Community | December 13, 2009 | 81 comments

Asteroid Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, not God

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Hurtsville
According to the Bible, the men of Sodom were such sinners against the Lord, He decided to destroy them. God allowed Lot, the one good man living there, to flee the town with his family, before God showed his wrath. But Lots wife disobeyed Gods warning not to look back towards Sodom as she fled, and she was turned into a pillar of salt, where she stood.

A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witnesss account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across.

Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, scientists have pinpointed his sighting to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123 B.C. Around the same soddom and gommorah were destroyed by "god".

I was watching this on discovery and had to share with you guys.

It is my firm belief bible stories are just ideologies of natural events that seemed strange to the people of the time.
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81 comments // Asteroid Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, not God

  • mitekillem
    • 0
      mitekillem  
    • I considered Atheism for a long time, then found too many "holes" in the theory, and too many "coincidences". From a logical explanation. If there were an all powerful being who created the universe, would he not also be the creator and commander of the laws therein? i.e. Physics, Asteroids, etc. The only part of the story that is miraculous, is that someone was told to leave the City, by God. ...and that if he didn't he'd be vaporized, or "reduced to a pilar of salt", which is similar to ash.

      To disprove God, would be to disprove existence.

    • 2 years ago
  • 1source
    • 0
      1source  
    • Greetings! as in what's up, not season greetings.

      My apologies. When I commented on the sodom and gomorrah bit; I meant intelligent design in referring to creationism and renown scientists being shun for the ultimate conclusion of inteligent design, not creationism. Wow, major brain fart, the two are not exactly the same.

      This forum is great! Randomly ran into the article online, found myself inclined to comment on it and baddah boom baddah bing I register meself to me vary own current account. Hey good things come from ebracing the moment and interaction.

      For those that responded to my comment, greetings, cheers and salutations. I will reply.

      Current is a much needed network of awareness, culture and entertainment. I like to think of it as Pacifica Radio gone tv only better.

      Pacifica are sound waves worth checking out: KPFA.org Berkely CA, KPFK.org Los Angeles CA, KPFT.org Houston TX, WBAI.org New York NY, WPFW.org Wash. DC

      Peace and progressive life

    • 2 years ago
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  
    • What? First the cities didn't exist. Now that they do they have to have a different way of telling the story so that they can be right. Awww....they didn't even know the cities existed. Not the first time the Bible said a place (or person) existed before they dug up evidence to show that the Bible was and is right.

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • J_Jammer:

      I keep making the point -
      If you take your appreciation of yourself and your supposed importance, on one side a balance-scale - and then all that happens on earth, add in the planets that go around that little energy-source, the sun, one star in 200 Billion in our galaxy, and is then only one in over 100 Billion galaxies - and put that on the other side of the balance-scale, it takes a pretty huge ego to think you matter much.
      It seems like you matter in the world as you have been thinking of it - but you haven't been thinking of the very universe that you believe your God has made - because it is so much bigger than you have been thinking that your prior ideas simply do not compete.
      And all the books and bibles do not compete.
      Of course, if you think they do, you necessarily believe your ideas are equal or somewhat equal with God - which makes them entirely, over-puffed ego as well.

      So keep on keeping on. It's only you blowing it ever more further down your otherwise very short life.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • J_Jammer:

      Actually the Bible says all the stars of heaven have been given a name. Everything and everyone God caused to be are special. If you want to keep insisting nothing is special or thinking it's your special job to assign the level of specialness you just know has to exist I guess that must be your choice of proselytizing the rest of us.

      You're a preacher!

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • J_Jammer:

      You make a good point - that regardless of how big or expansive the universe, the very reality of yourself, the 'specialness' of yourself is profound truth, of itself.

      We all grapple with the question of God, at some point to some degree.
      As with all things, we take our curiosity and drives to understand to a certain point.

      That point translates to a decision about what we conceive to be the reality of God for us.
      Maybe we revisit.

      Everyone is honest ('cept some of those preachers).

      But everyone is honest. They all want to know. After all the course of our lives find direction from our moral decisions.

