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Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts

Thursday, October 22, 2026

Draper and White Created a False Conflict


Dr. Alice C. Linsley


There is a common notion that religion/faith and science/reason are permanent adversaries. The idea of a constant conflict between them was advanced in the 19th century by John William Draper in his 1874 History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, and by Andrew Dickson White in his 1896 A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom.

Both authors presented a simplistic picture of conflict between science and the Church. They were not intellectually honest in their assessment of Christianity, took quotes out of contexts, and ignored key historical facts such as the contributions of Christians in all scientific fields. Draper and White failed to recognize the sophisticated reasoning and scientific contributions of the biblical Hebrew, a ruler-priest caste, that pioneered the sciences as early as 6000 years ago.  

The practical wisdom of the early Hebrew (4200-2000 B.C.) extended to architecture, astronomy, animal husbandry, commerce, geometry, medicine, water management, and navigation. 

Astronomy

The ancients were motivated to understand celestial patterns because they believed that the order in creation was fixed by the Creator, and they were concerned about trespassing boundaries or violating the order in creation.

The Nilotic Hebrew priests were among the earliest observers to record celestial movements and astronomical events. By 4245 B.C. the priests of the Upper Nile had established a calendar based on the appearance of the star Sirius, known to the ancient Egyptians as the Sothic cycle, a span of 1,461 sidereal years (365.25 x 4) in which the heliacal rising once again “syncs up” with the solar calendar. In 3000 B.C. the heliacal rising of Sirius and the flooding of the Nile occurred around June 25th, near the summer solstice. This also marked the Egyptian New Year. The Sothic cycle from one average first sighting of Sirius to another is 365.25 days, and only 9 minutes and 8 seconds short of a sidereal year.

The Nilotic priests had been tracking the movement of Sirius and connecting it to seasonal changes and agriculture for thousands of years. The priest Manetho reported in his history (241 B.C.) that Nilotic Africans had been “stargazing” as early as 40,000 years ago. Plato claimed that the Africans had been tracking the heavens for 10,000 years. Plato defined the "perfect year" as the return of the celestial bodies (planets) and the diurnal rotation of the fixed stars to their original positions.

The ancient Nilotic astronomers observed that 36 groups of stars (small constellations) rise in a consecutive order on the eastern horizon every 24 hours. Each decan rises for 10 days. This gave them the formula of 36 X 10 = 360 days, with the calendar broken into 12 months of 30 days each.


Medicine

The earliest medical texts are found among the ancient Nilotes. These include the Ebers Papyrus, the Hearst Medical Papyrus, and the Edwin Smith papyrus, the world's oldest known surgical document (c. 1600 BC). These texts, most of them based on older texts, are comparatively free of the magician’s approach to treating illness. Priests were the first to practice medicine at "Houses of Life" or the temples along the Nile.

Only members of the elite strata of society learned and practiced medicine. One of the earliest known medical practitioners was Eanach (Enoch). He served the Pharaoh as his priest-physician, a wab sxmt (wab sekhmet). Eanach lived around 3000 B.C. and is said to have "healed the pharaoh's nostrils." Likely, this means that he performed a healing ritual that involved placing the cross-like Ankh against the Pharaoh's nose and offering prayers for his healing.

The wab sekhmet appears to be a distinct role from the non-priest healer called a wabau. It may be that the wabau was a shaman. The priest and the shaman represent different approaches to healing. The priest is forbidden to consult spirits in a drug-induced state. The shaman believes that disease and illness happens when the spirits have been offended, causing disharmony. Shamans typically enter a trance state to discover the cause of the disease and attempt to learn how to appease the spirits.

It is also possible that the wabau was a priest of lesser rank who served the common people, rather than the nobility. More research is required to gain a better understanding of the different types of healers, but it is evident that the early Nilotic physicians specialized in one part of the body: head, stomach, heart, etc. This was reported by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus who wrote, "The study of medicine with them was divided between specialists; each physician attending to one kind of illness only. Every place possessed several doctors; some for diseases of the eyes, others for the head, or the teeth, or the stomach, or for internal diseases." (Diodorus Siculus, i. 91)

The Mesopotamian physicians learned their skills from the priest caste that moved into the Tigris-Euphrates from ancient Kush (Gen. 10). The Akkadian word for a physician priest is azu. Sargon was born in Azu-pir-Anu, a house of divine healing/temple of Anu, the High God. The physician priest sat beside the sick person. This suggests that the Akkadian word wasabu is related to the Egyptian word wabau, a healer-priest.


