Earth and the Beginnings of Modernity
The universe is about 13.8 billion years old. The earth is about 4.56 billion years old. The moon is about 4.425 billion years old.
Earth has had 5 major cataclysms but some people think that we are in the midst of the 6th cataclysm that is being caused by Homo Sapiens.
The last world-wide cataclysm was 65 million years ago originating on the Yucatan Peninsula from the impact of one or possibly two asteroids.
Because of evolution and these cataclysms, 98.5 % of all previous life has become extinct!
Homo Sapiens are about 200,000 to 300,000 years old.
Homo Sapiens are the current dominant species on earth.
Homo Sapiens are the only species that believe in supernatural deities.
Homo Sapiens are now changing the natural evolution of the planet. Here is one unique example: The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History
I
just finished a historical presentation of the world between 1990-1914. These three episodes were presented under Curiosity Stream and are called The Vertigo. The episodes were about advancements in the world that led up to World War I. It was very interesting exploring the emerging modernity. Such things as sexual revolution, mass production of cars, giant shopping complexes, establishment of vacations and set work hours, women getting paid minimum wage (after many protests), car and aircraft races, and football games became popular.
Masturbation was considered a great evil but visiting a prostitute was considered not good but somehow acceptable at the same time. Yes, these were all in Christian countries in Europe including the UK. People would catch syphilis, give it to the unborn fetus and they would eventually die a horrible death from it. The series showed disgusting pictures of its effects on the body. There was no cure as they had tried mercury, heart surgery, and many drugs, etc. Then a German doctor found something that worked and suddenly people could be cured of syphilis! However, not everyone was happy. The Catholic Church, especially Pope Pius IX and Pope Pius X, were against the sexual revolution and the modernity and the freedom that people were experiencing, so they condemned it. Also, they were not happy about the new cure as they thought that syphilis was surely God’s punishment for sexual lasciviousness. Therefore, Pope Pius X made all of his priests swear an oath against modernity. This ultimately backfired of course, because all of the world, and especially Europe, were moving forward. People began going to the cinema to watch plays and movies, began learning about other cultures, began reading books that were erotic in nature and contained sex instruction. Men had mistresses for example, King Edward VII of the UK had many different public encounters and mistresses. Women moved from the countryside into the big cities of Europe. Many of these women were prostitutes.
Then science screwed up big-time. Note that science can ‘screw up as it is not a religion or a dogma and is not perfect or even fixed. It evolves and is self correcting. Science developed something called Eugenics. Several major scientists thought this was the way to go and that humans should be produced with superior qualities and those that were not so great should be sterilized and not reproduce. In Germany it wasn’t called eugenics, it was called ‘racial hygiene.’ That sounds rather harmless, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, a very popular mayor of Vienna, Austria at the turn of the 20th century blamed all of the evils of his city on the Jews. Hitler in his youth was a devoted follower of this mayor. Do you see how this would lead to what happened next? Some politicians and scientists began claiming certain races were inferior to others. After the ‘Great War’ that would end all wars, we had World War II which resulted in the mass murder of Jews, gays, the mentally ill, gypsies, the handicapped, political dissidents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, priests and any religious groups that did not not go along with the government. But just as some criminals came out of the Second World War, we also had some heroes. Here is the story of one of them named Maximilian Kolbe.
Maximilian had established a monastery outside of Nagasaki, Japan in 1931. He would return to Germany and eventually be sent to a concentration camp for his anti-government teachings that followed Christianity instead of going along with Nazism. Here is information from Wikipedia:
Kolbe returned to Japan and remained there until called back to attend the Provincial Chapter in Poland in 1936. There he was appointed guardian of Niepokalanów, thus precluding his return to Japan. Two years later, in 1938, he started a radio station at Niepokalanów, Radio Niepokalanów.[2][self-published source][20] He held an amateur radio licence, with the call sign SP3RN.[21] (St. Kolbe is the patron saint of amateur radio operators. I am one such person. My call sign is KI5UFY)
World War II
After the outbreak of World War II, Kolbe was one of the few friars who remained in the monastery, where he organized a temporary hospital.[5] After the town was captured by the Germans, they arrested him on 19 September 1939; he was later released on 8 December.[2][self-published source][5] He refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste, which would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens in exchange for recognizing his ethnic German ancestry.[22] Upon his release he continued work at his friary where he and other friars provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from German persecution in the Niepokalanów friary.[2][self-published source][15][16][22][23] Kolbe received permission to continue publishing religious works, though significantly reduced in scope.[22] The monastery continued to act as a publishing house, issuing a number of anti-Nazi German publications.[2][self-published source][15]
Auschwitz
Maximilian Kolbe’s prison cell in Block 11, Auschwitz concentration camp
On 17 February 1941, the monastery was shut down by the German authorities.[2][self-published source] That day Kolbe and four others were arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison.[2][self-published source] On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670.[24]
Kolbe, on a West German postage stamp, marked Auschwitz
Continuing to act as a priest, Kolbe was subjected to violent harassment, including beatings and lashings. Once he was smuggled to a prison hospital by friendly inmates.[2][self-published source][22]
Martyrdom
At the end of July 1941, a prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander, SS–Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, “My wife! My children!” Kolbe volunteered to take his place.[8]
According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe and three others remained alive.[citation needed]
The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave the four remaining prisoners lethal injections of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection.[15] He died on 14 August 1941. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary.[22] (interesting coincidence)
The Catholic Church canonized this priest many years later in 1982 and guess who came to the ceremony and was its special guest besides the Pope? It was Franciszek Gajowniczek who had been saved and had survived the war and returned to his wife (his children had been killed in an attack by the Russians). He was very thankful for what the priest had done to save him by giving up his own life. He died in 1995 at the age of 93.
During one of my 7 visits to Japan I managed to visit the Franciscan monastery Mugenzai no Sono which Fr. Kolbe had established and was located on the other side of the mountain and thus shielded from the Nagasaki atomic blast in 1945. I got to sit at and touch the very table that Fr. Kolbe wrote upon. It was one of those memorable occasions in my life.
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