Beijing

Beijing is an extremely old settlement but was established as the "northern capital" by the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan. The Mongols established the Yuan Dynasty in China. It has remained the capital of China for most of the time since then, the Yuan, Ming and, Qing Dynasties, and then the modern Republic of China. 

Nationalist China, which is now Taiwan, had Nanjing and Chungking as capitals for a few years. Beijing is at the northern end of the Grand Canal, which links China north to south, Hangzhou is at the southern end.

The following scenes begin at what can be considered as the focal point of China, the portrait of Chairman Mao over the Tiananmen Gate. Mao proclaimed the creation of the People's Republic of China from here on October 1, 1949,. But China itself is about five thousand years old.

The gate leads to the Imperial City, which surrounds the Forbidden City. This is the complex of palaces and pavilions that was the governing center of imperial China. The Meridian Gate, with protruding wings on either side, leads across the rectangular moat surrounding the Forbidden City.

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To the south of the Tiananmen Gate across Chang'an Avenue, which is the main east-west axis of Beijing, is Tiananmen Square. Chang'an  is the old name of Xian, which was China's original capital city. On this vast square is the mausoleum of Chairman Mao, the founder of modern China, and the Great Hall of the People. I can remember from childhood watching U.S. president Nixon's visit to the Great Hall of the People. This was the beginning of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9053212,116.397587,3a,75y,104.52h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOOG5ctXZlMi5Ju5hdoUAOQwoGzgRrPKhgE3Og!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOOG5ctXZlMi5Ju5hdoUAOQwoGzgRrPKhgE3Og%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-3.3846793-ya106.78065-ro-1.528246-fo100!7i5472!8i2736

The following views begin in the middle of the Forbidden City. Does anyone remember when McDonald's restaurants used to be styled like a pavilion in the Forbidden City? I am sure that this is where the idea came from. The Forbidden City is where China was ruled from for about five hundred years, until the founding of the modern republic. The wide moat surrounds the rectangular Forbidden City.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9174375,116.3975936,2a,75y,354.79h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1szWNCKS9Z-6EAAARGZ1vvFg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DzWNCKS9Z-6EAAARGZ1vvFg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D227.46472%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

These images are in the area of the Meridian Gate.

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The first of the following images is also taken from up high. But it is looking at the way into the Forbidden City from the opposite direction, from the north looking southward. This entrance gate is the Gate of Divine Might, it is the entrance from the north just as the Tiananmen Gate, which has the portrait of Chairman Mao, is from the south. The door of the Tiananmen Gate is arched but that of the Gate of Divine Might is rectangular.

The two gates are aligned on an axis, which is the main north-south axis of Beijing. The gates within and to the Forbidden City, such as the Meridian Gate, are also aligned on this axis. In fact, that is where the Meridian Gate gets it's name. This north-south axis continues far to the north of the Forbidden City, along which are the original Bell Tower and Drum Tower. The north-south axis also continues far to the south, past Tiananmen Square.

The following aerial view is actually taken from a hilltop. It is Jingshan Hill, on which is Jingshan Park. The Ming Dynasty, who built the Forbidden City, supplanted the Yuan Dynasty (Mongols) who had made Beijing their capital. When the moat was dug around it, they piled the dirt and stone on top of the ruins of the Yuan buildings, and that is where Jingshan Hill came from.

Genghis Khan destroyed a city that had been in what is now Beijing, although some of the ruins of it can still be seen. His grandson, Kublai Khan, founded a city centered under what is now Jungshan Hill, but then the Ming Dynasty buried that and built the Forbidden City, in the early Fifteenth Century, just to the south.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9246609,116.3967602,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipOj4lge6pPKQIv9KACt732kBSBFyct_eL67Vnk_!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOj4lge6pPKQIv9KACt732kBSBFyct_eL67Vnk_%3Dw203-h113-k-no!7i4160!8i2336 

This is another view from Jingshan Hill, which looks over the Forbidden City.

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The following scenes are to the south, south of Tiananmen Square, which is south of the Imperial and Forbidden Cities. The pedestrian walkway is the north-south axis continuing to the south. To the south of the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao, in Tiananmen Square, is the large gate, the Zhengyangmen Gate, and the Archery Tower, the stone building with the many small windows. The gates through both of them are aligned on this same north-south axis.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.8967831,116.3917578,3a,75y,180h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNraHdxaXZLjOswZPCzJ-Va1JLjbF4UikdNLh8B!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNraHdxaXZLjOswZPCzJ-Va1JLjbF4UikdNLh8B%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya265.09225-ro0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

It might thus be said that the center of Beijing is where the main street, Chang'an Avenue, crosses this historic north-south axis through the Forbidden City, because Chang'an Avenue is the main east-west axis. This represents modern China meeting old China. Remember that the city of Xian, which was China's original capital, is also called Chang'an. This keeping to the same cities since ancient times, but with the center of the city not necessarily in the same place, illustrates how Chinese history has operated. There might be a modern Chinese city, with a park in the city that has the ancient ruins of the original city.

Elsewhere in Beijing there is the cylindrical Temple of Heaven. Over here, about 4 km from the Forbidden City, most of the roofs are blue.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.881832,116.4066627,3a,75y,85.95h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOeVL-_KO5tCuMOddZSCOr51ad6I49igVhie8Wt!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOeVL-_KO5tCuMOddZSCOr51ad6I49igVhie8Wt%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-7.1026053-ya319.80896-ro8.17181-fo100!7i3840!8i1920

It is interesting that Beijing has the Temples of the Earth, of the Moon, and of the Sun, and today China is one of the world leaders in space exploration. It recently became the first nation to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon.

Beijing is a modern city too. This is some of "everyday" modern Beijing, around  Xidan.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9092895,116.3744405,3a,75y,100.63h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOILrKQxU_gCg2eFz6tZrnVY8Kqna7ifDblugcO!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOILrKQxU_gCg2eFz6tZrnVY8Kqna7ifDblugcO%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya177.75156-ro0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

The district of Sanlitun includes the Workers' Stadium.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9334435,116.4550275,3a,75y,100.58h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPcFhcgYBsjn1-muV5AkU4jN28L2iDbpbDeCQ4t!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPcFhcgYBsjn1-muV5AkU4jN28L2iDbpbDeCQ4t%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya267.69604-ro0-fo100!7i7168!8i3584

Here is the central business district of Beijing. As you can see by the CCTV building (China Central Television) that China can be very creative with the forms of modern buildings, although Xi Jinping has made it clear that he is not an admirer of such architecture.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9182631,116.4608409,3a,75y,349.5h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPCj_auKrdwcllbkAgM0ON9lMcIzKhb3wswxVXh!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPCj_auKrdwcllbkAgM0ON9lMcIzKhb3wswxVXh%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya25.49999-ro-0-fo100!7i9728!8i4150

Finally, we come to the area of the city known as "Beijing's Silicon Valley". This is where so much of the development of information technology and artificial intelligence in the world is taking place.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9807786,116.3140596,3a,75y,102.91h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNnefJCf9fKiI5mrNpICz_g2W6Ics4YENMDd2Vf!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNnefJCf9fKiI5mrNpICz_g2W6Ics4YENMDd2Vf%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya106.64969-ro-0-fo100!7i5376!8i2688

Imperial Palaces

With our visit to Beijing, here is a comparison that I always like to make, that of imperial palaces in Asia.

Not far from Nijo Castle in Kyoto is the former Imperial Palace of Japan. Kyoto was the capital of Japan for about a thousand years. It was built as the new capital of Japan, and was modeled on the Chinese city of Xian. 

During the Tokugawa Shogunate the shogun, the military leader of the Japan of the time lived in Edo Castle (now part of the Imperial Palace complex in Tokyo), while the Emperor who held a mostly ceremonial position lived in the palace in Kyoto. After what is known as the Meiji Restoration, in 1869, where the most feudal shogun was abolished and the emperor took full power, the capital was moved permanently to Tokyo, where the Tokugawas had been based and where it remains today.

