Johnson C. Philip Library

Pornography and Moral Blindness

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 08:21:51 +0000

No Christian and no decent person would ever endorse production and consumption of pornography or erotica. It simply goes against the command to flee fornication. The Lord Himself said, in Matthew 5:28 "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart". That ought to settle the issue for all of us, but some would still want to hear some more. And here is the additional news.

Not that anyone pursuing practical sanctification needs this news to support the Scriptures, but there are always some inquisitive souls who would love to receive additional information on any given subject — from ingrown toenails to the final state of BlackHoles. This article is devoted to them, and also to the resort of us who surreptitiously read it all — just to know, I mean!

The other day I was, as usual, reading the latest from The New Scientist and the news from 12th August sort of popped out where it says that "Erotic images can turn you blind". Let me quote them:

"Researchers have finally found evidence for what good Catholic boys have known all along – erotic images make you go blind. The effect is temporary and lasts just a moment, but the research has added to road-safety campaigners’ calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents.

The new study by US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as “emotion-induced blindness”."

What’s more, it was not some kind of crackpot research, but a systematic and controlled on done in a well-known American University. According to the story "David Zald, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Marvin Chun and colleagues from Yale University in Connecticut, showed hundreds of images to volunteers and asked them to pick a specific image from the rapid sequence. Most of the images were landscape or architectural scenes, but the psychologists included a few emotionally charged images, portraying violent or sexually provocative scenes.

The closer these emotionally charged images occurred prior to the target image, the more frequently people failed to spot the target image, the researchers found. “We observed that people failed to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after neutral images,” Zald says."

The Vanderbilt University researchers concluded that an erotic stimulus is able to capture the human brain in such a way that for a time all the other stimuli are suppressed. Thus the human brain is no longer able to judge and discern things for some time, leading to inability in judging between what is right and wrong, and whether they are facing a danger or not. They also noticed that after an erotic billboard captures their attention, for a few moments they are no longer able to judge traffic patterns properly, unable even to take proper action if another vehicle endangers them or if they endanger another vehicle, making them prone to accidents.

The researchers also feel that the part of the brain known as amygdala plays a part. This part is involved in evaluating sensory input according to its emotional relevance, and automatically affects heart rate and sweating. These two things are stimulated by the human brain so that the person is ready to face the situation, specially those that need immediate attention and proper response. But the erotic pictures [or fantasies] create a bottleneck, so that once they capture the mind, the other signals [howsoever urgent they might be] are ignored for a while. They label this process as "Emotion Induced Blindness", a term we need to look at in some detail.

Meanwhile, "The effect could exacerbate the more obvious problem of drivers simply being distracted by large, arresting images. "It’s the responsibility of drivers to ensure that when they are behind the wheel they keep their eyes on the job in hand," says a spokeswoman from Brake, a UK road safety organisation. And some people are more vulnerable than others. The study assessed participants using a personality questionnaire, rating them according to their level of “harm avoidance”. Those scoring highly were more fearful, careful and cautious; those scoring low were more carefree and more comfortable in difficult or dangerous situations."

As I read all the above from the New Scientist, I though I should have a look at any related news they might have in the archives, and was stunned to read another one which says "Pornography, the US Senate was told on 18 October, is a drug more dangerous than crack cocaine. That, at least, was the opinion of some witnesses invited to testify on "the science behind pornography addiction". It’s not a view shared by everyone.

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the sexual trauma and psychopathology programme at the University of Pennsylvania, said unpublished research showed that "even non-sex-addicts will show brain reactions on PET scans while viewing pornography similar to cocaine addicts looking at images of people taking cocaine". Jeffrey Satinover, a doctor whose website outlines therapies for homosexuals, described porn as a designer drug, delivered efficiently over the internet, which "does what heroin can’t do". A third expert witness said there was an urgent need for research on addiction to "eroto-toxins"."

Porn or erotica, they all maintained, can trigger the release of natural opioids, which have a stimulating effect on the brain, which can cause grave danger when it happens to the wrong person in the wrong place.

