Crazy Last Days Prophecies

The Best Time to Be Alive is Right Now – Debunking Religious Myths of Worsening Conditions By Kenny Woo “False bad news about population growth, natural resources, and the environment is published widely in the face of contradictory evidence. For example, the world supply of arable land has actually been increasing, the scarcity of natural resources including food and energy has been decreasing, and basic measures of U.S. environmental quality show positive trends. The aggregate data show no long-run negative effect of population growth upon the standard of living. Models that embody forces omitted in the past, especially the influence of population size upon productivity increase, suggest a long-run positive effect of additional people.” – Julian Simon "Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see--germs, chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion--a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in fear. Amazing." – Michael Crichton (State of Fear) "Man's average life span in the Palaeolithic period was about twenty years, in the Neolithic period about 28 years, and in the Middle Ages 32 years. At the turn of the 20th century, AD 1900, the average life span of European women was 44 years, and ninety seven years later 82 years. During the past thousand centuries, man's average life span grew by a factor of four, one-half of this extension occurring over the last century. The length of life is probably one of the best descriptors of the conditions in which we live. If so, the natural paradise of the past is a myth. The Golden Age never existed. In fact, innumerable past generations led short and miserable lives, were tormented by hunger and fear, decimated by tuberculosis, smallpox, pestilence and a host of other diseases which are now curable, and fought perpetual wars, just like a few ancient tribes hiding in the jungles of New Guinea still do.

The true Golden Age, the dream of our ancestors, has dawned. Mankind never had it better. At the turn of the new century, personal safety is at its highest." -Global Warming in a Politically Correct Climate by M.Mihkel Mathiesen "The increase in the world's population represents our victory over death. In the 19th Century the earth could sustain only one billion people. Ten thousand years ago, only 1 million could keep themselves alive. Now, 5 billion people are living longer and more healthily than ever before, on average. The current gloom-and-doom about a "crisis" of our environment is all wrong on the scientific facts. Even the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency acknowledges that U.S. air and our water have been getting cleaner rather than dirtier in the past few decades. Every agricultural economist knows that the world's population has been eating ever-better since World War II, defying simplistic Malthusian reasoning. Every resource economist knows that all natural resources have been getting more available rather than more scarce, as shown by their falling prices over the decades and centuries. And every demographer knows that the death rate has been falling all over the world -life expectancy almost tripling in the rich countries in the past two centuries, and almost doubling in the poor countries in just the past four decades. This is the most important and amazing demographic fact -- the greatest human achievement in history. It took thousands of years to increase life expectancy at birth from just over 20 years to the high '20's about 1750. Then about 1750 life expectancy in the richest countries suddenly rose so that the length of life you could expect for your baby or yourself in the advanced countries jumped from less than 30 years to perhaps 75 years. Then starting well after World War II, the length of life you could expect in the poor countries has leaped upwards by perhaps fifteen or even twenty years since the l950s, caused by advances in agriculture, sanitation, and medicine. It is this decrease in the death rate that is the cause of there being a larger world population nowadays than in former times. The picture also is now clear that population growth does not hinder economic development. All the statistical studies show that faster population growth does not cause slower economic growth. In the 1980s there was a complete reversal in the consensus of thinking of population economists about the effects of more people. In 1986, the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences completely overturned its "official" view away from the earlier worried view expressed in 1971. It noted the absence of any statistical evidence of a negative connection between population increase and economic growth. And it said that "The scarcity of

exhaustible resources is at most a minor restraint on economic growth"." -The Hoodwinking of a Nation by Julian Simon This book is the result of many frustrating and hair-pulling moments trying to convince many I love that this is a good world full of great stories of positive human achievements, so much so that life, at this very moment, is the closest we have ever come to Utopia. But, this is not the message many people are getting, as people on a day to day basis are living in fear of crime, diseases, global warming, famine, bird flu, SARS, school violence, cell phone cancer, war, artificial sweeteners, earthquakes, hurricanes, anything nuclear, over-population, powerlines, high cholesterol, and much more. As the Awake magazine writes: "worsening world conditions are irrefutable evidence that the dark night of satanic rule is drawing to a close." 6/22 p. 14 1987 BUT, are world conditions actually worsening? Are we living at a time when the world is indeed going to hell in a handbasket" Oddly enough, in my dealings with other people, I am constantly amazed that many are actually hostile to any rebuttals of their negativity. Ad hominem attacks await anyone who tries to paint this world in a positive light. People cling to their distorted and poisoned view of the world with a religious fervor that should alarm anyone. Why? Why do we jealously possess a demonic view of the world clearly out of touch with reality? I will aver that for some there are monetary gains, for others, their religion tells them that their time is special, and for some environmentalists, fear seems to be a motivating factor to propel change. But fear is a very dangerous thing, especially as we respond to fear. For instance, our response to the Swine Flu back in 1976 killed more people than the flu itself. But also, when we fear, we feel stressed and become more prone to irritability, disagreement, worry, insomnia, anxiety and depression. We are more likely to experience chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness and headache. We become more prone to heart disease, cancer and stroke, our greatest killers. Worry about the wrong things puts us at greater risk of the diseases that should be concerning us in the first place. I will start this book off with discussions with those who truly do see modern society as a demon-haunted world: Christianity. Fear is the mother of all gods. - Lucretius Posted online (and distributed by tract) is a Christian document indicating 101 proofs that we are living in the Last Days. I will not deal with the theological proofs, as anything pertaining to theology is fluid anyways, and subject to change.

First, it is a fact that Christians in every generation since Jesus Christ have felt that their time was in fact The End that Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse at Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. Here is a sampling of some of these: Early Church fathers Hilarianus and Hippolytus predicted the end in 500 A.D.(Paula Fredriksen-Tyconius and Augustine on the Apocalypse) Irish Bishop James Ussher's prediction was for 1996. Puritans Issac Watts, Joseph Mede and the Mathers in America were date-setters. The Father of Protestantism himself, Martin Luther taught Christ would return by 1564. Does that mean that all Protestants or Lutherans are false prophets? No, of course not, but they are by the reasoning of a certain few. German Reformer Philip Melanchton was a date-setter too, as was German theologian Johann Alsted. Remember the booklet, "88 Reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988" by Edgar Whisenant? Also "Christ Returns by 1988: 101 Reasons Why" by Colin Deal. Or the Korean Christians(Pentecostals) for October 1992? The most famous one was actually a Baptist....William Miller who predicted 1843. In the 5th century, the Council of Ephesus decided the millenium had already begun. Pope Gregory I, 590-604 C.E., predicted the imminent end of the world. Spanish Monk Beatus predicts it for 800 A.D. An ecumenical council for the Roman Catholic Church announces Christ's return by 1000. Aelfric, the Abbott of Eynsham predicts it for the year 1000. Abbo of Fleury, the French Abbott predicts it for predicts it for 994/996. Richard of St. Vaast leads a pilgrimage for the predicted end in 1033. 1184 is the target date for the return of the Antichrist according to many... and again in 1345-1385 Joachim of Fiore(1135-1202) used the New Testament and the Trinity to proclaim the coming of the anti-christ in 1260 A.D. 1260 is also touted by Brother Arnold (Dominican Monk) Speaking of the Trinity, the Church Father who first coined the term, Tertullian was a Montanist(a deeply apocalyptical sect). Jean de Roquetaillade announced it for 1366 Roman Catholic, Arnald of Villanova, predicted the appearance of the Antichrist in 1378 The Taborites predict it for 1420. Priest Martinek Hauska announces doom for 1420. Hans Hut announced the end for1528 Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa announced it for 1533 Melchior Hoffman announced it for 1593 The Fifth Monarchists predicted between 1655-57 A Lutheran named Adam Nachenmoser announced it for 1635 Lutheran leader, Andreas Osiander announced it for 1672

Jan Matthys announced for 1534 Archbishop of York and Primate of England, Edwin Sandys (1519-1588) proclaimed the imminent end John Wycliffe announced it for 1379 One of the first Baptist groups, The Anabaptists believed that the Millenium would occur in 1533 Reformer John Foxe believed the last days would start in 1600. He was shared in this view by Robert Pont New England Minister Jonathan Edwards predicts 1866 The Puritans predict it for 1700 Emanuel Swedenborg predicts the end for 1757 Anglican rector Thomas Beverly predict 1697 Anglican rector John Mason for 1694 Pierre Jurie predicts the end for 1689 Sir Walter Raleigh, Hugh Broughton and Thomas Brightman thought it would not be until 1700 Christopher Columbus said the world was going to end in 1656 Deacon William Aspinwall (General Court) predicts the end for 1673 Feb 28, 1763 Devout Methodist George Bell foresaw the end of the world on this date. Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly announced it for 1789 The Shakers announced it for 1792 1790 The Second Coming, according to Irish orator Francis Dobbs. 1792 The end of the world according to the Shakers. 1794 The end of the world according to the Shakers. Charles Wesley, brother of Methodist Church founder John Wesley, predicted Doomsday would be in 1794. Lavater announced it for 1795 Some Christian believers in Russia thought that Peter the Great was the Anti-Christ in the 1660's. Historic Jews in the 17th century believed that the Messiah would come in the year 1648. John Napier announced it for 1688 or 1700 John Cummings of the Scottish National Church, predicted Jesus would return in 1865. Isaac Newton announced it for about another 90 years in his day Richard Brothers announced it for 1795 Methodist Church founder John Wesley foresaw the Millennium beginning in 1836, the same year that the Beast of Revelation was to rise from the sea. Reverend M. Baxter (Church of England) predicts it for 1868 Scottish National Church official, the "Reverend" John Cumming (1807-1881) proclaimed "Redemption draweth Nigh" in 1867 In 1832 Pope Gregory XVI indicated that the time of the "plague of locusts (Revelation 9:3)" had arrived in his Encyclical "Mirari vos arbitramur." Pat Robertson announced it for 2007(in a novel) Born-Again, R. Henry Hall for 1998 (AD 1991-The Genesis of Holocaust)

Hart Armstrong posts the Tribulation for 1989 Chuck Smith, Pastor of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa proclaimed it for 1981 Tommy Hicks, a noted evangelist, received visions of the end in 1961 Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons, predicted the world's end in the 19th. Century. Elizabeth Claire Prophet announced it for 1989 Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California predicted the Rapture in 1981. Hon-Ming Chen predicted Christ's return on March 31, 1998. Methodist Joanna Southcott(1750-1814 announced she was the Bride of the Lamb and began to seal the 144,000 Early in the 20th century, Dr. Isaac M. Haldeman, Pastor of the First Baptist Church in New York City, predicted that the Antichrist would appear before the Jews return to Palestine Assemblies of God official, Thomas M. Chalmers, announced it for the early 1920's Pentecostal leader, Lester Sumrall predicts 1985 Evangelical prophecy teacher has announced it for 1975, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1989 (see Sooth-Sayers of the Second Advent, Alnor) September, 1981, Baptist itinerant preacher (a.k.a. an evangelist) in Springfield, Missouri makes the sure- fire claim that he had determined from Bible study that Christ absolutely HAD to come back between October, 1981 and September, 1982. (see THE SCOURGE OF THE "PROPHECY MONGERS" from "AS I SEE IT" Volume 1, Number 3, March, 1998 Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth, predicted the Rapture would occur in 1988. Nationally syndicated TV show host (Prophecy in the News), J.R. Church predicted the rapture for 1988. David Webber and Noah Hutchings of the Southwest Radio Church (SRC) announced it for "1981 or '88". Henry Kreysler announces Armageddon for 1995 Author Reginald Dunlop announces the Rapture for 1991. Mary Stewart Relfe announced the Great Tribulation for 1990. Salem Kirban - Bible prognosticator, predicted "the Rapture" would take place in 1989. Benny Hinn predicted the Rapture would occur in 1993. Dr. Jack van Impe has speculated that the end will come between September 1999 and 2000. Lester Sumrall for 2000. Grant Jeffrey predicts it for October 9, 2000 Texe Marrs predicts it for 2000 (Storming toward Armageddon, 1992) Philip B. Brown has stated that the millennial reign of Christ will begin April 6, 2008. James McKeever ends his 6000 year theory by at least 2030 (End Times News Digest). Dr. Harold Camping, president of Family Radio, expected the end of the world in 1994.

NOTE: "Millenarianism became the general belief of the time." Dr. Bonar in "Prophetic Land-Marks" writes: "Millenarianism prevailed universally during the first three centuries." (Giesseler, "Church History," Vol. 1, p.166) Barnabas (1st Cent.) - "The true Sabbath is the one thousand years...when Christ comes back to reign." Beatus (793) "only fourteen years left to complete the sixth millennium (since creation), and therefore presumably only fourteen years also until Antichrist's coming" (Commentary on the Apocalypse, 4) ; Beatus, abbot of Liebana, predicted that the end of the world would occur on Easter eve (April 6, Julian calendar) of 796. (Weber p.50) Bernard of Thuringia (992) - Calculated that the end would come in 992. (Randi p.236) John Calvin - "Scripture uniformly enjoins us to look with expectation for the advent of Christ." ("Institutes," 3:25) Clement (96), Bishop of Rome - "Let us every hour expect the Kingdom of God...we know not the day." ; "Soon and suddenly shall his will be accomplished" Cyprian (200-258), Bishop of Carthage - "The kingdom of God, beloved brethren, is beginning to be at hand" ; "That wars continue to prevail, that death and famine accumulate anxiety, that health is shuttered by raging diseases, that the human race is wasted by the desolation of pestilence, know that this was foretold; that evils should be multiplied in the last times, and that misfortunes should be varied; and that the day of judgment is drawing nigh" (Treatise 5, An Address to Demetrianus) Bishop Gregory of Tours (799) - Calculated the End occurring between 799 and 806. (Weber p.48) Hyppolytus - "predicted a year for the consummation of the ages: AD500" (Richard Abanes, End Time visions?, p.165) Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch - "Consider the times and expect Him." ; "The last times are upon us" Justin Martyr (150) - "I and all others who are orthodox Christians, on all points, know there will be...a thousand years in Jerusalem...as Isaiah and Ezekiel declare."

Irenaeus (175), Bishop of Lyons, companion of Polycarp, John's pupil, commenting on Jesus' promise to drink again of the fruit of the vine in His Father's Kingdom - "That this...can only be fulfilled upon our Lord's personal return on earth." Julius Africanus (160-240) - Claimed that the End would occur 6000 years after the Creation. Assuming that there were 5531 years between the Creation and the Resurrection, he expected the Second Coming to take place no later than 500 AD. (Kyle p.37) Lactantius (300) - "The righteous dead...and reign with them on earth...for a thousand years." St. Martin of Tours (316-397) - "There is no doubt that the Antichrist has already been born. Firmly established already in his early years, he will, after reaching maturity, achieve supreme power." (Abanes p.119) Nicene Creed (325) - "We expect a new heaven and earth...at the appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and then, as Daniel says, the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom." Papias (116), Bishop of Hierapolis - "There will be one thousand years...when the reign of Christ personally will be established on earth." Tertullian (200) - "We do indeed confess that a Kingdom is promised on earth." "the end of the world wild come with the seventh persecution. The Goths will conquer Rome and redeem the Christians; but then Nero will appear as the heathen Antichrist, reconquer Rome, and rage against the Christians three years and a half. He will be conquered in turn by the Jewish and real Antichrist from the East, who, after the defeat of Nero and the burning of Rome, will return to Judea, perform false miracles, and be worshipped by the Jews. At last Christ appears, that is, God himself with the lost Twelve Tribes as his army, which had lived beyond Persia in happy simplicity and virtue. Under astounding phenomena of nature he will conquer Antichrist and his host, convert all nations, and take possession of the holy city of Jerusalem." There are many stories of apocalyptic paranoia around the year 1000. For example, legend has it that a "panic terror" gripped Europe in the years and months before this date. However, scholars disagree on which stories are geniune, whether millennial expectations at this time were any greater than usual, or whether ordinary people were even aware of what year it was. An excellent article on Y1K apocalyptic expectations can be found at the Center for Millennial Studies. (Gould, Schwartz, Randi)

Sandro Botticelli (1504) Wrote a caption in Greek on his painting The Mystical Nativity: "I Sandro painted this picture at the end of the year 1500 in the troubles of Italy in the half time after the time according to the eleventh chapter of St. John in the second woe of the Apocalypse in the loosing of the devil for three and a half years. Then he will be chained in the 12th chapter and we shall see him trodden down as in this picture." Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150-215) (That Christ was soon to return in the second century) "Far from us be that which is written, "Wretched are they who are of a double mind, and of a doubting heart; who say, These things we have heard even in the times of our fathers; but, behold, we have grown old, and none of them has happened unto us.."(10) Ye foolish ones! compare yourselves to a tree: take [for instance] the vine. First of all, it sheds its leaves, then it buds, next it puts forth leaves, and then it flowers; after that comes the sour grape, and then follows the ripened fruit. Ye perceive how in a little time the fruit of a tree comes to maturity. Of a truth, soon and suddenly shall His will be accomplished, as the Scripture also bears witness, saying, "Speedily will He come, and will not tarry;"(11) and, "The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Holy One, for whom ye look." (The Epistles to the Corinthians, ch. 23) Irenaeus (136-202) (That the world would end in the sixth thousandth year) 3. For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: "Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works."(6) This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years;(7) and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year." (Against Heresies, 5:28:3) Martin Luther (16th Century) "I hope the last day of judgment is not far, I persuade myself verily it will not be absent full three hundred years longer; for God's word will decrease and be darkened for want of true shepherds and servants of God. The voice will sound and heard erelong: 'Behold the Bridegroom cometh.'

God neither will nor can suffer this wicked world much longer, He must strike in with the dreadful day, and punish the contemning of His word." (Familiar Discourses, pp. 7, 8. ) "Let us not think that the coming of Christ is far off." ; Believed that the End would occur no later than 1600. (Weber p.66) Maximilla "After me there will be no prophecy, but the End will come." (quoted in Dowley, 36) OTHERS: Nostradamus (1503-1566) - "In the year 1999, and seven months, from the sky will come the great King of Terror" (Century 10,Quatrain 72) "One faith united the scattered congregations: that Christ was the son of God, that he would return to establish his kingdom on earth, and that all who believed in him would at the Last Judgement be rewarded with eternal bliss. But Christians differed as to the date of the second advent. When Nero died and Titus demolished the Temple, and again when Hadrian destroyed Jerusalem, many Christians hailed these calamities as signs of the second coming. When chaos threatened the Empire at the close of the second century, Tertullian and others thought that the end of the world was at hand; a Syrian Bishop led his flock into the desert to meet Christ halfway, and a bishop in Pontus disorganized the life of his community by announcing that Christ would return within a year. As all signs failed, and Christ did not come, wiser Christians sought to soften the disappointment by reinterpreting the date of his return. He would come in a thousand years, said an epistle ascribed to Barnabas; he would come, said the most cautious, when the "generation" or race of the Jews was quite extinct, or when the Gospel had been preached to all gentiles; or said the Gospel of John, he would send in his stead the Holy Spirit or Paraclete." (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume III, 'Ceasar and Christ, Pg. 603, 604) Even the earliest Christians prepared for the imminent end of the age in their own time: "That the earliest Church regarded itself as the Congregation of the end of days, is attested both by Paul, and the synoptic tradition....Further testimony for eschatological consciousness is the fact that Jesus' disciples after the Easter experiences in Galilee soon betook themselves to Jerusalem as the focus of the coming Reign of God." Theology of the New Testament-Complete in One Volume, by Rudolf Bultmann, p. 37 When you have Jesus Christ declaring:

"Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power." (Mark 9:1) …and “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place.” (Mark 13:30) …it should be evident that even he assumed the End would happen in his own time. The declarations from the Last Days pamphlet are indicated by a “Scare”: Scare: Mankind would be capable of destroying all life (Matthew 24:21-22). Consider that when Jesus made this prediction the armaments of His day were swords and spears. But today, with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, it is possible to wipe out all flesh on planet earth. Reply: While we may have more destructive capabilities, we also have less benefit to use them with the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction in place. Most countries that aim to obtain WMD's do so as a protective deterrence. Whether you agree or not, the numbers are rather reassuring. Since Hiroshima, western Europe has seen its longest peacetime EVER. and, since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, there has been a major decline in armed conflicts, genocides, human rights abuses, military coups, and international crises, according to the study, Human Security Report 2005. "In his prescient 1989 book, Retreat from Doomsday, Ohio State University political scientist John Mueller, in addition to predicting that the Soviet Union was about to collapse--the Berlin Wall fell just after the book was published--declared that great-nation war had become "obsolete" and might never occur again. One reason the Soviet Union was about to collapse, Mueller wrote, was that its leaders had structured Soviet society around the eighteenth-century assumption of endless great-power fighting, but great-power war had become archaic, and no society with war as its organizing principle can endure any longer. So far, this theory has been right on the money. It is worth noting that the first emerging great power of the new century, China, though prone to making threatening statements about Taiwan, spends relatively little on its military....First, the numbers. The University of Maryland studies find the number of wars and armed conflicts worldwide peaked in 1991 at 51, which may represent the most wars happening simultaneously at any point in history. Since 1991, the number has fallen steadily. There were 26 armed conflicts in 2000 and 25 in 2002, even after the Al Qaeda attack on the United States and the U.S. counterattack against Afghanistan.

