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Sir Isaac Newton: The world Will End In 2060
Rikardon writes "A professor at King's College in Halifax has discovered, among the papers of Sir Isaac Newton, a prediction by this 'most influential scientist who ever lived' that the world would end in 2060. Those narrow-minded souls who still believe that devout religious faith is incompatible with fervent scientific inquiry are probably unaware that Newton 'was a theologian who wrote well over a million words on Biblical subjects,' and who devoted 'something like 55 to 60 years' studying the Book of Revelation."
Yes, but Einstein's theory has the world ending in 2055.
So what is this supposed to mean? Even Newton was a believer, so we all must tremble because the world is going to end in 2060? I really don't get the relevance of this all...
May as well go for first, since Last Post won't happen for another 57 years...
FUCK!
Stupid two-minute rule!
Ninnle still rules!
"Those narrow-minded souls who still believe that devout religious faith is incompatible with fervent scientific inquiry are probably unaware...." I guess I am one of the narrow minded ones, but if I may quote Bertrand Russel "Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we abopt reason and science as our guidelines." Let the flames begin..
Theory #29 - Information theory 101
All belief systems, from Catholicism to Physics to Astrology, are essentially the same. To build a belief system, you first need axioms. These are the facts that you take for granted. They do not need to be proven, usually because they cannot be. They form the foundation of your belief system and without them (all of them) the system will not hold up.
An example of an Axiom is "God is omniscient and omnipotent". It cannot be proven true or false by logical or experimental means. Indeed, experiments themselves are based on a scientific Axiom; that all phenomena are repeatable, given their causes can be re-created. This is not necessarily true in, say, the Christian belief system, where God can cause miracles to occur once and never again.
Once you have your set of Axioms, you can start to build your rule base. Rules are what make your system useful. All your rules must be based on either axioms or other rules. If any of your rules contradict each other, then either your logic is flawed, or one (or more) of your axioms are contradictory and must be changed (along with all the rules based off that axiom).
The reason humans build belief systems is to add order to a chaotic world. By building a mental construct that says 'Here are the rules' these systems allow humans to cope with each other, our environment, and ourselves with some degree of certainty. However, it is important to remember that ALL belief systems are simply mental constructs designed to form the world into a model that we can understand. A rose is what it is regardless of what we call it, or what significance we place on it's existence.
"He noted a number of time periods are listed in the Book of Daniel from the Old Testament. One of these is 1,260 days, which Newton interpreted as 1,260 years, based on a day-per-year principle. The time frame is one in which Newton interpreted to stand for a period when the church (Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican) would be mired in deep corruption. In his attempt to decode the mind of God, Newton determined that 1260 date actually began in 800 AD, a time when the Roman Catholic church was given political power over countries. He then added 1260 to 800 to arrive at the date of 2060 for the Apocalypse. It is mentioned twice in his manuscripts." So he sees 1260 days referring to something in the old testiment then interpruts that to mean years then adds it to the year the Roman catholic church gains power. Sounds like he added together some arbitrary numbers to me. What is his reason for interpruting 1260 days as years anyways and why does that added to the year the roman catholic chuch gained power mean anything? Maybe Newton went mad after studying the book of Revelations for 60 years.
Bush only has a year left in office. The world will end before then!
From the article it seems that Newton simply decided to interpret one day as one year and then added 1260 (from the Book of Daniel) to the year the Church was given political power (800AD) to derive his date. This doesn't seem like a very scientific way of doing things. Why did he choose to interpret a day as a year. What was his reasoning behind that? I think someone as scientific as Newton would have had a little more of an explanation as to why he chose those numbers. Unless the article is leaving out some VERY important details this just seems like a fake to me.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GIT d? s: a-- C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E- W++ N o-- K- w--- O- M+ V PS+ P
As this article mentions. he scribbled this in his notes. Do you write notes that you want to go public and have everyone think that you devoutly believed it?
Think about it. He may not even really believe this, he may have just wrote it down because it popped into his head, not because years of his research proved it. C'mon . . .
Please remember that Newton had lengthy periods of what can charitably be described as "screaming nervous breakdowns". He spent far too long losing himself in alchemy and frantic attempts to interpret the book of revalations etc.