I am sure I do not have to remind my readers that erotical is becoming increasingly common in our society. Pictures deemed fit [and even too lewd] for pornographic magazines of the 1960 now routinely find place in what are called "family" magazines. Many unsuspecting Christians routinely buy them and allow them to remain in their living rooms where they eventually blind their young and impressionable minds. The world knows this and that is why they spend millions a day to mould the plastic and pliable minds to love erotica today, and crave for them tomorrow.

A few years ago I spoke in an Arabian Gulf church on the influence of Pornography on young [and not so young] people and why erotica should be avoided by Christians. A man in his late forties came to me and said, brother, you do not have to raise so much alarm. After all we all should taste everything that comes our way and then decide what is what. I was stunned. He claimed to be a Christian, and yet was taking a stand against what Lord Jesus said [in the Bible verse quoted earlier]. Such can be the blindness caused by Erotica. It is more intoxicating than what is used by the street drug-addicts.

"With thanks to New Scientist, & Original Journal reference: Psychonomic Bulletin and Review (August 2005 issue)"

[Dr. Johnson C. Philip is a physicist, with expertise in Quantum-nuclear Physics, and has worked extensively on the inner quark-structre of Protons and Neutrons. He has also specialized in Christian Apologetics, Biblical Archeology, and several other fields. This website provides you an access point to the dozens of websies that he maintains.]

Launch Your Ad-income Website

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 08:03:51 +0000

One you thoroughly research and find out what kind of topics bringin the best advertisement reveneue, you should pick up one to five of the topics and establish one or more websites on these topics. At times a single website might be enough, but at times you might have to opt for more than one website.

How Many Topics: At time several income-generating topics of your interest might be so closely related that you can put them all onto one website. For example, a website related to "Indian Tours" or "Indian Tourist Places" can accommodate several topics such as touring india, historical places in India, Indian monuments, culture, customs, festivals etc.

If the cluster of subjects that you have identified for your income-generating website is related with each other in this manner, it is better to establish a single website to cover them all. It is always easier to manage fewer websites. Also, this will ensure that the site will have plenty of articles — which is essential for attracting customers, which in turn translates into ad income. However, if the topics that you finally select are totally different such as India Tour and Western Classical Music, obviously, you will have to establish separate websites for them.

Normal Website or Blog: Normal websites are good for static sites where information, once posted, does not change. This would include company websites, and websites dealing with a collection of articles. However, for income-generation we would strongly urge you to establish a blog.

Originally blogs were developed as software that helps an author to quickly update what he writes. This software was used mainly to establish net-based personal diaries. However, the concept has evolved fast and today blog software is a powerful piece of code using which you can quickly establish an attractive website that can be updated fast.

When To Start: You should never be in a hurry to start the site as long as your research is not completed, lest you end up establishing something that has no market potential. However, once the research is over, and once you are sure of what direction you should take, you should not wait for even a day. You should immediatly book a domain that truely reflects the purpose of the domain and launch the site.

Do not make the mistake of booking a domain myhobbies.com for a site devoted to India Travel and do not book a domain medicalhelp.com for a site devoted to the ABC of Mathematics.

Domains and webspace are not very expensive these days, and if you look around you will find a good provder easily. Register a domain, get some space, and launch into your site. Persist, and you will see money coming in slowly but steadily. If you keep working the number of readers will keep increasing, and with that will increase the quantum of advertisement income.

What About the Neanderthal Man

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 07:40:32 +0000

Who has not heard the name of the Neanderthal Man ? He occupies a place of great importance in many Biology textbooks. Whenever they discuss the theory of evolution he is usually there. Picture in the textbooks depict him as a hairy brute not quite human, but rather as a half ape and half man.

This creature is so well known that even many people who do not have any background in science have heard something or other about this assumed evolutionary ancestor of man. However, this picture is changing very fast due to modern scientific researches.

In a recent article, an expert on the Neanderthal fossils has made these findings know to the general scientific community. "The Neanderthals" was published in the April-May, 1987 issue of The World Scientist, a prestigious scientific magazine originating from France. Erik Trinkaus, the author of this article, is professor at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, USA), and he specializes in the study of the Neanderthal man.

According to this expert, scientific opinion on this group of fossils has undergone many change and now we have a "less biased" image of who these creatures were. In other words, what we read about this man in the evolutionary discussions is more of biased opinions and less of objective scientific opinion. One is surprised to note that due to the biases of evolutionists, it has taken over half a century to get a correct scientific picture of the Neanderthal fossils.