Animal Husbandry

15,000 years ago, cattle were domesticated in what is today Kenya. The common term for cattle or cow in the many African languages is nag (Wolog, Fulani), nagge (Hausa), ning (Angas, Ankwe) and ninge (Susu). This corresponds to the Egyptian word ng (nag).


Red and black Nubian cattle herders


Cattle bones were found in elite graves at Hierakonpolis (Nekhen), the oldest known site of Hebrew worship (4000 B.C.). Cow skulls were used to mark the pan graves of the people buried in the Green Sahara. The oldest evidence of domestication of wild pigs is found at Nekhen, Maadi, Abydos, and Armant, near graves belonging to the poorer classes, indicating that the diet of the lower classes included pork. Cows were also transported on boats constructed of bundles of reeds.





Boats and cows of the ancient Proto-Saharans.




Monday, October 27, 2025

The Pillars of God

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The priests of the Ancient Nile Valley (ANV) were astronomers and architects. They recorded information about the fixed stars and clock-like motion of the planets for thousands of years.

 By 4245 BC, the priests of the Upper Nile had a calendar based on the appearance of the binary star system Sirius that becomes visible to the naked eye once every 1,461 years. Apparently, Nilotes had been tracking this star and connecting it to seasonal changes for thousands of years. 

The Priest Manetho reported in his history (241 BC) that Nilotes had been stargazing as early as 40,000 years ago. Plato, who studied for 13 years in Egypt, claimed that the Africans had been tracking the heavens for 10,000 years.

The early Nilotic priests assisted in the planning of royal tombs, pyramids, and temples. Most were oriented to the East with the entrances facing the rising sun because the sun was the symbol of the High God. Many of the temples were in cities or royal settlements that were dedicated to the Sun. One example is Heliopolis, meaning "Sun City". In the Bible Heliopolis is called On.

Heliopolis is mentioned in Isaiah 19:18 as one of five Egyptian cities that swore allegiance to the Lord of Hosts. The pyramids of Giza, Abusir and Saqqara were aligned to the main obelisk or central pillar of Heliopolis, testifying to the prominence of that Sun city.




Heliopolis was called Iunu, meaning place of pillars. The main temple or Great House had many pillars. The Hebrew also conceived of earth as resting on pillars. According to Genesis 1 God separated the dry land from the sea as one of the early acts of creation. Imagine a great sea with steam rising from deep underwater fissures in the earth. Now imagine volcanoes rising up from the sea. These are the "pillars of the earth" described in Psalm 72, Job 9:6, and I Samuel 2:8.

Job 9 speaks of God "who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble." I Samuel 2:8 - "For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s and he had set the world upon them." Among Abraham's Nilotic ancestors the original volcanic mound that emerged from the sea was called TaTJaNuN which means the "twin pillars of God in the water."

Pillars were used to mark sacred places, royal tombs, and the entrances to temples. In the Ugaritic creation story the twin mountains likewise are indicated by the sign T. The mountains Trgzz and Trmg emerged from a universal ocean and held up the firmament. The temples that the early Hebrew knew were pillared like this Hypostyle Hall at Karnak.





Karnak's main temple was dedicated to Amun-Ra, the high God. Ra or Re in ancient Egyptian means "father". Re was believed to have a son HR (Horus in Greek). HR in ancient Egyptian means "Most High One".

Originally, the Karnak temple complex was probably located on an island, Karnak's original geological configuration would have produced the illusion of rising from the inundation, recalling the early Nilotic creation story of pillars rising from the primal sea. The Nilotic peoples believed that the Nile was where the work of creation began when the Creator caused a mound to emerge from a primal sea. The first life form was a lily, growing on the peak of the emerging dry land called Tatjenen or TaTJaNun.

