I have been reading Luthien’s blog on evolution and creationism. Initially I had thought of responding to him there but after consideration I decided that what I had to say was substantial enough to warrant a blog all its own. It also only addresses a small portion of Luthien’s otherwise very good post, and I did not want to hijack his thread.
Michael Shermer in his book How We Believe describes a three tiered view of the relationship between science and religion:
(1) The Conflicting Worlds Model. This model says that science and religion is in conflict. They are different views of the universe and they come to irreconcilably different views. If one is right then the other is wrong.
(2) The Same Worlds Model. This model says that science and religion are not in conflict. They are different ways of looking at the universe but they both are valid. Since “truth” cannot contradict “truth”, they cannot be in conflict. Any apparent conflict then is due to our lack of understanding what the real “truth” of at least one of those views is.
(3) The Different Worlds Model. This model says that science and religion is not in conflict for the simple reason that the world of science is completely separated from the world of religion. Religion tells us how to go to heaven; science tells us how the heavens go.
At one time or another in my life I have advocated all three views. After giving it a great deal of thought I believe the Conflicting Worlds Model is ultimately correct. The only way to avoid conflict is to change religion or science into something that we not call religion or science now.
First, let me deal with the Different Worlds Model. This view was championed by a person I have a great deal of respect for, Stephen Jay Gould. Gould called it NOMA for Non Overlapping MAgisteria. Gould said that science deals with mechanisms of how the universe works. Relgion deals with ethics. Quite a few scientists and theologians have advocated this. I call this the Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along” appeal. I think it is too simplistic.
Certainly science does deal with explanatory mechanisms behind the workings of the natural world. But science can in principle investigate any phenomenon affecting the natural world. So when religion says that God answers prayers, for instance, science can investigate that claim. If religion says that it is possible for a human male to be born of a virgin, science can investigate that. If religion says that the earth was created in 6 days, science can test that too. If religion tells us that God must have made the universe then science can investigate that too.
Furthermore, I see no reason that ethics necessarily be conceded to the sole province of religion. I think non-religious institutions, including science can yield useful insights into ethics.
Some people say that science cannot prove God existence one way or the other. That is too simplistic. Suppose that on December 24th there the bright red star in the constellation of Orion, Betelguese (pronounced “Beetle Juice”) undergoes a supernova (as astronomers say it will one day in the not too distant cosmological future). Suppose also we turn our telescopes toward it and see in perfect Times Roman font “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men – Love God” written in the cosmic dust of the explosion. I doubt if any proponent of the NOMA philosophy would claim that isn’t evidence that God actually exists.
Already some theists have speculated about doing DNA analysis on the supposed blood stains on the Shroud of Turin. What if it shows that there is two sets of DNA. One with an X chromosome that looks just like normal everyday human chromosomes and another that includes the Y chromosomes in which there is no excess DNA. The genes don’t have introns, pseudogenes, ALU repeats, endogenous retroviruses, or any of the other apparent junk normally found in our genome. That would be scientific evidence not only for Jesus’s existence, but for his supernatural paternity as well.
So it is certainly possible to get scientific evidence supporting God’s existence. What about evidence for God’s nonexistence. That can be done as well.
Really?? Isn’t proving a negative impossible? Yes and No. I will agree that we cannot possibly rule out the existence of all conceivable Gods, but we can rule out the existence of certain Gods. Anytime one says something about God’s character, then there are logical ramifications that can be subjected to scrutiny. If the characteristics do not stand up to scrutiny then a God with that type of characteristic can reasonably be ruled out. The only god that science can say nothing about is one that has no interaction with the universe what-so-ever. If such a god exists then at best it is irrelevant to anything in our lives.
So then we are left with either the Same Worlds Model or the Conflicting Worlds Model. I have many friends who are atheists and I have many friends who are theists. Every theist I am friends with would support the Same Worlds Model, every atheist would support the Conflicting Worlds Model. Interestingly there are theists who support the Conflicting Worlds Model too. These are the fundamentalists and I am not on particularly good terms with them. While I reject religion in favor of verifiable science, they reject the science in favor of religion. Even though we are diametrically opposed on most things, I do give them credit for holding a logically consistent position.
The problem I have with my theistic friends is that their apologetics seem to be ad hoc and strained. Let’s take the Genesis 1 account of creation as an example. Genesis 1 says the earth was created in 6 specific days. My theistic friends say that must be read allegorically. “Evening and morning, the [first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth] day” doesn’t REALLY mean a 24 hour day. It means an unspecified length of time that could really be billions of years long.
Why do they say that? The answer is because if you think of it as a 24 hour day then it is obviously wrong. A few of the more studied theists say that even the early church fathers didn’t view “day” as being 24 hours long either. That actually is true. They thought of it as being a period of a thousand years. Why? Because in Genesis 2 there is a second story of creation … the Adam and Eve one.
In that story God tells Adam that if he partakes of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil that in that day he will die. Adam does eat of it but lives another 930 years. So to overcome inconsistency they said that when God said “day” he meant “1000 years”. That must have been among the first of the ad hoc apologetics to come along.
But even if you believe as the early church fathers did you get the age of the universe at 12,000 years instead of 6,000. You are still off by a factor of a million.
Even if you let “day” be meaningless, then you have the problem of coming up with something meaningful as to what creation of light (day 1), creation of firmaments (day 2), creation of dry land and plants (day 3), creation of Sun, Moon, and Stars (day 4), creation of fish and birds (day 5), creation of land animals and humans (day 6), and rest (day 7) mean.
My theistic friends are able to do it. They do it a number of different ways. They do it by making things mean what no one would normally thing they mean. I find this intellectually dishonest. They are intentionally fooling themselves. It is clear what the intent of the author of many biblical stories was. It has also become clear that the bible is wrong in many instances. The only reason to claim otherwise is to reconcile obvious wrong findings.
I think religion DOES make specific testable claims about the nature of the universe. I think science says many of these claims do not withstand scrutiny. The claims that do not withstand scrutiny are numerous enough and of sufficient importance that I think science and religion is basically incompatible. If one is right then the other is wrong. I choose science.