According to the author, the original picture of a beastly hunter (as depicted in most textbooks) is very much a thing of the past. Today the Neanderthal man has to be accepted as a very complex human being sharing many similarities with the modern man. There are many differences too, because people of two eras, cultures and build will naturally differ from each other in many ways.

It is no longer correct to maintain that the Neanderthal man perished tens of thousands of years before the time of the modern man. According to this author, they vanished only about a thousand years ago. In other words, Neanderthal man was a contemporary of the Christians who lived for the first half of the church age ! And all these years the textbooks have been telling us that here is a link between man and apes that died out tens of thousands of years ago. The recent findings, however, imply that our so-called ancestor is in fact our close relative.

In the popular imagination, conditioned by books and articles on evolution, Neanderthal man was a slouching brute that could not stand erect due to its half-ape body. However this is a thing of the past. According to this scientist, the present image is that of a complex human who had the same posture, modes of locomotion, and mastication as modern man has. He had a totally modern brain, having a complexity equal to ours. This group of humans exhibited slight variation from race to race as exhibited by all other human races.

Further, this scientist affirms a fact that has repeatedly been emphasized by many creationists — that the original reconstruction of the Neanderthal was made from an erroneous arrangement of the skeleton. Once this error is corrected, it is difficult to differentiate between the feet, the limbs and the vertebral column of a Neanderthal and a modern man. Similarly the Neanderthal’s jaw functioned in the same manner as modern man’s.

These people used to bury their dead, and used to take much care of invalids who were no longer able to help the group in any way. The archaeological remains from this period show that they had a well devloped artistic and asthetic sense too.

After saying all this, the author summerizes to the effect that : "After taking all these things into consideration, most experts of the present era hold the opinion that the Neanderthals resembled us so closely that he has to be considered fully a human being, not an ape-man."

The observations mentioned above will come as a surprise to most of the students of Biology because they have been told time and again that the Neanderthal man was a very important link in human evolution. In fact there are many writers who claim that it "The" missing link between apes and man — the perfect ape-man. But just like the numerous other alleged missing links, another link has vanished from before us. This does not come as a surprise to creation scientists, because they have been saying these things now for a very long time.

Neanderthal man is not the only vanished link. Many other proofs evolution mentioned in the Indian textbooks are equally non existent. For example, the embryological proof of evolution given in our books with some interesting photographs of different embryos has been proved to be a deception. Yet nearly a century after this exposure, the Indian textbooks still exhibit these pictures as a proof of evolution. This is not honest science but something else: As far as the experimental sciences are concerned, they have only refuted the theory of evolution.

Some Facts About Evolution

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 05:44:40 +0000

Evolution is widely known theory, and even those people who have never studies science have some idea about it. So much so that it is common for speakers on Bible and Science to meet people from commerce or history background who are interested in knowing matters related to evolution and the Christian faith.

In this article some of the most important facts and truths about the theory of evolution are given for the benefit of the specialist as well as the general student of these subjects.

First, contrary to what the masses believe, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis of science. It is not a proved fact of science. A hypothesis means that it is a proposal which has to be established by experimental and empirical sciences. Usually the school and college textbooks of evolution give the erroneous idea that evolution is fact or law of science, but this is far from the truth. Just as there are numerous other hypotheses in science, evolution is also a mere hypothesis.

Second, evolution is said to be the result of blind chance. But the study of chance processes shows that it will only destroy order, not evolve it. Whenever matter is left to itself in this universe, as is assumed to have been by evolutionists, order always goes to disorder and complex systems always break down into disordered mess. Information always gets destroyed, which means that there is no way in which the information residing on genes could come to existence through blind chance.

Third, over one and a half century of searches have yielded billions of fossils but not even a single one of them supports the theory of evolution. According to evolution, there must be numerous fossils demonstrating the evolution of one kind of animal or plant into another kind, but such fossils have never been found. All the fossils that were claimed to intermediate forms have been discredited by scientists on further study .

Fourth, no one has ever demonstrated that man has evolved from monkey-like creatures. Over a dozen kind of ape-man fossils have been exhibited to the world by evolutionists, but on second thought their own competent scientist companions have rejected these finds. Scientists have discovered that some of these fossils represent apes while others represent real men, but that none of them comes from an ape-man. Interestingly, none of the fossils advanced so for comes from an ape man.