Tokyo used to be known as Edo, and what I have always noticed is that the letters in Tokyo, when the names of the cities is expressed in English, is a rearrangement of the letters in Kyoto.

The Imperial Palace of Kyoto incorporates some of the design of the original nearby Heian Palace, which was destroyed by fire in 1227, and never rebuilt. This is the Imperial Palace today, it has been rebuilt a number of times in this location since the Twelfth Century:

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https://www.google.com/maps/@35.0247231,135.7627106,3a,75y,81.77h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-PM1ZYsuoCCM%2FVFMjDYSwQVI%2FAAAAAAAABtk%2FQjU42rckYq05WUZffNVyN2gKA7me8vemA!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2F-PM1ZYsuoCCM%2FVFMjDYSwQVI%2FAAAAAAAABtk%2FQjU42rckYq05WUZffNVyN2gKA7me8vemA%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i3584!8i1792

This is a royal palace in Seoul, from the Fourteenth Century, Changdeokgung Palace. There are actually four other palaces, from the Joseon Dynasty, located nearby:

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.5789441,126.9947342,3a,75y,296.9h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sdMTdYtYQ4boR7cMLgGk8vg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DdMTdYtYQ4boR7cMLgGk8vg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D302.62018%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

Next, we come to the most famous Imperial Palace of all, China's Forbidden City, in Beijing. This was China's palace for about five hundred years, until the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912. The north-south axis of the Forbidden City continues in the layout of Beijing. I have wondered if the roofs of McDonald's around where I live was inspired by the yellow roofs seen in the Forbidden City.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9166863,116.3965785,3a,75y,64.19h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-3UhPETJXyt4%2FVittyrD-gVI%2FAAAAAAAAOFc%2FdNwRMSX-VYg_LCFwTw-z3PgfPvLIIrKzwCLIB!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-3UhPETJXyt4%2FVittyrD-gVI%2FAAAAAAAAOFc%2FdNwRMSX-VYg_LCFwTw-z3PgfPvLIIrKzwCLIB%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i8704!8i4352

There is a great museum of Chinese history just outside the Forbidden City, the Palace Museum. China underwent a civil war during the late 1940s, in which the Communists ultimately triumphed over the Nationalists. The Nationalists withdrew to Taiwan, but still claimed to be the legitimate government of China. But before they left the mainland, they took much of the historical artifacts and treasures of China with them. In the city of Taipei, on the island of Taiwan, the National Palace Museum was established to display these artifacts. The National Palace Museum was built in the form of a traditional imperial palace. This is the National Palace Museum, with some of it's surroundings in Taipei:

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.1019789,121.5486828,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-uZ-6lDVx0i0%2FUzGQifE21bI%2FAAAAAAAAD9U%2FziTzxWBHSq48-77o2WLVWrp-e2i2I52Bw!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-uZ-6lDVx0i0%2FUzGQifE21bI%2FAAAAAAAAD9U%2FziTzxWBHSq48-77o2WLVWrp-e2i2I52Bw%2Fw203-h101-n-k-no%2F!7i3840!8i1919

One thing that becomes clear is that the Koreans tend to peak the roofs at the corners much more than do the Chinese or Japanese. The exception is the National Palace Museum of Taiwan which, although a much more recent building than the imperial palaces, peaks the corners of the roofs in a way similar to the Korean palaces.

Youthful Wonderings

Here are some things that I used to wonder about in my youth. Remember that much of this was from before I became a Christian.

One thing that disturbed me was about people being dead. A person is certified as dead and then their body is buried or cremated. But do we really know for sure that they are completely dead? Although they are dead from our point of view can we be sure that they are completely dead? Maybe there are ascending levels of death that we cannot be aware of since we cannot communicate with those levels.

How do we know that life isn't just a dream, and maybe dying is waking up? We can see by history that we always think we are right but our knowledge often turns out to be incomplete, or wrong altogether.

We are made of matter and we live in reality. While it is true that we are more complex than our inanimate surroundings is it even possible that we can imagine something that is completely impossible? While we can certainly imagine things that are not realistic, an argument can be made that it is impossible for us to even imagine something that is completely impossible. What would people of two hundred years ago think of modern knowledge and technology? I am writing this over here and as soon as I post it anyone in the world will be able to instantly read it. If we are made of matter and inhabit reality ourselves can we even imagine something that is completely impossible?

So much of what people in the past thought has fallen by the wayside. It used to be believed that the sun rises and sets because everything revolves around the earth, and that people get sick because they have too much blood. What is there that we think we know today that will one day fall by the wayside?

How much might there be to be learned that we have no idea of now? Suppose that there are some teenagers playing soccer (football). Maybe it will be determined, a thousand years from now, that this soccer game, which will have taken place a thousand years in the past, was actually the peak of human history, or maybe even the peak of the entire universe. We cannot imagine this now but how much is there today that could not possibly have been imagined a thousand years ago?

How much are we told what to want, and what we should want to be? All of our lives we are bombarded by advertising, as well as taught in schools. How much do we want what we do because we are told that is what we should want, that we wouldn't want otherwise?

In ways that we do not fully realize how much does our language shape the way that we think? Language is not just a way of communicating but a way of thinking. People who speak different languages think differently because their language is a map of how to think.

Suppose that there really were space aliens, and they visited earth. A lot of thought, as well as sci-fi stories have been about how we would interact with them. We presume that they would interact with us, of all living things, because we are the leading form of life on the planet. But what if they didn't see it that way. What if the space aliens pretty much ignored us and considered ants as the leading form of life on the planet, or maybe butterflies?

Just how real are we? Of course we perceive ourselves as "real" because we are at the same level of reality as our surroundings. Suppose that there are people in a painting, we do not perceive them as "real". But if they could think they would consider themselves as real because they were at the same level of reality as their surroundings in the painting. That means that, at some level, we are like people in a painting.

When I was in tenth grade I wrote a report that the universe is expanding but the expansion is slowly down and the universe will eventually collapse back together, which will then be followed by a repeat of the Big Bang, over and over and over again. Since there is no new information from anywhere else the universe must repeat exactly. Billions of years ago I was at this same desk writing this same report. My body, the desk, the paper and the pen were made of exactly the same atoms as they are now. Billions of years from now I will be here, made of the same atoms and writing the same report again. I have since abandoned this scenario because I believe in God, not that I exist just because of atoms coming together. Also we know now that the expansion of the universe is not slowing down, it is actually speeding up, and so won't fall back together.

Is humanity alive? I don't mean each individual person, I mean humanity as a whole. Each cell in our body is alive but functions as part of the whole. In the same way each of us might be like a cell in all of humanity. We each have an occupation just as cells in the body have different purposes. Criminals are like the cancer of the living humanity and wars are like diseases where the body attacks itself. We can see that great civilizations have life cycles very much like that of humans. Since people are not physically connected to one another, as the cells of our bodies are, we could say that each of us is a contiguous life form while humanity as a whole is a non-contiguous life form. Who says that life forms have to be contiguous?

We study how people lived in ancient times. But someday our times will be considered as ancient times. From a distant future perspective we are living in ancient times. 

In Hungary the Holy Crown itself is considered as ruling the country. The king is just someone who is deemed worthy to wear the crown. The king issues orders on behalf of the crown but it is the crown itself that is actually ruling. Maybe that is the way it really is. What about our clothes? Maybe the clothes are actually the real person and "people" only exist to make and display our clothes. Just as we consider our skeletons to exist only to support our bodies maybe we are just skeletons to support our clothes. Of course we think that our skeletons are just to support the rest of our bodies but if our skeletons could think maybe they would consider themselves as the real person and the rest of the body as just their clothes. The same can be said about our buildings. Maybe our houses and buildings are actually the real life and we just exist as their internal organs to assemble and maintain them, although we see them as existing for our benefit.