By 2004, Marshall and Gurr's latest study shows, the number of armed conflicts in the world had declined to 20, even after the invasion of Iraq. All told, there were less than half as many wars in 2004 as there were in 1991." The End of War? by Gregg Easterbrook "Is war on the increase, as many scholars as well as laymen of our generation have been inclined to believe? The answer would seem to be a very unambiguous negative. Whether we look at the number of wars, their severity or magnitude, there is no significant trend upward or down over the past 150 years. Even if we examine their intensities, we find that later wars are by and large no different from those of earlier periods." [J. David Singer and Melvin Small, The Wages of War 1816-1965, New York, 1972, p. 201] Scare: Chaotic weather would be prevalent. Of course chaotic weather has always existed, but there are indications that we are witnessing an increase in strange weather. Reply: I could also make an argument that less people are dying NOW than previously from "strange weather" (whatever that means). For instance: "Busiest hurricane season ever for the United States: The 1886 hurricane season has been analyzed to be the busiest on record for the continental United States. Seven hurricanes were recorded to have hit the U.S.—a Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale Category 2 hurricane into Texas and Louisiana in June, two Category 2 hurricanes into northwest Florida in June, a Category 1 hurricane into northwest Florida in July, the Category 4 "Indianola"* hurricane into Texas in August, a Category 1 hurricane into Texas in September and a Category 3 hurricane into Louisiana in October. The previous busiest hurricane season for the United States was 1985 with six landfalling hurricanes. Extremely busy decade for the United States Atlantic seaboard: The 1890s were one of the busiest decades on record for the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. Four major hurricanes impacted the coast from Georgia northward—the 1893 Category 3 "Sea Islands Hurricane" in Georgia and South Carolina, another 1893 Category 3 in South Carolina and North Carolina, an 1898 Category 4 in Georgia and a 1899 Category 3 in North Carolina. Only the decade of the 1950s had more strong hurricanes making landfall along this part of the coast, going back to 1851. Cycles of hurricane activity: These records reflect the existence of cycles of hurricane activity, rather than trends toward more frequent or stronger hurricanes. In general, the period of the 1850s to the mid-1860s was quiet. The late 1860s through the 1890s were busy, and

the first decade of the 1900s was quiet. (There were five hurricane seasons with at least 10 hurricanes per year in the active period of the late 1860s to the 1890s and none in the quiet periods.) Earlier work had linked these cycles of busy and quiet hurricane periods in the 20th Century to natural changes in Atlantic Ocean temperatures. Georgia major hurricanes: During the 20th Century, Georgia did not have even a single major hurricane make a landfall along its coast. However, it was a different story in the 19th Century. In contrast, Georgia experienced three major hurricanes in the later half of the 19th Century—a Category 3 in 1854 near Savannah, the Category 3 "Sea Islands Hurricane" in 1893 that killed 1,000-2,000 people near Savannah and a Category 4 in 1898 near Brunswick. Knowledge that such strong hurricanes have impacted this portion of the coast (and will undoubtedly hit again) is important for residents of Georgia to plan for the future. Most hurricanes ever in one day: On August 22, 1893, four hurricanes were occurring simultaneously. Storm #3 approaching Nova Scotia, Canada, storm #4 between Bermuda and the Bahamas, storm #6 northeast of the Lesser Antilles and storm #7 west of the Cape Verde Islands. Storm #4 would end up making a direct hit on New York City as a Category 1 hurricane two days later and storm #6 ending up hitting Georgia and South Carolina as a Category 3 hurricane (the "Sea Islands Hurricane") and killing 1,000-2,000 people. The only other known date with four hurricanes occurring at the same time was September 25, 1998, when hurricanes Georges, Ivan, Jeanne and Karl were in existence." http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/J/noaa257.html Roy W. Spencer, the principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville points out that numerous hurricanes devastated America's Atlantic and Gulf coastlines from the 1930s through the 1950s. The National Hurricane Center, he notes, has "been warning for many years the U.S. coast has had a long run of relatively good luck" and that it was only a matter of time before that streak ran out. and... Spencer wisely observes that we tend to forget "that unusual weather is, well, usual." Scare: Increased interest in vegetarianism anticipated (1 Timothy 4:3-4). The New Age Movement has swept the globe during the past 40 years popularizing this.

Reply: While not a Vegan myself, there does seem to be alot of evidence in favor of a healthier meatless diet. Isn't it funny how something as positive as this can be demonized when the information is placed in the wrong hands. Scare: The earth would be filled with violence (Luke 17:26; Genesis 6:11-13). In the United States alone, violent crime has increased nearly 500% since 1960. Visit: United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2000 (disaster center) Reply: I did visit the United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2000 (disaster center), and if you look at the per 100,000, it tells quite an interesting story. While crime climbed to high levels in the 80's and early 90's, it has been falling dramatically since then. A recent FBI report showed that the nation's murder rate dropped to its lowest level in four decades and that other crime has declined as well. But a new Gallup survey shows public perception differs from the new data. More than two-thirds of those polled said they believe there's more crime in the United States than there was a year ago, up 14 points from this time last year. Twenty-one percent said there's less crime now, and 9 percent said levels are the same. http://politicalarguments.blogspot.com/2005/10/that-good-old-disconnect-between\crime.html From the 2006 New York Times Almanac, p.311, all serious crime decreased dramatically from 1975 to 2003. The numbers from 1994 to 2003 tell an interesting story: Violent crime decreased 33.4%, with Murder decreasing 36.7%, Forcible rape decreasing 18.2%, robbery decreasing 40.2% aggravated assault decreasing 31%. Property Crime decreased 23% overall, with burglary decreasing 28.9%, larceny/theft decreasing 20.2%, and motor vehicle theft decreasing by 26.7%. From Britannica Almanac 2006, 1981 saw a total of 13,423,800 crimes with 22,520 murders 2003 saw crime decrease to 11,816,782 with 16,503 murders, and all this with a substantial increase in the population. "U.S. Murder Rate Hits 40-Year Low Monday, October 17, 2005 [Associated Press] WASHINGTON — The nation's murder rate declined last year for the first time in four years, dropping to the lowest level in 40 years. Experts said local rather than national trends were mostly responsible. The rates for all seven major crimes were down and the overall violent crime rate reached a 30-year low, according to the FBI's annual compilation of crimes reported to the police. There were 391 fewer murders nationwide in 2004 than the year before. The total of 16,137 worked out to 5.5 murders for every 100,000 people. That's a decline of 3.3 percent from 2003 and the lowest murder rate since 1965, when it was 5.1. "The declines are relatively small compared to larger, steady drops in the 1990s..."

U.S. crime rate holds at 30-year lows http://www.msnbc.msn.com Updated: 7:28 a.m. ET Sept. 13, 2004 WASHINGTON - The nation's crime rate last year held steady at the lowest levels since the government began surveying crime victims in 1973, the Justice Department reported Sunday. The study was the latest contribution to a decade-long trend in which violent crime as measured by victim surveys has fallen by 55 percent and property crime by 49 percent. That has included a 14 percent drop in violent crime from 2000-2001 to 2002-2003. "The rates are the lowest experienced in the last 30 years," Justice Department statistician Shannan Catalona said in the report. "Crime rates have stabilized." >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Crime is down, pundits are flummoxed Do you feel safer lately? Since 9/11, most people would probably say no. But, while we've never worried more about terrorism, we're living in the safest times in at least a generation. "Regular" crime, so it seems, appears to be going out of style. Last month, the U.S. Justice Department released its annual crime numbers for 2002. The numbers are staggering, in a good way. There were 23 victims of violent crimes (rape, robbery and assault) per 1,000 people in 2002. Ten years ago there were 50 — more than double last year's rate. Property crimes (burglary, car theft and the like) occurred at the rate of 159 per 1,000 people in 2002, down from 319 in 1993 — also a 50 percent drop. Bottom line: Violent and property crime rates in 2002 were the lowest since records started being kept 30 years ago. This is great news … unless, of course, you write for a crime-focused weekly newspaper and you've got two kids you have to put through college. Crime is down in cities, suburbs, small towns and the boonies. Fewer rich people, poor people, minorities, majorities, men, women, dogs and cats are victims of crime each year. For every O.J., there are more and more people who really didn't do it.

These latest statistics would be even more exciting if anyone had a clue as to just what the heck is going on. But, despite as many theories as there are special interest groups, the consensus is that there isn't a consensus. Not that the so-called experts aren't giving it their best shot. And, surprise, surprise, each group seems to favor the explanation that forwards its particular agenda. The gun control crowd says, "See, gun restrictions are starting to work." The NRA militiamen immediately counter with, "No, it's the new concealed carry laws that are making thugs think twice about mugging a grandma who might be packing heat." The Bill O'Reilly "just lock 'em up and throw away the key" types point to tougher prison sentences, the recent boom in prison construction and "three strikes and out" laws as taking more criminals off of the streets and keeping them locked up longer. Well, there are certainly more people locked up these days — more than 5.6 million adults or one in every 37 adults in the U.S. But the Justice Policy Institute, which promotes alternatives to prison, quickly points out that there were more murders in the South and West, the same areas where prison expansion has been most aggressive. Then there are the census takers. They say less crime is a result of having fewer young men ages 15-24 in the population. Baby boomers aged, leaving their prime "crime-bearing" years behind, and the smaller generations that came after simply didn't have as many children who could turn into criminals. But if this were true, then crime rates should have started increasing again in 2000, as the bulk of the baby boom "echo" (the boomers' children) reached young hoodlum-hood. It's not happening, leaving the census takers scratching their heads. Economists claim that crime falls as our collective economic fortunes rise. Thus, the economic boom in the '90s would explain the dramatic drop in crime during those same years. But, as we all-too-painfully know, that boom went bust several years ago. Still, crime rates continue to fall. Yet another theory bites the dust. Ditto for the raise-the-minimum-wage mob. According to them, more people earning an actual "living wage" would mean fewer people having to turn to crime to put food on their families' tables. But the real purchasing power of the minimum wage, when you take inflation into account, has fallen to new lows, just like crime. Oops. Back to the drawing board. The deeper you dig, the weirder the theories get.

The University of Chicago's Steven Levitt and Stanford's John Donohue III recently published a report linking the fall in crime to the rise of legalized abortions. In a nutshell, they say fewer unwanted babies equals fewer poorly raised juvenile delinquents and, eventually, fewer adult criminals. Not only that, because destitute young women could avoid becoming mothers, they didn't have to turn to crime to try to support their children. Not to be outdone, even the Hare Krishna movement is getting into the act (you know, the bald cultists who hang out in airports). Their website claims the dramatic drop in crime in New York City is a result of the increased distribution of Srila Prahupada's (their leader's) latest transcendental book in the Big Apple. (Hmm, come to think of it, as Snitch's circulation has climbed, crime in Louisville has dwindled. Maybe our ever-chanting chums are onto something.) Finally, there's the Koch Crime Institute, which says the explanation for falling crime rates "may lie in a renaissance of personal responsibility." What a great reason that would be, but even the folks there admit that no one really knows. But they also point out that, "the reasons it is declining are the same ones that will keep it from going up again." So we must be doing something right. If we only knew what it was, we'd certainly do more of it. http://www.russmaney.com/falling_crime.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Our hysterical media never tells the middle classes how safe they are. With a weary sigh those compiling the statistics will don their battered flak jackets and put up with the annual deluge of newsprint mendacity. They are well-used to headline shockers bearing no relation to fact. They are glum that the figures always appear at the worst time of year - at the frayed end of the summer parliamentary term when all news is bad news. If this was just the government getting another drubbing, it would only be a harmless part of the rough and tumble of politics. A government so dominant in the polls, with not a whiff of opposition in the wind (outside its own party), can expect a daily mauling from a press three-quarters Tory, frustrated beyond endurance at having no credible party to promote.

But the damage done is more serious. Crime panic terrorizes people into staying indoors, avoiding public spaces or public transport, and it turns children into couch potato captives. A quarter of the population says it is "very frightened" of violence. Beyond that, it damages the national psyche, souring general happiness and wellbeing in a western world grown ever safer and, for most, richer than ever before. But watch the Tory press (and some not Tory who should know better) do all they can to make their readers think things always get worse, on a slippery slope to perdition surrounded by perverts and muggers in a state of gross moral decline. The real figures most newspaper readers may never get to see, tucked away if they appear at all, are likely to show a slight decrease in overall crime. The British Crime Survey will probably yet again show there is less chance of being a victim of crime than ever. Burglary is now lower than ever recorded (with a chance of being burgled once every 50 years) - despite the reporting of it rising as a wealthier nation insures more of its goods. Mobile phone thefts are more recorded than previous street crimes because they are insured. Car crime has already had a huge drop, mostly due to manufacturers' better security systems. Violence is only around 2% of crime and last year it fell, but you would never have guessed it. Figures look set to be broadly stable this year, maybe up a bit with more affluent young men drinking and hitting each other a bit more outside bars. But don't expect to see a description of what most "violent" crime is: 40% involves zero injury and in two-thirds of cases the injury was too mild to require any medical help. Gun crime - terrifying but still rare - will almost certainly rise, but figures emerge in January: murder has barely changed. Most crime is inflicted on the poor, hidden away in places others never venture - yet the middle classes are never told how safe they are. The press will probably not headline the alarming domestic violence rate: newsrooms still don't think it counts, not really. http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-16-2003-43007.asp >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> When faced with doomsaying reports, we consistently put our capacity for critical thought on the back-burner. If we have arrived at a particular view of the present world, many of us naturally look for news and reports that will confirm this view. We call this Comformation Bias. Rationally though, we should "make sure of all things."

"When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'" --Sydney J. Harris If we can produce large crime statistics, we should try to deduce how this compares to previous eras, especially considering the huge decrease in crime rates. Let us dwell on this some more, as crime is always trumped as a sure sign of this present degenerating world. In the 13 & 14th century, England had 23 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 16th century it had 7 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 17th century it had 5 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 18th century it had 1.5 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 19th century it had 1.7 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 20th century it had 0.85 homicides per 100,000 people. In the 13 & 14th century, the Netherlands and Belgium had 47 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 15th they had 45, in the 16th century it had 25 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 17th century it had 7.5 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 18th century it had 5.5 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 19th century it had 1.6 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 20th century it had just over 1 homicide per 100,000 people. In the 15th century, Scandanavia had 46 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 16th century it had 21 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 17th century it had 18 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 18th century it had 1.9 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 19th century it had 1.1 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 20th century it had just over 1 homicide per 100,000 people. In the 13 & 14th century, the GErmany and Switzerland had 37 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 15th they had 16, in the 16th century they had 11 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 17th century they had 7 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 18th century they had 7.5 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 19th century they had 2.8 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 20th century it had just over 1 homicide per 100,000 people. In the 13 & 14th century, Italy had 56 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 15th it had 73, in the 16th century it had 47 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 17th century it had 32 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 18th century it had 10.5 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 19th century it had 12.6 homicides per 100,000 people, in the 20th century it had just over 1 homicide per 100,000 people. And of course, in the last decade crime rates have dropped even more dramatically. Anyone using "increasing crime/homicide rates" in the last century to make any kind of point is either dishonest or misinformed. There is no excuse for this type of shoddiness, and it is criminal to insist on something so dramatically at odds with all the

evidence. But what of crime in the historical perspective? Between 1860 and 1890 the crime rate was more than twice the rate of population growth. The Charleston News and Chronicle reported: "Murder and violence are the distinguishing marks of our civilization." In the 1930s, a criminal had a 99 percent chance of escaping punishment. From 1930 to 1950 Chicago had an estimated 700 hired assassins. Only eight of the assassins were ever convicted. A much larger ratio of convicted felons go to prison now than 60 years ago. -The Good Old Days Weren't So Good by Gary Sloan "In Britain the incidence of homicide has fallen by a factor of at least ten to one since the thirteenth century [...] The long-term declining trend evidently is a manifestation of cultural change in Western society." (Ted Robert Gurr, Historical Trends in Violent Crimes, 1981) "Serious interpersonal violence decreased remarkably in Europe between the mid-sixteenth and the early twentieth centuries." (Manuel Eisner, Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime, 2003) http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CJ/039104.pdf "Personal violence - homicide - has declined in Western Europe from the high levels of the Middle Ages. Homicide rates fell in the early modern era and dropped even further in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." (Eric Monkkonen, Homicide: Explaining America's Exceptionalism, 2006) http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/111.1/monkkonen.html >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Counting Backward, Historians Resurrect Crime Statistics And Find the Middle Ages More Violent Than Now By ALEXANDER STILLE IN 1939, at one of civilization's lowest points, a little-known Swiss sociologist, Norbert Elias, published a book called "Über den Prozess der Zivilisation" ("On the Civilizing Process") with a strange and unlikely thesis: that the gradual introduction of courtly manners — from eating with a knife and fork and using a handkerchief to not spitting or urinating in public — had played a major part in transforming a violent medieval society into a more peaceful modern one.

Hitler invaded Poland that year, and Elias's book was consigned to obscurity. It was not published in the United States until 1978 (with the title "The History of Manners"). But since then his seemingly eccentric thesis has been revived, and Elias has posthumously become the theoretical guru of a field that did not exist in 1939: the history of crime. It was then that pioneering historians began to do what most historians had thought impossible: create crime statistics for eras that did not systematically keep crime data. "The Elias theory got revived through the statistical approach to history," said Elizabeth Cohen, a historian at York University in Toronto who has written extensively on crime in Renaissance Italy. Although there were no national statistics centuries ago, some historians discovered that the archives of some English counties were intact back to the 13th century. So in the 1970's they began diligently counting indictments and comparing them with estimated population levels to get a rough idea of medieval and early modern crime rates. Historians in Continental Europe followed suit and came up with findings that yielded the same surprising result: that murder was much more common in the Middle Ages than it is now and that it dropped precipitately in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Something very important changed in Western behavior and attitudes, and it stood much prevailing social theory on its head. "It was very surprising because social theory told us that the opposite was supposed to happen: that crime was supposed to go up as family and community bonds in rural society broke up and industrialization and urbanization took hold," said Eric H. Monkkonen, a professor of history at the University of California at Los Angeles and the author of several works on the history of criminality. "The notion that crime and cities go together made emotional sense, particularly in America, where at least recently crime is higher in cities." Some scholars argue that many of the prevailing theories about why crime rises and falls could be further upended as scholars use new computer models to estimate population figures for past eras more accurately. "With modern computing we may end up with some very good estimates in the homicide rates in many nations right back to the 17th and 16th centuries," said Randall Roth, a historian at Ohio State University who has recalculated murder rates for the 15th and 16th centuries in many countries. "The data we are getting doesn't line up with most theories of either liberals or conservatives about crime. The theory that crime is determined by deterrence and law enforcement, by income inequality, by a high proportion of young men in a population, by the availability of weapons, by cities, most of those theories end up being wrong."

Historians have offered various explanations for the unexpected fall in the crime rate. Initially some wondered whether the decline in early modern crime might be a result of industrialization and urbanization themselves. But James A. Sharpe, a historian at the University of York in England, said the big statistical dip in violence preceded industrialization and urbanization by more than a century. Other scholars then theorized that crime had not diminished but only shifted from bodily assault to crimes of property, reflecting the change from a world of medieval scarcity to one of greater prosperity and availability of material goods. But this theory, too, has not stood the test of time. "The great decline in homicide in the 17th century was not accompanied by a rise in property offense prosecutions, but rather by their diminution," Mr. Sharpe noted in a recent essay. All these discredited theories helped change "the status of Elias from curiosity to prescient thinker," Eric A. Johnson (a professor at Central Michigan University) and Mr. Monkkonen wrote in the recent book "The Civilization of Crime." That the decrease in crime appears to have happened independently of industrialization or economic growth seemed to suggest that an internal, psychological shift had taken place in attitudes toward crime. Advertisement So did its changing nature. Widespread evidence indicates that in the Middle Ages physical violence, even to the point of death, was a widely accepted way of resolving disputes and defending one's honor. Most killings occurred in public in front of many witnesses when a dispute, generally among neighbors, got out of hand. "People don't yet treat it as a crime and the perpetrator is not a social outcast," said Dan Smail, a historian at Fordham University in New York who has studied crime in southern France in the 14th century." (Still, Mr. Smail said, Elias got it only half right, arguing that it was the greater resources available in the early modern period that made it possible for people to get even with their enemies through law suits and conspicuous consumption rather than with fists and knives.) That murder was accepted is reflected in the leniency with which it was generally treated, said Barbara A. Hanawalt, a historian at Ohio State University whose work on 14th-century England helped stimulate the interest in the history of murder. "Only 12 percent of homicides actually end in conviction," she said. "That's lower than larceny,

which was 23 percent, and crimes of stealth, burglary and counterfeit," for which the rate was about 100 percent. But after the late Middle Ages, Ms. Hanawalt detects a marked shift. "There is a real change in community tolerance," she said. "The state is more prominent, the local community has less control." "I think Elias is onto something: people begin to change their notions of how people should behave," Ms. Hanawalt continued. "In the 14th century people are concerned with whether someone is of good or ill repute; it's a collective, community judgment. When you get into the 15th century, the question is about someone's `governance.' There is a shift from community reputation to an emphasis on internal control." A proliferation of tracts and manuals on proper behavior trickle down to common, illiterate folks in the form of rhymes and ditties. One recent scholarly book on the history of murder, "Mad Blood Stirring" by Edward Muir at Northwestern University, describes one way in which this process may have occurred. In the book Mr. Muir describes how the Republic of Venice tried to put an end to violent feuding among unruly nobles as it extended its influence into remote rural areas in the 17th century. The wars fought over generations by the area's leading families left the region vulnerable to foreign invasion. Venice reacted by first meting out stiff punishment, then by drawing the rural noble families into Venetian aristocratic life. Here they learned to replace the clan feud with the individual duel, an important shift from collective violence to individual responsibility and violence. Finally, the feuding clans, who now prided themselves on their courtly behavior, fought it out through the publication of dueling pamphlets, trying to best their rivals through elegant put-downs and masterly argument. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> As observed by popular writer Colin Wilson, "the history of mankind since about 2500 B.C. is little more than a non-stop record of murder, bloodshed and violence." Thus he concludes that "human history has been fundamentally a history of crime." Colin Wilson, A Criminal History of Mankind (London, 1985) Professor John Bellamy at the Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, even says: "In most modern western countries the level of crime has been so re-duced that the misdeeds of the few serve rather to provide the ordinary citizen with escapist entertainment than to instill a sense of fear." John Bellamy, Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages

Scare: Fifty years ago abortion (the violent murder of an unborn child) was illegal in most countries. Today abortion is legal in most countries and 50 million children are aborted each year. Reply: Just because abortion was once illegal, it does not mean it did not happen, in fact, it has happened for many millennia. In El Salvador, abortion is illegal with a possible 30year prison sentence attached to it, and women can still easily obtain cheap black market abortificients to induce abortion. The unfortunate drawback is that there isn't any medical supervision. Banning abortion won't put an end to abortion, but it will put women's lives at risk. "Abortion has been performed for thousands of years, and in every society that has been studied. It was legal in the United States from the time the earliest settlers arrived. At the time the Constitution was adopted, abortions before "quickening" were openly advertised and commonly performed....Criminalization of abortion did not reduce the numbers of women who sought abortions. In the years before Roe v. Wade, the estimates of illegal abortions ranged as high as 1.2 million per year. Although accurate records could not be kept, it is known that between the 1880s and 1973, many thousands of women were harmed as a result of illegal abortion." http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/history_abortion.html "In the 18th and 19th centuries, clergymen routinely advised parents not to get too close to their children. Male adolescents were often sent away to live with other families. Many couples lived in sin. Today, proportionately more Americans marry than ever before. In the 1880s, the divorce rate in America exceeded that in all other industrialized countries. In the 1800s, there was one abortion for every six births. In the 1920s, one in four pregnancies ended in abortion." -The Good Old Days Weren't So Good by Gary Sloan "In recent years, America has become a more hopeful nation. Violent crime rates have fallen to their lowest levels since the 1970s. Welfare cases have dropped by more than half over the past decade. Drug use among youth is down 19 percent since 2001. There are fewer abortions in America than at any point in the last three decades, and the number of children born to teenage mothers has been falling for a dozen years in a row." -Bush, in his State of the Union address 2006 Also, abortion is not the violent murder of an unborn child according to the Bible: "What has been so clearly demonstrated by the passage in Exodus - the fact that God does not consider a fetus a human person - can also be seen in a variety of

other Bible verses. In Leviticus 27:6 a monetary value was placed on children, but not until they reached one month old (any younger had no value). Likewise, in Numbers 3:15 a census was commanded, but the Jews were told only to count those one month old and above - anything less, particularly a fetus, was not counted as a human person. In Ezekiel 37:8-10 we watch as God re-animates dead bones into living soldiers, but the passage makes the interesting note that they were not alive as persons until their first breath. Likewise, in Genesis 2:7, Adam had a human form and a vibrant new body but he only becomes a fully-alive human person after God makes him breathe. And in the same book, in Genesis 38:24, we read about a pregnant woman condemned to death by burning. Though the leaders of Israel knew the woman was carrying a fetus, this was not taken into consideration. If indeed the Jews, and the God who instructed them, believed the fetus to be an equal human person to the mother, then why would they let the fetus die for the mother's crimes? The truth is simple. A fetus is not a human person, and its destruction is not a murder. Period." Why Abortion is Biblical - By Brian Elroy McKinley Abortion is not a crime, it is an emotional political tool used to empower those against it and give them a cloak of moral superiority, and horrible passages in the Bible promoting infanticide (Psalms 137:9) makes it clear that the scriptures are not on the side of those using them in this debate. Scare: Jesus also predicted that there would be fearful sights (Luke 21:11). The Greek word translated fearful is phobetron, which can also be translated terror. According to the U.S. State Department, between 1981 and 2000, there were 9,179 international terrorist attacks. Reply: As the saying goes, one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. Take God's people in the past. Christians like to make waves in regard to the abortion of fetal tissue, but the God of the people actually promoted the mass murder of live babies: "Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" Psalms 137:9 New Revised Standard Bible Isn't the mass killings of babies an act of terror? Consider also that about 20 percent of pregnancies end in natural abortions (miscarriages), yet no one calls God a terrorist. Yes, terrible things happen in the world, but we are no longer living in cities that have to be fortified and walled due to constant terror attacks in the past. Scare: Despite an increase in scientific knowledge, deadly diseases (which the Bible calls "pestilences") would be prevalent (Matthew 24:7). Emerging diseases such as AIDS, Ebola, Hanta virus, Dengue, West Nile, SARS, etc., underscore this fact. Ironically, just a few decades ago, some scientists were forecasting that advances in medicine might soon eradicate deadly diseases. Also: *** Watchtower 1997 4/1 p. 7 Are These Really the Last Days?: "Today, cancer and heart disease claim millions of lives each year—veritable pestilences."