Fifth, the earth is not necessarily millions or billions of years old, contrary to the assumptions of the evolutionists ! They try to portray the earth as very old, but this is a result of their theory which demands a very long age for the earth. As far as experiments are concerned, they give a wide range of results. According to some methods of determining the earth’s age, this planet is only a few thousand years old. Other tests give an age of 10,000 or 20,000 years and some give it in millions or billions of years.

An honest and objective scientist will give consideration to all these dates in his discussion, but the evolutionists select out the long ages only just because it suits them.

Sixth, a good number of competent Darwinists have abandoned their belief in Darwinism : some of them are highly reputed scientists, and they have published their conclusions in books and scientific papers. They have done so because they could not find a single scientific proof in favour of Darwinism:

Seventh, some highly competent evolutionists have abandoned all forms of evolution. They have discovered that whether it is the Darwinian form or some other form of evolution, it just does not work. Scientifically the evidences are nil. Many of them have even made this known to the scientific community.

Eighth, there are many scientists now who accept that the scientific evidence is in favour of creation. These people are not Christians, nor believers in creation. Yet out of their scientific observations they are forced to believe in creation.

Ninth, numerous scientific discoveries have shown that evolution is not possible. In other words, more and more of the scientific discoveries speak against the possibility of evolution of life by blind chance. This is why the famous scientists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickremsinge abandoned their faith in the theory of evolution. Scientists of world renown, they have widely published the reasons why life on the earth could not have evolved by chance processes.

Tenth, while the discoveries of science have been going against the theories of evolution, they have been providing more and more support to the Bible. There are numerous supporting evidences in favour of Bible — from physics, chemistry, logic, information sciences, archaeology, history, and of course from biology also.

Eleventh, no known fact of science contradicts the Bible, and the Bible does not contradict any established fact of science.

Every serious student of science should consider the Bible and its claims seriously.

Bias in Science and Belief in the Bible

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 05:36:08 +0000

Millions of Christian living around the world have an unshaken faith in the Bible. For them it is the greatest and the only absolute standard for determining matters related to creed and conduct. But there is no shortage of critics against the Bible who would like to tell these people that their belief in the Bible is foolish because of on reason or other. There are numerous sociological and anthropological reasons for man’s apposition to the Bible, but that is not the topic for consideration in this article. It will be enough to note that according to the Bible, people will continue to oppose it as long as they are dominated by their sin natures.

The attacks against the Bible have come from the simple as will as the learned, in all generations of mankind, but the mode has changed from time to time. In this generation, the attacks are done in the name of science. They reason that if the Bible contains scientific errors in its statements, then it is nor a reliable book. The more the number of these errors, the less is the reliability of the book as a whole. We must surely grant to the critic that if the narratives in the Bible are erroneous about this world, then its statements about the spiritual world are also suspect.

In the past two hundred years a flood of anti-Bible material has been published in the form of articles, books and even learned treatises. However, with the passage of time many of these writings were exposed to be shallow or biased, so that the information presented in these books against the Bible are more of fiction and less of fact. One of the reasons that has been exposed time and against the existence of Bias and Cheating in the world of science.

The common notion which people have of scientist is that of men who passionately try to discover the secrets of nature; men who are not influenced by any type of biases or prejudices, whether it be religious, political, racial, or any other type which we can think of. If this view of the scientists is correct, then science, the product of their research also ought to be fully true, objective, and unbiased. However this is not the truth. Scientists are men affected by all kinds of biases and prejudices, and their work does contain things which are biased or dishonest. Many times these wrong conclusions are picked up by the critics who use them to attack the Bible. For example, in the area of evolution a good number of proof produced to attack the concept of creation come in this category.