      It is probably the only real worthwhile quality for us - that we remain honest for ourselves.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
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      Gravity_Man  
    • J_Jammer:

      Yeah. We have to keep knocking on the door, not just asking for answers but demanding they be provided us. Demand the inheritance and demand the correct instructions to obtain it.

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • J_Jammer:

      I think you are only going to find out what you bend your head around hard enough to find.
      We only get what we actually put together in our own mind.
      So it's definitely best to go beyond other people's offerings.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • J_Jammer:

      Denial of taking other people's word for things?
      Other people's ideas can be easily equated by looking around while driving: Those imbeciles who can't drive and don't want to think are your passengers through this life. I say, ask yourself about everything. Certainly figure to weed out most of what is written - it's all really from those same pedestrian sloths you see around you, day to day.
      But we all certainly have to find out for ourselves. At least, one would hope.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
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      Gravity_Man  
    • J_Jammer:

      One of the side effects of being bipolar is to double & triple check everything. It helped me drive a truck. Conditions change fast on the highway. I got to where I could feel the vibration off a car in my blind spot, the vibrations. I didn't need to see em to know they were there.

      I think someone has come up with a system that turns cellphones off when the car engine is running. It will take something like that to stop the craziness. The people are addicted to the phones. Getting wiped out by an asteroid that's bigger than me I could accept but it would be difficult to accept getting crushed by a phone addict.

      So what's the deal with you O2? You don't trust anything that's written? That sounds almost a 10 on the paranoid scale. I put more trust in what people write when they aren't getting paid a bundle... but you still have to keep your dukes up.

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • J_Jammer:

      I simply ask myself what is up with info that is passed about.

      IF - we had a world where someone or the 'group' had had it figured all out, long ago, etc, - such that info should be trusted, out of hand, that would be a different world than I have found.
      I find every reason why the world we embrace is supported by every degree uninformed over-biases. The dark ages is still being struggled against, intellectually.

      Knowledge is so raw and undeveloped we have a wild-west of anything you feel like. And 99.9999999999 etc, etc% stop with every first notion. Now they know - no, now they know - Now, no wait-a-minute, now... etc.
      The whole time, almost all of them stop trying long before they figure even themselves out.

      And then, I have constantly been amazed at my own ability to see more for the trying. But it's so easy, because knowledge is at such a generally shallow state.

      This is so because, most of the time, everybody is spending their energy trying to prove how right they were once upon a time. And of course, that was not right then and is the one thing they need to let go of in order to see further.

      Science is most famous for this. They know they haven't got it all figured out but they can't let go of the idea that the right answer must be some further slight differentiation on their already known incorrect theories. So the whole pack of them will only look at what they already believe in - even though it's wrong.

      But discovering what you don't know is the very key. So don't hold on to wrong. It may feel nice to people - but who wants to drive that car?

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
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      Gravity_Man  
    • J_Jammer:

      You are truly a deep thinker and I imagine a number of people have advised you against that. I can't speak for or against anyone being troubled by the Dark Ages... but I've been living inside the Dark Ages of my own since 1989 when I suddenly realized how SIMPLE it is to supply half this world's electricity from lighting.

      And no one had the brains to realize I was right. So I've been watching this Energy Shortage~Crisis drone on & on & on. I re-designed the QWERTY keyboard to spell 3-letter words vertically which would've helped MANY children learn to spell and write and THINK BETTER MORE LOGICALLY and it just sat too, joined the lightning.

      Then skip down to 2003 in the middle of a 5 month long artery & vein razor blading on the inside of all blood vessels I came across a compressed nitrogen engine and fixed it to develop 1100% or more horsepower than combustion engines and sat watching poor people suffering pumping $4 a gallon gas into their tanks.

      I faxed my discovery to the White House, not realizing in my illnesses they were employees of the crude oil industry. Over the next several years I posted on the Internet numerous explanations how it worked but instead of gathering support I ran into Bush's paid henchman arguing with me to keep anyone from understanding it worked.

      In early 2008 I finally realized how the process could best be engineered into a powerful engine, no emissions, no EPA regulations needed, no radiator, no [poisonous metals] catalytic converters, no tailpipes to corrode.

