You know about the total eclipse that’s coming up in a few months. We’ve written about it before — see Solar Eclipses Prove Intelligent Design. Yes, the creationists at the Discovery Institute think the eclipse is evidence that their intelligent designer — blessed be he! — arranged things so that “the most habitable place in the Solar System yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them.” Savvy Sarah said:
Mark your calendar for the 2017 eclipse; I’m certainly planning to go. But humans won’t be observing it due to chance or determinism. Rather, a designing intelligence evidently had in mind to make a habitable planet hospitable to scientific discovery — and total solar eclipses seem like a very elegant part of this cosmic and terrestrial symphony.
But it’s not just the Discoveroids. Other creationists are also going bonkers over the coming eclipse. Look what we found at WorldNetDaily (WND): Solar eclipse across U.S. called ‘a sign from God’. The article is tagged: “WND EXCLUSIVE.” You can’t find this anywhere else! Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:
A total solar eclipse will cross the continental United States this summer, an event that hasn’t happened in roughly a century. Everyone will experience on Aug. 21 at least 60 percent of the sun being covered, and the resulting semidarkness. Those within about a 60-mile wide diagonal line from the Pacific Northwest through South Carolina will see the sky go dark and the accompanying temperature drop.
We know all that. Let’s get to the craziness. Here it comes:
Pastor Mark Biltz, the man who discovered the “Blood Moons” phenomenon and a Christian who urges careful attention to heavenly signs, suggests it may be something that needs more attention. Such as a direct warning to the United States.
Mark Biltz? Oh yeah, we remember that guy. WND was promoting his predictions about a lunar eclipse — see The End of the World Is Upon Us. But somehow we all survived. What does he say about the coming solar eclipse? WND reports:
“From a biblical point of view, a solar eclipse is meant as a sign from God,” Biltz told WND. “In Genesis 1:14, God declared this to be so. It is a sign that is beyond man’s control, something he can’t manipulate. Solar eclipses become biblically and prophetically significant and relevant when man understands their timing according to the biblical calendar and where they happen. Then we look for the patterns.”
Patterns? Hang on, dear reader. All will be explained.
Biltz said: “Just look at the biblical pattern. Many know the story of Jonah and Nineveh from the Bible, but not the historical background events as to what had already transpired, and why they repented. In 765 B.C., a plague broke out in Nineveh where even the king was not able to go out to war, as was custom. This was followed by a civil war and then another plague!
Plague! Civil war! Another plague! Aaaargh!! WND tells us:
Biltz argued signs of this kind also occurred during the modern era just before cataclysmic events.
[WND quotes the rev:] “Now fast-forward to another solar eclipse on August 21, but this time in 1914,” he said. “This is the first day of the month of Elul, which begins the month of repentance in ‘God’s Day Timer.’ The first of Elul is when Jonah began prophesying for 40 days. Just before the eclipse, we see on June 28th, 1914, through the month of August, the events of World War 1 begin! The path of totality of the eclipse was over Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire or Middle East, including Nineveh again. This was foretelling the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.”
Frightening indeed! WND continues:
Biltz suggests such cataclysms may be in store for the United States, especially given the timing of this event. “Now, this Aug 21, 2017, we have a total solar eclipse going over the United States,” he noted. “This is again at the beginning the month of repentance on the first of Elul! Could God be giving us a warning that we need to repent or judgment will be coming to the United States? The timing couldn’t be clearer!”
Egad — he’s right! WND has much more vital information — but we’re trembling too much to go on, so we’ll leave it to you to click over to WND and read it all. Therefore, we bid you farewell, and as we always do with these doomsday posts, we close with this:
Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Is this the Mark IV Blitz or the Mark V Blitz? All the fast forwarding is a tad confusing.
God is sooooooooooo predictable.
Somehow one supposed link between an eclipse and a war is not very impressive.
Anyone remember the Antarctic War of 2003?
A perfectly designed eclipse, some of the time. They gloss over the partial eclipses and annular eclipses. The moon likewise doesn’t experience a total lunar eclipse either. Sometimes the grand designer missed the mark, and those instances there weren’t plagues, wars, etc. that impacted the human race.
Oh, I plan on going to the eclipse, but I’ll have to take my eclipse survival kit just to make sure I survive, maybe a soda and a candy bar. I dearly hope I don’t encounter Savvy Sarah. That would surely ruin my day.