Nekhen is the oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship. The oldest known temple at Nekhen was the Temple of Horus, a complex dating to around 3350-3200 BC. It featured a large oval courtyard, a central pole topped with Horus's falcon totem, and a shrine with large timber pillars. The Greeks called Nekhen Hierakonpolis, meaning "priest city." Nekhen was the religious and political capital of the Upper Nile before Egypt existed as a political entity.

It was common for pillars to be inscribed in memory of holy ancestors, as stained-glass windows in churches are dedicated to "pillars" of the congregation. The entrance pillars of Solomon's temple were named for Boaz, Solomon's holy ancestor on his father's side, and Joktan, a holy ancestor on his mother's side.

Friday, December 28, 2018

Horite Hebrew Expectation and the Star of Bethlehem


Alice C. Linsley

Sidereal astronomy is real science based on observation of the arrangement and movement of the fixed stars and planets. This science originated among Abraham's Nilotic ancestors who had recorded information about the fixed stars and clock-like motion of the planets for thousands of years.

By 4245 BC, the priests of the Upper Nile had established a calendar based on the appearance of the star Sirius. Apparently, Nilotes had been tracking this star for thousands of years and connecting it to seasonal changes affecting the Nile Valley. In 241 BC, the priest Manetho reported that Nilotes had been “star-gazing” as early as 40,000 years ago. Plato claimed that the Africans had been tracking the heavens for 10,000 years.

Plato studied with an Egyptian priest for 13 years and knew about Earth's Great Year, also called the "Platonic Year." This is the time of between 25,000 and 28,000 years that it takes for Earth to complete the cycle of axial precession. This precession was known to Plato who defined the "perfect year" as the return of the celestial bodies (planets) and the diurnal rotation of the fixed stars to their original positions.

The ancients were motivated to understand the celestial pattern because they believed that the order in creation was fixed by the Creator and they were concerned about trespassing boundaries or violating the order in creation. They believed "As in the heavens, so on earth."

For the ancient Nilo-Saharans and Egyptians the stars in the constellation of Leo were especially important because the Nile rose when the Sun passed through the constellation of Leo. Therefore, they associated the arousal of the Lion with the arousal of the waters. The lion was the totem of the tribe of Judah. In Genesis 1, we read that the Spirit of God hovered over the watery deep at the beginning. In John's Gospel we are reminded that the Son was with the Father and the Spirit before the world was made and that all things were made through Him.

The Magi were sidereal astronomers who lived east of Israel, likely in Babylon or Persia. They were heirs of the same astronomical knowledge as the ancient Egyptians, and like Daniel they were of Judah (Jews). They recognized the sign of a triple coronation of two royal celestial bodies in the constellation of the Lion, the totem of Judah. They knew it was connected to the ancient Horite Hebrew expectation concerning the Woman of their people who would bring forth the Seed, the Son of God (Gen. 3:15). Further, they believed Messiah would be born of the royal house of David.

When the Magi appeared before Herod they were told that the King of the Jews was to be born in David's city, the Horite Hebrew settlement of Bethlehem. Abraham and David were of the Horite Hebrew ruler-priest lines. Joseph and Mary, both descendants of Abraham and David, went there to register for the census.

The Magi were aware of God's promise concerning the Righteous Ruler whose kingdom would endure through all the ages because reference to the Messianic promise of Psalm 145:13 is found repeatedly in Daniel. It punctuates the rise and fall of kingdoms and proclaims the coming of an eternal kingdom. As astronomers, the Magi recognized the singular event of Jupiter's triple spiral that brought it in close proximity to Regulus in the constellation Leo, the Lion. The Babylonians called Regulus Sharu, which means king. The word is related to the Persian word Shir, meaning lion.

In his translation of the eighth-century AD Syriac manuscript "The Revelation of the Magi," Brent Landau describes the Magi as those who “pray in silence,” and he proposes that they were a small group of monk-like mystics from a mythical land called Shir. However, there is no such place. Shir refers to the lion, the totem for the Horite Hebrew clans that resided in Judah. The Magi are the descendants of those who were deported. They held the received tradition concerning the coming of Messiah. This explains their recognition of the Messianic symbolism of the alignment of the King Planet and the King Star.