      I'm starting to think these people have swallowed a couple cellphones. They just seem to be bound and gagged determined to suffer an Inquisition-level existence. People don't want help. I guess it just has to sink slowly down into their conscious brain til they're ready and not a second before. Grin and bear it. People have this high & mighty attitude they have the luxury of choosing their champion.

      Maybe I need to have plastic surgery & look like Rock Hudson. Clayton Moore?

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
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      02  
    • J_Jammer:

      My friend's father invented television - and a form of fusion power. It's in my blood as well. They say, unless you, yourself actually have to power to proceed, just sit on it. Someone else may get there, but telling people is just throwing it away.

      And - invention development requires there aspects, (1) a business plan (developed to woo the boards of directors of the company to which you plan to sell or license), (2) the patents or patent paperwork and (3) a working model.
      The working model is part of your patent strategy but also has to go sweetly with the business plan.

      Those three things.

      Otherwise, you watch the world go by.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • J_Jammer:

      Oh, I've invented better since then. I put that one out to encourage people. It's very uplifting. If my main goal was getting rich... I've held back plenty other stuff to do that. I've filed patents before on other ideas. It's just a way of giving stuff to them. They know independents don't have any money to hold the patent.

      Not a problem I stopped filing em.

      Besides, I enjoy telling people about it. Last year I finally realized how the process world work. I haven't revealed every secret but it's basically an artificial [mechanical] heart. If someone "takes it" -which they won't because none of them want it- and builds it for me all the better => no more fuel pumps. It would still put money in my pocket and my family, and everybody else.

      hahaha The one invention no one will steal. I couldn't give it away at the intersection. However, the real reason they don't want it is because probably for decades they have understood how to use the power of aether (all the radiation energy bath bathing this planet). They aren't telling anybody they know that, but if a rank dummy like me could figure it out I believe they're hoarding nuts for winter.

      I don't know who "they" are but they sure have everybody's head in a vise.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • J_Jammer:

      The first early televisions lacked an isolation transformer so a number of people touched their metal cabinet and that was the last show they watched. My car engine is a form of desktop fusion but not the exotic one they want that uses radiation. They do love their radiation.

      My Millenial Dawn system in 2005 also is desktop fusion of a sort. It's a cross between a pinball machine and a waterwheel, but instead of using H2O molecules it uses metal balls. it's basically a railgun that propels the balls away but they return back... so it fires back at itself. The power from hitting the arms powers the recharge capacitor for the next firing but that still leaves the balls moving.

      So I designed a dual direction generator with fins on both arms to take the hit and use the last remaining energy to generate output power. I think that's called Over Unity. But it pulls a major miracle it defeats entropy. The balls are totally exhausted of kinetic motion, so when the balls come to a complete STOP before the next firing they "take on" a full 100% recharge of potential energy.

      I guess they don't need that either. It smacks too loudly of a Divine Creator who loved us so much he put such a miracle at our fingertips. Neither one of these engines holds a candle to aether power. I know how to harness that also. But until my car engine gets built I keep it to myself. Just like you said.

      I built a railgun of Peace and Plenty while the military rolled out a railgun that fires 1 million projectiles a minute it's for "crowd control".

    • 2 years ago
  • nursediesel
    • 0
      nursediesel  
    • If God created the earth and skys He created astroids, therefore He sent the astroid to destroy those lusty, self-centered, ignorant pathetic sinners that were partying and fornicating .... gee, sounds like reality TV.....

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • nursediesel:

      You've raised a very good point nursediesel. I hold a strong belief though that goes slightly different, that God stands back & allows stuff to happen, exposing us by His withdrawal of his powerful spirit force to what life would be like without His Help and Protection.

      To us it looks as if he is sending asteroids at us.

      He probably does that for some of the worst offenders, or like causing a world Flood when the angels materialized bodies so they could have sex with women. The one good way to make them re-enter heaven was to drown their human body. Once back there they were dealt with quickly and dispatched to a place the Bible calls Tartarus. Apparently being grouped together they discovered they could project their will into the minds of men, therefore today we have lots of people convinced they can do that also.

