Monthly Archives: January 2014

We live in a fragmented stage of continents

The Earth has had several large continental masses in the past The first was called UR around 3 billion years ago which eventually broke up. The super continent Rodinia was formed about 1.2 billion years ago and fragmented around 650 million years ago. The continents were then recombined to make Pangea about 200 million years ago until it broke up into today’s continents.

(The Great Courses – A New History of Life)

The founding of everyone’s favorite medieval conspiracy cult

The Templar’s originated after the First Crusade primarily as an escort service. When they were officially recognized as an order by the church they were given great autonomy and the Grand Master of the Templar’s reported only to the Pope. They became a significant military force in the Holy Land and were known for their discipline and actually obeying the orders of their leaders. When Arab leaders captured Crusaders they were routinely ransomed back to the western forces. The exception was the Templar’s who were executed because they were deemed to dangerous. 

(The Great Courses – How the Crusades Changed History)

For whom the bell tolls

John Marshall was the fourth Supreme Court Chief Justice and the one who is credited with making it the powerful arbiter of constitutional law that it is today. His father was a good friend of George Washington. John had a mutual dislike with his second cousin Thomas Jefferson and he was appointed to the office of Supreme Court Chief Justice in the last days of the Presidency of John Adams just before Thomas Jefferson took office. John was in office for 35 years and on July 8th 1835 the Liberty Bell cracked while tolling his death and it never rang again.

(Book – John Marshall – Jean Edward Smith)

The Earth Rocks!

The oldest known rock on the Earth is a metamorphic rock called gneiss. It was found in northern Canada and was formed as granite about 4 billion years old. There are crystals found in some rocks in Australia which are dated to 4.4 billion years old.

(The Great Courses – A New History of Life)

Moon facts

The current theory of the moons formation is that it was formed when the Earth was hit by a Mars sized planet. This caused the earth’s tilt and the faster rotation of the earth which is now slowing at a rate of 2 seconds for every 100,000 years. Shortly after the moon was formed it was about 200,000 miles closer to the Earth than it is today. That means that the tides were actually more like mega-tsunami’s.

(The Great Courses – A New History of Life)

We don’t even have the copies of made from copies made from copies

There are currently no original texts of any books of the New Testament. The oldest fragment is the size of a credit card from the first half of the second century. The majority of complete texts start around the seventh century and NONE of them match exactly. There are differences in EVERY SINGLE COPY. Most of the differences are spelling errors but differences in actual text are also present. The famous story of the town wanting to stone the adulteress in John is not present in any early versions because it was added much later. Also the description of the trinity in John was also added in the middle ages.

(The Great Courses – The New Testament)

The rich get tax breaks

The Rosetta stone is written in Greek and two versions of Egyptian. The reason is that the Egyptians were ruled by the Greek speaking Ptolemy dynasty so a major decree had to written in all three so that everyone in Egypt could read it. The actual text of the Rosetta stone describes the honors that the Egyptian priests were bestowing onto Ptolemy V and the tax breaks that Ptolemy was giving to the priest caste in return.

(The Great Courses – Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age)