Eagle's Nest pastor sued by ex-member

Article Title: Eagle's Nest pastor sued by ex-member Source: SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS [Hearst Corporation] - By Abe Levy - May 22, 2008 Link: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/TopStories/stories/MYSA.052208.1B.EaglesNest.37bcf1d.html A former member of Eagle's Nest Christian Fellowship filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the church and its pastor, Rick Godwin, claiming he was defamed in front of the congregation when he tried to expose how Godwin was spending church money. Larry Nail, a businessman from Boerne who belonged to the church for 11 years, says Godwin wrongly accused him of bribery in a speech responding to San Antonio Express-News articles that, based on church documents, raised questions about Godwin's use of church funds for expensive chartered planes and lodging, luxury gifts and personal items. In the suit, filed in Bexar County District Court, Nail wants his donations to the church returned, plus legal costs and damages. The suit didn't specify an amount. Nail is among dozens of church members who've left the independent congregation since the fall, dissatisfied with Godwin's spending and what they consider the church's inadequate accountability. Godwin and other church leaders believe the issue has been addressed. The suit comes three days before the church will conduct a “dry run” dedication of its new North Side building on Marshall Road near U.S. 281. The official dedication is set for the weekend of May 31. Complicating matters for the church has been a stream of complaints by homeowners bordering the new property who claim the church hasn't responded to their concerns about lighting, noise and other matters. At issue in Nail's lawsuit is a statement by Godwin during a Nov. 24 service. Nail says Godwin claimed he offered bribes to three staff members to discuss the pastor's spending publicly with the newspaper, which Nail denies. Nail declined to comment Wednesday. The suit claims Godwin used “a classic bully pulpit” to accuse Nail of the crime of bribery and other wrongdoing as a means of shifting the attention away from the spending questions Godwin was facing. “This psychological and spiritual abuse by Godwin toward Nail demonstrated the depths to which Godwin would sink to deflect attention from his extreme misuse of his position and of the trust placed in him by Nail and others,” the suit said. Contacted about the suit Wednesday, the church's attorney, J.D. Pauerstein, declined to comment until he could discuss the matter with church leaders. A message left with a church official wasn't returned. The spending Nail refers to in the suit involved a fund set aside for outreach and missions. After the newspaper reports, Godwin told the congregation he paid back all personal expenses and launched a new tax compliance audit, among other corrective measures. He hasn't made public when or which reimbursements were made. Nail founded a mentoring ministry for boys with absent fathers called Brave Heart at the church and was a friend of Godwin and his wife, Cindy, the church's co-pastor. Nail said in the suit that church staffers were afraid of losing their jobs if they confronted church leaders about Godwin's questionable expenses. He said he offered to help them financially if they were fired and followed biblical instruction by taking the spending concerns to Godwin first and then to two elders, who were unwilling to confront Godwin. According to the lawsuit, Nail said Godwin told him: “I'm not going to let someone eating a bologna sandwich (referring to church staff and lower-level employees) tell me how to spend money around here.” Godwin also asserted that, as the chief executive of the church, he deserved perks, Nail says in the suit. After the falling-out between Nail and Godwin, the pastor told the congregation in November: “These are despicable acts of behavior by desperate people who will go to any measure including slander, intimidation and, if you can believe it, bribery. Our staff was insulted and outraged by Larry's behavior. It goes beyond Christian comprehension.” Nail's attorney is Gary L. Richardson of Tulsa, Okla., who also represents two former Oral Roberts University professors whose lawsuit against the private Christian school has drawn national attention for its claim of financial and spiritual abuse by the school's leaders. “The conduct we believe will show that there was some wrongdoing by the pastor,” Richardson said by phone. “There were things said about Larry publicly that we believe the evidence would show are not true.” Asked whether the court has jurisdiction in such a church dispute, he said the case “has nothing to do with freedom of religion.” David Anderson, a University of Texas School of Law professor specializing in defamation cases, said that sometimes, church leaders claim their statements and actions are protected by constitutional guarantees of religious freedom when the matter is clearly theological in nature. “If the resolution of the lawsuit requires the resolution of some theological question, only then is there any problem of the courts taking jurisdiction in the matter,” he said. However, Anderson said, noting he has not read Nail's lawsuit, the use of the term “bribery” is entirely secular and could result in the suit being litigated. Anderson added that churches could also argue “group privilege” as a defense, meaning that the pastor's statement — despite its potential to defame — was made in good faith and as part of internal issues the church needed to discuss for its benefit. Saturday, the 24-year-old church will hold its first services in the new building — 