Just how self-centered are we and how much does it distort our view of reality? We see ourselves as humans and other creatures as animals. But every creature sees itself as the "humans" and other creatures as the "animals". Deer do not see people coming and think "Those are humans and we are just animals". I have had dogs and cats who clearly thought that they were the "humans" and I was an oaf that they had charmed and outsmarted into providing a living for them.

We consider creatures that can think, including ourselves, to be a higher form of life than plants, which cannot think. But maybe this is more self-centeredness. Maybe plants are ahead of us. Maybe we think because we need to think to survive while plants have no need to think. We think that plants exist to sustain us and we have the right to harvest them and cut them down. But that is exactly the way germs think about our bodies. If plants could think maybe they would see themselves as having gotten sick by catching these destructive germs. If the earth itself could think it would certainly see us as an infection.

How much will we discover in the future that we cannot even imagine right now. People centuries ago could not imagine that there would be atoms and electrons and nuclear energy and relativity and that we would have cars, computers and, phones. Maybe there are passages through time that we have no idea of. Maybe a boy is at a table in a school cafeteria. Through a window he sees a man doing maintenance work who looks like he might have been the boy's father, with the same color hair and eyes. What neither of them realize is that they are actually the same person, a past and future version who have happened to come into contact through an unknown time passage.

How do we know that we are not just characters in somebody's comic book or computer game? Maybe we have been designed so that we do not see things as they really are. We Know that colors or the blue sky don't really exist, and we see many optical illusions. Maybe we are an experiment in a science class. What we see as stars are really science students who have designed us so that we see them as stars. What we see as the sun might be the teacher of the class.

How do we know that the way we see things is not very distorted from reality? In a parking lot at night, while it is raining, the rain on the windshield distorts the lights into all kinds of shapes and forms. How do we know that is not how reality really looks, or at least is a view that is just as valid as ours? Maybe the way we see things works for us but that does not necessarily mean that it is a true view of reality. What does reality really look like?

When I found God things started to really fall into place. All of this is really a test. If we can completely put our faith in God then we will have nothing at all to worry about because He will make sure that we will have everything that we need and guide us to what He wants us to do. There was a television commercial about a product that was shown to work as advertised and a competitor product that didn't. The reason our present world has so much wars and crime, and other bad things, is because it is like the inferior product that has troubles because it doesn't really follow God. The superior product is like the Kingdom of God that Jesus will establish on earth after His Return following the Tribulation Period. The world will be the godly paradise that it was always intended to be. We have everything we need to build a paradise now but human nature gets in the way. The purpose of all this happening is to show that we have to follow God.

Prophetic News

As for the scenario that we saw in "The End Of The World As We Know It", which is about the biblical prophecies of the "Last Days" being fulfilled in our times, Iran introduced a new version of the Kheibar Missile this week with the range to easily reach Israel. We know that Iran, formerly known as Persia, will be one of the nations that attacks Israel in the "Last Days", an event which sets off the final series of wars of the world, before Jesus establishes His Kingdom on earth.

The Kheibar Missile is named for an early Jewish settlement around an oasis that was conquered by Moslems. One of the branches of Iran's Revolutionary Guard is the Quds Force. It deals with external operations and is named for Jerusalem, which it's ultimate objective is to liberate. The new missile was unveiled next to a replica of the Dome of the Rock, which is on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Let's remember what is going to happen. The Antichrist will be the leader who seems to have all the answers to everything. He will be allowed to reign for seven years, in what is known as the Tribulation Period, before Jesus returns to establish His Kingdom and the world will be the godly paradise that was always intended.

The first half of the reign of the Antichrist will be the best time that the world has ever seen. But it will all be a fantastic, satanic lie. It will begin to fall apart and the second half of the reign of the Antichrist will be the worst time that the world has ever seen, or ever will see. Jesus made it clear that, had He not returned to end the Tribulation Period and set up His Kingdom, that no one would be left alive on earth.

Northern Germany

All of the cities that we will be seeing in northern Germany are port cities which went to the Protestant side during the Reformation. Most of the cities in northwestern Europe banded together in the later Middle Ages to form a cooperative union known as the Hanseatic League.

The second-largest city in Germany is Hamburg. Germany is divided into sixteen states. Three cities are states unto themselves. We have already visited Berlin, Germany's largest city which is one of the cities that is a state unto itself. The two others are in northern Germany, Hamburg and Bremen.

Hamburg has been an independent, or semi-independent, city-state for much of it's history. Hamburg began with a northern castle that was founded by Charlemagne shortly after he was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor. Remember that the -burg suffix in German place names signifies a castle, but -berg signifies a hill or mountain, as in iceberg.

Hamburg grew through medieval times into an important port city. But it's accessibility from the sea also made it a target of Viking raids. Many people who immigrated to North America from northern and eastern Europe actually sailed from Hamburg. Hamburg is on the Elbe River, which leads to the North Sea.

Hamburg, of course, brings the question of it's relationship to the hamburger. Does the idea of putting a slab of meat on a bun come from Hamburg? Everyone seems to have a different opinion on where the hamburger comes from.

I don't know why North America calls it a hamburger. It is not made of ham, it is made of beef. In Europe it is called a beefburger. With so many Moslems, as well as Jews, wouldn't it be better to not call it a hamburger, which makes it seem as if it is made of ham?

Anyway, these scenes of central Hamburg begin at it's impressive City Hall or Rathaus. In so many German cities, the Rathaus and the cathedral are on the main square at the center of the city.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5509036,9.9939105,3a,75y,126.99h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1s7_JbyiJUZ7qv2gh_YWdL-g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D7_JbyiJUZ7qv2gh_YWdL-g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D141.73233%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

This is a new development in Hamburg, known as Hafen City.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5401308,9.9950308,3a,75y,300h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNVhERllzdYfhBziiYSNp7-FN_FyORlUPly621A!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNVhERllzdYfhBziiYSNp7-FN_FyORlUPly621A%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya324-ro-0-fo100!7i9728!8i4864

Here is the northern central city area of Hamburg.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5577006,10.011948,3a,75y,39.67h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sPGjk_Z2S8M11gkDvweE_xw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DPGjk_Z2S8M11gkDvweE_xw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D26.223513%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

This is north of the central city near Hamburg University.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5726681,9.9864049,3a,75y,160h,110t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sEkuXh6RKsnFohdECb5C6Yw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DEkuXh6RKsnFohdECb5C6Yw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D160%26pitch%3D-20%26thumbfov%3D100

Here is an area of suburban Hamburg, known as Duhlsberg.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5830471,10.0658862,3a,75y,260h,100t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1s8YpMy811tGN9FQDJwcTkxw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D8YpMy811tGN9FQDJwcTkxw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D260%26pitch%3D-10%26thumbfov%3D100

This is Harburg, across the Elbe River from Hamburg.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4609578,9.9812524,3a,75y,100h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPAqPCPFSg5CmpBh1vBbx5AdXD0Sd119d3wStRO!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPAqPCPFSg5CmpBh1vBbx5AdXD0Sd119d3wStRO%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya100-ro-0-fo100!7i12000!8i6000

Ahrensburg is a town to the northeast of Hamburg that was built around a medieval palace.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.6771851,10.2400112,3a,75y,220h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNXe9wxyJbDUWr6tgf9iJ_cTJ6C9eZoczYh505P!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNXe9wxyJbDUWr6tgf9iJ_cTJ6C9eZoczYh505P%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya102-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

Bremen is the other city in northern Germany that is a state unto itself. Like Hamburg, Bremen is a port city on a river, the Weser River, that links to the North Sea. Like so many German cities it has a medieval Rathaus, the City Hall, on the main square of the city, with the cathedral or major church nearby.

During the days of the Holy Roman Empire, some city squares had statues of a knight of Charlemagne named Roland. This knight was a legend in much of Europe during the Middle Ages.