Using Starry Night, a software program that tracks celestial events at any time in history, Rick Larson discovered that sidereal astronomy suggests clues about biblical events. He discovered that the king planet Jupiter met the king star Regulus at the beginning of the Jewish New Year in 3 BC. The conjunction of the Jupiter and Regulus produced the appearance of an extraordinarily bright star. Larson believes this is when Gabriel announced to Mary that she was chosen to bear the Son of God.
(Rick Larson's Star of Bethlehem)

When Mary asked how this could be, the Angel explained that she would be "overshadowed." This divine overshadowing is what the Horite Hebrew expected. In ancient iconography the mother of Horus is shown overshadowed by the sun, the emblem of the Creator. In Christian iconography, the sun is usually replaced by the image of a dove hovering over Mary.

The Horite Hebrew commemorated the death and resurrection of Horus in a 5-day festival. Horus (HR) in ancient Egyptian means "Most High One." As Plutarch noted in Isis and Osiris, 69, the first three days were marked by solemnity and mourning for the death of Horus. His death was commemorated by the planting of seeds of grain. On the third day, the 19th of Athyr, there was a joyful celebration of Horus’ rising to life.

The Horite Hebrew expectation that the Righteous Son would not remain in the grave is expressed in Psalm 16:10: "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." Jesus said, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day..." (Luke 24:46)

Where is it written? Scholars cannot find this in the canon. However, a reference to the third day resurrection is found in the Pyramid Texts: "Oh Horus, this hour of the morning, of this third day is come, when thou surely passeth on to heaven, together with the stars, the imperishable stars." (Utterance 667) Jesus' third-day resurrection fulfilled that Horite Hebrew expectation in every detail.

Skeptics claim that Christianity is based on the ancient myth of Horus. Christians have done a poor job of responding to this assertion. It takes more faith to believe that Christianity is the Horus myth reworked than to accept the substantial evidence that that Abraham and his ancestors were Horite Hebrew who believed in God Father and God Son. They were people of faith who believed the promise that a woman of their ruler-priest lines would bring forth the Son of God, the Messiah. They believed that he would be born in Bethlehem of Judah and that God would make known his wonderful appearing.


Related reading: The Ra-Horus-Hathor Narrative;  Ancient Wisdom, Science and Technology; Who Were the Wise Men?; Mary's Ruler-Priest Lineage; The Substance of Abraham's Faith; Using Totems to Trace Ancestry

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Pondering Divine Epiphanies


O GOD, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles; Mercifully grant that we, who know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


A blessed Epiphany to the readers of JUST GENESIS.

By 4245 BC, the priests of the Upper Nile had already established a calendar based on the appearance of the star Sirius, known to the ancient Egyptians as the Sothic cycle, which is a span of 1,461 sidereal years (365.25 x 4) in which the heliacal rising once again “syncs up” with the solar calendar. In 3000 BC, the heliacal rising of Sirius and the flooding of the Nile occurred around June 25th, near the summer solstice. This also marked the Egyptian New Year.

Clearly, Nilotes had been tracking this star (and its binary twin) and connecting it to seasonal changes and agriculture for thousands of years. This is verified by the Priest Manetho who reported in his history (241 BC) that Nilotic Africans had been “star-gazing” as early as 40,000 years ago. Plato, who studied in Egypt, claimed that the Africans had been tracking the heavens for 10,000 years.



How the heavens influence patterns on Earth:

Wisdom Seeks to Understand
The Dung Beetle and Heavenly Lights
Jesus: From Lamb to Ram
Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel
Christ's Sign in Creation
Religion of the Archaic Rulers
The Sun and the Sacred
The Sun and Moon in Genesis
A Tent for the Sun
Iron Seeds from Heaven
Celestial Symbols that Speak of God
The Swelling of Sun and River Speak of God
Horite Expectation and the Star of Bethlehem
The Celestial Dance Observed by the Magi
A Blessed Epiphany
Ancient African Astronomers
Seven Planets, Seven Bowls


Thursday, January 17, 2013

Is Hebrew an African Language?


