Salvator Mundi (c. 1510) by Leonardo da Vinci
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https://nostr.build/i/cde9935b4c77c5aebb1a67b2a19e27c5a943fd0b1b3690e6245cd8edbfb4bc1f.webp
THE SACRIFICE OF ST. DAMIEN OF MOLOKA’I
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St. Damien of Moloka'i, also known as Father Damien, was a Belgian priest who devoted his life to missionary work among the Hawaiian lepers in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Damien volunteered to take charge of the leper settlement of Kalaupapa on the island of Moloka'i in Hawaii. He served there for 16 years until his death on April 15, 1889. During his time serving the colony as their Pastor and physician, Father Damien cared for the sick in both their physical and spiritual needs. He also improved many of the colonies buildings and improved the water and food supplies. Father Damian was not afraid to do the one thing that the victims of leprosy never experienced, he touched them. This was his sacrifice to the people that he loved, people that were untouchable by regular society.
In 1884, he contracted leprosy but refused to leave the colony. Father Damian choose to stay with his people and continued to care for them until his death. His remains were returned to Belgium in 1936 to be buried in Leuven which is close to the village where he was born. However, his right hand was returned to Moloka'i in 1995 to be buried in his original resting spot as a beautiful testament to the people that he touched with his compassion.
“My greatest pleasure is to serve the Lord in his poor children rejected by other people.”
~ St. Damien of Moloka'i
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Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console,
not so much to be understood as to understand,
not so much to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.
~ St. Francis of Assisi
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STATUE OF THE BIBLICAL JOSEPH FOUND IN EGYPT
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A statue was found in Tell el-Dab’a, Egypt between 1986 and 1988 that has a remarkable resemblance to the biblical Joseph written about in Genesis.
“Over the statue’s right shoulder you can still see his “throw stick” i.e., the symbol of his rule. On the back – remarkably, as with the Biblical Joseph – you can still see evidence that this ruler was wearing a striped garment, made up of at least three colors: black, red and white. He was found in a tomb. The tomb was empty.”
“he is not Egyptian, rather he is a man who comes from the area of Canaan/Israel.”
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https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/statue-of-biblical-joseph-found-story-covered-up/
Caravaggio, The Crowning with Thorns, c. 1602/1604
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LANGUAGE, CREATION, AND MEANING
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When someone is walking along the beach and looks down to see the words “I Love You”; they do not think it was a random accident of the wind or the waves. The symbols that make up the writing convey a deeper meaning that passes information to us in a metaphysical way. We know that the phrase means that two lovers have gone before us and stopped to write in the sand. It would be preposterous to think it was the wind that carved them. It is by that transfer that we know the words were written on purpose and by an intelligence. That purpose is language.
You have in you a similar language. It is written in every corner of your being, every cell and tissue have it written throughout them. The language is far more complex than the words that were previously discovered in the sand. It requires billions of characters to convey its message.
The language is DNA. It is the molecule that is the instructional blueprint for the assembly of proteins that are the building blocks for all cells and is formed by four distinct bases: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). The bases act as letters in a four-letter alphabet transferring information to build a specific protein. The bases are assembled into a long strand that we know as the DNA double helix.
Just as we know that the simple phrase in the sand conveys the love between the two beachgoers. Similarly, we should understand that the far more complex writing in us conveys a vast love between a creator and its creation. The DNA language inside you was written not just for you, but it is you. It wrote another being into existence. Something that the words in the sand could not do. Yet, some scoff that the language that has the power to bring things into existence was yet an accident of physics and chemistry. Those words had a meaning lovingly penned by the Creator, and that meaning is you…
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https://evolutionnews.org/2023/07/can-science-escape-faith-based-beliefs-maybe-it-needs-them/
ISAAC NEWTON AND GOD
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“He [God] is Eternal and Infinite, Omnipotent and Omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from Eternity to Eternity; his presence from Infinity to Infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not Eternity or Infinity, but Eternal and Infinite; he is not Duration or Space, but he endures and is present. He endures for ever, and is every where present; and by existing always and every where, he constitutes Duration and Space.”
~Isaac Newton, “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”, (1687)
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PRESERVED DINOSAUR SKIN
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A well-preserved specimen of the Psittacosaurus dinosaur species was found in Jehol biota of China. [1] The extraordinary preservation of the dinosaurs soft tissues, including skin, makes it noteworthy. The Psittacosaurus' skin tissues in the fossil have a pattern resembling small, spherical scales that cover its body and are many layers thick. Although it is not expressed in many of the articles on the tissues, they consist of unfossilized preserved skin containing collagen fibers which are a type of protein. The preservation of collagen under the most optimal environmental conditions is maximum 700,000 years before degradation destroys them. Yet, they are well preserved in this fossil putting the scientific date of 120 million years in serious doubt.
[1] Lingham‐Soliar, T. (2008). A unique cross section through the skin of the dinosaur Psittacosaurus from China showing a complex fibre architecture. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275, 775 - 780.
[2] Buckley, Michael & Collins, Matthew. (2011). Collagen survival and its use for species identification in Holocene-lower Pleistocene bone fragments from British archaeological and paleontological sites. Antiqua. 1. 10.4081/antiqua.2011.e1.
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NEW NOSTR CHANNEL!
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I have started a new nostr channel named “The Shop Rat”. In it, I will write about and showcase my other love in life of making things of value. I will be covering all things related to the craftsman and their trade. Join me in the art of creation!
The Shop Rat:
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KACHINA BRIDGE DINOSAUR PETROGLYPH
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On the base of Kachina Bridge in Natural Bridges National Monument in southeastern Utah is an ancient petroglyph depicting what appears as two sauropod dinosaurs.
