Science in Antiquity: Part 2

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was not actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

9 March 5 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers describe a comet which they observed.

24 BC/BCE: Strabo visits Thebes (modern Luxor/al-Uqsur, Egypt). On this trip (24-20), he finds the ruins of Heliopolis (the biblical On). Genesis 41:45. He described the Earth as a sphere and said gravity pulled things to the center.

(b. ca 25 BC/BCE – d. ca 50 AD/CE) Aulus Cornelius Celsus is a Roman medical encyclopedist who wrote about subjects including skin disorders, fevers, kidney stones, eye anatomy, dentistry, jaw fractures, cancers, diet, surgery, and medicines. He taught correctly that fevers were the “effort of the body to throw off some morbid cause.”

10 May 28 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers recorded the earliest known dated record of a sunspot, a black spot on the sun. Exactly how the sunspots were viewed is not known, since telescopes were not invented until the 1570’s and direct viewing of the sun will damage the eyes.

78-37 BC/BCE:  The Han Chinese genius, Jing Fang, is a music theorist, mathematician, and astronomer. He explained lunar and solar eclipses and musical octaves.

Science in Antiquity: Part 1

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

185 AD/CE: Chinese astronomers report a bright star which faded away after eight months. This is Supernova SN 185 which occurred 8200 years ago in the Centaurus constellation.

Ca 140 AD/CE:  A Chinese surgeon, Hua Tuo, is the first recorded to use anesthesia during surgery.

78-139 AD/CE: Zhang Heng, a Han polymath, works in seismology, hydraulics, astronomy, cartography, poetry, and politics. He invents a functional water clock.

100 AD/CE: 1.  The mathematician Theon of Smyrna says that the Earth is a sphere.

Ca 20 AD/CE:1.  Birth of the Greek scientist, Hero of Alexandria, who did work in theoretical mathematics, mechanics, and physics.  He studied the science of light reflection and invented a rotary steam engine and several pneumatic devices.

              2. Geminus of Rhodes studies astronomy and writes The Theory of Mathematics.

8 AD/CE: Chinese astronomer Liu Xin calculates the solar year as 365.25016 days. He calculates pi as 3.154

Now We See Darkly

Cataract surgery replaces a damaged, thickened, and discolored lens with a new perfectly functional replacement.  I carry cards in my wallet with the details of the prescriptions of each of my replacements lenses and have been delighted with the restoration of my proper visual abilities. Once I had the first surgery I was impatient to have the second surgery and complete the process.

The opthalmic surgeon performs the surgeries one eye at a time. This produces an odd situation. After my first surgery, my post-operative eye saw bright new intense colors with ultra-sharp delineation between white and black.  Not so with the pre-operative eye. What I saw was yellowed, dull, and faded, with incorrect color perceptions. I saw a green shirt as grey and could not distinguish some blues from some greens.  The scientific term for this phenomenon would be that the cataract had produced an acquired tritanopia.

Most people are spiritually asleep or, at best, walking around with a thick film over their eyes. When converted to Christianity, they suddenly see what has really been around them the entire time. Reality can be very shocking.  They become eager to complete the process.

Conversion changes your mind and your perception of the nature of reality. You have received the Holy Spirit and now are indwelled by the Mind of Christ. This enables you to see things as Jesus sees them.  You see things which once you could not see or understand. This is the beginning of the process of sanctification.

Film Comment: Doctor Strange (2017)

Doctor Strange (2017), seen merely as film, is very enjoyable and technically well made. It is equally funny, frightening, visually amazing, and thought provoking. The acting is top-level and the music perfectly fits the film.

The story is based on the comic book character created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko in     1963.  Doctor Strange is a brilliant but hideously arrogant neurosurgeon.  He is a totally unlikable man, and is verbally and emotionally abusive of everyone around him, even the fellow doctor who considers herself to be his girlfriend.  As an atheist, he derisively rejects any mention of God or the supernatural. Then, his smug life is totally shattered as his talented hands are mangled in an especially violent automobile crash.    

Stephen’s entire self-worth has been built around what he considers to be his obvious superiority to those around him. He cannot accept that his prior life is gone. He desperately spends his entire fortune on increasingly experimental and questionable medical procedures. He is still broken with no improvement in sight.

Eventually his search leads him to Kathmandu and a secretive school led by a mystic known as The Ancient One. She claims to be thousands of years old. The Ancient One opens Strange’s eyes to the unseen world surrounding him.

