But “the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world.”—J. A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, b. 1, ch. 4. The Holy Scriptures were almost unknown, not only to the people, but to the priests. Like the Pharisees of old, the papal leaders hated the light which would reveal their sins. God’s law, the standard of righteousness, having been removed, they exercised power without limit, and practiced vice without restraint. Fraud, avarice, and profligacy prevailed. Men shrank from no crime by which they could gain wealth or position. The palaces of popes and prelates were scenes of the vilest debauchery. Some of the reigning pontiffs were guilty of crimes so revolting that secular rulers endeavored to depose these dignitaries of the church as monsters too vile to be tolerated. For centuries Europe had made no progress in learning, arts, or civilization. A moral and intellectual paralysis had fallen upon Christendom. GC 60.2
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Matthew:4:19
Joshua Zitser,Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Fri, May 19, 2023 at 10:11 PM GMT+3·4 min read
- Orcas keep attacking sailboats off the coasts of Spain and Morocco.
- Earlier this month two attacks were reported where one ended up sinking the boat.
- Scientists can’t explain the attacks but one leading theory points to a single, traumatized orca.
Orcas are targeting sailboats near the Iberian Peninsula, and nobody knows why.
Most of the attacks involve multiple orcas ramming the boat but it remains afloat. In several cases, however, the animals have managed to sink entire boats.
The third case of orcas sinking a boat happened earlier this month off the Iberian coast, LiveScience reported.
“The attacks were brutal”
Skipper Werner Schaufelberger was sailing at night off the coast of Spain when three orcas started to attack his boat.
“At first I thought we had hit something. But then I quickly realized that it was orcas attacking the ship,” Schaufelberger told the German publication Yacht.
“The attacks were brutal. There were two smaller and one larger orca. The two little ones shook the rudder while the big one kept running and then rammed the ship from the side with full force,” he added.
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The Spanish coast guard rescued Schaufelberger and the rest of the crew and towed the boat to port, where it sank right before reaching port.
It’s important to note that the vast majority of interactions with orcas don’t end with a sunk boat. These attacks near the Iberian Peninsula may be due to a single, traumatized orca that has taught this behavior to other, fellow orcas, LiveScience reporter.
“The orcas are doing this on purpose, of course, we don’t know the origin or the motivation, but defensive behavior based on trauma, as the origin of all this, gains more strength for us every day,” biologist Alfredo López Fernandez at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and representative of the Atlantic Orca Working Group, told LiveScience.
Other orca attacks
Schaufenlberger wasn’t the only victim this month. On May 2, Greg Blackburn thought his boat was hitting rough waves when the thumps began as he sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar near Tangier, Morocco, according to 9News.
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But as the jolts continued, and the rudder seemed to resist his steering, Blackburn looked down and saw two orcas repeatedly ramming his boat, and soon two more joined in.
“There’s not a lot you can do at that point,” Blackburn, a sailor from the UK, told 9News. “After reading reports and knowing what has been going on, just thought we were in for a ride now.”
Another pair of notable orca attacks occurred last July, when a pod of orcas struck a sailboat off the coast of Portugal and, just hours later, targeted another vessel in the same area, according to reports.
Orca attacks are becoming more common
Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. When he was suffered to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children, were swept away, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. It is God that shields His creatures and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world have shown contempt for the law of Jehovah; and the Lord will do just what He has declared that He would—He will withdraw His blessings from the earth and remove His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law and teaching and forcing others to do the same. Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them.
The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan by Ellen G White
While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. “The earth mourneth and fadeth away,” “the haughty people … do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:4, 5.
And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God’s commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against the servant of God will be repeated and upon grounds equally well established: “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.” 1 Kings 18:17, 18. As the wrath of the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God’s ambassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward Elijah. GC 589.2 – GC 590.1
A collaboration of researchers has recorded more than 200 reports of “interactions,” where orcas approach or touch a vessel, along Portugal and Spain’s Iberian Peninsula since 2020.
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Insider previously reported in 2020 about a series of aggressive actions by orcas along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. At the time, scientists had different theories: The killer whales could be acting out of curiosity, mischief, territoriality, or trauma.
López Fernandez suspects that one, traumatized female orca may be to blame. Her name is White Gladis and, according to LiveScience, she may have experienced a collision with a boat or entrapment during illegal fishing. The incident changed something in Gladis.
“That traumatized orca is the one that started this behavior of physical contact with the boat,” López Fernandez told LiveScience.
Whatever the reason for the growing number of attacks — whether it’s Gladis or something else — if you encounter an orca in the wild there are some guidelines for what to do:
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- Keep a low profile on deck. Don’t excite the orcas.
- Contact authorities on VHF 16, or by phone on 112
If the orcas ram your boat, secure yourself to something because the last thing you should ever do is enter the water when orcas are nearby.
Correction: May 9, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated the nature of the 200 orca incidents reported since 2020, as well as the origin of that statistic. Those reports were of interactions between orcas and boats, not necessarily attacks. And that number comes from a collaboration of scientists collecting reports, not from local media outlets.
This post has been updated with new information. It was originally published on August 13, 2022.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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