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Martin Gardner, Fundamentalism, and Adam’s Navel

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The enormously influential mathematics and science writer, skeptic, and encourager of many, Martin Gardner, has died at the age of 95. I came to know Gardner through a mutual friend, the late science writer and skeptic Bob Schadewald (1943-2000), who occasionally visited Gardner at the latter’s home in North Carolina. [Here’s a tiny but relevant fact that shows the surprising reticulations of the science-and-theology debate in America. During one such visit, Gardner gave Schadewald much of the contents of his library, which he found had grown unwieldy. Then, years later, following the devastating fire that destroyed nearly all of YEC paleontologist Kurt Wise’s library, Schadewald packed much of his personal library into boxes to send to Kurt. Schadewald died a few days later, at nearly the same time his books arrived at Kurt’s home in Tennessee. Kurt unpacked the books, carefully wrapped in tissue, in tears, knowing that the person who sent them had just died. So, chances are, at least some of Martin Gardner’s personal library now resides with Kurt Wise. Go figure.] Schadewald told Gardner about this crazy YEC philosophy of science graduate student he knew, at the University of Chicago, and in response, Gardner sent back a letter to me.

He wanted to know if Adam had a navel. (More about that below.)

It is not generally known that Gardner grew up as a Christian fundamentalist in Oklahoma, and indeed entered the University of Chicago as an undergraduate zealous to defend his faith, and to return America to its Christian heritage:

In his adolescent fantasies he saw himself as chosen by the Lord to lead this new awakening. And to carry out this stupendous undertaking he conceived a brazen plan….He would enter the very citadel of the enemy. He would master all the science and modern learning that a great secular university had to offer. Every false and infernal argument would be examined and exposed. He would probe the diseased heart of twentieth century theology, dissect it nerve by nerve, artery by artery.

The passage comes from Gardner’s autobiographical novel, The Flight of Peter Fromm (1973), which Bill Dembski has used as a textbook in seminary courses he’s taught. While Gardner’s fundamentalist Christianity died a long and painful death, his theism never did. See his fascinating and utterly readable The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener (1983), where Gardner vigorously defends his fideistic conception of God, as well as his belief in the efficacy of prayer, and personal immortality.

It’s hard to say where Gardner would have stood in the current New Atheists versus Accomodationists debates. While he loathed woolly-minded, fuzzy and imprecise thinking, suspecting it of concealing (deliberately, perhaps) deep confusions — and such thinking is much on display among many defenders of “theistic evolution” — he also disdained the imperialistic and often inhumane reductionism of scientific materialism. I like to think, if Gardner had been found the strength for another decade, or two, of writing and thinking, he would have drafted a book challenging the New Atheists. Heck, why not. He refused to fit into anyone’s categories.

In the mid-1980s, when Gardner asked me about Adam’s navel, I found the question sophomoric, and told him so. Who cares? In what possible scheme of the universe would the existence of a small indentation (or not!) in Adam’s abdomen make the least bit of difference to anything? Now, almost 25 years later, Gardner’s question makes more sense to me, at least as far as its motivation is concerned.

Critics of intelligent design start their reasoning with a model of God and His rationality. The world as we find it must fit with that model. For Gardner, a rational Designer faces a dilemma in making the first human being, if He is creating him de novo. Navel or no navel? The former possibility entails the deceptive appearance of history; the latter leaves Adam looking somehow odd, facing awkward questions from the kids.

Just the sort of question Gardner delighted in asking.

In honor of his memory, let’s give Gardner the last word, from his chapter (in Whys) on immortality:

Lord, remember me! If God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, if every wave and particle is what it is, does what it does, because God remembers it, then we exist now because God remembers us. And if God remembers us after we die, we may continue to exist. That is all a theist need say to establish in his or her heart the possibility of immortality.

Amen.