Regards,
Darwin’s Beagle
science proves religion with the Big Bang theory. It had to do with the law of biogenesis where life comes from life. thus, which came first, the chicken or the egg?
How did we all of a sudden just appear out of nowhere if life can only be created from life?
I am always amazed that people who know almost nothing on a subject seem to think that otherwise smart people who have spent their lives studying that particular subject are too stupid to see the obvious.
(1) The Big Bang theory is a theory of the expansion of the early universe. It has virtually nothing to do with the origin of life.
(2) Biogenesis concerns Louis Pasteur's experiments which says that modern life always arises from living things. It too does not deal with the origin of life.
(3) The "chicken or egg" problem concerns the origin of genetic material. In all life now, DNA codes for proteins, but it takes proteins to make more DNA. So which came first ... proteins or DNA
(4) No one has ever claimed that life appeared from nowhere. Life appeared out of the complex chemistry that developed on the early earth.
The law of biogenesis does not claim that life comes only from life ... it claims that present-day complex life only comes from similarly complex living things. The world was a lot different during the period in which life originated. There was nothing around to eat complex chemicals. There were a number of interesting niches such as deep sea vents, evaporation pools, clays with potential polymerization sites, iron pyrite catalytic sites, and the like where chemical reactions took place and the products would be protected.
(5) Now let's look at the logic of your argument ... You are saying that complex life like us just doesn't happen all on its own ... so to account for its origin you think there was an even more complex life that we can't see and that DID just happen to be here all on its own did it.
Are you beginning to get an inkling of why it is your post makes little sense?
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
I'm a SHE btw
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world" -Ghandhi
I wont make that mistake again ;->
Darwin's Beagle
Jessamine Q.
What?
Jessamine Q.
Thank you once again for your very respectful response....
What I meant by SERVANTS OF GOD.... The bible gives not only examples of those that served God but also of those that didn't serve God such as King Nebuchadnezzar. When I use this phrase I mean the prophets and true friends of God whom God used to convey His message. Moses, Jacob, Issac, Abraham, Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Daniel, Isaiah and so on and so forth...
And actually more scientist use the bible as reference. Many historians, paleontologist, archaeologist, and so on rely on the bible's accuracy to find out different places and events.
I by no means said that the bible inspired the BIG BANG Theory. I do not believe in that theory. I do not believe the bible inspired the discoveries of those times because like today people choose to ignore the bible's message or they like to twist it around. Or they like to deny what is clearly stated and make a more complex meaning out of it. I do not believe God used evolution in the way of crerating creatures. The bible clearly states He made them according to their kinds.
In the bible that phrase in Job 26:7, "He is stretching out the north over the empty place, Hanging the earth upon nothing, " (NW). First of all Job referred to this empty place as the heavens back in Job 9:8, it is also mentioned in Psalms 104:2 and Isaiah 42:5. We can conclude formt his what the author meant by his surrounding text. So since the heavens are above the earth we can automatically conclude that the earth hang upon nothing in the heavens.
The bible was not written by Babylonians, it was written in Hebrew and Greek Languages so therefore we have to look at these two cultures. Servants of God saw Babylonians as ungodly people and would ot have associated this meaning with the Babylonian beliefs. The Babylonians served false gods and created many of the the false teachings that many religions believe in today such as a spirit surviving the body and going to heaven or hell. But Like I said above the surrounding text of the bible makes it clear as to what that scripture meant.
We all look at the earth and say it is a circle. We do not think about the complexities of a circle. WHich I am sure the writers of the bible weren't about to say,"Oh, wait hold on I should clarify myself before I make this prophecy God." That wasn't the purpose of the bible. And like you said, we have to look at what the Hebrew words would have meant a long time ago. Today, we know a circle has a flat surface, but what did circle imply for them? Was it a sphere? Or a circle with a flat surface? We may never know because that was not God's purpose.
1 Chronicles 16:30 (NRSV) says: “tremble before him, all the earth. The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.” Why will it never be moved? Because it is the center of the universe.
Psalms 104:5 (NRSV): “You set the earth on its foundations so that it will never be shaken”. The earth is not spherical here. It rests on an immovable foundation. The heavens do move. The earth is assumed to be at the center of the universe.
These SCRIPTURES CONCERN GOD'S PURPOSE FOR THE EARTH. IN THE BIBLE, ALL THROUGHOUT THE BOOK OF REVELATION, GOD PURPOSED THE EARTH TO BE HERE FOREVER. MEANING IT WOULD NOT BE DESTROYED BY MAN. MANY THINK THAT WE WILL ALL GO TO HEAVEN AND THE EARTH WILL JUST EXPLODE. NO GOD SAYS THE EARTH WILL BE AROUND FOREVER FOR US TO LIVE EVERLEASTING UPON IT. THAT IS WHY WE PRAY FOR GOD'S WILL TO TAKE PLACE IN HEAVEN AND ALSO UPON THE EARTH. Those scriptures were only a cementing of God's promise to not let anyone destroy the earth.
IN REVELATION, GOD SAYS HE WILL BRING TO RUIN THOSE RUINING THE EARTH. WHY WOULD HE DO THAT IF THE EARTH WERE GOING TO BE DESTROYED?
There was actually a big thing on the book of Daniel. And I think most of that has been cleared up. And also the world has come a long way since Daniel. I am sure natural disasters, and development has changed some of the sites where certain things occured. BUt it cannot be denied that we have found Sodom and Gomorrah which was teaming with skeletons. And we have found other numerous places that have managed to not get shuffled along with time.
(1) Thanks for clearing up the SERVANTS OF GOD thing. I will hold off on my comments about the strangeness of using prophets to get one's message out for another time.
(2) You missed the point about the foundational fields of science. It doesn't matter if YOU believe the Big Bang theory or not. It is the theory that binds the observations of cosmologists into a coherent subject. Virtually all reputable cosmologists agree on that. Evolutionary theory serves the same role in biology. Plate tectonics serves the same role in geology. The germ theory does the same for the field of infectious disease. Quantum mechanics and general relativity does the same for physics. NONE of them were inspired by the bible. The point then is that the bible shows no signs of prescient knowledge. It has been useless, and in fact a hinderance to the progress of science.
