Today's Scripture Reading

[fishbuff]

There are many 'ism' of religions and these 'ism' come with 'founders'. Perhaps the full name of the initial 'ISM could better be described as "Is Simply Misleading". From Christians' perspective, we must not be bothered with all these 'ism' and who are their founders. Christianity - in fact I prefer to call it 'believers of Jesus' (rather than identify myself as protestant or a Luteran, or a Methodist) - is based on our faith in Jesus. Christianity is not an offshook of the Roman Catholic, neither this was founded by Paul, John, Luke, Matthew, Timothy. We believe our faith in Jesus because of the Holy Scriptures that were written by the 40-odd writers. None of these writers of the Holy Scriptures should be considered as founder or founders of Christianity. Our faith in Jesus is founded based on the true revelation from God through His Holy Scriptures. These writers were God's servants. They were not founders of Christianity. So, keep hubbing on Paul, John, Calvin, John Wesley, Pope, etc, etc that they ere founders of Christianity can only confuse others and also ourselves. Yes, some of these servants of God like John Wesley, Hudson Taylor plus thousands of other saints who had served God and went to all the four coners of the world to preach the gospel must be remembered because their testimonies and their messages have inspired many sinners to repent, and in turn became faithful servants of God themselves.

We are really going in circle when we started to list down all the religions and call this "ism' and that 'ism'. This is simply misleading. These 'ism' of religion is created by man and not from God. Pillars of Calvinism? What are they....I really don't know....Rather, for believers of Jesus, we based our faith on the doctrine of the Bible, notably: God became man, through His Son, Jesus, to redeem man, and only the precious blood of Jesus can save all sinners from eternal separation.

Just as an analogy. Often we heard that Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore. Did he really found Singapore? The island of Singapore has been here even before Sir Stamford Raffles was born! He merely landed, perhaps earliest than most British or other Europeans. Likewise, the faith of our belief in Jesus was not founded. Rather, the life of Jesus, who He is, what He did when He was on earth, etc. are recorded by God's handpicked writers and collectively they were compiled into one book, the Bible. In reality, it is a collection of many manuscripts written over several thousand years. Our faith of Him is based on those collective manuscripts - the Bible.

God bless

it is quite sad to see you keep giving false justifications to keep yourself deluded from the overwhelming scientific evidences which point otherwise.

you fail to see that Christianity is just another religion and without emperor Constantine as the ultimate patron back then to promote Christianity instead of Mithraism, the world will be very different today.

and what about the british that conquer 3/4 of the world, if the chinese colonised the whole wide world, everyone, including the arabs, will worship guan yin or buddha and speak chinese.

 

[fishbuff]

There are many 'ism' of religions and these 'ism' come with 'founders'. Perhaps the full name of the initial 'ISM could better be described as "Is Simply Misleading". From Christians' perspective, we must not be bothered with all these 'ism' and who are their founders. Christianity - in fact I prefer to call it 'believers of Jesus' (rather than identify myself as protestant or a Luteran, or a Methodist) - is based on our faith in Jesus. Christianity is not an offshook of the Roman Catholic, neither this was founded by Paul, John, Luke, Matthew, Timothy. We believe our faith in Jesus because of the Holy Scriptures that were written by the 40-odd writers. None of these writers of the Holy Scriptures should be considered as founder or founders of Christianity. Our faith in Jesus is founded based on the true revelation from God through His Holy Scriptures. These writers were God's servants. They were not founders of Christianity. So, keep hubbing on Paul, John, Calvin, John Wesley, Pope, etc, etc that they ere founders of Christianity can only confuse others and also ourselves. Yes, some of these servants of God like John Wesley, Hudson Taylor plus thousands of other saints who had served God and went to all the four coners of the world to preach the gospel must be remembered because their testimonies and their messages have inspired many sinners to repent, and in turn became faithful servants of God themselves.

We are really going in circle when we started to list down all the religions and call this "ism' and that 'ism'. This is simply misleading. These 'ism' of religion is created by man and not from God. Pillars of Calvinism? What are they....I really don't know....Rather, for believers of Jesus, we based our faith on the doctrine of the Bible, notably: God became man, through His Son, Jesus, to redeem man, and only the precious blood of Jesus can save all sinners from eternal separation.

Just as an analogy. Often we heard that Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore. Did he really found Singapore? The island of Singapore has been here even before Sir Stamford Raffles was born! He merely landed, perhaps earliest than most British or other Europeans. Likewise, the faith of our belief in Jesus was not founded. Rather, the life of Jesus, who He is, what He did when He was on earth, etc. are recorded by God's handpicked writers and collectively they were compiled into one book, the Bible. In reality, it is a collection of many manuscripts written over several thousand years. Our faith of Him is based on those collective manuscripts - the Bible.