Reply: The fact that more people are getting cancer and heart disease is actually a good sign, as it means that more people are living long enough to get it. Whereas in times past people lived short miserable lives, "But overall cancer rates have not been rising, and lots of cancers, like stomach, uterine, and colorectal cancer, are on the decline. We think there's a cancer epidemic because we hear more about cancer. Cancer is a disease of an aging population, and fortunately, more people now live long enough to get cancer. More talk about it too. Many years ago people who got cancer were secretive about it." MYTHS, LIES, AND DOWNRIGHT STUPIDITY by John Stossel As for Ebola, Hanta virus, Dengue, West Nile, SARS, how many people do you know that actually died of this? "Unfortunately, public health alarms are sounded too often and too soon. SARS was broadcast as a new global killer to which we had zero immunity, and yet it petered out long before it killed a single person in the United States. SARS was something to be taken seriously, but the real lessons of SARS, smallpox, West Nile virus, anthrax and mad cow disease weren't learned by our leaders — that potential health threats are more effectively examined in the laboratory than at a news conference." An epidemic of overreaction 10-11-05 By Marc Siegel, MARC SIEGEL is an internist and associate professor at the New York University School of Medicine. He is the author of "False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear" (Wiley, 2005). What of AIDS? AIDS has killed about one half of one percent for the world’s population, whereas, in previous eras, pestilences had a much more profound impact on the world’s population. The Justinian Plague killed about 1/5 of the world’s population, and the Black Death of the 14th century is considered on the truer turning points in world history. The impact of the Black Death, the greatest ecological upheaval, has been compared to that of the two world wars of the twentieth century. To a degree this is true. But the Black Death... wrought even more essential change.... The effects of this natural and human disaster changed Europe profoundly, perhaps more so than any other series of events. For this reason, alone, the Black Death should be ranked as the greatest biological-environmental event in history, and one of the major turning points of Western Civilization. [Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death, 1983, p. 163]

AIDS, in contrast, is largely a preventable disease, and is making headway with newer science and medicine: Promising news on AIDS The drug cocktails used to suppress HIV and AIDS are now so effective that many more patients are living long enough to die of other causes, says a new study. Statistics on nearly 70,000 New York City residents who were infected with HIV show that of those who died between 1999 and 2004, 26 percent succumbed to causes associated with old age-such as heart disease and cancer-and not from causes related to the virus. That's encouraging news, Dr. Judith Aberg of New York University tells Scientific American, and doctors should take note. "Physicians everywhere must remember," Aberg said, "that most of their HIV-infected patients will survive to develop the diseases that plague the rest of us." -The Week Magazine The fact is that epidemic disease and pestilences plays a minor role in recent times compared to what it did in earlier centuries. The news of a ever prolonged lifespan and the booming population this past century is testament to the fact that, for much of the world, we have gained an enormous victory over an early death. Scare: Despite technological advancements, famines would be common (Luke 21:11; Revelation 6:5-8). Reply: Famines abound, but they are decreasing dramatically: “If we take caloric consumption as an indicator of how well fed the nations of the world are, we see some dramatic changes. In 1964-66 only 59 countries (42 percent of the world's total) recorded an average daily caloric consumption of at least 100 percent of requirements. Ten years later, in 1974-76, this was true of 72 countries (52 percent) and by 1982-84 this had increased again to 92 countries, or 66 percent. Economist Jacqueline Kasun notes that world food production has increased considerably faster than population in recent decades. The increase in per capita food output between 1950 and 1977 amounted to either 28 percent or 37 percent, depending on whether United Nations or United States Department of Agriculture figures are used.... More recent United Nations or United States Department of Agriculture data show that world food output has continued to match or outstrip population growth in the years since 1977. Some of the most dramatic increases have occurred in the poorest countries, those designated for "triage" by the apostles of doom. For example, rice and wheat production in India in 1983 was almost three-and-a-half times as great as in 1950. This was considerably more

than twice the percentage increase in the population of India for the same period.” Jim Person "The Myth of Famine." In Exploding Population Myths. Vancouver, B.C.: The Fraser Institute, 1995. Also: “As with the claim of pestilence, it is not difficult to show that famines have decreased greatly in the 20th century compared to prior ones. Four famines struck China in 1810, 1811, 1846 and 1849, and killed at least 45 million. Cannibalism was reported to be rampant. All told, some 100 million people starved to death in China alone in the 19th century. What about the 20th century? In 1958-1961 a severe famine struck China, in which anywhere from 8 to 30 million died. Perhaps another 5 million in China have died in the 20th century. So China, whose population in the 20th century is more than double what it was in the 19th, has experienced significantly less famine in both absolute and relative terms in the 20th century. In almost every country of Europe and the Americas, famine became almost unknown by the mid-20th century. In much of the rest of the world it is the same as it has always been. The most severe famines in nearly every part of the world occurred before 1914. While malnutrition is certainly a problem and famines still occur, the situation was well described in 1975 by one food expert: "We might be inclined to deduce from the pictorial evidence of famine that we have seen recently on television, in newspapers, and in magazines that the world is more prone to famine now than it used to be. But the evidence is clearly to the contrary.... There has been a rather substantial reduction in the incidence of famine during the past century." For this reason, when famine does strike it is big news.” Unassailable Proofs by Alan Feuerbacher Scare: Earthquakes occurring in diverse places predicted (Matthew 24:7). For updated news & links visit: EarthQuakes (harpazo network) Reply: The harpazo network includes a link from USGS (U.S. Geological Survey). What do they have to say about modern quakes? “Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant throughout this century and, according to our records, have actually seemed to decrease in recent years. A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications.” http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/faq.php?categoryID=6&faqID=110

Others, like the Watchtower have used the statistics from the National Geophysical Data Center to try and prove an increase in earthquakes, but this is wrong also: "Erroneous statistical conclusions can be drawn from the numbers of earthquakes taken from Catalog of Significant Earthquakes, 2150 B.C. to the present. The reporting of large or destructive earthquakes is not homogeneous in space or time, particularly for periods prior to the 1900s. Because this publication mainly lists those earthquakes that have caused death or damage, the number of earthquake reports is dependent on the written history available for a particular region, as well as on the rate of development of population centers and related structures. Therefore, it is misleading to use the numbers of significant earthquakes in that publication to suggest statistically that there has been an increase in worldwide seismic activity since 1900 or for any time period. that "apparent" increase in activity: Instrumental seismology is a young science. The first calibrated instruments to measure seismic waves traveling through the earth did not appear until the late 1800s. At that time, seismologists became aware of the vast numbers of earthquakes occurring throughout the world, but because of the insensitivity of their instruments they were able to locate only the large magnitude events. The 1960s saw two major advances. First, a network of seismological observatories, the Worldwide Standardized Seismograph Network (WWSSN), was installed by the United States Government, principally to monitor underground nuclear tests. These sensitive instruments could detect and identify earthquakes anywhere in the world from about magnitude 4.5. Second computers became available in the late 1960s. Computers allowed seismologists to leave inaccurate and cumbersome graphical methods of locating earthquakes, and to process the increasing volume of new network data more rapidly than ever before. Prior to 1962, only hundreds of earthquake epicenters were determined each year by Government and academic institutions, but the number increased to the thousands using computerized location methods. In some special local studies, more than 100,000 earthquakes per year were identified and located. In summary, using the data in Catalog of Significant Earthquakes, 2150 B.C. to the present to suggest that there has been an increase in worldwide earthquake activity is misleading and erroneous. The above observations and reporting factors must also be considered when making statistical studies based on that historical data report." http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/sigintro.shtml

Scare: Marriage would be forbidden by many (1 Timothy 4:3). The Bible states that marriage is honorable among all (Hebrews 13:4). Despite this, the Catholic Church forbids their 400,000 priests and numerous bishops, cardinals, nuns, and monks from marrying. The Orthodox Church, as well as Hindus, Buddhists, and other religious groups also impose mandatory celibacy for certain orders. Visit: * The End of Marriage in Scandinavia (weekly standard) Reply: Marriage is alive and well, despite warnings to the contrary. We now have more couples celebrating their 40th and 50th wedding anniversaries than ever before in history. For more on this, feel free to read The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz Lower divorce rates in previous generations are misleading. "Lots of marriages in the 19th Century ended in desertion, not divorce," Grooms said. - Greg Garrison, "Baptist Lead in Divorce," The Birmingham News, 12/30/1999 Scare: Youth would become increasingly rebellious (2 Timothy 3:2-3; Mark 13:12). Reply: I could argue that youth have become decreasingly rebellious, after all: "Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2005," a recent joint study by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, reports statistics about crime incidences occurring in school as well as on the way to and from school. Major findings include: * In the most recent federally reported data there were 17 homicides and 5 suicides of school youth at school, less than 1 per million students enrolled. * The number of school-associated violent deaths has decreased in a decade by 40 percent, from 43 to 26 last year, in a population of 52 million U.S. students. * The violent crime victimization rate at school declined from 48 per 1,000 students in to 28 over a decade. * Less than 1 percent of students reported serious violent victimization (such as rape, sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated assault). * Theft, bullying, drugs, and weapons are still widespread, but in the last decade reports of physical fights fell 14 percent, reports of students being injured in fights dropped 20 percent, and the number of students who reported having carried a weapon in the past 30 days decreased by 30 percent. “The youth crime rate has decreased over the past decade. The media's tendency to focus on violent youth crime stories can

contribute to a distortion of youth crime facts. An Ontario study found that 94%of youth crime stories in the media were about violent offences when less than 25% of Ontario's youth court cases actually involved violent crime. Minor assaults account for more than half of the violent crimes committed by youth. A similar American study conducted in 2000 by the advocacy group Building Blocks for Youth found that crime news on network TV increased 83% from 1990 to 1998. The crime rate dropped 20% during that period to its lowest level in 25 years. Yet polling showed two-thirds of people believed it was still on the rise. Between 1991-92 and 2002-03, the total number of youth crime cases in Canada dropped by 20%. In that same period, the number of crimes against property committed by youth fell a total of 47% to its lowest level in more than 25 years.” –John Stossel Complaining about youth is an age old practice: "I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint" (Hesiod, 8th century BC). "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277 (1953)." "The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress." -Peter the Hermit in A.D. 1274! "Our young men have grown slothful. There is not a single honourable

occupation for which they will toil night and day. They sing and dance and grow effeminate and curl their hair and learn womanish tricks of speech; They are as languid as women and deck themselves out with unbecoming ornaments. Without strength, without energy, they add nothing during life to the gifts with which they were born - then they complain of their lot" (Seneca, first century AD). "So the water has been wholesome to this day, according to the word which Elisha spoke. He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!" And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys." 2 Kings 2:22 "Times are bad [also seen as: The world is going to hell]: children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book..." -- attributed to Cicero There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end: Bribery and corruption are common. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. -- from Assyrian tablet, 2800 B.C.E. "The world is passing through troublesome times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint; they talk as if they alone know everything...." ~ Matthew Paris (13th Century A.D.) Also: "....violent youth have always been with us. "An Army of six million men are being mobilized against us, an army of delinquents. Juvenile delinquency has increased at an alarming rate eating at the heart of America," a juvenile court judge warned in earlier in nineteenth-century America, hordes of teens and pre-labeled "predatory beasts" by police and the press, ran wild in streets, dodging authorities, "gnawing away at the foundations" as a commentator put it at the time. In 1850 alone New York recorded more than 200 gang wars fought largely by adolescent in 1868, in San Francisco a gang of

teenagers robbed a Chinese man then beat him, sliced up his face, and branded him with hot irons. Violence by teens against Chinese immigrants was In during this period in U.S. history." -Barry Glassner Scare: The rise of anti-Semitism worldwide anticipated (Joel 3:2; Zechariah 12:2-3). In the 1940s, Hitler tried to exterminate every Jew. And in the final 3 ½ years of the Tribulation, Antichrist will turn on the Jews and attempt the same. Reply: Anti-Semitism has been with us for millennia. One can certainly make a very strong case for a much more rampant anti-semitism in times past. From wikipedia: 37-41 Thousands of Jews killed by mobs in Alexandria (Egypt), as recounted by Philo of Alexandria in Flaccus. 50 Jews ordered by Roman Emperor Claudius "not to hold meetings", in the words of Cassius Dio (Roman History, 60.6.6). Claudius later expelled Jews from Rome, according to both Suetonius ("Lives of the Twelve Caesars", Claudius, Section 25.4) and Acts 18:2. 66-73 Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans is crushed by Vespasian and Titus Flavius. Titus refuses to accept a wreath of victory, as there is "no merit in vanquishing people forsaken by their own God." (Philostratus, Vita Apollonii). The events of this period were recorded in detail by the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus. His record is largely sympathetic to the Roman view, and hence is considered a controversial source. Josephus describes the Jewish revolt as being led by "tyrants," to the detriment of the city, and of Titus as having "moderation" in his escalation of the Siege of Jerusalem 1st century Fabrications of Apion in Alexandria, Egypt, including the first recorded blood libel. Juvenal writes anti-Jewish poetry. Josephus picks apart contemporary and old antiSemitic myths in his work Against Apion. (e-text at Project Gutenberg) Late 1st–early 2nd century Tacitus writes anti-Jewish polemic in his Histories (book 5). He reports on several old myths of ancient anti-Semitism (including that of the donkey's head in the Holy of Holies), but the key to his view that Jews "regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies" is his analysis of the extreme differences between monotheistic Judaism and the polytheism common throughout the Roman world. 115-117

Thousands of Jews are killed during civil unrest in Egypt, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica, as recounted by Dio Cassius' History of Rome (68.31), and Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica (4.2), and papyrii. c. 119 Roman emperor Hadrian bans circumcision, making Judaism de facto illegal. c. 132-135 Hadrian constructs a pagan temple to Jupiter at the site of the Temple in Jerusalem, builds Aelia Capitolina among ruins of Jerusalem and crushes the Bar Kokhba's revolt. Judea is wiped off the map and renamed into Palestine; Jews are left dispersed and stateless. 167 Claimed to be the first recorded accusation of deicide. A sermon, attributed to Melito of Sardis, titled On the Passover (Peri Pascha), blames the Jews for following King Herod and Caiaphas to execute Jesus, despite their calling as God's people (57, 93). Melito says, "you did not know, O Israel, that this one was the firstborn of God." (82) Melito does not attribute particular blame to Pontius Pilate, but only mentions that Pilate washed his hands of guilt (92). Melito wrote this sermon in Greek, so does not use the Latin word for deicide, deicida. (According to the Latin Dictionary of Charleton Lewis and Charles Short, the latin word deicidas is used by the 4th century, by Peter Chrystologus in his sermon #172.) At a time when Christians were widely persecuted, Melitos speech was an appeal to Rome to spare Christians. 4th century Part of a series of articles on Jews and Judaism 306 The Synod of Elvira bans intermarriage between Christians and Jews. Other social intercourses, such as eating together, are also forbidden. 315-337 Constantine I enacts various laws regarding the Jews: Jews are not allowed to own Christian slaves or to circumcise their slaves. Conversion of Christians to Judaism is outlawed. Congregations for religious services are restricted, but Jews are also allowed to enter the restituted Jerusalem on the anniversary of the Temple's destruction. 325 First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The Christian Church separates the calculation of the date of Easter from the Jewish Passover: "We desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews... How, then, could we follow these Jews, who are almost certainly blinded." 361-363

Roman Emperor Julian, a pagan, allows the Jews to return to "holy Jerusalem which you have for many years longed to see rebuilt" and to rebuild the Temple. 386 John Chrysostom of Antioch writes eight homilies Adversus Judaeos (lit: Against the Judaizers). See also: Christianity and anti-Semitism#The Church Fathers. 388 A Christian mob incited by the local bishop plunders and burns down a synagogue in Callinicum. Theodosius I orders punishment for those responsible, and rebuilding the synagogue at the Christian expense. Ambrose of Milan insists in his letter that the whole case be dropped He interrupts the liturgy in the emperor's presence with an ultimatum that he would not continue until the case was dropped. Theodosius complies. 399 The Western Roman Emperor Honorius calls Judaism superstitio indigna and confiscates gold and silver collected by the synagogues for Jerusalem. 5th century 415 Jews are accused of ritual murder during Purim.[2] Christians in Antioch, and Magona confiscate or burn synagogues. Bishop Cyril of Alexandria forces his way into the synagogue, expels the Jews and gives their property to the mob. Prefect Orestes is stoned almost to death for protesting. 418 The first record of Jews being forced to convert or face expulsion. Severus, the Bishop of Minorca, claimed to have forced 540 Jews to accept Christianity upon conquering the island. 419 The monk Barsauma (subsequently the Bishop of Nisibis) gathers a group of followers and for the next three years destroys synagogues throughout the Palestine. 429 The East Roman Emperor Theodosius II orders all funds raised by Jews to support schools be turned over to his treasury. 439 Jan 31 The Codex Theodosianus, the first imperial compilation of laws. Jews are prohibited from holding important positions involving money, including judicial and executive offices. The ban against building new synagogues is reinstated. The anti-Jewish statutes apply to the Samaritans. The Code is also accepted by Western Roman Emperor, Valentinian III.

451 Sassanid ruler Yazdegerd II of Persia's decree abolishes the Sabbath and orders executions of Jewish leaders, including the Exilarch Mar Nuna. 465 Council of Vannes, Gaul prohibited the Christian clergy from participating in Jewish feasts. 6th century 519 Ravenna, Italy. After the local synagogues were burned down by the local mob, Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great orders the town to rebuild them at its own expense. 529-559 Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great publishes Corpus Juris Civilis. New laws restrict citizenship to Christians. These regulations determined the status of Jews throughout the Empire for hundreds of years: Jewish civil rights restricted: "they shall enjoy no honors". The principle of Servitus Judaeorum (Servitude of the Jews) is established: the Jews cannot testify against Christians. The emperor becomes an arbiter in internal Jewish matters. The use of the Hebrew language in worship is forbidden. Shema Yisrael ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one"), sometimes considered the most important prayer in Judaism, is banned as a denial of the Trinity. Some Jewish communities are converted by force, their synagogues turned into churches. 535 The First Council of Clermont, Gaul prohibits Jews from holding public office. 538 The Third Council of Orléans, Gaul forbids Jews to employ Christian servants or possess Christian slaves. Jews are prohibited from appearing in the streets during Easter: "their appearance is an insult to Christianity". A Merovingian king Childebert approves the measure. 576 Clermont, Gaul. Bishop Avitus offers Jews a choice: accept Christianity or leave Clermont. Most emigrate to Marseille. 589 The Council of Narbonne, Septimania, forbids Jews from chanting psalms while burying their dead. Anyone violating this law is fined 6 ounces of gold. The third Council of Toledo, held under Visigothic King Reccared, bans Jews from slave ownership and holding positions of authority, and reiterates the mutual ban on intermarriage.[3] Reccared also rules children out of such marriages to be raised as Christians. 590

Pope Gregory I defends the Jews against forced conversion. 7th century 610-620 Visigothic Hispania After many of his anti-Jewish edicts were ignored, king Sisebur prohibits Judaism. Those not baptized fled. This was the first incidence where a prohibition of Judaism affected an entire country. 614 Fifth Council of Paris decrees that all Jews holding military or civil positions must accept baptism, together with their families. 615 Italy. The earliest referral to the Juramentum Judaeorum (the Jewish Oath): the concept that no heretic could be believed in court against a Christian. The oath became standardized throughout Europe in 1555. 629 Mar. 21 Byzantine Emperor Heraclius with his army marches into Jerusalem. Jewish inhabitants support him after his promise of amnesty. Upon his entry into Jerusalem the local priests convince him that killing Jews is a good deed. Hundreds of Jews are massacred, thousands flee to Egypt. Frankish King Dagobert I, encouraged by Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, expels all Jews from the kingdom. 632 The first case of officially sanctioned forced baptism. Emperor Heraclius violates the Codex Theodosianus, which protected them from forced conversions. 681 The Twelfth Council of Toledo, Spain orders burning of the Talmud and other "heretic" books. 682 Visigothic king Erwig begins his reign by enacting 28 anti-Jewish laws. He presses for the "utter extirpation of the pest of the Jews" and decrees that all converts must be registered by a parish priest, who must issue travel permits. All holidays, Christian and Jewish, must be spent in the presence of a priest to ensure piety and to prevent the backsliding. 692 Quinisext Council in Constantinople forbids Christians on pain of excommunication to bathe in public baths with Jews, employ a Jewish doctor or socialize with Jews.

