The Most Important Events in Human History

             The most important and pivotal events in the universally accepted human history, arranged chronologically. Each of these events still have repercussions in today’s modern world. Events related to Christianity are highlighted in bold text. Everything is connected. Read up on each of these events to see why they are of such importance to the modern world.

These are just a few of the major events. I’m sure you could probably add many more.

The use of the BC/BCE and AD/CE temporal designations are just to keep everybody happy.

ca 10,000 BC/BCE: The invention of agriculture. Obviously.

ca 3200 BC/BCE: The invention of writing. Obviously.

6^th or 5^th Century BC/BCE: The life of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. The exact dates

of his life are disputed.

ca 4 BC/BCE – 30 AD/CE: The life of Jesus of Nazareth.

ca 49 AD/CE: At the Council of Jerusalem, the leaders of the young Church decided to

accept Gentiles into the Church without requiring them to undergo circumcision.

70 AD/CE: The Roman military destroys the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

217 AD/CE: The Jian’an Plague kills about 2,000,000 people in China.

313 Ad/CE: The Edict of Milan in which Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity.

325 AD/CE: The Council of Nicea is held in what is now Iznik, Turkiye. The council

condemned Arianism and clarified the church’s christology.

476 AD/CE: The fall of the Western Empire.

541 – 549 AD/CE: The Plague of Justinian kills up to 100,000,000 people in Europe and

West Asia.

            Ca 570 – 632 AD/CE: The Prophet Muhammad and the birth of Islam.

735 – 737 AD/CE: A smallpox epidemic kills about 2,000,000 people in Japan.

800 AD/CE: Charlemagne is crowned as Emperor, uniting church and state.

1054 AD/CE: The Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox

Churches.

            1066 -1071 Ad/CE: The Norman Conquest of England. The strong central state

government which developed persists until this day. 

            1095 -1300 AD/CE: The Crusades. Cultural and religious resentments and hatreds caused 

by this series of wars persist until today.

1346 – 1353 AD/CE: The Black Plague (bubonic plague) kills about 25,000,000 to

30,000,000 in Eurasia and North Africa.

            1378 – 1417 AD/CE: During the Great Western Schism, the Roman Catholic Church split

into political factions over who legitimately held the office of the papacy, resulting in multiple

competing popes in Rome and Avignon, France.  

ca 1440 - 1456 AD/CE: Invention of the printing press. Printing of the Gutenberg Bible.

1492 AD/CE: Cristobal Colon (aka Christopher Columbus) discovers America.

1492 – 1614 AD/CE: The Reconquitsa, in which Muslim rulers were driven from Spain.

1517 AD/CE: The start of the Protestant Reformation.

1611 AD/CE: The production of the King James Version of the Bible.  This Bible, written in the English which was spoken at the time, made the Bible available to any English speaker who could read. 

ca 1760 – 1840 AD/CE: The industrial revolution.

1789 – 1799 AD/CE: The French Revolution.

1914 – 1918 AD/CE: World War I caused between 15,000,000 to 22,000,000 deaths.

1918 - 1920 AD/CE: The Spanish Flu pandemic kills between 17,000,000 to 50,000,000

people worldwide. Some extreme estimates say as many as 100,000,000.

1939 – 1945 AD/CE: World War II. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs caused up

to 246,000 deaths. About 6,000,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust. World War II caused

between 7,000,000 to 85,000,000 deaths.

            1960 to 1990 Ad/CE: The development of the internet.

2019 AD/CE: The COVID- 19 pandemic kill up to an estimated 36,000,000 people.

About Vaccines

             I have my opinions on vaccines and you have yours. It is not the intent of this blog to ever tell you what to think. This blog hopes to present you with raw verifiable facts which are consistent with objective reality. The intent is to help you to think for yourself, rationally and critically, and, hopefully, in the context of this blog, that you allow yourself to be led by the Holy Spirit.

Do not base your opinions solely on what I say. Do not base your opinions solely on what anyone else says. Do not base your opinions solely on what any religious tradition says. Listen to all of them, but use your own mind, and read your Bible. Be like the Bereans (Acts 17:11), even on totally secular matters. Like they used to say about the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “It’s all connected.”

The discussion about vaccines in the United States has devolved into people taking sides based on their political leanings and has come to involve multiple issues: progressivism, conservatism, autism, Christian nationalism, distrust of government, distrust of the giant pharmaceutical companies, distrust of science in general, rejection of organized religion, some elements of bigotry, possible adverse side effects of vaccines, issues of vaccine effectiveness, the ethics of mandates, libertarianism, epidemiological community health concerns, availability of health resources, possible vaccine effects on autoimmune diseases, religious and/or ethical objections, exactly who will benefit most from a vaccine and whom they might harm, preventing pandemics, possible medically adverse ingredients in vaccines, ethical concerns over some methods of vaccine preparation, the concern of some that over-exposure to vaccines early in life might overwhelm the immune system, natural immunity vs vaccine immunity, live vs dead viral components in vaccines, issues of informed consent, racial differences in disease susceptibility. Did I leave any out?

Vaccines are biological preparations designed to stimulate the recipient’s immune system causing it to produce proteins called antibodies against a particular microorganism. The antibodies are, in effect, weapons produced by the body to protect itself against invaders.

Some vaccines are built from proteins or other parts of the organism being targeted. Other vaccines use the entire organism in either a dead or greatly weakened form. All are intended to cause the body to violently say “This is not me!” and to learn how to attack this particular “Not Me.”

The idea is that, if an exposure to this particular “Not Me” later occurs, the body will remember the prior attack and will jump into action to produce massive quantities of the weapons it needs.

