Remember what you know before just believing what others tell you ...

I was given a lot to think about when my brother Tim posted something on Facebook on 12 Nov 2018.

 

I see the image may not display because it contained text. It was the great pyramid with its geographical coordinates. I am trying again, this time with a cropped picture as well...

It gives:
Speed of light: 299 792 458 m/2
Coordinates of the Great Pyramid of Giza 29.9792458°N
COINCIDENCE?
His comment was 'Not in billions of years is this by chance........'

I posted the comment:

That depends... The pyramid spans about 29.97817°N to 29.98019°N, One of about 20200 points with 7 decimal place, each about 7 mm apart, along the approximately 150 m stretch from the northern to southern edges of the pyramid is indeed 29.9792458°N. That point is about 10758 out of about 20200, so reasonably close to the middle of the pyramid. It is TRULY REMARKABLE, but you have to have real faith in the precision of the surveyors of about 4578 years ago to think that they calculated the speed of light and plonked the pyramid on the ground at precisely that point to match that great number :-). This requires just about the same amount of faith as those have who believe that the millions of species in the world are the result of natural selection and the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life rather than the work of an intelligent God :-). But thanks for giving me something to think about :-)

I thought a lot about that.

The pyramid was built around 2580 to 2560 BC.

The speed of light was first considered about 1676 AD, and postulated by Albert Einstein in 1905 AD.

One has to ask why it was decided that a circle can be divided into 360 degrees, and that the Earth must span from 90°S to 90°N rather than any other number of degrees.

Then - the second is based on 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day - instead of some other numbers for seconds, minutes and hours.

The length of a metre is defined based on the length of a path traveled by light in a vacuum - instead of some other number like foot or yard or mile or something else.

These decisions and postulations put the pyramid close to 29.97817°N.

When I teach the process of georeferencing, or assigning geographical coordinates to record where museum or herbarium specimens were collected, I teach that one should not use more than 5 decimal places, nor less, because 5 decimal places puts one appropriately within 1 metre of the determined place, and using more decimal places adds false precision. So, I would have georeferenced a specimen of a bird or lizard with 'the Great Pyramid of Giza' as its location at about 31.13425°N, 29.97925°E, with a confidence of about 150 m representing the radius of a circle surrounding and including all four corners of the pyramid. If it had been a plant, then I would have given it within about 300 m or even 1000 m from the centre of the pyramid. Something like a bird or lizard can be 1000 m from the pyramid and can feasibly move onto the centre of the pyramid, whereas a plant is pretty much stuck in one place from the time of germination to its death, and is not likely to have been growing on the pyramid itself, and looking at aerial photography or satellite imagery shows the nearest visible vegetation at about 300 m from the pyramid.

My GPS is good to about 5 m - and I have benefited from that precision by locating a small plant ten days after recording its locality with my simple GPS, so I know. To get less than 1 cm precision in 2018 requires using a Differential GPS, costing many thousands of Rands or hundreds of Dollars.

What prompted the pyramid consulting engineers to place their pyramid precisely there? Perhaps an all-wise, loving, gracious and merciful God prompted them about 4600 years ago so that this picture would be posted on Facebook in November 2018 so that I would think about the question and saying to me 'It's OK, Les. I am here' :-).

Hopefully my comments will prompt you to search your thoughts and remember what you know.

So - think.... remember.... ponder.... dare I say pray?....

Some reflections on racism

Received from a friend: Nice Joke:
1) Racism will never end....as long as white bread still costs more than brown bread!!!
2) Racism will never end ....as long as we still wash white clothes first, then other colours later!!!!
3) Racism will never end.....if people still use black to symbolize bad luck and white for peace!!!!
4) Racism will never end....if people still wear white clothes to weddings and black clothes to funerals!!!!
5) Racism will never end.....as long as those who don't pay their bills are blacklisted and NOT white listed😂😂😂


My reply: Ai!

Aye!

In physics I learned that when all primary colours (red, green, blue) are combined in transmitted light they give prefect white light. When all primary colours are absorbed then no light is reflected, giving prefect black.

So, when all light and truth shine from the heart of a dark skinned person, what colour is that person? When no light or truth shine from the heart of a light skinned person, they just absorb it all and keep it to themselves, what colour is that person?

Where does racism reside in Zion? 🤔

When someone reflects light and truth, then they just see the good in others and hope, as the loving God and Father of us all hopes, that their enemy, the rotten scoundrel, the bad okes, will repent, come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him. I hope that includes me.

