Strong Earthquake Hits Chile

Fox News ^ | none

[An.American.Expatriate]

SANTIAGO, Chile — A strong earthquake shook Chile Thursday, shortly before Sebastian Pinera was to be sworn in as president. The aftershock reached a 7.2-magnitude according to the United States Geological Survey.

[mstar]

Even sinful and unrighteous man (any of mankind) is the recipient of common grace from God, otherwise everyone would be in the lake of fire right now (Revelation 20).

Sounds like a loving God that sent His son, filled with GRACE, to be the only way out of a broken world, filled with broken people. Thank God the Scriptures say a child could understand this and receive that Grace. The simplicity of a compassionate Christ.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

You guys got to save some of your positioning for this weekend. Dynamic qpf models are suggesting biblical(Imagine Noah's Ark)flooding along the mid-atlantic.

I had to look that up.

Okay, QPF... Quantitative Precipitation Forecasting ... got it now... :-)

So, some big floods coming eh? Well, take a quick look outside in the next rainstorm when some sunlight is coming through and see if that rainbow is still there. If so, we've got it covered... no need to call Noah. LOL ...

But, good luck on the flooding situation. I hadn't heard about it.

[DollyCali]

that is what I was thinking also. I find the theological interesting but stopped by to find out the latest & the info from our well versed people in the field on the plates shifting, the quakes etc....

carry on, whatever your topic!

[Star Traveler]

Amen... and if only more would listen...

[SoldierDad]

Wow! The movie 2012 becomes a scary scenerio.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

that is what I was thinking also. I find the theological interesting but stopped by to find out the latest & the info from our well versed people in the field on the plates shifting, the quakes etc....

Yeah... and I wouldn't be any different either... :-) Just think, it all started with one simple sentence, in Post #7 ...

What has Chile done to offend God?

[mad_as_he$$]

Well the rock heads have all kinds of rules. In Kalifornia if it was an adjustment in an adjacent fault that was because of the initial event then they called it an aftershock. There also are some rules about how the depth and lateral distances are judged.

[SoldierDad]

I saw that too. I’m more concerned about all these rather large quakes making position changes of land masses.

[SoldierDad]

It the long and short of it, I don’t think it really matters whether it was an initial event or an aftershock. We still feel the Earth move under our feet.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

A total of 12 quakes that can be felt in a 9 hour period. That craziness!

I think it's a sort of normal situation after a big quake. It's in the process of "settling down" and it can go on for weeks and months.

I wouldn't be too concerned about it, in terms of some world-wide catastrophic event... :-)

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

I went to an earthquake thread and a theology class broke out!....lol

Look at where it started and who started it... LOL ... Post #7 ...

[SoldierDad]

One large earthquake - yes. Nothing there to get your shorts in a bunch over. However, how many major Earthquakes have occurred over the course of the last few months? The last year? In my 50 years I do not recall this many large Earthquakes occuring in such diverse locations around the globe with such proximity in time to each other.

[winoneforthegipper]

If any of these areas forecasted come close to the projected total amounts, well rainbow or not the Mid-Atlantic ground is like your like kitchen sponge left in the sink full of after-wash, rowboats and surfboards will be a common method of travel in many areas....lol!

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/p120i00.gif

[Star Traveler]

Sure God sustains all, and that "all" includes what are referred to as the natural laws.

Just because God sustains things, doesn't mean that there are not parameters that He sustains "as parameters" (that we measure and detect in science). So, yes, He sustains things and those are the parameters we can measure and see in our real world.

But, all I was saying, is that not only does God "know" and "see" all the parameters that exist (even ones we don't know about) -- in addition to sustaining that (i.e., those so-called "natural processes" and parameters) -- God can also change those parameters in an instant for one thing, and perhaps for one thing only.

Thus those natural laws that He sustains, He can violate for an instant so that what would "normally happen" (by His sustaining force) either doesn't happen or happens in a different way.

I hope you see what I mean.

It's like one is a passive thing, while the other is an active thing. And I'm saying that "both" the "passive" and "active" -- are in operation with God... :-)

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

One large earthquake - yes. Nothing there to get your shorts in a bunch over. However, how many major Earthquakes have occurred over the course of the last few months? The last year? In my 50 years I do not recall this many large Earthquakes occuring in such diverse locations around the globe with such proximity in time to each other.

Now, I have been answering that question and/or point on some religion threads several times now. And I'll post what I've posted elsewhere, in regards to what you've just said.

The following article is about earthquakes in regards to "end times" and whether they are increasing. It doesn't appear that they really are. It's a "perception" issue, it seems to me.

The following article from the Institute of Creation Research, regarding earthquakes that we have seen and have been recorded, copied and printed in a Christian website, by Lambert Dolphin.

---

EARTHQUAKES AND THE END TIMES: A GEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE

Steven A. Austin and Mark L. Strauss*

Institute for Creation Research, PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021
Voice: (619) 448-0900 FAX: (619) 448-3469

(Unpublished manuscript of January 14, 1999. These authors published a simplified,
less technical version of this paper in 1999 under the title "Are Earthquakes Signs of the End Times?:
A Geological and Biblical Response to an Urban Legend,"
Christian Research Journal, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 30-39.)

(From: http://www.icr.org/research/sa/sa-r06.htm)

Our primary concern is with the first part of the discourse, where Jesus warns against being deceived by false christs or being alarmed at wars, rumors of wars, famines and earthquakes:

And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs." (Matt. 24:4-8)

Among dispensationalists there are two main interpretations of these verses. As we shall see, neither confirms that earthquakes will increase as the present Church age draws to a close.