Perhaps a few historians and archaeologists have used it in the furtherance of their respective fields of knowledge but no more than they have used other ancient texts such as Plato's Dialogues and Republic, Homer's Iliad and Oddessey etc.
(3) I never claimed that the bible was written by Babylonians (unless you think of the Jews during the exilic period as Babylonians). But the Jews were influenced by Babylonian cosmology. Everything that is written in the bible about the structure of the universe is consistent and very parsimonious when interpreted in that light. MUCH more so than by trying to stick a modern twist on the interpretation.
(4) You say that the scriptures do not concern the universe but rather are a reflection of God's purpose for us. OK then ... how would it have obscured God's purpose to state in Isaiah 40:22 "It is he who sits above the BALL of the earth, ..."? It wouldn't have obscured God's purpose at all. BUT IT WOULD HAVE MADE THE VERSE CLEAR WITH RESPECT TO THE SHAPE OF THE EARTH. In other words, it would have made the bible better.
By the way, nobody calls a basketball a circle. People do call it a sphere. People call wheels circle but again that is a two-dimensional thing. So it is not true that we all call spheres circles.
(5)You need to read the bible a bit more carefully. Those verses had little to do with God not allowing people to destroy the earth. They were claims to his great power and his ability to punish wrongdoing.
(6) Er ... I can deny that Sodom and Gomorrah have been found. While there have been a few on the lunatic fringe like Ron Wyatt (who claimed to have found all sorts of things including Noah's Ark, the Red Sea crossing, and the Ark of the Covenant), nothing has withstood scrutiny. Certainly there has been nothing claimed about Sodom & Gomorrah with respect to "teeming with skeletons".
Here is a list of archaeological finds that dispute the bible.
(a) While many signs of campfires for small camel caravans have been found, nothing suggesting a band of 605,000 men of fighting age along with the young, elderly, and women camped anywhere on the Sinai, even though the bible claimed they spent 40 years there.
(b) The cities of Jericho and Ai were most likely UNINHABITED when the bible says they were destroyed.
(c) There is no sign that David ruled over anything larger than a band of brigands.
(d) Palaces previously attributed to Solomon probably were later and belonged to different Kings.
(e) Mannassas was a secularist king (which is why the bible trashes him) but under his rule Judah prospered. Under Josiah (whom the bible praises) Judah entered into a course of action that caused it to eventually be destroyed.
(f) The God of Israel started off as merely one of many in the Babylonian/Sumerian Pantheon.
There are plenty of others that I do not have time to delve into. I would recommend the book by Israel Finkelstein and David Silberman, UNEARTHING THE BIBLE. It is relatively up to date and discusses the controversies fairly.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
JESSAMINE Q.
Sorry for number 8. It reads alittle awkwardly so I am rewriting it...
No where in the bible does it state that Jehovah, Jesus, and Jehovah's Holy Spirit are a trinity or all one. The New Encyclopedia Britannica of 1976, Micropedia, Vol. X, Pg 126 states: Neither the word Trinity, nor the explicit doctrine as such, appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Old Testament: 'Hear O Isreal: The Lord our God is one Lord' (Deut 6:4) .....The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies...By the end of the 4th century...the doctrine of the Trinity took substantially the form it has maintained ever since."
Also sorry for the delay in responding. Unfortunately I am very busy at the moment and to reply to your post in the detail necessary requires a lot of input. I'll make no promises but I'll try and respond to all your points. However, here I will respond only to 1 and 2, a flat earth and an earth-centered solar system.
My understanding of your points is as follows:
(a) Scientists have been amazed at the prescience displayed by the SERVANTS OF GOD.
(b) Job 26:7 saying the earth is round, and Isaiah 40:22 in saying that the earth “hangs on nothing” is evidence of this prescient knowledge.
(c) The bible’s accuracy concerning landmarks, people and events supports its scientific accuracy.
(d) Nowhere in the bible does it state that the earth is the center of the universe.
(e) God had an agenda other than to impart scientific knowledge so it not surprising that the people didn’t know some facts of the universe.
Let me address each point in order.
1a -- You uses the term “SERVANTS OF GOD” (capitalization yours) quite a bit without adequately defining it. After reading your response, I will assume you mean “a believer in the biblical God” by the term.
While I have no doubts that a few individual scientists have expressed their amazement at the prescient knowledge found in the bible, I can assure you that is not the consensus opinion by scientists in general. I, myself, have searched the bible diligently giving it all the benefits of reasonable doubt, and I find absolutely nothing in it to suggest that the authors were inspired by a being with knowledge of the universe superior to ours; and everything that suggests that the source of the bible knew considerably less about the universe than we do.
That can readily be seen by looking at every major unifying theme in scientific areas. The bible did not inspire the discovery of any one of them. The Big Bang Theory of cosmology was inspired from Edwin Powell Hubble’s observation of an expanding universe. Plate Tectonics was inspired from Alfred Wenger’s observation of the close alignment of the coasts on either side of the Atlantic. The Heliocentric Solar System was inspired by the parsimony of the mathematics in prediction the location of planets in the night skies. The Germ Theory of Disease was inspired by the discovery of bacteria causing milk and broth to go bad. Evolutionary Theory was inspired by the observations of biological phenomenon in a wide variety of areas. But NONE were inspired because of what the bible says.
The only way to come to the conclusion that the bible had prescient knowledge is do so post hoc. By that I mean that once you determine what is correct (by science) you go back to the bible and use creative interpretations to say, “Yes, this is exactly what the bible meant.” It is a recipe for fooling yourself, which is the cardinal rule in science to avoid. Unfortunately, as Richard Feynmann said, you are the easiest person for you to fool.
1b. You mixed up the bible quotes (an easy thing to do when composing a long response). The Job quote refers to the earth being hung upon nothing, and the Isaiah quote refers to the circle of the earth.
Here is Job 22:7 (NRSV)
“He stretches out Zaphon over the void and hangs the earth upon nothing.”
You read this and sees the phrase “hangs the earth upon nothing”. She pictures a spherical earth suspended in the midst of space. Why do you do this? Because you are viewing the phrase from your knowledge of present-day cosmology, and it seems to make sense. But what is that “stretch[ing] out Zaphon over the void” stuff? And is your interpretation what the author really meant?