Comments
@bornagain, I posted an uncompleted comment at first, sorry. But don't you have a problem that an approximation of π is encoded into Genesis which was obsolete centuries before it could have been spotted? And for your other prophecies: They are less than impressive, as they all were found after the events took place - or hint to events in the far future. None of them is an example of a tested hypothesis, i.e., detected before the event, and then corroborated by the event happening at the promised time in the promised way.DiEb
May 31, 2010
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DiEb, "I have no problems with interpreting" "I see" said the blind man: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/I_see,_said_the_blind_manbornagain77
May 30, 2010
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@bornagain, kairofocus I have no problems with interpreting the value of π in 1 Kings 7,23 as rounding to then next integer, or taking into account that there was a brim to the vessel. I have a problem with finding secret subtexts which allow for finding approximative values of π - but only if you know the real value beforehand. BTW, the method (and the value) to find 333/106 seems to be at least slightly less preposterous than the way 3.1416*10^16 was found....DiEb
May 30, 2010
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@bornagain, kairofocus I have no problems with interpretingDiEb
May 30, 2010
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DiEb, and of what possible use would it be for me if I searched around and maybe found an instance of pi being used at the time of Solomon for you to examine? And what use is it to find an approximation of π in the first verse of Genesis? Did God tell us: As 333/106 is an approximation for π, so is this text just a paraphrase of what happened...DiEb
May 30, 2010
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DiEb, and of what possible use would it be for me if I searched around and maybe found an instance of pi being used at the time of Solomon for you to examine? (Even though you have ignored the examples Kairofocus and I have presented right before you) Would not you simply deny the example had any relevance, as you have with the ones presented, and as you have done with far greater evidences presented to you? and would you not just move on to some other superfluous area to raise a doubt about. I believe this particular scripture seems fitting for what you are constantly doing: 2 Timothy 3:7 always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. DiEb don't you ever get tired of living in flatland? Dr Quantum - Flatland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4bornagain77
May 30, 2010
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@bornagain & http://www.apocalipsis.org/difficulties/pi.htm While we know about the Babylonian (25/8) and the Egyptian (256/81) approximations as they wrote about it and used it in calculations, is their any instance where the "Solomonic" approximation (333/106) is used - before this ratio was (re?)discovered by Adrian Athonisz in the 16th century?DiEb
May 30, 2010
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kairosfocus, here is a fitting song that will most likely never see the inside of a math classroom in discussions of pi's relation to reality: Flyleaf - All Around Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN0FFK8JSYEbornagain77
May 30, 2010
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PS: The onward exchange here, where an objector tried to co-opt the authority of a math answers site to the cause of Bible objections, is an apt further illustration of the problem. Sadly, the way the exchange developed is all too familiar.kairosfocus
May 30, 2010
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Thanks kairosfocus for pointing that out; this site has both answers, to the hyper-skeptics, for pi on one page: The value of Pi is not correct in 1 Kings 7:23 http://www.apocalipsis.org/difficulties/pi.htmbornagain77
May 30, 2010
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@kairofocus Reading hyperskeptically to find debater’s objection points is not the frame of mind that is likely to cause one to coherently understand. I'm sorry, I don't understand your comment. Do you think that the findings of www.biblemaths.com re the appearance of in Gen 1.1 and John 1.1 have any merit?DiEb
May 30, 2010
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Gentlemen: Without going into the exchange on what pi is etc, a simple reading here will help clarify on the measurement of the vessel in question. Remember it is very reasonable the vessel was lipped. Reading hyperskeptically to find debater's objection points is not the frame of mind that is likely to cause one to coherently understand. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
May 30, 2010