Some decades ago the famous Piltdown Man fossil was used to prove evolution and to refute creation. In the fifties this fossil was discovered to be a fake. Then there is the celebrated Nebraska Man who was reconstructed from a single tooth, and even presented in a court case to prove evolution. When the rest of the skeleton was discovered they found it to be a pig instead of a missing link in man’s evolution. The case of the Embryological proof of evolution is much more interesting. A scientist produced the pictures of various embryos to prove that the human embryo passes through several stages representing its animal past. After other scientists studied similar embryos, they exposed this man’s work to be deception. (It is an irony that Indian textbook dealing with evolution still print these pictures and teach it as a proof of evolution, eighty years after it was exposed to be a big lie)

Every generation of scientists will contain some men who are biased and prejudiced in their work. They will deviate from the higher standards which should govern them. Some of them will distort the truth, while others will even invent nonexistent data or results to support their claims. Two scientific works have exposed these practices recently. One is a research paper published in the reputed scientific journal Nature and the other is a scientific book by the title of "False Prophets". Both of these documents expose the unbelievably high rate of cheating and deception in the scientific community. According to them such practices are more widespread in the Biological science in comparison to exact science like physics.

In the remote and also in the recent past many of the biased, prejudiced, and wrong conclusions of scientists were used to attack the Bible. This is not objectivity. An honest enquirer living in the twentieth century has to accept that the Bible is not in conflict with any firmly established fact of science. It might come in conflict with false information that is paraded in the name of science, but then that is not science in any way. Objective science has never contradicted the Bible.

Fakes of Evolution

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:00:24 +0000

Everyone expects scientist to be honest, devoted to the pursuit of the unknown irrespective of the biases and prejudices of the age. But this is only an idealized picture. Scientists do cheat the world, and such practices are most common in the Biological sciences according to two scientific studies published this year. One of these is a research paper published in the prestigious British science journal NATURE.

Probably the majority of scientists never cheat, and that is why science and technology is progressing so rapidly. But what troubles everyone is the way these deceptions interfere with the growth of science. Quite often these false conclusions and faked results are blindly accepted by other scientists as true and then they build up their work on these non existent foundations. This happened quite often in Biology, and it is a regular phenomena in the researches dealing with the evolution of life on this planet.

The Piltdown Man fossil discovered in 1912 is one such example. This ape man was created from a few pieces of bones. Supposed to be a very important missing-link in the evolution of man,scientists all over the world published more than 500 learned papers on this single creature. They even erected a monument at the place of discovery to celebrate such an important discovery. But all of this proved to be worthless and misguided when they discovered after 40 years that this fossils was a fake. The fragments of bones came from two creatures instead of one — a man and a baboon. And contrary to their claims, this fossil was not 500,000 years old !

Most of the students in our schools and college study the theory of evolution. Their textbooks tell them that the theory is based upon solid facts, and therefore only and ignorant person will doubt this theory. But this is not true. At least most of the Indian textbooks still base all their arguments on evidence which have been discredited a long time ago.

Piltdown man, which was exposed to be a fraud is still depicted in many of these books as a proof of evolution. The same is the case with the Neanderthal man, which has been demonstrated to be fully human with no ape connection. The embryological proof for evolution is still found in most of the books which teach evolution. But this so-called proof was disproved at the start of this century. Professor Haeckel, who proposed this proof, was tried by the Jena University Court, and there he accepted that in his pictures of embryo he had deliberately made many modifications. Further, he alleged that hundreds of the best observers and biologists of his time were involved in similar modification of the scientific data to suit their theories.

Pithecanthropus erectus, or what is commonly known as the Java Man, is also not fully objective. It was constructed on the basis of skeletal parts collected from three different places on a river-bed ! He kept hidden skulls now known as Wadjak 1 and 2 for 26 years so that by suppressing this fact his fossil-man might benefit. But finally when he came in competition with another scientist, he displayed these to the scientific community who he had put on a false trail so far. Interestingly, the men from whom these skulls have survived were probably healthier than we are, and they had larger brains than what we have today, showing that only degeneration has taken place. Interestingly, the man who did the Java Man deception was a staunch follower of professor Haeckel who had done the embryological deception.

Another fraud is called "Orgueil fall". A fragment of meteorite was discovered in southeast France in the last century. They demonstrated that this fragment from outside the earth contained organic material which could have come only from living beings, thus proving that life has originated spontaneously. The motivation behind all this was to counter the discoveries of Louis Pasteur, who demonstrated very convincingly that life does not arise spontaneously. The deception was discovered only after about a century of its alleged discovery. Scientists found that the meteorite piece was genuine, but that it was moistened in water and then organic material was affixed to it with some bonding material. It was then heated to give it the appearance of a stone which had heated up while passing through earth’s atmosphere.

