August 23, 2011
True tolerance is how we treat people, not how we treat ideas. All people are equal, but all ideas are not. I am glad we live in a society that allows people the freedom of mind and conscience to believe as they choose, but we must not confuse one’s right to believe what they choose with the absurd notion that beliefs are true. Some beliefs are true, and others are false. That is why all beliefs should be critically examined, including our own.
August 23, 2011
Back in March I blogged about new research which called into question whether life has existed on this planet for 3.5 billion years. A fossil believed to be a bacteria is now thought to be a hermatite (a mineral), making the oldest life form 2 billion years old. Now a 3.4 billion year old extremophile fossil has been discovered inAustralia. The organism is thought to have been sulfur-based rather than oxygen-based.
Such is the nature of science. Life gets a 1.5 billion year age reduction in a single day, and then a few months later, it ages quickly to just 100 million years short of its original mark.
HT: Uncommon Descent
August 23, 2011
In 1979 Gabriel Barkay was excavating an area on the outskirts of Jerusalem in the backyard of St. Andrews church. He had a group of 12 and 13 year old kids helping him. They discovered some tombs, but they were empty—having been looted long ago.
One boy, Nathan, was given the task of cleaning out the dirt from the nooks under the burial benches. Like a true boy, he started banging the nook with a hammer. It broke, revealing an entrance to a secret chamber containing more than 1000 objects. There were 125 objects of silver, 40 iron arrowheads, gold, ivory, glass, bone, 150 semi-precious stones, and skeletons. The objects dated to the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC. Among the objects were two, tiny rolled-up silver scrolls 1” long.
Theosophical Ruminations
Thinking to Believe 