The following scenes begin in the central square with the Rathaus and Bremen's Roland.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.0757911,8.8073733,3a,75y,316.28h,101.56t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO8k5fvW2pQDUHearDoaSrUzUtNN3InxOHdbkGD!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO8k5fvW2pQDUHearDoaSrUzUtNN3InxOHdbkGD%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya130.86864-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

Lubeck is yet another important port city going back to the early Middle Ages. What differentiates Lubeck from Hamburg and Bremen is that Lubeck faces the Baltic Sea, rather than the North Sea. Facing the North Sea is better for access to western Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. But Lubeck is in a better location to access Russia, eastern Europe and Scandinavia by sea.

Lubeck today is especially known for it's picturesque Holstentor Gate, from the Fifteenth Century, to the old part of the city. These views of Lubeck begin inside St. Peter's Church

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.8658616,10.6831563,2a,75y,106.13h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sxEtS8dXOvGgAAAQvxWxilQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DxEtS8dXOvGgAAAQvxWxilQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D116.12696%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

Kiel is a port city that belonged to Denmark during the Middle Ages. We saw in the posting on this blog, "The End Of The First World War" November 2018, the great historical impact of the mutiny of the sailors at Kiel at the end of the First World War. It doesn't get a lot of attention but there is a canal across the peninsula in the north of Germany so that ships can go between the North and Baltic Seas without going around Denmark. It is called the Kiel or Kaiser Wilhelm Canal.

https://www.google.com/maps/@54.3233533,10.1392417,3a,75y,110.13h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMOVjRhQHGqMH07xMgfc9pSM8GBPCVCfxuHR9wA!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMOVjRhQHGqMH07xMgfc9pSM8GBPCVCfxuHR9wA%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya122.14493-ro-0-fo100!7i5376!8i2688

Rostock is the other city of northern Germany that has been an important port since Medieval Times. Like Kiel and Lubeck, it faces the Baltic Sea.

https://www.google.com/maps/@54.0886312,12.1402817,3a,75y,176.78h,100.83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNXpefuYqzTNe9R9xZ5zZ9I3FJdu73r6kNz7qQK!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNXpefuYqzTNe9R9xZ5zZ9I3FJdu73r6kNz7qQK%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya93.80115-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

Civics Made Really Simple

America and it's guns have been in the world news a lot lately. A primary question being when does a private citizen, not working in law enforcement, have the right to shoot someone in self-defense?

Some U.S. states have what are called "Stand Your Ground" laws. The trouble with this, of course, is that mistakes happen. Someone could easily go to the wrong house by mistake, and this has cost a number of people their lives.

The general consensus about such laws is that it is permissible to shoot someone as long as one "feels threatened" by them. The trouble with this is that "feeling threatened" is very subjective. We saw in "Civics Made Really Simple" that the purpose of civics, which is all law and government, in a democracy is to keep the subjective as far away as possible, even if it cannot be entirely eliminated. This then becomes a case against the supposed right to decide when it is necessary to shoot someone, it runs contrary to the entire basis of civics in a democracy.

Another way that we are drifting into subjectivity in criminal cases is whether or not the convict "showed remorse" for their actions. " Showing remorse" is, of course, subjective.

Why don't we review "Civics Made Really Simple"?

CIVICS MADE REALLY SIMPLE

Civics refers to any constitution or legal system. A constitution is a written plan of government. What I have today is a way of explaining the basis of all constitutions and legal systems that is simple and concise in a way that I have never seen civics explained anywhere else.

My way of thinking about civics issues, such as legal systems and constitutions, revolves around the concept of the subjective. The subjective is all-important in fully understanding any human enterprise. There is nothing complex about the subjective, a subjective is simply someone's opinion or wish.

As a simple example, the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship can be most effectively described in terms of the subjective. In a dictatorship or absolute monarchy, the entire society is subject to the whim of the king or dictator. If a powerful person says that a lesser person is guilty of a crime, then that person is guilty of the crime. These whims of the all-powerful are their unchecked subjectives.

A definite difference between societies that are generally considered as "free", and those that are not is in the laws. The laws in "free" societies tend to be precise and well-defined while some of the laws in societies that are generally considered as not free are subjective and open to interpretation. A society with a law against such as "threatening the social order" is just about certain to become a dictatorship because it can be interpreted as just about whatever it takes to throw a political opponent in jail.

All attempts to apply checks and balances to power to bring about a more equitable society from the Magna Charta until now have been attempts to manage and control the subjective. In fact, any system of law or government can be defined as management of the subjective.

In free societies, this management of the subjective usually takes the form of the establishment of fixed laws, legal processes, checks and balances, basic rights and, the presumption of innocence in the event of criminal charges. Such a civic structure is akin to the building of a house to provide shelter from the elements. Except in this case, the elements to be sheltered from are the subjective.

Of course for the structure to serve it's purpose, the laws must be consistently applied. Inconsistent application of the law is allowing the subjective back in. This creates a lack of flexibility, which is somewhat inconvenient at times, but it is this lack of flexibility that keeps the subjective at bay and maintains democracy.

Politics is merely the determination of the various possible slants of the civic structure. For example, two possible slants on freedom are "freedom to" and "freedom from". What about smoking? Should people in a free society have "freedom to" smoke in a public place or "freedom from" being exposed to smoke? Then there are guns. Should people have "freedom to" own a gun or "freedom from" having people with guns around them?

The subjective is only so if it is different from the subjectives of others. If everyone had the same opinions about everything, then there would be no such thing as the subjective. This means that we can check the subjective by matching it against the subjectives of other people. Two of the best-known ways in which this is done is political elections and trial by jury.

However, the opinion of the majority is not the way to create a free society in every way. Ownership, of a home for example, means the right to exercise one's own subjective while being free from the subjectives of others. But to be free from the subjectives of others in a free society, you must acknowledge that they are also free from your subjective.

The reason that human societies put so much effort into creating the structures necessary to manage the subjective is that the subjective is a part of our natures. People, as a whole, are not naturally inclined to live by high principles. People tend to prefer themselves above others and to think that their particular group is special.

It indeed requires some special people to live by the principles espoused by the world's democracies. But special people who do not think themselves special because the basic meaning of democracy is that no one is special. Thus, democracy is a vast undertaking aimed at checking the subjective.

It is true that expression of the subjective provides flexibility. It is also true that a dictatorship or absolute monarchy is more flexible than a democracy. But democracy seems to be superior at providing a better life for more people, meaning that democracy is one of those things that is more difficult in the short term but is worthwhile in the long term. When a civic structure is less-than-perfect or the people have difficulty living by it, the subjective will creep back in.

As in so many things concerning human beings, the best course of action is not one extreme or the other but an effective blending of the two. The same principle applies to the management of the subjective in a free society. Having no control over the subjective would create the law of the jungle. But having total supression of the subjective means a dictatorship or absolute monarchy.

This means that a free society must fall somewhere between the two. There must be a partial, but not complete, control of the subjective. This is accomplished by dividing society into two spheres, the public and the private sphere. The difference between the two lies in how the subjective is handled.

The simplest and clearest illustration of the public and private spheres of society is the ownership of property. One's own home is the private sphere. In a free society, part of the total property must be privately owned but not all of it. Freedom, like so many other facets of society, is best defined in terms of the subjective. Freedom is really freedom from the subjectives of others balanced with expression of our own subjective.

Aside from ownership, opinions also illustrate the difference between the public and private spheres of society. In a free society a person can express their opinions, the subjective, but cannot force their opinions on others, thus preserving their subjectives. The freedom of expression is the public sphere whereas the protection from force is the private sphere.

I find this concept of the subjective to be extremely far-reaching. It is a vital consideration in news and, in fact, any information that we may receive. A lot of what you read in the news is someone's opinion, or their subjective.

SIMPLE AND COMPLEX REALM SETS AND SUBJECTIVITY

On my religion blog, http://www.markmeekreligion.blogspot.com/ , there is a posting titled "Religion And Philosophy". In that posting, I gave my definition of the difference between a religion and a philosophy. A religion was in the "simple realm" because fundamental religious statements such as "there is a god" or "Jesus is the Son of God" must be either true or false, there is no middle ground in such statements.