“Just before the eclipse, we see on June 28th, 1914, through the month of August, the events of World War 1 begin!”
Aha! The crisis of July 1914 predicted the eclipse of the next month!
“Biltz suggests such cataclysms may be in store for the United States.”
Give it to him – the Donald does the best he can to make this happen. As Biltz probably has voted him into the White House the circle is full once again.
Well, considering who’s at the helm of this great nation of ours, I’d say the odds of catastrophe are significantly higher than if the eclipse were to have occurred this time last year; but even then, Biltz’s predictions are as likely to be correct as those of that nutcase in Oakland (died last year – forget his name) who predicted the end of the world five different times.
Rev. Biltz asks,
“Could God be giving us a warning that we need to repent or judgment will be coming to the United States?”
So, what is that we are to repent? Electing Trump? Well, that should be easy, seeing as how only a minority of U.S. citizens were involved.
God should repent on creating so many nutters.
I think I read somewhere that solar eclipses are easy to predict based on orbits, gravity, momentum and things like that. I doubt the good rev could find many astronomers who base eclipse timing on the holey babble.
Doesn’t the good rev believe what all of our money and many of our license plates keep telling us? Has he lost all faith?? Doesn’t he think that his God will take care of us?? “In God we trust.” (Like Yoda we speak.)
Yes, the very same stunt that the Sumerian astronomers were pulling, three thousand years BCE. “Ooga booga! Sun god tells us that demon of darkness approaches! Must give plenty sheep and goats for sacrifice to priests to give sun god strength for mighty struggle. Virgins, too. Booga-ooga!”
Thing is, they could predict it, and they knew it wasn’t by divine revelation – it was by observing the relative positions of the sun and moon. But they kept the knowledge secret for millennia, because sheep, both kinds.
“But they kept the knowledge secret for millennia, because sheep, both kinds.”
This is just about as concise and accurate a description of religion as I’ve ever read. My hat’s off to you, Dave Luckett!
Indeed–but I think the more accurate incantation is Bunga Bunga!, which I have only just learned originated, not in Italy, but Down Under 🙂
The good lord will be giving us another warning, and threatening us with cataclysm, on March 30th, 2052. Just giving everybody a heads up.
The next transit of Mercury or Venus will also give us some indication of how the Big Guy is feeling, too. My theory is that the amount of sunlight blocked is positively correlated with God’s anger with the gays and other liberal stuff.
The great thing for charlatans is that celestial omens work in both directions. They can not only assign meaning to an eclipse (or comet, or nova) that has already happened, but they can assign meaning to future omens — even if they can’t accurately predict them. For example, if you don’t obey your Curmudgeon, there will soon be an unmistakable sign in the heavens.
What a bozo. Eclipses are predictable well in advance, and their cause is well understood and perfectly natural; to take them as “warnings from God” is to retreat to the Middle Ages if not earlier. But then, this numbskull is a creationist, which tells us al we need to know.
Genesis 1:14,
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
No mention of either Solar or Lunar eclipse there.
“…about a lunar eclipse — see The End of the World Is Upon Us. But somehow we all survived….” Well actually not ALL survived! As many people died on that day. And which shows that the prediction was true, just is it will be true for this as well….I am awesome!!! ;-}
I wonder how many total eclipses have taken place over uninhabited areas. Surely those were divine signals to penguins, polar bears and sardines? And krill of course, megatons of krill who now have a godly purpose in life.
This is precisely at the level of tide comes in, tide goes out, can’t explain that.
The United States perhaps should be downgraded to Third World Status; I can’t find any meaningful distinction between this WND piece and stuff like this: Is Nigeria being punished by God?
The most elegant part of the eclipse system design for awing your mortals is the 5° tilt of the Moon’s orbit with respect to the Earth. This makes eclipses seem rare, because they only occur at the nodes of the Moon’s orbit. The only time we see eclipses is during and eclipse season, which lasts for around 34 days every 172.5 days. If a blood moon or black sun occurred during every full or new moon, it wouldn’t have the prophetic implications any more than the routine Moon phases.
mnbo beat to the Trump post. Maybe I need to go to WND and post that there. Except I always feel the need to sanitize my keyboard, mouse and hands when I go to that site.