The story submission blows this *waaay* out of proportion. Way to go, Slashdot editors, letting this one through.
Basically, if one reads the article, one finds that Newton made the prediction because *he* was fed up with people setting dates and wanted to put an end to it, and figured that with his repution, he could quiet them down by giving a different date from all of the rest of them.
He wrote: "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fancifull men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, & by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Goddamn it, Slashdot stories frequently have incredibly overblown headlines. You have to go read the article to get a *modicum* of useful information anymore.
May we never see th
January 19, 2038 - the 32-bit integer based on the Unix Epoch rolls over. Y2K got attention from the mainstream media because the numbers were nice and round, but after all the predictions of doom (read: hype) and the lack of visible incidents (because they all happened in between 1996 and 1999) for the media to report on, no one will care enough to handle the 2038 problem.
Unless we can give it a snappy name - maybe Y2KXXXVIII, to mix roman and arabic numerals with the metric system `=).
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
this is all based on the flawed premise that your so-called 'belief system' has to be logical and self-consistent. hi, let me introduce you to the human capacity for rationalization.
It's amazing to see the amount of random hatred, anger and intolerance afforded to people who believe in a god.
It's one thing to disagree with someone about something, but to hate and despise because of a belief that can be neither 100% proven or disproven?
Now that's one random statement.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
Mr. Newton was a scientist so I am sure he would appreciate the following about the battle of armageddon from "An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural " (jref.sawco.com):
"Although commonly used as a designation for the end of the world, this name actually applies to a real geographical location in Israel near Mt. Carmel, about five miles from the coastal city of Haifa. It was the site of several important battles in ancient history.
According to the predictions of St. John in Apocalypse, a battle between good and evil will take place there at some unspecified time, producing a river of human blood "to the height of a horse's bridle'' for a distance of 200 miles. Assuming that (a) all the blood were to be drained from each victim's body at the same moment, that (b) the "river'' is only ten feet wide, and it does not flow at all, that (c) the horse is rather small, it would mean that some 360,000,000 persons would have to be slaughtered during this battle, all simultaneously. Since the area cannot itself hold that number of persons standing should-to-shoulder, it appears that St. John's figures are poorly arrived at. But perhaps that is one of the properties of a miracle. "
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
Although biblical studies never really interested me, some of the "coincidences" that have arisen from it have.
;)
Although I won't stand by the sources, I have seen some rather compelling and well made arguments over the book of Revelations, Job, and the Tanakh's "predictions."
After reading the bible myself a couple times out of dogged curiousity, I found some passages that aired disturbingly of our situation today. I swear on my lady's ass that some of those passages are analogies for the creation of the UN. Furthermore I could've sworn Jeremiah predicted World War 2.
Being one who still hates born agains, I think religious fervor skipped this reader. There are still alot of things about the bible that leave me skeptical, but one thing I will vouch for is the eerie similarities between some of the scenarios proposed in the bible and the current situation we find ourselves in (on the brink of WW3, UN losing it's power slowly).
Check it out, even if you're not a fan of religion, knowing the bible well makes a killer advantage on your behalf the next time that overzealous Christian next door starts preaching. Kind of sad one of the Bible's biggest uncertainties is itself
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
To quote the venerable Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen..." and so on.
That's why I've started this new religion called Space-entology. Join today. Send a check for $19.95 to my address to get started (only 268 easy monthly installments!). Don't get left behind when we colonize Io, join today!
...if he was dabbling in alchemy!
Probably Pb poisoning too!
Today and Today Only! A half price sale on END OF THE WORLD INSURANCE. Visit www.Newton666.com and get protected today! Don't leave your loved ones behind! A simple $5000 polcy started today will ensure that you or your heir will be able to board a rocket to take you off-world, on December 31, 2059. NO RETURNS!
Well, nose-thumbing on the submitters part aside, what does this prove? Isaac Newton was Christian? OK, but this isn't news. Way back in grade school and high school science classes we learned about this. We also learned that the Vatican wasn't entirely impressed with Newton's investigations which doesn't really mean much either. Newton was a believer in the bible, apparently a very devout one who believed that the bible was true and correct. The areas of his investigations didn't reveal anything that contradicted the bible, at least in his opinion. If in 2060 passes by uneventfully (or even eventfully but still passes by) will that mean that the bible has been disproven? No. It won't be proven either.