Philosophy, in contrast, fell into the "complex realm" because fundamental philosophical statements cannot really be forced into the true or false labels. One philosophy may prove to be preferable to another, but it cannot be strictly said that either is "true" or "false". Put simply, religion is more concrete while philosophy is more nebulous.

The same concept can be applied to news regarding the subjective. We can have a simple news statement or a complex news statement. This simplicity or complexity does not refer to the actual complexity of the news event. Rather, it concerns the presence or absence of the subjective.

A news statement such as "There was an earthquake today and seven people are confirmed killed" is a concrete statement that contains no subjective. This would thus be a news statement in the simple realm.

However, a statment like "Conditions are worse than they were last week" contains a considerable amount of opinion, or subjective, that other observers may not agree with. This represents the complex realm. Advertising is, of course, filled with subjective. A line that a certain pizzeria has the best pizza in town is an ideal example of the subjective.

The subjective exists because we all see the world through our own lenses. All of us are products of different experiences. None of us has complete knowledge and few people are entirely free of any bias.

This concept of the subjective and it's management provides effective definitions of what freedom is, how democracy differs from dictatorship or absolute monarchy, the functions of all constitutions and legal systems, the difference between the public and the private domain and, the definition of news.

Do Pandemics Actually Preserve Civilization?

I really don't like to write this but, even before Covid I wondered if God allows pandemics to happen to preserve civilization.

The worst pandemic of all was the Bubonic Plague, the "Black Death" of the late Middle Ages. The population of Europe was gradually increasing but the death toll was so high that in 1500 the population reached where it had been in 1300. In other words the pandemic set population growth back by about two hundred years.

It recurred periodically after that. Sir Isaac Newton was a professor at Cambridge University. He made his best-known discoveries not at the university but while home in 1666 because the university was closed due to the plague.

But what about the Reformation, which began in 1517? It caused warfare across northern Europe for more than a century. The Thirty Years War was probably the most destructive war in Europe until the world wars.

The more people that are involved in a war, the more soldiers on each side, the more destructive the war is likely to be. Without the population curtailment caused by the Bubonic Plague the wars of the Reformation would have been much more destructive than they already were. The wars could have been much more destructive than the plague itself and could have destroyed European civilization which, at the time, was the center of Christianity.

The next destructive pandemic that comes to mind is the Spanish Flu. It coincided with the end of the First World War in 1918. The same principle applies as with the Bubonic Plague. When soldiers return home from war they tend to start families. There is the famous "Baby Boomers" that were born after the Second World War, and which we will get to shortly.

It is no secret that the Second World War came when the sons of First World War veterans reached military age. But have you ever noticed that while there is the Baby Boom generation following the Second World War, with rock music as their anthem, we never seem to hear of a similar baby boom after the First World War? It is because the Spanish Flu killed so many people, and it tended to kill people in their prime before they could have children.

If the Second World War came when the sons of First World War veterans reached military age what might it have been like if that generation had not been curtailed by the Spanish Flu? As it is the Second World War was by far the deadliest and most destructive conflict in human history. What might it have been like if there had been twice as many soldiers on each side? It could have destroyed human civilization.

This world order will have it's end but God was preserving it for the appointed time.

Now let's go back to the Baby Boomers. This is the great increase in people that were born after the Second World War, generally defined as from 1946 to 1964. Throughout human history young people have far outnumbered old people. The Baby Boom generation has upended this and now the consequences are becoming apparent.

Not only did the Baby Boom upset demographics but there have been outstanding medical advances during their time that have greatly lengthened life expectancy. Nuclear weapons have made it so that there hasn't been another world war to curtail population growth.

This has brought about an unprecedented crisis in many countries with a population of old people needing care and nowhere near enough young people to take care of them. Many businesses cannot find enough workers, not because politicians have brilliantly created so many jobs but because Baby Boomers are retiring by the millions and there is not enough younger workers to replace them.

The real reason for persistent inflation and high prices is that more and more older people have to be taken care of by fewer and fewer younger workers. This effectively creates more of a service economy, with more people not actually working, which drives up both wages and prices relative to a more production-based economy.

In some countries with a really top-heavy ratio of old-to-young, such as Japan, doubts have been expressed about how long society can function like this. As stated, I really don't like to write this but what if Covid hadn't reduced by millions the population of elderly people that would need to be cared for? Unlike the Spanish Flu, which tended to kill people in their prime thus reducing the number of soldiers in the next world war, Covid mostly killed elderly people, and those who would have needed care anyway. While we don't like to think about it this might have made some societies unable to operate without it.

I have always found it interesting how Jesus said "This Generation' will not pass until all of these things have taken place". During most of human history a generation, in terms of society as a whole, has not really been definable. People are being born and dying continuously so generations are not definable. The Second World War changed that. The best-known defined generation ever is the Baby Boomers. When they had children it brought about Generations X, Y and, Z. 

It turns out that the Baby Boomers were the generation that was coming of age when the Old City of Jerusalem came back under Jewish control for the first time since ancient times, which is what Jesus referred to when He foretold that "This Generation' will not pass away until all of these things are fulfilled", meaning the establishment of Jesus' Kingdom on earth after the Tribulation Period. This means that there will be Baby Boomers still alive when Jesus' Kingdom is established on earth.

Another thing that has recently been in the news is widespread concern over the dangers of AI. Remember that, in the Book of Revelation it is foretold that, in the Last Days of the world, there will be a statue of the Antichrist to "come to life" and praise the Antichrist. We saw all of this in the posting on this blog "The End Of The World As We Know It".

Toronto And The Jupiter Position

For any large city, particularly in the western hemisphere which was settled relatively recently in history, the geographical reason for the city being there is usually immediately clear. Smaller cities may be located because it was a convenient stopover, or there was a particular resource located there, or it was an easily defensible location, but major cities tend to have a further geographical reason for being.

Miami is where it is because it was logical to have a port city about as far south as one can go in the peninsula of Florida, facing toward the Atlantic Ocean.

Chicago is where it is because it is just about as far south as one can go on Lake Michigan, on the western side of the lake makes it a hub for shipping out grain, beef and, ore from the Midwest and also centrally located as a railroad hub. Today it's vast airport serves the same purpose as a stopover hub for changing planes.

Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and, Los Angeles are on the west coast, as far as one could go west and built around good natural harbors, because the continent was settled from east to west.

Denver is where it is because it is where the high plains meet the Rocky Mountains. This made it a convenient stopover while going west before entering the mountains.

Boston is where it is because the area was settled by northern Europeans and Cape Cod formed a good natural harbor.

New York City is where it is because, not only is there a good natural harbor, but with an abundant supply of fresh water from the Hudson River.

Montreal is where it is because it is as far as ships could sail up the St. Lawrence River before encountering the Lachine Rapids. " Lachine" means "China" in French and Jacques Cartier thought that continuing along that route would lead to China.

What none of this explains is Toronto. There is no corresponding geographical reason why such a large city should be on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. The Toronto Islands form a harbor, which was enough to get the city started as Fort York, but the harbor has been relatively insignificant in the development of the city and Hamilton's harbor has a much greater capacity.

It is actually a good thing for a major city to not have a geographical reason for it's existence. We saw in the posting on the World And Economics Blog, "The Inverse Geographic Prosperity Principle", that if a major city lacks a significant geographical reason for being where it is, such as a large city in the middle of a desert, that must mean that the city is prosperous. The major city in the desert would apply to Phoenix and Las Vegas. It would also apply to Houston, although that has oil going for it.

There is one, possibly unexpected, reason why Toronto has become such a major city. The two largest cities on the Great Lakes are Toronto and Chicago. The thing that they have in common is that both of their downtowns were destroyed by fire, Chicago in 1871 and Toronto in 1904. While initially a disaster this gave both cities the opportunity to start "The Property Order" over again, as we saw in the posting by that name on the World And Economics Blog, in what could be called "creative destruction". But even so, Chicago has it's geographical reason for being a major city while Toronto doesn't.

