Torah, keep healthy!]]> http://reactor-core.org/~djw/myblog/archives/2008/07/26/T22_00_06/ 2008-07-26T22:00:06-08:00 Ted Walther In a previous incarnation of the Reactor Core, I hosted an article by Marshall Smith on the topic of SARS, which was the big scare back in 2003. Lately a friend sent me an article on avian bird flu. The article had some accurate facts, but it went around in circles blaming everything on "vaccinations" and government conspiracies to wipe out world population.

I recommend you read Marshall Smith's article instead of chicken little crap. His article is here: Chinese Biological Warfare and SARS.

Marshall Smith makes the following important points:

• SARS and Avian bird flu are the same as Influenza
• All of the aforementioned are usually harmless.
• Aspirin and other meds that take down your fever turn these flus into deadly killers.
• Fever is the bodies defense mechanism, don't mess with it
• All bird flus reach humans by anti-Torah farming practices involving pigs, geese, ducks, and humans.
• Do skip the vaccinations, but don't get worked up about them.

Happy reading!]]> http://reactor-core.org/~djw/myblog/archives/2008/07/19/T18_15_57/ 2008-07-19T18:15:57-08:00 Ted Walther Jake wrote in with some extra insights when he started meditating on the consequences of Adam being created on the third, rather than the sixth, day. This is a followup to this previous article: Adam Created on the Third Day, and What it Means.

Date: Day 9, Month 4, Year 2730 of Ephraim's Exile (Friday, July 11, 2008)
From: Jacob Fronczak

I didn't think of it until now, but the Third Day creation also invalidates the various theories (including the one on Hope of Israel) that include some idea that man used to be a Neanderthal and then had the breath of life breathed into him or that blacks were created first and are "beasts of the field." If man preceded all other forms of life, all theories of Theistic Evolution are also made defunct, just by that simple rearrangement of order. Interesting how fixing one seemingly inconsequential problem fixes a bunch of bigger problems as well.

Thanks to Jake's input, I have revised and update the original article, which you can still read here: Genesis One and Two Compared — Adam Created on the Third day, not the Sixth.

The article displays Genesis 1 and 2 side by side so you can easily see the whole story of creation that these two different accounts tell. You will see that they agree with, and do not conflict with each other.

It can seem at first that the creation of mankind on the sixth day conflict with the idea that Adam was created on the third day. The article addresses this item and shows it not to be an issue after all.

The article also contains a little bit of commentary on Genesis 1 and 2, concerning the nature of families in heaven, the implications of Adam's first job being the naming of animals, and so forth.

Amusingly, I did this parallel study in the winter of 2007/2008. I quickly phoned all my friends in the British Israel and Messianic movements and shared it with them. Lately, when I mention this research to people, they say they've already heard it from other people. Word spreads quickly, hallelujah!

Update Day 19, Month 4, Year 2730 of Ephraim's Exile (July 19, 2008) Jake Fronczak wrote in with an update to this article; read about it here: Update on Adam's Third Day Creation

The 1835 moon hoax is interesting as a work of science fiction. Falsely ascribed to astronomer Sir John Herschel, the moon hoax talked of primitive, hut-dwelling beaver-men, purple unicorns, and flying men with wings like bats.

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the founders and leaders of the Mormon church, taught as doctrine that men live on the moon, are six feet tall, and dress like Quakers. Perhaps they got their information from this very hoax, which was published just as the Mormon church was getting founded. You can read the evidence here and here.

Intelligent, educated people believed in the Moon Hoax of 1835 for a very long time. Today, a lot of intelligent, educated people have fallen for the NASA Moon Hoax of 1969. Things don't change much.]]> http://reactor-core.org/~djw/myblog/archives/2008/05/29/T00_47_04/ 2008-05-29T00:47:04-08:00 Ted Walther Christian priests, pastors, and leaders tell their flocks that they must believe in the Trinity, but that it is a mystery, and they can't hope to understand it. If you don't believe in the Trinity, then you are rejecting the Son of God himself. This is no different from the cad that tells a child to close his eyes and open his mouth. You just know he is going to put a slug or a caterpillar in that trusting child's mouth!

For years, I have wondered why people get so upset about the Trinity doctrine. Many Christians get upset if you don't believe in it. For a while I thought it had to do with preventing people from keeping Torah. Then I thought it was to promote the doctrine of original sin. Although the Trinity does both of those two things, they are side effects. They are not the central purpose of the Trinity doctrine.

This evening the answer came. The Trinity started out as a formula that would allow the Christians to worship Jesus as a God, which fit into the Roman culture of the time. In the Roman culture of the time, each emperor was God on earth. People sacrificed animals to the emperor in special churches built for the honor of the emperor. Julius Caesar, the first emperor, inventor of the seven day week and the solar calendar we use today, was worshipped as God the Father. Augustus Caesar, the second caesar, was worshipped as God the Son. The very concept and language of the Trinity was the basis for the Roman religion of emperor worship. By accepting the Trinity, we are adopting the Roman form of emperor worship!