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Refutation Of Oscillating Universe - Michael Strauss PhD. - video: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4323673 Evidence For Flat Universe - Boomerang Project http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/boomerang-flat.html http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/images1/omegamomegal3.gif ,,,,,,,,A "flatness" which is in itself a extremely finely tuned condition, a condition that materialists certainly did not predict then My question, for you to ignore once again, would be, "Given the stunning level of confirmation of "pi" being such a integral part of how the universe is/was built, should you not give a far more charitable reading to the "extra" zeros found for pi and presuppose we don't have all the pieces of the puzzle yet?,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,That the universe is also found to be a 4-D "expanding" hypersphere within that circle, and not static as materialists had predicted, a "growth" which seems to keep in line with the fundamental constant "e" used for calculating different rates of growth within "the circle of reality", should you/we not also be far more charitable in our reading of John 1:1 and presuppose that perhaps we may not have all the pieces of the puzzle yet for why the "extra" zeros are there? It seems to me far more misguided to presuppose that we know everything there is to know so as to say the extra zeros are a definitely a mistake, when in fact we are barely beginning to take "baby steps" to discerning how reality is actually constructed in the first place. I don't know about you warehuff, but just going from the track record of failed predictions materialists thus far, My money is definitely on the zeros being there for some undiscovered purpose!bornagain77
May 30, 2010
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Whereas this "circularity" was known of in the Bible thousands of years ago: Proverbs 8:27 "When He established the heavens, I was there, When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, And that the universe is also found to be extremely "flat":,,,, Did the Universe Hyperinflate? - Hugh Ross - April 2010 Excerpt: Perfect geometric flatness is where the space-time surface of the universe exhibits zero curvature (see figure 3). Two meaningful measurements of the universe's curvature parameter, ½k, exist. Analysis of the 5-year database from WMAP establishes that -0.0170 < ½k < 0.0068.4 Weak gravitational lensing of distant quasars by intervening galaxies places -0.031 < ½k < 0.009.5 Both measurements confirm the universe indeed manifests zero or very close to zero geometric curvature,,,bornagain77
May 30, 2010
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The following video reiterates Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 and reveals that the ancient Hebrew sages had a very different view of the Scripture as being the "template" from which God created the universe: The Bible, Pi & Logarithms - Supernatural Design II - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrdFrMvjDbg Seeing as the universe itself is circular and not infinite as materialists claimed: The Known Universe by AMNH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6Ubornagain77
May 30, 2010
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Warehuff The following video corrects you on your reading of 1 Kings 7:23 (i.e. pi equals 3 fallacy) The Bible and the Value of Pi - Supernatural Design - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikI6Bn-ZutQbornagain77
May 30, 2010
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ba77, pi and e are not found in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 respectively. Dr. Bluer's value for pi in Genesis 1:1 is not 3.1416, it is 3.1416 e10+17, or 314,160,000,000,000,000. He "reconciles" the humungus difference between his answer and the true value of pi by "stripping the constants of their surplus zeroes." But those zeros are not surplus! They are the difference between buying a hamburger at McDonalds and getting a bill for three dollars and fourteen cents and getting a bill for three hundred and fourteen thousand one hundred and sixty million million dollars. His value for e is off by even more. Instead of 2.718, Bluer finds 2.718 e10+40! That raises your two dollar and 72 cent bill to twenty seven thousand one hundred and eighty million million million million million million million dollars plus tax. The values he comes up with aren't even on the same planet as the real values of pi and e. Besides, the Bible gives a simple and clear cut calculation for the value of pi in 1 Kings 7,23 and 2 Chronicles 4,2 :"He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it." Biblical pi clearly equals a circumference of 30 cubits divided by a diameter of 10 cubits, or 3.warehuff
May 30, 2010
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@bornagain: 1. There are more than 30,000 verses in the bible. This should be enough to construct any number up to four significant digits, especially as the author of www.biblemath.com is only interested in the mantissa. 2. Could you please explain to me why decimal fractions are used? No author prior to the 10th century would have thought of describing π as π ≈ 3 + 1/10 + 4/100 + 1/1000. 3. The author didn't explain why he uses his particular method: why not adding the values of the letters, and sum the products of the letters in the words? Why multiplying the numbers with the number of letters resp. the number of words instead of taking the average? There are many different ways to works with the letters - how many did he try before getting interesting results?DiEb
May 30, 2010
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bornagain77, Thank you, it's just not conducive to a constructive conversation.Clive Hayden
May 29, 2010
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OK Mr Hayden, I'm sorry and I promise I will not call materialists insane anymore. And I am personally apologizing to you warehuff if I offended you with what I said.bornagain77
May 29, 2010
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bornagain77, Don't call other commenters insane.Clive Hayden