694 17th Council of Toledo. King Ergica believes rumors that the Jews had conspired to ally themselves with the Muslim invaders and forces Jews to give all land, slaves and buildings bought from Christians, to his treasury. He declares that all Jewish children over the age of seven should be taken from their homes and raised as Christians. 8th century 717 Possible date for the Pact of Umar, a document that specified restrictions on Jews and Christians (dhimmi) living under Muslim rule. However, academic historians believe that this document was actually compiled at a much later date. 722 Byzantine emperor Leo III forcibly converts all Jews and Montanists in the empire into mainstream Byzantine Christianity. 9th century 807 Abbassid Caliph Harun al-Rashid orders all Jews in the Caliphate to wear a yellow belt, with Christians to wear a blue one. 820 Agobard, Archbishop of Lyon, declares in his essays that Jews are accursed and demands a complete segregation of Christians and Jews. In 826 he issues a series of pamphlets to convince Emperor Louis the Pious to attack "Jewish insolence", but fails to convince the Emperor. 898-929 French king Charles the Simple confiscates Jewish-owned property in Narbonne and donates it to the Church. 11th century 1008-1013 Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah issues severe restrictions against Jews in the Land of Israel. All Jews are forced to wear a "golden calf" (made of wood) around their necks. On Oct. 18 1009 he destroys the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but the French "historian" Raoul Glaber blames the Jews. As a result, Jews were expelled from Limoges and other French towns. 1012 One of the first known persecutions of Jews in Germany: Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor expels Jews from Mainz.

1016 The Jewish community of Kairouan, Tunisia is forced to chose between conversion and expulsion. 1032 Abul Kamal Tumin conquers Fez, Morocco and decimates the Jewish community, killing 6,000 Jews. 1050 Council of Narbonne, France forbids Christians to live in Jewish homes. 1066 Dec 30 The entire Jewish community of Granada came under the riotous siege resulting in 4,000 deaths and the destruction of most property. The community quickly recovered, only to fall again at the hands of the Almoravides lead by Iban Iashufin in 1090, bringing the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain to end. 1078 Council of Gerona decrees Jews to pay taxes for support of the Catholic Church to the same extent as Christians. Jews (identifiable by Judenhut) are being massacred by Crusaders. 1096 The First Crusade. Three hosts of crusaders pass through several Central European cities. The third, unofficial host, led by Count Emicho, decides to attack the Jewish communities, most notably in the Rhineland, under the slogan: "Why fight Christ's enemies abroad when they are living among us?" Eimicho's host attacks the synagogue at Speyers and kills all the defenders. Another 1,200 Jews commit suicide in Mayence to escape his attempt to forcibly convert them; see German Crusade, 1096. Attempts by the local bishops remained fruitless. All in all, 5,000 Jews were murdered. St. Bernard attempts to stop further atrocities: "Whoever makes an attempt on a life of a Jew, sins as if he had attacked Jesus himself." 12th century 1107 Moroccan Almoravid ruler Yoseph Ibn Tashfin orders all Moroccan Jews to convert or leave. 1143 150 Jews were killed in Ham, France. 1144 March 20 (Passover)

The first blood libel in which the Jews of Norwich, England were accused of ritual murder after a Christian boy (William of Norwich) is found dead. It was claimed that the Jews had tortured and crucified their victim. From this time forward, similar charges were levelled against Jews in all quarters of Europe. The believers of these accusations reasoned that the Jews, having crucified Jesus, continued to thirst for pure and innocent blood and satisfied their thirst at the expense of innocent Christian children. In accordance with this logic, the season of such charges was typically in Spring around the time of Passover which approximately coincides with the time of Jesus' death. [BenSasson, H.H., Editor; (1969). A History of The Jewish People. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-674-39731-2 (paper).] The legend of William of Norwich became a cult, and the child acquired status of martyr saint. In 1189, Jewish deputation attending coronation of Richard the Lionheart is attacked by the crowd. Pogroms in London follow and spread around England. On Feb 6 1190 all the Norwich Jews found in their houses were slaughtered, except few who found refuge in the castle. 1148-1212 The rule of the Almohads. Only Jews who had converted to Christianity or Islam are allowed to live in Granada. One of the refugees was Rambam (AKA Maimonides) who settled in Fez and later in Fustat near Cairo. 1165 forced mass conversions in Yemen 1171 Blois, France: 31 Jews burned at the stake for blood libel. 1179 The Third Lateran Council, Canon 26: Jews are forbidden to be plaintiffs or witnesses against Christians in the Courts. Jews are forbidden to withhold inheritance from descendants who had accepted Christianity. 1180 Philip Augustus of France after four months in power, imprisons all the Jews in his lands and demands a ransom for their release. In 1181 he annuls all loans made by Jews to Christians and takes a percentage for himself. A year later, he confiscates all Jewish property and expels the Jews from Paris. He readmits them in 1198, only after another ransom was paid and a taxation scheme was set up to procure funds for himself. 1189 Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa orders priests not to preach against Jews. 1190 Mar. 16 500 Jews of York massacred after 6-day siege by departing Crusaders, backed by a number of people indebted to Jewish money-lenders. York Masssacre 1190

Saladdin takes over Jerusalem from Crusaders and lifts the ban for Jews to live there. 1198 Aug Saladdin's nephew al-Malik, caliph of Yemen, summons all the Jews and forcibly converts them. 13th century Germany. Appearance of Judensau: obscene and dehumanizing imagery of Jews, ranging from etchings to Cathedral ceilings. Its popularity lasted for over 600 years. 1215 The Fourth Lateran Council headed by Pope Innocent III declares: "Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress." (Canon 68). See Judenhut. The Fourth Lateran Council also noted that the Jews' own law required the wearing of identifying symbols. Pope Innocent III also reiterated papal injunctions against forcible conversions, and added: "No Christian shall do the Jews any personal injury...or deprive them of their possessions...or disturb them during the celebration of their festivals...or extort money from them by threatening to exhume their dead." 1222 Council of Oxford: Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton forbids Jews from building new synagogues, owning slaves or mixing with Christians. 1232 forced mass conversions in Marrakesh. 1235 The Jews of Fulda, Germany were accused of ritual murder. To investigate the blood libel, Emperor Frederick II held a special conference of Jewish converts to Christianity at which the converts were questioned about Jewish ritual practice. Letters inviting prominent individuals to the conference still survive. At the conference, the converts stated unequivocally that Jews do not harm Christian children or require blood for any rituals. In 1236 the Emperor published these findings and in 1247 Pope Innocent IV, the Emperor's enemy, also denounced accusations of the ritual murder of Christian children by Jews. In 1272, the papal repudiation of the blood libel was repeated by Pope Gregory X, who also ruled that thereafter any such testimony of a Christian against a Jew could not be accepted unless it is confirmed by another Jew. Unfortunately, these proclamations from the highest sources were not effective in altering the beliefs of the Christian majority and the libels continued. [Ben-Sasson, H.H., Editor; (1969). A History of The Jewish People. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-67439731-2 (paper).] 1236 Crusaders attack Jewish communities of Anjou and Poitou and attempt to baptize all the Jews. Those who resisted (est. 3,000) were slaughtered.

1240 Duke Jean le Roux expels Jews from Brittany. 1240 Disputation of Paris. Pope Gregory IX puts Talmud on trial on the charges that it contains blasphemy against Jesus and Mary and attacks on the Church. In 1242 24 cartloads of hand-written manuscripts were burned in the streets of Paris. 1242 James I of Aragon orders Jews to listen to conversion sermons and to attend churches. Friars are given power to enter synagogues uninvited. 1244 Pope Innocent IV orders Louis IX of France to burn all Talmud copies. 1250 Zaragoza: death of a choirboy Saint Dominguito del Val prompts ritual murder accusation. His sainthood was revoked in the 20th century but reportedly a chapel dedicated to him still exists in the Cathedral of Zaragoza. 1254 Louis IX expels the Jews from France, their property and synagogues confiscated. Most move to Germany and further east, however, after a couple of years, some were readmitted back. 1255 King Henry III of England, protector of the Jews, sells his rights to the Jews to his brother Richard for 5,000 marks. c. 1260 Thomas Aquinas publishes Summa Contra Gentiles, a summary of Christian faith to be presented to those who reject it. The Jews who refuse to convert are regarded as "deliberately defiant" rather than "invincibly ignorant". 1263 Disputation of Barcelona. 1264 Pope Clement IV assigns Talmud censorship committee. 1267 In a special session, the Vienna city council forces Jews to wear Pileum cornutum (a cone-shaped headdress, prevalent in many medieval illustrations of Jews). This distinctive dress is an addition to Yellow badge Jews were already forced to wear. Christians are not permitted to attend Jewish ceremonies.

1267 Synod of Breslau orders Jews to live in a segregated quarter. 1275 King Edward I of England passes anti-Jewish statute forcing Jews over the age of seven to wear an identifying Yellow badge, and making usury illegal (linked to blasphemy), in order to seize their assets. Scores of English Jews are arrested, 300 hanged and their property goes to the Crown. In 1280 he orders Jews to be present at Dominicans preaching conversion. In 1287 he arrests heads of Jewish families and demands their communities to pay ransom of 12,000 pounds. 1278 The Edict of Pope Nicholas III requires compulsory attendance of Jews at conversion sermons. 1279 Synod of Ofen: Christians are forbidden to sell or rent real estate to or from Jews. 1282 John Pectin, Archbishop of Canterbury, orders all London synagogues to close and prohibits Jewish physicians from practicing on Christians. 1283 Philip III of France causes mass migration of Jews by forbidding them to live in the small rural localities. 1285 Blood libel in Munich, Germany results in the death of 68 Jews. 180 more Jews are burned alive at the synagogue. 1287 A mob in Oberwesel, Germany kills 40 Jewish men, women and children after a ritual murder accusation. 1289 Jews are expelled from Gascony and Anjou. 1290 July 18 Edict of Expulsion: Edward I expels all Jews from England, allowing them to take only what they could carry, all the other property became the Crown's. Official reason: continued practice of usury. 1291 Philip the Fair publishes an ordinance prohibiting the Jews to settle in France.

1298 During the civil war between Adolph of Nassau and Albrecht of Austria, German knight Rindfleisch claims to have received a mission from heaven to exterminate "the accursed race of the Jews". Under his leadership, the mob goes from town to town destroying Jewish communities and massacring about 100,000 Jews, often by mass burning at stake. Among 146 localities in Franconia, Bavaria and Austria are Röttingen (April 20), Würzburg (July 24), Nuremberg (August 1). [4] 14th century 1305 Philip IV of France seizes all Jewish property (except the clothes they wear) and expels them from France (approx. 100,000). His successor Louis X of France allows French Jews to return in 1315. 1320 Shepherds' Crusade attacks the Jews of 120 localities in southwest France. 1321 King Henry II of Castile forces Jews to wear Yellow badge. 1321 Jews in central France falsely charged of their supposed collusion with lepers to poison wells. After massacre of est. 5,000 Jews, king Philip V of France admits they were innocent. 1322 King Charles IV expels Jews from France. 1333 forced mass conversions in Baghdad 1336 Persecutions against Jews in Franconia and Alsace led by lawless German bands, the Armleder. 1348 European Jews are blamed for the Black Death. Charge laid to the Jews that they poisoned the wells. Massacres spread throughout Spain, France, Germany and Austria. More than 200 Jewish communities destroyed by violence. Many communities have been expelled and settle down in Poland. 1348 Basel: 600 Jews burned at the stake, 140 children forcibly baptized, the remaining city's Jews expelled. The city synagogue is turned into a church and the Jewish cemetery is destroyed.

1359 Charles V of France allows Jews to return for a period of 20 years in order to pay ransom for his father John II of France, imprisoned in England. After few extensions, on Nov 3, 1394 his son Charles VI of France expels all Jews from France. 1386 Wenceslaus, Holy Roman Emperor, expels the Jews from Swabian League and Strasbourg and confiscates their property. On March 18, 1389, a Jewish boy is accused of plotting against a priest. The mob slaughters approx. 3,000 of Prague Jews, destroys the city's synagogue and Jewish cemetery. Wenceslaus insists that the responsibility lay with the Jews for going outside during the Holy Week. 1391 Violence incited by Archdeacon of Ecija Ferrand Martinez, results in over 10,000 murdered Jews. The Jewish quarter in Barcelona is destroyed. The campaign quickly spreads throughout Spain (except for Granada) and destroys Jewish communities in Valencia and Palma De Majorca. 1399 Blood libel in Posen. 15th century 1411 Oppressive legislation against Jews in Spain as an outcome of the preaching of the Dominican friar Vicente Ferrer. 1413 Disputation of Tortosa, Spain, staged by the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII, is followed by forced mass conversions. 1420 All Jews are expelled from Lyon. 1421 Persecutions of Jews in Vienna, known as Wiener Gesera (Vienna Edict), confiscation of their possessions, and forced conversion of Jewish children. 270 Jews burned at stake. Expulsion of Jews from Austria. 1422 Pope Martin V issues a Bull reminding Christians that Christianity was derived from Judaism and warns the friars not to incite against the Jews. The Bull was withdrawn the following year on allegations that the Jews of Rome attained it by fraud. 1434

Council of Basel, Sessio XIX: Jews are forbidden to obtain academic degrees and to act as agents in the conclusion of contracts between Christians. 1435 Massacre and forced conversion of Majorcan Jews. 1438 Establishment of mellahs (ghettos) in Morocco. 1447 Casimir IV renews all the rights of Jews of Poland and makes his charter one of the most liberal in Europe. He revokes it in 1454 at the insistence of Bishop Zbigniew. 1449 The Statute of Toledo introduces the rule of purity of blood discriminating Conversos. Pope Nicholas V condems it. 1463 Pope Nicholas V authorizes the establishment of the Inquisition to investigate heresy among the Marranos. See also Crypto-Judaism. 1473-1474 Spain. Massacres of Marranos of Valladolid, Cordoba, Segovia, Ciudad Real. 1475 A student of the preacher Giovanni da Capistrano, Franciscan Bernardino de Fletre, accuses the Jews in murdering an infant, Simon. The entire community is arrested, 15 leaders are burned at the stake, the rest are expelled. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V confirmed Simon's cultus. Saint Simon was considered a martyr and patron of kidnap and torture victims for almost 500 years. In 1965, Pope Paul VI declared the episode a fraud, and decanonized Simon's sainthood. 1481 The Spanish Inquisition is instituted. 1487-1504 Bishop Gennady exposes the heresy of Zhidovstvuyushchiye (Judaizers) in Eastern Orthodoxy of Muscovy. 1490 Tomás de Torquemada burns 6,000 volumes of Jewish mansucripts in Salamanca. 1491 The blood libel in La Guardia, Spain, where the alleged victim Holy Child of La Guardia became revered as a saint.

1492 Mar. 31 Ferdinand II and Isabella issue General Edict on the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain: approx. 200,000. Some return to the Land of Israel. As many localities and entire countries expel their Jewish citizens (after robbing them), and others deny them entrance, the legend of the Wandering Jew, a condemned harbinger of calamity, gains popularity. 1492 Oct. 24 Jews of Mecklenburg, Germany are accused of stabbing a consecrated wafer. 27 Jews are burned, including two women. The spot is still called the Judenberg. All the Jews are expelled from the Duchy. 1493 Jan. 12 Expulsion from Sicily: approx. 37,000. 1496 Forced conversion and expulsion of Jews from Portugal. This included many who fled Spain four years earlier. 1498 Prince Alexander of Lithuania forces most of the Jews to forfeit their property or convert. The main motivation is to cancel the debts the nobles owe to the Jews. Within a short time the trade grounds to a halt and the Prince invites the Jews back in. 16th century Jews from Worms, Germany wear the mandatory yellow badge. A moneybag and garlic in the hands are an anti-semitic stereotype. 16th century drawing Enlarge Jews from Worms, Germany wear the mandatory yellow badge. A moneybag and garlic in the hands are an anti-semitic stereotype. 16th century drawing 1505 Ten Ceské Budejovice Jews are tortured and executed after being accused of killing a Christian girl; later, on deathbed, shepherd confesses to fabricating the accusation. 1506 April 19 A marrano expresses his doubts about miracle visions at St. Dominics Church in Lisbon, Portugal. The crowd, led by Dominican monks, kills him, then ransacks Jewish houses and slaughters any Jew they could find. The countrymen hear about the massacre and join in. Over 2,000 marranos killed in three days. 1509 August 19 A converted Jew Johannes Pfefferkorn receives authority of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor to destroy the Talmud and other Jewish religious books, except the Hebrew Bible, in Frankfurt.

1510 July 19 Forty Jews are executed in Brandenburg, Germany for allegedly desecrating the host; remainder expelled. November 23. Less-wealthy Jews expelled from Naples; remainder heavily taxed. 38 Jews burned at the stake in Berlin. 1511 June 6 Eight Roman Catholic converts from Judaism burned at the stake for allegedly reverting. 1516 The first ghetto is established, on one of the islands in Venice. 1519 Martin Luther leads Protestant Reformation and challenges the doctrine of Servitus Judaeorum "... to deal kindly with the Jews and to instruct them to come over to us". February 21. All Jews expelled from Ratisbon/Regensburg. 1520 Pope Leo X allows Jews print Talmud in Venice 1527 June 16 Jews are ordered to leave Florence, but the edict is soon rescinded. 1528 Three judaizers are burned at the stake in Mexico City's first auto da fe. 1535 After Spanish troops capture Tunis all the local Jews are sold into slavery. 1543 In his pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies Martin Luther advocates an eight-point plan to get rid of the Jews as a distinct group either by religious conversion or by expulsion: "...set fire to their synagogues or schools..." "...their houses also be razed and destroyed..." "...their prayer books and Talmudic writings... be taken from them..." "...their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb..." "...safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews..." "...usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them..." and "Such money should now be used in ... the following [way]... Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed [certain amount]..." "...young, strong Jews and Jewesses [should]... earn their bread in the sweat of their brow..." "If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews' blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country" and "we must drive them out like mad dogs."

Luther "got the Jews expelled from Saxony in 1537, and in the 1540s he drove them from many German towns; he tried unsuccessfully to get the elector to expel them from Brandenburg in 1543. His followers continued to agitate against the Jews there: they sacked the Berlin synagogue in 1572 and the following year finally got their way, the Jews being banned from the entire country."[5] (See also Martin Luther and the Jews) 1540 All Jews are banished from Prague. 1546 Martin Luther's sermon Admonition against the Jews contains accusations of ritual murder, black magic, and poisoning of wells. Luther recognizes no obligation to protect the Jews. 1547 Ivan the Terrible becomes ruler of Russia and refuses to allow Jews to live in or even enter his kingdom because they "bring about great evil" (quoting his response to request by Polish king Sigismund). 1550 Dr. Joseph Hacohen is chased out of Genoa for practicing medicine; soon all Jews are expelled. 1553 Pope Julius III forbids Talmud printing and orders burning of any copy found. Rome’s Inquisitor-General, Cardinal Carafa (later Pope Paul IV) has Talmud publicly burnt in Rome on Rosh Hashanah, starting a wave of Talmud burning throughout Italy. About 12,000 copies were destroyed. 1554 Cornelio da Montalcino, a Franciscan Friar who converted to Judaism, is burned alive in Rome. 1555 In Papal Bull Cum nimis absurdum, Pope Paul IV writes: "It appears utterly absurd and impermissible that the Jews, whom God has condemned to eternal slavery for their guilt, should enjoy our Christian love." He renews anti-Jewish legislation and installs a locked nightly ghetto in Rome. The Bull also forces Jewish males to wear a yellow hat, females yellow kerchief. Owning real estate or practicing medicine on Christians is forbidden. It also limits Jewish communities to only one synagogue. 1557 Jews are temporarily banished from Prague. 1558

Recanati, Italy: a baptized Jew Joseph Paul More enters synagogue on Yom Kippur under the protection of Pope Paul IV and tries to preach a conversion sermon. The congregation evicts him. Soon after, the Jews are expelled from Recanati. 1559 Pope Pius IV allows Talmud on conditions that it is printed by a Christian and the text is censored. 1563 February Russian troops take Polotsk from Lithuania, Jews are given ultimatum: embrace Russian Orthodox Church or die. Around 300 Jewish men, women and children were thrown into ice holes of Dvina river. 1564 Brest-Litovsk: the son of a wealthy Jewish tax collector is accused of killing the family's Christian servant for ritual purposes. He is tortured and executed in line with the law. King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland forbids future charges of ritual murder, calling them groundless. 1565 Jews are temporarily banished from Prague. 1566 Antonio Ghislieri elected and, as Pope Pius V, reinstates the harsh anti-Jewish laws of Pope Paul IV. In 1569 he expels Jews dwelling outside of the ghettos of Rome, Ancona, and Avignon from the Papal States, thus ensuring that they remain city-dwellers. 1567 Jews are reauthorised to live in France 1586 Pope Sixtus V forbids printing of the Talmud. 1590 Jewish quarter of Mikulov burns to ground and 15 people die while Christians watch or pillage. King Philip II of Spain orders expulsion of Jews from Lombardy. His order is ignored by local authorities until 1597, when 72 Jewish families are forced into exile. 1593 Feb. 25 Pope Clement VIII confirms the Papal bull of Paul III that expels Jews from Papal states except ghettos in Rome and Ancona and issues Caeca et obdurata ("Blind Obstinacy"): "All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. ... Then as now Jews have to be reminded intermittently anew that they were enjoying rights in any country since they left Palestine and the Arabian desert, and subsequently their ethical and moral doctrines as well as their deeds rightly deserve to be exposed to criticism in whatever country they happen to live."

17th century 1603 Frei Diogo Da Assumpacao, a partly Jewish friar who embraced Judaism, burned alive in Lisbon. 1608 The Jesuit order forbids admission to anyone descended from Jews to the fifth generation, a restriction lifted in the 20th century. Three years later Pope Paul V applies the rule throughout the Church, but his successor revokes it. 1612 The Hamburg Senate decides to officially allow Jews to live in the city on the condition there is no public worship. Expulsion of the Jews from Frankfurt on August 23, 1614: "1380 persons old and young were counted at the exit of the gate" Enlarge Expulsion of the Jews from Frankfurt on August 23, 1614: "1380 persons old and young were counted at the exit of the gate" 1614 Vincent Fettmilch, who called himself the "new Haman of the Jews", leads a raid on Frankfurt synagogue that turned into an attack which destroyed the whole community. 1615 King Louis XIII of France decrees that all Jews must leave the country within one month on pain of death. 1615 The Guild led by Dr. Chemnitz, "non-violently" forced the Jews from Worms. 1619 Shah Abbasi of the Persian Sufi Dynasty increases persecution against the Jews, forcing many to outwardly practice Islam. Many keep practicing Judaism in secret. 1624 Ghetto established in Ferrara, Italy. 1632 King Ladislaus IV of Poland forbids Anti-Semitic print-outs. 1648-1655 The Ukrainian Cossacks lead by Bohdan Chmielnicki massacre about 100,000 Jews and similar number of Polish nobles, 300 Jewish communities destroyed.