God bless

you keep harping on god, but till this day, nobody have seen it before.

if god is so real, someone would have won the nobel prize for discovering god, and all the world's universities will be devoted solely to god. (and which god will it be?)

everyone claim about god, but REALLY!! NOT A SINGLE ONE HAVE SEEN IT!

i have more confident in santa claus' existence, at least i see his clones at the shopping mall every christmas !

 

[gymkhana]

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lEmCZ968PQI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

if you can answer Bro Shabir ally on the questions he poses, id like to hear them.
peace

 

[Psalm23]

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lEmCZ968PQI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

if you can answer Bro Shabir ally on the questions he poses, id like to hear them.
peace

Dear gymkhana,

I do not know who you posed these questions to and what are they. (Note: I have not listen to the youtube and have no intention of doing it).

If anyone wants to continue to be a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Taoist or just continue to be athiest, that's their rights and their personal belief.

As believer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we just need to tell others about the Good News because this is what we are told to do in the Bible and it's up to people to believe or not to believe. It's between God and them. So, believe where your heart is telling you. We all have to decide our own destiny, and no one can decide for you. End of story. If you think Muslim is a better 'religion' than go for it; if you think Mormon is a 'best' religion, go for it. Everyone of us will finally haev to account to God for his or her action.

 

[Psalm23]

you keep harping on god, but till this day, nobody have seen it before.
if god is so real, someone would have won the nobel prize for discovering god, and all the world's universities will be devoted solely to god. (and which god will it be?)

everyone claim about god, but REALLY!! NOT A SINGLE ONE HAVE SEEN IT!

i have more confident in santa claus' existence, at least i see his clones at the shopping mall every christmas !

Do you need to see to believe in something? You can't see electric current, but you know is there; you can't see wind, but you know is there; and you can't see atom (even with the most powerful electron-microscope) but you know is there. Any, haev you seen your great-great-great grandfather? You have not but you know he existed otherwise you won't be here...of course to some evolutionists, they can only visualise their great-great-great father was very simply - at least in physical structure - to that of apes or chimpanzee.

For that matter, scientists have not seen 'blackhole' and by definition blackhole cannot be seen, but they know blackholes do exist in the universe.

 

[vamjok]

Do you need to see to believe in something? You can't see electric current, but you know is there; you can't see wind, but you know is there; and you can't see atom (even with the most powerful electron-microscope) but you know is there. Any, haev you seen your great-great-great grandfather? You have not but you know he existed otherwise you won't be here...of course to some evolutionists, they can only visualise their great-great-great father was very simply - at least in physical structure - to that of apes or chimpanzee.

For that matter, scientists have not seen 'blackhole' and by definition blackhole cannot be seen, but they know blackholes do exist in the universe.

Electric current - lightning (poor thing everyday read bible never see lightning b4, or you don't know its electric current???)

Wind - Can be easily visualised via cloud movement, most evident in storm. in fact we can detect above 2 via instruments with ease. in a typhoon, the dirt and water vapour draw in by the storm also made it easily visualised by pure nake eyes.

Atoms - TEM can do it even up to single atomic level as its resolution is up to 0.5 angstrom in controlled environment. we have long being able to see atoms, your understanding of science as i mentioned long ago is a joke. people now can even move individual atom around using electrons microscope for creating nanostructure.

above 3 examples have can be observed and detect physically. stop kidding yourself

God - ??? have to depends on bunch of lunatic that insist he exist

 

[vamjok]