The theory of evolution is based upon a lot of half-truths and wishful thinking. Unfortunately, a large number of its proofs are fakes and deceptions. If learned scientist have to do this, it is easy to see that the theory stands on shaky ground.

Which Blog Software for Ad Income?

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:17:59 +0000

Whether one should go for a conventional website or the modern blog setup for one’s income generation site is a recurring question. My unwavering answer is: opt for the blog software unless you have a compelling reason to opt for the conventional website setup. Here is the reason:

Why Prefer Blog Software: Blogs were invented for writing personal journals, but the format has become so popular that thousands of people around the world have developed new and highly refined blog softwares that are totally free. These programs offer numerous advanced facilities, user-support from the developer and user-community and also numerous add ons.

What Are Add-ons: Most blog softwares are very versatile. However, the programmers realize that given an opportunity, others can add to the functionality. Thus most blog software offer a facility for "plugins" which are software developed by others and which can be "plugged in" to the original software. These add-ons or plugins are easy to add, and offer numerous facilities.

Which Blog Software: Several free software are available, but I would strongly recommend WordPress because if the ease of installation, ease of use, and the unbelievable range of plugins available totally free. What is more, thousands of free themes are available which means that you can almost always find a theme that suits your purpose.

Which Version of WorPerfect: Each new version of WordPerfect comes with added facilities but the installation remains easy. What is more, even the webmasters control-panel is easy, and has been becoming easier and more user friendly with newer versions. So go for the latest version and download it from www.WordPress.org

Which Add-ons (Plugins) To Use: There are thousands of plugins, and it is better for you to choose them after you have some experience with the blog first. Needs vary and so do the plugins. The WordPress site maintains a good list of plugins.

Which Theme: There are thousands of themes and you can locate them either by going to the WordPress site or through a net-search. However, I wish to sound two notes of caution. First, do not go for the more flashy type of themes because they are slow to load and divert the attention to themselves from the product itself. Second, prefer a normal three-column theme because ads when displayed on both sides give maximum exposure and maximum click-through.

Persist: Please remember that persisting with two to three selected blogs is the key. While you might see click-through from the start, it takes a little time to grow. It takes 12 to 26 months on a well-executed blog for ad-income to cross the satisfactory barrier. Count this time as essential investment. Give another 12 months for it to attain a level that can be called exciting.

Persist and you will surely win!

Cosmological Discoveries and the Christian

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:38:39 +0000

Cosmology is that branch of science which studies the origin and evolution of the universe. Since the philosophy of evolution is the underlying assumption of cosmology, it is expected that a good number of their conclusions will come in conflict with the Biblical history of creation. It is therefore good to know if those conflicts arise because of scientific reasons or because of philosophical presuppositions.

The present theory of the origin of the cosmos is the Big Bang theory. According to it, the present universe started with the explosion of the "cosmic egg" which contained all the matter that is distributed in the universe today. (It does not say anything about how all the matter came there in one lump, nor does it explain how the matter there originated). Even though a good number of cosmologists believe in the big bang hypothesis, not all of them are on their side. There are numerous scientists who believe that the truth is something else. Further, even those who believe in this hypothesis accept that the concept of big bang hypothesis, not all of them are on their side. Further, even those who believe in this hypothesis accept that the concept of big bang is not a firmly established fact of science. Many many more details have to be worked out before one can satisfactorily say whether such an explosion took place.

Some people would like us to believe that the universe is expanding. To a Christian it does not matter whether it is static or expanding, but this such should be noted that the concept of an expanding universe itself is hypothesis. It is not an established fact of science that this universe is expanding. Since this idea is connected with the big bang model also with the presumed vast age of the universe, the hypothetical character of this assumption must be clearly understood. It has been reported recently that the Tired-Light model of the universe is better than the big bang model. If that is true, this universe is not expanding at all.

The question of red-shift might immediately pop up. Red shift of the spectrum is a universal observation. According to our understanding of the Doppler effect, such a shift of the light frequencies is possible only if the light-emitting body is going away from us. But this not the only cause that can produce red shift | The tired-light model mentioned above seems to explain the red-shift and related phenomena in a much a better way. Many anomalies found in the red-shift do point out further that our present hypothesis of red-shift due to an expanding universe is not necessarily the best explanation. Probably the universe is not expanding at all.