The answer is, “Unlikely”. To interpret what the verse really meant we need to view it in the context of the cosmology likely to be understood by its author. And that would be early Babylonian cosmology.
This cosmology formed the basis of the Ptolomaic cosmology which was the dominant cosmology up until the acceptance of Copernicus. It viewed the earth as the center of the universe. Immediately around the earth was the sky. Above that were concentric crystalline domes. Each dome had its own structure[s] suspended within it. There was a dome for the sun, another for the moon, one for each known planet and the outermost one for the background stars. Each dome moved at its own pace. That is why the sun, moon, and planets seemed to move independently of each other against the background stars.
But notice that the earth was not suspended within a crystalline dome. What was it suspended on? Nothing! It didn’t need to be. It was the center of the universe and didn’t need to move.
Zaphon is derived from the Hebrew word meaning “north”. So what was stretched out? The answer is the crystalline spheres. If one looks in the night sky and tracks the rotation of the stars, they all seem to be rotating around Polaris, the north star. This is true for the planets as well. The Babylonians believed the crystalline domes were anchored somewhere up north and that is why they rotated around that point.
So in reality, the verse does not refer to a spherical earth suspended in space. It refers to a flat earth at the center of the universe with the rest of the universe suspended (hung) on crystalline domes.
So what about the Isaiah quote? Here is the Isaiah 40:22 (NRSV):
“It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches the heavens out like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;”
Here you see the phrase “circle of the earth” and interpret it to mean a sphere. But are you fooling yourself again? I think so. First, a circle is not a sphere. A circle is flat surface. It is just the shape a primitive person may very well imagine the earth to be if his views were limited to a mountaintop or the top of a mast on sailing ship.
If God would have wanted to clearly convey the impression of a spherical earth then he could have better done it by using a word that means “sphere”. The bible does use such a word … once. Coincidently, it is used in the book of Isaiah. That word is “ball”. Here is Isaiah 22:18 (NRSV):
“[The Lord will] whirl you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land; there you shall die and there your splendid chariots shall lie, O you disgrace to your master’s house”.
Note that use of the term “ball” has no cosmological significance to it. So where the bible had a chance of showing some prescient knowledge by using the term, it didn’t. Where there was no chance, it did.
What about “stretch[ing] the heavens out like a curtain, and spread[ing] them like a tent to live in”? Again this refers to the Babylonian cosmology mentioned above. So again there is no prescient knowledge.
1c – You repeat an assertion that I have often heard, that the bible is amazingly accurate concerning landmarks, historical people, and events. It isn’t. I have written a number of posts detailing the inaccuracies in the book of Daniel. See here, here, here, here, here, and here. I have several more posts yet to go before I finish detailing all the errors in Daniel. And that is just one of the 66 books in the bible. In later responses to you I will need to detail some errors in the bible, so I will not at this time discuss any specific ones here.
But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that the bible is perfectly reliable with respect to events of the past. That would not necessarily lend any credence to the claim that science and religion are in harmony. Science is not history. Reliable history is not reliable science.
1d – You claim that nowhere in the bible does it state that the earth is the center of the solar system. That is true. It isn’t explicitly stated anywhere. It takes it for granted. I have already mentioned above two places where that is so. Here are a couple more verses in which the terracentric (earth-centered) universe is assumed.
1 Chronicles 16:30 (NRSV) says: “tremble before him, all the earth. The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.” Why will it never be moved? Because it is the center of the universe.
Psalms 104:5 (NRSV): “You set the earth on its foundations so that it will never be shaken”. The earth is not spherical here. It rests on an immovable foundation. The heavens do move. The earth is assumed to be at the center of the universe.
1e – You repeat a complaint I often encounter; the bible is not a science textbook. God did not intend for it to educate people on the workings of the universe, he had more important messages to convey.
Of course the bible is not a science textbook. I have never claimed that it was. Nor have I judged it on that standard. However, there are stories in the bible that ARE intended to convey information that is relevant to the realm of science. The two Genesis accounts of creation ARE INTENDED to convey the origin of the universe and the life in it. Those are scientifically valid fields of study. Neither Genesis account can be reconciled with what the evidence tells us actually happened. Either the bible is wrong, or science is wrong.
Furthermore, there are stories in which peripheral aspects deal with scientifically valid areas of concern. The stories would not have been significantly altered if they were scientifically correct. For example. Isaiah 40:22 would not have been one bit less effective in accomplishing its intent if it had been phrased:
“It is he who sits above the ball of the earth …”
In fact, by simply changing the word “circle” to the word “ball” the bible could have demonstrated some truly prescient knowledge giving us a real reason to believe that it does contain a message from a powerful supernatural being.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
JESSAMINE Q.
I am not familiar with all your post Darwinbeagle, but from the ones I have read I must say that I appreciate your wonderful way of expressing your concerns about religion without being degrading, and aimed at hurting a particualr group and saying mean things. There have been others who have done this and it is ashame that some think it is okay to be prejudiced against a particular group. But I haven't read all your post, so I can only hope you are as nice as I have imagined.
DB=
That's what they say. Except if it were true then why did early bible believers believe:
(1) The world was flat
(2) The Earth was the center of the universe
(3) The universe was 6,000 years old
(4) Each species of life arose at the same time created de novo.
(5) There was a global flood
(6) Disease was caused by demons
(7) Slavery was an OK thing
(8) That if you believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and believe they are all different yet at the same time believe they are the same then it is OK to call yourself a rational monotheist.
... and othere things that are too numerous to mention.
1. The world was flat 2. The earth was the center of the universe.
Actually, scientist for years have been amazed at the fact that in the bible, SERVANTS OF GOD knew facts about the universe, unlike those who didn't talk to God, such as the earth was a spherical shape in Job 26:7 and that the earth "hangs upon nothing" in Isaiah 40:22. And these scriptures were written long before they were proven by most other people. So I am not quite sure I know what you mean about SERVANTS OF GOD in the bible not knowing the basic truths of the earth and universe because scientist have actually accredited the bible for this fact. Not to mention the bible is accurate on historical landmarks, events, and people. There is nowhere in the bible that states that SERVANTS OF GOD thought the earth was the center of the universe. I am pretty sure God had other Agendas for them and they were so astounded by the tasks given them that they didn't have time to ask. And their (SERVANTS OF GOD) main purpose wasn't to make sure that the people around them knew facts of the world and the universe, that is not what God commissioned them to do. SO it is not their fault people around them didn't know these things.