Toronto has not always been the largest city in Canada. I lived in Canada for several years as a boy and remember Montreal as definitely being the country's largest and most important city. Expo 67 was the grand celebration of Canada's centennial and there seemed to be no question that it should be held in Montreal. 

I can remember when the only tall buildings in Toronto's downtown skyline were the original two black towers of the Toronto Dominion buildings. The Royal York Hotel was much more easily visible than it is today. But, for some reason, Toronto kept growing and surpassed Montreal in population in the early 1980s. The growth is mostly from immigrants, it seems that just about everyone wants to live in Canada and some years it admits immigrants amounting to several percent of it's population.

The arrangement of Canada's major cities is amazingly like that of the planets. There were nine planets, before Pluto was controversially demoted. If we take the nine largest cities, presuming the sun to be in the east, Halifax is Mercury. Quebec City is Venus. Montreal is earth. Ottawa is Mars. Toronto is Jupiter. Winnepeg is Saturn. Calgary and Edmonton are the sibling planets of Uranus and Neptune. Vancouver is Pluto.

Everyone learns the planets in school. But through the 1960s and 1970s the world entered the Space Age. We saw that Toronto was a distant second to Montreal in 1967. But astronauts first landed on the moon in 1969. Throughout the 1970s and 80s numerous space probes ranged throughout the Solar System. Space was everywhere, in the news, on television, in stories and in movies. Almost everyone knew quite a bit about the Solar System.

For Canada's mostly unrecognized role in the Apollo Space Program see the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, 38) CANADA'S AVRO ARROW. Also see "Canada's Long-Forgotten Space Program", October 2021.

The giant of the Solar System is Jupiter. It is actually more massive than all the other planets combined. The second most massive planet, Saturn, is about one-third the mass of Jupiter. Jupiter serves as the earth's bodyguard. It acts as a gravitational vacuum cleaner and comets, and other objects, that could be devastating if they hit the earth, such as Shoemaker-Levy in the 1990s, hit Jupiter instead.

With the layout of Canada's major cities so much resembling the planets, although few if any people were consciously aware of it, Toronto had to become the largest city because it occupied what we could call "The Jupiter Position". This explains why Toronto was well behind Montreal in population and importance until the Space Age, when it had to move ahead.

I have been reading about both science and history since childhood and I can tell you that history is almost like gravity and electromagnetism as a force of nature. History is so important because we tend to repeat it, often without realizing it. This concept of Toronto occupying "The Jupiter Position" is not the only reason for it's growth but it explains why such a large city should be on the north shore of Lake Ontario, without there being any apparent geographical reason for it, at least any earthly geographical reason.

A prominent visible feature of Jupiter is it's "Great Red Spot". This is actually a storm that has been going on for centuries and is larger than the earth. To correspond with this Toronto has developed it's own "red spot". On a clear night the lights of Toronto can be seen on the other side of Lake Ontario, such as atop the Niagara Escarpment at Lewiston.

There is a red light visible, just like the Red Spot on Jupiter. It is the "S" on the Scotiabank tower in downtown Toronto. Image from Google Earth.

The Rhine-Ruhr (Cologne) Area

The Ruhr area of western Germany is known for industry. It is one of the places that the Industrial Revolution began. For the first stage of the Industrial Revolution, it had those two all-important resources of coal and iron.

But the history of this region began long before the Industrial Revolution. The Rhine River was the edge of the Roman Empire. What you will generally find in the Rhine-Ruhr Area is that the cities to the west of the Rhine River began as Roman outposts, while the cities to the east of the river began hundreds of years later, in medieval times. The part of Germany to the west of the Rhine River is known as the Rhineland.

Cologne is the largest city of the Rhine-Ruhr area. But I would like to begin our visit with Aachen, in the far west of Germany. The way I see it, Aachen is really where Germany began.

Like the other cities in the area to the west of the Rhine River, Aachen has Roman origins. But it is known as the city of Charlemagne. Both France and Germany are descended from people known as the Franks. Charlemagne, sometimes referred to as "The Father of Europe" was of the Carolingian Dynasty of the Franks. Charlemagne was crowned by the pope as the first Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, in the year 800, in the old St. Peter's Basilica.

The dynasty of the Franks that had preceded the Carolingian Dynasty, the Merovingian Dynasty, had their center of power in Paris. It was they who built a palace on the island in the Seine River from which Paris would grow outward.

But the Carolingian Dynasty moved it's center of power eastward, to Aachen. This is where Charlemagne lived and was buried and where later Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. Notice the similarity between Aachen and the Isle de la Cite in Paris. There was a palace in Aachen, which is now gone. But the chapel of the palace remained, and the present Aachen Cathedral was built around the chapel.

The empire of the Carolingian Dynasty did not last, eventually splitting into East Francia and West Francia. East Francia, including Aachen, would become the Holy Roman Empire and later Germany. West Francia, including Paris, would become France.

The main reason for the split was likely language. The western area had been part of the Roman Empire and had gotten to speaking a Romance language, which would become French. The eastern part had not been ruled by Rome and spoke a northern European language, which would become German.

The name of the Franks lives on today in France and in the German city of Frankfurt. The name of the Carolingian Dynasty lives on in America's North and South Carolina, for which they were named.

The German name for France is still "Frankreich". The French name for Germany is still "Allemagne", for a people in this area who the Franks had conquered.

Also significant in Aachen is the Rathaus, or City Hall, from the Fourteenth Century. German cities, as well as Vienna, typically have a medieval city hall across the central square from the cathedral. The following scenes of Aachen begin at the Rathaus.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.7764702,6.0837612,3a,75y,259.71h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO3pnYOW6Rts7SMu7WeeZycMVHmmq1BU4NNnt05!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO3pnYOW6Rts7SMu7WeeZycMVHmmq1BU4NNnt05%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya66.98209-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

Cologne, being on the west bank of the Rhine River, has been important since Roman Times. The Frank conquest of Cologne was the beginning of them becoming the people from whom both modern France and Germany would descend. Is is known today especially for it's Thirteenth-Century cathedral with the twin spires. Notice how dark the stone of the old cathedral looks, that is from prolonged exposure to coal smoke following the Industrial Revolution.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9414001,6.9562558,3a,75y,103.44h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sg37Onwy_tLdzPuLlXoU9FQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dg37Onwy_tLdzPuLlXoU9FQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D110.77551%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

We have seen, in previous visits to Vienna and Moscow, how city walls are sometimes later dismantled and a grand boulevard built over the former course of the wall. The following scenes begin on the Kaiser Wilhelm Ring in Cologne.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9429851,6.9404895,3a,75y,290.78h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1ss_SJOh8cIkJu7o3HVezIsg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Ds_SJOh8cIkJu7o3HVezIsg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D301.06354%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

Dortmund, to the east of the Rhine River, is not of Roman origin but from the early Middle Ages.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5170243,7.4597047,3a,75y,207.51h,100.76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP5TOzFG-QVAgthVlnUWUDhTk0PoE-LjOg_vgGR!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP5TOzFG-QVAgthVlnUWUDhTk0PoE-LjOg_vgGR%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya262-ro0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120

Bonn is another city from Roman times. It is remembered today as having been the capital city of West Germany until the capital was moved back to Berlin upon reunification. The vote, held in 1991, was only narrowly in favor of moving the capital back to Berlin. Bonn is not a really major city and it was supposedly chosen as the capital of West Germany for this reason. It was never really intended to be a permanent capital, only until the country could be reunified and the capital moved back to Berlin. If a larger city had been chosen as capital, such as Cologne or Frankfurt, it might have been tempting to make that the permanent capital. The following views of Bonn begin at the Munsterplatz in the center of the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.7344922,7.0989619,3a,75y,134.57h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOgy71LmowfZOkti3uWX1c05kSDvt4jJ_3kJE0b!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOgy71LmowfZOkti3uWX1c05kSDvt4jJ_3kJE0b%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya277.20572-ro0-fo100!7i7776!8i3888

There are suffixes that are common to the names of German towns and cities, -heim means "home", -stadt means "place", -berg means "hill" or "mountain", -burg means "castle", -bad means "bath" or "spa", -furt means "ford" which is a place where a river is shallow enough to be crossed, and -dorf means "valley". Here is the city of Dusseldorf, which means "The valley of the Dussel River".

