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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."
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 . . .
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!
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
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
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.
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.
I know this will get modded to troll immediately, because I'm daring to disagree with the "normal" Slashdot contingent, but here goes:
;)
I get modded as flamebait, yet the submitter gets a story posted that begs for an attack.
I didn't see your original post -- it must have been modded down to troll.
You're overlooking a tremendous irony of Slashdot (and I am not being sarcastic). This is a "geek site" where most of the posters are highly intelligent. The problem is this: you're dealing with a group of people that are focused on intelligence and value IQ so highly. Whenever you say something that triggers an emotional response, people get ticked and don't realize it. They're too focused on their "intelligence" to pay attention to their emotions. They react emotionally and justify it intellectually, without ever seeing or admitting they're reacting emotionally.
This happens when people rate posts and respond to posts.
If, however, you start or end your post with, "This will probably get modded to troll because I'm saying something a lot of people'll disagree with...," you have a much better chance of people reading your post and thinking about their reaction instead of just having a knee jerk reaction. A phrase like that catches the "brain" and engages people on an intellectual level as opposed to an emotional level.
Of course, you'd better read this fast, since I'm sure it'll be modded to troll quickly!
If you read all of Ezekiel 4, you can see that God was assigning Ezekiel a surrogate punishment for the transgressions of Israel. This is just like using Numbers 16 to say a day is a year; forcing that interpretation on the rest of the Bible is ignoring the specific context that each passage contains. If you're going to engage in doing that, then you have to deal with Peter who says in 2Peter 3:8 "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
Neither interpretation (a day is a year or a day is a thousand years) should be used outside its context.
For further details of why this should not be used, see this previous post.
Got Wisdom?
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.
Funny, but this post almost proves my point -- that any view involving religion is flamed. I'm not saying this post is a flame, but it is a great example of someone who believes strongly in science and is so sure s/he is right that s/he won't even pay attention to what is being said about other points of view.
Basically, it's an example of someone so sure science is the ONLY way, they refuse to even consider other options. It shows that science can be as blind a religion as extreme fundamentalism.
It's the "I'm right and I am so sure I'm right, I won't even consider anything else and I know it's got to be wrong if it's not my point of view," thing -- the same for a believer in science as for a believer in the Bible. Both are equally ignorant of the other points of view and both are equally stubborn in refusing to even look into other ways.
As I said, I keep an open mind. It is not uncommon for me to be invited to a range of religious ceremonies. I think it's clear I've been open minded and seen things others here haven't.
For ages we prayed anw we were the victims of famine and disease.
You're right. Now we don't have to worry about hunger -- nobody starves any more. Science has solved that problem. And certainly, disease is no longer a problem. (I'm glad you didn't hear the show on AIDS I heard yesterday -- about how over 30% of the population in some areas of Africa is HIV positive -- it might lead you to doubt that we are no longer victims of disease.)
I have been to places like St. Anne's Cathedral in Quebec, or Chimayo, in New Mexico (or Lourdes in France). I've seen people I've known, with "incurable" conditions be healed by their faith.
I never said science was wrong. I never said don't believe in science. All I pointed out was that I've seen a WIDE variety, from no faith at all, to faith in science, to faith in spiritual beliefs. I've seen many different things work for many people.
While I don't want to talk about my beliefs here, I do want to point out it is unscientific to belittle things one has not investigated or studied. It is accepting something as untrue without investigating it.
Those who base their faith on religious scripture and belittle science usually have no understanding at all of science. And those who base their faith on science and belittle faith usually have no understanding, at all, of faith. As is shown by your post.
If science works for you, great, but that doesn't mean you know enough about faith based points of view to drag them down or belittle them.
(Side note: From your comments like "Keep praying," and "go to your doctor," it seems clear you put me in the "faith healing" camp. Notice, if you read my post, I never once put myself in any group. As I said, I withhold judgement. Again, this is an example of someone so strong in their beliefs they don't want to read anything that could possibly disagree with them carefully.)