God/Yahweh/Allah I BELIEVE started as volcanic activity

I know I said I would discuss lions today but it's been another busy day and it's now early morning and I've not yet been to bed. It's going to be very hard to keep track of comments and reply to everyone, especially when some people are not going through the thread and asking questions already asked and answered. Therefore, forgive me if I do not respond to you. If I feel your questions or comments are particularly valuable then I will respond.

For now and until tomorrow....please can someone be honest enough, as an intellectual and not as an ego-drive person, to say what everyone else will be thinking after reading the following Biblical verses?

Exodus 19:3 And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain 9 And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. 12 And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death. 13 there shall not a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live. 16 And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, Rev. 4.5 and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. 18 And mount Si'nai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: Deut. 4.11, 12 and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

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Can everyone now see how critical it is to post Biblical verses while trying to demonstrate why I believe the Hebrews believed volcanoes or volcanic activity was a god?

So far I have found that people react to my theory in a very standard way and I am not expecting anyone to say anything agreeable for quite some time. Of course, there are always exceptions and not only would that be nice but it would also speed things up a bit by getting all the cognitive dissonance out of the way leaving more time for investigating this theory together. I'm sure all of you lot could work this thing out if you all wanted to.

The Fog Horn said:

I know I said I would discuss lions today but it's been another busy day and it's now early morning and I've not yet been to bed. It's going to be very hard to keep track of comments and reply to everyone, especially when some people are not going through the thread and asking questions already asked and answered. Therefore, forgive me if I do not respond to you. If I feel your questions or comments are particularly valuable then I will respond.

For now and until tomorrow....please can someone be honest enough, as an intellectual and not as an ego-drive person, to say what everyone else will be thinking after reading the following Biblical verses?



Can everyone now see how critical it is to post Biblical verses while trying to demonstrate why I believe the Hebrews believed volcanoes or volcanic activity was a god?

So far I have found that people react to my theory in a very standard way and I am not expecting anyone to say anything agreeable for quite some time. Of course, there are always exceptions and not only would that be nice but it would also speed things up a bit by getting all the cognitive dissonance out of the way leaving more time for investigating this theory together. I'm sure all of you lot could work this thing out if you all wanted to.

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This would only be sound if there was volcanic activity in that area in that time period, and I already provided a link to a page which demonstrated that there hasn't been volcanic activity in the proper area in tens of thousands, if not millions, of years.

The Fog Horn said:

Can everyone now see how critical it is to post Biblical verses while trying to demonstrate why I believe the Hebrews believed volcanoes or volcanic activity was a god?

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If you have a severely limited comprehension of idioms and language, sure thing.

Problem is, the chances are it's a collection of idioms, hyperboles, metaphors and stories.

What you appear to have seen is:

Smoke + Mountain = Volcano!
Earthquake = Volcano!
Put to death for touching the mountain = Volcano!!!!!


You can see why it's not convincing.

This link to Wikipedia shows a list of volcanoes in Saudi Arabia....(the red dashes mean there is no data....always ALWAYS bare in mind the Saudi's will not want anyone to know about this...if I am indeed correct).

List of volcanoes in Saudi Arabia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This Wikipedia shows a list of volcanoes throughout the world...

Category:Volcanoes by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This Wikipedia page is for Harrat Ash Shamah in Jordan/Saudi/Syria...

Harrat Ash Shamah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This unlikely site, 'Oregan State''s education section briefly summarises the harrat (volcanic field) that stretches from North Western Saudi Arabia to Jordan and into Syria.

Harrat Ash-Shamah, Saudi Arabia

This site, Saudi Aramco World, explains that a volcano near Mecca and Medina is constantly rumbling and threatening to destroy its nearby cities. Why, you might ask (hopefully/please!!) would the centre of Islam be sited next to a massive volcano? These questions must surely be coming to you. Within the text you will find the following quote...

'Within the last 4500 years there have been 13 major eruptions in the Arabian Peninsular, on average one every 346 years.'

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200602/volcanic.arabia.htm

I have not had time to double check this quick bit of research therefore I will likely have made a mistake somewhere. Please correct me if I have done. I do not have time to check it now.