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/35034

Physicists in the US claim to have used a transmission electron microscope (TEM) to see a single hydrogen atom – the first time that a TEM has been used to image such a light atom. The breakthrough was made by supporting the atom on graphene — a sheet of carbon just one atom thick. The team has also been able to watch hydrocarbon chains move across the graphene surface, suggesting that the technique could be used to study the dynamics of biological molecules.
There is nothing new in using TEMs to see individual atoms, but until now such instruments could only be used to image heavy atoms. One reason is that a TEM creates an image by shining an electron beam on a sample and measuring how much it is deflected by atoms of interest. Lighter atoms deflect electrons less than heavier atoms, which means that only the latter show up on an image.
Another problem is that a sample in a TEM has to be supported on a substrate that is durable enough not to be damaged by the electron beam, but thin enough for most of the electrons to pass straight through. Thin metal films or semiconductor foils are usually chosen as substrates, but these are still much thicker than single atoms and contain atoms heavier than carbon or hydrogen. Scattering from the substrate therefore tends to swamp the already weak signal from lighter atoms.
Thinnest and toughest
Now, however, Jannik Meyer, Alex Zettl and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley have found away around this problem by using graphene, the thinnest and toughest known material, as a TEM substrate ( Nature 454 319 ).
The team came up with the idea while using a TEM to study defects in graphene. However, they also discovered that they could identify individual carbon and hydrogen atoms — as well as hydrocarbon chains — that had contaminated the surface of the graphene.
A crucial feature of the technique is that carbon atoms within the graphene lattice are invisible to the TEM — even though the technique can clearly see a single carbon atom on the surface of the graphene.
The carbon sheet provides a uniform background that shows no structure on its own
Jannik Meyer, University of California
“The carbon atoms are packed in a regular arrangement with a spacing that is not resolved in this microscope,” explained Meyer, adding “thus, the carbon sheet provides a uniform background that shows no structure on its own”.
In addition to seeing individual atoms, the team was able to watch as the electron beam created the occasional hole in the graphene substrate. They even saw one such hole being repaired as the graphene absorbed carbon atoms from the surrounding environment.
Dynamical behaviour
The team was also able to study the dynamical behaviour of hydrocarbon chains (thought to be alkanes) that attached themselves to the graphene. These molecules were being imparted with energy by the electron beam, and so the researchers were able to watch them move around on the surface.
Zettl told physicsworld.com that the team is particularly interested in using the technique in the development of functionalized nanostructures — tiny objects that are engineered to perform a specific function. These are often hybrid materials — say a carbon nanotube decorated with biologically active molecules — and Zettl believes that TEM could be used to understand the real-time chemical binding or molecular dynamics processes that make such materials function.
“Furthermore, we are expanding our studies of the mechanical and electronic properties of graphene itself, and these TEM methods are expected be highly useful for that too,” added Zettl.
The team is also confident that others will use graphene substrates in their TEMs. “Chances are that these membranes will soon be used in TEM labs around the world,” said Meyer.
Contamination concerns
Debbie Stokes, an electron microscopist at the UK’s University of Cambridge agrees that graphene is a good substrate for supporting a TEM specimen, because it has minimal influence when imaging the overlying material of interest. “A single graphene layer helps to increase imaging sensitivity compared to other substrates,” she said. Stokes cautioned that contamination could be a problem, for which “carbon is notorious”.
As for studying atoms, Stokes believes the technique would be of limited use because it is “difficult to do and open to misinterpretation”.
About the author
Hamish Johnston is editor of physicsworld.com

 

[vamjok]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7202/abs/nature07094.html

this one published in top science journal, 1 of such publication you can be a prof anyway in the world. told you to keep your mouth shut when in comes to science

 

[fishbuff]

.

As believer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we just need to tell others about the Good News because this is what we are told to do in the Bible and it's up to people to believe or not to believe. It's between God and them. So, believe where your heart is telling you. We all have to decide our own destiny, and no one can decide for you. End of story. If you think Muslim is a better 'religion' than go for it; if you think Mormon is a 'best' religion, go for it. Everyone of us will finally haev to account to God for his or her action.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-american-religion-ARIS_N.htm

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.

The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.

INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC, VIDEOS: Compare states, dates, religious groups and non-religious numbers
FAITH & REASON: What's your religious 'path'?
THE 'NONES': Now 15% of the population

These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

"More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

Among the key findings in the 2008 survey:

• So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.

• Catholic strongholds in New England and the Midwest have faded as immigrants, retirees and young job-seekers have moved to the Sun Belt. While bishops from the Midwest to Massachusetts close down or consolidate historic parishes, those in the South are scrambling to serve increasing numbers of worshipers.

• Baptists, 15.8% of those surveyed, are down from 19.3% in 1990. Mainline Protestant denominations, once socially dominant, have seen sharp declines: The percentage of Methodists, for example, dropped from 8% to 5%.

• The percentage of those who choose a generic label, calling themselves simply Christian, Protestant, non-denominational, evangelical or "born again," was 14.2%, about the same as in 1990.

• Jewish numbers showed a steady decline, from 1.8% in 1990 to 1.2% today. The percentage of Muslims, while still slim, has doubled, from 0.3% to 0.6%. Analysts within both groups suggest those numbers understate the groups' populations.

Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky-Lexington, says that most national telephone surveys such as ARIS undercount Muslims, and that he is conducting a study of mosques' membership sponsored by the Hartford (Conn.) Institute for Religious Research.

Meanwhile, some Jewish surveys that report larger numbers of Jews also include "cultural" Jews — those who connect to Judiasm through its traditions, but not necessarily through actively practicing the religion.

Meanwhile, nearly 2.8 million people now identify with dozens of new religious movements, calling themselves Wiccan, pagan or "Spiritualist," which the survey does not define.

Wicca, a contemporary form of paganism that includes goddess worship and reverence for nature, has even made its way to Arlington National Cemetery, where the Pentagon now allows Wiccans' five-pointed-star symbol to be used on veterans' gravestones.

Religion as a hobby

Since the first ARIS study was released, other major national surveys have offered snapshots of the USA's faith.

The Baylor University Religion Surveys in 2006 and 2008 -- based on 1,721 and 1,700 interviews, respectively -- were distinguished by a look at how people described and understood God. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released its Religious Landscape Survey last year, based on 35,000 interviews, mapping Americans' beliefs state by state. It found that 41% of people had switched their religion at some point in life.

BAYLOR: How far is heaven? At least half will make it, Americans say
PEW: How people from different faiths answered questions on Hollywood, homosexuality, politics and prayer

The initial ARIS report in 1990 set the table for those surveys.

It was based on 113,000 interviews, updated with 50,000 more in 2001 and now 54,000 in 2008. Because the U.S. Census does not ask about religion, the ARIS survey was the first comprehensive study of how people identify their spiritual expression.

Kosmin concluded from the 1990 data that many saw God as a "personal hobby," and that the USA is "a greenhouse for spiritual sprouts."

Today, he says, "religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many."

Kosmin is now director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.; ARIS co-researcher Ariela Keysar is associate director.

The ARIS research also led in quantifying and planting a label on the "Nones" — people who said "None" when asked the survey's basic question: "What is your religious identity?"

The survey itself may have contributed to a higher rate of reporting as sociologists began analyzing the newly identified Nones. "The Nones may have felt more free to step forward, less looked upon as outcasts" after the ARIS results were published, Keysar says.

Oregon once led the nation in Nones (18% in 1990), but in 2008 the leader, with 34%, was Vermont, where Nones significantly outnumber every other group.

Meabh Fitzpatrick, 49, of Rutland, Vt., says she is upfront about becoming an atheist 10 years ago because "it's important for us to be counted. I'm a taxpayer and a law-abiding citizen and an ethical person, and I don't think people assume this about atheists."

Not all Nones have made such a philosophical choice; most just unhook from religious ties.

Diane Mueller, 43, of Austin, who grew up Methodist, says she's simply "totally disengaged from the church and the Bible, too." Sunday mornings for her family mean playing in a park, not praying in a pew.

Ex-Catholic Dylan Rossi, 21, a philosophy student in Boston and a Massachusetts native, is part of the sharp fall in the state's percentage of Catholics — from 54% to 39% in his lifetime.

Rossi says he's typical among his friends: "If religion comes up, everyone at the table will start mocking it. I don't know anyone religious and hardly anyone 'spiritual.' "

Social mobility a factor

Anger and dismay over the clergy sexual abuse scandal, which erupted in Boston in 2002, may be reflected in declining rates of Catholics across New England. But the total percentage of Catholics in the USA declined only slightly from 1990 to 2008, from 26.2% to 25.1%. Analysts say immigration and other demographic shifts account for most of the changes.

"It's not that everyone in New England lost their Catholic faith since 1990. It's not the same people in New England," says sociologist Mary Gautier, senior researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the research arm of the Catholic Church in America.

Membership in New England's Catholic churches is shrinking as older Catholics have died or moved to sunnier climates. Young adults are choosing non-Catholic partners, having civil weddings and skipping baptism for their babies. And those moving in to areas served by the churches are young adults who often find their communities of work and friendship online, not in parish halls.

"I sometimes wish I had a sky hook to take people from dying parishes up North and plunk them down in the parishes around Austin or Atlanta — and bring their beautiful buildings with them," Gautier says.

Bishop Gregory Aymond would be happy to have those resources in Austin. He's spiritually delighted and financially challenged as his Texas diocese has doubled in numbers with retirees, Mexican immigrants, students at five major universities and Californians moving in for high-tech jobs.

"And demographers expect it to double again in the next 10 to 12 years," he says.