1655 Oliver Cromwell readmits Jews to England. 1664 May Jews of Lvov ghetto organize self-defense against impending assault by students of Jesuit seminary and Cathedral school. The militia sent by the officials to restore order, instead joined the attackers. About 100 Jews killed. 1670 Jews expelled from Vienna. 1678 forced mass conversions in Yemen. 18th century 1711 Johann Andreas Eisenmenger writes his Entdecktes Judenthum ("Judaism Unmasked"), a work denouncing Judaism and which had a formative influence on modern anti-Semitic polemics. 1712 Blood libel in Sandomierz and expulsion of the town's Jews. 1727 Edict of Catherine I of Russia: "The Jews... who are found in Ukraine and in other Russian provinces are to be expelled at once beyond the frontiers of Russia." 1734 1736: The Haidamaks, paramilitary bands in Polish Ukraine, attack Jews. 1742 Dec Elizabeth of Russia issues a decree of expulsion of all the Jews out of Russian Empire. Her resolution to the Senate's appeal regarding harm to the trade: "I don't desire any profits from the enemies of Christ". One of the deportees is Antonio Ribera Sanchez, her own personal physician and the head of army's medical dept. 1744 Frederick II The Great (a "heroic genius", according to Hitler) limits Breslau to ten "protected" Jewish families, on the grounds that otherwise they will "transform it into complete Jerusalem". He encourages this practice in other Prussian cities. In 1750 he issues Revidiertes General Privilegium und Reglement vor die Judenschaft: "protected" Jews had an alternative to "either abstain from marriage or leave Berlin" (Simon Dubnow).

1744 Dec Archduchess of Austria Maria Theresa orders: "... no Jew is to be tolerated in our inherited duchy of Bohemia" by the end of Feb. 1745. In Dec. 1748 she reverses her position, on condition that Jews pay for readmission every ten years. This extortion was known as malke-geld (queen's money). In 1752 she introduces the law limiting each Jewish family to one son. 1762 Rhode Island refuses to grant Jews Aaron Lopez and Isaac Eliezer citizenship stating "no person who is not of the Christian religion can be admitted free to this colony." 1768 Haidamaks massacre the Jews of Uman, Poland. 1771 Voltaire calls Jews "deadly to the human race", promotes racial antisemitism. 1775 Pope Pius VI issues a severe Editto sopra gli ebrei (Edict concerning the Jews). Previously lifted restrictions are reimposed, Judaism is suppressed. 1782 Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II abolishes most of persecution practices in Toleranzpatent on condition that Yiddish and Hebrew are eliminated from public records and judicial autonomy is annulled. Judaism is branded "quintessence of foolishness and nonsense". Moses Mendelssohn writes: "Such a tolerance... is even more dangerous play in tolerance than open persecution". 1790 May 20 Eleazer Solomon is quartered for the alleged murder of a Christian girl in Grodno. 1790 "To Bigotry No Sanction, to Persecution No Assistance" (George Washington's Letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island) 1790-1792 Destruction of most of the Jewish communities of Morocco. 1791 Catherine II of Russia confines Jews to the Pale of Settlement and imposes them with double taxes. Pale of Settlement 19th century 1805 Massacre of Jews in Algeria.

1815 Pope Pius VII reestablishes the ghetto in Rome after the defeat of Napoleon. 1819 A series of anti-Jewish riots in Germany that spread to several neighboring countries: Denmark, Poland, Latvia and Bohemia known as Hep-Hep Riots, from the derogatory rallying cry against the Jews in Germany. 1827 August 26 Compulsory military service for the Jews of Russia: Jewish boys under 18 years of age, known as the Cantonists, were placed in preparatory military training establishments for 25 years. Cantonists were encouraged and sometimes forced to baptize. 1835 Oppressive constitution for the Jews issued by Czar Nicholas I of Russia. 1840 The Damascus affair: false accusations cause arrests and atrocities, culminating in the seizure of sixty-three Jewish children and attacks on Jewish communities throughout the Middle East. 1844 Karl Marx praises Bruno Bauer's essays containing demands that the Jews abandon Judaism, and publishes his work On the Jewish Question: "What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money... Money is the jealous God of Israel, besides which no other god may exist... The god of the Jews has been secularized and has become the god of this world", "In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism." 1853 Blood libels in Saratov and throughout Russia. 1858 Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish boy whom a maid had baptised during an illness, is taken from his parents in Bologna, an episode which aroused universal indignation in liberal circles. 1862 Polish Jews are given equal rights. Old privileges forbidding Jews to settle in some cities are abolished. 1871 Speech of Pope Pius IX in regard to Jews: "of these dogs, there are too many of them at present in Rome, and we hear them howling in the streets, and they are disturbing us in all places."

1878 Adolf Stoecker, German anti-Semitic preacher and politician, founds the Social Workers' Party, which marks the beginning of the political anti-Semitic movement in Germany. 1879 Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian and politician, justifies the anti-Semitic campaigns in Germany, bringing anti-Semitism into learned circles. 1879 Wilhelm Marr coins the term Anti-Semitism to distinguish himself from religious AntiJudaism. 1881-1884 Pogroms sweep southern Russia, propelling mass Jewish emigration: about 2 million Russian Jews emigrated in period 1880-1920. The Russian word "pogrom" becomes international. 1882 The Tiszaeszlár blood libel in Hungary arouses public opinion throughout Europe. 1882 First International Anti-Jewish Congress convenes at Dresden, Germany. 1882 May A series of "temporary laws" by Tsar Alexander III of Russia (the May Laws), which adopted a systematic policy of discrimination, with the object of removing the Jews from their economic and public positions, in order to "cause one-third of the Jews to emigrate, one-third to accept baptism and one-third to starve" (according to a remark attributed to Konstantin Pobedonostsev) 1887 Russia introduces measures to limit Jews access to education, known as the quota. 1891 Blood libel in Xanten, Germany. 1891 Expulsion of 20,000 Jews from Moscow, Russia. The Congress of the United States eases immigration restrictions for Jews from the Russian Empire. (Webster-Campster report) 1893

Karl Lueger establishes anti-Semitic Christian Social Party and becomes the Mayor of Vienna in 1897. The treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus. Enlarge The treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus. 1894 The Dreyfus Affair in France. In 1898 Émile Zola publishes open letter J'accuse! 1895 A. C. Cuza organizes the Alliance Anti-semitique Universelle in Bucharest, Romania. 1899 Houston Stewart Chamberlain, racist and anti-Semitic author, publishes his Die Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhunderts which later became a basis of National-Socialist ideology. 1899 Blood libel in Bohemia (the Hilsner case). 20th century In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good anti-Semitism" and "bad anti-Semitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc. Many Catholic bishops wrote articles criticizing Jews on such grounds, and, when accused of promoting hatred of Jews, would remind people that they condemned the "bad" kind of anti-Semitism. 1903 The Kishinev pogrom: 49 Jews murdered. 1903 The first publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion hoax in St. Petersburg, Russia (by Pavel Krushevan). 1909 Salomon Reinach and Florence Simmonds refer to "this new Anti-Semitism, masquerading as patriotism, which was first propagated at Berlin by the court chaplain Stöcker, with the connivance of Bismarck." [7] Similarly, Peter N. Stearns comments that "the ideology behind the new anti-Semitism [in Germany] was more racist than religious." [8]

1911 The Blood libel trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis in Kiev. 1915 The World War I prompts expulsion of 250,000 Jews from Western Russia. Scare: Jesus said Christians would be hated for His name's sake (Luke 21:17; Revelation 6:9-11; 20:4). The banning of the Bible, prayer, the Ten Commandments, nativity scenes, Christmas songs, etc., reflects this trend. Also consider that more Christians were martyred during the past century than during any other period in history. Reply: I would have to see some per capita statistics on the martyrdom issue, and the rest of the above diatribe simply does not jibe with the numbers. The Bible is the bestselling book of all time, with most of those sales happening in this past century. You can hear Christmas songs everywhere, there is a church on practically every corner where I live, God is on my money, etc. However, we should keep church and state separate, so therefore we don’t religious symbolism in politics and state-run schools. Scare: Humanity would become increasingly materialistic and lovers of pleasure (2 Timothy 3:1-5). Reply: Humanity has also become more altruistic, more charitable, and the sacrifices made by many recently has led us to live longer, healthier lives. Are you a “glass is halfempty” kind of person? Scare: Homosexuality would be flaunted at the end of the age (Luke 17:28-30; Genesis 19). Ask your grandparents if there were such things as Gay Pride parades in their day. Reply: My grandparents lived in an age where wife-beating, open prejudice against blacks and McCarthy Era persecutions were commonplace. I wouldn’t want to live back then. There is also nothing in those Scriptures that indicate what you are stating, and I certainly don’t think we need to go back in history to a time when gays were openly persecuted and shunned. If you don’t want to watch Will & Grace, turn the channel. Scare: Despite increases in wealth, disparity between the wealthy and poor would continue to increase (Revelation 6:6). In Scripture, oil and wine often denote luxurious abundance (Proverbs 21:17; Joel 2:24; Revelation 18:13). Therefore this prophecy indicates that the wealthy will continue to flourish while the poor can scarcely afford bread. Reply: Where can people scarcely afford bread? While there are areas of the world that still experience famine, but overall:

"Fewer and fewer people are starving, and there will be more and more food per person in the future. Poverty has been reduced in virtually every country. Fewer people worldwide are starving: In 1970, 35 percent of those living in developing countries were starving; in 1996, it was down to 18 percent. The United Nations expects this to fall to 12 percent by 2010." Just check your local supermarket. Walk the aisles. You'll see rows and rows of groceries of all types. Prices are generally low. Western countries, especially the United States, are far more worried about overeating than starving. As Bjorn Lomborg explains in The Skeptical Environmentalist, "Although there are now twice as many of us as there were in 1961, each of us has more to eat, in both developed and developing countries. Fewer people are starving. Food is far cheaper these days and food-wise the world is quite simply a better place for far more people." To the extent that starvation still exists in Africa and elsewhere, the fault lies with shortsighted and selfserving (and generally hard-Left) political leaders, rather than with the world's supposed scarcity of natural resources. After all, people were malnourished in Saddam Hussein's Iraq not because of a lack of food (even during the embargo), but because of selfish opportunism, political Jockeying, and outright theft by Saddam and his cronies. ....People are living longer and better lives and the world is getting cleaner every day, thanks to the technological advancements, wealth accumulation, and economic growth inherent in free market economies." The Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, Mark W. Smith (Trial Lawyer, former Professor of Law), pp. 168,9 Scare: Epidemic drug use predicted (Revelation 9:21). The Greek word translated sorceries is pharmakeia which refers to drug use, both illegal drugs and mind-altering drugs. Reply: Revelation 9:21 says “nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality or their thefts.” This is a prediction of “Epidemic drug use?” Scare: Environmental devastation of the planet foreseen (Revelation 11:18). Our generation has done more to ravage the environment than any previous generation. Reply: “We often assume air pollution is a new phenomenon that has got worse and worse - in truth it is an old phenomenon, that has been getting better and better. Air pollution has been a major nuisance for most of civilisation, and the air of the western world has not been as clean as it is now for a long time In 1257, when Henry III's wife visited Nottingham, she found the stench of smoke from coal burning so intolerable that she left for fear of her life, and in 1285 London's air was so polluted that Edward

I established the world's first air pollution commission. Shelley wrote: 'Hell must be much like London, a smoky and populous city.' London has been renowned for centuries for its thick fog, the infamous London smog. The consequences were many. In the 18th century it had 20 foggy days a year, but this had increased to almost 60 by the end of the 19th century: this meant that London got 40% less sunshine than the surrounding towns, and the number of thunderstorms doubled in London from the early-18th to the late-19th century. The last severe smog of December 1952 killed about 4,000 Londoners in just seven days. London air has not been as clean as it is today since the Middle Ages.” Bjorn Lomborg "Harvesting is measured by area (acres/hectares) or the volume of wood and not the number of trees. The fact that 1.6 billion trees are planted each year in North America doesn't even tell half the story, because harvested areas are often seeded or allowed to regenerate naturally, depending on the characteristics of the site. A better way to determine the success of reforestation is by comparing forest growth to the amount of timber harvested. Satellite tracking shows that North American forests have grown in volume of timber by 20 percent since 1970 and cover about the same area now as they did 100 years ago. There are two reasons for this. The amount of timber harvested has been consistently less than forest growth and there has been no net expansion of farmland during the past century." -Dr. Patrick Moore has been a leader of the environmental movement for more than 30 years. A co-founder of Greenpeace, he holds a PhD in ecology and a BSc in forest biology. “The Real State of the World The fact is, as we have seen, that this civilization has over the last 400 years brought us fantastic and continued progress. Through most of the couple of million years we have been on the planet we had a life expectancy of about 20-30 years. During the course of the. past century we have more than doubled our life expectancy, to 67 years. Infants no longer die like flies - it is no longer every other child that dies but one in twenty, and the mortality rate is still falling. We are no longer almost chronically ill, our breaths stinking of rotting teeth, with festering sores, eczema, scabs, and suppurating boils. We have far more food to eat - despite the fact that the Earth is home to far more people: the average inhabitant in the Third World now has 38 percent more calories. The proportion of people starving has fallen dramatically from 35 percent to 18 percent, and by the year

2010 this share will probably have fallen further to 12 percent. By that time, we will feed more than 3 billion more people adequately. We have experienced unprecedented growth in human prosperity. In the course of the last 40 years, everyone - in the developed as well as the developing world - has become more than three times richer. Seen in a longer perspective this growth has been quite overwhelming. Americans have become 36 times richer over the past 200 years. We have gained access to far more amenities, from clean drinking water to telephones, computers and cars. We are better educated; in the Third World, illiteracy has fallen from 75 percent to less than 20 percent, and the standard of education in the developing and the developed world has increased tremendously - as regards university education in the developing countries by almost 400 percent in 30 years. We have more leisure time, greater security and fewer accidents, more education, more amenities, higher incomes, fewer starving, more food and a healthier and longer life. This is the fantastic story of mankind, and to call such a civilization "dysfunctional" is quite simply immoral. In the developing world there are still many who lack the basic necessities and for whom growth and development are not an inconsequential experience of plastic flowers, microwaved food, alcohol and drugs, but a chance to live a decent life with the possibilities of choices, reaching beyond the concerns of getting enough to eat. For the industrialized world, growth and progress have given us a life that is so much better that we at last have enough time and resources to consider how we want to make the most of life. Ironically, Al Gore's dressingdown of our society is only possible because growth has liberated us (and him) sufficiently from our physical limitations to give us the possibility to choose - even if this choice is to turn one's back on present-day society. In so far as Gore simply wants us to consider whether we would not be happier shopping less and living more (leave the mall and visit friends, go for a hike in the wilderness, take up painting, etc.), his commentary is naturally sympathetic and serves as a reasonable reminder. But Gore goes much further and tells us that we live superficial and phony lives, that our civilization and our parents' generation have indoctrinated us into living this dysfunctional life and that we cannot see the prison walls that surround us. We are repressed without being aware of it. This kind of supercilious attitude is a challenge to our democratic freedom and contests our basic right to decide for ourselves how we lead our lives, so long as

doing so does not bring us into collision with others. But for both Al Gore and Lester Brown the argument goes much deeper. Because the actual justification of their criticism of civilization is not that we are doing better, but that we are doing better to an increasing extent at the cost of Earth's ecosystem. This is why in reality we should put a stop to the insane collision with Earth's limits. Al Gore thus joins the long list of cultural pessimists who have experienced the modern world but have also seen the seeds of its destruction. From Frankenstein to Jurassic Park, our technical ingenuity is seen as catastrophically exceeding our expectations, creating a world that has spun out of control. ironically, Al Gore believes that the way to escape this dysfunctionality is by means of "the harsh light of truth." And as we have seen throughout the book, the light of truth does have a harsh edge, especially on the core myths of the Litany. Because our food production will continue to give more people more and cheaper food. We will not lose our forests; we will not run out of energy, raw materials or water. We have reduced atmospheric pollution in the cities of the developed world and have good reason to believe that this will also be achieved in the developing world. Our oceans have not been defiled, our rivers have become cleaner and support more life, and although the nutrient influx has increased in many coastal waters like the Gulf of Mexico, this does not constitute a major problem - in fact, benefits generally outweigh costs. Nor is waste a particularly big problem. The total US waste throughout the twenty-first century could be deposited in a single square landfill, less than 18 miles on the side - or 26 percent of Woodward County, Oklahoma. Acid rain did not kill off our forests, our species are not dying out as many have claimed, with half of them disappearing over the next 50 years - the figure is likely to be about 0.7 percent. The problem of the ozone layer has been more or less solved. The current outlook on the development of global warming does not indicate a catastrophe rather, there is good reason to believe that our energy consumption will change towards renewable energy sources way before the end of the century. Indeed, the catastrophe seems rather in spending our resources unwisely on curbing present carbon emissions at high costs instead of helping the developing countries and increasing non-fossil fuel research. And finally, our chemical worries and fear of pesticides are misplaced and counterproductive. First, phasing out pesticides will probably waste resources and actually cause more cancer. Second, the main causes of cancer are not chemicals but our

own lifestyle.” Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist Scare: Men would mock the warning signs of the end of the age saying, "These signs have always been around" (2 Peter 3:3-4). The Bible even reveals their motivation, they love lust. Reply: Actually most people amazingly enough share a pessimistic view of the world. It is what Gregg Easterbrook calls the Progress Paradox (see book on amazon.com) I however do not say “everything has remained exactly the same since the world was first created” (2 Peter 3:3-4), what I am saying is that many things have actually improved. I am very happy and lucky to be born at this time in history, but I am saddened that many will not appreciate this because they need to uphold a certain theology. Doesn’t the Bible speak against such ones? "Be careful that you are not deceived," he replied. "There will be many coming in my name, saying 'I am he' and 'The time is very near now.' Never follow men like that.” Luke 21:7 JB Phillips Translation “Do not say, "Why is it that the former days were better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.” Eccl. 7:10 NASB More Religious Lunacy In the November 2004 Awake magazine, the people over at the Watchtower several times quote the UN in describing bad conditions in big 3rd world cities. This gives the impression that there is no progress anywhere, and no hope can be placed in human efforts to help the situation. But what else does the United Nations say about their efforts over-all? "A 13-year effort by the World Health Organization resulted in the complete eradication of smallpox from the planet in 1980. The eradication has saved an estimated $1 billion a year in vaccination and monitoring, almost three times the cost of eliminating the scourge itself. WHO also helped wipe out polio from the Western hemisphere, with global eradication expected by the year 2000. Pressing for universal immunization - Polio, tetanus, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria and tuberculosis still kill more than eight million children each year. In 1974, only 5 per cent of children in developing countries were immunized against these diseases. Today, as a result of the efforts of UNICEF and WHO, there is an 80 per cent immunization rate, saving the lives of more than 3 million childrean

each year. Reducing child mortality rates - Through oral rehydration therapy, water and sanitation and other health and nutrition measures undertaken by UN agencies, child mortality rates in the developing countries have been halved since 1960, increasing the life expectancy from 37 to 67 years. Fighting parasitic diseases - Efforts by UN agencies in North Africa to eliminate the dreaded screw worm, a parasite that feeds on human and animal flesh, prevented the spread of the parasite, which is carried by flies, to Egypt, Tunisia, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. A WHO programme also has saved the lives of 7 million children from going blind from the river blindness and rescued many others from guinea worm and other tropical diseases." We can also add the following comments by Jim Peron: "in general the standard of living in the Third World is consistently improving. I believe that lifespan, the most basic statistic, is the most important for comparing the welfare of nations. People who are subjected to progressively worsening conditions don't live as long as those that have the benefit of steadily improving living conditions. Lifespan improvements are consistently better in the Third World than they were a century ago – or even half a century ago. In 1906 the life expectancy in India was 25 years; today it is around 64. As recently as 1930 the average life span in China was only 24 years, while today it is 69 for men and 73.5 for women. Bjorn Lomborg, in The Skeptical Environmentalist, notes that in France in 1800 the average life span was 30 years, whilst it was 45 years in Denmark in 1845. The vast majority of the Third World's people are doing much better than that. According to the UN, life expectancy in Africa is the lowest of all the regions of the world, with an average life expectancy of about 51 years. This was the approximate average life expectancy of the French in 1913 and better than that of Americans a century ago. A good deal of this improvement is due to the massive decline in infant mortality. It is believed that half of all infants died in Europe as late as 1400. And Lomborg notes that the infant mortality rate for 16th century English nobility – who presumably lived better than most – was about one in four. He also notes that Sweden, which has the oldest records on infant mortality rates, shows a decline from one in five in 1800 to one in ten around 1900 to one in 280 today. The

Third World has also shown massive improvement. According to the UN the current African average infant mortality rate is 83 per 1,000. That's slightly better than it was in Sweden in 1900. Of course none of this says things are as good as they could become. But things are never as good as they could be. Life is a process and so is economic development and its benefits. On average the Third World today is about where the Western world was at the turn of the last century. Improving life spans and lower infant mortality rates would seem to indicate rising levels of wealth. And, in fact, that is exactly what is happening. If we look at world economic progress over the last two centuries it has been nothing short of miraculous. The capitalist nations of the world saw wealth expand 13 times in that period, Latin America expanded its wealth seven-fold and even Africa had a fourfold increase in wealth No wonder the United Nations has said that poverty worldwide has decreased more in the last 50 years than in the previous 500." http://www.freemarketfoundation.com Sometimes we need to dig deeper to get a fuller picture. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Month after month the Watchtower Society produces yet another magazine proclaiming bad conditions in one place after another. We feed on this bad news, but are we giving a false impression of the world at large? I believe we are. It would be like me walking into a public library and walking straight to the Murder Mystery section, and leave only to erroneously conclude that the library is filled with only Violence and Crime. I would not be giving a full and accurate picture. When you write of global warming, or deforestation, or crimes etc., why do you only quote writers that agree with one limited outlook. Over the years, and even in their new book, they have no problem quoting from the Worldwatch Institute or Paul Ehrlich. Tell me, when have these two ever been right? In the new book you quote the Worldwatch Institute as saying: "Three times as many people--110 million--fell victim to war in this century as in all the wars from the first century AD to 1899." If we do the math here 110 million divided by three is almost 37 million people. Is this statement really true then? The Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) alone claimed about 40 million lives according to some estimates, and that is only one war! The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) about 11 million people, Manchu-Chinese War 1644-1690s 25 million, Napoleonic Wars 1792-1815, about 6 million, Genghis Khan filled about 40 million people. In just 5 conflicts I have managed to come up with a total of about 122 million deaths. Keep in mind that history prior to the 20th century is filled hundreds, if not thousands of other conflicts. War was an everyday reality in times gone by. We also have to factor in the lower populations in previous times to truly consider the magnitude of these massacres. When the Taiping

Rebellion occurred, we had 1 billion people on earth, we now have 6 billion. So this would be equivalent to 240 million deaths in modern terms. Clearly, the numbers used by the Worldwatch Institute, and ergo, the Watchtower are incorrect on many levels, and are meant to be sensationalistic. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Questions from End-Timers Q: Aren't there are more Earthquakes, proving that the end is near? "and there shall be earthquakes in divers places" Mark 13:8 KJV A: Determining such with accuracy is next to impossible, as Seismology, a science that deals with earthquakes, is a fairly new science, and the lack of historical data from Southeast Asia where many earthquakes are confined to makes definitive statements in this area fruitless. It was not until the late 19th century that this new science was implemented, so naturally, we are bound to have more numbers now. But we can still make cerrtain determinations. However, on page 7 of the April, 1986, issue of its monthly The Good News of the World Tomorrow, Norman L. Shoaf, a spokesman of the Worldwide Church of God, confidently asserted: "Did you know that from 1901 to 1944, during more than four decades, only three earthquakes measured magnitude 7 or over? . . . Then, in just 10 years from 1945 to 1954, the number leaped to 21 quakes measuring 7 or over. From then on, large earthquakes have increased dramatically. From 1955 to 1964 – in just one decade – 87 earthquakes measured 7 or over; from 1965 to 1974, 136; from 1975 to 1984, 133." This is certainly not true, but even if it was, Seismologist F. M. Walker in his _Report of the Eighteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science_, London 1912, pages 38 and 39, found that between 1899 and 1909 there was 976 very large earthquakes, and this only in Europe and Asia. No Seismologist today worth his salt would make any grandiose statement that earthquakes having increased lately and such an individual would be quickly exposed. Frenchman, Count F. Montessus de Ballore from 1885 to 1922 devoted all his time to studying and cataloging earthquakes and collected information on about 171,434 earthquakes inhistorical times. His manuscript is stored in the library of the Geographical Society in Paris, where it occupies 26 metres (over 84 feet) of bookshelves. "There is no indication that seismic activity has increased or diminished appreciably throughout historic time." – Seismologists J. Milne and A. W Lee, Earthquakes and Other Earth Movements, seventh edition (London, 1939), p. 155.

