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Faraday: man of faith, man of science

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Over at the alternative news Website alternet.org, freelance writer and secular advocate Dan Arel has recently published an article criticizing the Discovery Institute’s coverage of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos series. Arel’s article, which bears the sensationalized title, Neil deGrasse Tyson Praises Scientist Who Knew to Check His Religion at the Door; Creationists Go Apoplectic, takes aim at a recent post by David Klinghoffer over at Evolution News and Views, criticizing the “whitewash” by Cosmos, which concealed the religious sources of scientific inspiration for Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. Leaving aside the polemical remarks directed at Klinghoffer, the gist of Arel’s argument can be summarized in the following excerpts from his article (emphases mine – VJT):

Creationists want religion out of Cosmos, unless of course it favors them. Each week Neil deGrasse Tyson has been attacked by creationists and the religious right for anything he says that makes religion look bad. In this week’s episode about electricity, Tyson discussed a Christian scientist, brushing off the importance of religious belief while engaging in scientific inquiry. Naturally, creationists don’t like that.

Michael Faraday was introduced this week to millions around the globe for his contributions to science, many of which benefit us all today in our everyday lives. Faraday was a devout Christian, and Tyson mentioned this, but … Faraday was [also] a great scientist who knew how to check his faith at the lab door and study the actual data in front of him…

Faraday’s discoveries would not change based on his belief or the validity of his personal faith. Faraday calls them nature’s laws; he just happens to believe a God created them

A scientist like Faraday can exist today and indeed does. Scientists around the world hold their own religious views. The ones who are successful at science are the ones who are able to check their faith at the door and can work in the lab using the scientific method, not fairy tales

Organizations such as the Discovery Institute highlight why there is such a divide between religion and science. The fact that they take offense at a scientist having religious beliefs that do not influence his discoveries in the lab shows once again that truth is not their goal.

In laying out his case that Faraday’s faith didn’t influence the way he practiced his science, Arel completely misconstrues the nature of the Intelligent Design research project, confusing its methodology with that of creation science. He falsely imagines that scientists who believe in Intelligent Design use the Bible as a guide in their scientific research. To make matters worse, Arel omits an embarrassing quote from a biographical essay on Michael Faraday by Ian H. Hutchinson, professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, which shows that Faraday’s faith exercised a profound influence on his scientific research. Finally, Arel appears blissfully unaware of Faraday’s role in the nineteenth century Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences, with which he warmly sympathized, and which he refused to sign only because of his opposition to Anglican clergymen influencing the course of scientific research. The Declaration itself affirms that science can never contradict Scripture. No secular scientist would say that. Faraday belonged to a very small Christian community known as the Sandemanians, an off-shoot from the Church of Scotland, who interpreted the Bible in a very literal fashion, and who would have therefore totally rejected Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Why Intelligent Design isn’t the same thing as creationism, and how ID differs from creation science

Before I continue, I’d like to direct Arel’s attention to a 2002 essay by Dr. John West, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, titled, Intelligent Design and Creationism just aren’t the same. In his essay, Dr. West elucidates the central difference between Intelligent Design and creationism:

2. Unlike creationism, intelligent design is based on science, not sacred texts.

Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Instead, intelligent design theory is an effort to empirically detect whether the “apparent design” in nature observed by biologists is genuine design (the product of an organizing intelligence) or is simply the product of chance and mechanical natural laws. This effort to detect design in nature is being adopted by a growing number of biologists, biochemists, physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers of science at American colleges and universities. Scholars who adopt a design approach include biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh University, microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, and mathematician William Dembski at Baylor University.

Dr. West adds that the Intelligent Design movement has even been sharply criticized by creationist organizations such as Answers in Genesis (AIG) and the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), for refusing to explicitly identify the Designer with the God of the Bible:

3. Creationists know that intelligent design theory is not creationism.

The two most prominent creationist groups, Answers in Genesis Ministries (AIG) and Institute for Creation Research (ICR) have criticized the intelligent design movement (IDM) because design theory, unlike creationism, does not seek to defend the Biblical account of creation. AIG specifically complained about IDM’s “refusal to identify the Designer with the Biblical God” and noted that “philosophically and theologically the leading lights of the ID movement form an eclectic group.” Indeed, according to AIG, “many prominent figures in the IDM reject or are hostile to Biblical creation, especially the notion of recent creation….” (4) Likewise, ICR has criticized ID for not employing “the Biblical method,” concluding that “Design is not enough!” (5) Creationist groups like AIG and ICR clearly understand that intelligent design is not the same thing as creationism.

So when Dan Arel implies in his essay that the Discovery Institute advocates doing lab work based on “fairy tales” rather than “the scientific method,” he couldn’t be more mistaken. Leaving aside the perjorative reference to Genesis as a fairy tale, the fact of the matter is that the Intelligent Design movement recognizes only one way of doing science, and that’s the scientific method. To be sure, Intelligent Design advocates have a somewhat different conception of that method from the majority of contemporary scientists: ID proponents contend that since science is an open-ended enterprise, “God-talk” should not be excluded from the scope of science at the outset, whereas most modern scientists would maintain that any mention of “supernatural agents” should be banned from science books. However, the actual method of formulating and testing hypotheses will be exactly the same for an Intelligent Design scientist as it would be for any other scientist.

The quote that Dan Arel omitted

In the course of his article, Dan Arel acknowledges Faraday’s belief that the laws of Nature were the laws of God, and he even quotes part of a biographical essay by MIT Professor Ian H. Hutchinson, which was cited by Klinghoffer in his post:

“One example of the influence of [Faraday’s] theological perspective on his science is Faraday’s preoccupation with nature’s laws. ‘God has been pleased to work in his material creation by laws,’ he remarked, and ‘the Creator governs his material works by definite laws resulting from the forces impressed on matter.'”

