A little while later I discovered that several of my “heroes” of the faith had posted statements about why they had not signed it. These included R. C. Sproul, Alistair Begg, and John MacArthur, all of whom had good explanations, and their explanations helped convince me to withdraw my signature.

Since the promotion of this declaration has arisen again, this time on Facebook, I have studied the Manhattan Declaration to try to explain in my own words what bothers me about it. It gradually dawned on me how to respond to the document.

The Manhattan Declaration says many good things, and I agree with the analysis of the awful problems of abortion, euthanasia, attacks upon marriage, and the threat of losing religious freedom. However, it leaves out the most important part of pointing the way to the solution. It refers to the gospel of Jesus Christ without ever talking about what that gospel is and how it can cure the sickness of society. And it points out great Christians of the past that helped correct some of these ills without explaining what enabled them to persist in the fight.

A non-Christian reading this document would conclude that Jesus was a great teacher and promoter of wonderful ideals, and followers of His ways can be model citizens. But there is nothing about the transformation in our hearts that come from responding to the gospel, that is, the rebirth from our death that has come into our lives because of sin. In fact, I find it a glaring omission that there is no reference to sin or the fallen nature of man in the document. How can this “cancer” be eradicated without identifying its source?

According to the Declaration, it seems that the authors are attributing the evil abuses and bad ideas to lack of mankind’s adherence to our good traditions and heritage. There is no implication that the ills stem instead from evil hearts, from greed, selfishness, and hatred. There is no mention of our adversary, the evil one. Instead, the authors imply that these wrongs in society can be minimized by such things as re-education, good laws, strict enforcement, and good leadership, in other words, by human will.

To say that this is a Christian declaration, I think it should state what the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches: people are born in sin, they are lost and in a hopeless condition; they are dead spiritually and are slaves to sin in their natural state; but the good news is that Jesus has provided a way out, a transformation, a metamorphosis of the person that brings life, and life that will last forever.

This free gift is offered to all people. The price for that gift was paid by the death of Jesus who lived a sinless life, and therefore, was enabled to pay for all our sins.  It lets God, our righteous judge,  cancel the sentences of death against us by nailing them to the cross (see Colossians 2:13-15). The acceptance of this gift and the commitment to live in Him creates a rebirth of that person, and this transaction occurs by faith in God’s power to do just that.

The proof that this is all true was demonstrated by the resurrection of the body of Jesus after being dead for three days, and then 40 days later ascending into heaven. This good news, this gospel, is the only hope of changing peoples hearts, of bringing truth and righteousness into the nation and our world.

In conclusion, the Manhattan Declaration misses the whole point of how to correct these evils of society. It does a good job of describing what has happened and how mankind has gone against the traditions and norms of society. But it falls woefully short of providing a way out of the mess or of even giving hope that change can occur. It declares that if Christians will stand together to fight the evil that maybe we can sway the drift of society back to the righteous ways of living. I think the sad history of mankind proves this false.

Without the empowering of God in our lives, there is no hope for a cure. Where in the document is there a call for repentance, for falling on our knees to pray to our Lord for help, for wisdom, for strength? The cure put forward by the Manhattan Declaration is like suggesting that if everyone in New Orleans had used their leaf blowers the course of Hurricane Katrina could have been altered.

It seems like hours; she has been gone four minutes.  Flying to a nearby limb, hopping to the brim of the nest, she peers down at open mouths on wobbly necks.

Motionless, she checks the surroundings, then starts to nourish each baby out of her innate maternal provisions.  She pokes her beak into eager mouths. After each is fed, she nudges the nestlings deeper into the cradle of straw. She fluffs her feathers, spreads her wings, and they nestle under her to get warm and dry.

Ten minutes pass before there is a stirring in the nest.  A head pokes up, again with open beak, then another appears.  The mother slowly moves upward, and from her resources feeds them a bit more.  They settle anew, this time a bare two minutes.

As the babies assert themselves again, she stirs herself. After carefully checking the environs, off she flies.  The Creator rejoices as the life-sustaining choreography continues.