The problem that most people have with the combination of religion and science is that religion often tries to impose what appears in the bible over what we have learned through experience and conjecture. Science as it is supposed to be practiced is a constantly self-correcting body of knowledge. This body of knowledge is used to produce a working model of the universe. In Newton's time the force = mass / acceleration was accurate enough to describe most things that they investigated. Time passed and there were problems with this. To a first approximation in most peoples lives this is still accurate, but if you're a cosmologist you'll want a more accurate model which includes Einstein's theories as an example. If you're looking at very small things rather than very large you'll be interested in quantum theory and so on.
Science evolves (a word that puts a furrow in the brow of some religious people) based on a refinement of information and the advancement of knowledge. If based on your religious conviction you insist that the speed of light in a vacuum isn't 3*10^8 m/s or that things do in fact go faster than it or that the sun is the center of the universe then science has a problem with that. It's easily reconcilable if you can find actual evidence to support your theory, scripture doesn't count.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
PROOF THAT NEWTON IS EVIL:
N-E-W-T-O-N = 14+5+23+20+15+14 = 91
Add this to the date of his death (1727): 1818
Flip this upside down: 8181.
Take away the year of his birth (1642): 6539
Add GRAVITY (7+18+1+22+9+20+25=102): 6641
Add 10 (newton had ten fingers): 6651
Gravity is an inverse square law, operating in three dimensions so multiply by the inverse square of 3: 739.
Subtract his age when he died (85): 654
Add 24/3, the date this story was published if you're british (which he was): 662.
Finally, add the number of laws of motion he created (3): 665.
Fuck.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
I know that you guys at Slashdot can't be perfect and that half of the time one quarter of you don't have a frigging clue what the other two eights are doing, but if you figure out later you made a mistake in rejecting a story, just fucking say so, don't lie to those of us who go the trouble of submitting the stories that pay for whatever passes for food with you people. It was "just in" two days ago, and you threw it away, and now somebody has given you a second chance. Okay, I can live just fine with that, as long as you can admit when you went wrong.
Stuff like this is seriously offensive and is one of the reasons why people are turning their backs on this site and are moving over to Kuro5hin.
I see you still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy as well. Otherwise, you'd laugh silly at me if I, a 39 year old male, were to profess as such. Believing in a being that pulls everything out of his hat in less than a week isn't any more believable than that trio. Fucking grow up!
Those narrow-minded souls who still believe that devout religious faith is incompatible with fervent scientific inquiry are probably unaware that Newton ...
I'm pretty shocked that the editors let this tirade go through. Can't we have people simply submit storied without adding their two cents in anymore? Submitters, please save your editorial comments for the "Comments" section.
Regarding those narrow-minded simpletons such as myself, there are plenty of intellectuals throughout history who have held dubious beliefs that we have chosen to ignore. Plato was a big supporter of slavery. Tesla believed he had been contacted by aliens. Linus Pauling claimed Vitamin C possessed all kinds of miraculous abilities. So what? Is the submitter saying that if I admire these men for their scientific achievements, that I am somehow required to accept all their beliefs?
I may admire Plato's philosophical ability without accepting his love of slavery. Similarly, I can respect Newton's contributions to mathematics and physics without deciding that devout religous faith and skeptical scientific inquiry are natural compliments to one another.
GMD
watch this
The world ends Newton!
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
on some of Sir Isaac's theological ramblings while exploring the library stacks in college. It is amazing how someone who is absolutely brilliant in one area can make a complete ass of himself in another.
For those who would like a taste of the wild side, see historicist.com
I'm sticking to the Principia.Logic is not Divine.
Oh, and BTW, don't forget, you fscking xtian clowns used to burn people who think like me at the stake for our trouble, so don't go whining about how putting down your fscking nasty religion isn't fair to me! Get a life, start thinking for yourself, and stop believing in fairy stories and using them to justify nastiness on others!
