All posts filed under: z544

Asteroids are still zooming by Earth, the latest was 2013 NK4

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An asteroid big enough to destroy a large city zoomed by Earth yesterday, and astronomers suggest it will be close enough for people with backyard telescopes to see it over the next couple of days, Live Science reports. With the catchy name of 2013 NK4, the asteroid is 2,000 feet (0.61 km) wide and traveling at 37,000 mph (ca. 59,546 km/h). Though, it was first discovered in 2013, the asteroid has probably, unknowingly, been spinning by Earth for several decades. This is the first time, since its discovery, that it has been close enough for people to see it using telescopes. While its elliptical orbit takes it around the sun every 378 days, computer simulations calculate that it will likely never be a threat to hit Earth. Though it was only 2 million miles out when it passed Earth on Monday, it is expected to make a closer approach in 2055 when it will be only 1.3 million miles out, or six times closer than our moon. In the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John …

Road circling back

Circling Back

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It was mid-fall, the prairie sky was growing dark and sleet was turning the highways into hockey rinks. I zipped up my jacket, started my 4×4, and steeled myself for the trip. I was circling back. ‘Circling back’ is an idiom from the 80s corporate world meaning ‘to avoid an unpleasant or unwanted topic’ by circling back and talking about this later, much later, or maybe never. In the military sense, it means ‘to reverse direction,’ when scouts would move ahead of the main force and then having spotted an enemy, they would circle back the same way they came and report what they saw. Sometimes to move forward, you have to go back. I was circling back to meet up with a group of people where fellowship was a challenge for all of us, me and them. As I traveled, I listened to Christian music and did lots of praying. For years, I felt like an outsider in this group. I felt like a Zebra and never knew if I was one of the …

Worship service at Community Church in Brighton, Michigan

Lamenting the decline of cultural Christianity

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One of the metaphors that Jesus used to describe the influence of Christianity was salt. Christians are to be the salt of the world and through that be a positive influence on society. In the analogy, the Lord was asking what happens if believers lose their saltiness. Essentially, they would become useless and thrown out (Matthew 5:13). But aside from Christians losing their saltiness, other forces are at work to remove the Christian influence from the world. Perhaps one of the key leaders of this movement has been former Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins, 83. An evolutionary biologist and atheist, he has been at the forefront, publicly criticizing religion and Christianity in particular. He wrote a popular bestseller, The God Delusion, as part of his battle to discredit faith. But in a recent interview with Rachel Johnson on Britain’s LBC at the end of March, we have seen a slight change in Dawkins’s tune. In no way has he become a man of faith, but Dawkins is lamenting the loss of the Christian influence in …

Cologne Cathedral, Cologne Germany

4 German teens, connected to ISIS, arrested for plotting attacks against churches & synagogues

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According to Deutsche Welle, a German state broadcaster, authorities arrested four teenagers in Germany who were plotting attacks on churches and synagogues in that country, the Daily Wire reports. According to the Daily Wire, the group, which included two teenage girls, “had ‘glorified’ ISIS and ‘declared themselves ready’ to carry out an ‘Islamist-motivated terror attack.’” The group, which had a collection of weapons including Molotov cocktails and machetes, had declared themselves “ready to commit murder and manslaughter and preparing a serious act of violence,” Deutsche Welle report. The four were intercepted after police investigated one of the girls, who was suspected of wanting to travel to Syria to join ISIS. An examination of her phone uncovered evidence of the proposed attack in four German cities, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Iserlohn, and Cologne.