It was a bright red convertible, going far too fast -- and the driver was not quite able to negotiate the curve that the road made right by our driveway. The car hit a road sign, went airborne, flipped in midair, and skidded down the hill in the neighbor's yard on its top.
My dad and I ran toward it, knowing that the likelihood was that there was a severely mashed human underneath. But amazingly, this was the one-in-a-million situation where not wearing a seatbelt had saved the driver's life. He'd been thrown clear, and came away with no more than cuts and bruises (and a totaled car).
But what I remember about this incident most of all is the feeling of complete helplessness -- watching the car careening down the road, seeing it launch itself into the air, being certain at the time (although I was happily proven wrong in the end) that that driver was seconds from his death. To this day, I still have this feeling when I see something rushing toward an outcome that I am powerless to prevent.
It's an intensely uncomfortable sensation.
I experienced this feeling just yesterday, albeit in a less life-threatening situation, when I ran into a seemingly innocuous story over at the BBC News Online entitled, "Mineral Hints at Bright Blue Rocks Deep in the Earth." In it, we hear about the discovery of inclusions of a mineral called ringwoodite in diamonds that had formed deep in the Earth (an estimated 600 kilometers underneath the Earth's surface).
[image of a ringwoodite crystal courtesy of photographer Jasperox and the Wikimedia Commons]
"Diamonds, brought to the Earth's surface in
violent eruptions of deep volcanic rocks called kimberlites," the article states, "provide a
tantalising window into the deep Earth. A research team led by Prof Graham Pearson of the University
of Alberta, Canada, studied a diamond from a 100-million-year-old
kimberlite found in Juina, Brazil, as part of a wider project."
So far, something of interest only to geologists. But then the article went on to explain one of the odd things about these inclusions:
And that's when I saw the impending car crash.
"A key question posed by the observation," the article continues, "is to understand the extent to which plate tectonics on Earth leads to oceans of water being recycled deep within our planet, and to predict the likely amounts of water trapped in other rocky planets."
No, no, stop, please stop...
"Prof Joseph Smyth of the University of Colorado has spent many years studying ringwoodite and similar minerals synthesised in his laboratory. He said: 'I think it's stunning! It implies that the interior may store several times the amount of water in the oceans. It tells us that hydrogen is an essential ingredient in the Earth and not added late from comets.'"
Too late.
You do see where this slow-motion auto accident is heading, right? Let me make it clear by posting three of the comments that showed up when the story, in somewhat abbreviated form, made its way onto The Daily Mail:
The Christian bible has some things to say about incredibly large amounts of water deep within the earth. KJV Genesis 7:11 Noah, his family and the creatures, enter the ark 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. KJV Genesis 8:2 The waters subside 2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; KJV Proverbs 8:27-29 27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: 28 When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: 29 When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment.
This water was mentioned in the bible when it told of God making all the water below the earth rise and flood the world. Read about Noah. Believe what the bible teaches us. Your soul is at stake.
"....all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. " Genesis 7:11 cf John Lennox Mathematician Oxford U. It is certainly scientific to believe in God, and really now, what sort of spirit promotes hatred for people who do?
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