172,000 square feet of space on 68 acres of land and estimated to cost $36 million. Its official dedication the next weekend will mark its name change to Summit Christian Center. On June 7, Cornerstone Church pastor John Hagee is scheduled to speak. The church's existing buildings on nearly 9 acres at Bitters Road and U.S. 281 are under contract and were listed for $4.5 million, according to the Realtor's Web site. The new building has concert lighting and sound, a food court, and an 1,800-light Venetian-style carousel from the former Central Park Mall. Godwin and his wife have executive offices on one wing with a private elevator and garage. The building will seat 2,500 people initially with the capacity to double later, making it equal to the largest sanctuaries in the city, including Hagee's church. Godwin has said he plans to rent the facility for concerts and other community events to produce a new revenue source for the church. It is situated in a rapidly growing area of high-priced homes, retail development and a new high school named for Lady Bird Johnson. Construction began in October 2006 and so did complaints from neighboring homeowners in Sendero Ranch, which borders the church property to the north. The outdoor lighting and noise from the large air conditioners have been the subject of several meetings and correspondence between homeowners and church leaders. The homeowners say they're frustrated that Godwin has not responded directly and sent representatives instead. “I would have thought that a benevolent establishment such as a church would work with homeowners,” said Gina Weikel, whose backyard borders the property. “I would have thought that they would like to provide a harmonious relationship and garner new members to the congregation. My beliefs were wrong.” In a letter to the homeowners, the church said it is committed to being good neighbors but that it satisfied all legal requirements in constructing the church. The land, zoned commercially, lies just outside the city limit, where there are fewer development rules. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/TopStories/stories/MYSA.052208.1B.EaglesNest.37bcf1d.html FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The History Before History, Part I

Article Title: The History Before History, Part I Source: THE EPOCH TIMES - By Leonardo Vintiñi - October 9, 2007 Link: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-9/60546.html It was a hot night so a man decided to take a walk along the beach. Soon after setting out, he felt a soft crunch under his foot. He stopped to inspect the soles of his shoes in the moonlight, and scraped off the remains of the unfortunate creature he had squashed. Unconcerned, he continued his stroll, unaware that the footprint had immortalized the end of that tiny life. After all, what's so strange about stepping on a trilobite? Approximately 320 million years ago, a species of small lobed creatures began to populate Earth's seas. These relatives of sea arachnids-similar to lobsters and crabs-once flourished but became completely extinct 280 million years ago. We are talking, of course, about the trilobite. The human being, as it is currently accepted by the majority of scientists, appeared as a species no more than 2 or 3 million years ago. And the history of man such as he is known today does not exceed 10,000 years. With these dates in mind, we can conclude that the story of the human stepping on a trilobite belongs to the category of science fiction. A human being could never have squashed a creature that became extinct millions of years ago, and even less so a person with shoes-an unequivocal indication of civilization. This is evidence which defies history-an impossible fossil. In June of 1968, amateur fossil collector William J. Meister found a rock 2 inches thick in Antelope Spring, Utah. With a blow of his hammer, he exposed the fossil of a human footprint. But this footprint had a special feature-a squashed trilobite. It wasn't long before the news spread across the world, and several investigators made their way to Antelope Spring, finding more marks made by modern-style footwear in a geological stratum corresponding to extremely remote ages. What strange joke is seemingly being played on history? Other Prior Discoveries In 1852 a giant rock mass in Dorchester, Massachusetts, was dynamited. After the explosion, workers found a curious metallic artifact among the debris, which was broken in two. Upon joining the two pieces together, they revealed a vessel in the shape of a bell with a base of 6.5 inches and height of 4.5 inches. Later they discovered that the vessel was made from a silver alloy. Curiously, this artifact, seemingly constructed with a high level of technology, appears to have been trapped in the rock while it was forming several millions years ago-when humans did not even exist. Discoveries of this kind are not few. In fact, because of their ability to call in to question modern understandings of humankind's origins, archeological sites have at times hidden various problematic objects. Eight years before the discovery of the Dorchester vase, a perfect iron nail was found in a 24-inch slab of rock in a quarry in Kingoodie, Scotland. The point of this nail was sticking out of the rock, while an inch of it, including the head, was sealed inside. It is estimated that such a rock would have formed roughly 60 million years ago. In the1880s, a Colorado rancher extracted pieces of carbon from a mineral vein 300 feet below the surface. Later at his house, as he was breaking up the extracted pieces, he found a strange-looking iron thimble. News of the discovery known as the "Thimble of Eve" spread quickly, but