Posted on 06/20/2007 9:05:55 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
A Jerusalem exhibit of Isaac Newton's manuscripts has some newly-discovered papers showing Newton's calculations of the exact date of the Apocalypse. Using the Book of Daniel, Newton argues that the world will end not earlier than 2060. "It may end later," Newton writes, "but I see no reason for its ending sooner. This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophecies into discredit as often as their predictions fail." Newton also interprets biblical prophecy to say that the Jews would return to the holy land before the world ends.
Yemima Ben-Manehem, curator of the exhibit, remarks that "these documents show a scientist guided by religious fervor, by a desire to see God's actions in the world." Newton's massive corpus of work reveals that he wrote almost as much about Scripture as he did about science, and indeed he saw his discoveries as showing the handiwork of the divine creator. All of which raises the interesting question: if arguably the greatest scientist of all time was such a fervent believer, indeed if most of the great scientists of the past five hundred years have been practicing Christians, what can we make of the insistence by contemporary atheist writers--from Dawkins to Pinker to Hitchens--that there has been an unceasing war between science and religion?
The atheist case relies on a few key episodes, mostly involving Darwin and Galileo. In my forthcoming book What's So Great About Christianity I will show that these episodes have been ideologically manipulated, and that the "lessons" drawn from them are largely fictitious. Here's a small example of that. We have all heard about the famous showdown between "Darwin's bulldog" Thomas Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. When Wilberforce asked Huxley whether he was descended from an ape on his grandfather's side or his grandmother's side, Huxley famously responded that he would rather be descended from a monkey than from a cleric who used his learning to prejudice people against scientific discoveries. The only problem with this incident is that it seems not to have occurred. Huxley apparently made it up to make himself look good. It's not reported in the minutes of the scientific association meeting. Darwin's friend, the botanist Joseph Hooker, was present at the debate. He gave Darwin a full account, which says nothing about Wilberforce's alleged jibe or Huxley's supposed rejoinder. In fact, Hooker told Darwin that Huxley had failed to answer Wilberforce's arguments so that he (Hooker) felt compelled to come to Darwin's defense. Nevertheless Huxley's winning rebuttal lives on in atheist propaganda.
Are science and religion compatible? Don't ask Dawkins and Hitchens, ask Isaac Newton.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep It doesn't say when that was but as science shows it had to be millions or billions of years ago. Then we read the last 1/2 of verse 2 and it tells us:
And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.
There was an "age" before this one, the one in which the dinosaurs lived and God destroyed that age. The last 1/2 of verse 2 tells us when our present, 2nd age, began. That's when the "6 days" started and even then we have to remember what Peter said - "a day with the Lord is as 1,000 years". I believe that applies here.
Look, I’ve said it several times now-
The limitation is that the strain will remain the strain will remain the strain!
No amount of “Adaptation” has ever shown otherwise.
Define strain.
You are correct. My intention is, if we have not seen it with our own eyes, touched it with our own hands, or otherwise have had first hand experience of it, we are taking someone else's word on it, and accepting that word on faith.
Jesus, claiming to be God in the flesh, backed his claims with miracles, and with the resurrection. However, since we can't verifiably prove this either way, it requires faith.
The assassination of Lincoln is the same. We can only go off of the historical evidence, and choose to accept or deny it.
When I download images from the Hubble telescope website, I believe they were actually taken by a telescope in orbit above the earth, of objects far, far away. However, I can't prove this conclusively to one determined to disbelieve, I can only cite the evidence for which I believe it. I have faith in the veracity of the claims of those who post the image, an thus in the validity of the images themselves. However, I have never touched the Hubble myself, have not verified it is in space, nor that it was not in fact focusing on a pretty picture drawn by an artist in Nevada. Of course, I like you, believe it is there. Whether or not someone feasibly could "touch it" or not is moot, for I can't.
95% of what we believe, we have never proven to ourselves as true, we have simply took someone else's word for it.
Let me be more specific. At the molecular level, what kind of event, required by evolution, are you asserting cannot happen or has not been observed to happen?
At the molecular level? Do you mean the chemical level?