However, by the time of Nicaea, 300 years after Jesus, a different reason for the Trinity came into being. Both Catholic and Orthodox branches of the Christian church used the doctrine of the Trinity to preserve the power of the priesthood.

Think about it this way. Staunch Trinitarians acknowledge that very few people in the world "correctly understand the Trinity". Truly educated Christians limit this number to a mere handful, less than twenty at any moment in time. The Trinity is a doctrine that contradicts many scriptures, and has to be read into the few scriptures used in its support. The Catholic church calls it a "mystery", which must be believed without evidence. In fact, the Trinity is a doctrine designed to be so contradictory and contrary to any logic, reason, or common-sense, that noone can HONESTLY say they understand it. At least, not at face value.

Now, imagine what effect this has on the layman. Suppose you study the word of God for yourself. You come to some conclusions. But you, poor naive, express yourself in Biblical language. You express yourself in a way that is ever so slightly different from the exact wording and phrasing of the Trinitarian Creeds of Nicaea and Chalcedon. Now the priesthood and church attacks you! You have denied the Trinity! You have denied Jesus himself! You must recant and repent!

This only needs to happen to you a few times before you realize that you better not study the word of God; if you do, you can always be accused of not believing in the Trinity, the single most important creed of the Christian faith.

You see, noone can understand the Trinity. So everyone who talks about the nature of Jesus and God is vulnerable to accusations that they are heretics. This is the perfect weapon to keep the people in the dark, and maintain the power of the priests. Tell people to believe in something that they can't understand, and which can't be found in the Bible. Then when they do, they are now trapped; if they go to the Bible, the priest can use the Trinity stick to beat them with and stop them from further study. If they persist in Bible study, then the priest pulls out the excommunication or disfellowshipping stick.

When you accept the Trinity "mystery" from a priest, you acknowledge the priest as the earthly representative of God, just like a prophet, speaking the very words of God. If then you have accepted the priest as a prophet, you must obey him as if he were God himself. Those are the rules. I didn't make them up. When a prophet speaks a word from God himself, you have to obey, or be smitten from on high. When everyone around you accepts the false prophet, you are in great peril if you find out that he is a false prophet. Very few people have the courage to acknowledge they have been fooled by a false prophet. So instead of exposing the charlatans for what they are, most people will pretend that the naked emperor is actually wearing clothes, as described in the fable, "The Emperor's New Clothes".

The Trinity doctrine is the Christian religion's equivalent of the Jewish Talmud. The Trinity doctrine makes the priests the final arbiter of right and wrong, the only interpeters of the Word of God. Just so, Rabbi Akhiva and his followers laid a foundation of Jewish doctrine that made their interpretation of Torah superior to Torah itself. A Jewish Rabbi can contradict the Torah; because of the Talmudic doctrine of Akhiva, the Jew must believe the Rabbi, not the plain meaning of Torah.

I have observed a close link between Christians and Jews for their entire 2000 year history. I believe the closeness of the link is that they both claim the right to interpret the Word of God any way they see fit. The Jews at least acknowledge they are Pharisees; the Christians are in denial about it.

I see hope for the future. Some Jews are coming out of Judaism and becoming Karaite Jews, reading Torah and taking it at its face value. Some Christians are coming out of Christianity and accepting the words of Jesus that "I did not come to destroy the law; not one little bit of it shall pass away until heaven and earth pass away". (Matthew 5:18) Last time I looked, heaven and earth haven't passed away. Torah, or the Law of God as delivered by Moses, is still in effect!

These are exciting times. We live in a time of spiritual awakening. God's people, Jew and Christian alike, are wakening from their long sleep and thirsting for His truth, for the yoke that is light and the burden that is easy. There is a prophecy that in the later days knowledge will increase and many people will do research. It has come true. This very internet that you are reading this on is a major move on the part of God to allow his knowledge to spread. Keep on with your studies, and I hope we can meet at some future Feast of Tabernacles in the Jerusalem that is to come!

So, why is the Trinity doctrine so important? Because it stops YOU from reading God's Word and believing it; if you do read and believe it, you will be cast out of your church. The Trinity doctrine is important because it forces you to stop thinking and reasoning on religious topics, and give over your power of reason to the church, which does with it as it wishes.

Isn't your mind your own? Does anyone have a right to stop you from thinking and considering? Didn't God give you the gift of reason? Doesn't the Bible say that your power of reason and discernment are developed and strengthened through excercise and use? So what then, if you are not allowed to use them? They atrophy, and you become slaves, feudal serfs to greedy homosexuals and powerhungry men who put on a saintly veneer to hide their wolfish personalities.

Of course, once you have agreed to the priests authority by accepting the Trinity as the defining creed of your faith, the word of the priest trumps the word of God. So you'll never really believe God when he says this:

Deuteronomy 6:6-7
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you travel in the road, and when you lie down to sleep, and when you rise up from sleep.