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2151297,6.767335,3a,75y,119.01h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sQw5QNMr9xbIEVguMF1Lt9g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DQw5QNMr9xbIEVguMF1Lt9g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D131.51698%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

Essen is another city of the Ruhr which originated in the early Middle Ages and later for industry. It was the home of Krupp, the famous steel company.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4582257,7.0113248,3a,75y,146.53h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sqe6oMX-nWT1479K45ikDQA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dqe6oMX-nWT1479K45ikDQA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D157.61386%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Munster is one of the most charming old cities anywhere, and also the home of a very old cathedral. After the Reformation, there was even a plan to make Munster the "New Jerusalem". Munster is also an Irish name, Ireland is geographically divided into four quadrants and the southwest is called Munster. I cannot see that the two names are connected although very early Irish monks did evangelize in this area. The following scenes of the center of Munster begin at the Prinzipalmarkt.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.962932,7.6257268,3a,75y,105.49h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMAYtPEB9rNxqLWaiAxGYXq2MKOlclaZXKHQRCI!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMAYtPEB9rNxqLWaiAxGYXq2MKOlclaZXKHQRCI%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-3.1867924-ya105.56669-ro0.06674175-fo100!7i7200!8i3600

If you ever take an aspirin, remember the city of Wuppertal where it was invented.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.259172,7.1481139,3a,75y,214.77h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s0saHbnqG3055r_kw4XbUGQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D0saHbnqG3055r_kw4XbUGQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D203.48636%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Hanover is another medieval city with an impressive Rathaus, or town hall. This town hall is not from medieval times, but from the time of the Kaisers.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3710818,9.7366375,3a,75y,141.89h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sbMYR3TqlS41ia2bt1m3hkA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DbMYR3TqlS41ia2bt1m3hkA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D154.40884%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Discoveries About Christianity

How about something amazing today?

Let's first review the connection between the two destructions of the Israelites' temple in ancient times and the two major splits in the Christian Church in more modern times.

The original temple, at Shiloh, was destroyed by the Philistines in 1050 B.C. Shiloh was never rebuilt because it was replaced by Solomon's Temple, in Jerusalem. That temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, ruled by King Nebuchadnezzar II who then took the Jews into exile. The Babylonian siege of Jerusalem that resulted in the destruction of the Temple began in 587 B.C.

From 1050 B.C. to 587 B.C. is 463 years.

The Book of Daniel, Chapter 9, has the famous "weeks of years" prophecy. There are to be 70 weeks of years, 70 x 7 = 490. But one of those weeks is reserved for the seven years that the Antichrist will be allowed to reign. That leaves 483 years.

These 69 "weeks of years" refers to the time between the completed reestablishment of the Temple, the so-called Second Temple after return from the exile in Babylon that replaced Solomon's destroyed temple, to the death of the promised messiah. This was marked by Ezra being sent to Jerusalem to instruct in proper worship in the newly-completed temple. The biblical Book of Ezra describes this.

The date that Wikipedia gives for the sending of Ezra to Jerusalem is 457 B.C. Jesus was almost certainly crucified in 26 A.D., being born in 7 B.C. and believed to be 33 years old at crucifixion. This is amazing. From 457 B.C. to 26 A.D. is exactly 483 years.

Now, let's go to more recent times. There have been two major splits in the Christian Church. The first was the Great Schism of 1054 that resulted in the splitting of what is today the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Catholic Church. The second is the split of the Protestants from the Catholics, due to the Reformation that began in 1517.

Jesus is to return, to end the reign of the Antichrist and establish the Millennium, when the world will finally be the godly paradise that it was always intended to be. No one knows the exact day but a secular millennium began in 2000 which is during the general timeframe as we see in the posting on this blog, "The End Of The World As We Know It".

What I noticed one day is that from 1054 to 1517 is 463 years, and from 1517 to 2000 is 483 years.

No one had ever pointed that out. I refer to it as "The Ancient-Modern Parallel". It is described in section 25) of "The Aztec Prophecy", on this blog, and I thank God that I was the one that was allowed to notice this.

CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

With that review here is what I noticed to add onto it. I find this to be absolutely amazing.

Constantinople was founded in the year 330 by the Roman Emperor Constantine as the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. It would later be the place where the split, known as the Great Schism of 1054, would take place. This is when the eastern domain of the Catholic Church would split away to form the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is one of the most momentous events in western history. After that, in 1453, Constantinople would be conquered by the Ottomans and renamed as Istanbul.

From the founding in 330 to the split of 1054 is 724 years.

The Holy Roman Empire was founded by the pope in the year 800. Charlemagne was crowned as it's first emperor. The purpose of the Holy Roman Empire was to rein in the wayward eastern Christians, who were questioning the authority of the pope and would later split away to form the Eastern Orthodox Church. Despite the name the Holy Roman Empire was more centered on what is now Germany and would become more of a rival to the papacy than an ally. In 1517 the second great split in the Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation, began in the Holy Roman Empire over the urgent need for reform in the church.

From the founding in 800 to the split of 1517 is 717 years.

What do you notice here about the times between each founding and split? The two figures, 724 and 717 are close but there is a 7 year difference. Just like the "Weeks of Years" prophecy in the Bible described above, there are still seven to go for the Holy Roman Empire. We know that the Antichrist's base of operations will be a united Europe, which is a reviving of the Holy Roman Empire. These remaining seven years will be the seven years that the Antichrist is allowed to reign, as described in the Book of Revelation.

I find this to be absolutely amazing and again I thank God that I was allowed to be the one to point it out.

THE CRAB NEBULA AND THE GREAT SCHISM OF 1054

Another thing that I was amazed had never apparently been noticed is that the great explosion in the sky that formed what we now see as the Crab Nebula was taking place just as the conference in Constantinople was going on, in 1054, that would lead to the splitting away of the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Catholic Church. July 4, 1054.

The Crab Nebula today is considered as the classic example of a supernova. At the time, the explosion was so brilliant that it shone brightly even in the daytime. Could it have been a warning from God of the trouble that was coming because the east-west divide ever since, from the Eastern Front of the two world wars to the nuclear standoff during the Cold War, were secular manifestations of that split. This is described in section 1) of "The Aztec Prophecy".

But, as far as I could find online, it had never been pointed out that this great explosion in the sky was going on at the same time as the ill-fated conference in Constantinople and, once again, I thank God that I was the one to be allowed to point it out. it doesn't seem that Europeans paid much attention to the supernova, although it was recorded by Arab, Chinese and, Japanese observers.

THE MARK OF THE BEAST

I won't go into detail here but in the posting "The End Of The World As We Know It" I described why I think the fabled "Mark of the Beast", in the Book of Revelation" is actually phones.

It has become the stuff of folklore that people in the Last Days will have a "mark" put upon them without which they will not be able to buy or sell. I am sure that this refers to phones. Remember that St. John was an ancient man without the slightest concept of modern technology. God gave him a vision of the distant future and he described it as best he could.

WAS JESUS FORETOLD BY NAME ?

The prophet Zechariah, in the Old Testament of the Bible, has well-known references to the life of Jesus, more than five hundred years before his time.

References to a potter and price of thirty pieces of silver, which are also in the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, as well as the coming king entering Jerusalem "riding on a donkey", Zechariah 9:9, which was quoted in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 21, in the Gospel of Mark 11: 1-11 and the Gospel of John, Chapter 12.  Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem riding on a borrowed donkey.

Zechariah also has a vision about people "mourning for the one who they pierced". We know that as Jesus was being crucified, a Roman soldier thrust his spear into Jesus' side to be sure that he was dead.

But what about the visions of Zechariah in the first seven chapters of his book? In these seven chapters are nine separate visions. Two of the visions are about a high priest named Joshua, who was the first high priest following the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem following the return from exile in Babylon.