Curiously, Arel omits the following passage from Professor Hutchinson’s essay, which completely undermines his secularist depiction of Faraday as a scientist who checked his faith at the laboratory door:

This is part of the designer’s art: ‘How wonderful is to me the simplicity of nature when we rightly interpret her laws’. But, as [Geoffrey] Cantor points out [in his book Michael Faraday: Sandemanian and Scientist], ‘the consistency and simplicity of nature were not only conclusions that Faraday drew from his scientific work but they were also metaphysical presuppositions that directed his research.’ He sought the unifying laws relating the forces of the world, and was highly successful in respect of electricity, magnetism, and light.

How Faraday’s faith in God influenced his science

Colin Russell, in his highly readable biography, Michael Faraday: Physics and Faith (Oxford University Press, 2000), describes the influence that Faraday’s theological beliefs had on the formulation of his scientific theory of fields:

All the time that Faraday had been pursuing his inquiries into current electricity and into magnetism, he had been dogged by questions as to how the influences, electrical or magnetic, were actually transmitted. In Faraday’s time there were two fairly common explanations for the transmission of electrical and magnetic influences, and he rejected both theories. One was that of material atoms like those proposed by the chemist John Dalton. The other was the old doctrine of action-at-a-distance: that bodies were attracted to one another without any intermediate bodies to pass on the effects. That was one reason why Faraday came to his theory of fields, which were mechanical agencies to transport energy across a distance…

In the late 1960s, a private memorandum written by Faraday was discovered in a library. This document clarified his ideas on atoms and fields. Unlike his published papers, it contains several references to God, one of which wondered whether God could not as easily put “power” round point centers as he could about material nuclei. His belief in an all-powerful God led him to the idea of point centers, and thus of fields around them. Professor Trevor Levere of Toronto, who discovered this document, remarked that these new ideas “fitted in with the world picture imposed by his religion.” Thereafter, as one writer put it, “Faraday was, quite literally, at play in the fields of the Lord” (Russell, 2000, pp. 99-100). [Emphasis mine – VJT. Acknowledgements to Dr. Jerry Bergman for the above quote.]

There’s more. Brian Bowers, in his book, Michael Faraday and Electricity (Priory Press, Hove, Sussex, 1974) concludes that “it seems likely that his religious belief in a single Creator encouraged his scientific belief in the ‘unity of forces’, the idea that magnetism, electricity and the other forces have a common origin” (p. 34). Think about that, and ponder: would Faraday have made the discoveries that he did, if he had not believed that the universe had One Creator?

In other words, Faraday’s faith directly influenced the way in which he pursued his scientific research. To secularists like Dan Arel, that fact must be deeply galling. No wonder they do everything they can to sweep it under the rug.

What did Faraday think of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection?

Being a man with a great curiosity about the natural world, Faraday was delighted to receive a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species from a friend of his in 1859. He wrote:

“I am exceedingly obliged by your kindness in sending me Mr. Darwin’s remarkable book. I have received it at Brighton where it arrived before me & shall read it with great attention.”
[Faraday to John Murray, 2 December 1859 (letter 3869) in The Correspondence of Michael Faraday, Volume 5, 1855-1860, ed. Frank A. J. L. James, (London: Institute of Electrical Engineers, 2008), p. 607.]
(Quoted in What about Darwin?: All Species of Opinion from Scientists, Sages, Friends and Enemies Who Met, Read and Discussed the Naturalist Who Changed the World by Thomas F. Glick, John Hopkins University Press, 2010, p. 115.)

However, the Anglican theologian and scientist John Polkinghorne observes in his book, Science & Theology (Fortress Press, 1998) that Faraday was privately critical of Darwin’s theory:

“The great British physicists of the nineteenth century, such as Faraday, Maxwell and Stokes, were silent in public but privately had doubts about the unaided adequacy of natural selection to explain the development of life on the timescale available.”

Dr. Jerry Bergman recently authored a highly informative article on Faraday which appeared in the February 2011 issue of Dialogue magazine, a publication of the Creation Science Association of Alberta. In the article, which is titled, Michael Faraday: Christian and Scientist, Dr. Bergman explores Faraday’s attitudes to Darwin’s theory of evolution:

Faraday was a member of a small conservative Christian church that separated from the Church of Scotland. Its members believed the truth of the Bible must be understood to mean as literal a reading of the text as possible. His church had no established clergy, and members were a fellowship that stressed the Bible was central to their beliefs and life conduct. Thus Bible study was central to their teaching…

Actually, Faraday said much about his religious beliefs, and Darwinism was directly contrary to his core beliefs, a fact that Faraday was no doubt keenly aware of. As one who interpreted the Bible as literally as possible, many students of science conclude that Faraday could not accept Darwinism. The teachings of his small fundamentalist church included a strong

emphasis on God’s creation as purposeful and harmonious, designed for man’s well-being. He had an abiding faith in the Bible and in prayer. Unlike Newton, however, he made little attempt to “harmonize” his science with his Biblical faith, supremely confident that the two were both based on divine truth and were necessarily in agreement. … He fully believed in the official doctrine of his church, which said: “The Bible, and it alone, with nothing added to it nor taken away from it by man, is the sole and sufficient guide for each individual, at all times and in all circumstances” (Morris, Henry. 1988. Men of Science Men of God: Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible. Master Books. p. 37).