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I wouldn't say it is the most sound as a theory. Science always changes. The underling philosophy of the universe having a beginning is and the evidence is pointing that way. I just posted an example of one argument for the existence of God that is based on a beginning.
THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
The Cosmological Argument is a philosophical argument for the existence of God and can basically be summed up by the following logical form:
Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
Premise 2: The universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
Premise 1: States that for everything that has a definite point in time where it begins to exist, there must be a cause or another entity that brings forth that existence. For instance, if you have a seedling growing in your front yard there must have been another plant that initiated that seed that is spouting. Things in our universe just don’t pop into existence from nothing, it is contrary to the reality that we know.
Premise 2: States that our universe has a definite beginning point where it began to exist. We know this by many reasons. First, the Big Bang Theory is evidence that points to this conclusion. Second, one can point to the increasing entropy of the universe, where the universe will eventually run out of usable energy making and infinite past is impossible because entropy would have run out an infinite time ago and we would not be here. Lastly, you can use the argument that Aquinas used in his Second Way that an infinite regression is absurd and doesn’t make sense.
The conclusion ties premise 1 and 2 together. The universe had a beginning, thus it had a cause. Some people take this part as an objection to the Cosmological Argument. They will say that it doesn’t prove the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. Yes, they would be right, it doesn’t. It is not meant to prove there is a God, only a cause sufficient to create the universe. Now, that cause would have some of the attributes of the Judeo-Christian God like all-powerful, timeless, and spaceless just to name a few.
Another objection to the Cosmological Argument is the need for the first cause of the universe to have a cause. The answer to the question, “Who made God?”. I believe that to be a premise that doesn’t take all the facts of the situation into account. Remember in the preceding paragraph that the cause would have the attribute of timelessness? If you are timeless, how do you have a beginning or a cause? There is no time. If you cannot measure with the parameter of time then there is no beginning or end, everything exists in a timeless realm. Something we cannot even begin to comprehend, and we exclude from this kind of philosophical discussion.
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There were several, the eternal universe is one. But the universe that has a beginning is the one that is the most philosophically sound. It was made popular by Aristotle with his unmoved mover idea. If the universe has a beginning then that leaves some philosophical questions open regarding "God". Thank you for the question, Cheers!
THE BIG BANG WAS JUST A SLANDER
Fred Hoyle a prominent physicist was giving an interview on a BBC radio broadcast in 1947. During the interview he gave Father Georges Lemaître’s theory of “The Primeval Atom” the name of “The Big Bang” in order to belittle the new theory…
The name stuck in popular culture.
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ARISTOTLE’S UNMOVED MOVER
The Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of the first philosophers to address the issue of the causation of the universe. According to Aristotle everything had a cause that brought it into existence. In turn that cause had a cause that created it. This chain of causation extends back into the past. However, that chain couldn’t be past eternal as one first cause was necessary to initiate the chain of causes. This, he named the unmoved mover, “ὃ οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ” translated into “that which moves without being moved”. [1]
[1] Aristotle, Metaphysics XII, 1072a.
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https://nostr.build/i/f03319b24d7ebc2c624010d6fa446aab7d446dd39aee5e3076414051b195b7cc.webp
TYRANNOSAURUS REX PRESERVED BLOOD CELLS
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Mary Schweitzer was working as a researcher at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. While cleaning some T. rex bones Schweitzer and an assistant found something remarkable. What they found inside the bone matrix was what appeared to be unfossilized blood cells within blood vessels and other tissues [1]. The tissue was in remarkable preservation for being estimated to be over 65 million years old. This means that the blood cells and vessels would have to remain relatively uncorrupted for that vast amount of time in bones that were exposed to the elements.
The research done by Michael Buckley of Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre has estimated the limit for the survival of collagen in optimal conditions is 700,000 years [2]. Collagen is the protein that makes up around 25%-35% of body tissues and when decayed the tissue would not be recognizable. Schweitzer’s T. rex blood cells and vessels would have decayed long ago if the age of the bones were indeed over 65 million years old.
This represents a major problem between the assumed age of the dinosaurs and the survivability of the soft tissues that are contained within their unfossilized structure. This problem could possibly be written off as an outlier is this was the only case of soft tissues found within dinosaur bones but it is not, it is quite common in paleontology.
[1] Schweitzer, Mary & Wittmeyer, Jennifer & Horner, John & Toporski, Jan. (2005). Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science (New York, N.Y.). 307. 1952-5. 10.1126/science.1108397.
[2] Buckley, Michael & Collins, Matthew. (2011). Collagen survival and its use for species identification in Holocene-lower Pleistocene bone fragments from British archaeological and paleontological sites. Antiqua. 1. 10.4081/antiqua.2011.e1.
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Samples of the T. rex blood vessels G and I are compared visually to modern ostrich blood vessels H and J. [1]
THE CREATURE IN THE NILE MOSAIC OF PALESTRINA
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The Mosaic was originally in Palestrina, Italy as part of an ancient floor mosaic. It dates to 100 B.C. and it depicts life in Ptolemaic Egypt during the flooding of the Nile River. Along the landscape there can be seen a variety of animals that were common to the Nile at that time and their corresponding Greek name. There is one animal that is curiously strange in its appearance and name. The label is translated from the Greek as “crocodile leopard” and it is located on the right middle portion of the mosaic. It does not resemble any known animal living in the region at that time and as the name suggests it is an animal that resembles a crocodile but with distinctive features setting it apart. This remains a fascinating possible crypid animal captured within the mosaics tiles that has strong resemblance to the Eotitanosuchus dinosaur.
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