Posted on 05/05/2006 8:21:56 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.
Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.
He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.
Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods. "Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That's why science and religion need to talk to each other," he said.
"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."
Brother Consolmagno, who was due to give a speech at the Glasgow Science Centre last night, entitled "Why the Pope has an Astronomer", said the idea of papal infallibility had been a "PR disaster". What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept "somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority".
"It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear," he said.
it could have been (be) a real katana, a replica, or a japanese com/non-com officer blade from the Deuce.
if you get a chance, examine the blade under good light. if it has a "hamon" - a wavy line that is part of the steel itself (not an etching) about midway between edge and the side flats, it might be a real katana. I can post illustrations if you'd like.
Yes, please do, and I will print them out...my son has all of his granddads swords, so he will have to look...is price any indication of whether or not its real?
now, lemme give you an illustration of the difference between a katana and a chisa katana
my katana-style 1936 non-com blade is .235" thick at the hilt.
my new chisa katana is .367" thick at the hilt.
it is about five inches shorter, but half again as thick, and with a broader blade as well.
this thing has a bit more cleaver in its ancestry than it has scalpel ;)
It sounds like you really know your 'blades'...I know nothing about them at all...
Well, I look forward to the pics...and I will keep the description as well...I just inherited these blades from my dad, and promptly handed them over to my husband and my son...they enjoy having them as well....
Time to go for a little while, but will check back tomorrow, about the pics of the katana...thanks for the info...
price?
let me tell it like this - about 17 years ago I evaluated a sword an associate of mine found in a yard sale in New Orleans. I determined it was authentic, and dismounted its hilt to examine the tag. There was a smith's signature and a traditional date. I sought some Japanese friends and they said it dated to about 250 years old, dating from the early Tokugawa era.
At the time, Japan was sponsoring the repatriation of heirloom swords taken as prizes during the war. I advised this person to find the nearest Japanese consulate.
He did. I hear he was paid a handsome sum for the blade, but I cannot be certain, as I never heard from the stingy ungrateful bastard ever again ;)
good place to start - a cursory scan indicates its data squares with what I've learned over the years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katana
also, go to this page and scroll through. at the bottom are some detail pics of hamon features
http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/terms/terms.htm
But the Biblical Literalist consider it was a Divine revelation.
"Moses, here is a vision in how I created the World, speeded up a million, million times
(40 hours later) Want to see it again?"
"No thanks, Lord, I think I got the gist of it"
You must have had a good week :-)
Cheers!
Who elected the Vatican Astronomer Pope anyway?
When the fossil was retrieved the femur was broken. The internal cavity had an unusual porous appearance, so Dr. Schweitzer took some small fragments of the bone and soaked them in a solution that removed all of the minerals. It is important for the sake of accuracy to emphasize that the samples removed from the fossil were indeed hard and mineralized, not soft like raw marrow as some sources have stated (based I believe on your misleading commentary).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1624642/posts?page=63#63
I'm sorry, but in my opinion, when the biblical account is literally unbelievable, that is a clue that the account was made up by primitive, ignorant people who had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Should we be looking for allegorical meaning in the dozens of other mutually exclusive creation myths that are known?
Jesus believed the Creation account of Genesis.
Good enough for me.
Jesus saw all the nations of the earth from a tall mountain too. Is that good enough for you to conclude that the earth is flat?
Possibly! :-)
Let me check.
LOL! Aint that the truth!
In most cases, yes.
By logical extension, if scientists douse fossils with some solution they miraculously become soft tissue again. Interesting analysis. Let's see someone reproduce this little trick, then you can strut around like a hen yard rooster.
Jesus never said the earth was flat.
In fact, the Bible contains one of the only books
of antiquity to declare that the earth is a sphere.
You believe what you want to believe.
In the end, we will all bow our knee to Him.
How did he see all the Kingdoms of the earth from the top of a high mountain then? Are the words of the Bible not good enough for you to draw a reasonable conclusion, that the earth must be flat?
In fact, the Bible contains one of the only books of antiquity to declare that the earth is a sphere.
Citation please. And don't bother with the Isaiah claim. The word used in Isaiah translates to circle (the ancient belief that the world was a disc was common). The writer had words available that would have translated to the modern "sphere", or "ball" and didn't use them.
Elsewhere the sky is referred to as a vault, writers speak of the stars "falling to earth", there are reference to the corners of the earth, and its foundations. There is no sense in the Bible of the scale of the world, or even that any wider world outside a small corner of the Middle east exists at all. No sense of the scale of the universe. We shouldn't be surprised. The book was written by people who didn't know of these things, and God apparently didn't bother to educate them in such matters.
200
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.