A Jerusalem exhibit of Isaac Newton's manuscripts has some newly-discovered papers showing Newton's calculations of the exact date of the Apocalypse. Using the Book of Daniel, Newton argues that the world will end not earlier than 2060. "It may end later," Newton writes, "but I see no reason for its ending sooner. This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophecies into discredit as often as their predictions fail." Newton also interprets biblical prophecy to say that the Jews would return to the holy land before the world ends.
Yemima Ben-Manehem, curator of the exhibit, remarks that "these documents show a scientist guided by religious fervor, by a desire to see God's actions in the world." Newton's massive corpus of work reveals that he wrote almost as much about Scripture as he did about science, and indeed he saw his discoveries as showing the handiwork of the divine creator. All of which raises the interesting question: if arguably the greatest scientist of all time was such a fervent believer, indeed if most of the great scientists of the past five hundred years have been practicing Christians, what can we make of the insistence by contemporary atheist writers--from Dawkins to Pinker to Hitchens--that there has been an unceasing war between science and religion?
The atheist case relies on a few key episodes, mostly involving Darwin and Galileo. In my forthcoming book What's So Great About Christianity I will show that these episodes have been ideologically manipulated, and that the "lessons" drawn from them are largely fictitious. Here's a small example of that. We have all heard about the famous showdown between "Darwin's bulldog" Thomas Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. When Wilberforce asked Huxley whether he was descended from an ape on his grandfather's side or his grandmother's side, Huxley famously responded that he would rather be descended from a monkey than from a cleric who used his learning to prejudice people against scientific discoveries. The only problem with this incident is that it seems not to have occurred. Huxley apparently made it up to make himself look good. It's not reported in the minutes of the scientific association meeting. Darwin's friend, the botanist Joseph Hooker, was present at the debate. He gave Darwin a full account, which says nothing about Wilberforce's alleged jibe or Huxley's supposed rejoinder. In fact, Hooker told Darwin that Huxley had failed to answer Wilberforce's arguments so that he (Hooker) felt compelled to come to Darwin's defense. Nevertheless Huxley's winning rebuttal lives on in atheist propaganda.
Are science and religion compatible? Don't ask Dawkins and Hitchens, ask Isaac Newton.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 11)
31. why must science versus religion bring us together
The United States is a perfectly diverse nation
people who blow themselves up have no clue about what religion is
in fact the bible applauds the unity of nations
Steven Joseph at 4:47PM on Jun 19th 2007
32. Yes Josh,
Newton got one thing right at least, Trinity is the biggest fraud ever evented! Colossians 2:9 proves this in easy fashion!
Terry
terry at 1:04AM on Jun 20th 2007
33. The fourth teaching of Bahá'u'lláh is the agreement of religion and science. God has endowed man with intelligence and reason whereby he is required to determine the verity of questions and propositions. If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for the antithesis of knowledge is ignorance, and the child of ignorance is superstition. Unquestionably there must be agreement between true religion and science. If a question be found contrary to reason, faith and belief in it are impossible and there is no outcome but wavering and vacillation.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 240)
Naveed at 4:51PM on Jun 19th 2007
34. I agree - religion and science work together - i just think scince is divinely ordained - either by means of laws that were put into being at creation or through god's individual hands in things - but man's ability to reeach scientific formaulas are divine in nature
Steven Joseph at 5:07PM on Jun 19th 2007
35. True science and religion do not conflict but rather confirm and support each other. By true science I mean that which is not based on predjudiced conjecture like uniformitarian evolution or the relatively new 'comet dust' life origin theory. In fact, a branch of Newtonian physics called 'Causational Physics' leads unavoidably to the conclusion that God MUST exist for everything else to exist and continue to exist.
John David Stone at 5:12PM on Jun 19th 2007
36. Peter wrote: "Atheism is a matter of belief. True science is not a matter of belief. Let's learn to separate the two please. Evolution (the origin of -species-) is science, not belief. The origin of life or the Universe is belief at this point."
Peter, could you elaborate on that. Some beliefs are warranted. I BELIEVE that some humans have walked on the moon. And I'm right.
Now, I don't know for certain that no intelligent being contributed to the existence of the know universe. But either that happened or it didn't. And there is good reason to believe that it didn't.
Wes at 5:10PM on Jun 19th 2007
37. Robert Tabor wrote: "If one is to start at a completely neutral point, then one must be agnostic. Theists make declarations which cannot be proven. Atheists also make positive declarations of the opposite sort which also cannot be proven. Since evidence of spirituality, not religion, permeates our lives, it is logical that scientists have been interested in investigating its source. Scientists are fascinated by mystery and seek to find primary principles."
I don't know for certain that no intelligent being contributed to the existence of the known universe. But there is good reason to believe that no intelligent being contributed to the existence of the known universe, though I don't want to get into the issues right now.
Wes at 5:14PM on Jun 19th 2007
38. John David Stone wrote: "By true science I mean that which is not based on predjudiced conjecture like uniformitarian evolution or the relatively new 'comet dust' life origin theory."
I don't know what you mean by "uniformitarian evolution." I recommend Ernst Mayr's book What Evolution Is.
Wes at 5:16PM on Jun 19th 2007
39. Steven Joseph wrote: "surely you will admit --that the famous quote of einstein is that --god doesnt play dice with the universe--could you really deny that einstein didnt see a connection."
What connection are you talking about? There is good reason to believe Einstein was being metaphorical about the dice comment, as that is they kind of thing that many scientists would say metaphorically. And there is good reason to believe that Einstein didn't believe in a personal God, as he wrote that he did not in a 1954 letter.