The question of the Hubble constant is bound to come up at this stage. Red shift, Hubble constant, and numerous other concepts, observations, hypotheses, and even assumptions form the underlying foundation of the vast dimensions assigned to the universe. The universe might surely be as vast as they clam, but it does not rest upon sufficiently firm foundation. The nature of the Hubble constant, which forms an important link in the conclusions leading to a billion-years old universe, is itself not clear yet to us.

The vast age assigned to the universe is based upon all the above-mentioned assumptions, plus a lot more of them. But once these assumptions are accepted, assigning a vast age for the universe is only a matter of simple deduction : if the universe is as vast as they deduce, then light coming from the extremities of the known universe will need about ten billion years to reach us; since our telescopes are able to pick up this light, the universe must be at least ten billion years old. This conclusions seem valid, but it is only one side of the possibility, but there is another side of it.

It is possible that some of the fundamental constants have been changing in the past. This was the conclusion reached from Dirac’s large Number Hypothesis (LNH). This is a plausible hypothesis, and even though scientist in other fields of science are not very happy about it, this hypothesis has not been abandoned by cosmologist and others in related fields. If the fundamental constants have been changing in the past, it is possible that in a universe as vast as they suppose it today, or even in a much big universe, the light travelling from its edge could have reached us in a short span of time after the supposed recent creation.

One thing ought to be clear to every Christian: Cosmology is still in infancy (in spite of all the advances in astronomy). Many of its ideas and hypotheses seem to contradict something or other in the Bible. But this is no cause of alarm because theories have contradicted the Bible time and again, but most of such theories have died out. Right now there are several alternate possibilities in cosmology, and if they are true then there is no conflict between Bible and Cosmology. But since the last word has not yet been said on these topics, let us accept them as what they are : theories and hypotheses which have not yet become established facts. And we do not know of any fact in cosmology or in astronomy which contradicts the Bible. This is not a trivial observations when one notes that there are several hindered direct references in the Bible related to astronomy and cosmology.

What is a Blog

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:25:28 +0000

People who wish to set up an income generating site repeatedly ask whether one should opt for a conventional website or a blog setup. I strongly suggest that they should opt for a blog. There are several reasons for this suggestion, and the reason will become clear as you read this full write-up.

What Is A Traditional Website: A traditional website is made mostly of a scripting language known as HTML. It might contain graphics, audio, video, flash and many other things. It is usually developed from scratch by a person with a good knowledge of coding.

Traditional websites are generally rugged, with very few bugs, and stable. However, once programmed and set up, there is no way to keep on adding articles and information unless the owner has some knowledge of HTML. Worse, even if the has such a knowledge, changing a given article or adding a new one is neither easy nor automatic. He will have to download the page he intends to change, for which he will need FTP (file transfer protocol) software. Once he modifies the program, he will have upload it back in the correct folder and with the correct name. While FTP programs have become increasingly user-friendly, doing it all is cumbersome and the chances of making an error and messing up the whole website is high.

If a new page is developed and uploaded, it has to be connected properly to the menu. A mistake here can result in the page not being found. What is more, it is a difficult task to connect it to the menu if every page displays the menu, because this will mean connecting this page to every page (hundreds, sometimes) that displays the menu.

Thus a traditional website is good only where no substantial modification or addition is needed after the website is set up. Such a setup is not good for advertisement income on the internet because static sites find it impossible to compete with dynamic sites that keep adding to their content.

What Is A Blog: Blogs were originally developed as dynamic sites where the owner could add material, and revise it, without technical hurdles. These blogs also provided a facility for readers to interact with the blog owner through comments. No FTP was required for anything after the blog was set up.

Once blogs came into existence, numerous people discovered the advantages of such software. No FTP was required and all the housekeeping such as creating links to new articles, updating the menu, formatting the article, etc. was automatically done by the blog software. This saved the owner much time, while at the same time it increased the reliability and integrity of the entire site. This realization made them to develop newer blog software that were more rugged, reliable, flexible and easy to us. One of them is WordPerfect which I strongly recommend in all my course material.

