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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (17054)	4/13/2004 3:26:52 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 28931

Holy relics at that time were big business and most probably were not authentic.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (17054)	4/14/2004 6:07:12 AM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 28931

Spurred to secretly excavate under the papal altar back in the 1940's , Pope Pious II announced later in 1950 they had discovered St Peter's burial tomb. They had begun to run out of room for the massive ornate burial crypts for "God's chosen Emissaries & Princes on Earth " it appears after centuries of them being entombed there .... so this remarkable "find" came on the heels of that subterranean expansion under that "altar" . This began clandestinely while the germans were occupying Rome. It was officially announced in 1950 that Peter's tomb had been found ...and later on it was to be followed by an announcement that the actual bones of St Peter himself had been "identified" ...not without controversy , but certainly made a timely and good press release two days before X-mas ...they had found older remains there , but one stood out , for the feet were supposedly missing which would indicate a possible reverse crucifixion. (they were said to sometimes remove the feet when taking down the body ) December 23, 1950 • Pope Pius XII Announced Discovery of Peter's Tomb gospelcom.net The pope's claim was guarded because bones originally identified as belonging to a sixty-year-old man and thought to belong to the Apostle Peter turned out to include those of a young man, some animals and a bone from an elderly woman. Other questions were not satisfactorily answered. The early church historian Eusebius, writing at the time when Emperor Constantine ordered the original St. Peter's built, mentioned a monument with an inscription. No such monument was found. The only inscription which ever came to light, appeared mysteriously in an adjacent vault. This was on a flake of stone and supposedly came from a graffiti-covered wall unearthed below the basilica. Writing on the small flake was interpreted to mean "Peter is in here;" however it could not be matched to the wall. A widely distributed photograph of the bones turned out to be a fake: the bones had been removed from a pile and were later brought back to the scene and arranged for the photo. Atheists made much of these discrepancies. Eighteen years after Pius XII's original announcement, Pope Paul VI announced that the actual bones of Peter had been identified. Three of the original archaeologists protested the pope's claim which came about because Margherita Guarducci, studying graffiti on the wall, accidentally learned of the boxes of bones Kaas had taken off-site. Kaas was dead. One of the workmen, however, remembered that Kaas had ordered a new-found crypt opened and its contents removed so that the archaeologists could not "desecrate" the bones. The workman led Margherita to the box. The bones proved to be that of an elderly man. According to the Vatican, carbon dating confirmed they dated to Peter's era. However, questions remained. Tests showed that the soil on the bones did not match the soil of the crypt where they were supposed to have been found. A spokesman for the Vatican later admitted the church was in an "insecure position" regarding identification of the bones. Few archaeological finds corroborate the existence of individuals mentioned in the New Testament. Biblical Archaeology Review enumerated these in its November-December 2002 issue. Significantly, Peter's bones were not mentioned. In archaeological circles, the identification is considered completely unsatisfactory. But Catholic apologists reminded the faithful that the Christian faith rests not on archaeological remains but on a risen, living Christ. so many mysteries , so little time.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (17054)	4/14/2004 6:27:19 AM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

NOVA....."The Mysterious Life of Caves" ...simply an amazing program on the "extremophiles microbes" and the formation of the underground caverns. Life forms that can exist without sunlight and tolerate temps approaching 185 degrees, and feed off of chemicals giving off gasses later turning into strong acids etching away the interiors of limestone mountains , that were once coral reefs of a great inland ocean of the greater southwest . pbs.org Also that was a great perspective changing & elegant hypothesis they came up with for the formation of the gypsum crystals which could not have formed by the usual carbonic acid eating away the limestone ...but an extremophile feeding on the oil deposits 1000's of feet below releasing gasses that seep upwards to form sulphuric acid which would be the only catalyst to leave the rarer gypsum crytaline deposits behind . beautiful science ...beautiful "jewels of discovery" this stuff is : Gypsum Crystals here ...just BEAUTIFUL !:-) pbs.org Whatever process created Carlsbad and Lechuguilla is largely dormant now. So the team visits a more active and dangerous cavern: Cueva de Villa Luz in Mexico, which emits the toxic, rotten-egg smell of hydrogen sulfide from its entrance. Inside, explorers must wear respirators and carry poison-gas monitors to protect themselves from the hydrogen sulfide that reacts with water in the cave to form caustic sulfuric acid. Deep within, they discover "snottites," mucous-like stalactites of sulfur-eating bacteria that also drip sulfuric acid. Oddly enough, the noxious environment teems with microbes, spiders, insects, crabs, and fish -- all thriving in complete darkness. As strange as it may seem, sulfuric acid produced by microbial life is the cause of about five percent of all limestone caves, including Cueva de Villa Luz, Carlsbad, and Lechuguilla. Sulfuric acid not only dissolves limestone, it leaves a distinctive chemical residue: gypsum. This process, which is ongoing now in Cueva de Villa Luz, was completed millions of years ago in Carlsbad and Lechuguilla, where microbial activity continues today at a very slow pace. Sulfuric acid is produced not just by snottites but also deep underground in oil deposits. Microbes consume oil and release hydrogen sulfide gas, which rises through rock fissures and combines with groundwater to produce sulfuric acid. To scientists, the biggest surprise is that this Earth-transforming process is connected to life -- especially life where no one expected to find it, since caves were long considered virtually sterile environments. Dubbed "extremophiles," these newfound organisms, living beyond the margin of what was considered possible, are turning up in more and more environments, from hot springs at Yellowstone National Park to volcanic vents at the ocean bottom. Some scientists believe these bacteria descend directly from the earliest life forms that emerged on Earth some 3.5 billion years ago. They may even be our best guess of what life is like on other planets -- buried beneath the surface of Mars, floating in the oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa, and otherwise thriving in extreme conditions throughout the cosmos.