This blog post is about the Coronavirus vaccine for COVID-19. New vaccines are needed each year because coronaviruses are RNA (ribonucleic acid) viruses and mutate more quickly than DNA (deoxy-ribonucleic acid) viruses. Most of the mutations carry no consequences for the human host but a few give the virus significant advantages in ease of transmission or in severity of the disease. This occurs as errors in copying the virus’ genetic information cause changes in the organism’s surface proteins. These changes result in the surface proteins being different enough from prior versions that the body’s immune system thinks that they are a “Not Me” that it has not seen before.

Because of this, the immune system essentially has to start over and, so, cannot make a quick kill. This means that there is no pre-existing immunity to the new variant even though it is still the same virus.

Vaccines have to be developed each year because of that year’s new variants, which usually arise in Asia or India and then spread worldwide. The vaccines which are developed are actually guesses or assumptions that the virus variants which arrive in the West will still be the same ones for which the vaccine was developed. This can account for why some of the vaccines are more effective than others. 

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            An aside: This process of the body's immune system attacking "Not Me" is what is involved in tissue rejection after organ transplants and also comes into play during pregnancy because the mother is "Me" and the child is "Not Me."

Off Topic, But Important

This post is off topic for this blog, but it is about some things which everyone should realize if they are serious about staying healthy during this COVID - 19 (actually SARS-2 (COV)) pandemic.

Most people in the United States are now wearing face masks. What I have noticed is that many are covering their mouths with the masks but leaving their noses uncovered. I suppose that they find the masks to be hot and confining, but if the nose is not covered the mask is totally worthless. The mucous membranes in the nostrils are prime virus territory.

I have also noticed that people who are wearing latex gloves will whip out their cell phones and text as soon as they have a free moment. There is a reason that they are wearing the gloves; to keep viral contamination off their skin. If the cell phone is touched with the possibly dirty gloves, then whatever was on the gloves is also on the cell phone.

The viral precautions appropriate for the COVID - 19 virus may also reduce the chance of you catching the flu, infectious mononucleosis, strep throat, stomach viruses, and many other nasty things.

Coronavirus COVID-19: Edited 22 March 2020

This post may seem to be off subject but it is not. If Jesus is Lord of everything then He is the Lord of public health and our personal health. The current world-wide spread of the COViD-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) virus in its original form and in a possible second mutated form are surely cause for vigilance and concern but not for panic and misinformation. Updates are in BOLD type.

The CoVid-19 virus is essentially an influenza virus so the following comments make good sense regardless of whether the disease to be avoided is SARS, MERS, CoViD-19, "the flu", or the common cold.

1.  The "corona" in the name is Latin meaning "crown" or "halo" and is descriptive. Under two dimesional electron microscopy, the viral particles appear to be covered with club-shaped spikes.

2.  The current virus is not "Coronavirus." It is one of a group of viruses known as coronaviruses. Corona in Latin means "crown." The group includes the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus (MERS-CoV) and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus (SARS-Cov). The viruses in this group are RNA (ribonucleic acid) viruses with a viral envelope as their outer layer. Many of these viruses produce flu-like symptoms and in severe cases do have the capacity to be fatal.

3.  The presence of a second mutated form of the virus is to be expected. Viruses commonly mutate into new varieties.

4.  The United States Centers for Disease Control says that there is no need for healthy individuals to wear face masks.

5.  Cover your face, mouth, and nose if you sneeze. The primary infection route is on respiratory moisture droplets from sneezes or coughs. The second most likely infection route is fingers: touching a contaminated surface and then touching your own mouth, nose, or eyes.

6.   If possible, stay about six to 10 feet away from people with obvious flu-like symptoms (fever, cough, and shortness of breath). It is silly and racist to avoid any particular ethnic group. Viruses do not care about your ethnic background.

6.  Wash your hands frequently with soap and water and use any hand sanitizers which are provided by stores, churches, physicians, etc. Grocery stores often provide sanitizing wipes for use on grocery cart handles; always use them because the grocery cart handles are touched by hundreds of people a day. All of the items listed here are touched by many random people each day: door knobs and handles, elevator buttons, public telephones, shared computer keyboards, coins and paper money, and any number of other public things. You probably use your cell phone all day long; anything you have touched with with your bare hands will be on your phone. Don't forget about your automobile;s steering wheel, radio buttons, light switches, and door handles. Wash, wash, wash; wipe, wipe, wipe. The main route of transmission of viruses such as CoVid-19 is your hands. Keep your fingers away from your mouth, your nose, and your eyes. Do not chew on rubber pencil erasers!

7.   Most healthy individuals are at slightly less risk. Those with the greatest risk are probably the elderly, those with compromised immune systems, and those with other serious preexisting conditions. The main causes of death from the virus are secondary pneumonia and multiple organ failure.

8.    A vaccine for the virus will eventually be available but the process for developing the vaccine is not magic. It will take time.

9.   Follow the instructions of your local health authorities. Cooperate with what they instruct you to do. It is their job to protect you as much as possible. Do not assume that you are immune to any disease. It is not disloyal to the Lord to temporarily avoid large gatherings of people like church services.  We are instructed in scripture to be good citizens and to cooperate with our rulers in any matters which do not interfere with with our Christian faith, always putting our obedience to the Lord first.

10. Think of the "social distancing" which is being implemented as you would about the crews who fight forest fires. To fight the enormous fires, the firefighters take bulldozers and cut wide trenches into the dirt, clearing away trees, brush, and debris, When the fire reaches the trench there is nothing there for it to burn. The idea for us is we cannot infect one another if we are separated.