The smoking gun that proves Faraday was no secularist

Finally, Dan Arel seems to be unaware of the role played by Michael Faraday in encouraging W. H. Brock and R. M. Macleod, the two young chemists who co-authored the 1864 Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences, a manifesto signed by 717 scientists, including 86 members of the Royal Society, who affirmed their confidence in the scientific integrity of the Holy Scriptures:

We, the undersigned Students of the Natural Sciences, desire to express our sincere regret, that researches into scientific truth are perverted by some in our own times into occasion for casting doubt upon the Truth and Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. We conceive that it is impossible for the Word of God, as written in the book of nature, and God’s Word written in Holy Scripture, to contradict one another, however much they may appear to differ. We are not forgetful that Physical Science is not complete, but is only in a condition of progress, and that at present our finite reason enables us only to see as through a glass darkly, and we confidently believe, that a time will come when the two records will be seen to agree in every particular. We cannot but deplore that Natural Science should be looked upon with suspicion by many who do not make a study of it, merely on account of the unadvised manner in which some are placing it in opposition to Holy Writ. We believe that it is the duty of every Scientific Student to investigate nature simply for the purpose of elucidating truth, and that if he finds that some of his results appear to be in contradiction to the Written Word, or rather to his own interpretations of it, which may be erroneous, he should not presumptuously affirm that his own conclusions must be right, and the statements of Scripture wrong; but rather, leave the two side by side till it shall please God to allow us to see the manner in which they may be reconciled; and, instead of insisting upon the seeming differences between Science and the Scriptures, it would be as well to rest in faith upon the points in which they agree. (Emphases mine – VJT.)

I would invite readers to ask themselves: could any scientist who “checked his religion at the door of his lab” have endorsed this document? As we’ll see, Faraday did endorse it, even though he never signed it.

In its original form, the Declaration also included the following final paragraph:

We therefore pray, that the Bishops and Clergy in Convocation assembled, and of the Church of England, will do all in their power to maintain a harmonious alliance between Physical Science and Revealed Religion.

The final paragraph was later deleted when it was found that it offended many potential signatories.

In an essay titled, “‘The Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences’, revisited” (in Religion and the Challenges of Science, edited by William Sweet and, Richard Feist, Ashgate Publishing, 2007), Hannah Gay discusses Faraday’s reaction to the document, and the assistance he gave to its young authors:

“Faraday encouraged McLeod, but he himself refused to sign. He wished to distance himself from the Anglican Church ‘being a dissenter’ and ‘did not think the clergy had any right to interfere in the matter [of science]’. The view that the clergy should not have any say in science was commonly expressed by those who refused to science. For example, John Herschel and the Duke of Argyll agreed with Faraday on this point. However, Faraday continued to take a sympathetic interest in the Declaration and later, learning of the many signatories, wrote, ‘I am glad to see the names of so many who are to a certain degree like-minded.'” (2007, p. 23.)

Given Faraday’s sympathetic interest in the Declaration, which was written five years after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, we may fairly conclude that Faraday believed that science, in the long run, could never contradict the Bible, and that any difficulties for Christian belief created by scientific discoveries were merely temporary.

The picture of Faraday which emerges from the evidence I have presented here stands in stark contrast to the depiction of the scientist in Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos series. It also contradicts Dan Arel’s portrayal of Faraday as “a scientist having religious beliefs that do not influence his discoveries in the lab.” Summing up, I think it is fair to conclude that Faraday did not keep his faith and his science in two separate compartments, but that the former exerted a very profound influence over the latter.

