Wee Hours of Bisquick, Biology, and the Bible

Posted on by frankwmcarr
Who says the overnight hours need be depressing?
Who says the overnight hours need be depressing?  This selfie (taken circa 5:30am tells the contrary)

He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.  You make darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about.  The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens.  Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. (Psalm 104:19-23)

Okay, so I got up a little before two.  And I thought there was no point in returning to sleep.  So, I read my Bible, from which I quoted above, except the focus was Jeremiah.  (Of course, in modern society, you can’t strictly go by a sunset-to-sunrise sleep cycle, because we have, yes, clocks!  Though as we all know, mankind’s modern waking hours lean in the “PM” direction.)  Yet the scripture, as always, does give godly counsel.

So anyway, on a more temporal note (pun intended), I also read two Scientific American Library books, a long discontinued series I get used from Amazon.  One I started yesterday evening and completed about one-fifth through (again, it’s little over 200 pages.)  This was on the biochemical topic of enzymes, a form of protein.  The other, with only little that I haven’t read intently, concerns microbial organisms.

The Bible and these two popular-level books (from the Scientific American Library) kept me company overnight.
The Bible and these two popular-level books (from the Scientific American Library) kept me company overnight.

A little after 4 am I decided hey, why not make breakfast.  Little did I know I had the alternative of making something different than oatmeal or eggs/omelets.  The verdict?  Pancakes.  (The “Bisquick” in the title, mind you).

Mmm...Pancakes and Authentic Maple Syrup. (I actually made/ate this breakfast about an hour before, namely, a little before 4:30am)
Mmm…Pancakes and Authentic Maple Syrup. (I actually made/ate this breakfast about an hour before, namely, a little before 4:30am, and deliberately posed this as such.)

Yep, not Mrs. Butterworth’s, Aunt Jemimah, or Log Cabin, but something where quality trumps quantity:  real maple syrup.

So, to conclude, while it’s not good to be up half the night (ask a doctor for details), the super early wake-up was (and is usually) due to leaving my overhead light on, a habit I must stop.

As this post went to press, the sun is now up, and the night is now over.  (I’ll bet I’ll crash soon).

The Kaaba Stone

Posted on by frankwmcarr
Natural or supernatural?
Natural or supernatural?

In my Britannica online access (courtesy of the community college I attend), when probing the article dealing with Islam (a wonderful topic to learn about, not to convert of course, but to understand where their doctrines, practices, etc. come from), I came across the statement of the Kaaba (Black) Stone.”  Located at the Kaaba, which Muslims consider the link between heaven and earth and the point of ascension of Mohammed, it was stated that the stone was placed due to Adam’s fall, and it was originally white, but by taking the sins of those who go on the hajj (the pilgrimage Muslims take once in their lifetime), it became black.

Now of course I do believe miracles have happened, can happen, and do happen, and the scientifically proven laws can be supernaturally resisted, but very rarely.  From the Christian perspective I write from, when the apostles ceased to have the capacity to perform miracles after Jesus ascended.  Since then, miracles, when they happen, come directly from God.

But for these Muslims who use this stone to perpetually absolve (and, comically enough, absorb) their sins, the stone just gets darker and darker.  And considering the idea of the age of the earth, which alas, will doubtless take us extremely beyond the scope of this post, may have a different rate of blackening depending on a given age, as well as, more or less, based on the pilgrims who visit.

The concepts of geology, like all natural sciences, were set in place by God, and as a Christian, studying these subjects instills an appreciation of the orderliness of God.  If He is controlling the stone’s blackness (though human will, of course, but that’s another matter) due to sin accrued, rather than the laws he instated concerning rocks (proven by science), that would be a violation of those laws.  After all, rocks are made of minerals, which are chemical compounds.

Yet a prevailing theory, given while Muslims view the Kaaba stone is of divine origin, others view it as a mere meteorite.  Also, while the astronomical “heavens” are one thing, the heaven where God dwells is an entirely different concept.

Most likely, according to geologists in a 1974 paper, the stone is most likely an agate, which fits the criteria of their studies.  An anonymous geologist, who was a Muslim, also analyzed this stone on his hajj.

Keep in mind all stones are created, not divine.  Some sources attribute Allah to be the stone itself.  Since only a God can forgive sin, and Islam teaches that Christ was spared from crucifixion, which, per Christianity, is the way sins are forgiven.

To conclude, as a hopeful scientist and/or writer of such, not to mention a Christian, there will inevitably some bias.  Two of the three authors of the Britannica article had Islamic names and were hence most likely Muslims, the other had a typical Western name, which does not suggest much.  But in anything, even in secular topics like science, things must always be taken with a grain of salt.  After all, scientists “write the book of nature” by their observations and experiments, and on this side of heaven, it will always be a mere approximation of the objective truth held only by God.