(3) The universe was made 6,000 years ago.
The bible does not give a specific time as to when things were made. And God never made that clear for the reason I mentioned above being that wasn't His agenda. But if we will discuss this.... The bible opens: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1 Obviously) Scientists are in agreement that this verse is excluded from the creative days that started in verse 3 and onward. So this means that before the actual creative days started, the universe and the earth could have been in existence a long time before the creative days began. So it could be that the earth is billions of years old but exact age of the earth is not mentioned in the bible, therefore you can't prove or disprove. Next point.....
The infamous 6 creative days that scientist like to fight over. What was the length of those days? Were they 24 hour long days like the ones we have now? In Hebrew, "day" can mean various lengths of time. For example, "when summarizing God's creative work, Moses refers to all six creative days as one day." (Genesis 2:4 Awake Sep 06 19 ) Also, "on the first creative day, 'God began calling the LIGHT day, but the darkness He called night.'" (Genesis 1:5 [19]) "Here only a a portion of 24 hour period is referred to as day" (19). So once again there is no basis in the scriptures for stating that the days were 24 hour long days like ours. Well, how long were these days? "Genesis does not teach that the universe was created in a short period of time in the relatively recent past" (19). "A careful consideration of the Genesis account reveals that events starting during one 'day' continued into one or more of the following days" (19). For example, "before the first creative 'day' started, from the already existing sun was somehow prevented from reaching the earth's surface, possibly by thick clouds" (Job 38:9 [19]) This barrier began to clear on the first day allwoing diffused light to penetrate the atmosphere. On the second "day," the atmosphere was apparently still clearing. (Genesis 1:14-16) On the sixth "day" the bible indicates that God was STILL IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING BEASTS AND "FLYING CREATURES OF THE HEAVENS" (Genesis 2:19). So this means, there is major room for lots of things to have happened before God created Adam and Eve. Of course we won't know until God finally comes and claims His sovereignty but this text can't be disproved.
Moses is the writer of Genesis and I think a valid question has been asked by some major scientist... How could Moses have known the stages in which the universe and earth appeared, which is scientifically correct in any way you look at it be it evoltuion or creation, some 3,500 years after it took place? He must of had Somebody telling him some reliable info.
(4) Each species arose at the same time...
I already covered some of that in the last part, but as it says in Genesis, beasts and flying creatures were formed gradually.
(5) The bible says it. And many scientist are convinced that at one point in time, not to long ago, we did have a major change in climate and earth shape. So why couldn't it have been the flood which did this. Of course this requires more faith, but it cannot be disproved.
(6) Yeah a lot of people back them thought that some diseases were caused by demons. And yes some were but SERVAHTS OF GOD also knew that some sicknesses were just sicknesses. Such as when Jesus was healing those that had died or had been bleeding for years or the blind. He didn't say they were possessed with demons. There are also accounts in Genesis where some of the women were depressed and sometimes would want to take their own lives, but they weren't assumed to have demons. That is a common belief by man, not the bible. I am very grateful to science that it has found out some these horrible diseases. But at the same time as long as we are imperfect, sinful human beings, we will always get sick and die. And this is because of Satan, Adam, and Eve.
(7) This is a mistunderstanding of culture. SERVANTS OF GOD payed their slaves, basically meaning it was a form of employment. They could leave at any time, but it would be hard to find another job. Also you were made a slave if you owed a large debt to someone. You could owe money to another slave and have to become their slave in order to pay them back. Once your debt is paid you go. So basically it is employment, not the horrible forms of true slavery that we saw in the 1300- to now. Accoring to the bible a slave back then was what we would call a maid, or housekeeper, or janitor, now. Slave wasn't a bad word until it was changed to that way by the Egyptians who enslaved the Israelites and over time became even more horrible than that with the enslavement of NAtive Americans, African Americans and so on.....
(8) This last one is a unfortunate result of HUMANKINDS tampering with the bible. No where in the bible does it state they are all one and it is a trinity. The bible is very clear as to what God wants and doesn't.
Excuse me for any typos or anything like that....
Unnam==
What if you could choose both?
DB=
That would be the Same Worlds Model. That is the model that scientifically literate theists hold. But they hold it at the expense of making whatever scriptural source they are reading mean what it blatantly does not say.
Unnam==
The Truth shouldn't be contradicting-- God is not the breeder of confusion.
DB=
That's what they say. Except if it were true then why did early bible believers believe:
(1) The world was flat
(2) The Earth was the center of the universe
(3) The universe was 6,000 years old
(4) Each species of life arose at the same time created de novo.
(5) There was a global flood
(6) Disease was caused by demons
(7) Slavery was an OK thing
(8) That if you believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and believe they are all different yet at the same time believe they are the same then it is OK to call yourself a rational monotheist.
... and othere things that are too numerous to mention.
Unnam==
Science is not absolute, for it is subject to change- under God's supervision.
DB=
Science is not absolute. It is an interpretation of data. It is subject to change as we get new data.
Unnam==
God, however, is absolute.
DB=
How do you know?
Unnam==
We can't dismiss science(for it helps us understand God) ...
DB=
What I understand from it is that God doesn't exist.
Unnam==
... but we must keep in mind that science is not greater than God- rahter, something created by God.
DB=
(1) As a practical matter science is greater than God. God is revealed knowledge and barring a discovery of new scripture is not about to change. Science is verifiable knowledge. If there is a disagreement between the two then verification wins out. That is why we no longer believe the world is flat, etc.
(2) How do you know that God created anything?
Unnam==
And last, if a religion is blatantly contradictory and bothers your conscious, one must let go of it.
DB=
A clear reading of scripture shows it to be blatantly contradictory with what we know from science. However, few theists acknowledge this. Instead they ascribe the blatant contradictions to the inscrutibility of God's nature. In other words, they say that the scriptures do not mean what they say. Thus, they can mean anything.