Comments
Thank you Kairos, as Roman Catholic myself (baptized a melkite, greek Catholic Rite, our priests can get married) I apreciate your sober post, and while I do agree that this problem within the church must be addressed strongly and very soon, it doesnt take away from the many good priests that are out there such as the many good experiences that I have had with them. It seems like Graham is in the business of making blanket statements and applying them to all people in the group.wallstreeter43
May 23, 2014
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Bornagain77, dont forget the pristine blood clots on the shroud which are impossible if a Body either got up off the shroud naturally or was stolen from the shroud. Every blood clot is pristine, unsmeared and unbroken which tells us that the man of the shroud got off the shroud in an unnatural way. which fits in perfectly with Dame Piczek theory and Physicist John Jacksons cloth collapse theory which claims to explain all teh details of the shroud image and even predicted that there would be a second feint image on the backside of the cloth as the body of the man of the cloth became dimensionally transparent and passed right through the shroud. He also prfedicted that this second image would be more faint then the frontal shroud image and his prediction was proven correct in 2002 when they took off the backstitching for the shroud restoration project. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/04/12/1085582.htm Rossella Lorenzi Monday, 12 April 2004 The ghostly image of a man's face has emerged on the reverse side of the Shroud of Turin, the piece of linen believed to have been wrapped around the body of Jesus after he was crucified, scientists say. The discovery, using new digital imaging techniques, adds new complexity to one of the most controversial relics in Christendom. The study, which will be published online ahead of print publication in the Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, examined the back surface of the famous handwoven linen."""" Yet the media rarely gives any attention to Jacksons Theory which was vindicated by this discovery, and went buck wild when an italian chemist who was part of the european version of ciscop (atheist pseudo skeptic organization) claimed to have replicated the shroud. It was all over the net and media, but a few months later when it was debunked by scientists, it disappeared off the map, yet Jacksons theory which made a successfull prediction is barely even a sidenot and has to be actually dug out by researchers to find. http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2012/01/john-p-jackson-unconventional.html ""Thus, the hypothesis of the Shroud collapsing into a radiating body explains all the above characteristics of the Shroud image, something that other image formation hypotheses posed thus far fail to do."" With the shroud it seems like you have to start thinking in terms of new laws of phgysics.wallstreeter43
May 23, 2014
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If Faraday was a believer in, say, Zeus or Gaia or something, could he have achieved the same results? maybe more?
No. And the very idea is ludicrous. What sort of fool even entertains such an idea?Mung
May 23, 2014
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Hi Physteach, Thanks for the quotes about James Joule. Joule was also one of the signatories of the Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences, which I quoted from in my post. There's an excellent article about Joule, titled, "The Great Experimenter Who Was Guided by God" by Ann Lamont from Answers in Genesis. Here's a short excerpt:
Joule was aware of the religious implications of his findings. He wrote that 'it is manifestly absurd to suppose that the powers with which God has endowed matter can be destroyed any more than they can be created by man’s agency.'(6) The law of conservation of energy was completely consistent with the Bible, whereas Joule considered that some aspects of the caloric theory had not been consistent with the Bible. On another occasion, Joule wrote that 'the phenomena of nature, whether mechanical, chemical, or vital, consist almost entirely in a continual conversion ... into one another. Thus it is that order is maintained in the universe - nothing is deranged, nothing ever lost, but the entire machinery, complicated as it is, works smoothly and harmoniously ... the whole being governed by the sovereign will of God.'(7) (6) J.P. Joule, quoted in: O. Reynolds, Memoir of James Prescott Joule, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 1892, p. 27. (7) H.J. Steffens, James Prescott Joule and the Concept of Energy, Folkestone, Dawson, 1979, p. 110.
vjtorley
May 23, 2014
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Physteach wrote: “Believing that the power to destroy belongs to the Creator alone, I entirely coincide with Roget and Faraday in the opinion that any theory which, when carried out, demands the annihilation of force, is necessarily erroneous. The principles, however, which I have advanced in this paper are free from this difficulty (Papers 189, On the Changes of Temperature Produced by the Rarefaction and Condensation of Air, Philosophical Magazine, May 1845).” Joule hardly checked his religion at the door. It actually was the paradigm that guided his research. Avery good quote and observation and much appreciated.willh
May 23, 2014
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G2: I suggest you pause and think again regarding the substantial matter. KF PS: I am by no means a Roman Catholic, but I think I need to speak in balance never mind whatever theological differences obtain; I owe that much to the decent, sober minded and dedicated Boston-Irish Jesuits who founded and taught for a lifetime in the excellent High School I attended in my homeland; Frs R, R and R et al, thank you. Such men were too good and too decent for me to tolerate the sort of smear everything smug toxic snideness you have just indulged. The Roman church was penetrated by a nest of pederasts, which they unwisely failed to hunt out, identify and root out. When the scouts tried to prevent the same from happening [knowing from history that the notorious pagan Greek pattern of corrupting boys has been a problem for millennia . . . so much of a problem that it found its way into the myths of the chief Greek god and thence into the name of a Jovian moon . . . ], they were just as viciously savaged by the very same media wolves for the attempt. Well-poisoning is the common factor, not any serious concern to protect the young. That tells me much, especially when I have reason to know that as well many other professions such as psychology, militaries, navies, prisons and education have long faced similar sex abuse challenges . . . in some cases, apparently to quite serious extent . . . but have not been subjected to anything like the same concerted hostile attack. Logic with a swivel, driven by an agenda, in short. I suggest to you that you pause from red herrings led away to ad hominem laced strawmen to be set alight through incendiary rhetoric thus poisoning, clouding, polarising and confusing the issues. In the end, you yourself will be as the spider that found itself caught in its own web.kairosfocus
May 23, 2014
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KF: You are still completely missing the point. But I didnt know Zeus liked little boys. He would have been right at home in the RC church.Graham2
May 23, 2014
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G2: I showed from historical context why your question is misdirected and an error on history of ideas. That is an answer, just not what you hoped for. You need to take time to examine the difference in warrant and philosophical foundation between obvious myths such as the tooth fairy and the lightning-bolt throwing philandering Zeus with his predilections for pretty girls and at least one boy [Ganymede thus the moon of Jupiter], and the necessary and maximally great (thus, inherently good) being at the root of reality shows an underlying pattern of dismissive thought and argument all too familiar from the village atheist of yesteryear or today's update, the so-called new atheist; who all too typically reverts to sneering sophomoric rhetoric and talking points rather than sober engagement on serious matters. FYI, yes, delusion is disintegrative in personal lives and communities or civilisations alike, but great systems of thought and world-visions drive transforming initiatives. In that context, it is no accident that once serious philosophy was born, Zeus et al began to fade away, and it is no accident that only very young children take the tooth fairy seriously. By contrast, men such as Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, Kepler, Boyle, Newton, Pascal, Faraday, Maxwell and others down to today found worldview level foundation and inspiration for breakthrough thought in Judaeo-Christian Theism. Indeed, that theism was a key underlying driver for the founding of modern science, as is now widely acknowledged by the relevant historians. That may be inconvenient for materialists dressed up in lab coats, but it is highly relevant well warranted history. In that light, your implied continued attitude of contempt and ridicule by silly association, I am sure, is not escaping the notice of the astute onlooker. I think you would be well advised to do a serious re-think. KFkairosfocus