due to its state of corrosion and people's over-handling, it disintegrated. It is known that thimbles have been used by humans as far back as thousands of years ago. However, a curious detail in this case is that the carbon in which the thimble was found formed 70 million years ago, between the Cretaceous and Tertiary eras. According to modern understanding, the ancestors of human beings at this time were not even monkeys, but a different kind of small mammal, with protruding eyes, swinging between tree branches. The "Cube of Salzburg" is another challenge to history. It was revealed to the public when in 1885 an Austrian iron smelter broke apart pieces of carbon and uncovered a cube-shaped iron artifact. "The edges of this strange object were already perfectly straight and defined; four of the sides were planes, while the two remaining sides, situated in front of each other, were convex. Halfway up was a deep slot," wrote René Noorbergen, a specialist in these types of cases. Chemical analysis later determined that the object did not contain any chrome, nickel, or cobalt, but instead was composed of a kind of forged iron. This composition seemed to rule out the hypothesis that the "cube" was a meteorite, as some had suggested. Another archeological treasure hidden in a carbon deposit was found in 1891 by S.W. Culp, a woman from Illinois. While she was extracting the black material, she accidentally broke a fragment, and a very thin gold chain was knocked loose. It had been lodged inside a bow-shaped cavity in the carbon. Another case, published in 1831 by the American Journal of Science, deals with a block of marble extracted from a depth of about 60 feet, which was later cut into pieces. The marble, believed to have formed millions of years ago, revealed precise cuts 2 inches by 0.5 inch-the shapes of the very similar modern letters "u" and "i." The regularity of the symbols gave the impression of having been engraved by human hands. A similar case was brought to light in 2002 in China's Guizhou Province, where a broken rock was found to have, at first glance, perfect Chinese characters of inexplicable origin, considering that the rock dated back to 200 million years ago! This relic is known as "The Stone of Hidden Words." Contemporary Fossils In 1976, a spoon that was first unearthed in 1937 inside a chunk of Pennsylvania soft coal was brought to public attention. To rule out that such findings could be interpreted as a random occurrence, consider the 1967 discovery inside a Colorado silver mine: human bones alongside a 10-inch copper-pointed arrow. According to general estimates, the mineral deposit in which these were discovered is millions of years older than the human race. While genetics and biology present us with new studies each day intending to validate the common origin of all species, new fossils continue to appear-more signs of a highly advanced distant past. Over time, these findings contribute to an understanding that human origins are far more remote than what is widely believed. Perhaps the most controversial fossil in recent years was the one discovered by a geologist from the University of Jadaypur in Calcutta, India. A 1,100-million-year-old, reddish colored rock found in Madhya Pradesh, Chorhat, astonished scientists. It presents zigzag marks similar to those made by a worm. The oldest known fossils of this kind are from Namibia and China, and the marks are understood to be from multicellular organisms, which made their appearance in the course of evolution approximately 600 million years ago. If the finding in India is properly interpreted, it would call for a serious reconsideration of the basis of evolution, giving a giant jump (400 or 500 million years) between this fossil and those found in Namibia and China. "If you see centimeter-scale organisms and then don't see them for 400 million years, you have a lot to explain," remarks Harvard University paleontologist Andrew Knoll. After new marks were found in similar rocks, many incredulous scientists were forced to analyze the age of the rocks again. But these specimens (zirconium crystals) continued to point to the impossible, making the issue "even more exciting and more improbable," according to paleontologist Adolph Seilacher from Yale University. Seilacher believes that, according to what is commonly accepted, it is impossible for these fossilized traces to be from animals. However, he adds: "At the same time, I must accept the evidence. I have not found, nor heard from another person, another explanation. Is there any non-biological explanation for these marks?" The study appears in the October 2, 1998 issue of Science. In fact, there exist many fossils that challenge our modern understanding of history. An impression of a perfect human hand (with fingernail marks) was discovered in 110-million-year-old limestone in Glen Rose, Texas; a 100-million year-old petrified finger (fossil identified as DM93-083), which had its bone structure revealed through radiography, was found on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada; there is the well-known discovery of giant human footprints beside those of a dinosaur in Rìo Paluxy, Texas; and there are many more. The apparent soundness of our current theories is shaken each time an "impossible fossil" comes to light. http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-9/60546.html FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

The Turning of an Atheist

