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Friday, October 3, 2008

"The Firmament" Video

On July 12 [2008] there was a post in the Two Witnesses forum about a video called The Firmament :- http://www.thefirmament.org/
The original poster said, "I just ran across this, and decided to start a new thread about it. What's your thoughts on this?"
The second poster said, "That is so cool, Roseanne!"

Since I knew some of the history of the second poster, alarm bells started to ring urgently.
After a critical review of the video, I realised that a prudent approach was indeed what was required. The makers of the video are obviously trying to recruit people who are vulnerable and easily influenced.
This was my reply on the forum :-

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Sorry, but alarm bells are ringing! Please do not ignore the following!

The last message in the video is: "The time remaining is very short."
Who said that? How does he or she know?

One of the questions in the FAQ is: "Does it cost anything to subscribe?" The answer given is: "No, there is no cost to be added to the mailing list and there is no cost to view the presentation."
We know very well that there will probably be very substantial costs or tithes further down the line (as "the time" gets nearer).

Another question is: "Why are you using the imperial measure instead of metric?" The answer given is: "The imperial measures and those of the celestial bodies recur in the Bible. The metric will show no such parallels. A strong indicator the message is for those who use and relate to those measures and the evidences presented."
This is very dangerous. Please recall times in history when despots and dictators used this kind of racist nonsense.

There are many problems with the distances given in the video :-

They say the diameter of the Sun is 864,000 miles. NASA say it is 864,400 miles. (The equatorial radius x 2) http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Sun&Display=Facts&System=Metric

They say the diameter of the Moon is 2,160 miles. NASA say it is 2,159.2 miles. (The equatorial radius x 2) http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Moon&Display=Facts&System=Metric

They quote Ezekiel 43:13 - "A cubit is a cubit and a hand breadth." They admit that there have been many definitions of the length of a cubit in history ranging from 18 inches to 3 feet, and go on to say that they have decided that 24 inches should be used as the correct length. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubit
Their reasoning is faulty, and there isn't any evidence to backup their theories.

They define a hand breadth as the distance from the end of an extended thumb to the base of the little finger.
Who decided that the thumb has to be extended? Why?
They say that the distance from the outside of the elbow to the finger tips is 18 inches.
My distance is 18 and a half inches.
They say that that a hand breadth (as above) is 6 inches.
My distance is 6 and a half inches.
I'm not exactly a big person - my height is 6 feet - fairly average for a man these days. Who knows what the distances would have been on men living in the Middle East about 2,500 years ago?

Please be careful out there ....
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