....so why the big deal about the religous aspects he was just being a scientist. Perhaps he was also tired of being threatened with ex communication if he didnt fake it at least. :)
Sorry about that, dude. Really, I wanted to stop them, but I was voted down. I did bring you burn cream, though, remember?
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
All hail GW, the divinely inspired boy king of the world! May he grant us safety and rain spite upon his enemies! YEEEEE-HAW!
Seriously though, when you fail to question and if necessary confront the truth of the supposed higher powers, you are weak-minded. And if you believe that that higher power absolves you of some power, responsibility, and choice over your own actions, you are a tool.
The fact is, nobody who is informed on the subject regards Newton as having been a true scientist. He was ahead of his time but still living in the dark ages. Modern science demands that theories stand on their own merits regardless of who discovered them, and his discoveries and accomplishements were no exception. Relativistic and Quantum physics have proved themselves superior to Newtonian physics in every way except simplicity of calculation (nor are they spared the same rigors).
That's why we remember Newton for his gravitational mechanics and work on calculus, and not for his preposterous and largely forgotten mysticism.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
How noble of you.
My Newton's going to have a problem in 2010. The ReadMe says the clock stops for the last time in 2920, but I'll probably have a HUD by then.
Damn, I feel like I've been Newton trolling all day or something.
So what you're saying is that, because the planet that we inhabit is a part of something so fscking huge, there's no way that we can ever even think about trying to understand it or know it, so we have to bow down and accept the totally ridiculous idea that it was somehow farted out of some being's asshole, therefore bow down before it!
What the fuck are you smoking?
It is true he consumed himself during the latter stage of his life with the search for God, but it's also true he was going crazy from working with too much mercury. The world's most influential scientist gets Mad Hatter's and starts searching for an ontological proof for the existence of God - I still wouldn't put much stock in it.
A man who died a virgin has to keep himself busy somehow. :)
Hanoi: the world will end when you solve the 2^64 disks hanoi tower
AOL: the world will end when you switch out from AOL
Intel: the world will end in the 8086
FF6: when kefka moves the towers
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
The world is going to end in 2060.000013. He forgot to account for general relativity.
ended well before his 30th birthday. After that he made a complete fool of himself with his attempts to apply his rapidly dimishing mental abilities to "decoding" the Bible. I was a physics student back in the days when the History of Science was still considered a necessary part of training as a scientist. As I recall from Newton's biographys, he made a number of attempts to date Biblical events, including creation, and missed every one by at least an order of magnitude. No one who has any knowledge of Newton's life and work is likely to consider this "prediction" as anything more than it was: the rantings of a demented mind.
Why is this flamebait? Just because all these fscking xtians consider it a serious effront to have their narrow minded religion questioned?
Newton died at around 85. So he must have started studying Revelations at about 30, though I don't suppose he spent all the time of those years studying Revelations.
They said when the 64 disks from the towers of hanoi in some temple were moved from one tower to another. (moving each disk took at very least a minute), than the work will end..
So, let's see. Optimal solution time = 2^N - 1. Giving one minute per move gives us.
(2^64 - 1) Minutes ~= 3.5 x 10^13 years.
Which is a lot closer I believe than the people who say it will happen in 50 years. We all want the world to end, but it just doesn't seem to want to acknowledge our desires. (Or at least a lot people want it to end considering how often the end of the world is tommorow.:)
~ kjrose
It is declared numerous times throughout the new testament that nobody knows when the world ends. A little ironic then that he was a devout believer.
This sig no verb.
No kidding this is the conclusion they just came to on Fox News.
John ALan Paulos was right.
Those narrow-minded souls who still believe that devout religious faith is incompatible with fervent scientific inquiry
Good point. Whenever religion pops up here, anyone supporting it (or any "non-geek" world view) is often flamed and rapidly roasted.
I have friends who are devout athiests as well as friends who are strict fundamentalist Christians -- as well as friends who are Wiccan, Quaker, Buddist, and memembers of other religions, including "new-agers." I've seen people with faith do remarkable things (Yes -- I've seen faith healing). I've learned that, even though I've studied many religions, I don't know squat about religion.
I've seen many people here continually point out that any form of religious or spiritual belief is unproven, and therefore, untrustworthy and false.