Wes at 5:19PM on Jun 19th 2007
40. I wrote: "I don't know what you mean by 'uniformitarian evolution.' I recommend Ernst Mayr's book What Evolution Is."
I should add that bacteria that was on earth about 3.5 billion years ago evolved into elephants.
Wes at 5:20PM on Jun 19th 2007
41. Larry Kluth wrote about the "Big Bang". I have a few questions about the "Big Bang". First, where did this primordial mass that exploded come from? Second, what set of physical laws were in place that dictated when this 'primordial mass' reached critical mass and exploded?, and how did these physical laws come into being? Fourth(as the last was actually TWO questions), In light of Newtons' Second Law of Thermodynamics, which essentially states that; "Left to themselves all things tend to digress from a state of order to a state of disorder"-it is from this Second Law of Thermodynamics that we get the field of physics known as 'Chaos Theory'- in light of this Second Law of Thermodynamics, how do you explain the formation of stars, planets, moons, comets, etc. if everything tends to go from a state of order to a state of disorder? If this universe began in a state of complete DISORDER( I never heard of an explosion creating order) then how did our present universe come out of this abject chaos? The very laws that govern our universe DICTATE that this universe was DESIGNED and CREATED by a pre-existent, omnipotent, and omniscient GOD. Believe it or not. Simple scientific FACT.
John David Stone at 4:43PM on Jun 20th 2007
42.
Sure Wes -
While most scientists might happen to be "atheists", atheism itself is not scientific. The assertion that a God or Gods do not exist in any form or function is an assumption with no evidence to support it, so it is a matter of belief.
Yes, science suggests that the idea of God as he is defined by the dominant moral religions of today is highly unlikely, but to assert that there is no God at all is just as unproven. We know the Big Bang happened, that's not really up for debate, and we also know there was matter before the Big Bang, and according to our natural laws, that matter should not be there: It existed outside of space and time, and it wasn't created through any natural process we can comprehend, so maybe (and very ironically) that matter was "God" and everything in the Universe is a part of it (literally). That's my belief, anyway. Maybe I'm wrong and we'll learn more about it someday, then I'll have to adjust my opinion.
What the moral religions don't seem to get is that they are, in fact, their own God (exactly what they accuse atheists of), because they each choose how they define "Him", based only on their own fears or desires for social order or an ideal Universe without pain or suffering or "evil" that does not exist in the real world. Scientists, on the other hand, define "It" by what they actually observe about it's creation. You can understand a lot more about the artist by looking at "it's" artwork.
God exists as we define him/her/it. As long as we change that definition as our understanding of the Universe becomes more clear, we'll all be a little closer to God. Denying science is denying "it's" creation, so as Einstein put it, scientists are the only true believers.
Peter at 5:43PM on Jun 19th 2007
43.
Please, let's all drop this nonsense about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You're assuming that order can be defined on human terms, but your preconceived notions about what is or is not order bias you to the nature of that Law.
What -you- define as "order" emerges from what -you- define as "disorder" ALL the time. Perfect snowflakes emerge from disorderly mixes of pressure, temperature, and water. Self-sustaining stars emerge from disorderly giant gas clouds. This bunk about the second law reflects only your own bias, not any refutation of the science behind it.
Peter at 5:48PM on Jun 19th 2007
44. Larry Kluth wrote about the "Big Bang". I have a few questions about the "Big Bang". First, where did this primordial mass that exploded come from? Second, what set of physical laws were in place that dictated when this 'primordial mass' reached critical mass and exploded?, and how did these physical laws come into being? Fourth(as the last was actually TWO questions), In light of Newtons' Second Law of Thermodynamics, which essentially states that; "Left to themselves all things tend to digress from a state of order to a state of disorder"-it is from this Second Law of Thermodynamics that we get the field of physics known as 'Chaos Theory'- in light of this Second Law of Thermodynamics, how do you explain the formation of stars, planets, moons, comets, etc. if everything tends to go from a state of order to a state of disorder? If this universe began in a state of complete DISORDER( I never heard of an explosion creating order) then how did our present universe come out of this abject chaos? The very laws that govern our universe DICTATE that this universe was DESIGNED and CREATED by a pre-existent, omnipotent, and omniscient GOD. Believe it or not. Simple scientific FACT.
First, if energy is not added to a system, entropy increases in the system. But energy is added to systems all the time. So, that entropy increases when energy is added to a system is irrelevant to whether I know that Venus formed without a deity intervening and doing some special act.
As for what caused the onset of the matter and space that is the known universe, I don't know what caused it. But entropy issues might not have existed before the onset of the matter of the known universe.
Also, the idea that there is an intelligent being that contributed to the existence of the known universe is just as incompatible with entropy issues as the idea that the universe came into being with an intelligent being doing anything. So, the puzzling nature of the existence of the known universe applies just as much, if not more, to the idea of an intelligent being that caused the known universe to exist. In addition, I haven't experienced anything remotely similar to such a being, just as I haven't with vampires.
Wes at 5:53PM on Jun 19th 2007
45. Peter wrote: "While most scientists might happen to be "atheists", atheism itself is not scientific. The assertion that a God or Gods do not exist in any form or function is an assumption with no evidence to support it, so it is a matter of belief."
I disagree. I'm not sure what you mean by "God." But there is good reason to believe that there is no intelligent being that contributed to the existence of the known universe; because no person knows of any event that has been caused by such a being. Similarly, there is good reason to believe that there are no vampires.
Wes at 5:56PM on Jun 19th 2007