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Many believers/Christians like myself have "died the slow death" here and in our real lives because of the stereotyping that we are all "doomsday prophets", and many other things that are not the topic of this thread..
We know that earthquakes, volcanoes, and other happenings due to the things of natural events of this earth (which is billions of years old) we live on have happened from the beginning, because we are able to align scientific facts and common sense about the bible with our beliefs..
Many believers/Christians like myself have "died the slow death" here and in our real lives because of the stereotyping that we are all "doomsday prophets", and many other things that are not the topic of this thread..
We know that earthquakes, volcanoes, and other happenings due to the things of natural events of this earth (which is billions of years old) we live on have happened from the beginning, because we are able to align scientific facts and common sense about the bible with our beliefs..
I, and I feel safe in saying most Atheists recognize that, and I am guilty of putting some here in the wrong category. Granted you are a moderator, and that must be a difficult line to keep separate between being a participant and moderator. I may be wrong, but I don't recall any rational believers challenging the irrational concepts from the less rational. Like it or not, your silence can be seen as a form of validation.
But you gotta admit that there are some real doozies here, who literally throw science under the bus.
Can't speak for others, nor do I even know what part of the country you live in, but some of my knee jerk categorizing is based on local observations. We have some really hateful street preachers that scream (literally scream) their hate and twisted interpretations from street corners, more like a freak show than anything else. I have recounted in other threads a pentecostal hate purveyor spewing his vile as the sermon for a fallen firefighter that died in the line of duty, it was disgusting, and I would have to put him on top of my list as the most vile person I have ever seen. But he had a huge crowd of firefighters, law enforcement officers, politicians, and he wasn't going to waste his chance to spew in front of more than a few in his tiny church.
Many believers/Christians like myself have "died the slow death" here and in our real lives because of the stereotyping that we are all "doomsday prophets", and many other things that are not the topic of this thread..
We know that earthquakes, volcanoes, and other happenings due to the things of natural events of this earth (which is billions of years old) we live on have happened from the beginning, because we are able to align scientific facts and common sense about the bible with our beliefs..
What's the 'slow death'? I googled it but only got hits about Netfix, the dollar and Newcastle United.
Appreciate your open and honest response, Miss Blue. Respectable Christians are hopefully fully aware that there's always a fringe element in any belief system.
Location: planet octupulous is nearing earths atmosphere
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well i did recently learn that loose woman cause earthquakes in the middle east..the way things are going the earth should be falling apart pretty soon
Although I have only been collecting earthquake data for the past year or so, there does appear to be some large increases recently. Over the long term (20 years+) it may account for nothing but 2010 does have some interesting data anomalies.
Since we are discussing facts, I wonder how many other years have seen peaks like this one in Feb 2010? However, I suppose anyone could argue that it is just a spike or 'blip' on the graph. Since I did not start this thread, I feel it is ok to give a link to the website where I got this graph.
I think the reason that graph looks so dramatic is at least partly because the site lists earthquakes above 4.9 on the richter scale as major, when in fact the USGS lists 7.0 and above as major.
Because of the logarithmic basis of the Richter scale, each whole number increase in magnitude represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude; as an estimate of energy, each whole number step in the magnitude scale corresponds to the release of about 31 times more energy than the amount associated with the preceding whole number value. This means that a 7.0 quake releases more than 60 times the energy of a 4.9 quake.
What this means is that when there is a major quake such as the one off Chile most of the after shocks will be counted as major quakes since many if not most are above 4.9 causing the dramatic spike. As a true indicator of major quakes your graph is a sort of drama queen....I'd like to see the site make a graph of 7.0 and above quakes, ( There have been eight so far this year) as that would give a much truer picture.
I didn't want to get into this but I think I MUST post this. Just for information's sake. Basically this Wikipedia page post all the significant earthquakes (4.0+/Caused damage) from mid-1980s until 2010. And it's really eye-opening because if you click the arrow and keep going down previous years, you'll see the number of earthquakes go down each year! The year 2010 had 27 significant earthquakes this year alone compared to 29 in total for 2009 compared to 23 in total for 2008 compared to 19 in total for 2007 and etc.
Well Wikipedia can be a interesting little site, but is not an authority.
So lets look at figures from the USGS and looked at the data at worldwide 4.0 or grater earthquakes, and it appears that 2005 was the peak year for this decade, and the frequency has been going down.
Of course to even look at 10 years is ridiculous on a planet that is billions of years old, much less to use a 5 month period and start a Chicken Little routine.
Perhaps a measurable increase in frequency over a 10 - 20 year period might be warrant a closer look, but no scientist is going to say it is anything more than a blip in the data. Averages are tricky, they are made up of all data, including the extreme swings.
What this means is that when there is a major quake such as the one off Chile most of the after shocks will be counted as major quakes since many if not most are above 4.9 causing the dramatic spike. As a true indicator of major quakes your graph is a sort of drama queen....I'd like to see the site make a graph of 7.0 and above quakes, ( There have been eight so far this year) as that would give a much truer picture.
Nevertheless, it IS dramatic that there were a significant number of >M4.9 earthquakes in February 2010. Yes, of course many were aftershocks of the large Chile M8.8, but it is still significant that many of the aftershocks were large. Since the whole focus of the site was to create graphs and tables I decided to use the figure because it gave me more data to work with. I did not pull the M4.9 figure out of the air when I decided to use it. I found it somewhere when I was researching at the time. It is true that some earthquake authorities use different definitions of 'large', but there does not seem to be a concensus of opinion as far as I can tell.
As well as sheer numbers, there are also many other ways of assessing whether the global Earth stress situation is getting worse or not and many other indicators are being ignored by the relevant authorities. Even with the small amount of data I have collected since Jan last year, there are still interesting and relevant graphs to show.
For example time of day graph - there appears to be (http://newpb.pelicanbill.com/time_of_large_earthquake_graph.php - broken link) some times of the day when M4.9+ earthquakes are more likely to occur - even though USGS disagrees
FAQs - Common Myths about Earthquakes
Q: Are there more earthquakes in the morning/in the evening/at a certain time of the month?
A: Earthquakes are equally as likely to occur at any time of the day or month or year. The factors that vary between the time of the day, month, or year do not affect the forces in the earth that cause earthquakes.
Who knows, perhaps it is because the government does not want to cause unrest or panic or perhaps it is because they, themselves are starting to alter the weather and other natural processes.
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I googled it but only got hits about Netfix, the dollar and Newcastle United.
the way things are going the earth should be falling apart pretty soon
