Archive for February 13th, 2006

24-Hour Creation Days

Monday, February 13th, 2006

Please be aware that I had some free time to really get down and explain why I say days were 24-hours long. I will not always be able to take the time out of my schedule to do this.

In response to No'Vah's comment: "Could you point out exactly where the Bible says "24"-hour day? In my bible lit class they asserted that the original Hebrew word later translated as 'day' in English could mean any specific period of time. Thanks."

It doesn't say "24 hours" specifically, but there are plenty of clues to see.

Let's start by taking a look at Genesis 1:5 - And GOD called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

In my Bible's Lexical Aids and Hebrew Dictionary, it says "evening" means: ereb, which basically means "dusk, evening, night". Pretty much just regular ol' night time. My Bible then goes on to say that "morning" means: boqer, which basically means "dawn, morning, day". Pretty much just regular ol' day time.

The first occurance of "Day" is the word that's constantly in question as to what it really means when it's defining a length of time. However, the same word also can be used to mean the state of...brightness, I guess. "From sunrise to sunset." Which is what it means in the first occurance. "And GOD called the light Day."

My Bible doesn't give a definition for the second occurance of "Day", which means that it is the same Hebrew word as the first occurance of the English word "Day", and it is here that it means "length of time" and not to describe an unspecified source of light. (The Sun as we know it was created on the fourth day.)

According to my Lexical Aids and Hebrew Dictionary, the word used for "Day" can mean "a number of days, some time, a year." "Today, in the daytime, on the same day, at present, now." "24-hour period, time in general, a specific point in time, a year." Seems to have many, many definitions based on context.

So that's what we have to look at... the context. "Day" is in the sentence "And the evening and morning were the first day." We could also read it as "And the (dusk, evening, night) and the (dawn, morning, day) were the first (period of time)."

In verse 9, GOD starts to separate the water and make some dry land and plants on the "third period of time". He creates every plant on the planet during this "third period of time"... and then proceeds to create stars and the planetary bodies "Sun" and "Moon" during the "fourth period of time". Although Dark and Light existed beforehand, as did the periods of dark and light (evening and morning) before He creates the Sun and Moon.

So okay... each period of time has two parts to it, and only two parts. A part of Darkness, and a part of Light, which were dubbed "Night" and "Day" by GOD. So... Let's say the period of time was longer than 24 hours. Let's say... 1,000 years! That would mean there'd be a period of Darkess that lasts for 500 years. Let's say the period of time was a million years! 500,000 years of Darkness followed by 500,000 years of Light.

I brought up the Creation of Plants because, well, I don't think plants could survive without light for 500 or 500,000 years. The same "evening and morning were the first day" is used for the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh days. My point being that the same phrase is used several times in the same context. It'll mean the same thing every time. People have said that GOD could have simply kept them alive for that long. But... why? What would be the point? If He could do that, then He could surely just create everything quickly and without the need to take a gazillion years to make everything.

There would be no use in saying GOD took a million years to create Darkness and Light, a couple hundred to create Earth, and then only 24 hours to create plants and everything else from that point on. It's just silly and confusing. I'm thinking it would surely be easier (if GOD is even restricted by such things as difficulties) to create Earth in 24 hours than it would be to create the plants and, later, the animals in the same amount of time.

Many of us believe that the days are 24 hours because that's what it's always been as long as humans can remember. Why would it need to change? Why did it STOP changing if it even did change at one time? Super insanely long days one moment, and regular ol' 24 hour days the next? Naaaaah. I don't subscribe to that. Just doesn't really make sense.

I suppose you can believe that if you want, but...

Color Balance... GRR!

Monday, February 13th, 2006

Aaaaaaaah!!! I can't get my laptop's monitor calibrated correctly!

I've passively noticed for a while that the colors were very... off, although it was nothing very serious and I'd quickly forget about it. But it has always been far too blue, bright, and the whites seriously take over any adjacent colors.

I rediscovered a program called PowerStrip that allows you to adjust, quite literally, anything you wish to adjust as far as your graphics card goes. Along with true custom refresh rates and resolution, it offers a really, really nice color profile system. I've been able to drastically improve the colors on my LCD, as compared to my CRT, which was professionally color balanced. It's still not quite there, but at least it's......... more or less halfway correct.

I can actually see tan/gray/yellow on white now!! :D

So many colors have suddenly exploded into sight on many sites and programs I've been using for a long time on my laptop, but have never seen them how they're supposed to. WordPress, for example, is so much more sweet looking! Especially on the admin panels. Even my own site's color scheme has suddenly come to life. I designed Mystralia.com on my laptop before I noticed the color difference, and now it's looks..... not as good as I'd intended.