May 29, 2010
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Clive Hayden,, and has God failed to provide adequate evidence (Romans 1:20) so that warehuff might be justified in his refusal to be reasonable to any sufficient degree in the course of our debates? Of course not. God has flooded reality with evidence from every angle! So exactly how am I suppose to view his mindset Mr. Hayden?bornagain77
May 29, 2010
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bornagain77,
Please let me know what this great deal is so that I may better understand your sheer insanity.
Moderation is now in effect.Clive Hayden
May 29, 2010
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warehuff if you really want to "worry" about something, why don't you worry about the miracle of Israel becoming a nation again after 2000 years of exile. Especially seeing the fact that the prophecy behind it was fulfilled precisely: Luke 21:24 "They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." The Precisely Fulfilled Prophecy Of Israel Becoming A Nation In 1948 – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041241 Or warehuff, will you again make up any kind of fancy sounding rhetoric that you can in order to deny what is clearly evident? Exactly what is the payoff for you warehuff? Do you have a better deal somewhere than what God is offering you? Please let me know what this great deal is so that I may better understand your sheer insanity. notes: "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." Max Planck - The Father Of Quantum Mechanics - (Of Note: Planck was a devout Christian, which is not surprising when you realize practically every founder of a major branch of modern science also had a deep Christian connection.) I find it extremely interesting that quantum mechanics tells us that instantaneous quantum wave collapse to its "uncertain" 3-D state is centered on each individual observer in the universe, whereas, 4-D space-time cosmology tells us each 3-D point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe. Why should the expansion of the universe, or the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe, even care that I exist? Psalm 33:13-15 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. This is obviously a very interesting congruence in science between the very large (relativity) and the very small (quantum mechanics). A congruence they seem to be having a extremely difficult time "unifying" mathematically into a "theory of everything".(Einstein, Penrose). The Physics Of The Large And Small: What Is the Bridge Between Them? Roger Penrose Excerpt: This, (the unification of General Relativity and the laws of Quantum Mechanics), would also have practical advantages in the application of quantum ideas to subjects like biology - in which one does not have the clean distinction between a quantum system and its classical measuring apparatus that our present formalism requires. In my opinion, moreover, this revolution is needed if we are ever to make significant headway towards a genuine scientific understanding of the mysterious but very fundamental phenomena of conscious mentality. http://www.pul.it/irafs/CD%20IRAFS%2702/texts/Penrose.pdf "There are serious problems with the traditional view that the world is a space-time continuum. Quantum field theory and general relativity contradict each other. The notion of space-time breaks down at very small distances, because extremely massive quantum fluctuations (virtual particle/antiparticle pairs) should provoke black holes and space-time should be torn apart, which doesn’t actually happen." - G J Chaitin http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/bookgoedel_6.pdf Yet, this "unification", into a "theory of everything", between what is in essence the "infinite world of Quantum Mechanics" and the "finite world of the space-time of General Relativity" seems to be directly related to what Jesus apparently joined together with His resurrection, i.e. related to the unification of infinite God with finite man: The Center Of The Universe Is Life - General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and The Shroud Of Turin - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3993426/ The End Of Christianity - Finding a Good God in an Evil World - Pg.31 - William Dembski 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 ---------------- Quantum Consciousness - Time Flies Backwards? - Stuart Hameroff MD Excerpt: Dean Radin and Dick Bierman have performed a number of experiments of emotional response in human subjects. The subjects view a computer screen on which appear (at randomly varying intervals) a series of images, some of which are emotionally neutral, and some of which are highly emotional (violent, sexual....). In Radin and Bierman's early studies, skin conductance of a finger was used to measure physiological response They found that subjects responded strongly to emotional images compared to neutral images, and that the emotional response occurred between a fraction of a second to several seconds BEFORE the image appeared! Recently Professor Bierman (University of Amsterdam) repeated these experiments with subjects in an fMRI brain imager and found emotional responses in brain activity up to 4 seconds before the stimuli. Moreover he looked at raw data from other laboratories and found similar emotional responses before stimuli appeared. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/views/TimeFlies.htmlbornagain77
May 29, 2010