      You might then wonder why couldn't God just come down here and do the deed in person, but that ignores a basic rule. Since Adam & Eve sinned the Earth has apparently been marked Off Limits and God always observes His own laws. So in lieu of crossing His own line in the sand He uses forces of the elements, and sometimes even prophets to call them. Otherwise people would just call it an errant asteroid we were long overdue from Chance.

    • 2 years ago
  • icarus
  • icarus
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • nursediesel:

      Well, icarus, you could raise yourself out of that and boost your brain power by mixing up some of my Prospector's Health Tonic a couple times a week => http://tinyurl.com/doctorbillsvaccine and also stop cancers and kill every virus, bacteria and unwanted germ in your body. Stops cancer too, by raising Immune System health so high it stops cancer not the way you're thinking.

      Builds a little extra muscle and trims your waist too. I don't know anything that helps sarcasm though. That's probably a permanent condition. Try and keep it from surfacing whenever you're around those people wearing blue clothes and have these big sticks hanging on their belt.

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • nursediesel:

      What, do you mix this stuff up in your garage?
      Getting your body in shape boosts your immune system - out to Mars. Lose the fat. If you keep working out, you can eat anything - so it's worth the large effort to get there.
      It only hurts for a little while.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • nursediesel:

      I don't disagree with that but my body is vastly deficient from yours. My thyroid was from Mom's side of the family producing hormones for her brothers. It poisoned me because I had Dad's cell chemistry. In fact, recently I've made a really major find that Citromaz increases the excretion of lactic acid. I took some and it immediately made me half the couch potato I was.

      I've had to do a lot of research the past 6 1/2 years and purchased over $9,500.00 worth of health products to get my health moving. I was searching to find a "perfect combination" that would do everything I needed and it resulted in a magnificent combination that helps everybody.

      You can prepare it out in your garage in if ya want. I use a kitchen & a low power microwave that completes the maturation of the yellow onions to their full bioactive potency. That formula is a disease killer. I'll stack it against Swine Flu, Bird Flu and any kind of flu you can find.

      The Creatine Monohydrate helps improve muscle I have myasthenia gravis.

    • 2 years ago
  • Mark701
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      Mark701  
    • I'm not going to question the theory being presented, however I think the estimated size of the asteroid is way too big. A half-mile wide asteroid would probably destroy half the planet and dramatically affect the climate for years afterward.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Perhaps during creation God put in place laws we don't yet appreciate as fully as we should. Cosmic Energy seems to always be pulled toward Matter, the larger/heavier the Matter the more Energy goes to it, even seeks it out. It isn't a stretch that God would also have made laws regarding his created beings that they would experience a better (healthier) life by obeying those parameters.

      If we have statements and witness accounts of destruction happening ("being visited upon") people who lived an Everything Goes lifestyle isn't this evidence of a special law? Perhaps Sinning exerts a pull on destructive elements? Perhaps when people give way to doing everything they want it lowers some barrier, allowing them to become a special target of this law.

      Not too many weeks ago there was an article about new species of animals being observed showing up but humanity seems to be staying pretty much the same humanity. This species turnover observed happening to the animal and plant kingdoms while we people stay the same seems to indicate that the "natural order of things" is for us to stay the same while everything else is going & coming.

      We seem to be an exception to the rule, which would indicate we are in fact special, to somebody, to keep us tooling along rather static.

      The Bible tells a story alright, of how our first parents went outside the boundaries and all of their genetic progeny inherited their tendency to break down barriers. Our blood and plant chlorophyll are strikingly similar, so why is it that some trees can live over 2,000 years but we fall apart in 40-50 years? Some ocean turtles live to be 300 years of age.

      They follow the rules and they prosper we break the rules and we die. Unless in our hatred of each other we kill each other first. Why do we do that? Even within ourselves we understand that rule breakers deserve death. If men can judge other men as lacking and dispatch them into a grave then how can we deny the Maker of us that same allowance?

      The point is not to fear a crazy God who makes some place called hell to burn us forever for just a few years of following our own horn blowers. We have no evidence He would create such an overkill-level place. A burning hell of eternal torture was invented by the early Church to raise sagging membership and satisfy their lust for torture upon the wicked.