I have yet, however, to see anyone who has said such a thing show that s/he knows the first thing about the religion they are claiming is false -- other than what outsiders say of various religions.
Newton was very interested in religious and spiritual matters -- and even studied astrology. (There is a story that Halley asked him, "Why do you believe in astrology?" To which Newton replied, "Because I have studied it. You have not." -- I've seen writings that document this as true and others that claim it is false, but it's an interesting point.)
I'll probably get flamed for this (by people that think they know everything but have never studied any of the world's religions), since I'm sticking up for Newton and others believing in religious beliefs that can't be proven scientifically, but I think it's a point worth making.
In my experience, I withhold judgement. By not judging my friends of many different religious, I've been able to have some wonderful opportunities to learn and see things I would have never expected to see.
later, they realized that you got much more accurate results with f = m * a and the units worked out, too! :)
(I know, it's the mathematical equivalent of a spelling flame, sue me.)
Liberty uber alles.
...waaaay before any fumes could have got to him, and before most of his truly memorable science was done.
(NathanH pelase note)
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
So that's what Gabriel's trump sounds...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The world will end in the year 68000.
From Ezekiel 4:6 - `I have appointed thee each day for a year.' There is much supporting text, but basically it has been so popular because it works: it matches history rather nicely.
The foundational system of interpretation that uses this extensively and fits history so well is called Historicism, and the Roman Catholic Church don't like it very much because it identifies them as antiChrist... so Alcazar and Ribera, a couple of Jesuits, invented Futurism (which tears of and places a critical chunk of the prophecy waaay in the future, now supported by the Catholic-influenced Christian Right) and Praeterism (which uses a minor king name Antiochus Epiphanes as antiChrist, treats the 1260 days as literal, and pronounces the prophecy fulfilled and ended, now supported by other factions who can't buy Futurism but don't like Historicism because it's an ecumenical barrier).
Sorry you asked? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...make sure it doesn't have a copy of WindowsCE skerricked away inside somewhere. They might have slipped you a DRM update, interframe, or something like that. (-:
As for Dubya, yes, he's living proof that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Au poisoning.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
We will have to cope with Y2.038k after all...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Nah, no legal action from me, I caught it just after I hit submit. I even previewed it first. *doh*
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
For what it's worth, I did give you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you made the typo/braino of thinking about the law the more logical way, a = F / m, but trying to type it in the more often presented way, F = m * a.
:)
(I think of the first as being more logical because it sort of reads like the cause/effect relationship you think of--the acceleration that results is equal to the force applied divided by the mass it is applied to. "Force equals mass times acceleration" really doesn't _say_ anything, and to get it to say anything you have to really twist it around--"The force F required to produce an acceleration a of a mass m is equal to the product of the mass and the acceleration" or something.
(Despite the fact that I have noted this, no physics text authors have beaten down my door asking for help with their next editions. Imagine.
Liberty uber alles.
from believers and non believers alike
But if one is going to poke fun at them, they should at least poke fun at the correct things.
This isn't a battle. It's the angels harvesting the "bounty" of the earth. In which case the factor is still off... by about 6 billion too few.
(Rev. 14)
17Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. 18Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe." 19The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath. 20They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia.
Frankly I find works that try to disprove Apocalyptic literature about as silly as works that try to prove it.
Demented is right. Considering he stole most of what he "found" from others, and burned down libararies to cover up other's works on the subjects.
Which ones?
Personally a lot of my belief system is based on intuition, emotion and self contradiction. Things that don't fit well into the logical construction.
*shrug* while I like the ease and logic of your system (sounds similar to Kant's a prior and a posteriori setup... if you haven't read his Critique of Pure Reason you should check it out) I honestly can't apply certain belief facets to it. Esp. ones like skepticism and much of the postmodern belief structures.
Well, it's what alchemists hope to achive, Plumbium into Aurium, no? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It is practically impossible for the hatred that the Christian church has unleashed upon the world over the centuries to be matched, so grin and bear it. Slaughtered people everywhere only wish they had life as good as you do.
Angels have wings. They can fly there.
And anyway, that's why its a river.