(1) Some dispensationalists see the whole of the Olivet Discourse as relating to the tribulation period. Verses 4-8 are usually said to concern the disturbances of the first half of the tribulation while verses 9-26 concern the second half - the Great Tribulation.53 Evidence for this is claimed in the similarity between the events described in verses 4-8 and those associated with the seven seals of Revelation 6.54 For advocates of this view, the earthquakes identified in verses 7-8 are not part of the present Church age, but rather the tribulation period. In this case, even if the birth image in verse 8 were to indicate an increase in earthquakes (which is not necessary - see discussion below), this increase occurs during the tribulation, not during the present Church age. Present (Church age) data concerning earthquake frequency has little or no bearing on the text.

(2) Other dispensationalists (as well as many non-dispensationalists) claim that verses 4-8 (or verses 4-14) concern not the tribulation period, but general signs which are characteristic of the present age. Lewis Sperry Chafer wrote that the events described in verses 4-8 "are the characteristics of the unforeseen intervening or intercalary age"55 - that is, the Church age. John Walvoord similarly affirms that "verses 4-14 are general prophecies that can find fulfillment throughout the present age, with verses 15-30 fulfilled in the Great Tribulation."56 He adds, however, that these former events "are repeated in the Great Tribulation when what was perhaps partially fulfilled earlier then have a very literal and devastating fulfillment."57 The primary evidence that verses 4-14 are signs characteristic of the present age are their general nature and the fact that Jesus identifies them as events which do not indicate the end ("but that is not yet the end") and so should not provoke apocalyptic fervor ("see that you are not alarmed").

[ an excerpt, see the link for complete article ... ]

Figure 1. Global frequency of the largest earthquakes during the twentieth century. Graph (a) shows the frequency of M 7.0 earthquakes during the entire century (1960 events). Graph (b) shows the frequency of M 6.5 earthquakes after 1930 (4593 events). In both plots a general decrease in earthquake frequency is evident through the twentieth century.

Table 1. Numbers of M 6.0 earthquakes worldwide in the twentieth century. The numbers of earthquakes reported in the National Geophysical Data Center file called "1900.EQ" greatly exceed those reported by Hal Lindsey from his unspecified U.S. Geological Survey source.

[Star Traveler]

Also from the USGS webpage....

Are Earthquakes Really on the Increase?

We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant.

A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more than 8,000 stations and the data now comes in rapidly from these stations by electronic mail, internet and satellite. This increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed us and other seismological centers to locate earthquakes more rapidly and to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years. The NEIC now locates about 20,000 earthquakes each year or approximately 50 per day. Also, because of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in the environment and natural disasters, the public now learns about more earthquakes.

According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 17 major earthquakes (7.0 - 7.9) and one great earthquake (8.0 or above) in any given year.

---

See the chart at this USGS webpage...

Earthquake Facts and Statistics

The USGS estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year. Many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes. The NEIC now locates about 50 earthquakes each day, or about 20,000 a year.

As more and more seismographs are installed in the world, more earthquakes can be and have been located. However, the number of large earthquakes (magnitude 6.0 and greater) has stayed relatively constant. See: Are Earthquakes Really on the Increase?

---

Number of Earthquakes Worldwide for 2000 - 2010
Located by the US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center

Magnitude	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
8.0 to 9.9	1	1	0	1	2	1	2	4	0	1	1
7.0 to 7.9	14	15	13	14	14	10	9	14	12	16	3
6.0 to 6.9	146	121	127	140	141	140	142	178	168	142	41
5.0 to 5.9	1344	1224	1201	1203	1515	1693	1712	2074	1768	1700	471
4.0 to 4.9	8008	7991	8541	8462	10888	13917	12838	12078	12291	6981	1075
3.0 to 3.9	4827	6266	7068	7624	7932	9191	9990	9889	11735	2896	313
2.0 to 2.9	3765	4164	6419	7727	6316	4636	4027	3597	3860	3005	458
1.0 to 1.9	1026	944	1137	2506	1344	26	18	42	21	26	8
0.1 to 0.9	5	1	10	134	103	0	2	2	0	1	0
No Magnitude	3120	2807	2938	3608	2939	864	828	1807	1922	20	4
Total	22256	23534	27454	31419	31194	30478	29568	29685	31777	* 14788	* 2374
Estimated Deaths	231	21357	1685	33819	228802	82364	6605	712	88011	1787	223161

Starting in January 2009, the USGS National Earthquake Information Center no longer locates earthquakes smaller than magnitude 4.5 outside the United States, unless we receive specific information that the earthquake was felt or caused damage.

[stuartcr]

I’m sorry you can’t answer a yes or no question. I’m sorry you cannot understand that you can make it more simple...yes or no. I’m also sorry that you think I want a lesson from you, instead of the answer which you obviously cannot answer.

[El Gran Salseron]

Well, the only thing I know is that if I were God I would strike down every one of those pesky, stray cats that inhabit the nation with just one wave of my hand.....Oh! And those pesky, house-pet cats, too!

My point is as follows:

Opinions are just like navels. Everybody has one.

In addition, I believe in “live-and-let-live” and whoever doesn’t go along with that oughta be shot.

:-)

[stuartcr]

It just hasn’t sunk in has it? I am asking you for your opinion, not God. Judging by what you’ve been saying, you just can’t think on your, so you keep changing the question around. It’s sophomoric, Good nite

[stuartcr]

I agree.