I know you are Muslim. You have said that Qu'ran and science do not contradict each other. I am not that familiar with the Qu'ran, but I have heard the same thing from Christians about the bible which I am familar with. If the Qu'ran and modern science are clearly in harmony and God does not foment confusion then how could it possibly be that as late as 1966 there was a fatwa issued against believing in a heliocentric solar system.
Sheik Abd el Aziz
====
"The Holy Koran, the Prophet's teachings, the majority of Islamic scientists, and the actual facts all prove that the sun is running in its orbit... and that the earth is fixed and stable, spread out by God for his mankind.... Anyone who professed otherwise would utter a charge of falsehood toward God, the Koran, and the Prophet."
====
Quote extracted from Theodosius Dobzhansky (one of the fathers of the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis) in his article:
Dobzhansky, T. (1973). Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. American Biology Teacher 35:125-129.
Article can be found on the internet at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/2/text_pop/l_102_01.html
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
Just as a complete side note, I wanted to point out something.
(8) That if you believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and believe they are all different yet at the same time believe they are the same then it is OK to call yourself a rational monotheist.
I'm not sure what I'm about to say has anything to do with what you're saying, cause my brain is fried right now, but I'll take a shot anyway. Many substances have three distinct states: solid, liquid, and gas. There are points where they can exist in two states at the same time (ice water, boiling water), and there is one point where all three can exist at the same time, the triple point. I've heard many Christians describing God this way. If water can exist in three states, why can't God?
Or so the argument goes, anyway.
~C
Visit my blog.
First, God is not matter.
Secondly matter does not only consist of four phases: water, liquid, and solid. There's also plasma-- which is the fourth phase. Where does that fit in the analogy? Mary as Mother of God?! blasphemy
Unnam==
First, God is not matter.
DB=
OK ... but then when Christians say Jesus was fully human and fully God, they are saying that Jesus is both matter and not-matter at the same time. That is still tantamount to saying Jesus is P (matter) and not P (not matter) at the same time. It is still a violation of the law of contradiction.
Unnam==
Secondly matter does not only consist of four phases: water, liquid, and solid. There's also plasma-- which is the fourth phase. Where does that fit in the analogy? Mary as Mother of God?! blasphemy
DB=
Actually, the 4 phases of matter are solid, liquid, gas, and Bose condensate. In order to make a Bose condensate one has to drop the temperature very close to absolute zero. We have not come close to doing that with water. The only thing we have done it with is Helium. So up to this point in the history of the universe Helium is the only thing that has ever formed a Bose condensate to the best of our knowledge.
But you are right, analogies are analogies. I suppose one could come up with pretty much anything and make it fit into the analogy.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
I agree: there is a contradiction in full-human, full-divine. Anyway, it's interesting to see the many transformations the definition of Jesus has gone through.
Oh and Bose condensate is the 5th phase of matter. (Which only crumbles the analogy furhter)
Water cannot be steam (water vapor), liquid water, and ice at the same time.
If you have a bag of water vapor, a cup of water and a block of ice, you have three things. If you God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, while they too are three things they are still the same thing. ... or so the argument goes.
Actually, underlying all of this is a basic rule of logic, the law of contradiction. It says that if something has the a quality "P" it cannot have the quality "not P" at the same time. Many Christian sects have as their creed that Jesus was fully human and fully God at the same time. But one property of being "fully human" is that you are mortal. So Jesus was mortal and he really did die on the cross. One property of God is that it is immortal. So if Jesus was also "fully God" then he was immortal.
This fails the law of contradiction. In other words, it is a totally illogical proposition. But that doesn't stop it from being held.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
The Qur'an does speak of the moon and sun moving in pariticular orbitals, but not the earth. Why it doesn't mention the earth as moving in an orbit, only God knows. (the Qur'an wasn't for the purpose of providing scientific evidence. Rather, it was for spiritual guidance. Nonetheless, it does not err because it left this fact out)
In the Qur'an, the earth is protrayed as a "resting place" not something that is in a 'fixed', unmoving position.
According to scientific findings, the sun does not move in orbits -- but that is in relation to the Milky Way galaxy... not the whole universe. For all we know, the text could be speaking of the milky way galaxy(and therefore the sun) orbiting around some other object in the universe.
God knows best.
But it seems to me that you are doing the exact same thing that Christian apologists do. By way of an explanation, I'll use some of your text as an example.
Unnam==
The Qur'an does speak of the moon and sun moving in pariticular orbitals, but not the earth. Why it doesn't mention the earth as moving in an orbit, only God knows.
DB=
Christian aplogists will often take an obvious error and instead of acknowledging the error will claim its not because of God's inscrutible nature. Here you are attributing what seems to be an obvious errror ... The sun moving in its orbit, but no mention fo the earth doing so ... and attributing it to God's inscrutible nature ... "only God knows."
Unnam==
(the Qur'an wasn't for the purpose of providing scientific evidence. Rather, it was for spiritual guidance. Nonetheless, it does not err because it left this fact out)
DB=
Christian apologists repeatedly tell me that the bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. OK ... what spiritual guidance does it give you to say that the sun travels in its orbit? If God is not the author of confusion then how do you account for the fact that the Qur'an seems to have confused Shiek Abd el Aziz? Is it not possible that God could have conveyed whatever spiritual guidance that comes from the erroneous orbiting of the sun in another way? Perhaps one that would not inevitably lead to such confusion? I'm sure plenty of mere humans could.
Unnam==
According to scientific findings, the sun does not move in orbits -- but that is in relation to the Milky Way galaxy... not the whole universe. For all we know, the text could be speaking of the milky way galaxy(and therefore the sun) orbiting around some other object in the universe.
DB=
It seems that the Qur'an picked a very confusing way to say it if it did. Isn't that just as bad as being wrong?
Unnam==
God knows best.
DB=
Perhaps not. Or at least he would not have gotten the highest grade on an astronomy essay or an essay on the philosophy of morals with an answer like that. Shouldn't we expect more from God than from a mere human?
Also as an aside ... "orbit" is a misleading term when it comes to talking about the sun's movement through the Milky Way. The term usually refers to one celestial body moving about another in an elliptical path. The sun swings around the center of the Milky Way which is composed a huge number of different celestial bodies. Also the path it takes is not strictly an ellipse. The galaxy is changing shape and the sun's path does not form a closed arc, if memory serves me correctly.
