Museum Warriors & Museum Wars

Not expecting to travel abroad any time soon, you can imagine my glee when I heard recently that some of the 8,000+ famous terracotta warriors buried with China's 1st emperor (Ch’in Shih Huang-Ti, after whom "China" gets its name) were scheduled to visit me soon!



OK, so they're not coming to visit me personally, but they will be at The Bowers Museum in nearby Santa Ana this time next year (May 18th to October 12th). Then they'll travel to High Museum of Art in Atlanta (11-2008 to 4-2009) & The Houston Museum of Natural Science (5-2009 to 9-2009).

According to the press release issued by The Bowers, the exhibition is titled, Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor, & will be:

"...the largest & most noteworthy collection of objects ever to travel from what many believe is the most significant archaeological discovery of the 20th century. The exhibition of 120 objects will include 20 life-sized terra cotta figures & feature new discoveries of court officials, acrobats, & generals. Equally exciting & probably most dramatic are the inclusion of 2 recently discovered, half-sized bronze chariots & life-sized bronze animals that were found in what would have been gardens within the tomb complex belonging to China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC)."

Acrobats? Interesting! Possibly an ancient Chinese rendition of the Quidam Banquine act--Imperial version!

I've been meaning to check the etymology & definition differences between "emperor" & "king", & this is a grand opportunity.

"King" came from the Germanic word for "head of a kin"--the ruler of a nation or state.

"Emperor" is essentially Old French for "empire ruler" via Latin for "in prepare"--the guy responsible for battle preparations--a commander-in-chief.

Of course the big news this year (especially this week) for museums is the grand opening--in front of God & everyone on May 28th (Memorial Day)--for The Creation Museum, built by the Answers in Genesis organization.

Interesting coincidence--the slogan they chose is: "Prepare to believe."

Since their primary goal is, "Exalt Jesus Christ as Creator, Redeemer & Sustainer", & considering the hordes of vehemently atheistic academicians & closed-minded Evolution adherents in the world who want their religion to dominate the masses (& for the most part, they've succeeded in institutionalizing it), a better slogan would've been "Prepare for battle."

From her historical origins, China had a monotheistic worship of a heavenly emperor referred to by their words "Shang-Ti" (lit. "Above-Sovereign"; alt. "Shangdi").

After conquering all of China’s separate warring states, radical earthly Emperor Ch’in/Qin declared himself to be the first universal emperor, & began to do away with the 2,000-year-old worship of Shang-Ti by blending in Taoism. He completed the 1,500-mile Great Wall, built roads & canals, standardized weights & measures, & standardized the style of their writing system. But he is also sadly notorious for burying alive hundreds of Confucian scholars & destroying the ancient writings. These terracotta soldiers accompanied him in his elaborate tomb for protection from the spirits of those he killed while building the Great Wall.

Any of that sound familiar? Consider King Hezekiah several centuries earlier, who built Jerusalem's so-called Broad Wall & famous tunnel, standardized weights & measures, & assembled scholars to make copies (i.e., preserve--not destroy) the writings of his predecessors. Chances are good that he rewarded them rather than killed them. He was definitely not buried in an elaborate tomb with terracotta warriors; but throughout Judah & northwestern Israel, one can still find remnants of his terracotta artifacts that may indicate his restored worship of the one true Universal Emperor.



Song of the week: "Tyrant" by Judas Priest (click the song title to visit Amazon; click here for a 29-second sample; 361kb).
G.M. Grena (proud contributing supporter & charter member of the Creation Museum)

Swift & Not So Swift

In the April 25th edition of ScienceNOW Daily News, Lucas Laursen reported on the morphing of wings by swift birds (Apus apus):

"Swifts dramatically change wing shape depending on their needs. When the birds dart after insects, they sweep their wings back up to 50 degrees, reducing their head-on profile. They also glide so efficiently that they can sleep aloft, with their wings spread straight out..."



Researchers study swift wings so they can integrate this technology into aeronautical applications of the future. With the help of some creative engineers, we've seen it evolve over the past century from the fixed-wing gliders, to rotary-wing machines like helicopters; so this would seem to be a logical advancement, though each style has its own benefits.

Genesis 1:20 records God creating winged creatures on the 5th day. The study of swifts is fascinating, & a good example of scientific research, but as is typical with modern publications by atheists, the article must include some gratuitous insertion of religious beliefs by Evolution scientists, like this one by Adam Summers at the end of the article:

"I think we'll learn some wonderful things about the evolution of flight."

Yeah, if you start with the Wright Brothers...

The News & Developments section in the April issue of R&D Magazine provides additional humor on a subject I touched on in Evolution Science: Dark Energy--the primary ingredient of the universe (~73%).

The headline proudly proclaims, "Unveiling the Secrets of Dark Energy". At first I thought, "Oh great, now an important subject in my book has been falsified & outdated." On p. 36 I chide atheistic scientists for choosing "dark" rather than "invisible" because atheists commonly mock us for believing in the Divine Being we can't see with our eyeballs.

An impressive color photo of "an exploding white dwarf star" accompanies the article, & lends support to the stunning announcement, making unsuspecting readers think, "Wow, look at that--dark energy in action right before my very eyes!"