May 23, 2014
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KF: And again, with all respect, you didnt answer the question. And you have been around longer than me. Faraday may have believed in the tooth fairy, and been so inspired as to have produced even greater things. Sort of like an artists muse.Graham2
May 22, 2014
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VJT: I would think that Faraday was more of a biblical theologian in his thought, and so would have held at the heart of his view, the resurrection as key warranting context, multiplied by the resulting transforming experience in millions of lives showing the truth and power of the Scriptures. It is not so much that the scriptures are leapt upon by blind faith, but that in the context of the living reality of the living God who acted into history as inspirer of prophets, and who showed that reality by rising from death with 500 witnesses, one has well warranted confidence in the scriptures and in holding much the same attitude as Jesus and the apostles towards it. In that context, when we read Rom 1, what we see there is an argument that God has written his testimony as well in nature and in our own heart and minds, so that ingratitude and resentment that willfully rejects that witness and creates a failed substitute is inexcusable. That is, the natural world and out inner minded and enconscienced, morally governed life, jointly testify -- by design -- to God as our Lord and Creator. This testimony is then seen as complementing and being in consilience with the Scriptures and the then living memory experience of Messiah, just then being reduced to papyrus c 55 - 65 AD. If I were to give this a label, I would say this is a sort of foundherentism. Whereby, factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power and elegance are all factors. KFkairosfocus
May 22, 2014
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VJT: I think Faraday kind of stood with one foot in either camp, he is not only father of electro-chemistry, but also father of field theory and electromagnetic induction, etc. What he was not, was heavily mathematical (he was a great experimentalist and also a great public educator in science -- with lessons Tyson should perhaps heed) . . . that's where Maxwell comes in, with his great synthesis; electromagnetism. KFkairosfocus
May 22, 2014
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G2: Pardon but with all due respect, your insistently ill-informed contempt and lack of doing homework are showing, in 18 above; despite having been around UD for quite some time in which relevant corrective information has been presented again and again. That tells us a lot. For one, Zeus etc do not have any significant body of evidence that points to their reality. Nor, do such fit the criteria of the requisite necessary and maximally great being required at the foundation of reality. And, for that matter, it has already been repeatedly pointed out in your presence that, for cause, evolutionary materialism -- never mind its lab coat and how it likes to imagine that it is "Science"[in reality, we here see scientism] -- is intellectually and morally bankrupt, cf here on for a 101. (Also, cf. here on on sound worldview foundations.) FYI, from AD 50 on (cf Acts 17:16 - 34 for the historical record of the kairos at Athens that decisively shaped the future . . . ), in response to intellectuals who asked questions on warrant there has been a specific offer of proof for the Christian Faith's basis: that, in fulfillment of hundreds of cumulatively specific prophecies of the scriptures made centuries ahead, Messiah came as Immanuel, and having come, died for our sins, was buried, and was seen of over 500 witnesses, not one of whom could be turned -- not in the face of dungeon, fire, sword and worse. And, since then, millions have met God in the face of the living Christ and have been transformed thereby . . . including a certain Michael Faraday and a certain James Clerk Maxwell, as well as a certain Lord Kelvin, and a certain Blaise Pascal, not to mention a certain William Wilberforce and a certain Olaudah Equiano. In the context of science, it is also a fact that, contrary to the war of religion against science myths again being propagated through drumbeat repetition of tired talking points used by Neil Tyson et al -- in interests of promoting the same intellectually and morally bankrupt lab coat clad evolutionary materialist ideology -- by contrast, the Christian faith and the wider Judaeo-Christian worldview provided the context in which modern science emerged. Uniquely so in history. And, it is a linked fact of the history of ideas, that the Scriptural vision of a world held together by its one Lord, the God of order, who is rational and reasonable opened up the inspiration to seek to understand that order -- thinking God's creative and sustaining, providential thoughts after him, in the sort of terms they used at the time -- and thereby to be good stewards of Creation. That ever so many evolutionary materialists refuse to acknowledge these well founded facts that ave been adequately brought to their attention (often, repeatedly), speaks sad volumes. (Onlookers, kindly cf. here for a case in point. One, in the specific and currently relevant context of the way that the inherent amorality of evolutionary materialism so often seeks to twist morality into might and manipulation make 'right' through pushing rationalist and or scientism myths including that of the ages long war of religion against science.) Here -- by direct contrast -- is Newton's summary of the foundation era worldview roots of science, in his General Scholium to the greatest single technical work of modern science, Principia:
. . . This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems at immense distances one from another. This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God pantokrator , or Universal Ruler; for God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: these are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures for ever, and is every where present; and by existing always and every where, he constitutes duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is every where, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and no where. Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration, co-existent puts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God, always and every where. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him are all things contained and moved [i.e. cites Ac 17, where Paul evidently cites Cleanthes]; yet neither affects the other: God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always, and every where. [i.e accepts the cosmological argument to God.] Whence also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colours, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, or touched; nor ought he to be worshipped under the representation of any corporeal thing. [Cites Exod 20.] We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of any thing is we know not. In bodies, we see only their figures and colours, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste the savours; but their inward substances are not to be known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds: much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final cause [i.e from his designs]: we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion: for we adore him as his servants; and a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. [i.e necessity does not produce contingency] All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. [That is, implicitly rejects chance, Plato's third alternative and explicitly infers to the Designer of the Cosmos.] But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all our notions of God are taken from. the ways of mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has some likeness, however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy.
