Sir Isaac Newton - Religious Fundy Nutjob

[Rage for Order]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/18/newton.papers.ap/index.html

Papers show Isaac Newton's religious side

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible -- exhibited this week for the first time -- lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history's greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law -- even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters -- and combing the Old Testament's Book of Daniel for clues about the world's end.

In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060. "It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner," Newton wrote. However, he added, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."

In another document, Newton interpreted biblical prophecies to mean that the Jews would return to the Holy Land before the world ends. The end of days will see "the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom," he posited.


More at the link

[BlooInBloo]

1. lol! Newton's bible-thumping-ness isn't news...

... I mean, it's not in Densmore, but anyone who has studied Newton is well aware of his extreme piety.

[flyingfysh]

2. this was not unusual at that time

Lots of people around Newton's time did the same thing.

It still continues today. Walk into many fundamentalist churches, you will find people preoccupied with studying Daniel and Revelation for clues about the end of the world. Newton's ideas as cited here do not seem out of line with modern fundamentalist thinking.

[Rage for Order]

3. I agree

I just find it funny when I hear people say that religion and science can't co-exist. I'm a firm believer in science (evolution and all), but I also believe in God. I don't see the two as mutually exclusive.

[BlooInBloo]

7. Yah! Kant - what a crazy stupid fuck.

[YOY]

15. They can coexist just fine

It's any denomination or preacher/holyman who views science as competition that needs to get some mental help.

I've heard a radio commercial for some fundie org that refered to science as a religion. The group is called "Not a Sermon". Here's their link: http://www.notasermon.org/article.aspx?articleId=68

I was sorely tempted to email and tell them that this is INDEED A sermon and a scary born again litteral interpretive one but anyone who finds science to be a threat to their religion isn't going to accept tht kind of criticism with an open mind...

Sad really...

[catzies]

4. A man of his time and a man for all time. I think it is possible he was both.

n/t

[kurth]

5. That's ok. He got the physics right

People like him only come around every 1000 years or so.

[BlooInBloo]

8. More or less. More importantly, he got the math right.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Actually Leibniz would argue that he got the math right

and that Newton was late to the game and used a notation scheme that only Newton found useful. We learn the Leibniz version of the calculus.

[BlooInBloo]

12. LOL!

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Newton was right about some things, wrong about others.

Newton's groundbreaking ideas about physics stood without serious challenge until Einstein supplanted them- and Einstein, for all his brilliance, was unable to accept Quantum Physics.

...and, all evidence to date shows that on that matter, he was probably, spectacularly, wrong.

See, that's one difference between science and religion; science doesn't have any infallible popes or saints; no unchallengeable proclamations- everyone's ideas and answers are only good until better ideas and answers show up.

Newton's -or Einstein's- religious beliefs or lack thereof have absolutely ZERO bearing on the veracity (or lack thereof) of their scientific ideas. Newton also supposedly remained a virgin his whole life- does that mean sex is bad?

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Also primary obsession was alchemy.

Physics and mathematics were a side show.

[BlooInBloo]

11. LOL!

[freesqueeze]

13. Science or Magic

He also put some considerable time into trying to make gold out of cheaper metals. Another common persuit of his time. This is really an interesting idea. If one were to create gold cheaply wouldn't that accomplishment make gold worthless?



Newton was a religious nut...unlike today's RNs, he was brilliant.

[Odin2005]

14. He was also into alchemy and astrology IIRC.

The people that were involved in the Scientific Revolution, from Copernicus to Newton, are often held up as supremely rational supermen, when in reality they were often just as much inspired by mystical woo woo as they were by good reasoning and observation. Early scientists generally didn't start distancing themselves from the woo until the 1700s; Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler were all heavily influenced by Neo-Platonist mysticism.

[pop goes the weasel]

16. Newton was not a fundy

He was more like a deist. He would have been considered an Arian heretic--not believing in the divinity of Jesus.

[Matariki]

17. Ever read Neal Stephenson's trilogy, The Baroque Cycle?

Issac Newton figures large in the story and Stephenson explores the avid interest in alchemy that Newton and his contemporaries had and it's relation to modern science. Stephenson also hints at Newton's probable homosexuality.

Far more complex and interesting than merely a 'religious fundy nutjob'.