This is an origin story and Stephen eventually becomes a Master Sorcerer charged with protecting the world from supernatural threats from powerful otherworldly beings. He has become a full-fledged hero even though he still carries just a touch of his former arrogance.

Doctor Strange is directed by Scott Derrickson, a publicly self-acknowledged Christian, and, while the film is about personal redemption, it is not a Christian film. There is no mention of Jesus at all.

Christians are commanded to stay away from magic and the occult. Magic is essentially the quest to use knowledge of spells, objects, and rituals to cause the universe (read spirits, demons, Satan, and God) to react in specific ways. This is the way in which Stephen Strange becomes a sorcerer. He is merely a man who learns how to manipulate space and time and how to leave his physical body to move about as his spirit self.

The primary sin is to place oneself in the place of God. This is essentially what magic does, harnessing supernatural beings and forces to impose one’s will upon the universe. It has no place in true Christianity.

Some commenters have said that director Scott Derrickson has used Doctor Strange’s eastern mystical roots to hint at a deeply Christian perspective on reality.  For example, the Ancient One teaches Strange that what we see around us is only a small part of reality. Paul says the same thing in the sixth chapter of Ephesians. Some commenters are much more troubled by the film’s roots and some denounce it.

In the film, The Ancient One is discovered to be a hypocrite in that, while fighting for Good, she is drawing much of her power and longevity from The Dark Dimension which is ruled by the utterly evil being known as Dormammu. Since she is their teacher, it must be assumed that the Ancient One’s students, including Stephen Strange, are also drawing power from the Dark Dimension. Surely he understands this once the revelation has been made and yet, he still uses the power.

Strange cannot possibly defeat a being as immensely powerful as Dormammu but he succeeds in outwitting the monster. Though Dormammu repeatedly and violently kills him, Doctor Strange has trapped Dormammu and himself in a repetitive time loop. The only way that Strange will release him from the loop is for the monster to agree to leave. Strange becomes a self-sacrificing savior who returns from the dead. This alone should be a massive red flag for Christians.

Absence

I apologize for the recent lack of posting on this blog.  I have been undergoing a series of eye surgeries. Posts will now return at least weekly.

My eye! My eye!

I have to apologize for being gone from this blog for two weeks. I had to have surgery on my right eye. I had an artificial lens implanted to replace one damaged by a cataract and also a Descemet's membrane transplant to repair the damage done to my cornea by Fuch’s Dystrophy. Once the right eye is healed, the same surgeries will be performed on my left eye. It really is amazing what we can now do. One hundred and fifty years ago the Fuch’s Dystrophy would have eventually rendered me blind. The first full corneal transplant was performed in 1905. The Descemet's Membrane transplants have only been performed for the last twenty five years. See a video of the surgeries here. 

Think about this though, We probably will eventually be able to create artificial eyes but we cannot create an eye,  We cannot create a butterfly.  We cannot create a galaxy. And we cannot raise a man from the dead. Only our  Lord can do these things.

The Purpose of Christianity

Dr, Atul Gawande is an internationally known surgeon and author working in Boston, Massachusetts. He writes books and articles about performance and the human quest to do and be “better.”

Dr. Gawande has said that, despite the best efforts of his parents, he is not a very good Hindu. He did, however, find the Hindu rituals meaningful when his father died and the family gathered in India to scatter his father’s ashes into the Ganges River which is sacred to Hindus.   The rituals gave Dr. Gawande a sense of solidarity with his family and a feeling of continuity with his history; a sense of belonging to something bigger than himself.

I think that many Christians also see this as the purpose of religion. That, and also the civilizing effect that religion can have on their children. They totally miss the point!

Here is a list of some of the things which Christianity is NOT about: Making us feel good about ourselves. Connecting us with our families. Socializing our children. Making us into nice people. Creating social justice. Fighting abortion or sex slavery. Fighting poverty. Continuity with our traditions. And many more.

Christianity is about bringing glory to the Lord God. All the other good things, important as they are, come about because we wish to obey and glorify God. 

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork." Psalm 19:1

Our Need for Surgery

"The Church today is infected with worldliness and sin, and anemic from spiritual hemorrhage because we have not been willing to let God operate on us and cut away the things of self, the world and the flesh." M. R. DeHaan

Martin Ralph DeHaan (b. 1891, Michigan, USA - d. 1965) physician, radio preacher, author.