When I did my research I did not keep a record of sites visited nor of many of my findings as I never expected to come to the conclusion I did come to and never thought I'd feel compelled to do this. I never said I had a polished and all finished theory to present but do all ideas need to be packaged so neatly for people to show an interest? The alternative to this scrappy effort is to wait until I am about seventy, by which time I might have been able to get it all perfect. Most of what I know is just in my head and if you want me to provide evidence to back up my individual claims rather than looking into it yourselves with the inquisitiveness I showed then I have to do the research again, which is time consuming. However, if that is what it takes then so be it, although it would be nice if some other people could contribute rather than leaving it all up to me. I'm sure I'm not the only one around here capable of finding evidence to support my claim as opposed to challenging it. Challenging it is fine but please understand this thing has no absolute conclusion and nothing I say will make a jot of difference to you anyway. It will only be when you focus on it as I did and you discover things for yourself. I have said this a few times on here....I do not know everything...in fact I know very little. I am sure that most of the people on here know a lot more about religions than do I. This is not a competition. I know what I'm good at and trying to win an argument about religion is not one of them. I do, however, know that a person who has been interested in religion for a long time and knows a lot about it is less likely to be able to work it out in its simplistic terms, if it is at all possible. That is because if you have not had a eurika moment shortly after getting interested in something then you are very unlikely to ever have a eurika moment. I know very little but I do believe I have had a eurika moment and it's not because I'm intelligent but because I have a fresh pair of eyes and a yearning to know the truth. Please take this for what it is....not a threat to anyone's intelligence but a request for people to put their knowledge to good use in order to establish the truth. Having said all that, this forum is a breath of fresh air because despite there being a hint of antagonism from some there is mostly a feeling of 'tell me more', which is fantastic. When someone says, 'I've also discovered this Fog...' I'll be jumping for joy.

His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude. Daniel 10:6

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Exodus 28:15-21

And thou shalt make the rational of judgment with embroidered work of divers colours, according to the workmanship of the ephod, of gold, violet, and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen. It shall be four square and doubled: it shall be the measure of a span both in length and in breadth. And thou shalt set in it four rows of stones. In the first row shall be a sardius stone, and a topaz, and an emerald: In the second a carbuncle, a sapphire, and a jasper: In the third a ligurius, an agate, and an amethyst: In the fourth a chrysolite, an onyx, and a beryl. They shall be set in gold by their rows. And they shall have the names of the children of Israel: with twelve names shall they be engraved, each stone with the name of one according to the twelve tribes.​

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Chrysolite is the Bibilical name for peridot and is the seventh stone of the New Jerusalem. Peridot is mined in the following places...

North Carolina, Arizona on the San Carlos Reservation, Hawaii, Nevada, and New Mexico, in the US; and in Australia, Brazil, China, Kenya, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), Norway, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania.

Peridot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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and is formed in lava.

The Fog Horn said:

This link to Wikipedia shows a list of volcanoes in Saudi Arabia....(the red dashes mean there is no data....always ALWAYS bare in mind the Saudi's will not want anyone to know about this...if I am indeed correct).

List of volcanoes in Saudi Arabia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Notice something?

The dates in that page are insufficient, since they don't specify AD or BC. "Holocene" began around 10,000 years ago.

Notice something else? Those dates are extremely specific. When a date for a volcano eruption in Saudi is so accurate the exact year is stated then it could reasonably be assumed the year was AD and not BC. I have checked the dates Harrat Rahat and it is AD. But thanks for your contribution. Maybe we can assume there is little if any evidence to prove dates of eruptions even to the nearest 100 years or maybe 1000 years BC, hence the use of just 'Holocene' in other instances.

Global Volcanism Program......1256AD...last eruption of Harrat Rahat...

http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0301-07=

The Fog Horn said:

Notice something else? Those dates are extremely specific. When a date for a volcano eruption in Saudi is so accurate the exact year is stated then it could reasonably be assumed the year was AD and not BC. I have checked the dates Harrat Rahat and it is AD. But thanks for your contribution. Maybe we can assume there is little if any evidence to prove dates of eruptions even to the nearest 100 years or maybe 1000 years BC, hence the use of just 'Holocene' in other instances.

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IOW, there is no evidence of volcanic activity in the appropriate time period.

Not that the appropriate time period is known, since, as I said earlier, the exodus itself may or may not be historical, most likely not.

Riverwolf said:

IOW, there is no evidence of volcanic activity in the appropriate time period.