The eyes of all wait upon Thee; and Thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. (Psalm 145:15-16)

Thanks to Tony Northrup for permission to use photo. http://www.northrup.org/

Click Link to hear wonderful rendition of The eyes of all wait upon thee by Jean Berger

And then it has all the other delicate parts that make up a flower’s ability to make a seed.  It must be tiny insects that fly into them to collect the pollen.  The “wonder of it all” as the song goes, is beyond my ability to describe.

I truly believe with my whole heart -and with vastly increasing portion of my head- that God created each tiny detail of this flower on the third day in which He spoke the creation into being. And ever since, faithfully and untiringly, basil has reproduced its own kind.

The photo of the periwinkle flower also from our sunny deck displays a glory all of its own.  The rose family has 5 regular petals in the single form of those flowers, so this may be of that family.  Notice how it is unfurling (I have been watching this one – this photo is about 6 hours since it first started opening.  Again “I see such beauty there, none other can compare” as another poem says, although the poem is about the one through whom the flowers came into being: the Lord Jesus,  Blessed be His name.

I looked at an open periwinkle bloom and wondered where the pollenating parts were.  Could they be in that tiny center hole?  I carefully opened up the stem of the flower, and there were those tiny parts.  They were not really clearly visible until I put the stem under a microscope – there were the parts and some particles of pollen as well.  What complexity on such a small scale that is replicated millions of times each day!

Used by permission from WikiPedia

However, the event that inspired me to write this happened in the preparation of dinner last night.  I stepped outside to shuck some fresh ears of corn bought from our local fruit stand.  And I was struck by that very different form of procreation.  Each kernel of corn has attached to it a delicate strand of the silk which extends inside the shuck protection up to the end of the ear to the outside elemnts.

When the wind blows, that strand of silk catches a tiny bit of the pollen which is then somehow propagated down the strand to the kernel area to germinate and form the seed of sweetness that is so pleasing to us.  And this happens hundreds of times within each ear of corn on each stalk.  Such a wonderful, fantastic design!  Who could have imagined it?  I know who: our Father and His Son and His Holy Spirit – they very much enjoyed producing such infinite variety.  Cannot you sense the humor in much of it as well as the beauty?

To the old question,  ”What is the chief end of man?”, the ancients declared,”To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever”.

Amen.

I didn’t want to wait that long this time, so I went outside, and managed to lower the top section of the double-hung window (for the first time in 10 years). I could see the bird still flying around, and not seeing the escape route. So I carried our hummingbird feeder to hang it in front of the window.

While adjusting the length of the hanger to give it the correct height, the bird flew out the window directly to the feeder and started drinking from my hand. It was so wonderful. It drank and drank while I talked soothingly to it – thirsty it was from that hot garage! He then hovered up near my hand, went down for a final sip, and flitted away.

I praised the Lord that I was able to help a fellow member of His wonderful creation. The experience really blessed my heart and that of others to which I have related the tale.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures…
The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
(Psalm 104:24, 145:15-16)

First if all, I do believe the Bible chronology to be true: the 6 day creation, the flood, the young earth and universe. But I don’t think we can prove it scientifically. I think the Creator, our Lord Jesus and His Father God, and the Holy Spirit did it almost instantaneously – maybe they purposely stretched it out to last for 6 days to set the example of the 7 day week with a day of rest as the climax of the week.

And because of the way the creation was done, all the laws of nature were set up from the beginning, or maybe as the creation progressed, but the time scale must have been suspended during that “period” (how do you talk about an event outside of time without using “period” or “process”?)

I say this because as far as I understand the “natural” laws, it is physically impossible to put into place all the molecules, atoms, nuclei, and sub-nuclear particles of the universe in a short interval if one is working within time. So the whole thing has to have been done miraculously, outside of time (except for the 6 days x 24 hours/day = 144 hours of elapsed time) [Note: an exception: maybe all the motion was done near the speed of light which produced time dilation for our reference point] [Note 2: I am not rigid about the 144 hours, but I have no reason than to choose the way the Bible describes it in its literal form.]