That ideologues have since come along and have hijacked Science in service to a bankrupt ideology, is besides the point. KFkairosfocus
May 22, 2014
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I have some sympathies with the presuppositionalist approach to the existence of God, although I also think it needs to be supplemented by natural theology.
I think both are valuable and effective, probably most effective when used together like you said.tjguy
May 22, 2014
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Thanks VJ!tjguy
May 22, 2014
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If Faraday was a believer in, say, Zeus or Gaia or something, could he have achieved the same results ? maybe more ?Graham2
May 22, 2014
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I should also add that Faraday was not a physicist (like Kelvin) or a biologist (like Owen and Agassiz) but a chemist. In those days, very little was known about the chemistry of life. The complexity of proteins, the structure of DNA and the existence of a genetic code were wholly unknown to Faraday and his contemporaries, and the improbability of abiogenesis was not mathematically calculable.
But still, if he was really that smart, he should have known it was all just chemistry.Mung
May 22, 2014
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So this guy accuses the Discovery Institute of being creationists, IDers of being creationists, tells lies about Faraday, and then says anyone who disagrees with him is "not interested in the truth"? Meh.ScuzzaMan
May 22, 2014
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So does god appear in texts on electromagnetism ? Funny, I dont remember seeing him anywhere.Graham2
May 22, 2014
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Hi tjguy, Back again. Phillip Eichman goes even further in his article, "Michael Faraday: Man of God, Man of Science" in PSCF 40 (June 1988): 91-97 at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1988/PSCF6-88Eichman.html . He writes:
For the Sandemanians, the Bible was the primary guide to faith and needed no supplemental proofs of its validity. John Glas, though a prolific writer, made few if any references to natural theology. Sandeman did write on the subject, but his views were still a reflection of the basic tenets of faith held by this group. Cantor has stated in regard to Sandeman's views as follows: "Like natural theologians Sandeman appealed to the argument from design, but his legitimation of this argument lay not within the power of reason but with God's revelation. Thus Romans 1:20 provided the scriptural foundation for his claim that the natural world is a reflection of the divine." ... ... [T]here was little doubt in the mind of Faraday that the natural world reflected a divine origin. The question which we must ask is: how did Faraday look upon this revelation in nature as it relates to the more specific revelation found in Scripture? Levere has written concerning this question:
Faraday did occasionally employ natural theology, but his general theology of nature reversed the direction of Paley's argument from design in the physical world to the existence and nature of God. Paley's natural theology was from the standpoint of evangelical (including Sandemanian) theology, valueless as a guide to divine characteristics, unless subjected to rectification by biblical revelation; it would have seemed presumptuous and even arrogant, when applied on its own.... Faraday, in contrast, argued primarily from God to a limited but unimpeachable knowledge of the natural world. Within such a framework Of religious ideas, the thorough-going divorce of science from religion makes absolutely no sense, nor did Faraday attempt it, for he realized that to distinguish science from religion was not to sever them, but only to indicate the latter's absolute and logical primacy, while limiting the former's sphere.
The natural theologians sought to understand God by studying nature (i.e., through the practice of science). Science, however, is ever changing, and thus their endeavor to understand God through science was fraught with problems. As their understanding of science changed, their view of God the Creator was likewise forced to change as well. The existence of God was, however, for Faraday a basic presupposition. He accepted God's existence by faith, based upon Scripture - not natural theology - and then set out to understand God's creation. His faith was primary and unchanging because it was founded on God's unchanging Word. His science was everchanging; indeed, he would revolutionize the world around him through his scientific research. But this would not in the least alter his simple faith in God and in His Word. (Emphases mine - VJT.)
In a nutshell: Faraday was more of a presuppositionalist than a fan of natural theology. As such, he was not inclined to make scientific arguments for the existence of God or even an Intelligent Creator. In other words, he was definitely not in the Intelligent Design camp. As such, he would not have seen much value in making scientific arguments against Darwinism. He would have doubtless argued that Darwinists were wrong on a more fundamental level, insofar as they affirmed the existence of laws of Nature while denying or remaining agnostic about the existence of a Creator. For Faraday, laws presuppose a Lawmaker, and the scientific enterprise of seeking to discover Nature's laws lacks epistemological justification unless there is a Lawmaker God. I have some sympathies with the presuppositionalist approach to the existence of God, although I also think it needs to be supplemented by natural theology. I should also add that Faraday was not a physicist (like Kelvin) or a biologist (like Owen and Agassiz) but a chemist. In those days, very little was known about the chemistry of life. The complexity of proteins, the structure of DNA and the existence of a genetic code were wholly unknown to Faraday and his contemporaries, and the improbability of abiogenesis was not mathematically calculable. Even Louis Pasteur balked at arguing for its impossibility, although he had demonstrated that it did not occur in Nature: he realized that his opponents could argue that it may have occurred at some time in the past. I conclude that there was very little that Faraday could have done to check the spread of Darwinism, had he even wished to publicly oppose it. David Coppedge's article was illuminating, but did not advert to the nuances of Faraday's faith, or the difficulties that would have confronted him had he spoken out against Darwin. For these reasons, I think his criticism of Faraday is a little harsh.vjtorley
May 22, 2014
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Hi tjguy, Thank you for your posts. I had in fact read the article by David Coppedge, which you cite, before putting up my post. I think Coppedge is a little unfair to Faraday in the latter half of his biography: he evidently thinks that Faraday should have spoken out more forcefully against Darwin's theory of evolution, and blames Faraday's Sandemanian religion (which discouraged involvement in political and social issues) for his reticence. (For more on the Sandemanians, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasite .) First, I would suggest that you have a look at Herbert Pratt's article, "Michael Faraday's Bibles as Mirrors of his Faith" (Science and Christian Belief, 1993, 5:103-115) at https://www.scienceandchristianbelief.org/serve_pdf_free.php?filename=SCB+5-2+Pratt.pdf . See especially pp. 109-112. What Pratt argues is that Faraday was not a big fan of natural theology: he had a direct knowledge of God from Scripture itself. He laid little emphasis on the classic texts commonly cited by proponents of design arguments.vjtorley
May 22, 2014
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OT: Dr. Stephen Meyer - Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design - video - (lecture delivered at Faith Bible Church - May 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg8bqXGrRa0bornagain77
May 22, 2014