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warehuff, your objection is without merit since it is in fact pi and e which is found within Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 respectively. If we were talking of the Bible Code, which I am not defending, you may have had some merit, but as it sits I find the only one "worrying a short length of text to death" to be you.bornagain77
May 29, 2010
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ba77 @ 57: There are two general ways of manufacturing information from an innocent text. One way is to run a pseudo-randomizing function against a large amount of text. The Bible Code does this with its equidistant letter sequence function, which generates a long sequence of pseudo random characters which the searcher can than scan for anything interesting. This is how a list of famous rabbis was found, first in a Hebrew Bible text, then in a Hebrew translation of War and Peace, then in an English translation of War and Peace and finally in the text on cereal boxes. The other way is to worry a short length of text to death. Try as many possible operations on the letters as you can, searching for anything interesting in the resulting pseudo random outputs. If you spot something interesting, publish. If not, use another algorithm. Adding the letters together doesn't produce anything? Try multiplying them. Still nothing? Take the product of the letters and multiply it by the number of letters. Just keep trying and eventually you'll hit something. In both cases, it helps to not specify what you're looking for in advance - just take anything interesting. Your author found PI, but if he'd found the Golden Ratio, I'm sure he would have been just as happy and the results would have been just as impressive. There are hundreds of constants to look for. If you can't find any, look for saint's names (famous rabbis has been taken), religious dates, ball scores - eventually you'll find something. Dembski describes the situation when he talks about archers who shoot at the side of a barn and then paint targets around their arrows, where ever they hit. In this case, shoot the arrow then look around where it landed for any knothole or other interesting mark. If you find one, draw a target around it. If not, fire again. Eventually, you'll hit something.warehuff
May 29, 2010
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Off topic music: Funtwo - Cannon Rock - Live at Korean Ambassador's residence; http://www.metacafe.com/watch/529769 Amazing Video of a Song Composed Entirely of 37 Cello Parts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsavk0FX3Ro Amazing Music Machine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRvkXzukpk Royksopp - Remind Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvaHZIrt0o and for fellow vets this memorial day: Band of Brothers - Main Title 'Requiem for a Soldier' Song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfVELFsb96Qbornagain77
May 28, 2010
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I can't understand what the issue is if we say God created Adam as a mature human being. Perhaps God formed Adam at an optimum age, say 25 to 30. Then again our perception of age and optimum physical and intellectual development may be a bit off because this would have been before the fall of man.DesignFan
May 28, 2010
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bornagain77: 1. To find this kind of numerology in a thread which is a tribute to the memory of Martin Gardner is highly ironic. 2. Do you have any idea why π was encoded in a way that it was impossible to find it before 800 A.D.? Wasn't Europe ripe to handle this approximation? 3. You have no basis in your objection. Oh yes, I have. It's 10.DiEb
May 28, 2010
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DiEb, You have no basis in your objection. If you don't like the implications of pi and e being found in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1, in the ancient Hebrew and Greek, I really don't care I will not justify your trivial nitpicking and unfounded bias against scripture. Since you have so much trouble with that example you will really hate this: The Precisely Fulfilled Prophecy Of Israel Becoming A Nation In 1948 - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041241 The Signs of Israel's Rebirth: Lesson 1: The Parable of the Fig Tree Concluding Statement: Now it should also be perfectly clear what the parable of the fig tree in the Olivet Discourse means (Matt 24:32-34). As the disciples were walking into the city on Tuesday morning after Palm Sunday, they noticed that the tree which Jesus had cursed the day before had withered and dried up. Later, on Tuesday evening, when the memory of the withered fig tree was still fresh in their minds, Jesus spoke the parable in question. He said that when the church sees the fig tree leafing out again, it will know that "it is . . . at the doors." The Greek for "it is" can also be translated "he is." In prophecy, "door" is often a symbol for the passageway between heaven and earth (Rev. 4:1). What the parable means, therefore, is that when the nation of Israel revives after its coming disintegration and death in A.D. 70, the return of Christ will be imminent. http://www.themoorings.org/prophecy/Israel/Israel1.html Sir Isaac Newton's Prediction For The Return Of Christ - Sid Roth video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041154/sir_isaac_newtons_prediction_for_the_return_of_christ_sid_roth/bornagain77
May 28, 2010
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