      The Bible is a very symbolic document. Fire was the most destructive power the writers knew. Fire reduces stuff til barely anything is left. Fire was used by Bible writers to mean everlasting you're gone. You choose not to obey the Owner's Manual then you cut yourself out of all the many promises found in the Bible, and also everlasting life, but that does not mean torture it just means you're dead forever because you chose to be dead forever.

      One writer did say -in a parable, a manufactured teaching aid story- that a person in hell lifted up his eyes being in torture, but what most people don't know is that at the time that was written the word for jailer literally meant tormentor. Death is a jail. Believing everything these churches tell ya is a big jail too. 99+% of the world's churches are at the top of God's next Sodom and Gomorhah list.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
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      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      The Big Question seems to be is "God" a collection of forces & systems operating automatically or is God a real Person? If we look into the depths of everything we've discovered so far and how so many things both on the micro and the macro scales work together... then it seems we have very little choice but to agree these forces are working together with an obvious and overwhelming intelligence of action, and also showing much planning ahead.

      Many people believe in evolution. Well, if we could evolve upwards then why could we not have to say those forces quickly evolved upwards also? If "God" started out as multiple assortments of forces then he would have quickly evolved into being God the Supreme Being.

      His growth would have been orders of magnitude faster than ours to such a point His beginning and His Present would be approaching indistinguishable to us. So why not just for the time being we all agree God exists and He had no beginning at all, he simply always was in existence.

      Using the masculine pronouns is not meaning to impose maleness on this Supreme Being and First Cause. We show respect to him because it was He who chose to make the male first. It was He who then made the female second. And yet in marriage both have equal rights, but if they fail at marriage they both share equal failure to operate harmoniously together as a problem solving juggernaut.

      As far as the New Testament is concerned the apostle Paul made it very clear that being first in creation puts the heavier load on the male. He also stated the man better treat the women right but what did we do instead? How many European women were destroyed by wars in the last century?

      Men bear the lion's share of responsibility for that. How many women today suffer from lack of fuel, lack of food and shelter for themselves and their children while we men build our expensive war machines that cry out to be used? and are being used now to what? Save women? A lot of women are once again being destroyed by these weapons. And their female children.

      Men harbor a deep hatred and also jealousy of women their big answer is war. As long as they cheapen life they feel they have somehow balanced the scales against the women... by making women less special. Men have extended their hatred of women out to include each other. How many times does some idiot accuse another male of claiming to be special, as if we aren't all special?

      Well, I'm both unique and special, get more unique and special every day I'm alive, but that isn't my ego talking it's a fact of life that applies across-the-board to everybody. Each is unique, each is special, but since men don't want to think that they keep starting wars. War destroys special. War and war deaths and war destruction shields men from having to believe there's a loving God.

      War is a hate crime against women and children. Those men who make war need to be gone. If their elimination comes from the elements, from falling meteors or asteroids, or hail out of a clear blue sky that burns on the ground, or comes from a big eraser come down out of the sky, whatever form it comes in I'm going to drop on my knees and thank God it has finally happened and give Him the credit for it.

      Unless we are consumed by the accumulating stench of our own actions first.

      People can only live standing in a cesspool for so long til the stuff enters our bloodstream.

      Which btw in fact is what the scientists tell us is happening now.

      Vomit contains a lot of flesh-dissolving stomach acid.

      We should fear our own vomit catching us before God does.

    • 2 years ago
  • Juliet66
    • 0
      Juliet66  
    • Gravity_Man:

      RE = 99+% of the world's churches are at the top of God's next Sodom and Gomorhah list.

      Yes, I do agree. The churches certainly will. They've mostly used religion to control people and I believe the Catholic Church; ie, Vatican, hijacked religion long ago.

      In some ways churches have been a guide for the masses with 'some' of their 'does & don'ts' but their 'do this or else' is, IMO, completely wrong.

      Merry Christmas

      No, I'm not PC just yet so I see nothing wrong saying such things.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
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      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      Using the teaching of a burning hell has served their purposes well over the centuries. Just like showing the three wise men at the manger, tugging at women's heart strings, all they ever did was lay traps. They padded their pockets by parlaying lies.