Sheesh...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Y2.038k == 32-bit time counter at one tick per second since 1970 runs out of ticks (to be exact, 19-January-2038 at 3:14:08 AM GMT).
Value must be signed because signed arithmetic is widely done on it, so making it unsigned won't work. Value is traditionally `long' so not a problem on 64-bit machines (like Alpha) for a while but major hassles with old software (that doesn't use time_t type) on 32-bit machines.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
665 neighbor to the beast.
Or should that be 664....
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Oh Come on!
Newton lived in a world before the scientific revolution had gotten off the ground, or the enligtenment. He was expected as an educated person of his day to be learned in philosophy and greek and latin and theology as well as mathematics and natural philososphy, not to mention alchemy and divination. There just wasn't any distiction between them.
Its thanks to people like Newton, and Kepler and Copernicus and a host of other scientists and philosphers (Thomas Aquinas anyone!) that the boundaries between faith and reason were identified and defined by later generations.
mgb
How is this Flamebait? Simply because it is contrary to your personal religious beliefs? Get a grip.
Stick Men
For ages we prayed anw we were the victims of famine and disease.
For a few hundred years we made science and improved the lifes of millions.
Faith healing? Yeah, sure, whatever makes you rock, I have seen more people saved by verifiable applied science than vy unverified alleged "faith" healing.
Keep praying, but surely you take your vaccinations, go to your doctor, and benefit from the research to make your life last 3 or 4 times as much as lifes used to last around 200 or 300 years in conditions far better.
Keep praying.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Those who humbly submit themsleves to any proven evidence (scientists will have no problems to accept religious explanations that are repeatable and verifiable) or those that in spite of repeatable, evident evidence of phenomena decide to ignore it to follow an often poorly understood dogma?
Newton may have been fundmanetlay correct about mathematics and physics, but he is wrong in many other things, this being one of them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No! Because his scientific beliefs are based on his religious beliefs. And if you don't believe in his religion... well, then you don't get gravity either.
I don't know about you, but I've become WAY too dependent on this gravity thing to stop believing now.
We should all just be lucky that he didn't patent gravity! (Which he would have easily been able to do had he lived in the US). Talk about cornering the market!!!
and the greatest of these is hop. [Taken from the Pentecostal Hoppers Bible]
Games Workshop Petition
The world will end in 2038 when the seconds past the epoch take more than 32 bits.
Eat at Joe's.
The problem that most people have with the combination of religion and science is that religion often tries to impose what appears in the bible over what we have learned through experience and conjecture
I disagree. Though disagreements over the accuracy of Biblical passage is a major conflict between science and Christianity, I think the true problem is much greater. It deals with the underlying principles of science and religion.
Religion requires Faith.
Science is based on testing the world around us. Theories suceed or fail based only on whether their results predict real world actions. No matter how good your theory is, if it disagrees with experimental results, it is wrong.
Religion, on the other hand, requires that you believe in something that you cannot see or test. At some level you must ignore the constraint of the physical world and believe something that the data says is false. This directly conflicts with the principles of science and is the cause of true disagreement between the two.
Is how you can have *self* contradictory belief system that is a logical construct if all belief systems are based upon logical constructs.
It sounds like you want to say all belief systems share a common axiom, that of logic (ie that it works that its true, etc.) But some belief systems are comprised of entirely illogical ideas like the trinity in Christianity:
God is one person and God is not one person
Or emotional ideas conflicts that are also foundations for our actions/beliefs:
I love her and I don't love her
Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding what you mean with "logical constructs". I could see where you're coming from if you say "hierarchal constructs" perhaps, but the logical aspect, isn't something I'm really sure is always found, it suggests all belief systems share an internal logical cohesion with themselves, I'm not sure they do.
Actually I'm not even sure if belief systems are based on a hierarchal construct either, if anything I'd say they are much more web like in nature, and not necessary reducible into component parts (although some likely are) without loosing inherent aspects of them
...is almost as disturbing as that of the Fundamentalists.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Isaac Newton was Christian? OK, but this isn't news. Way back in grade school and high school science classes we learned about this. We also learned that the Vatican wasn't entirely impressed with Newton's investigations which doesn't really mean much either.