This would further contribute to confusion, something which you say God doesn't do.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
This is the verse I was referring to: "And the sun and moon, each floating in the skies." (21:33)
It doesn't say anything about the sun having an orbit of its own. It only says they float in the sky. Other tahn that, the qur'an talks about the sun setting- so some may confuse that for the sun literally moving. My bad. It's a lot simpler than I thought.
Here is what my translation of the Qur'an says concerning 21:33
"It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course"
So this does imply to me an orbit. Could it be a "rounded course" through the galaxy? Of course anything is possible, but considering the time it was written (7th Century CE) nobody knew that there were things like galaxies, and everybody thought that the earth was the center of the solar system and all celestial objects orbited it, the most reasonable interpretation is that the author was saying that the sun (and moon; which actually does) orbits the earth.
Also of note is 21:32
"And We have made the heavens as a canopy well-guarded: Yet do they turn away from the Signs which these things (point to)!"
Notice how this talks about the heavens forming a canopy. This is perfectly consistent with the early Middle Eastern cosmology of a flat earth with the sky over it like a tent. Historically this is consistent with the view of cosmology then and is inconsistent with our view of cosmology now. This suggests that whoever wrote those verses had a decidedly inferior knowledge of the universe than we do now. God presumably would have a much better knowledge of it than we do now. So it suggests to me that the verse was not inspired (or dictated) by God.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
I didn't get anythign like that from this verse! You're making it complicated-- a canopy is simply a covering, a roof of sorts. The sky is our canopy, protecting us. (This could be refering to the ozone layer and how it protects us from UV rays...who knows?)
If there was a literal canopy over our heads, would we see it as flat or curved?
The Qur'an, you'll notice, is very poetic-- but never contradictory. I think you're trying too hard to look for mistakes where there aren't any.
English translations do no justice. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabic. In Arabic, the word 'yasbahoona' is not used for going around in orbits. Instead, it is used for floating generally.
I am familiar with the claim that the Qur'an must be read in Arabic. But I don't speak Arabic and I am unlikely to ever learn it well enough to be able to understand it as such. But languages are made to express ideas. English is a language that is of sufficient breadth to convey pretty intricate ideas. I cannot believe that Sura 21:33 is one that expresses an idea whose general gist cannot be agreed upon.
I went to the internet and found a site that has an interlinear version of 3 different English translations of the Qur'an, all by Islamic scholars.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/021.qmt.html
Here are their translations of the verse:
YUSUFALI: It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.
PICKTHAL: And He it is Who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon. They float, each in an orbit.
SHAKIR: And He it is Who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all (orbs) travel along swiftly in their celestial spheres.
The YUSUFALI is evidently the translation I have on my computer. Note that it talks about a rounded course.
The PICKTHAL translation specifically uses the word orbit.
SHAKIR talks about traveling along "celestial spheres". This is a further reference to a Ptolomaic model of the universe. This was the predominant view until Copernicus ... actually until Galileo and Kepler. In this view the universe was an composed of concentric crystalline spheres with the earth at the center. The sphere nearest the Earth had the moon embedded in it. The next had the Sun. The next was Venus. The next Mars. Then Jupiter. Then Saturn. Then one containing all the stars. (The planet Mercury may have had sphere of its own, I can't remember).
But clearly all three of these translators believed the Qur'an was saying the sun orbits the earth. If God would had intended just to convey an idea that the Sun and moon were just floating around in space, he didn't do so very clearly.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
Yes, the Qur'an must be read in Arabic by every Muslim. If one does not speak Arabic, translations will suffice-- but you must at least recite the whole Qur'an in its original Arabic text.
Anyway, I will accept that the text says that there is some sort of orbit the sun goes through. And if the Qur'an does say it, it must be true. So I further investigated our sun. Turns out, according to current scientific findings, the sun completes an orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Pretty cool.. Check this out:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/StacyLeong.shtml
Hmm.. I will look into the text and see what it says about the sun and its 'orbiting'
What if you could choose both?
The Truth shouldn't be contradicting-- God is not the breeder of confusion.
Science is not absolute, for it is subject to change- under God's supervision. God, however, is absolute. We can't dismiss science(for it helps us understand God) but we must keep in mind that science is not greater than God- rahter, something created by God.
And last, if a religion is blatantly contradictory and bothers your conscious, one must let go of it.
i am intrigued to find that after I discovered the possible scholarship, I should find this discussion, after I coincidentally had just happen to be discussing on the phone with my mom. i am an Atheist, a sceptic, and a naturalist. I reject Humanism, because I feel it gives mankind unwarranted superiority over life, and I am somewhat nihilistic. I was raised as a "Cafeteria Catholic." My father is an Agnostic Atheist, and my mother is an Agnostic theist. Both of my parents reject established religion. However, my mother is interesting becauses, she doesn't believe that Jesus is the son of God, but rather God and at the same time worships him as a sort of hero worship; she has always disregarded the myth of Immaculate Conception, and at the sametime believes in Karma, Heaven, Hell, and reincarnation, and in a pantheistic view that heaven is not to be with God or Jesus, but to be with family members as stars. Because she thinks that we all originated not from Adam and Eve, but from stars and at the same time that we evolved from ape like beings. My mom's ability to blend so many religions together with science and reasoning without realizing it amazes me. Similarly, when I was in Juniour High and elementary i reasoned that most of the church's tenants as myths to explains life and reasoned that the six days of creation were symbolic to the layers of the geological time scale,and thought that God was symbolic to Evolution. I was by my own merits motivated to engulf myself in Catholicism because I wanted to marry in a Roman Cathedral, and meet the Pope. When I realized I was an Atheist, I realized that I always was in my mind because when I was studying to make my First Communion, which I made at a late age and worked harder than most to achieve with the help of my mom, one of the questions I was asked to answer was "Was God ever created?" I remember my mom and I struggled answering that question, and finally we looked up the supposed answers in the back of the book which the church gave to her to teach me with. We decided if I wanted to make my First Communion, I would have to memmorize their answer, "No, God always was." Incidentally, I think i never believed in God, let alone Jesus. When I was young, I never voluntarily prayed except to do well on tests. However, I always felt that I didn't know how to begin to pray, so I always began a prayer in the form of a letter, and it was only to God, who I sincerely doubted existed and never believed in Santa Claus and just milked for presents. Of course, I would never have admitted to not believing in God, because my father was an Agnostic Atheist, and had an affair, which lead to my earnest support of my mom divorcing him, that and I wanted mom and the television to myself. Incidentally, my mom doubts God's existance too. I think science and religion don't overlap for the theists who don't really believe in their minds. I actually always thought that everyone accepted Evolution Theory, and the Big Bang Theory. It never occured to me that people would question science. I only realized this within the recent election of Bush, because we discussed politics and religion in my Junior AP English class to discuss Argument. Now, that I realized that I am an Atheist, I say that there is not a conflict between science and religion, but I say that there is a conflict between reason and religion. Naturally, since Science is an application of reasoning and questioning, it can be perceived as a conflict between science and religion.