So, for example,

• God also created the photons in place (in situ) in their travels from the distant galaxies to the earth so the sights could be enjoyed by man at the time of his “birth;”  otherwise the stars would have to have been made years before the earth, and the 6 days of its creation. [Note: the only method used to measure stellar distances that I trust as "proven" is the parallax method.  And this method extends out to about 1600 light-years so far.  All the other methods are based on statistical theories.]

• He made the isotope mixtures just what He wanted to give the balance needed for the limited radiation from nuclear fission;  so why try to explain the percentages, for example, of Uranium 238 and its decay chain of isotopes?  If God created the U238 in the first place, why not create at the same time all of the daughter isotopes?

• The properties found by physics, geology, biology are what God wanted and  needed in order to pronounce, “It is good,” reasons about which we may be able to partially discover , but certainly not completely.

Therefore, it seems a wasted effort to bend over backwards, for example,  to make the radiological evidence to conform to our theory of the chronology, or to how the living creatures “evolved”. [The creationists have said that maybe the radioactive nuclear decay was speeded up in the past to account for the evidence that seems to point to millions of years of elapsed time. But why is that necessary when God could have more easily set the mixture of isotopes like He wanted to in the first place?]

I don’t mean it is a waste of time to try to understand it all – the research in the fields of the physical and biological sciences is good, I think – but the efforts by most good scientists are
motivated by the search for knowledge of how it is put together and the dynamics of it all. And that, to me, ought to also be the basis for all of the research being done.

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts about science and the bible.

Then I will swish it around in the pan with the water, hoping it will attract iron particles strong enough so that when I remove the wrapped plastic from the water, those particles will adhere to the surface.

I will next, place the wrapped magnet into a shallow plate of water, carefully unfold the plastic wrap so I can lift the magnet away, and leave the particles, if any, behind in the plate.  Then I will remove the plastic wrap off of the water surface, hoping that the particles will fall off into the water.

[added later:]  Finally, I will place the plate of water under a clip-on light as a heat source to evaporate the water.  Using some “sticky notes” I will collect the particles left on the plate and examine them under a microscope.

I will let you know if this technique works.  I got the idea from one of the references in my original article.

P.S. We are busy getting our house ready to sell and find a new home in Richmond, VA.  So my writing has dwindled considerably.  I hope it will become regular again after this huge adjustment in life.  :-)

Boyd

If you have studied the problems of keeping a satellite in orbit around the earth, you know that there have to be periodic adjustments made to its speed and direction. Otherwise the orbit will degrade so that a satellite can no longer perform its function. The adjustments are usually made by commanding small jets to eject a precise amount of compressed gas that is stored on the satellite. The ground controllers call these adjustments “burns.”

And this problem is prevalent no matter where you would try to place a space object in the solar system except at some very special points in space called Lagrangian Points. They are labeled L1, L2, … L5. There are 5 L points for each pair of orbiting bodies, like the Sun-Earth system and the Sun-Mars system as well as for the Earth-Moon pair of bodies, as seen in the diagram that is in the Wikipedia: Lagrangian Point article.

Lagrange points for Earth-Moon

The two points, L4 and L5, are the best choices for a stable location because if the satellite drifts away from the point in any direction, the effects of gravity plus momentum will keep it close to the Lagrangian point. The blue arrows show the limits of the “safe region”.

On the other hand, L1, L2, and L3 only have temporary stability and a satellite at those positions has to have periodic adjustments to keep it there. Drifting any amount toward or away from the earth or moon will produce instability. Thus, though it takes less “fuel” to keep a satellite at those points, the “burns” are still required.

I just chatted on-line with my friend Chandra in India – he worked on a version of this problem in college. It was called the 3-body problem discussed by Newton in 1687 and by Euler in 1767, and then by Lagrange in 1772.( ref: Wikipedia article: Three-body_problem)

For only 2 bodies in space, the prediction of their orbits around each other is easily calculated. But add a 3rd body and their orbits become unpredictable except in restricted circumstances. Outside those restrictions, the motion is chaotic – in fact, the academic field of Chaos was established to deal with this kind of motion.