"Certain religious groups have picked this rather unfortunate time to insist that the number of earthquakes is increasing. In part they are misled by the increasing number of small earthquakes that are being catalogued and listed by newer, more sensitive stations throughout the world. It is worth remarking that the number of great earthquakes from 1896 to 1906 was greater than in any ten-year interval since." – Professor Charles Richter in National History, December 1969, p. 44. The Number of Magnitude 7.0 and Greater Earthquakes per Year, Since 1900 is listed at http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/7up.html So according to the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program the decade prior to 1914 saw 256 earthquakes, while the decade following 1914 saw 177 quakes. The previous decade from 1995-2004 saw only 155 earthquakes. The 1940's though seems to have been the worse. Their conclusion: "We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant." If anyone is interested, the National Geophysical Data center has: "A two-CDROM compilation of seismicity catalogs from NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center and U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center is available online or for purchase. The two-volume CD-ROM collection contains data on over four million earthquakes dating from 2100 B.C. to 1995 A.D." http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/fliers/se-0208.shtml Q: Aren't there more divorces now? A: If we are looking backward to colonial or Victorian times to construct the perfect family we quickly find out that the average marriage back then lasted less than 12 years, with one spouse succumbing to death thanks to higher mortality rates. In the South, more than one half of all children 13 and under lost at least one parent. If partnerships were dissolved by death rather than divorce this can hardly have been a less traumatic experience for the children. When this is factored in with the news that women NOW enjoy greater happiness in marriage due to the fact that they can remarry at will without the societal recriminations of yesteryear, do we really want to turn that clock back? Interestingly, "a couple marrying today is more likely to celebrate a fortieth wedding anniversary than were couples around the turn of the century." The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz p.16 50 percent divorce statistic untrue? The 50% projection was not erroneous at the time it was made, but it was only a prediction and projection of what would happen to people getting married at that time if current trends continued. In 1993, the Census Bureau revised the projection down to 40%. This, too, is only a projection based on current trends. --John Crouch

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Pollster Louis Harris has written, "The idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetuated in modern times." "It all began when the Census Bureau noted that during one year, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. Someone did the math without calculating the 54 million marriages already in existence, and presto, a ridiculous but quotable statistic was born. "Harris concludes, "Only one out of eight marriages will end in divorce. In any single year, only about 2 percent of existing marriages will break up." --J. Allan Petersen in Better Families, quoted on the Christianity.Net home page, "Preaching Resources," Copyright(c) 1996 by Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP journal -- Summer 1996 Vol.XVII, No.3, Page 69 Jeanne Hinds ([email protected]) wrote: "That divorce stastitic (50% of marriage end in divorce) has been debunked by legitimate researchers due to its poor data analysis. When divorces are tracked by *year* in which the couple married, the divorce rate is closer to 18- 22%. And the reason why combined divorce statistics have risen over the years is due to the advent of no-fault divorces. Marriages had a tendency of staying together when alimony was more of a reality but with no-fault divorces, divorce became much more easier to acquire and many people exited longstanding marriages. [Note- this "debunking" has itself been debunked. Probably more than 22% of people have _already_ been divorced] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------"42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot." --The Hon. W. Richard Walton, Sr Q: Isn't there more crime now than ever before? Mat 24:12 "And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold." A: NOT TRUE, Crime is actually down, according to U.S. Department of Justice · Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/gvc.htm Violent crime trends -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Violent crime rates have declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2003. Homicide rates recently declined to levels last seen in the late 1960s. Rape rates declined after 1991. Robbery rates declined from 1994 through 2002 and then stabilized. Assault rates declined since 1994. The proportion of serious violent crimes committed by juveniles has generally declined since 1993.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Firearm crime trends -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Nonfatal firearm crime rates have declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2002 and 2003. After 1994, the proportion of nonfatal violent incidents involving a firearm declined. After falling throughout the 1990's, gun crime reported to the police stabilized. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Property crime trends -------------------------------------------------------------------------------After many years of declining, burglary rates have stabilized. After many years of declining, theft rates stabilized in recent years. After declining since 1992, motor vehicle theft rates leveled off after 2000. “Every major type of crime measured, rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft, decreased significantly between 1993 and 1998. Violent crime affected 8.1 million Americans in 1997, the lowest number reported since the Justice Department began tracking figures in 1973 - Cassandra Burrell, "U.S. Crime Numbers on Decline," Associated Press [online], www.beachbrowser.com/Archives/News-and-Human-Interest/july99/US-CrimeNumbers-on-Decline.htm [July 19,1999].The rate at which women were attacked or threatened with violence by husbands and boyfriends dropped 21 percent during the mid1990s; the number of men murdered by wives and girlfriends dropped 60 percent from 1976 through 1998.19 - U.S. Department of Justice, "Intimate Partner Violence," Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, prept. no. NCJ 178247, May 2000.A survey of 6,529 teens, aged thirteen to eighteen, conducted in 1999 by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America found that drug use among teens is leveling off. Trial use of most drugs, including marijuana, crack, LSD, inhalants, cocaine, and methamphetamines were all down. - Larry McShane, "Study: Teen Drug Use Leveling Off," Associated Press [online], wire.ap.org [November 22,1999]. [Barry Glassner, The Culture of Fear - Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things]“Why are so many fears in the air, and so many of them unfounded? Why, as crime rates plunged throughout the 1990s, did two-thirds of Americans believe they were soaring? How did it come about that by mid-decade 62 percent of us described ourselves as "truly desperate" about crime-almost twice as many as in the late 1980s, when crime rates were higher? Why, on a survey in 1997, when the crime rate had already fallen for a half dozen consecutive years, did more than half of us disagree with the statement "This country is finally beginning to make some progress in solving the crime problem"?In the late 1990s the number of drug users had decreased by half compared to a decade earlier; almost two-thirds of high school seniors had never used any illegal drugs, even marijuana. So why did a majority of adults rank drug abuse as the greatest danger to America's youth? Why did nine out of ten believe the drug problem is out of control, and only one in six believe the country was making progress?Give us a happy ending and we write a new disaster story.

Polly Toynbee in the Guardian "Crime is the best reason why politicians often well deserve the deepest distrust. They use it shamelessly to frighten the living daylights out of voters. They do it worst in opposition - Labour was shameless too - but they are scarcely better in office. The Tories this week were at their most unscrupulous: “Crime is out of control!” Howard said, lying through his teeth and knowing it. (But note how this barrister weaselled the truth: he didn’t actually say “crime is rising”). It wouldn’t matter much if this were just ordinary ya-boo political mendacity, part of the game. But in stirring up crime panics, politicians are reckless of the real unhappiness they spread. It’s not just fear, but that wretched, life-sapping sense that society is beyond saving, all is decay and sadness. It makes people depressed and pessimistic; it is the wicked thing that politicians do quite routinely. And then they wonder where “trust” went. If they want trust, they should agree the base line on crime figures and call a truce on scaring the public witless. And witless the public is, through no fault of its own. Two-thirds of people think crime increased in the last two years, half of them think it increased “a lot”, according to the British Crime Survey. As attentive Guardian readers should know by now, nationally the risk of being a victim of a crime has fallen by 40% since 1995 - the longest continuous fall in crime since 1898. Burglary has fallen by 39% and car crime by 31%. Violence has dropped too, by 24%. The media and opposition parties get away with pretending it is not so, by quoting the police recorded figures, which have been rising due to improvements requiring the police to record more, not less, crime. All reputable, non-partisan crime experts think that the British Crime Survey findings are the ones that more accurately measure the way things are moving, even if no figures ever catch the whole truth. (The BCS asks a sample more than 30 times the size of an ordinary opinion poll if they suffered from crime in the last year: that picks up a far larger total number of crimes than a reliance on the vagaries that determine which crimes get reported to the police.) Of course the arch villain is the media. Newspaper sales and television ratings thrive on fear of crime: the wilful misleading of the public knows no bounds. As a prank the Sun has just sent a removal van to the high court to remove Lord Woolf, in protest at new punishments set out by the Sentencing Guidelines Council. How are Sun readers to know that this council - on which sits Victim Support and other lay members - is bringing not leniency but consistency and transparency to sentencing? Yet again the public is encouraged to think nothing works, the law is mad, and criminals go unpunished in this most punitive of nations." "Please don't be alarmed, but almost everything about American and European life is getting better for almost everyone. Public health is improving by nearly every measure,including rising longevity and falling rates of most diseases; even many forms of

cancer are in decline. Doomsday claims to the contrary, environmental trends are nearly all positive, with all forms of pollution except greenhouse gases in steady decline in theUnited States and the European Union. Drinking, smoking, and most forms of drug use are declining. Teen pregnancy is declining. Welfare rolls are shrinking without increase in poverty. Women, immigrants, and minority group members are acquiringever larger slices of national pies. The divorce rate has stopped increasing. Personal freedom has neverbeen greater. Book sales hit new records almost every year. Movies and television may at times beexcruciating, but otherwise art and culture have never been more active, interesting, or diverse. Nearly all forms of deaths due to accident are declining. Crime has declined so rapidly that the fall has been almost eerie. Education levels keep rising, while test scores and public-school performance show guarded improvement. Despite what evening-news carnage suggests, armed conflicts and combat deaths worldwide are in a cycle of decline. Global democracy is rising, military dictatorship and communism are on the run. Each year the number of nuclear warheads in the world declines. The single worst threat to the world-the Cold War-has ended, with complete victory for the West and the hand of friendship extended to former adversaries. -The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook "On May 17, 1999, an evangelical Christian friend of mine insisted that we are in the "end times" because the Bible prophesied an increase in immorality and malfeasance. Since everyone knows crime is an epidemic problem in America that worsens by the year ("just look at the recent Columbine shooting," he enthused), the end is nigh. I remember the date because it was the same day the FBI released its findings that we are in the midst of the longest decline in crime rates since the bureau began collecting data in 1930. In other words, we are confronted with the paradox of being more fearful than we have ever been at the same time that things have never been so safe. "In the late 1990's the number of drug users had decreased by half compared to a decade earlier," Glassner explains, yet the "majority of adults rank drug abuse as the greatest danger to America's youth." Ditto the economy, where "the unemployment rate was below 5 percent for the first time in a quarter century. Yet pundits warned of imminent economic disaster." In this century alone modern medicine and social hygiene practices and technologies have nearly doubled our life span and improved our health immeasurably, but Glassner points out that if you tally up the reported disease statistics, out of 280 million Americans, 543 million of us are seriously ill! How can this be? Benjamin Disraeli had an answer: lies, damn lies, and statistics. We may be good storytellers, but we are lousy statisticians. Glassner shows, for example, that women in their forties believe they have a 1 in 10 chance of dying from breast cancer, but their real lifetime odds are more like 1 in 250. He notes that some "feminists helped popularize the frightful but erroneous statistic that two of three teen mothers had been seduced and abandoned by adult men" when in reality it "is more like one in ten, but some feminists continued to cultivate the scare well after the bogus stat had been definitively debunked." The bigger problem here is the law of large numbers, where million-to-one odds happen 280 times a day in America, and of those the most sensational dozen make the evening news, especially if captured on video. Stay tunedfilm at eleven!

Herein lies the problem for our moral sensibilities. We are fed numbers daily that we cannot comprehend about threats to our security we cannot tolerate. Better safe than sorry, right? Not necessarily. Pathological fear takes a dramatic toll on our psyches and wallets. "We waste tens of billions of dollars and person-hours every year," Glassner notes, "on largely mythical hazards like road rage, on prison cells occupied by people who pose little or no danger to others, on programs designed to protect young people from dangers that few of them ever face, on compensation for victims of metaphorical illnesses, and on technology to make airline travel-which is already safer than other means of transportation-safer Still." Of all the institutions feeding our fears, the media takes center stage for sensationalism ("if it bleeds, it leads"). An Emory University study revealed that the leading cause of death in men-heart disease received the same amount of coverage as the eleventh=ranked vector: homicide. Not surprising, drug use, the lowest-ranking risk factor assoclated with serious illness and death, received as much attention as the second-ranked risk factor, poor diet and lack of exercise. From 1990 to 1998, America's murder rate decreased by 20 percent while the number of murder stories on network newscasts increased by an incredible 600 percent (and this doesn't count 0. J. Simpson stories). The fact is, there is no evidence that secondhand smoke causes cancer or that cell-phone use generates brain tumors; likewise, Gulf War Syndrome appears to be a chimera, television does not cause violence, Satanic cults are phantasmagorical, most recovered memories of childhood abuse are nothing more than false memories planted by bad therapists, silicon breast implants cause nothing more than metastatic litigation, the drug war was lost decades ago, and the drug emperor has no clothes-he's butt naked and it's high time someone said it. We would be well-advised to remember the law of large numbers, and to keep in mind that we have selective memory of the most egregious events and that most of our fears are illusory-the vaporous product of a culture of fear of which we are both creators and Victims." The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer "The truth is in 2004 crime, disease and all types of violence are DOWN, not up, and you are alot safer and healthier that you would have been 50 years ago. Violent is the lowest it has been since 1973, and property crime is down 50% in the last 10 years. But that is not the message we are getting." -Penn & Teller's BS Why is this so? While crime is down everywhere, the media reporting of crime has increased 500%. "Anyone living in the United States in the early 1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to the nightly news or a daily paper could be forgiven for having been scared out of his skin. The culprit was crime. It had been rising relentlessly—a graph plotting the crime rate in any American city over recent decades looked like a ski slope in profile—and it seemed now to herald the end of the world as we knew it. Death by gunfire, intentional and otherwise, had become commonplace. So too had

carjacking and crack dealing, robbery and rape. Violent crime was a gruesome, constant companion. And things were about to get even worse. Much worse. All the experts were saying so. ..........And then, instead of going up and up and up, crime began to fall. And fall and fall and fall some more. The crime drop was startling in several respects. It was ubiquitous, with every category of crime falling in every part of the country. It was persistent, with incremental decreases year after year. And it was entirely unanticipated—especially by the very experts who had been predicting the opposite. The magnitude of the reversal was astounding. The teenage murder rate, instead of rising 100 percent or even 15 percent as James Alan Fox had warned, fell more than 50 percent within five years. By 2000 the overall murder rate in the United States had dropped to its lowest level in thirty-five years. So had the rate of just about every other sort of crime, from assault to car theft." FREAKONOMICS - A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Media and Fear by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian Crime is the best reason why politicians often well deserve the deepest distrust. They use it shamelessly to frighten the living daylights out of voters. They do it worst in opposition - Labour was shameless too - but they are scarcely better in office. The Tories this week were at their most unscrupulous: “Crime is out of control!” Howard said, lying through his teeth and knowing it. (But note how this barrister weaselled the truth: he didn’t actually say “crime is rising”). It wouldn’t matter much if this were just ordinary ya-boo political mendacity, part of the game. But in stirring up crime panics, politicians are reckless of the real unhappiness they spread. It’s not just fear, but that wretched, life-sapping sense that society is beyond saving, all is decay and sadness. It makes people depressed and pessimistic; it is the wicked thing that politicians do quite routinely. And then they wonder where “trust” went. If they want trust, they should agree the base line on crime figures and call a truce on scaring the public witless. And witless the public is, through no fault of its own. Two-thirds of people think crime increased in the last two years, half of them think it increased “a lot”, according to the British Crime Survey. As attentive Guardian readers should know by now, nationally the risk of being a victim of a crime has fallen by 40% since 1995 - the longest continuous fall in crime since 1898. Burglary has fallen by 39% and car crime by 31%. Violence has dropped too, by 24%.

The media and opposition parties get away with pretending it is not so, by quoting the police recorded figures, which have been rising due to improvements requiring the police to record more, not less, crime. All reputable, non-partisan crime experts think that the British Crime Survey findings are the ones that more accurately measure the way things are moving, even if no figures ever catch the whole truth. (The BCS asks a sample more than 30 times the size of an ordinary opinion poll if they suffered from crime in the last year: that picks up a far larger total number of crimes than a reliance on the vagaries that determine which crimes get reported to the police.) Of course the arch villain is the media. Newspaper sales and television ratings thrive on fear of crime: the wilful misleading of the public knows no bounds. As a prank the Sun has just sent a removal van to the high court to remove Lord Woolf, in protest at new punishments set out by the Sentencing Guidelines Council. How are Sun readers to know that this council - on which sits Victim Support and other lay members - is bringing not leniency but consistency and transparency to sentencing? Yet again the public is encouraged to think nothing works, the law is mad, and criminals go unpunished in this most punitive of nations. Q: What About All the School Violence? A: "Forget what you’ve seen, read, or heard to the contrary. School violence is down, way down." http://www.millennialsrising.com/survey.shtml

"NAESP members from 41 states surveyed last summer have no doubts that their schools are safe. The U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, the Centers for Disease Control, and theJustice Policy Institute tend to agree. Culling some of their recent reports, you'll find that children are safer in school than at home or in their communities; youth crime is down; fewer guns are coming to schools; and school violence is down." http://www.naesp.org/ContentLoad.do?contentId=237 "The percentage of students who said they had been in a fight in the preceding year dropped from 42.5 percent in 1991 to 33 percent in 2003. Only a little more than 6 percent of students said they had carried a weapon onto school grounds in 2003, down from 11.8 percent in 1993." DANIEL YEE, Associated Press Writer School Districts Report Across-the-board Decreases in Incidents of Violence, Vandalism and Substance Abuse Violence, Vandalism And Substance Abuse In New Jersey Public Schools, 2001-2002 School districts throughout New Jersey reported a decline in the incidents of violence, vandalism and substance abuse in New Jersey public schools for the 2001-02 school year. Commissioner of Education William L. Librera today publicly released the Department of Education’s annual report on Violence, Vandalism and Substance Abuse in New Jersey

Public Schools. In addition to containing statistics reported to the state by local school districts, the report details 30 state-level initiatives designed to promote safe schools for New Jersey’s 1.3 million public school students. "It is significant that local educators have reported an across-the-board decrease in all major reporting categories," said Commissioner of Education William L. Librera. "It is particularly gratifying to report that two-thirds of our schools reported five or fewer incidents in 2001-02 and more than three schools in eight reported no incidents at all." Commissioner Librera noted that the schools have special incentives to report all incidents of violence, vandalism and substance abuse in the public schools. The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires the states to develop systems of identifying persistently dangerous schools, and new state regulations to be adopted later this year set penalties for falsifying annual district violence and vandalism reports. He noted that 2001-02 was the third year in which educators used the state’s Electronic Violence and Vandalism Reporting System (EVVRS), and that the system helps to standardize the reporting categories and simplify the reporting process for educators. "I hope we continue to show similar declines in future years," Dr. Librera said. "Schools have demonstrated their commitment to create safe learning environments for our students. Governor McGreevey and I will continue to work with appropriate state agencies and local educators to continue to find effective ways to keep our schools safe." The total number of incidents reported by school districts in 2001-02 was 22,744, a nine percent decrease from incidents reported in 2000-01. Summary highlights in the major reporting categories are as follows: Violence, down 8 percent, primarily as the result of a 22 percent reduction in the number of threats and an 8 percent reduction in the number of fights reported; Vandalism, down 14 percent, producing the fewest number of incidents ever recorded Weapons, down 7 percent; and Substance abuse, down 6 percent, with moderate declines in the three sub-categories of use, possession and sale/distribution. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> HARRISBURG: The total number of violent incidents and weapons possessions in Pennsylvania schools have decreased by more than 15 percent, according to a report released Monday by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). The Annual Report on School Violence and Weapons Possession is a summary of data reported by the state’s 501 school districts, 29 intermediate units (IU), 73 area vocationaltechnical schools and 101 charter schools. The report covers reported incidents that occurred in Pennsylvania’s public schools between July 1, 2003, and June 30, 2004. “This is the first Violence and Weapons Report created with our new, improved reporting system,” said Secretary of Education, Francis V. Barnes. “School district administrators

now have very clear directions of what incidents should or should not be included in the annual report, which has led to greater accuracy.” The information in the report is provided to PDE using locally developed collection and reporting procedures. The responsibility to accurately report incidents of violence and weapons possession rests with school administrators. School district superintendents, charter school administrators, and AVTS and IU executive directors must electronically certify that the information provided is true and correct. During the 2003-04 school year, public schools reported 22,831 separate incidents of violence and weapons possession, which represents a decrease of 15.4 percent over the previous year. The number of offenders also decreased by 16.4 percent. www.post-gazette.com/pg/05158/516890.stm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> WASHINGTON - Violent crime against students in schools fell by 50 percent between 1992 and 2002, with young people more often targeted for violence away from school. There were about 24 crimes of rape, sexual assault, robbery and physical assault for every 1,000 students in 2002, down from 48 per 1,000 a decade earlier, according to a report Monday from the Education and Justice departments. The reduction mirrored the trend found outside classrooms - overall crime is at a 30-year low across the nation. The report found instances of school violence involving students have dropped steadily since a string of fatal shootings in the 1990s, notably the 1999 killings of 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado by two heavily armed students. http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2004/11/30/TopStories/Schools. Decrease.In.Crime.Mirrors.Nations-816699.shtml Q: What about the New Crime of Identity Theft? A: "The scourge known as identify theft has been wildly overstated, said Ira Carnahan in Forbes. A drumbeat of media reports has left the impression that identity theft is "the fastest growing crime in America." Many articles unquestioningly tout a Federal Trade Commission finding that there are an eye-popping 10 million identity-theft victims a year, based on a review of complaints in 2002. But a financial services consulting company, TowerGroup, has taken a closer look at that number and discovered that there's less there than meets the eye. It turns out that only 160,000 people reported that their identities