Also, I have always rejected superstition, but I did fear sleepiing in my bed because the shadows on the wall made the appearance of glowing eyes like Hera, in "Hercules" the television show.
I am also new to the blogging concept.
Thanks for that biography. In some ways it is similar to my own. I too cannot pinpoint the moment I became an atheist. I can remember at the age of 6 feeling a calling from God to be baptized. I can remember being in High School at the age of 15 being fully convinced that there was no God. There was no AHA moment in between. I suppose as I discovered more about the world and my interest in science increased. I recognized that God was not needed to explain anything.
I congratulate you on your decision to not believe. I think that takes some intellectual courage. Especially in the religious climate of the United States (which I assume you live in).
Welcome to the blogosphere. I hope you publish and become comfortable. My only suggestion to you would be to make your paragraphs shorter. It makes it easier to read.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
I have always said that I want to study religion to see if there is a religion i believe in or to just explore what religion means...or what it can mean to me. After reading that i am more anctious to start.
Also, as I was reading I thought to add some of my own philosophy but instead of commenting I will blog about it another time. First I want to read a little more on what "God" has to say about things.
Good job.
Thanks,
I will look for you upcoming blog.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
I do use Christianity as the prototypical religion.
The reason for that is pragmatic. I know more about Christianity than I do any other religion. My Grandfather was a fire-and-brimstone Baptist preacher and as a kid I used to talk science and religion with him. By far the most number of theists I know are Christians. By far I am challenged on my atheism more by Christians. I have responded to these challenges by studying the bible and I know pretty much what it says and the history of the early church.
I know the Hebrew bible well and I do know a few Jewish people but by and large they do not care what I believe and do not argue. As a result I have never read the Talmud.
I know a couple of Muslims. The ones I know seem to keep to themselves and actively avoid talking about their religious beliefs. I have read the first 7 or 8 suras of the Qu'ran but I have not gone into depth studying it. I have read a couple of short biographies of Muhammed and I know a little about the early Caliphs. But it is a far cry from what I know of Christianity.
I have one friend, a Pakistani, who was Zorastrian (sp?). He never talked about his religious beliefs. Furthermore he was not particularly religious in the first place.
My wife was raised Buddhist. But she never found the teachings worthwhile and doesn't really know that much. She has an older brother who is a Buddhist monk. He travels a lot. I have only seen him twice. I talked to him a bit about his beliefs but that was a long time ago and I can't say I remember much of what he said. I do know that the Dalai Lama is on record as saying that if science finds anything that contradicts Buddhism, then Buddhism must change. I'll admit I'm a bit intrigued by that. I also know that you do not have to believe in any God to be a Buddhist so perhaps it is something worthy of being followed up.
I know several Indian Hindus I have a copy of the Bhagavad Gita on my computer but I have not yet had the opportunity to go over it. I know that they are polytheists, but that is about it.
So, yes, I plead guilty to conflating religion with Christianity. Again that is because that is the religion with which I am by far the most familar. And also because I have not yet seen sufficient reason to think that any other religion can give satisfying answers to the type of questions I have about theism in general.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
PS: I too have had that same problem of being logged out before I could formulate a reply. I now highlight my entire post and then hit CONTROL C to copy it onto the clipboard so I can paste it back if I get zapped.
If you want to learn about Islam, I recommend "Understanding Islam by Yahiya Emerick" It's probably too simplistic for your tastes (it's one of those idiot's guides), but I loved it and found that it covered everything a nonmuslim would need to know. If not, go online to islamicity.org or ask questions at understanding-islam. Or... you can ask me, but I'm not very articulate or the best of sources.
Bhagavid Gita is a pretty quick read but it goes into Hindu philosophy very well. I liked it, although I did not like the terrifying image of Krishna-- although it's interesting to relate it to the image Muslims have of God, which is that of somehting incomprehensible to the human mind. Almost as if Hinduism was getting at the same idea, but failed by actually providing an image we can comprehend. I think, at one point, Hinduism may have started off as a legitimate religion, but became polytheistic due to human limitations and corruption.
As for Buddhism, it is atheistic in the sense of denying a Creator-God(Buddha was born a Hindu, but rejected Brahman and the concept of self), but there is Nirvana, whcih some Buddists equate to being God.
I do want to learn about Islam. I want to learn about a lot of things. Finding the time is a hard thing to do. I have the Qu'ran on my computer. I also have the Bhagavad Gita on my computer. Occasionally I reference them for a few things. But I make no claim to any expertise on the interpretation of either. The problem has been finding a block of time to set aside to devote to placing the writings into context. I have found that was the best way to understand what the biblical authors had in mind when they wrote what they did.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
Stupid site logged me out when I submitted my comment... grrr.....
Anyway, I do love your blogs, even if I can't find myself to completely agree. However, one comment I'd like to make about your blog is the fact that you use 'religion' and 'Christianity' interchangeably. While I understand that your comment is directed towards the Abrahamic religions, there are other religious people in the world. Buddhism is the main one that comes to my mind... I'm sure no Buddhist would have a problem reconciling religion with science with few, if any, contradictions. But I don't personally know any Buddhists to ask.
~C
Visit my blog.