Not that the appropriate time period is known, since, as I said earlier, the exodus itself may or may not be historical, most likely not.

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I was expecting you to say something like, 'Oh yes, silly me' in response to my last 'challenge' rebuttal but I guess that would be asking too much.

And now you're saying that I should find some sort of definitve proof that the volcanic fields of Saudi were active around 1500BC...1000BC.....500B...etc. Well, so far I have not found out about a diary the Hebrews kept of exact dates of volcanic eruptions but should I find some I will post it here and then maybe you could start to take the whole thing seriously. Of course, that evidence may never appear (unless you could accept the Bible as a type of diary, albeit part magical thinking), especially as the Saudis are more than obstructive towards explorers, researchers and scientists (for reasons that seem obvious to me), and then we'd just have to abandon the entire project. Hmmm..... Are you sure you're being constructive and not obstructive?

If we take the last two thousand years as a pattern indicator, we must surely be able to pencil in volcanic activity in the previous two thousand year period. If it looks like volcanic activity is a pretty regular occurance and has been for thousands of years, why don't we make an educated guess and assume the activity goes back further? As the Biblical text very clearly indicates volcanic activity then we can surely make the assumption that that was because volcanic activity was actually happening at the time. Alone, the pieces of the puzzle are insufficient but together they make sense. Yes, there needs to be assumptions made without absolute impiricle evidence but it's either that or we ASSUME we already know the truth and give up on this other possibility.....maybe allowing a lie to carry on a bit longer.

The general ASSUMPTION of atheists is that the Exodus never happened. They have no proof it never happened but they stick to their faith in it never happening. Jews and Christians generally believe it happened exactly as it says in the Bible despite having no proof it happened exactly as it says it did. Well, there is a third option. I believe there is some truth in it, along with a huge dose of exageration and glorification, and I believe the geographical locations offers that proof. The stories tie in with the locations. Unfortunately our geographical history has been smudged, probably intentionally, making it very hard to decipher. Why was the Sinai Peninsular chosen as the probable site of Mt Sinai when it's very clear it was in Saudi? Why was it even necessary to randomly pick a mountain anyway? Well, it doesn't require a lot of thought to work that one out. If someone's trying to erase or amend history it is because they are trying to hide something they do not want you to know.....the uncomfortable and problematic truth.

Exodus 3:12 And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."

Isaiah 29:6 the LORD Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.

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This is a quote from Freud's Moses and Monotheism essays....

'We are hardly surprised to find that the whole process took a considerable time; probably we do not adequately appreciate the fact that we have here to do with a manifestation of mass psychology. There is no difficulty in finding a full analogy to it in the mental life of an individual. In such a case a person would hear of something new which, on the ground of certain evidence, he is asked to accept as true; yet it contradicts many of his wishes and offends some of his highly treasured convictions. He will then hesitate, look for arguments to cast doubt on the new material, and so will struggle for a while until at last he admits it himself: " all this is true after all, although I find it hard to accept and it is painful to have to believe in it." All we learn from this process is that it needs time for the intellectual work of the Ego to overcome objections that are invested by strong feelings.

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Full text of "Moses And Monotheism"

He might not be right about everything but he is certainly right about this. I understand everyone's reactions, which are not as bad as I have experienced elsewhere. At first people band together and have a field day with personal insults. Then it starts to go a bit quiet with just one or two determined eye pokers. Then it goes deadly silent. It's certainly a lot quieter than it was, which I take as a good sign.

I've been there myself so I know how the mind reacts to this idea and I understand the mental turmoil (cognitive dissonance) you are likely going through. Please keep going through it and you will come out feeling fantastic.

This thing is possibly the only thing that is capable of uniting not only all religions but all religions and atheists as well! The common enemy.....the truth.

Jeremiah 4:13 Look! He advances like the clouds, his chariots come like a whirlwind, his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! We are ruined!


Exodus 19:16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.

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There is of course something extremely serious about the idea the Hebrews worshipped Yahweh in Arabia and that is that Israel was also in Arabia. There is so much confusion with Judiasm, from the name of God to the names of towns and their locations. Why? Don't Jews now go to extreme measures to preserve their ancient holy text? How can it be treated so casually then when it is treated as precious now? Was the confusion intentional?