were actually appropriated by criminals, who used the purloined information to systematically commit fraudulent transactions. The remaining 9.9 million cases were garden-variety instances of check fraud, credit card theft, and other practices that are hardly new. "In these cases, it makes more sense to speak of the swiping of someone's credit card number than the swiping of their identity." Moreover, of those 10 million "identity theft" victims, 63 percent reported no out-of-pocket losses at all, while 64 percent said they fixed the problem in less than 10 hours. Identity theft, it turns out, is less "rampant" than the hype that has surrounded it." Q: Isn't there more famine and pestilence now than ever before? "There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven." Luke 21:11 NIV A: Think about this for just a moment. If all of the above were really true, then why don't historians come out and pronounce that this past generation or 2, or 3, has had an increase in earthquakes, crime, famine and disease etc. Because, it is not true. The population boom, the rise in life expectancy, and the lowest infant mortality EVER all bear testament to the fact that the opposite is quite true...even in poorer countries. Take India for instance. The average life expectancy in India before 1914 was about 40 years of age, Presently, it is 62. The major problem back then was Malaria, which in 1914 had affected 800 million people. It is still a problem, but major efforts have helped tremendously. Moving on to China: "Chinese Life Expectancy Rises by 41 Years in One Century The Chinese average life expectancy has risen to 71 from just over 30 years old at the beginning of this century, said an expert on demography. This can be attributed to the advancement of science and technology, especially in medical science, said Zhao Baohua, vice-director of China Association for Aged People, at a seminar being held in the port city of Qingdao. At the beginning of 18th century, there were no countries with an average lifespan over 35 years old, he said. In the 19th century, however, people's life expectancy in some countries was extended to 40 years old thanks to the invention of a vaccination against smallpox. The worldwide lifespan average kept rising after the invention of penicillin and a number of other antibiotics. The lifespan worldwide average is 66 at present. With the development of gene technology, people may have an average lifespan of 100 years old by the end of the 21st century, he said." http://fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200010/20/print20001020_53183.html Russia: "Yes, Russia managed (with a little help) to pull itself back from the brink, and now exists as a startling contrast to what it was only some 15 years before. The average life expectancy of Russian newborns and mature adults now roughly matches the average for

other developed nations, and per capita income is rapidly approaching parity with other developed nations. Average Russian living standards, once so bleak, have been steadily rising in the past decade." http://www.jrmooneyham.com/rssia.html "The United Nations estimated that in 1950/55 the world life expectancy rate was 46.4 years, with the developed regions having a life expectancy of 66.0 years and less developed regions having a life expectancy of only 40.7 years. By 1998 world life expectancy increased to 63.0 years with more developed regions increasing to an average of 75.0 years and less developed regions increasing to 62 years (McDevitt 1999, p.A49)." Even Mexico city has a life expectancy rate now of 72 years. The infant mortality rate is now half of what it used to be in Latin America. "At the dawn of agriculture, about 8000 B.C., the population of the world was somewhere on the order of 5 million. (Very rough figures are given in the table below; these are averages of an estimate of ranges given by the United Nations and other sources.) The slow growth of population over the 8,000-year period, from an estimated 5 million to 300 million in 1 A.D., results in a very low growth rate - only 0.0512 percent per year. It is difficult to come up with an average world population size over this period. In all likelihood, human populations in different regions grew or declined in response to famines, the vagaries of animal herds, hostilities, and changing weather and climatic conditions. In any case, life was short. Life expectancy at birth probably averaged only about 10 years for most of human history. Estimates of average life expectancy in Iron Age France have been put at only 10 or 12 years. Under these conditions, the birth rate would have to be about 80 per 1,000 people just for the species to survive. Today, a high birth rate would be about 45-50 per 1,000 population, observed in only a few countries of Africa and in several Middle Eastern states that have young populations. Our birth rate assumption will greatly affect the estimate of the number of persons ever born. Infant mortality in the human race's earliest days is thought to have been very high perhaps 500 infant deaths per 1,000 births, or even higher. Children were probably an economic liability among hunter-gatherer societies, a fact that is likely to have led to the practice of infanticide. Under these circumstances, a disproportionately large number of births would be required to maintain population growth, and that would raise our estimated number of the "ever born." By 1 A.D., the world may have held about 300 million people. One estimate of the population of the Roman Empire, from Spain to Asia Minor, in 14 A.D. is 45 million. However, other historians set the figure twice as high, suggesting how imprecise population estimates of early historical periods can be. By 1650, world population rose to about 500 million, not a large increase over the 1 A.D. estimate. The average annual rate ofgrowth was actually lower from 1 A.D. to 1650 than the rate suggested above for the 8000 B.C. to 1 A.D. period. One reason for this abnormally slow growth was the Black Plague. This dreaded scourge was not limited to 14th century Europe. The epidemic may have begun about 542 A.D. in Western Asia, spreading from there. It is believed that half the Byzantine Empire was destroyed in the 6th century, a total of 100 million deaths."

Rand McNally Universal World Atlas, New Revised Edition_; 1987; p. 229 _Encyclopedia Americana_; 1994; Vol. 22; p. 403 _World Book Encyclopedia_; 1993; Vol. 15; p. 672 _Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia_; 1993; Vol. 25; p. 1041 Online Encyclopedia Britannica, "Trends in world population", 25-Feb-2002 http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0762181.html ,Source: U.S. Census Bureau, International Database. From _Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia_; 1993; Vol. 25; p. 1041-2: "For the first time ever, a society is possible in which poverty can be abolished and with it, misery and hunger. The eradication of hunger is no longer a utopian scheme; it is a perfectly available objective." Josue de Castro in The Geopolitics of Hunger (New York, 1977), pp. 447, 448. "In every age and in every land people have starved.... yet the fact seems to be that man, on the average, is steadily achieving a better diet.... certainly the people today are, on the average, somewhat better fed than they were 100 years ago." The Biology of Human Starvation by A. Keys, J. l3ozek, A. Henschel, O. Michelsen and H. Longstreet Taylor (St. Paul, 1950), pp. 3, 12. "A world which regards hunger as a wrong ... finds it somewhat difficult to understand that want and hunger were the lasting conditions under which previous generations lived.... It is hard for persons living under modern conditions to realize even inadequately what life was ... during those long ages when want was universal." E. Parmalee Prentice, Hunger and History. The Influence of Hunger on Human History (Caldwell, Idaho, 1951), pp. 10, 137. "Famine over the centuries has been a frequent phenomenon and has tended to be regarded as a more or less normal calamity... But there is every indication that the incidence (in earlier times] was considerably greater than it is today in nearly all inhabited areas of the world." Bruce F. Johnston in his article on "Famine" in Colliers Encyclopedia, Editorial Director William D. Halsey, Vol. 9 (New York, 1979), pp. 552, 553. "We might be inclined to deduce from the pictorial evidence of famine that we have seen recently on television, in newspapers, and in magazines that the world is more prone to famine now than it used to be. But the evidence is clearly to the contrary... There has been a rather substantial reduction in the incidence of famine during the past century." -Food expert Professor D. Gale Johnson, World Food Problems and Prospects (Washington, D. C., 1975), p. 17. "Consumption of food per person in the world is up over the last 30 years.... Famine deaths have decreased in the past century even in absolute terms, let alone relative to population. World food prices have been trending lower for decades and centuries ... and there is strong reason to believe that this trend will continue." Julian L. Simon and Herman Kahn in The Resourceful Earth (London, 1984), p. 16.

Let's look at pestilences: "The creation ... of a 'common market' of microbes, passed through a particularly intense, rapid, dramatic, one might even say apocalyptic phase, during the period roughly 13001600. The sacrifice of human lives resulting from the global spread of pathogenic agents during these three centuries has had no parallel before or since. -French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Mind and Method of the Historian (Brighton, Sussex, England, 1981), page 30. "We who live in civilized countries where medicine has made such tremendous advances, and hygiene is preached and practised, know nothing of such plagues as swept across whole continents in the Middle Ages. Leo Huberman, Man's Worldly Goods. The Story of the Wealth of Nations (New York and London, 1968), page 50. "Infectious diseases, which only one or two generations ago formed the largest group in our statistics on morbidity and mortality, have been driven back by the advance of medicine. Professor Folke Henschen, The History of Diseases (London, 1966), page 1. "In many ways one can think of the middle of the twentieth century as the end of one of the most important social revolutions in history, the virtual elimination of infectious disease as a significant factor in social life. Sir MacFarlane Burnet, Natural History of Infectious Disease (Cambridge, 1962), page 3. "In most places epidemic diseases have become unimportant, and many kinds of infection have become rare where they were formerly common and serious. The net increment to human health and cheerfulness is hard to exaggerate; indeed, it now requires an act of imagination to understand what Infectious disease formerly meant to mankind, or even to our own grandfathers. Professor William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (New York, 1976), page 287. "The subjugators of pestilences have won the greatest victory that ever has been gained during six thousand years of world history: the victory over a premature death. Herbert L. Schrader, Und dennoch siegie das Leben (Stuttgart, 1954), page 278. "The most remarkable achievement of the twentieth century may be the eradication of the great pandemics that once swept over entire nations-and continents-crippling, maiming, scarring, and killing millions. James Cornell, The Great International Disaster Book (New York, 1979), page 182. "Child deaths, although still a problem today, were an incredible scourge of the 19th century. In 1870, with 4,000 deaths in the 0-4 age group, a Chicago child had a 50% chance of reaching the age 5. Accurate statistics are not available for earlier years, but conditions were probably worse. By 1900 there were over 8,000 annual deaths of 0-4 year-olds, but the odds of surviving to the age 5 had increased to 75%. Today the odds are better than 98%. The infant death rate (0-365 days) has fallen dramatically, but even more pronounced is the decline in the death rates for 1-4 year-olds.

Children in the 19th century were subject to cholera, smallpox, measles and all of the other adult diseases, but childhood diarrheal diseases were the most terrifying. Infants would become diarrheal, then dehydrated, and die. These deaths were directly related to poor sanitary conditions. Deaths were much higher in summer, after rainfalls and in low lying areas, all of which were related to contamination from the sewage filled Chicago River." http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/infant_mortality.html AIDS killed 2.3 million adults in 1999, and while that may be growing, it is extremely marginal compared to the devastation in past centuries where entire areas were decimated. Q: Aren't We Losing our Forests? A: "Harvesting is measured by area (acres/hectares) or the volume of wood and not the number of trees. The fact that 1.6 billion trees are planted each year in North America doesn't even tell half the story, because harvested areas are often seeded or allowed to regenerate naturally, depending on the characteristics of the site. A better way to determine the success of reforestation is by comparing forest growth to the amount of timber harvested. Satellite tracking shows that North American forests have grown in volume of timber by 20 percent since 1970 and cover about the same area now as they did 100 years ago. There are two reasons for this. The amount of timber harvested has been consistently less than forest growth and there has been no net expansion of farmland during the past century." -Dr. Patrick Moore has been a leader of the environmental movement for more than 30 years. A co-founder of Greenpeace, he holds a PhD in ecology and a BSc in forest biology. Q: What About Climate Change and the Depletion of the Ozone Layer? A: "Last week Fiona Harvey, the Financial Times' environmental correspondent, fresh from yet another international confabulation on climate change, wrote that while Earth's cloud cover "is thought" to have increased recently, no one knows whether this is good or bad. Is the heat-trapping by the clouds' water vapor greater or less than the sun's heat reflected back off the clouds into space? Climate-change forecasts, Harvey writes, are like financial forecasts but involve a vastly more complex array of variables. The climate forecasts, based on computer models analyzing the past, tell us that we do not know how much warming is occurring, whether it is a transitory episode or how much warming is dangerous-- or perhaps beneficial. One of the good guys in ]Michael Crichton's] "State of Fear" cites Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which least is known." Which is why 30 years ago the fashionable panic was about global cooling. The New York Times (Aug. 14, 1975) reported "many signs" that "Earth may be heading for another ice age." Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned about "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation." "Continued

rapid cooling of the Earth" (Global Ecology, 1971) could herald "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" (Science, March 1, 1975). The Christian Science Monitor reported (Aug. 27, 1974) that Nebraska's armadillos were retreating south from the cooling. Last week The Post reported that global warming has caused a decline in Alaska's porcupine caribou herd and has lured the golden orange prothonotary warbler back from southern wintering grounds to Richmond a day earlier for nearly two decades. Or since global cooling stopped. Maybe. Gregg Easterbrook, an acerbic student of eco-pessimism, offers a "Law of Doomsaying": Predict catastrophe no later than 10 years hence but no sooner than five years away -soon enough to terrify, but far enough off that people will forget if you are wrong. Because Crichton remembers yesterday's discarded certitudes, millions of his readers will be wholesomely skeptical of today's." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20998-2004Dec22.html Warmer earth might be welcome trend by Thomas Gale Moore Thomas Gale Moore Thomas Gale Moore is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn't Worry about Global Warming, recently published by the Cato Institute. Pundits, politicians and the press have argued that global warming will bring disaster to the world, but there are good reasons to believe that, if it occurs, we will like it. Where do retirees go when they are free to move? Certainly not to Duluth. People like warmth. When weather reporters on TV say, "It will be a great day," they usually mean that it will be warmer than normal. The weather can, of course, be too warm, but that is unlikely to become a major problem if the globe warms. Even though it is far from certain that the temperature will rise, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the U.N. body that has been studying this possibility for more than a decade) has forecast that, by the end of the next century, the world's climate will be about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today and that precipitation worldwide will increase by about 7 percent. The scientists who make up this body also predict that most of the warming will occur at night and during the winter. In fact, records show that, over this century, summer highs have actually declined while winter lows have gone up. In addition, temperatures are expected to increase the most towards the poles. Thus Minneapolis should enjoy more warming than Dallas; but even the Twin Cities should find that most of their temperature increase will occur during their coldest season, making their climate more livable. Warmer winters will produce less ice and snow to torment drivers, facilitating commuting and making snow shoveling less of a chore. Families will have less need to invest in heavy parkas, bulky jackets, earmuffs and snow boots. Department of Energy studies have shown that a warmer climate would reduce heating bills more than it would boost outlays on air conditioning. If we currently enjoyed the weather predicted for the end of

the next century, expenditures for heating and cooling would be cut by about $12.2 billion annually. Most economic activities would be unaffected by climate change. Manufacturing, banking, insurance, retailing, wholesaling, medicine, educational, mining, financial and most other services are unrelated to weather. Those activities can be carried out in cold climates with central heating or in hot climates with air conditioning. Certain weather-related or outdoor-oriented services, however, would be affected. Transportation would benefit generally from a warmer climate, since road transport would suffer less from slippery or impassable highways. Airline passengers, who often endure weather-related delays in the winter, would gain from more reliable and on-time service. The doomsayers have predicted that a warmer world would inflict tropical diseases on Americans. They neglect to mention that those diseases, such as malaria, cholera and yellow fever, were widespread in the United States in the colder 19th century. Their absence today is attributable not to a climate unsuitable to their propagation but to modern sanitation and the American lifestyle, which prevent the microbes for getting a foothold. It is actually warmer along the Gulf Coast, which is free of dengue fever, than on the Caribbean islands where the disease is endemic. My own research shows that a warmer world would be a healthier one for Americans and would cut the number of deaths in the U.S. by about 40,000 per year, roughly the number killed on the highways. According to climatologists, the villain causing a warmer world is the unprecedented amount of carbon dioxide we keep pumping into the atmosphere. As high school biology teachers emphasize, plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Researchers have shown, moreover, that virtually all plants will do better in an environment enriched with carbon dioxide than in the current atmosphere, which contains only trace amounts of their basic food. In addition, warmer winters and nights would mean longer growing seasons. Combined with higher levels of CO2, plant life would become more vigorous, thus providing more food for animals and humans. Given a rising world population, longer growing seasons, greater rainfall, and an enriched atmosphere could be just the ticket to stave off famine and want. A slowly rising sea level constitutes the only significant drawback to global warming. The best guess of the international scientists is that oceans will rise about 2 inches per decade. The cost to Americans of building dikes and constructing levees to mitigate the damage from rising seas would be less than $1 billion per year, an insignificant amount compared to the likely gain of over $100 billion for the American people as a whole. Let's not rush into costly programs to stave off something that we may like if it occurs. Warmer is better; richer is healthier; acting now is foolish.

This article originally appeared in The Harrisburg Patriot. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There Is NO Man-Made Global Warming From http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/deweese121404.htm American Policy Center December 14, 2004 "There is no scientific evidence to back claims of man-made global warming. Period. Anyone who tells you that scientific research shows warming trends--be they teachers, newscasters, Congressmen, Senators, Vice Presidents or Presidents--is wrong. In fact, scientific research through U.S. government satellite and balloon measurements shows that the temperature is actually cooling--very slightly--.037 degrees Celsius. A little research into modern-day temperature trends bears this out. For example, in 1936 the Midwest of the United States experienced 49 consecutive days of temperatures over 90 degrees. There were another 49 consecutive days in 1955. But in1992 there was only one day over 90 degrees and, in 1997, only 5 days. Because of modern science and improved equipment, this "cooling" trend has been most accurately documented over the past 18 years. Ironically, that's the same period of time the hysteria has grown over dire warnings of "warming." Changes in global temperatures are natural. In fact, much of the recent severe weather has been directly attributed to a natural phenomenon that occurs every so often called El Nino. It causes ocean temperatures to rise as tropical trade winds actually reverse for a time. The resulting temperature changes cause severe storms, flooding, and even drought on every continent on earth. It's completely natural. El Nino has been wreaking its havoc across the globe since long before man appeared. How about the reports that the polar ice cap is melting? On Election Day the Financial Times of London carried the hysterical headline: Arctic Ice Cap Set to Disappear by the Year 2070. The article stated that the Arctic ice cap is melting at an unprecedented rate. The article is based on a report titled: Impacts of a Warming Arctic, submitted by a group of researchers called the Arctic Climate Impact Assessement (ACIA). It must be understood just who makes up this so-called group of researchers. The report is not unbiased scientific data. Rather, it is propaganda from political groups who have an agenda. The report was commissioned by the Arctic Council, which is comprised of a consortium of radical envionmentalists from Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. All are nations that possess land within the Arctic Circle. Many of these countries, through the Kyoto Protocol, have a financial stake in pushing the global warming agenda. One of the groups providing “scientists” to the ACIA “researchers” is the World Wildlife Fund, one of the leading chicken-little scaremongers who create junk science at the drop of a news release to terrify us all into proper environmental conduct.

..................... Scientists are Not on the Global Warming Bandwagon And so too is it an outrage for the news media to tell you that most true scientists now agree that man-made global warming is a fact. What it doesn't tell you is that roughly 500 scientists from around the world signed the Heidleburg Appeal in 1992, just prior to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, expressing their doubts and begging the delegates not to bind the world to any dire treaties based on global warming. Today that figure has grown to over 4,000 scientists. Americans aren’t being told that a 1997 Gallop Poll of prominent North American climatologists showed that 83 percent of them disagreed with the manmade global warming theory. And the deceit knows no bounds. The United Nations released a report at the end of 1996 saying global warming was a fact, yet before releasing the report, two key paragraphs were deleted from the final draft. Those two paragraphs, written by the scientists who did the actual scientific analysis, said: 1. "[N]one of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases." 2. "[N]o study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to…manmade causes." Obviously, those two paragraphs aren’t consistant with the political agenda the UN is pushing. So, science be damned. Global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of the world--bar none." From Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us by Benjamin Radford: "When NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw reported a school shooting in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, on. the December 6, 1999, telecast, he duly noted that overall school violence was down. This is how he put it: "Overall teenage violence may be down, but the exceptions are coming all too often." The first six words of his introduction were quickly drowned out in the hundreds of alarmist words and images that followed. A 1993 article on the ozone controversy further illustrates the way the press (and the public) treat good news. Boyce Rensberger, a respected veteran science reporter for the Washington Post, wrote an article that appeared in that paper on April 15, 1993. The article came out amid heated public debate about the threat of Earth's ozone depletion. Rensberger gave both sides of the issue, including the rarely heard, optimisticviews of many knowledgeable scientists. He quoted, for example, an atmospheric scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, who opined, "The current and projected levels of ozone depletion do not appear to represent a catastrophe." Many other scientists agreed, pointing out that ozone is a renewable resource, reliable data are sparse, and that the changes measured may well simply reflect normal fluctuations in ultraviolet light. Overall, the article could be taken as good news: The sky was not falling, and there was no need to panic.

Rensberger described the reaction to his story in an article in Skeptical Inquirer magazine: The reaction to my ozone story was swift. Some readers were perplexed because they were under the impression that the amount of ozone depletion was approaching alarming proportions. My story didn't square with the prevailing public image of the problem.... There were letters, phone calls, and clippings of articles in environmentalist advocacy publications branding me an enemy of the planet....[The Congressional environment caucus] was so startled by my story that they summoned a prominent atmospheric scientist at NASA to come in and please tell them what gives.... Well, the NASA scientist said (and I paraphrase): Rensberger's story is basically correct on the facts, but there is a problem with his tone. I was to hear the "tone" complaint many times. It puzzled me that a story could be factually correct and written in what I thought was a straight, unemotional style but be considered wrong in "tone." Eventually I figured it out, I think. Environment stories are usually written in an alarmist tone. That is to say, the stories deal with purportedly alarming developments and the sources are often people who wish to sound an alarm. A species is endangered. A chemical is toxic. The Earth is in peril. That's just the way this kind of story is usually written in the news business. And, often enough, the facts are truly alarming. But it's become the norm in much environment writing to state things in this alarmist tone even if the facts are not well established. As a science writer, coming out of a somewhat different journalistic tradition, I try to write my stories in a neutral, purely informational tone-and also to highlight the facts that strike me as posing the greatest challenge to conventional thinking. I suspect that people had become so used to alarmist stories on ozone depletion that my neutral story appeared, by contrast, to be unduly optimistic." All modern environmentalist thought stems from one man - Paul Ehrlich. The only problem for Ehrlich is he has been wrong about absolutely everything. In the early 60s Ehrlich predicted the Big Freeze (go ask people about the impending Ice Age of the 70s and 80s that they were constantly told about), which he was absolutely right about. Every year it does indeed get alot colder around about Winter time. He also famously predicted that almost all resources would be exhausted - he even placed a famous bet which he lost by an enormous degree. Or try Ehrlich's Acid Rain scares of the 80s. Or his most famous disatser - The 1968 book The Population Bomb, in which he predicted that the US population would "starve back" to 22 million. Since 1961, world population has more than doubled, food production has more than doubled, and Paul Ehrlich has become even more trusted. The are 290 million people in the US alone and yet Ehrlich and his progeny are trusted as fonts of knowledge. Ehrlich has never been accurate about one of his predictions. For this the MacArthur Foundation bestowed its "genius" award along with a a chunk of money for Ehrlich's "promoting greater public understanding of environmental problems." Lester Brown, who's been predicting global starvation for 40 years, also received the MacArthur "genius" award.