Alice C. Linsley

I believe the evidence supports the view that many of the languages in the Afro-Asiatic family have words that can be traced back to biliteral roots found in Africa. Some of the figures or marks found in later scripts are found on Proto-Saharan pottery and on petroglyphs in Sudan and Somalia.

Before the Old Testament books - originally all separate clay tablets or scrolls - there were Paleo-Hebrew writings found in the region of Judah and Edom. Mostly these were commercial records, trade agreements, and political records. They were sealed with Paleo-Hebrew bullae/seals, many of which used the Holy Name or variants of the Holy Name like Yah or Yahu. This name was known in ancient Nubia.

The Hebrew Bible has many non-Hebrew words that are derived from proto-languages of peoples who migrated out of the Nile Valley and the Sahara. Hebrew relies on Proto-Canaanite and ancient Egyptian and Proto-Saharan words. The ancient Egyptian signs (hieroglyphs) provide valuable clues to understanding many of the non-Hebrew words that appear in the Old Testament that have a Nilo-Saharan origin. Egyptian hieroglyphs were widely used among the early Semites because Egypt had become very powerful and exercised great influence in Canaan as evidenced by the Egyptian shrines on the ancient Horus road.

Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions have been found in the region of ancient Nubia that date to 1900 BC. Descendants of Proto-Canaanite writing systems include Ugaritic, Phoenician, South Arabian and North Arabian scripts.

Another writing system that is important for understanding non-Hebrew words in the Old Testament is Sumerian. Some Sumerian words like: sahar (sand, dust, black, ashes); eden (steppe land, watered plain), and harran (route, roadway) appear in the oldest material in the Old Testament. Sahar שחר is the Hebrew word for black.

Sumerian marks resemble those of the Nilotic cattle-herding peoples. Here we will find some very ancient marks: V, T, X and the solar symbols O and Y. Many of these appear in the old Oasis North Arabian scripts like Thamudic, Dumaitic, and Taymanitic. The urheimat of the Canaanite Y is the Proto-Saharan cattle herding and boating populations. They are among Abraham's ancestors.

The Akkadian language of Nimrod's empire in the Tigris-Euphrates region, is also important when it comes to understanding material in the Old Testament. Nimrod was the sent-away son of Kush. He represents the Kushite dispersion out of the Nile Valley into Canaan and beyond. It is not surprising that there is an affinity between Akkadian and Proto-Hebrew.

Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew share a common proto-system. Some of the oldest Arabic scripts are called "Dedanite" because the highest concentration of these scripts has been found in the region of Dedan. The Ainu script shares signs with these proto-scripts because the point of origin of the Ainu was the Nile Valley.

All of the scripts I have mentioned are in the same Afro-Asiatic language family, except the Ainu, the origin of which is still disputed. The evidence suggests that it may be related to proto-languages of Turkey and Hungary. The Hungarians called themselves "Magyar" and claim to be descendants of Noah, a Nilo-Saharan ruler. It is also known that the archaic Nilotic rulers moved into Turkey because they built the shrine city Meroe on Mount Silpius overlooking the Orontes River. The fortress on the spur of Mount Silpius was named IO, which means “pillared place dedicated to the Creator.” The O was a solar image. The sun was the Creator's symbol or emblem. Heliopolis (Biblical On) was called “Iunu” which means "place of pillars" because it was constructed with many pillars.

The earliest paleo scripts were used to communicate things like directions for people migrating, forks in trails, bend in rivers, mountains, caves, crossings, direction to go, feeding grounds for herds, etc. Many of the figures used in the later writing systems are derived from these symbols that appear on the walls of caves. See Symbols of Archaic Rock Shelters.


Words related to Horite religion

In ancient Egypt, the three superior planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were associated with Horus. Mars was named "Horus of the Horizon" or "Horus the Red." Jupiter was called "Horus Who Illuminates the Two Lands." Saturn was named "Horus, Bull of the Sky." These three superior planets were always depicted with the falcon-head of Horus (Krupp 1979).

The association of the falcon or owl with Horus is the likely source of the Semitic malk or melek, meaning king. In ancient Egyptian the owl was called m-l-k (See Gabor Takacs, Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, p. 1).