Kamal Salibi wrote three books advocating the controversial "Israel in Arabia" theory. In this view, the place names of the Hebrew Bible actually allude to places in southwest Arabia; many of them were later reinterpreted to refer to places in Palestine, when the Arabian Hebrews migrated to what is now called Eretz Israel, and where they established the Hasmonean kingdom under Simon Maccabaeus in the second century B.C. In this new Israel, they switched from Hebrew to Aramaic. It was this switch in language that created the confusions which lead to the distortion of the immigrants' stories.[15] He also argued that 'Lebanon' itself in high antiquity was a place in the Southern Arabian peninsula-[16]
The (literally) central identification of the theory is that the geographical feature referred to as הירדן, the “Jordan”, which is usually taken to refer to the Jordan River, although never actually described as a “river” in the Hebrew text, actually means the great West Arabian Escarpment, known as the Sarawat Mountains. The area of ancient Israel is then identified with the land on either side of the southern section of the escarpment that is, the southern Hejaz and 'Asir, from Ta’if down to the border with Yemen.
The theory has not been widely accepted anywhere, and embarrassed many of his colleagues.[17] and several academic reviewers[18][19][20] criticised Cape for having accepted “The Bible Came from Arabia” for publication. Salibi argued that early epigraphic evidence used to vindicate the Biblical stories has been misread. Mesha, the Moabite ruler who celebrated a victory over the kingdom of Israel in a stone inscription, the Mesha stele found in 1868, was, according to Salibi, an Arabian, and Moab was a village 'south (yemen) of Rabin' near Mecca. The words translated 'many days' actually meant 'south of Rabin'.[21]
He shared the view of such scholars as Thomas L. Thompson that there is a severe mismatch between the Biblical narrative and the archaeological findings in Palestine. Thompson's explanation was to discount the Bible as literal history but Salibi's was to locate the centre of Jewish culture further south.[22]
His theory has been both attacked and supported for its supposed implications for modern political affairs, although Salibi himself has made no such connection. Tudor Parfitt wrote “It is dangerous because Salibi's ideas have all sorts of implications, not least in terms of the legitimacy of the State of Israel”.[20] Since the theory casts no doubt on the existence, location or legitimacy of the Hasmonean kingdom, nor rewrites in any way the history of Palestine in the last 2200 years or more, it can only have that implication for those who take literally the divine award of the Promised Land to Abraham and his successors.[citation needed]
The location of the Promised Land is discussed in chapter 15 of “The Bible Came from Arabia”. Salibi argues that the description in the Bible is of an extensive tract of land, substantially larger than Palestine which includes a very varied landscape, ranging from well-watered mountain-tops via fertile valleys and foothills to lowland deserts. In the southern part of Arabia there are recently-active volcanoes, near to which are, presumably, the buried remains of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Kamal Salibi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords: who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power eternal. Amen" (1 Timothy 6:16, R.V.). (dwelling in light unapproachable)

"For ask now of the days that are past ... whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is? ... Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?" (Deuteronomy 4:32-34). (speaking out of the midst of the fire)

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I think it's very sad that a person can devote their lives to trying to get people to believe them but failing due to not having absolute proof. Such is the mass mentality, which is a serious hindrance for the human race. Where would we be now if we did not have this design flaw?

An equally famous example is the case of Alfred Wegener, who in 1915 published a shocking new theory that the Earth’s continents had once been contiguous. He claimed that over millions of years this continent split into separate segments which drifted apart into their current arrangement. This theory, dubbed ‘continental drift’ was supported by extensive geological evidence. Still, British and American geologists laughed and called the idea impossible, and Wegener died in 1930 as an intellectual pariah. Today, Wegener’s theory is taught to every schoolchild, and when we look at a map of the world we consider this once impossible theory to be self-evident.

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Only a Game: A Problem in Mind

The Fog Horn said:

I think it's very sad that a person can devote their lives to trying to get people to believe them but failing due to not having absolute proof. Such is the mass mentality, which is a serious hindrance for the human race. Where would we be now if we did not have this design flaw?

Only a Game: A Problem in Mind

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Without verifiable evidence, we can't determine truth from falsehood. You present a hypothesis without some sort of verifiable evidence, don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

Absolute proof may not be necessary, but some sort of verifiable evidence is.