Oh well, I haven't had any comments on it, heh. Must be at least passable as a site style.

Pointless?

Monday, February 13th, 2006

See, TW? Chucker doesn't get it, nor seems to care to get it. He'll just keep doing what he does best without regard to anyone's feelings.

He thinks I was just offended. People use the word "offended" in contexts of being upset that someone did something wrong in front of them. Say someone swears in front of me. I would be offended because someone blatantly disregarded my standards, with or without knowing about them.

I wasn't just offended, you know. I don't think Chucker (or moiety) can quite understand that. Nor do I honestly think they ever will. I believe they enjoy talking about how they feel about the PERSON they disagree with. They're not content to just talk about WHY they disagree.

I don't consider it an attack with you disagree with me, because everyone disagrees with someone eventually. (Heck, TW disagrees on pretty much everything I think when it comes to religion and he has NEVER attacked me as a person.) An attack is when you run after the person, shooting at THEM for what they said instead of just bringing up why you disagree. You don't need to attack the person to make a solid case, either, you know. I'm sure people would have clearly gotten the message about what you think on the matter had you left that out.

I hope some of you people know what I'm trying to say here.

I think I must add that using the word "heretic" was NOT a curse against those people. Heresy is simply a word to describe someone who is deviating from the original doctrines and standards. I'm sorry if some of you think it's religious "curse", because it's not. Dictionary.com doesn't seem to be entirely accurate in their definitions and has multiple definitions for each of these words:

heretic: A person who holds controversial opinions, especially one who publicly dissents from the officially accepted dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.

heresy: A controversial or unorthodox opinion or doctrine, as in politics, philosophy, or science.

heretical: Characterized by, revealing, or approaching departure from established beliefs or standards.

To me, they are heretics. Very confused Christians who feel they need to add something to the Bible to make it sound more viable and make themselves more accepted in the world. I guess it's working.

Oh well... being an orthodox Christian isn't easy, that must is repeated in the Bible. People will hate you, trying to hurt you, and even try to kill you. They won't like you because what you have to say nobody wants to hear. When the rest of the planet starts accepting your beliefs without even the resistance, then you're doing something wrong. I mean... just look at Jesus. They pretty much killed Him for teaching what the government and religious leaders of the time didn't want to hear. Granted they also had to frame Him because He wasn't actually doing anything wrong. But they didn't want Him around.

Jedi Academy Pt.2

Monday, February 13th, 2006

In other more happy news...

I played Jedi Academy again tonight! ...and after losing horribly in the first rounds, it took a turn for the better when we started to play a Jurassic Park Isla Nublar remake map. (What a mouth full, woo.)

I was laughing so danged hard at some of the things we were doing... like starting God Mode, giving ourselves infinite supply of weapons, and then having a rocket fight in the room with the DNA cartoon.

...and then Capella gave me and Ed a tour and we ended up at a Rancor pen! (Actually, there are several.) That particular Rancor was more or less easily dispatched, but then TW gets the brilliant idea to pull one of the immortal Rancor's from their special pens to the big platform we were all playing on.

One thing about the Rancors. They eat you. Like in the Star Wars movies. They pick you up and munch-munch! Even with God Mode on. So you can be happily blasting TW with rockets to no avail, but then the Rancor stomps up behind you and devours you, much to the shock of yourself and the utter hilarity of everyone else!

But yes, then TW and Ed decided to plant remote bombs all over the place and I resorted to using Force Push and Pull to try to get the marauding Rancor to eat them. Pretty sure I was responsible for at least one TW-eating. Pushed him up into some rocks and the Rancor went CHOMP. HAHAHA.

Then we discovered that rockets have the ability to lock onto targets. So we starting jumping around all over and targeting each other. (Or at least I did... and I know Ed did, too!) I targetted TW once and he flew up on his jetpack and kept flying all over the immediate area with a rocket always just inches behind him, haha. I love rockets that never stop tracking.

So, yep. There were some things I laughed so hard at... mostly TW getting eaten... and when Edrick, by pure coincidence, ran over some bugged spot on the ground that causes instant death even after the creature that was originally there was dead and gone. (Sorry, Ed... but I laughed really, really hard.) ...and also when TW kept setting off those stupid remote mines when everyone was nearby. You'd hear the deafening explosion of hundreds of small charges and you'd suddenly find yourself flying across the map.

Ahhhhh, good fun!!!