Environmentalists have the ability to continue to say they are right in spite of never once being so. Charges such as urban sprawl is paving overvital cropland - farmland lying fallow in the United States and Argentina alone could feed 1.4 billion people. Environmentalists have been predicting that the world's going to run out of coal, oil, gas, food, arable land, and you name it, for decades. If anything, the world's known supply of things environmentalists said we're running out of has increased. The next time an environmentalist warns us of disaster, someone ask "When was the last time your prediction was right?" Go read University of Maryland Professor Julian Simon's book "State Of Humanity" in which he presents every popular enviromentalist claim of the last 100 years and tears them to shreds. Simon got so cheesed off with Ehrlich and his colleagues that in 1980 he issued a challenge to the environmentalists. Since increased scarcity would mean higher prices, he bet $10,000 that any given raw material - to be picked by his opponents - would have dropped in price at least one year later. Stanford University environmentalists Paul Ehrlich, John Harte and John Holdren, stating that "the lure of easy money can be irresistible", took him on. The environmentalists put their money on chromium, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten, and they picked a time frame of 10 years. By September 1990, each of the raw materials had dropped in price: chromium by 5%, tin by a whopping 74%. The doom-mongers had lost. Ehrlich and co would have lost whatever they had bet on - petroleum, foodstuffs, sugar, coffee, cotton, wool, minerals, phosphates - they had all become cheaper. Every prediction they had made had been proven to be totally incorrect. The biggest doom story of enviro's is oil. Since oil was discovered, we have been running out of oil. Everyman and his dog has uttered the sky-is-falling view of oil. In 1914, the US Bureau of Mines estimated that supplies would last only 10 more years. In 1939 the US Dept of the Interior predicted that oil would last only 13 more years. When the 13 years were up, they made exactly the same prediction again! Hell even last month the Swedish University of Upssala said we have only a few years left. This despite that known reserves of oil have more than quadrupled inthe last 10 years alone. Not only does this make enviros look silly, it shows how dull the "war for oil" argument is. Not only are we not running out, it would help if the allegedly oil-ungry US relied overly on it. Or invaded Saudi Arabaia and proved the nutcases right. WERE THE "GOOD OLD DAYS" REALLY GOOD? "There has been more hope for the poor during the last twenty-five years than ever before in the history of our country. We too easily forget the incredibly immoral neglect of the needy that was so evident in the early part of the twentieth century. As a case in point, nothing in the history books that our children read in school describes the tens of

thousands of homeless, orphaned children on city streets during the first three decades of the 1900s. So severe was the problem of homeless children that at one point, the Society of Friends (Quakers) chartered trains to take them out to the farm belt for adoption. The trains stopped at rural railroad stations where the children disembarked and lined up for inspection. Then farmers picked out and adopted any of the children they thought would be good farm workers. In retrospect, this sounds like a shocking practice, but given the conditions of the time, it was probably one of the more humane options available. We forget what America was like during the Gilded Age. It was an immoral time characterized by the story of some millionaires who mocked the poor by literally lighting their cigars with dollar bills, Less than a mile away from where they did this, people were on the verge of starving to death." -Speaking my Mind by Tony Campolo Children as young as six years old during the industrial revolution worked hard hours for little or no pay. Children sometimes worked up to 19 hours a day, with a one-hour total break. This was a little bit on the extreme, but it was not common for children who worked in factories to work 12-14 hours with the same minimal breaks. Not only were these children subject to long hours, but also, they were in horrible conditions. Large, heavy, and dangerous equipment was very common for children to be using or working near. Many accidents occurred injuring or killing children on the job. Not until the Factory Act of 1833 did things improve. Children were paid only a fraction of what an adult would get, and sometimes factory owners would get away with paying them nothing. Orphans were the ones subject to this slave-like labor. The factory owners justified their absence of payroll by saying that they gave the orphans food, shelter, and clothing, all of which were far below par. The children who did get paid were paid very little. The treatment of children in factories was often cruel and unusual, and the children's safety was generally neglected. The youngest children, who were not old enough to work the machines, were commonly sent to be assistants to textile workers. The people who the children served would beat them, verbally abuse them, and take no consideration for their safety. Both boys and girls who worked in factories were subject to beatings and other harsh forms of pain infliction. One common punishment for being late or not working up to quota would be to be "weighted." An overseer would tie a heavy weight to worker's neck, and have them walk up and down the factory aisles so the other children could see them and "take example." This could last up to an hour. Weighting could lead to serious injuries in the back and/or neck. Punishments such as this would often be dispensed under stringent rules. Boys were sometimes dragged naked from their beds and sent to the factories only holding their clothes, to be put on there. This was to make sure the boys would not be late, even by a few minutes.

The Media

In the 1950’s, readership of Newspapers was over 100 percent (many households subscribed to 2 or more daily newspapers. Today, it is less than one half of that. With the advent of the internet and 24 hours cable news services, regular television news casting has had to share its piece of the pie also. So how did the news media respond to this evergrowing competition? By scaring us to death! Media outlets now need to get our attention, and scaring us exactly the way to do that. As Lex Luthor stated in Superman: “The more fear you make, the more loot you take.” For instance, in the same period that

crime decreased dramatically from the early 90’s to the 21st century, news reporting of crime increased by 700%. Strangely, the liberal media has made a strange friendship with right-wing conservative Christians, who rely on the media for proofs of a declining modern age. When discussing my optimistic view of modern life with Seventh Day Adventists, I would always get the same response: “Don’t believe us? Just look at the news!” John Stossel had this to say about the news media: “Where are the bodies? For years, reporters have been alerting America to one scare after another. Chemicals, cell phones, SARS -- everything is going to kill us! You would think by now we'd be doing nothing but digging graves. Instead, Americans are living longer than ever. Not that you'd ever know that from the mainstream media. So let's grab a shovel to clear away the nonsense and dig out the truth: Myths, lies and stupidity are often the basis of today's scary news stories. Reports that motorists using cell phones were triggering explosions at gas stations sent fear at gas stations through the roof (where gas prices, adjusted for inflation, haven't gone). But there is no evidence that cell phones are much of a threat. The media keeps pumping out the stories. In 2004, the Poughkeepsie [N.Y.] Journal ran this scary headline: "Cell Phone Ring Starts Fire at Gas Station." The story quoted the local fire chief, Pat Koch, as saying gas vapors were ignited by the ringing of a cell phone. But -- stop the presses and start shoveling -- just days later, Koch said: "After further investigation . . . I have concluded that the source of ignition was from some source other than the cell phone . . . most likely static discharge from the motorist himself." The truth is that anything that involves static or sparks can ignite gasoline fumes, including rubbing your rear end against a cloth car seat on a dry winter day. At the University of Oklahoma, there's a "Center for the Study of Wireless Electromagnetic Compatibility," which researches the effects of electronic devices on our lives. The center examined incident reports and scientific data, and concluded that there was "virtually no evidence to suggest that cell phones pose a hazard at gas stations." The researchers went even further: "The historical evidence," it said, "does not support the need for further research."

You're about as likely to be toasted by a dragon. To its credit, the Poughkeepsie Journal gave its follow-up story as much play as the original. The media rarely do that. Usually, the alarmist and scientifically clueless media just keep churning out the scares. A persistent media myth holds that chemicals are responsible for "the cancer epidemic." The truth is, there is no cancer epidemic. In fact, the cancer death rate has been declining for more than a decade. If you're tempted to argue that fewer die from cancer today simply because there are better treatments, look at the cancer incidence rates. The incidence of prostate and breast cancer is up, but that's only because there's more early detection. Lung cancer increased in women because more women took up cigarettes, and skin cancer increased because of lunatic sunbathing. But overall, cancer rates are flat, and lots of cancers, like stomach, uterine, and colorectal cancer, are on the decline. We think there's a cancer epidemic because we hear more about cancer. It's a disease of an aging population, and fortunately, more people now live long enough to get cancer. More talk about it, too. Many years ago, people who got cancer were secretive about it. But the main reason we think there is an epidemic is that the media, suspicious of technology, hype dubious risks. Almost every week, there is another story about a potential menace. Reporters credulously accept the activists' scares: While I've been a reporter, I've been asked to do alarmist reports about hair dye, dry cleaning, coffee, chewing gum, saccharin, cyclamates, NutraSweet, nitrites, Red No. 2 dye, electric blankets, video display terminals, dental fillings, cellular phones, vaccines, potato chips, farmed salmon, Teflon, antiperspirants and even rubber duckies. I refused to do most of those stories. If one-tenth of what the reporters suggested was happening did happen, there would be mass death. The opposite is true: Despite exposure to radiation and all those nasty new chemicals, Americans today live longer than ever. So grab a bar of chocolate (it's healthier than you think, if you eat the right kind) and a copy of my new book, just out this week. Everything you know is wrong -- and that's very good news.”

David Altheide, Regents Professor of criminal justice at Arizona State University adds this to the marketing of fear by the media: "The Problem" is also the way in which the information is presented. He calls the presentation technique a "news frame" or "problem frame." The results from lots of opinion polls indicate that many Americans remain fearful despite clear evidence that most citizens are healthier, safer, and happier than ever before. Why the fear? Altheide's interpretive studies of the mass media are well known among scholars. His answer is based on a variant of a technique called frame analysis. Researchers use the method to study the content of news reports and popular culture. Altheide argues that the media have become both an information source as well as a source of entertainment. "The blending of news/information values and entertainment values has gotten us to where we are today," he explains. "New programs and news papers are big business. They make a lot of money for corporations. At their core, these groups are profit driven. To make a larger profit, you have to attract a larger audience. To attract larger audiences to news programs, media outlets are adopting an entertainment format as part of news programming." The difference is easy to see. Altheide suggests looking at the contrast between past and current television newscasts. Baby boomers grew up watching relatively simple newscasts dominated by anchormen such as Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley. Today's newscasts place a much larger emphasis on entertainment. Perfectly coiffed news readers laugh and giggle as they provide the latest gossip about celebrities. They also devote lots of time to stories about food preparation, hot new restaurants, or updates on the latest fashions and fads. "The entertainment elements are now dominant," Altheide says. "The effect overwhelms even what can be considered the `serious news' segments on radio and television. It also is eroding the hard news sections of many newspapers." News stories are often presented in what Altheide describes as a "problem format." The format allows reporters a platform on which to present news stories and attract and entertain an audience at the same time.

"In an effort to attract larger and larger audiences, media people have gone back into our cultural history and adopted a format that is time proven—the morality play. Many religions used the morality play format to teach concepts of right and wrong." Altheide explains. The current "War on Terrorism" is a good example of how leaders use the morality play to generate fear-inspired news reports. President Bush speaks about "evil ones" and "evil doers." The nation remains on "alert." The next attack could come at any time. "The morality play is simple. It is based on the idea that a problem exists," Altheide adds. "The problem can be solved through the use of a moral principle." The "problem frame" does not suffer a political bias to either the left or right. The process is used to identify a problem, and then suggests one or more solutions. "The problem frame gets incorporated into news because of the way news is covered in our fast-moving information society," Altheide continues. "It is now built into the very structure of how news is reported and presented in America ." "The news business has an accepted way of doing things," he says. "The most successful and profitable news programs tend to be those that use the news frame as a way to attract an audience. News is a business. Businesses tend to copy what works. As a result, the news or problem frame has become the standard way of reporting. The new generation of reporters has been raised on the problem frame. It seems natural to them." Fear sells. Media outlets appear to thrive on finding new ways to scare their viewers or readers. However, Altheide thinks that the problem extends well beyond the news room. We experience more of our lives through a lens of fear.The sense and use of the word "fear" is greater in American life today than it was even a decade ago, according to the ASU scholar. "Much of the promotional material for the news product uses an element of fear to generate readers or viewers," he explains. "That's why you see promos such as `Tonight at 10 p.m., find out the secret ingredient in women's perfume that's destroying their sex lives.' Or, `Learn three things you can do to protect your family from skin cancer.' "The teaser format is also popular: `Organization X has made a major announcement. We'll have all the details at 5 p.m.' These promotional advertisements attempt to get you to watch or read by creating fear

that you might miss an important piece of information for yourself or your family." The problem frame often acts much like a magnifying glass. "Over time, the constant use of the problem frame results in an accumulation of fear among members of the general public," Altheide says. "Crime news is an easy example. The media pay a great deal of attention to violent crime and murder. People have become fearful about the prospects of becoming a victim of crime, despite the fact that if you are not involved in drugs or gangs, your chances of becoming a victim of violent crime are some of the lowest in American history. The actual number of violent crimes in the United States has been dropping, but the amount of fear has increased." Altheide says the same model can be seen in the mass media's coverage of schools and education in America . "The stories usually focus on the problems in the schools, and what we need to do to fix those problems," he continues. "People are concerned that the quality of schools has dramatically declined over time. Yet, at the very same time, we have record numbers of students entering colleges and universities across the nation. The problem frame tends to shift the focus and alter the perception of what is really going on. Over time, the problem frame creates its own reality." David Altheide's newest book about the news media is called Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crises (Social Problems and Social Issues) published by Aldine De Gruyter. “As much as the public complains about media scares, they will continue to occur. Why? Because fear sells. Whether we admit it or not, we love the thrill these scares give us, probably because in most cases – as in watching a horror movie or riding a heart-stopping roller coaster – we know the threat they project is almost certainly a phantom menace.” -Michael Fumento

Fear Sells "To be afraid is to have more faith in evil than in God."---Emmet Fox Researchers in how the brain functions have found that our forebrains (the thinking part that makes us humans) shut down when we are angry or frightened and the midbrain (which resembles the brain of animals) takes over. The only programming that works for the midbrain is the same type of training that works for dogs, which is classical and

operant conditioning. This type of conditioning is simply stimulus-response, such as IF fire bell--THEN walk the fire escape exit plan. 7: THE SCIENCE OF STRUCTURING Deeper Insights into the Illuminati Formula "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."-- H.L. Mencken "Beware of emotions. The emotional person is turned off sensually. His body is a churning robot. Emotions are addictive, narcotic, and stupefacient (non-thinking). "—T. Leary "People will let themselves be led by someone who is in the next level up on the scale. Therefore, all of the gullible souls in the Fear band can be easily influenced and pushed into action by the 1.5."--Ruth Minshull (How to choose your people p119) "Propaganda Techniques: Special Appeals--Fear: When a propagandist warns members of her audience that disaster will ensue if they do not follow a particular course of action, she is using the fear appeal. By playing on the audience's deep-seated fears, practitioners of this technique hope to redirect attention away from the merits of a particular proposal and toward steps that can be taken to reduce the fear." http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/fear.htm "The usual first step in religious or political brainwashing is to work on the emotions of an individual or group until they reach an abnormal level of anger, fear, excitement, or nervous tension......He induces fear and increases the tension by talking about "the devil," "going to hell," or the forthcoming Armegeddon."---Dick Sutphen (The Battle for Your Mind: Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On The Public) http://www.whale.to/w/mind.html "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear--kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ..." -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 "For the public ever to break command science it must first understand the basis of its enormous powers.......Traditionally, the power of medical sciences has been based on the fear of disease, particularly infectious disease."--Peter Deusberg (Inventing The AIDS Virus). http://www.duesberg.com/

"First, the stricken cancer victim and their family members have been so deceived by the Establishment that they are completely brainwashed and put in overwhelming fear."----Dr Kelly DDS "[The CDC's] disease-control mission was increasingly being regarded as obsolete, prompting serious discussions about abolishing the CDC altogether."----Duesberg's Inventing The AIDS Virus (1996) (Source: http://www.geocities.com/harpub/pol_all.htm "The British Medical Journal ran a very revealing article recently, entitled Selling Sickness. In it, the authors stated: "Pharmaceutical companies are actively involved in sponsoring the definition of diseases and promoting them to both prescribers and consumers. The social construction of illness is being replaced by the corporate construction of disease. Although some sponsored professionals or consumers may act independently and all concerned may have honourable motives, in many cases the formula is the same: groups and/or campaigns are orchestrated, funded, and facilitated by corporate interests, often via their public relations and marketing infrastructure. A key strategy of the alliances is to target the news media with stories designed to create fears about the condition or disease and draw attention to the latest treatment. Company sponsored advisory boards supply the `independent experts' for these stories, consumer groups provide the `victims' and public relations companies provide media outlets with the positive spin about the latest `breakthrough' medications." (Ray Moynihan, Iona Heath, David Henry, 'Selling Sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease-mongering', British Medical Journal online, BMJ, 13th April 2002 )--Steve Ransom "[T]here's fame, fortune, and big budgets in sounding the `emerging infection' alarm and warning of our terrible folly in being unprepared."-------Michael Fumento, National Post, March 28, 2003 "A perusal of the abstracts of papers presented at the 23rd annual meeting of the Society for Epidemiological Research … made me wonder whether epidemiology, in the absence of epidemics, is not a misnomer for scaremongering made respectable by the use of sophisticated statistical methods, and whether one of the reasons for this state of affairs is not a high prevalence of epidemiologists when the incidence of problems solvable by epidemiological methods is low."---Hilary Butler quoting Petr Skrabanek http://www.whale.to/m/butler4.html

"The CDC would be the last place in the world to go for information regarding health. The CDC is a government bureacracy funded by theft (taxation that has reached confiscatory levels) and run by white collar criminals who regularly misinform and misdirect the public while creating pandemonium in the marketplace (unnecessary destruction of livestock, recalls etc) and conspiring to incite public panic on an almost daily basis, in violation of the constitution of the United States ."--Dr Duffy DC " So, let's all pretend it's ( West Nile virus) a deadly virus and endure a ritual of mind-numbing fear, dramatized by occasional unscheduled pesticide sprayings by helicopters over crowded streets and parks."--Jim West www.geocities.com/noxot "Severe constraints are placed on the media in the name of "responsible journalism" with the result that the American public very seldom hears both sides of the vaccination story, and comes to have an unquestioning faith in vaccinations as our greatest hope against future imagined disease plagues. In this fear-based scenario, the questioning voice of reason is drowned out amid the hysteria surrounding the emerging "killer infections" which are such a favorite media topic. This propagation of fear by the media and by its sources in the public health industry has resulted in a growth of power of this industry far beyond the usual checks and balances of our democracy."---Incao's Hepatitis B Vaccination Testimony "To magnify their own importance CDC allowed a climate of fear (Legionnaire disease)."--Dr Anthony Morris "The mysterious new respiratory ailment (SARS) that has terrified people around the globe has extended its reach to the Capitol, where Senate Republicans are using the disease to press their case that vaccine manufacturers should be shielded from lawsuits."--Media "A lot of issues need to be swept under the carpet---and poof, along comes SARS. Whether or not its appearance was coordinated, up front, to coincide with these scandals and tragedies in Iraq , one thing is for sure. SARS has been used as a smokescreen to keep the global public diverted and in fear."--- JON RAPPOPORT "I think if we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecologically sound society under socialism. I don't think it's possible under capitalism." [Environmentalism equals replacing capitalism with socialism.] -- Judi Bari, Earth First! member.

"The environmentalist's dream is an egalitarian society based on: rejection of economic growth, a smaller population, eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally." -- Aaron Wildavsky, political scientist and professor. [Environmentalism equals making everybody equal; that is, it's communism.] "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits. . , [C]limate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world." [Environmentalism equals changing the world.] -- Christine Stewart, Canadian Environment Minister. "We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. . . . We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land." [Environmentalism equals a return to primitive living.] -- David Foreman, Earth First! member. "We've got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." [Environmentalism equals changing policy by claiming -- even without substantiation -- it's necessary to save the world's environment.] -- Timothy Wirth, Clinton Administration U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, and one of a number of politicians (including Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank, Al Gore, John Kerry, Christopher Shays, and others) who were designated as "Green Leadership for the '90s." "[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios [about global warming and destruction of the environment}, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts one might have. . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." [Environmentalism equals lies "if necessary".] -- Stephen Schneider, Stanford University environmentalist. "We routinely wrote scare stories about the hazards of chemicals, employing words like 'cancer,' and 'birth defects' to splash a little cold water in reporters' faces. . . . Our press reports were more or less true. . . . Few handouts, however, can be completely honest, and ours were no exception . . . . We were out to whip the public into a frenzy about the environment." [Environmentalism equals government-sponsored deception.] -- Jim Sibbison, former EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) press officer. "Not only do journalists not have a responsibility to report what skeptical scientists have to say about global warming. They have a responsibility not to report what these scientists say." [Environmentalism equals silencing debate and stifling contrary opinions.] -- Ross Gelbspan, former editor of the Boston Globe. "I would freely admit that on [global warming] we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy." [Environmentalism equals indoctrination.]

-- Charles Alexander, "Time" magazine science editor. Writer John Meredith summarizes: "The radical environmental movement is destroying America. It is turning our society, once based on individual freedom and responsibility, into little more than mindless followers of regulations established at the whim of unelected special-interest groups." Walter Williams has the last word: "While the Soviet Union has collapsed, communism is not dead. It has [been] repackaged under a new name: environmentalism. Communism is about extensive government regulation and control by elites, and so is environmentalism." The activists' biggest weapon is fear. Without fear, they'd be out of business. Without fear, there would be no headlines, no celebrities, no funds. Without fear, they'd be out of work. And environmentalists would be out of a mission (and a paycheck), which is to rescue the Earth from the sins and wickedness of mankind. "The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population." -- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", (1971) The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer -- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968) I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000 -- Paul Ehrlich in (1969) In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970) Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion -- Paul Ehrlich in (1976) This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century -- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976 There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could

begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it. -- Newsweek, April 28, (1975) This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976 If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

Conclusion The one thing that Christianity has been consistently wrong about is its predictions of The End. Generation after Generation, for 2000 years, one man of faith after another has stepped up to the plate to declare an imminent End to present conditions. It should be apparent after so long a time that we were not meant to prognosticate such a dire outcome, and perhaps our literal way of looking at certain Biblical passages are simply WRONG! Author Margaret Truman, in an interview mentioned that an apocalyptic outlook tapped into the worst of human traits: Gloating and Revenge! What is so healthful about believing that God will kill 6 billion people but save only you and your group of "true believers"? How is that loving? How is it constructive? How does it benefit your fellow man to desire his demise? I say, "Carpe Diem: Sieze the Day!" You, the reader, have the fortune of being born in the most exciting time in human history. The reason we are living longer and healthier is due to the magnificent sacrifices and intellects of those who have come before us. We can now marry for love instead of necessity. We can pursue occupations we enjoy instead of long hours of back breaking labor. Our children can be educated instead of laboring in factories. Our new found prosperity helps us to help others. The amount of time and money we contribute to charity is staggering. YOU are better than the doomsayers. YOU are kinder, more loving, and more selfless, and I salute you. Your Friend Kenny Woo