But as is typical with modern publications by atheists, the article slowly reveals the truth, which turns out to be 180 degrees opposite the headline propaganda:

"Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Calif., & the "Univ. of Chicago, Ill., have used their supercomputing expertise to take another step toward unveiling the secrets of dark energy."

Hey, a few seconds ago you told me you were going to unveil it, not just take a "step" towards unveiling it! What's projected as science turns out to be a con game.

"The scientists ... created a 3-D simulation of an exploding white dwarf star ... [that] will enable astrophysicists to gain insight into dark energy—an unknown force..."

Oh, I see, so you're not only not going to unveil it, you're admitting that it's still just as "unknown" today as it was yesterday. You're basically playing a hi-tech video game & promoting a computer manufacturer. How fascinating! And how much money & time did you spend to make this marvelous accomplishment?

Free, truthful info:
"I clothe the heavens with blackness..."--Isaiah 50:3

Song of the week: "Whispers In The Dark" by Yanni (click the song title to visit Amazon; click here for a 25-second sample; 328kb).
G.M. Grena

LMLK Dotcom Attacked

When researching geology for "Evolution Science", I was amazed to discover how biased the scientific community is toward even the possibility of the global Flood described in Genesis, especially when the global evidence is so overwhelming. In fact, I can say with complete confidence that it's the best evidence to substantiate the historical record preserved in the book of Genesis. It's extremely unlikely that any Biblical archeologist will ever discover anything to surpass it.

A few weeks ago, another chunk of evidence was tossed upon the already-overwhelming pile.

In the May issue of the journal, Geology (vol. 35, #5), William A. DiMichele, Howard J. Falcon-Lang, W. John Nelson, Scott D. Elrick, & Philip R. Ames report on an ancient rainforest that once covered at least 4 square miles (a thousand hectares or 10 square kilometers) of what is now Illinois.

I haven't read the original report yet, but Science magazine & National Geographic each put their own little non-Biblical spin on the discovery. Naturally they immediately declare it to be exactly 300,000,000 years old without any mention of how that date was obtained.

But the fun part is when they say:

"A major earthquake ... caused the forest to drop below sea level, burying the entire ecosystem in mud almost immediately.... This rapid burial kept the forest's plant life from decomposing & allowed it to be preserved."

I have to ask a few obvious questions:

1) What's goin' on under Illinois that could make it suddenly sink to such a great depth, & then suddenly rise again so that everything could solidify to its present state?

2) If in 2006 (when the report was submitted for publication) we just discovered this vast region that's been literally right under our feet for all these centuries (see Fig. 4 on p. 46 of "Evolution Science"), how many other sections of the globe might contain similar info?

3) If the global Flood described in Genesis violates the scientific law of uniformitarianism, why doesn't someone place the writers of these articles under arrest?

We can't have scientists running around claiming that major bodies of water appeared suddenly out of nowhere, then vanished into thin air just as quickly! That can only happen on Mars (see pp. 272-4 of "Evolution Science")!

Speaking of catastrophic destructions, in the middle of April, someone hacked into the host server of LMLK Dotcom & maliciously altered a number of HTML pages. The apparent goal was to download an espionage virus to visitors' computers, then redirect them to websites with degenerate content.

Due to the nature of the problem, I immediately placed a password restriction over the entire site to prevent anyone from visiting it while an investigation began. After about 2 weeks of experiments, I believe I was able to resolve the problem & prevent it from happening again. However, if important government websites & multi-million-dollar business sites can be hacked (as we've all heard about), there's nothing preventing LMLK Dotcom from going down again. Like all other problems in this cursed world we live in, it's an ongoing battle. The big difference between me & big businesses is that I don't have millions of dollars at stake, nor do I have millions of dollars to spend on an in-depth investigation & legal proceedings.

On the bright side, there is no evidence that my site was attacked intentionally. It appears to have been a crime of opportunity, much the way E-mail spam is distributed to the just & unjust alike!

Another malicious device, possibly perpetrated by the same group or individual, was to steal the title of "The LMLK Research Website", & promote it in search engines for something entirely different. If you're curious, go to Google & search for "lmlk research" (both words with or without an AND constraint). If you scroll down the list of results, you'll probably see 2 headlines with this title. The legitimate one will have the www.lmlk.com/research URL with this description:

"Ancient Hebrew LMLK seal impressions found around Jerusalem on jar handles that may be royal stamps referring to the Biblical King Hezekiah of Judah."

The bad guys have an entirely different description for theirs, & I'd strongly advise everyone to not click on it.

Curiously, around this same time (the last week of April), most of the website for Answers in Genesis went down, or was attacked--if so, they chose not to admit it. For similar reasons, I'm not inclined to publicize any additional details other than to remind every sincere person who uses the Internet that they need to keep their guard up & be aware of what they click. The best form of security is secrecy, but the operation of a website is like standing up in a crowd, waving a flag, & hollering, "Come & get me if you can!"

In the end, if LMLK Dotcom ever does go down permanently, rest assured that my LMLK research will continue, & I'll find another avenue of publication.

Song of the week: "War" by Joe Satriani (click the song title to visit Amazon; click here for a 28-second sample; 360kb).
G.M. Grena