Circumcise Baby Boys on the Eighth Day

“And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.” Genesis 17:12

There is a legitimate scientific reason why circumcision is safest for a male child on the eighth day after birth, but Moses could not possibly have known or understood this fact.   The science of Moses’ day was not sufficiently advanced to have discovered this fact.  Those who believe the Bible account know that God led Moses to give this instruction.

At birth, the infant’s immune system has just begun to work and the child could not yet successfully fight off infection.  Luckily, for the first week of life, the child carries antibodies in his blood which have been provided by the mother.  The mother’s antibodies begin to decline in number after one week,

The infant’s ability to form clots begins to develop about day five and reaches its peak at day eight.  If any surgery is to be performed, day eight would be the ideal day.  On day eight, the infant is best able to prevent infection and to close and seal a surgical wound.  Moses could have only known this in one of two ways: 1. Trial and error, with a large number of dead babies, or 2.  He was told.

The science behind this was not elucidated until the Twentieth Century.  In 1935, Dr. Carl Peter Henrik Dam (1895 - 1976), while doing research on cholesterol metabolism in baby chicks at the University of Copenhagen, discovered Vitamin K, a vital factor in the coagulation mechanism.  He initially called it the Koagulationsvitamin.  He received the 1943 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on the subject.

The American pediatrician, Luther Emmett Holt (1855 – 1924) discovered that infants were especially susceptible to bleeding on days two through five, but had nearly 100% clotting ability by day eight.

………………………………………….

The Jewish Kabbalists, in their numerology, say that the eighth day has a mystical meaning.  The number seven has the meaning of “nature,” or “finite.”   The number eight carries the meaning of “super-rational,” or “infinite.”

Book Comment: The Christian Atheist

Craig Groeschel (pronounced "Grow-shell") is one of those very likable pastors, like Francis Chan, who tell you a story and then stick a knife into you for a little surgery.  The knife they use is the Bible.

In The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living As If He Doesn't Exist, Pastor Groescchel explores the sometimes startling disparity between what we say we believe and how we choose to live; acting as if God doesn't really exist, or as if He exists but doesn't really care about us, or as if He exists but doesn't really matter in our day-to-day lives.   This is not a book about knowing "hypocrites," but about people who believe themselves to be Christians and who are crippled in their Christian lives by lies they have believed.  Some of them are pastors.

Pastor Groeschel doesn't spare himself or his family from criticism.  He clearly understands that his life and actions sometimes contradict what he says he knows to be true.  We all fall short, but, wonderfully, we are covered by the Blood of the Lamb.

The book devotes entire chapters to twelve common reasons Christians drift into the uselessness (to God and to themselves) of being Christian Atheists.
1.  They don't know who God really is.
2.  They are ashamed of something they have done in the past and are afraid that it will be exposed.
3.  They know that God loves others but aren't convinced that He could possibly love them.
4.  They don't believe in the power of prayer.  They don't believe He is listening, others feel awkward or silly talking to Him.
5.  Seeing obvious injustices and tragedies in this world, they don't believe that God is fair.
6.  They are unwilling to forgive, preferring to hold onto their hatred.
7.  They don't believe that they are able to change.
8.  They worry about everything.
9.  They think that their personal happiness should be a priority for God.
10. They believe in God but place their real trust in their personal power, position, or money.
11. They are timid or unwilling to witness to others.
12. They don't believe in "organized religion."

What Pastor Groeschel is trying to do in this book is to call us to continually examine ourselves and our lives; to think honestly about our lives and faith; to learn to rid ourselves of hindrances to complete trust and dependence on God.  He doesn't come right out and say it but he is ultimately talking about the process of sanctification.   We don't want to go the other way and to become the "believers" of whom Titus was speaking: "They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." (Titus 1:16)

How terrible it would be to be that person and not even realize it.

Sweaty Football Player on a Bench

My wife was having surgery the other day (a total knee replacement!).  As I sat waiting to hear that her surgery was completed and that she was heading to her room, I saw a man walking down the hall.  He had on a red sweatshirt (crimson, actually. Roll Tide!).  On the front of the shirt was a picture of a lone football player sitting on a bench, his helmet by his feet, head bowed in fatigue, with sweat dripping. 

Hmmmm!???

On the back of the shirt was the slogan: "The true image of a champion is one of a man, sitting on a bench, dripping sweat, with no else around."

This is the attitude Christians need to take in their Bible study and prayer life.  We need to be champions.