      All the gold and land they possess was obtained fraudulently.

      They'll get called to the mat one day.

    • 2 years ago
  • Juliet66
    • 0
      Juliet66  
    • As has been previously commented, 'Lot & Abraham' were not around at that time. Also mentioned was Z. Sitchen.

      For those that have open minds...you might want to read his: 'Genesis Revisited' book. He only translates the clay tablets that have been found, and are in museums in England & France.

      Having read the Bible version of Genesis I could never accept what was said to be the truth. After reading Sitchen's books, it's all quite clear now, to me anyway.

      Clears up a whole lot of myths, Gods, et al, and a few other things.

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
  • 1source
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      1source  
    • That's interesting and certainly another possible way to look at biblical events as acts of nature.

      I am personally inclined to merge both; that there is a fource behind nature and all its amazing systems and cycles. That "God" or a higher power is behind those driving forces of nature and science, thee master scientist if you will, the creator of science.

      That's my firm belief.

      Evolution itself, as discovered by renown scientist of various fields whom have been shun from their didactic proffesions of elaveted scholarship, ultimately leads to a creationist theory and solution. Something drove the big bang, for never in the laws of science has something derived or evolved from nothing. This is a common view and outcome that many devout atheist reach when rigorously seeking an understanding, as many men and women of science have.

      Enough said. I'll end my two scents with this: It takes incrediably more faith to NOT believe in a God, or higher power or something; than to believe that THERE IS SOMETHING beyond our finite brains and minds. Even if we did use the nogan to its full capacity, we are finite till we discover another realm or life and maybe even then we are finite. Who knows?! but I am curious.

      My solution is to choose to believe that God and science (nature) are in the same equation.

    • 2 years ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • The ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah have been discovered southeast of the Dead Sea. The modern names are Bab edh-Dhra, thought to be Sodom, and Numeira, thought to be Gomorrah. Both places were destroyed at the same time by an enormous conflagration. The destruction debris was about three feet thick. What brought about this awful calamity? Startling discoveries in the cemetery at Bab edh-Dhra revealed the cause. Archaeologists found that buildings used to bury the dead were burned by a fire that started on the roof.

      What would cause every structure in the cemetery to be destroyed in this way? The answer to the mystery is found in the Bible. “Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens” (Genesis 19:24). The only conceivable explanation for this unique discovery in the annals of archaeology is that burning debris fell on the buildings from the air. But how could such a thing happen?

      There is ample evidence of subterranean deposits of a petroleum-based substance called bitumen, similar to asphalt, in the region south of the Dead Sea. Such material normally contains a high percentage of sulfur. It has been postulated by geologist Frederick Clapp that pressure from an earthquake could have caused the bitumen deposits to be forced out of the earth through a fault line. As it gushed out of the earth it could have been ignited by a spark or surface fire. It would then fall to earth as a burning, fiery mass.

      It was only after Clapp formulated this theory that Sodom and Gomorrah were found. It turns out that the sites are located exactly on a fault line along the eastern side of a plain south of the Dead Sea, so Clapp's theory is entirely plausible. There is some evidence for this scenario from the Bible itself. Abraham viewed the destruction from a vantage point west of the Dead Sea. The Bible records what Abraham saw: “He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (Genesis 19:28). Dense smoke suggests smoke from a petroleum-based fire. Smoke rising like smoke from a furnace indicates a forced draft, such as would be expected from subterranean deposits being forced out of the ground under pressure.

      The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah became an example in the Bible of how God judges sin. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before Me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen” (Ezekiel 16:49-50).

      http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a007.html

      (note that there is no mention whatsoever of a crater there, which belies the theory that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a half-mile-wide asteroid.)

    • 2 years ago
  • SamuraiDave
    • 0
      SamuraiDave  
    • Image
    • http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article3649054.ece
      here is an actual news article on the subject which only suggests Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by this proposed asteroid. It mentions there are 20 ancient myths of destruction that could match this asteroid, S&G being one of them.

      -
      A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness’s account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

      Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across.

      The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal place at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700BC copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky.

