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I have moved my blogging activity to a new location, and I'm still blogging about False Prophet Ronald Weinland.
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This Blogspot remains as an archive covering the period of April, 2008 through early July, 2009.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Ronald Weinland's Failed Prophecies: The Second Thunder

In Ronald Weinland's book "2008 God's Final Witness", he describes the "Thunders" of the "Sixth Seal". On page 95 he states: "The Second Thunder is the increasing destruction generated by earthquakes."

He continues to say on page 96:
The greatest destruction and loss of life from earthquakes is the direct result of collapsing buildings or the power unleashed in the form of a tsunami. Volcanoes are also associated with earthquakes. All these things will continue to wreak havoc on man and nature in an ever increasing magnitude as we approach the very end of this age. All Seven Thunders will increase in power and recognition over the next two years (from the date of the first printing of this book) [book printed in 2006] and on into the final three and one-half years of great tribulation. The Seven Thunders will serve as a powerful witness that the words of this book are true, and that they are from the God of Abraham, the Father of Jesus Christ.

On Pages 115-116 he states:
During the Sixth Seal, all Seven Thunders will be getting progressively louder. Before the Seventh (and final) Seal is opened, the Seven Thunders will become so pronounced that the validity of everything written about them in the previous chapter should roar loudly in the ears of anyone who is willing to admit the truth.

I am not aware of any increasing earthquake activity since 2006 when his book was published, and prior to March 18, 2008 when according to Weinland the Seventh Seal was opened. If this "thunder" is "getting progressively louder", I should know the validity of this prophecy off the top of my head, because I do follow the news. Could it be that I'm not "willing to admit the truth". So I investigated further.

The US Geological Survey has a website from which you can download earthquake history. This process is described in some detail in this teacher's aid (PDF). I followed the process and created a graph shown below of Global Earthquakes by Magnitude Vs. Date. I included the period beginning 1999 through this month so we could get a comparison.

(Click anywhere in the graph to get a larger version)
In this chart, each earthquake is represented by a dot. I excluded earthquakes below magnitude 6 because they cause no damage except to poorly constructed buildings. No one besides one of Weinland's deluded followers could find a pattern of increasing frequency or magnitude of earthquake's.

In case you have difficulty reading the thumbnail view provided by Blogspot, there is a JPG of the graph and the Excel spreadsheet that generated the graph down-loadable by clicking the links.

A failed prophesy of Ronald Weinland. Yet we are to believe the rest of the product of his fevered imagination? That he is one of the Two Witnesses, and the spokesman for both no less?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You really should publish the entire chart, including below 6 magnitude quakes. Since you are attempting to show that there has been no increase, omitting any portion of the data raises more questions than it answers.

Mike (Don't Drink the Flavor Aid) said...

The reason I didn't publish the data for quakes below magnitude 6 is that the USGS server would not export the added number of quakes below that magnitude for the time frame I wanted to cover. Also as I explained in my post, a quake below magnitude 6 does little damage. I feel my data is quite appropriate to exposing Weinland's failed Second Thunder prophesy. Is it sounding loudly in your ears?

But I'm sure the Weinlandites will spin it however they want. They probably wouldn't be satisfied unless I graphed tremors due to trucks driving by.

I've described my method for generating the chart, anyone else is free to repeat it to cover the lower magnitude quakes, but will have to download it it stages to cover the data if they want to cover the same time frame.

Anonymous said...

While an increase in small quakes would probably not qualify as a "thunder," such an increase might be the harbinger of larger happenings, and therefore might be of significance and interest.

Since you are making a factual assertion (no increase in quakes) to prove a larger point (no "thunder," therefore RW=false), omitting ANY data from the factual assertion undermines the larger point.

Leaving it to your readers to do the further research again raises more questions than it answers. Some of us have neither the time nor the technical skill to complete the work that you started.

I am not a follower of RW, but I believe in Bible prophecy and am interested in objective evidence of earth changes.

Your research needs to be completed if it is to have real credibility. Right now it is open to criticism as being incomplete, and therefore unreliable to support the premise for which it was presented.

Anonymous said...

I should also add that even if there has been a large increase in small quakes, I do not believe that would necessarily undermine your larger point. It might even strengthen it.

Mike (Don't Drink the Flavor Aid) said...

I have provided my reasoning to explain why I did not include data for quakes lower than magnitude 6.

What is the appropriate cutoff threshold in your mind? Do you understand the magnitude scale? What is the relative energy of a magnitude 8 quake to a magnitude 4 quake? Don't assume that you know, read the website that I linked to in the post that explains it. If you have a different cutoff threshold, explain what the effects are at that threshold and justify your choice.

Just curious, has New Jersey been experiencing unusual earthquake activity?

Anonymous said...

Actually, there was some unusual earthquake activity in the North NJ / Lower NYS "highlands" area within the last 6 months, but nothing that would qualify as a "thunder."

I really know very little about the earthquake magnitude scale, except that the increases are not incremental, but rather exponential, or some similar concept. But frequency (or the lack of frequency) may be as significant as magnitude in revealing seismological patterns that tie into Biblical prophecy.

It strikes me that your research should include all quakes recorded by those who monitor them within the geographical area and time frame concerned. Omitting available data has the potential to subject your work to criticism as being biased or selectively presented.

I don't have the time (or, frankly, aptitude) to do this research; just pointing out where you could be criticized as a result of incompleteness.

This will be my last post on the subject. Thanks for your efforts in the pursuit of truth.

Mike (Don't Drink the Flavor Aid) said...

Thank you for your support. I'm sort of the school of thought "give a man a fish, he's not hungry for a day -- teach him to fish, he's never hungry". But you can't lead a fish to water ... oh, nevermind, I'm mixing my metaphors.

Byker Bob said...

Thunder is a word often used in my world. It generally refers to the noise made by Harley Davidson motorcycles, particularly those lightly muffled, or non-muffled. I can set off probably 5-10 car alarms with no problem at all, simply by driving through a parking lot or structure.

So, in this case, for thunder to increase, Harley Davidson sales activity would need to have increased over the past several months, in order to fulfill Rockin' Ronny's expectations. I have no idea what tale the sales charts would tell on this, but I suspect that sales have been rather flat, much the same as the rest of the economy.

BB

Mike (Don't Drink the Flavor Aid) said...

I did in fact hear this thunder the other day, as a motorcycle club passed me while on the freeway.