Article Title: The Turning of an Atheist Source: NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Mark Oppenheimer - November 4, 2007 Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html?ex=1351742400&en=bdf120e4cf4bf442&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Mark Oppenheimer - November 4, 2007 Unless you are a professional philosopher or a committed atheist, you probably have not heard of Antony Flew. Eighty-four years old and long retired, Flew lives with his wife in Reading, a medium-size town on the Thames an hour west of London. Over a long career he held appointments at a series of decent regional universities - Aberdeen, Keele, Reading - and earned a strong reputation writing on an unusual range of topics, from Hume to immortality to Darwin. His greatest contribution remains his first, a short paper from 1950 called “Theology and Falsification.” Flew was a precocious 27 when he delivered the paper at a meeting of the Socratic Club, the Oxford salon presided over by C. S. Lewis. Reprinted in dozens of anthologies, “Theology and Falsification” has become a heroic tract for committed atheists. In a masterfully terse thousand words, Flew argues that “God” is too vague a concept to be meaningful. For if God’s greatness entails being invisible, intangible and inscrutable, then he can’t be disproved - but nor can he be proved. Such powerful but simply stated arguments made Flew popular on the campus speaking circuit; videos from debates in the 1970s show a lanky man, his black hair professorially unkempt, vivisecting religious belief with an English public-school accent perfect for the seduction of American ears. Before the current crop of atheist crusader-authors - Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens - there was Antony Flew. Flew’s fame is about to spread beyond the atheists and philosophers. HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins, has just released “There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind,” a book attributed to Flew and a co-author, the Christian apologist Roy Abraham Varghese. “There Is a God” is an intellectual’s bildungsroman written in simple language for a mass audience. It’s the first-person account of a preacher’s son who, away at Methodist boarding school, defied his father to become a teenage atheist, later wrote on atheism at Oxford, spent his life fighting for unbelief and then did an about-face in his old age, embracing the truth of a higher power. The book offers elegant, user-friendly descriptions of the arguments that persuaded Flew, arguments familiar to anyone who has heard evangelical Christians’ “scientific proof” of God. From the “fine tuning” argument that the laws of nature are too perfect to have been accidents to the “intelligent design” argument that human biology cannot be explained by evolution to various computations meant to show that probability favors a divine creator, “There Is a God” is perhaps the handiest primer ever written on the science (many would say pseudoscience) of religious belief. Flew’s “conversion,” first reported in late 2004, has cast him into culture wars that he contentedly avoided his whole life. Although Flew still rejects Christianity, saying only that he now believes in “an intelligence that explains both its own existence and that of the world,” evangelicals are understandably excited. For them, Flew has become very useful, very quickly. In late 2006, Flew was among the signers of a letter to Tony Blair asking that intelligent design be included in the British science curriculum. Flew’s fame has reached even to small-town Pennsylvania, where in 2005 Judge John E. Jones cited Flew in his landmark decision prohibiting the teaching of intelligent design in the town of Dover. Referring to a publication of the Dover School Board, Jones wrote that “the newsletter all but admits that I.D. is religious by quoting Anthony [sic] Flew, described as a ‘world famous atheist who now believes in intelligent design.’ ” - - - - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html?ex=1351742400&en=bdf120e4cf4bf442&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Blood moon eclipses: 2nd Coming in 2015?

Article Title: Blood moon eclipses: 2nd Coming in 2015? Source: WORLDNETDAILY - By Joe Kovacs - April 30, 2008 Link: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63076 Joel 2:31 "The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. Revelation 1:7 BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen. Minister uses NASA forecasting to study signals of Jesus' return WORLDNETDAILY - By Joe Kovacs - April 30, 2008 Will Jesus Christ return to Earth in the year 2015? And can studying NASA's website provide evidence for such a scenario? A minister who promotes the Old Testament roots of Christianity suggests a rare string of lunar and solar eclipses said to fall on God's annual holy days seven years from now could herald what's come to be known as the "Second Coming" of Jesus. "God wants us to look at the biblical calendar," says Mark Biltz, pastor of El Shaddai Ministries in Bonney Lake, Wash. "The reason we need to be watching is [because] He will signal His appearance. But we have to know what to be watching as well. So we need to be watching the biblical holidays." In a video interview on the Prophecy in the News website, Biltz said he's been studying prophecies that focus on the sun and moon, even going back to the book of Genesis where it states the lights in the sky would be "be for signs, and for seasons." "It means a signal, kind of like 'one if by land, two if by sea.' It's like God wants to signal us," he said. "The Hebrew word implies --- not only is it a signal, but it's a signal for coming or His appearing." Biltz adds the word "seasons" implies appointed times for God's feasts and festivals. "When we hear the word feast, we think food. But the Hebrew word has nothing to do with food. It has to do with a divine appointment, as