      He referred to the asteroid as “white stone bowl approaching” and recorded it as it “vigorously swept along”.

      Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, scientists have pinpointed his sighting to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123BC.

      About half the symbols on the tablet have survived and half of those refer to the asteroid. The other symbols record the positions of clouds and constellations. In the past 150 years scientists have made five unsuccessful attempts to translate the tablet.

      Mark Hempsell, one of the researchers from Bristol University who cracked the tablet’s code, said: “It’s a wonderful piece of observation, an absolutely perfect piece of science.”

      He said the size and route of the asteroid meant that it was likely to have crashed into the Austrian Alps at Köfels. As it travelled close to the ground it would have left a trail of destruction from supersonic shock waves and then slammed into the Earth with a cataclysmic impact.

      Debris consisting of up to two thirds of the asteroid would have been hurled back along its route and a flash reaching temperatures of 400C (752F) would have been created, killing anyone in its path. About one million sq km (386,000 sq miles) would have been devastated and the impact would have been equivalent to more than 1,000 tonnes of TNT exploding.

      Dr Hempsall said that at least 20 ancient myths record devastation of the type and on the scale of the asteroid’s impact, including the Old Testament tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Ancient Greek myth of how Phaeton, son of Helios, fell into the River Eridanus after losing control of his father’s sun chariot.

      The findings of Dr Hempsall and Alan Bond, of Reaction Engines Ltd, are published in a book, A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels’ Impact Event.

      The researchers say that the asteroid’s impact would explain why at Köfels there is evidence of an ancient landslide 5km wide and 500m thick.

      Tale of devastation

      Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven; and he overthrew those cities and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities . . . [Abraham] looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.

      Source: Genesis 19:24-28

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
  • SamuraiDave
    • 0
      SamuraiDave  
    • People are so damn irritating because they are so damn obstinate! The same damn theist/atheist points that you see elsewhere get tossed out because the article mentions two biblical stories and a natural phenomenon that supposedly contradicts the Bible. This happens here with many controversial subjects because most people just react without doing any analysis.

      Hardly anyone has bothered to notice this is NOT a scientific article nor have they bothered to dig further into the fact that we actually have no idea where Sodom and Gomorrah were exactly located so how can we say they were destroyed by an asteroid when the jury is still out on their location and possibly even existence?

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • SamuraiDave:

      I saw some intrepid closet Christians claiming to be archaeologists who were trying to prove they had found it. They poked around in some old tumbs at a site.

    • 2 years ago
  • Loren_Singley
    • 0
      Loren_Singley  
    • Image
    • I agree that people created gods and superstitions to explain natural occurrences in the world like lighting, the sun, the moon etc... Also things more human like war, happiness, love, jealousy. We have come a long way since then but I really think that in the grand scheme of "things that can be known", we probably knew 1% then and we know 3% now.
      So much is still a guess about life and the universe, we still can't rule God out. (Which is terribly frustrating.)

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • Loren_Singley:

      Not correct. While we may know relatively little about the Universe, we know what is proposed for God and, unfortunately, it is way, way, way (10 to nth) degree LESS than what any of us can come to understand just with what we do know now.
      They were quite right to hang the astronomers, because they would find out exactly what the church was afraid they'd find out.

      I'm always shocked at how people are willing throw their only real life away, propping up the little children's story, mommy told them. Any excuse will do!

      But I believe knowing what is actually real is what everybody - truly wishes.

      But you can't have some idea you have replace the true reality. because, you are either right, or you are not.
      And we already know there's no little man with beard up there who made the universe just for you - so that you won't have wasted your time being stupid and you won't get too worried about dying.

      But giving up d-u-m-b, is exactly what you want. That's the reason you have hoped there is a God, to know the truth, to have a handle on the real.

      Well, it isn't "God" - not the goofy one the religions are piping.

      Geez, I could invent a better God than they did!

    • 2 years ago
  • Vierotchka
  • icarus
  • rodstradamus
    • 0
      rodstradamus  
    • People really need to compare and contrast theories, especially Immanuel Velikovsky and Zecharia Sitchen. Not saying they're right, but they are amazing theories and I think they should be part of the debate.