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Faraday was but one of the giants as ppolish points out. James Prescott Joule, a key player in establishing the conservation of energy, has little nuggets of his faith sprinkled in his papers. For example: "in repeating and extending these experiments, being satisfied that the grand agents of nature are, by the Creator’s fiat, indestructible ; and that wherever mechanical force is expended, an exact equivalent of heat is always obtained (Papers 158, On the Calorific Effects of Magneto Electricity, and on the Mechanical Value of Heat, read before the British Association meeting at Cork on21 August 1843)." "Believing that the power to destroy belongs to the Creator alone, I entirely coincide with Roget and Faraday in the opinion that any theory which, when carried out, demands the annihilation of force, is necessarily erroneous. The principles, however, which I have advanced in this paper are free from this difficulty (Papers 189, On the Changes of Temperature Produced by the Rarefaction and Condensation of Air, Philosophical Magazine, May 1845)." Joule hardly checked his religion at the door. It actually was the paradigm that guided his research.Physteach
May 22, 2014
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Here is a more thorough summary of his life and accomplishments.
Sorry. That came across poorly. I should have said "Here is another thorough summary of his life and accomplishments." VJ's summary is very good. I didn't mean to imply it is not. The other summary goes into more detail on his early life and how he became a scientist. Both summaries are great, but were written with different purposes in mind so they obviously include different information.tjguy
May 22, 2014
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Romans 1:20 (KJV) For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 (NWT) For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.
v. 19 makes it even clearer! We can learn things about God from His creation. And these things are plain to all. Because the Creator Himself made it plain for all to see - so plain and undeniable that no one can stand before God and say "But I didn't think you existed." to excuse his unbelief. There is no excuse for atheism according to God.
Romans 1:19-20 (ESV) For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
(NIV) since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Interesting too that it says "since the creation of the world" which would seem to indicate that humans were present since that time to qualify as witnesses.tjguy
May 22, 2014
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Good summary of Faraday's faith. He was clearly a creationist and his faith did guide his research, but he wasn't as vocal about it as we might wish. However, his accomplishments were clearly remarkable and truly outstanding! God blessed him and used him greatly and we all are still benefitting from his dedication, wisdom, and hard work. Here is a more thorough summary of his life and accomplishments. http://crev.info/?scientists=michael-faradaytjguy
May 22, 2014
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@Robert Byers "NOPE! You leave your dumb wrong ideas in the car before you come near the door!" But, if atheism is true, wouldn't that mean that the sum totality of reality(what the theist would call physical reality) is just an uncreated, inexiplicable brute fact, ultimately of randomness? If so, then morality is nothing more than a fashion statement, and there is no objective way a person who decides to burn down an orphanage because it makes him happy is objectively morally superior to a person who does not. Neither to, will science ultimately amount to anything, and all distinguishing between 'dumb' and 'wrong' are ultimately meaningless and arbitrary, as are your words and my words.VunderGuy
May 21, 2014
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Any attention should be welcomed by Discovery institute. Not irrelevant eh. The only reason Faraday's religion was brought up in the show was to make the claim that one can only be christian if one rejects the bible or any conclusions from sciency types. Its just propaganda to the religious folks on how they can DO science while being religious. FOLKS just leave it at the door.!! NOPE! You leave your dumb wrong ideas in the car before you come near the door!!Robert Byers
May 21, 2014
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For those who think such is not possible, there is a plausible mechanism inherent within the human body for making such a quantum image on the shroud:
Humans Glow in (Emit) Visible Light - July 2009 Excerpt: Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32090918/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/humans-glow-visible-light/ Biophotons - The Light In Our Cells - Marco Bischof - March 2005 Excerpt page 2: The Coherence of Biophotons: ,,, Biophotons consist of light with a high degree of order, in other words, biological laser light. Such light is very quiet and shows an extremely stable intensity, without the fluctuations normally observed in light. Because of their stable field strength, its waves can superimpose, and by virtue of this, interference effects become possible that do not occur in ordinary light. Because of the high degree of order, the biological laser light is able to generate and keep order and to transmit information in the organism. http://www.international-light-association.eu/PDF/Biophotons.pdf
All is all, there is far more empirical evidence, much evidence which I have not included here, supporting the proposition that God reconciled General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics within Christ, than there is for the counter proposition that God need not be consulted for the 'Theory Of Everything'. Also of interest is the fact that there are two very different eternities:
Roger Penrose – How Special Was The Big Bang? “But why was the big bang so precisely organized, whereas the big crunch (or the singularities in black holes) would be expected to be totally chaotic? It would appear that this question can be phrased in terms of the behaviour of the WEYL part of the space-time curvature at space-time singularities. What we appear to find is that there is a constraint WEYL = 0 (or something very like this) at initial space-time singularities-but not at final singularities-and this seems to be what confines the Creator’s choice to this very tiny region of phase space.” "Einstein's equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist." Kip S. Thorne - "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" pg. 476
i.e. Black Holes are found to be ‘timeless’ singularities of destruction and disorder rather than 'timeless' singularities of creation and order such as the extreme order we see at the creation event of the Big Bang. Needless to say, the implications of this ‘eternity of destruction’ should be fairly disturbing for those of us who are of a ‘spiritually minded’ persuasion! Verses, Grace, and Music:
John 8:23-24 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins. G.O.S.P.E.L. – (the grace of propitiation) – poetry slam – video https://vimeo.com/20960385 Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Creed - Six Feet http://www.youtube.com/v/aQ9GrZ3CEyY&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1
bornagain77
May 21, 2014
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The main problem of reconciling General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is the 'Infinity Problem'
Quantum Mechanics and Relativity - The Collapse Of Physics? - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHHz4mB9GKY THE MYSTERIOUS ZERO/INFINITY Excerpt: The biggest challenge to today's physicists is how to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics. However, these two pillars of modern science were bound to be incompatible. The universe of general relativity is a smooth rubber sheet. It is continuous and flowing, never sharp, never pointy. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, describes a jerky and discontinuous universe. What the two theories have in common and what they clash over is zero.,, The infinite zero of a black hole mass crammed into zero space, curving space infinitely punches a hole in the smooth rubber sheet. The equations of general relativity cannot deal with the sharpness of zero. In a black hole, space and time are meaningless.,, Quantum mechanics has a similar problem, a problem related to the zero-point energy. The laws of quantum mechanics treat particles such as the electron as points; that is, they take up no space at all. The electron is a zero-dimensional object,,, According to the rules of quantum mechanics, the zero-dimensional electron has infinite mass and infinite charge. http://www.fmbr.org/editoral/edit01_02/edit6_mar02.htm