Not surprising when you sonsider that Newton was an Anglican and quite on the outs with the Vatican. After all look what the Vatican did to Gallileo not that much earlier (Newton was born the year Gallileo died).
The problem that most people have with the combination of religion and science is that religion often tries to impose what appears in the bible over what we have learned through experience and conjecture.
"Often" is rather overstating the case. While there is a vocal minority of Christian Fundamentalists in the US with their crusade against Evolution, the vast majority of Christians worldwide belong to denominations which see no conflict between Science and the Bible.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
What a coinky-dink it was in a CHRISTIAN area. Strange that you don't find any prominant folk born in, say, Hindu India, that make Christian predictions.
;)
According to the Koran, Christ is a prophet and is to be respected, but all of his followers are going to hell
During one of the Bible revisions, the Book of Revelations was almost left out.
Crackpots, smart and stupid, have been predicting the end. They thought the end would be the generation after "jesus", then 1000ad, then the late 1800s (hence the creation of many modern American-protestant flavors, like the 7th day adventists), then world war 1, ww2 and on and on and on...
The secularists need to advance technology and leave the religious nuts here, and when that big rock....er...christ finally comes a'knockin', we can watch from Mars or someplace.
See for example Newton Timeline. Note the item for 1697, when Newton was 55. He recieved a problem from Bernoulli that he solved and published the solution to anonymously. Bernoulli was easily able to identify Newton as the author "as the lion is known by its paw"--that is, by the style and depth of insight in the solution.
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Newton's concept of a linear, universal time was held in high regard until Einstein developed his theories on relativity. Now we view time as "relative" to the observer. Perhaps the end of the earth will occur before then, perhaps after, it may even occur on 2060. However, I wouldn't buy stock in Boeing or Lockheed based on what Newton has conjectured.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Expected ends of the world
I wrote a detailed article about this on Sci-Fi Today Sunday night. I then submitted the story to Slashdot Monday morning but it was promptly rejected. Perhaps they don't accept links to other weblogs? Anyway, enjoy.
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And what is wrong with wanted the Kingdom of God? I pray nightly for Jesus to return quickly.
Excuse me? You mean that religion and science are compatible? Sorry to make you disapointed, but you're wrong. (No, moderators, this is not a troll.) Do you know how different religion and science are? You're saying they're compatible, and so I have to ask you: How? Explain to me how you can use both superstition, unfounded beliefs together with actual scientific work? How do you know when to believe the observational and experimental evidence and when to - rather boldly, I must say - put your faith in something that noone has ever proven in any way?
Science and religion together? Sure. Just make sure you doesn't base your work on evidence that goes against your religion.
The number 1260 (years) appears many times in both the Bible (Revelations) and Islamic scriptures. Some examples include in Revelations (chapter 11) it says "And the Holy City (Jerusalem) shall they tread under foot for forty and two months." This is significant for two reasons: (1) 42 Months, each with 30 days equals 1260 days (prophetic 'days' are widely considered years by Bible scholars). (2) Christ gave the end of the time of the Gentiles (the occupation of Jerusalem by non-jews) as one of the three conditions that must be met when the end of the world (old world) comes and the Kingdom of God is established on earth (new world). The year 1260 (Islamic calendar) coincides with the year 1844 AD. Also, the other two conditions given by Christ as to when the end of the world would come were fulfilled in 1844. There are plenty of other prophesies in the Bible that lead to the year 1844 as well. In one of the Book of Daniel's most famous prophesies, Daniel predicts that the Messiah will but 'cut off' (Jesus' crucifiction) in 490 years from the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 BC, which points to the year 33 AD for Christ's crucifiction (widely accepted). In the same prophecy he adds that the Messiah would return 2300 years after the decree of Artaxerxes, or 1844. He was accurate about Christ so it follows that he was accurate about the year of the Messiah's return.
I wonder what Isaac Newton would have done if someone would have introduced him to slashdot while he was at college? Would he debated 'what a planet was' ? Or denied that someone was a woman because they used a certain kind of smiley? Maybe. He might have used it as a diversion just to get him through some tough times. Geniuses are often a little crazy. Look at Abraham Lincoln's wife, for instance.
Very popular slashdot journal for adul