How Does A Blog Function: Most blog software is free. They are coded in PHP which is a highly reliable language. The PHP-based software keeps all its data in a database known as SQL (mostly MySQL) which is again a rugged program. What is more, the PHP program that forms the blog is able to access the data only if it has a username and password. Thus a blog software offers several levels of protection. One has to log into the program to use administrative functions. The program itself has to login to the database to use it. This double layer of protection makes it difficult to hack your blog (though it is not impossible. There are no impossibles in the world of hacking).

Once the blog is set up, one can post information the way one writes an email simply by logging into the website. Material already posted can also be revised in this way. One does not have to worry about the menu and the links. Users can easily post comments.

You can change the appearance by changing the "theme". Thousands of free themes are available for WordPress. If you choose a good theme, it will give you plenty of strategic positions to display your advertisements.

Thus a blog is a dynamic website that helps you establish a site that you can change arbitrarily, which increases your competitiveness and ultimately brings in better advertisement revenue.

How to Set Up Your Wordpress Blog

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:35:30 +0000

Of all the free blog software, I strongly recommend WordPress for any net-task, especially for a site to generate income.

Introduction: WordPress is a blog software written in PHP, and there are now hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. This software can be used to create your own stand-alone blog site. Since it is in PHP, it is rugged and resists attempts at hacking.

Thousands of programmers contribute to the refinement and development and new versions keep coming with increased functionally, ease of use, and speed of operation. Thousands of others develop add-ons or plugins and themes, all available free of cost. There are also many commercial plugins and themes. In summary, here is a blog software which offers so many choices that you can use it for setting up practically any kind of site with any facility. Sky is the limit if you search around.

Your Own Domain: You should have your own domain and server space before you set up your own stand-along blog. WordPress.Com offers what is known as "hosted" blogs. These are hosted by WordPress and though you can set up what you wish, the ownership of the facility belongs to those who host. If they ever delete your blog or revoke your right to post, you cannot do anything because you are using the property that belongs to someone else.

A stand-alone blog or website is your own property over which you have full rights and privileges. You will need to register a "domain name" and buy "server space" to host this website or blog. Registering a domain such as MedicalHelps.Com is not costly. And you can buy server-space cheap for hosting this blog. Together they should not cost more than $20 per year if you look for a good company. Once you own a domain name, and once you take server space on rent, you are ready to set up your blog for profit. If you can seek help from an enthusiast, he will teach you all the tricks in one go. If not, you will have to do it by yourself. This is not difficulty if you strictly follow the instructions in the following paragraphs.

Setting Up The Database: Your server will give you the facility to set up a database to be used by your wordpress blog. For this you should do the following things

1. Log into your server control panel. (Your server-space provider will give you the user-name and password to access your server control panel).

2. Go To MySQL or other database.

3. Create a "Database". Use a name here that you can remember easily, but which others cannot guess. Record this name somewhere.

4. After that, create a "User" and a "password". Chose names which are nearly impossible to guess. Record these names because there is no way to recover the password if lost and you will end up losing precious information.

5. There will be a facility on the same location to "connect" the user with the "database". Do it with "all privileges".

6. Now you are ready to set up your blog.

Setting Up WordPress: You should visit www.WordPress.org and download the latest issue. After that do the following

1. Unzip the software

2. Upload this software to your server in the correct folder. Your server-space provider will inform you the folder where files are to be loaded. (You will need an FTP software for this upload).

3. Once all the files are uploaded, you are ready for the install. Just log on to your domain. WordPress will automatically ask many questions. As you answer them, it will use that information to set up the software.

4. Once the software gives you the user-name "admin" and the password, carefully store this password BEFORE you log into your blog. If you use this password, you will find it almost impossible to log into your blog.

5. At times the setup process is halted and it says that certain files are not "writable". In such rare cases you will have to go to that file through control panel (or through an FTP software) and change the file "attributes" till you get the value as 666.

Using The WordPress Blog: You are ready to use your WordPress blog as soon as it is set up. I suggest that you log into the Blog Control Panel and make necessary changes in the title, subtitle etc and start posting. Proper themes and plugins can be selected in a day or two. Start blogging immediately and submit your blog to search engines immediately. Let the spider start visiting your site before you do other things.

Persist and the day will be yours!!