In Hausa, a type of owl is called bambani. The word is related to ba-na, horni and hanu. Here we have a suggestion of the connection between Horus and Hanu or Ainu. (See Dictionary of Hausa, p. 19) Abraham's father bore an Ainu title- Terah, meaning priest.

In Hausa the word for king or ruler is sarki (See Charles Henry Robinson, Dictionary of Hausa, XXIV Preface). Auran saraki refers to the king's minister and is usually rendered chief. The word auran is related to Harun and Aaron, and to the Greek and Latin word for gold which is aurum. Aaron was asked by the Hebrews to fabricate a golden calf. The calf was the totem of Hathor-Meri, the mother of Horus. The oldest know site of Horus worship is Nekhen in Sudan. This appears to be the area where Abraham's ancestors listed in Genesis 4 and 5 originated.

Moses had a Kushite wife, probably his half-sister since Zipporah was his cousin bride.The Kushites were descended from Noah, a great Proto-Saharan chief. His grandson was name Kush and his great grandson Nimrod was a Kushite kingdom builder.

Kush was famous for gold, a fact to which Genesis alludes when speaking of the river Pishon that flowed through the land of Ha'vilah, where there is gold (Gen. 2:11). Another African river is the Gihon which wound through the land of Kush (Gen. 2:13). The high quality of Kushite gold is seen at Nekhen, the oldest known shrine city of Horus. An example is this gold plumed falcon representing Horus.






During his stay in Kano (1895), Henry Robinson persuaded a classical Arabic scholar to translate the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke from Arabic into Hausa, the scholar's first language. Here are some more interesting connections between Hausa, Hebrew and Ancient Egyptian.

The Hausa word for day  is rana. The root is ra, which is the Ancient Egyptian name for the Creator whose emblem was the Sun.

Al and El are synonyms for God. The plural form Allohi in Arabic is also found in Hausa and is equivalent to the Hebrew Elohim.

Atvali - ancestors in Hausa is related to the Hindi sm-atvali. Vali is related to the Arabic Wali, meaning guardian or protector.

Azvha - dawn in Hausa, related to Adah, wife of Lamech (Gen. 4)

Amaria refers to lawful wife, as opposed to a concubine. There may be a relationship to the Amari speakers of Papua New Guinea. The Amari dialect is spoken in 14 villages from the Umi River to the Markham- Ramu Divide, with about 5,300 speakers remaining.

Baban kai - great head in Hausa. Baba is father in Yoruba. The Dravidian word for great head or father is appa. Har-appa means Horus is head or father. The chief priest is sometime referred to as Babalawo. Baba is father and awo means he is a prophet who can see a vision of the future.


Related reading:  Recovering the African Background of Genesis; Abraham's Kushite Ancestors; Fascinating Conversation with Laouali Yahaya; Twin Pyramids and Sphinx in Zinder; Kushite Wives; Hebrew, Israelite or Jew?; Early Written Signs


Thursday, July 26, 2012

Jesuit Astronomer on Science and Religion


Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, a researcher and spokesman at the Vatican Observatory, recently shared his thoughts on science and religion on The Washington Post’s blog.

With news about the Higgs boson particle, the so-called “God Particle,” that’s helping scientists understand how the universe was built, Br. Consolmagno says he’s explained multiple times that “No, the God Particle has nothing to do with God…”

Although not a particle physicist, Br. Consolmagno is often interviewed because of his role as a Vatican astronomer. He says some are surprised to hear that the Vatican supports an astronomical observatory, but that science and religion complement each other:

But the real reason we do science is in fact related to the reason why so many people ask us about things like the God Particle. The disciplines of science and religion complement each other in practical ways. For example, both are involved in describing things that are beyond human language and so must speak in metaphors. Not only is the ‘God Particle’ not a piece of God, it is also not really a ‘particle’ in the sense that a speck of dust is a particle. In both cases we use familiar images to try to illustrate an entity of great importance but whose reality is beyond our power to describe literally.


Read more of Br. Consolmagno’s commentary on the Higgs boson discovery on Catholic News Service and Catholic News Agency.


Related reading: Higgs Boson Expected End in Particle Physics; The 'God Particle': Six big consequences