    • 2 years ago
  • idealist
  • Commentor
  • Ihatethemall
  • SamuraiDave
  • ii386
  • Ihatethemall
  • Commentor
  • Ihatethemall
  • SamuraiDave
    • 0
      SamuraiDave  
    • Hasn't anyone bothered to notice that the "article" linked is not to any scientific publication but a forum topic posted by someone who supposedly caught this story on the Discovery Channel? This is second hand hearsay! Yet this didn't stop Current from putting this at the number one spot despite have only 20 comments and under 500 views. There are other actual news articles from actual news sources with more views and comments which are not even in the top 10.

    • 2 years ago
  • Commentor
  • Ozzykozzy2
    • 0
      Ozzykozzy2  
    • (not the most islamic of muslims, but hey, im a muslim) why is it that humans always throw everything WAY out of proportion? example: mad cow disease resulted in THE END OF THE FREAKIN WORLD! bird flu? END OF THE WORLD! why does fear drive society to the brink of collapse? why does the media spoon feed us all this horse sh*t for ratings? if you dont pray god will smite you! if you masturbate or have pre marrital sex your going to burn in the charcoals of hell!

      and that is what grinds my gears.

    • 2 years ago
  • Kaotik
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  • Tyr
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      Tyr  
    • It's a moot point, the believers will just rationalize that it was God's hand at work. People who need to believe in the supernatural just ignore science. It's like the definition of superstition.....superstition is the religious beliefs that others have that don't agree with yours. The Middle East right now is a good example of what societies that are controlled by religious beliefs look like.

    • 2 years ago
  • Vierotchka
  • SamuraiDave
  • bombastinator
  • Progresshiv
  • dudefromtherock
  • Progresshiv
  • bombastinator
  • ibrake4rappers13
  • ryan8566
  • SamuraiDave
  • timetide
  • SamuraiDave
  • bombastinator
    • 0
      bombastinator  
    • I find the difference between god's wrath and an asteroid to be unimportant. The statement doesn't deny god's wrath, it merely defines the form it took.

      Another similar example is a citiy written of in the Koran that was also destroyed. They actually found the city by using satelite imagery and discovered that the whole thing sat above a huge underground water filled cavern that was the source of the city's wealth (it was int the middle of a desert).
      They over withdrew on the resource and the cavern collapsed, destroying the city. God? Human greed and stupidity? Does it really matter? It's still a great metaphor and teaching tool, which IMHO was all it was ever supposed to be.

    • 2 years ago
  • eaglefan33
    • 0
      eaglefan33  
    • bombastinator:

      "They over withdrew on the resource and the cavern collapsed, destroying the city. God? Human greed and stupidity? Does it really matter?"

      Of course it matters. Thinking rationally makes all the difference in the world. The belief in the supernatural makes people act crazy. If they think about it from a logical, rational, perspective, then they will learn and improve their actions in the future. That's how we have all of the technological advancements that we have today.

    • 2 years ago
  • emperorraven
    • 0
      emperorraven  
    • I find it funny, that we as a species, are so arrogant to think "God" is going to waste it's time watching and judging us. What makes us think were so special?

    • 2 years ago
  • SamuraiDave
    • 0
      SamuraiDave  
    • - Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, scientists have pinpointed his sighting to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123 B.C. Around the same soddom and gommorah were destroyed by "god". -

      Just a wee problem, Lot, his wife, and his uncle Abraham weren't around for another thousand years

    • 2 years ago
  • SamuraiDave
  • Ihatethemall
  • flyingkick
  • Ihatethemall
  • Betico
  • Ihatethemall
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  
    • Interesting. I always figured it was an earthquake or a very large volcano. An asteroid would also be plausible. People will generally use the vernacular of their time to describe events and happenings.
      Firey chariots in the sky??

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • Interesting. Perhaps it was the natural world that was "God" to them, but as you stated they did not know how to explain it. In the Bible Lot's wife is told not to turn around and look otherwise she would be turned into a pillar of salt. Sounds feasible that an asteroid or some sort of explosion occurred.

    • 2 years ago
  • Commentor
  • imfromtheinternet
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