DNA doesn’t change from it’s basic coding, if that’s what you’re asking.
The DNA that makes a strain of bacteria into that strain remains. (that is, unless you expose the organism to a chemical like alcohol).
For all the adaptive genetic testing of the mutations and natural selection of E coli, it is still readily identifiable as E coli. No new bacteria have been produced. Similiar to breeds of dogs, just different mechanisms.
“A group of organisms of the same species, having distinctive characteristics but not usually considered a separate breed or variety.”
Quickest reference at hand. (dictionary.com)
Fits my usuage.
Be more specific. What kind of change to the genome is required by evolution, but has not been observed?
Here, for example, are a few of the known kinds of changes to DNA.
When you say DNA can't change it's basic coding, what do you mean, specifically?
Darwin’s book is should have been named “Origin of Genus”, for that is the real debate here.
How does this definition apply to bacteria? How does it apply to a population that descends from a single cell, as with the experiments done while studying antibiotic resistance.
Why is that a different debate?
Dr. Pitman on problems with Carbon 14 and Tree Ring dating:
http://www.detectingdesign.com/carbon14.html
Seeing’s as my life has more or less NOT gone down the specific trail you are leading, I’m going to leave it at this-
A duck is a duck.
I don’t have a clue where or when you decided to latch on to me, but after the kinds of days I’ve just had (espcially considering we both historically have agreed on these posts) I would like it for you to quit playing 4 year oold “Why? Why? Why?”
I agree with you! Quit pushing issues for more than they are, I’m not in the mood.
Under "Other Possible C14 Dating Problems" we have the following:
Coal from Russia (the "Pennsylvanian)" supposedly 300 million years old, was dated at 1,680 years.This is the result of poor reading comprehension and a mistake. The original translation from the Russian intermixed "coal" and "charcoal" and that fooled Ken Ham, Andrew Snelling, and Carl Weiland. They got it wrong in The Answers Book, published by Master Books, El Cajon, CA, in 1992 (page 73), and creationists have been copying their mistake ever since. The mistake is in somehow getting "Pennsylvanian" and "supposedly 300 million years old" into the mix. That is found nowhere in the original date citation. I can give you the complete original text if you doubt me.
Bones of a saber-toothed tiger from the LaBrea tar pits (near Los Angeles), supposedly 100,000 to one million years old, gave dates as recent as 28,000 years.Another creationist boo-boo. The accepted age for the LaBrea Tar Pits is from about 9,000 years to about 50,000 years. The "supposedly 100,000 to one million years" is just faulty creationist research.
Eleven human skeletons, the earliest known human remains in the western hemisphere, have been dated by the "accelerator mass spectrometer" technique. All eleven were dated at about 5,000 radiocarbon years or less.These skeletons were all originally dated by the amino acid racemization method, which has been shown to be extremely inaccurate. The radiocarbon dates straightened out the dating error in the amino acid racemization method. This is just the opposite of what the article implies.
Oh, and the author also uses the global flood to account for his method of calibrating the radiocarbon method.
Sorry, I can't buy Dr. Pitman as an expert on the radiocarbon method. You better read the links I posted earlier today and learn a little more about how radiocarbon dating really works.
And leave those creationist websites alone. They are not doing science.
Is that your tactic now, ignore the body and focus on the least important part of the article (”Other Possible Carbon 14 Dating Problems”)? Do you want to focus on the “possibilities” section or the section dealing with the known science? I’m waiting...
PS Talk about quote mining!
Those mistakes illustrate the quality of the research. Those types of mistakes, indeed some of those very same mistakes, appear in article after article written by creationists. They are supposed to show problems with the radiocarbon method, but they show the shoddy research of creation "scientists" instead.
I am working on researching more of the creationists' claims regarding radiocarbon dating, but I have some other things to do which are more important.
Translation: beyond nitpicking peripheral issues not central to the article, you have been stopped cold. Good luck on your “research”! LOL
And Newton, of course, had an answer: "Nature's Laws are God's Thoughts." It doesn't get any more elegant than this.
Amen to that!
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