You Can Know You Have Eternal Life
#33 Gods Standard for Mankind (17)
Meteorology points to Inspiration
by Jim Mettenbrink
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Ancient pagans were generally theists,
i.e., they had a sense that powers greater than themselves controlled
their world. However, their religion was manmade, principled
by human fickleness and desire. Since man has the great
desire to live on and on, the ancient religions were focused
upon living another year. Although, basically a fertility
religion involving the most hideous of sensual practices, the
primary focus was survival via pleading for good crops
reproduction and food. Of course pleading with the weather
gods for the right amount of sun and rain was imperative.
All ancient societies had a storm
or lightening god. The people thought the storm god threw
missiles of lightening to earth as punishment or an expression
of his dissatisfaction. The Greeks had more of a naturalistic
belief. Aristotles argument lightening was
the exhalations of the earth breathing darts of fire.
Regarding rain, the Greeks believed
that clouds were thick air. They did not associate rain
as causing streams but rather that fallen rain changed into earth.
Aristotle asserted that the mountains soaked up the air
which in turn became ground water. Some thought rain was
the result of magical incantations. Today we recognize
these ancient beliefs as laughable, even though it
was not until the17th century until the common concept of rainfall
was declared to be a false science. French scientists Perrault
and Mariotte were the first to set forth the correct understanding
of rain and the water cycle.
The Old Testament gives us the
evaporation principle in the form of Hebrew poetry. Solomon
wrote about 950 BC, All
the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full, to the
place where the rivers come, to there it returns again (Ecclesiastes 1:7). In the
8th century BC, the prophet Amos also stated the evaporation
principle. ...that
calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the
face of the earth...
(Amos 5:8}. He
who builds His layers in the sky, And has founded His strata
in the earth; Who calls for the waters of the sea, And
pours them out on the face of the earth-The Lord is His name. (Amos 9:9).
What does the Bible say about lightening?
God in answering Job stated Who has divided the watercourse for the
overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightening of thunder,
to cause it to rain on a land...?
(Job 38:25-26, written between 2000-1600 BC). About 1000
BC, the Psalmist wrote He causes the vapors to ascend from the
ends of the earth; He makes lightening for the rain... (Psalms 135:7). These passages
show a clear relationship between lightening and rain and the
water evaporation - rain cycle. Nowhere else in recorded
history do we have such statements. Why? We can only
conclude that this knowledge was revealed to the writers through
inspiration of God.
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