In one of the visions, in Chapter 3 of Zechariah, Joshua has his rags replaced with clean clothes. It states that Joshua will "take away sin in one day". Another vision, beginning in Chapter 6 Verse 3, is about Joshua being given a crown.

The thing that is so striking is that nowhere else do the prophets treat the religious establishment with such reverence. God himself is revered, but the religious establishment is usually portrayed as corrupt and hypocritical. The way that the high priest is revered here is very much an exception for all of the prophets.

But here is something that might explain it.

The Book of Zechariah was written well before the Hellenistic era. The name "Jesus" is actually the Greek form of the name "Joshua". Notice that, in the Old Testament, there are others named Joshua but no one named Jesus.

The Old Testament Book of Joshua, about the leader who succeeded Moses, was a different Joshua and his story took place centuries before this.

Other examples of Greek names introduced in the Hellenistic period, which began with the conquests of Alexander the Great and continued after his empire broke into pieces, with the Ptolemies ruling Egypt and the Seleucids ruling what is now Syria and Palestine, are the names of the three pyramids of Giza, within what is now Cairo.

The three pyramids of Giza were built by a succession of three Egyptian pharaohs, who were father, son and, grandson. The original Egyptian named of the pyramids were Khufu, Khafre and, Menkaure. The Ptolemies, of which the queens were named Cleopatra, took on the trappings of Egyptian pharaohs but continued to speak Greek. The pharaohs who had built the three pyramids more than two thousand years before took on the Greek names of Cheops, Chephren and, Mycerinus.

For that matter, Thebes as well as Egypt are actually Greek names.

Considering this, doesn't it seem that the two visions of Joshua by Zechariah are actually prophecies of Jesus by name? Even though it is true that the first high priest after the rebuilding of the Temple after return from exile in Babylon was also named Joshua?

Remember that Jesus paid the price for sin, "taking away sin in one day", as in the vision of Zechariah. If an ordinary high priest could "take away sin in one day" it wouldn't be necessary for the ritual sacrifices to keep going on.

Also Jesus comes twice, the first time as Savior to pay the price for sin and the second time as king to actually rule over the world, making it the paradise that God had always intended it to be. The first vision of Zechariah about Joshua was having his rags replaced by clean clothes, and "taking away sin in one day", this was about the Savior role. The second vision of Zechariah about Joshua was of him receiving a crown, this was about the king role.

Each of these two visions of Joshua in the Book of Zechariah also refers to a servant of God in the future, known as "The Branch". In the first vision regarding Joshua, it is "The Branch" who will "take away sin in one day". In the second vision, it is "The Branch" who will reign as a king blessed by God.

"The Branch" was a prophecy of Jesus. If God is represented as a tree then Jesus is a branch. 

THE BOULDER LANDING ON THE FEET OF THE STATUE

The second chapter of the Book of Daniel has the famous prophecy of the statue that, from top to bottom, represent the four successive dominant empires of the future. These are Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece and, Rome. By the time this prophecy was made, the time of Egypt and Assyria as the greatest powers had passed. But a great boulder, not the work of humans, will land on the feet of the statue and shatter it.

This represents the failure of the godless and idolatrous empires and nations, before God sends Jesus back to run the world directly. But why would God choose to illustrate it with imagery such as this, a boulder landing on the feet of a statue? Remember that the Book of Daniel is very old, from the Babylon-Persian era and well before it was known that there would be great European powers, Greece and Rome.

Since the order of empires moves from top to bottom on the statue, this means that the feet represent the Roman Empire, which was centered on the Italian Peninsula. In the following image from Google Earth notice that, on a map, the peninsula is in the form of a boot and Sicily is in the form of a boulder about to land on it.

ST. PETER'S SQUARE IS OF THE SAME SHAPE AND DIMENSIONS AS THE COLOSSEUM 

The rest of this posting is about how the Vatican has been set up in secret alignment with the Colosseum and Arch of Titus, on the other side of Rome. This has never been pointed out.

Have you ever wondered why St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, is actually shaped like an oval?

As it turns out there is a simple answer. I cannot find anything about this being documented but am not quite sure whether to believe that I am the only one today that knows this.

St. Peter's Square, inside the Colonnades, is exactly the same size and shape as the Colosseum, which is about 3.5 km away. This is St. Peter's Square. St. Peter's Basilica is to the left so that the two together have the shape of a key, with the oval form of the "square" being the handle of the key.

Image from Google Earth

Here is the Colosseum, shown from the same altitude. Although the directional alignment of the two is not the same, you can right click and select the "Measure Distance" feature to see that the dimensions of the Colosseum are exactly that of the internal diameter of the Colonnades that give St. Peter's Square it's oval form. Part of the structure of the Colosseum along it's long axis is missing but both measure about 190 meters, or 625 feet.

Image from Google Earth

The oval form of both is not an extreme ellipse, the ratio of the long axis to the short axis being about 1.2 or 6/5.

Clearly, St. Peter's Square was constructed to exactly match the Colosseum but this has never been made public.

THE CENTER OF ST. PETER'S SQUARE IS LOCATED EXACTLY ON THE LONG AXIS OF THE COLOSSEUM, AND ALSO THE LATERAN PALACE

There is more to the hidden relationship between St. Peter's Square and the Colosseum. By using the right click and "Measure Distance" option on Google Maps, it draws a straight line between the two points that are clicked on. If we choose the first point as the obelisk in the center of St. Peter's Square and the second point as the far side of the long axis of the Colosseum, the southeastern end, we find something else amazing that has never been made public.

The direction to St. Peter's Square from the Colosseum is exactly along the extension of the long axis of the oval form of the Colosseum.

So St. Peter's Square was not only constructed to match the dimensions of the Colosseum, it was also located to be aligned with the long axis of the Colosseum, although the directional alignment between the two is not the same.

Images from Google Earth

That is not all. The original center of the Catholic Church was not the Vatican, as it is today, but the Lateran Palace. The papacy moved, for some time, to Avignon in southern France. When it returned to Rome, the Lateran Palace had been damaged by fire and was relocated to the Vatican instead. The Lateran Palace is still officially the headquarters of the church.

As it turns out the Lateran Palace is located on the opposite side of the Colosseum, which is from ancient Rome and was built before either, from the Vatican. This means that the Lateran Palace was also located on the extension of the long axis of the Colosseum, but in the opposite direction to that of the Vatican with St. Peter's Square.

The Lateran Palace is a large complex, but that means that we can draw a straight line with the Google Maps "Measure Distance" feature from the obelisk in St. Peter's Square to a point in the Lateran Palace complex, and the line will go right along the long axis of the Colosseum.

But what could these alignments mean? It is reminiscent of the Historical Axis of Paris, but that is no secret. I have searched and searched and cannot find that this alignment in Rome has ever been made public. The Colosseum is the best-known structure from ancient Rome, is the symbol of the modern city of Rome as well as it's geographical center.

It seems clear that this alignment with the Colosseum is an effort by the church to link itself with the power of the Roman Empire, but not to be made public. It could be a symbolic sympathy for those Christians who were martyred by the Roman Empire but it is not clear how many were martyred at the Colosseum, as opposed to the nearby Circus Maximus.

THE CENTER OF THE DOME OF ST. PETER'S IS ON THE AXIS THROUGH THE ARCH OF TITUS

Putting down the Jewish uprising against Roman rule, which resulted in the destruction and looting of the Temple, had not been an easy battle for the Romans. When it was over, the Arch of Titus was built next to the Colosseum, to memorialize the victory. The engravings on the Arch illustrate the wealth being taken from the Temple which went to build the adjacent Colosseum.

Jews who visit Rome are not supposed to walk under the Arch of Titus.

The amazing thing is that there is not only the above described axis, through the long axis of the Colosseum, there is also another axis that runs close-by and parallel to it. The center of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica is located exactly on the axis that runs through the Arch of Titus.

Images from Google Earth