Dr. William Dembski in this following comment, though not directly addressing the Zero/Infinity conflict in General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, offers insight into this unification of the infinite and the finite:
The End Of Christianity - Finding a Good God in an Evil World - Pg.31 - William Dembski PhD. in Mathematics and Theology Excerpt: 'In mathematics there are two ways to go to infinity. One is to grow large without measure. The other is to form a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero. The Cross is a path of humility in which the infinite God becomes finite and then contracts to zero, only to resurrect and thereby unite a finite humanity within a newfound infinity.' http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf
And, if we allow that God can 'play the role of a person' as even Godel himself allowed,,
The God of the Mathematicians – Goldman Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” Kurt Gödel – (Gödel is considered one of the greatest logicians who ever existed) http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians At the 9:40 minute mark of the following video, C.S. Lewis comments on God 'playing the role of a person': Finding Shakespeare by C.S. Lewis Doodle - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXlBCZ_5OYw
If we allow God that possibility, (and who could deny Him that possibility if He so willed it!), then a empirically backed reconciliation to the infinity problem between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics readily pops out for us:
A Quantum Hologram of Christ's Resurrection? by Chuck Missler Excerpt: 'You can read the science of the Shroud, such as total lack of gravity, lack of entropy (without gravitational collapse), no time, no space, it conforms to no known law of physics. The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. Dame Piczek created a one-fourth size sculpture of the man in the Shroud. When viewed from the side, it appears as if the man is suspended in mid air (see graphic, below), indicating that the image defies previously accepted science. The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. http://www.khouse.org/articles/2008/847 Particle Radiation from the Body - July 2012 - M. Antonacci, A. C. Lind Excerpt: The Shroud's frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man's supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth's frontal and dorsal body images. https://docs.google.com/document/d/19tGkwrdg6cu5mH-RmlKxHv5KPMOL49qEU8MLGL6ojHU/edit?hl=en_US
Moreover, the process in which the image was formed on the Shroud was not a classical process but was a Quantum process, just as would be expected if General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were successfully unified unified in the resurrection of Christ
The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete values - Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio - 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the 'quantum' is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/journals/index.php/AAPP/article/view/C1A0802004/271 Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural - December 2011 Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. "The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin," they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: "This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-say-turin-shroud-is-supernatural-6279512.html
Verse:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
bornagain77
May 21, 2014
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as to this following quote from the 1864 Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences, a manifesto signed by 717 scientists, including 86 members of the Royal Society, who affirmed their confidence in the scientific integrity of the Holy Scriptures:
We are not forgetful that Physical Science is not complete, but is only in a condition of progress, and that at present our finite reason enables us only to see as through a glass darkly, and we confidently believe, that a time will come when the two records will be seen to agree in every particular.
And indeed I believe the time is now. Physicists and mathematicians, despite their denial of the necessary teleology inherent within their scientific search, continue to search for a 'Theory Of Everything',
In Cambridge, Professor Steve Fuller discusses intelligent design - Video https://uncommondescent.com/news/in-cambridge-professor-steve-fuller-discusses-why-the-hypothesis-of-intelligent-design-is-not-more-popular-among-scientists-and-others/ At 17:34 minute mark of the video, Dr. Steve Fuller states: "So you think of physics in search of a "Grand Unified Theory of Everything", Why should we even think there is such a thing? Why should we think there is some ultimate level of resolution? Right? It is part, it is a consequence of believing in some kind of design. Right? And there is some sense in which that however mulrifarious and diverse the phenomena of nature are, they are ultimately unified by the minimal set of laws and principles possible. In so far as science continues to operate with that assumption, there is a presupposition of design that is motivating the scientific process. Because it would be perfectly easy,, to stop the pursuit of science at much lower levels. You know understand a certain range of phenomena in a way that is appropiate to deal with that phenomena and just stop there and not go any deeper or any farther.",,, You see, there is sense in which there is design at the ultimate level, the ultimate teleology you might say, which provides the ultimate closure,,"
And Physicists and Mathematicians, despite intense effort, continue to be stymied in their quest to find a 'Theory of Everything'
Bohemian Gravity - Rob Sheldon - September 19, 2013 Excerpt: there’s a large contingent of physicists who believe that string theory is the heroin of theoretical physics. It has absorbed not just millions of dollars, but hundreds if not thousands of grad student lifetimes without delivering what it promised–a unified theory of the universe and life. It is hard, in fact, to find a single contribution from string theory despite 25 years of intense effort by thousands of the very brightest and best minds our society can find. http://rbsp.info/PROCRUSTES/bohemian-gravity/ A Capella Science - Bohemian Gravity! - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjbtsX7twc 'What is referred to as M-theory isn't even a theory. It's a collection of ideas, hopes, aspirations. It's not even a theory and I think the book is a bit misleading in that respect. It gives you the impression that here is this new theory which is going to explain everything. It is nothing of the sort. It is not even a theory and certainly has no observational (evidence),,, I think the book suffers rather more strongly than many (other books). It's not a uncommon thing in popular descriptions of science to latch onto some idea, particularly things to do with string theory, which have absolutely no support from observations.,,, They are very far from any kind of observational (testability). Yes, they (the ideas of M-theory) are hardly science."- Roger Penrose - former close colleague of Stephen Hawking - in critique of Hawking's new book 'The Grand Design' the exact quote in the following video clip: Roger Penrose Debunks Stephen Hawking's New Book 'The Grand Design' - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5278793/
What these physicists fail to realize is, as Godel proved in his incompleteness theorem, you cannot have a 'Theory of Everything' that neglects God
Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8462821 BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/ THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS - DAVID P. GOLDMAN - August 2010 Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel's critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians
Even Hawking himself, at one time, agreed that there cannot be a 'complete' mathematical theory of everything. But it seems Hawking has subsequently forgotten his concession:
The nature and significance of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems - Princeton - 2006 Excerpt: ,,Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson, among others, have come to the conclusion that Gödel’s theorem implies that there can’t be a Theory of Everything.,, http://math.stanford.edu/~feferman/papers/Godel-IAS.pdf
bornagain77
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