Somehow, I don't see Him thinking 'Yay! I'm rid of that one! He is going to hell.' He hopes that all, as in 2 Nephi 26:33, will come unto Him.

This complicated thought process arose as I read Alma 34:36 this morning and thought of this joke 😊

Have a wonderful 💓💛💙 day and let 💓💛💙 glow in your countenance 😉 as it usually does.

Sorry - the emojis have a black heart, but not a white one. Djy wiet, hulle moet sieker rassisties wies!(That translates to 'you know, they must surely be racist'.)😔

In response to this blog post, I was referred to a really interesting and thought-provoking talk by Marvin Perkins.

Would I be privileged to be welcomed into the most special marriage feast of all history?

I was thinking as I prayed tonight. I pondered the parable in Matthew 25

Why would Jesus Christ use a marriage feast as an object lesson? What is special about a marriage feast, and an invitation to one?

Would I receive an invitation?

How would I know that I had received an invitation? So many Jews, even the leaders of the Jews, the Sanhedrin, rejected the very Messiah when He came in their midst – would I recognise an invitation to the most significant marriage feast in all of history?

Who would deliver such an invitation? Who would be on the list if invited guests? Would I be among those who would be invited?

If there were to be an invitation given, how would one come, other than through a living prophet? After all, Amos said ‘Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.’ Amos 3:7 Does this apply here? Would the Lord arrive unannounced, or would he have a prophet deliver invitations to the feast?

If I were to be one of the fortunate ten virgins who would receive an invitation to this feast, would I have sufficient oil in my lamp when the cry comes ‘The bridegroom cometh’ and I tried to trim my lamp at the crucial moment when it is most needed?

I bear my testimony that the Lord does indeed have a living prophet. The invitation will not go randomly to all the world, just as an invitation to the wedding feast would not go to all in the town, but to special friends of the bridegroom, and not all of those special friends will have sufficient oil in their lamps to enable them to be prepared and welcomed in to the figurative ‘hall’ where the feast will be held. I hope and pray that I may at least receive an invitation, and hopefully have sufficient oil in my lamp. I know that the Lord lives now – still as He said to His disciples ‘Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’ Luke 24:39

I know that He still lives, that he still has that body of flesh and bones that his disciples saw and felt. He will come again. All we need to do is to be ready to be welcomed into the marriage feast. I reckon that a Temple Recommend will be a basic requirement, and then living worthy of that, enduring in faith to the end. And then, being alert and attentive to the still small voice as it whispers in the right place at the right time to become aware of the cry that 'the bridegroom cometh'.

I hope that I will be welcomed in and hear those glorious words 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.' Matt 25:21,23. I hope that all of my loved ones will be among those wise virgins who are welcomed in to the marriage feast.

We have a prophet through whom the Lord can deliver us

I shared this with my family this morning.

As I prayed this morning I realised that we do not need to buy 5 litre bottles of water, at least not those who have stored water.

What we shall do is to use stored water for washing and flushing, then wash the bottle, and replace the stored water with fresh water, then put the bottle under a bed as drinking water.

In HIRA (Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment) the first management or intervention option is avoidance, and second is replacement. This is what we can do without increasing our consumption of municipal water, by replacing it so that we can accumulate fresh stored water.

So, we have turned off the taps to the cisterns and use stored or rainwater to refill the cistern after flushing.

We disconnected the washing machine from the tap and use rainwater or stored water.

Then we can store fresh water with clear conscience.

Following this revelatory experience and being comforted by the Spirit, I turned to my daily scripture reading, and the first verse that I read was 2 Nephi 3:9.

And he shall be great like unto Moses, whom I have said I would raise up unto you, to deliver my people, O house of Israel.

Here is a note I made in my study journal.

After pondering our very serious drought in Cape Town in January 2018, and advising my family on how we have been blessed because of following the prophet's counsel to store food and water, this was the first verse that I read as I turned to my daily scripture study. We do indeed have a prophet through whom the Lord can deliver us.

Are we not blessed for having heeded the Lord's anointed all these years? Some of our stored water has been there for more than twenty years and may not be used confidently for drinking.

Another thought I had as I prayed is to use 5 litre fruit juice containers as water dispensers in the bathrooms and kitchen. But I can't think when last I saw one? If you see any, please collect them so that we can wash them to reuse as water dispensers.

Paul Kruger shared a video clip of a 2 litre cold drink bottle with a hole in it and pipe fitted, then a slight press of the bottle releases a bit of water, or loosening the cap releases a flow of water. That will work. Rather like the water feeders for budgies or hamsters as negative pressure prevents water from leaking out and positive pressure releases water.