I find it amazing that our Lord Jesus, who was the one through whom the universe was created (Hebrews 1:2), is also the one that made the laws by which it behaves. He knows all about the chaos that it is all heading for, and provides for us a safe, stable resting place in Him.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
(Matthew 6:29-30)

Mössbauer effect in nuclear physics

Millikan oil drop experiment

Atomic structure and energy transitions

Radiological dating

Colors (Mr. Land’s demos – the founder/inventer of Polaroid)

Solids, liquids – states of matter

Superconductivity, superfluids

Lagrangian points (note grav of moon vs grav of sun:  57 x 10^3 sun/moon ratio)

Bear constellations & new star

Circular motion

Details on meteors

Details on comets

Since that time, I have probably attempted more than 10 times to find a magnetic micrometeorite in snow, rain, and dust, to no avail. [Actually, I just re-read the previous article and remember I did find one potential particle which I accidentally lost in the search.]

I have looked at 1000′s of potential particles under a microscope with a strong magnet moving under the slide in close proximity, and have yet seen one such micrometeorite. There have been 2-3 flat looking magnetic particles which I imagine came from industrial polution, but they did not at all look like photographs of micrometeorites.

On the other hand, I have found probably 100 non-magnetic particles that look like photographs of the micrometeorites – they are black, rounded, and shiny, and in the average diameter I would say was about 1/10 mm.

So, I am wanting to know if others have had better luck in finding them, and what techniques did they use? I am suspicious that some of the “how to’s” I have read were not performed by the writers of those documents.

If you have a reference or an experience to share with me, please respond below or write e-mail to BrightMysteries@verizon.net

Thank you very much.

Boyd

David and his bridge that underwent destructive testing in high school

The owl will nest there and lay eggs, she will hatch them, and care for her young under the shadow of her wings. (Isaiah 34:15)

Periodically our son and grandson come to our search the stuff stored in our attic for toys and memories.  This past visit, they found a balsa-wood model bridge that my son had built in high school for a classroom contest.  I had suggested that the catenary shape might be the strongest shape to use for the weight-bearing parts of the bridge.  I left the rest to him.

During the contest, the bridges were subjected to increasing weight until they broke and dropped the weight.  He recalls that his bridge came in second, but in a way, was the best one because his design used the least amount of  balsa wood – it was light weight but very strong.

What is the catenary shape?  It is the shape of the St. Louis Arch and of many ancient and modern arches used in architecture;  the shape is most easily achieved by hanging a chain by its two ends. The natural shape it takes between the attachment points is the catenary shape.  It is also very close to the shape of the ends of an egg.

While teaching physics, my students showed how strong this shape is.  In a simple demonstration two students held a bed sheet between them to act as a catching net.  A raw egg (the free-roaming chicken, barnyard eggs are best for this) is thrown hard into the sheet by another student, and, unless the sheet is missed, the egg will not break.  At least I never saw it break from hitting the sheet, assuming the catchers did not let it roll off onto the ground.

The other impressive demonstration requires two straight-sided glass cylinders, such as drinking glasses, where one glass will fit closely inside the other.  The egg (raw)  is padded below and above with a sponge or folded paper towels, for example, and placed in the larger glass.

Important!  The egg is placed so the long axis of the egg is parallel to the sides of the glass; in other words, the egg is placed “on end” in the glass. The bottom of the inner glass is then slid into the outer glass until it is resting on top of the padded egg.

Using a chair to steady the person, and standing on a stool about the same height as the nested glasses, he or she gradually places all of his or her weight on the upper glass showing that the egg will support the weight without crushing.  Of course, there is a limit of how much it will support.  When I last did it, I probably weighed about 200 lbs, and did not break the egg.

Isn’t it amazing, that the law of gravity, as established by the creator, is what causes a chain to hang as it does, that this same shape is that of the eggs laid by various birds and reptiles, and that it forms the strongest type of free-standing arch?  Isaiah 34:15 says, “The owl will nest there and lay eggs, she will hatch them, and care for her young under the shadow of her wings.” God loves us and also invites us to abide in His strong shelter.