Guess what? One person alone is no longer sufficient to convince the human race of anything; it requires the peer-review system. Do you think e=mc^2 was just accepted by the scientific community? Of course not; it was tested and verified. He also got a few things wrong; he believed that the universe was static and permanent; the current scientific consensus is that it's neither.

Where would we be without requiring verifiable evidence? Still stuck in the dark ages.

Riverwolf.....when a test for god authenticity becomes available I will surely use it. Until then I will just keep posting my little snippets. Be sure to say if or when I do post something that makes you go....oh!

A little quote about the Kaaba......

It is curious that almost all agree upon one point, namely, that the stone is volcanic. Ali Bey calls it mineralogically a 'block of volcanic basalt, whose circumference is sprinkled with little crystals, pointed and straw-like, with rhombs of tile-red felspath upon a dark ground like velvet or charcoal, except one of its protuberances, which is reddish'. It is also described as 'a lava containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellowish substance'."

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Not 'set in stone' cough cough....but certainly enough to make you go 'oh' no?

Entering the Forbidden City of Mecca, 1853

Imagine! They walk around a volcanic rock thinking it was a gift from god! Oh go on.....laugh. Laugh!!! It's just too funny for words!

The Fog Horn said:

Riverwolf.....when a test for god authenticity becomes available I will surely use it. Until then I will just keep posting my little snippets. Be sure to say if or when I do post something that makes you go....oh!

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Huh? What does whether or not God exists have to do with this?

A little quote about the Kaaba......

Not 'set in stone' cough cough....but certainly enough to make you go 'oh' no?

Entering the Forbidden City of Mecca, 1853

Imagine! They walk around a volcanic rock thinking it was a gift from god! Oh go on.....laugh. Laugh!!! It's just too funny for words!

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One source which may or may not be trustworthy is hardly compelling. After all, I've heard it said from some sources that the rock is a Siva Linga. That's why we have the peer-review system, to help weed out bias.

Besides, whether or not it's a volcanic rock doesn't mean the Abrahamic God comes from a volcano. After all, I remind you that it's widely thought that this God-concept is actually based on Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian God. Was he based on volcanic activity?

Well Riverwolf, if I were a gambling woman my money would be put squarely on volcano worship. All it comes down to in the end is what do you put your faith in. You can ignore everything I'm putting to you if you like. That is your choice. This thread certainly seems to have far less challengers around. I suspect that is because they've all gone off to have a long hard think.

LIONS.....and other animals.....

He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. Deuteronomy 8:15

They did not ask, 'Where is the LORD, who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?' Jeremiah 2:6

I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat. Hosea 13:5

but the most revealing verese are there and I'll explain why later...

You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. Pslam 91:13

An oracle concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys' backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation. Isaiah 30.6

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and a massive number of other lion verses....

What Does the Bible Say About Lions?

So lions are obviously very significant to Judaism and the early Hebrews. Lions must therefore have been a major threat to them. This offers one explanation for why that is......

Arabian Lions | Anonymous Arabist

RIFTS Quite incredible really isn't it?

According to this article, the Bible is silent about plate tectonics. Well, my post above proves otherwise. This article also states that continental drift could well have occurred rapidly and could explain the floods in the Bible.

CONTINENTAL DRIFT - Have Earth's continents drifted?

Was the 'holiest of holies' inside the tabernacle tent just a lava vent next to a volcano? Is that why Moses always came out with his face flushed red?

See picture that depicts the Biblical scene...

Redirect Notice

The Fog Horn said:

Well Riverwolf, if I were a gambling woman my money would be put squarely on volcano worship. All it comes down to in the end is what do you put your faith in. You can ignore everything I'm putting to you if you like. That is your choice. This thread certainly seems to have far less challengers around. I suspect that is because they've all gone off to have a long hard think.

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Or, maybe, because they aren't impressed, and neither am I. The only reason I'm still here is because I'm a persistent fool. ^_^

Look, I'm not saying it WASN'T a volcano, but there doesn't seem to be any indication that it was. It very well could have been; after all, we're talking about antiquity so far away from us that we simply can't know for sure about anything without a time machine.

Therefore, if I were a gambling man, I'd put my money on those passages in the Bible to be hyperbole and metaphor, since I've already put my money on the notion that the exodus is a fictional story, and not an historical event.