There’s a popular doctrine in the churches today, although it is rejected by the leadership of most churches. This doctrine is based on falsehoods, causes non-Christians to reject Christianity, Christians to lose their faith, and causes its followers to lie? Judging by the fruits of this doctrine, would you say this is of God or of something else?

The particular doctrine he’s asking about is Creationism. What are your thoughts?

Has anybody seen the new plasma particle accelerator technology profiled in the February issue of Scientific American? Oh, man. So frickin’ cool! I so want one of these. The thing is super tiny. It fits on a tabletop. a tabletop! Imagine the things I could do with it!

Why didn’t these come out in time for Christmas?I would have asked Santa. I was really good last year! I totally deserved one.

Okay, deep down I know I’d just play with it for a few days, then get bored and stick it in the closet. Maybe I’d pull it out on rainy days and run some high-energy particle experiments. But for now, all I can think about is a shiny new plasma particle accelerator with polarity inversion.

So frickin’ cool.

Another Star Trek technology becoming a reality?

"The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today’s New Scientist magazine."

"The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft." [impulse engine?]

"Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension [subspace?], where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension." [warp drive?]

Allthings2all is hosting the Science and Christianity Showcase. It’s a clearinghouse for posts by Christians addressing the general theme of scientific reason as it relates to Christian faith. I submitted Jerry Nora’s primer on stem cells. The posts are diverse and many topics are covered. There is one topic, however, which was forbidden: creationism vs. evolution. I was glad to hear of the topic’s exclusion since I see it as a red herring and an albatross to the Body of Christ.

Since we’re on the topic of science and Christianity, here are some relevant articles.

Scientist With “Religious Vision” Wins Templeton Prize

NEW YORK, MARCH 13, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Charles Townes, whose inventions include the maser and laser, and who has spent decades as an advocate for the convergence of science and religion, has won the 2005 Templeton Prize.

A life where science and faith coexist
By Robert Tuttle | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK ? When Nobel Prize-winning physicist Charles Hard Townes was a professor at Columbia University during the 1950s, a colleague, Willis Lamb, asked him if God ever helps him in the lab. Dr. Townes gave the question some thought. “Well,” he recalls telling Lamb. “I think so.”

Faith and Reason Aid Each Other, Says John Paul II

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 13, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Faith and reason are necessary and complementary in the quest for wisdom, John Paul II explained when receiving a delegation from a Polish university.

Psychology That Is True to Science, True to God
Gladys Sweeney on What Therapy Can Do for Troubled Believers

WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 13, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A psychology rooted in the Catholic understanding of the human person is not only true to science, but true to God.

Religion or Science?

The two laws at work under which we are limited and from which we seek answers to life’s questions are religion and science. Our conscience introduces us to the first, formal education introduces the second. Albert Einstein loved science, yet expressed humility upon finding himself buried beneath seas of data pointing to the existence of a mind behind the numbers. If he didn’t deny God, why should we?

Kudos to Joe Carter for doing his part to spread the truth about the “Galileo Affair”.

This is a story about Galileo Galilei. It’s not the story about an enlightened scientist being persecuted by a narrow-minded Catholic Church because that story is (mostly) a myth. It’s not a story about a great scientific genius either, though he was that (mainly). It’s also not a story about someone being reincarnated with the soul of the old astronomer like the song by the Indigo Girls that, for a few weeks in ‘92, I thought was (almost) profound. (And I should point out that it not an original story but one that cribbed together from other sources.)

But like all good stories this one provides a (mostly) valuable lesson.

In yet another feeble attempt to copy Reagan’s policies (like trickle-down economics), Bush is trying to create his own version of the Star Wars (SDI) program. The first one was science fiction created to scare the Soviet Union into spending itself to death. This one might spend us to death.

Current Status of Missile Defense Program, May 2004
Author: John Isaacs

Administration’s latest budget request

The request for fiscal 2005 is $10.2 billion, the largest single Pentagon weapons program and a 13% increase over the fiscal 2004 program. About $3.2 billion of that would go to the ground-based mid-course system (GMD) that is slated to be deployed later this year. If the Space Based Infra-Red System-High (SBIRS-high) is included, the total request for missile defense for the next year is $10.7 billion.

Go to National Priorities and check out the budget trade-offs related to SDI.

“Too much time on my hands” - Styx

Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow
Hashing out the classic question with Strouhal numbers and simplified flight waveforms.
by Jonathan Corum

“After spending some time last month trying to develop alternate graphic presentations for kinematic ratios in winged flight, I decided to try to answer one of the timeless questions of science: just what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

Utopia theory

“From theories of pedestrian movement and traffic flow to voting processes, economic markets and war, researchers are striving towards a physics of society”

“‘It may be’, said US sociologist George Lundberg in 1939, ‘that the next great developments in the social sciences will come not from professed social scientists, but from people trained in other fields.’ Take a look at any issue of a physical-sciences journal in the past five years and you will see one such field staking its claim vigorously. Physics is muscling its way into social science. Not content with explaining the behaviour of atoms and electrons, semiconductors, sand and space-time, physicists are now setting out to understand the behaviour of people.”

It seems to me that the surest way to invite dystopia is to seek utopia. Witness communism, eugenics, and other vain efforts to make the world perfect through logic and reason.

It gives "Nasa 33% of its results for less than 2% of its budget." Of course it’ll be retired. We can’t have cost-effective equipment operated by the government. People might start expecting it all the time.

Eyeing a post-Hubble Universe
By Rachel Clarke

"Not since Galileo turned his telescope towards the heavens in 1610 has any event so changed our understanding of the Universe as the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope."