Posted on 03/28/2006 2:28:17 PM PST by Conservative Coulter Fan
"Opposite to the first is Atheism in profession & Idolatry in practise. Atheism is so senseless & odious to mankind that it never had many professors. Can it be by accident that all birds beasts & men have their right side & left side alike shaped (except in their bowells) & just two eyes & no more on either side the face & just two ears on either side the head & a nose with two holes & no more between the eyes & one mouth under the nose & either two fore leggs or two wings or two arms on the sholders & two leggs on the hipps one on either side & no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel & contrivance of an Author? Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom & the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside an hard transparent skin, & within transparent juyces with a crystalline Lens in the middle & a pupil before the Lens all of them so truly shaped & fitted for vision, that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light & what was its refraction & fit the eys of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These & such like considerations always have & ever will prevail with man kind to beleive that there is a being who made all things & has all things in his power & who is therfore to be feared." --Sir Issac Newton, 'A short Schem of the true Religion'
PING..
I recommend the flounder, Sir Isaac. And is that a centipede on your lapel.
Atheists re trying to force their religion on the rest of us.
This article seems to be a traditional explanation by Newton as to why there must be an "Author", or as we call Him recently, an Intelligent Designer.
I give up - who's talking about blind chance?
And who suggested light came about to fit the eyes?
That's about as silly as suggesting that it's lucky we have two eyes, or our glasses wouldn't make sense.
Well...I guess you're like the Red Cross, which condemned Gitmo alleging torture because terrorists being held there weren't getting proper "nutrition" according to their "standards."
Interesting numbers. Is there a website you could point me to?
Methinks your Federal Bureau of Prisons link is pointing to the wrong page.
If you compare the other set of figures, from the questionnaire, there are 65% Christians and 50% Protestants, which would put Catholics at 15%...quite a difference.
The only Catholic group which likely has a much higher than average rate of incarceration would be lower-income Hispanics (esp. illegals), but they aren't a big enough share of the population to account for that 39% rate. Something is fishy about the numbers.
Do you really think people in prison are religious? So much for government stats.
All numbers derived from government statistics are suspect, IMO.
The point is that Atheists do not have a high proportion of criminals and killers. The National Catholic Reporter survey I linked to shows that Atheists are less suportive of torture than Catholics or Protestants.
Atheists are only 3% of our population. They cause us no problems. Attacking Atheists is no different than attacking Christians or Jews, and should not be tolerated by any American Patriot.
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More Newton from his notes; most of these are searchable.
"A Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture".
[Newton on I John 5:7]
[Newton states that this verse appeared for the first time in the third edition of Erasmus's New Testament.]
"When they got the Trinity; into his edition they threw by their manuscript, if they had one, as an almanac out of date. And can such shuffling dealings satisfy considering men?....It is rather a danger in religion than an advantage to make it now lean on a broken reed.
"In all the vehement universal and lasting controversy about the Trinity in Jerome's time and both before and long enough after it, this text of the "three in heaven" was never once thought of. It is now in everybody’s mouth and accounted the main text for the business and would assuredly have been so too with them, had it been in their books.
"Let them make good sense of it who are able. For my part, I can make none. If it be said that we are not to determine what is Scripture what not by our private judgments, I confess it in places not controverted, but in disputed places I love to take up with what I can best understand. It is the temper of the hot and superstitious art of mankind in matters of religion ever to be fond of mysteries, and for that reason to like best what they understand least. Such men may use the Apostle John as they please, but I have that honour for him as to believe that he wrote good sense and therefore take that to be his which is the best."
"Newton wasn't a Real Scientist© "
I have a Greek NT which has at 5:7 "that they are three who testify"
5:8 reads "the spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are one"
That's my translation of Aland's text in the UBS Greek New Testament. He has in the notes a different version of the Greek text found in some manuscripts, in which 5:7 reads:
"testifying in the heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." (There are no capitals in the Greek text.)
It appears that some of the early Latin translations have in 5:8 the combination pater, verbum, et spiritus = Father, Word, Spirit).
Whether these two verses are about the Trinity may depend on which manuscript reading you accept.
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