if God has a day timer, and He says, 'OK, I'm gonna mark the day and the time when I'm going to signal My appearance.'" In the Old Testament, the prophet Joel states, "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come." (Joel 2:31) In the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as saying, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light --- And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." (Matthew 24:29-30) Gary Stearman of Prophecy in the News noted, "When we think of the sun being darkened and the moon not giving her light, we usually think of some astronomical catastrophe - perhaps the sun sputtering and the moon being affected by all this. But maybe it's time to rethink this a little bit and think of it as a natural cycle, the cycle of the eclipses." Thus, Biltz began focusing on the precise times of both solar and lunar eclipses, sometimes called "blood moons" since the moon often takes on a bloody color. He logged onto NASA's eclipse website which provides precision tracking of the celestial events. He noted a rare phenomenon of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, known as a tetrad. He says during this century, tetrads occur at least six times, but what's interesting is that the only string of four consecutive blood moons that coincide with God's holy days of Passover in the spring and the autumn's Feast of Tabernacles (also called Succoth) occurs between 2014 and 2015 on today's Gregorian calendar. "The fact that it doesn't happen again in this century I think is very significant," Biltz explains. "So then I looked at last century, and, believe it or not, the last time that four blood red moons occurred together was in 1967 and 1968 tied to Jerusalem recaptured by Israel." He then started to notice a pattern of the tetrads. "What's significant to me is that even before 1967, the next time that you had four blood red moons again was right after Israel became a nation in '48, it happened again in 1949 and 1950 ... on Passover and Succoth. You didn't have any astronomical tetrads in the 1800s, the 1700s, the 1600s. In the 1500s, there were six, but none of those fell on Passover and Succoth." When checking the schedule for solar eclipses, Biltz found two - one on the first day of the Hebrew year and the next on the high holy day of Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh Hebrew month. Both of these take place in the 2014-2015 year. Biltz says, "You have the religious year beginning with the total solar eclipse, two weeks later a total lunar eclipse on Passover, and then the civil year beginning with the solar eclipse followed two weeks later by another total blood red moon on the Feast of Succoth all in 2015." "If you think that this is a coincidence, I want you to know that it's time!" exclaimed Prophecy in the News host J.R. Church. "There are no more of these for the rest of the century." The prospect of eclipses pinpointing the time of Jesus' return is getting mixed reaction in Christian circles. After seeing Biltz's interview, Jim Bramlett, an author and former vice president for the Christian Broadcasting Network, expressed excitement. "I have just watched the program two times and do not think I have ever been more encouraged or excited about the soon return of the Lord!" Bramlett said. But Hal Lindsey, a well-known biblical analyst and author of "The Late Great Planet Earth," says while he hasn't heard of Biltz's theory, he called it "pure speculation." "In my 50-something years of studying prophecy, to me the greatest indication of the time of Christ's return is based around the general things of prophecies coming together in the same time frame." He mentioned not only Israel's birth as a political state in 1948, but the increase in tensions with Muslims, the rise of Russia, China and the European Union, which he says is even "calling itself the revived Roman Empire." "I see the whole sweep and panorama spinning together in a precise scenario," he said. During a second video interview, Biltz was presented with Bible quotes that many think suggest Jesus' return will be a complete surprise, or at least not specifically known. The 25th chapter of Matthew features a parable where Jesus likens His kingdom to ten virgins all waiting for the arrival of their bridegroom. Jesus said in the story, "ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." (Matthew 25:13) Biltz says people need to examine the quote in its proper context. "When He says you don't know the day or the hour, He's speaking to the foolish virgins, not the wise virgins," he explained. Biltz was also asked about the famous statement in Matthew 24:36 when Jesus was discussing the signs of His "coming, and of the end of the world": "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." (Matthew 24:36) He responded by referring to the annual Feast of Trumpets holiday, saying Israelites never knew the precise moment it began, "because it was based on the sighting of the new moon." "When He (Jesus) says you won't know the day or the hour, He's telling you it's the Feast of Trumpets because that was known as the feast where no one knew the day or the hour that it would begin," said Biltz. "So it's kind of like if I told you, 'I'm not going to tell you when I'm coming, but "Gobble, gobble, gobble,'" [pointing to] Turkey Day." Church stressed despite the information suggesting 2015 could be a pivotal time, "We don't know that that will be the concluding year of the tribulation period --- so we're not setting a date and saying this is a warning. We're introducing the possibility of a watch." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63076 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.