In Mount Pleasant, S.C., a suburb of Charleston, "everyone from Ohio is here," says Msgr. James Carter, pastor of Christ Our King Catholic Church. The church has grown so big so fast that it has spun off another parish and a mission church, and it plans outdoor split-shift services for Easter to accommodate about 2,500 families.

South Carolina also exemplifies the Protestant faiths' shrinking share of the national religion "pie." The state has more Catholics (10%, up from 6% in 1990) and the percentage of Nones has more than tripled, from 3% to 10%. The share of Protestants is 73%, down from 88% in 1990.

Like Gautier, the Rev. Kendall Harmon, theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, blames social mobility.

"Mobility means your ideas are more challenged and your family and childhood traditions have less influence, particularly if you are not strongly rooted in them. I see kids today who have no vocabulary of faith, and neither do many of their parents."

Harmon recalls, "A couple came into my office once with a yellow pad of their teenage son's questions. One of them was: 'What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?' "

Kosmin and Keysar also found a "piety gap" in how Americans understand God: While 69% say they believe in a personal God, the Judeo-Christian understanding of the Almighty, an additional 30% made no such connection.

The piety gap defines the primary sides in the culture wars, Kosmin says.

"It's about gay marriage and abortion and stem cells and the family. If a personal God says, 'Thou shalt not' or 'Thou shalt' see these a certain way, you'd take it very seriously. Meanwhile, three in 10 people aren't listening to that God," he says.

"There's more clarity at the two extremes and the mishmash is in the middle," Keysar adds.

Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, sees in the numbers "an emergence of a soft evangelicalism — E-lite — that owes a lot to evangelical styles of worship and basic approach to church.

"But E-lite is more a matter of aesthetic and style and a considerable softening of the edges in doctrine, politics and social values," Silk says.

Additional narrowly focused surveys, with closer looks at Catholics, evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and African-American Christians, will be released later this year by Trinity's Program on Public Values, which sponsored ARIS, Silk says.

Some believers might be alarmed by the ARIS findings, but Tom Haynes isn't. Haynes, 46, a Houston entrepreneur, is the brother of Diane Mueller, the Austin mom who claims no religion. Same Methodist upbringing. Totally different spiritual choices.

Haynes, like 69% of Americans, said in the ARIS survey that he believes there is "definitely a personal God." He calls himself a deeply committed "follower of Christ," rather than aligning with a specific denomination. He attends a non-denominational community church where he likes the rock music, but Bible study is the focus of his faith.

"We just look to Jesus," he says. "That's why I don't pay attention to surveys. Christianity is moving totally under the radar. It's the work of God. It can't be measured. It happens inside of people's souls."

 

[fishbuff]

Do you need to see to believe in something? You can't see electric current, but you know is there; you can't see wind, but you know is there; and you can't see atom (even with the most powerful electron-microscope) but you know is there. Any, haev you seen your great-great-great grandfather? You have not but you know he existed otherwise you won't be here...of course to some evolutionists, they can only visualise their great-great-great father was very simply - at least in physical structure - to that of apes or chimpanzee.

For that matter, scientists have not seen 'blackhole' and by definition blackhole cannot be seen, but they know blackholes do exist in the universe.

there is a rising trend that people are discarding away their religions. read this article below, only fools that vote continouously for PAP and believe in god will persist in singapore.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-ARIS-faith-survey_N.htm

 

[Psalm23]

Electric current - lightning (poor thing everyday read bible never see lightning b4, or you don't know its electric current???)

Wind - Can be easily visualised via cloud movement, most evident in storm. in fact we can detect above 2 via instruments with ease. in a typhoon, the dirt and water vapour draw in by the storm also made it easily visualised by pure nake eyes.

Atoms - TEM can do it even up to single atomic level as its resolution is up to 0.5 angstrom in controlled environment. we have long being able to see atoms, your understanding of science as i mentioned long ago is a joke. people now can even move individual atom around using electrons microscope for creating nanostructure.

above 3 examples have can be observed and detect physically. stop kidding yourself

God - ??? have to depends on bunch of lunatic that insist he exist

Welcome back, Scientist (???) Rojak,

Yes...there are devices to detect wind and there are devices to convert electric current for some useful applications like driving a turbine, lighting up a bulb, etc. But the point is: you can't see wind; you can't see electric current. If you say you can see wind, then tell me what is the colour of wind; if you say you can see current, tell me what is the colour of electric colour? So simple also don't know.

Atom - up to now no one can see atom and it will never be seen because atom is just simply too small to be seen. Because the subparticles of each atom is moving, there are electron-microscopes to detect the movement of the sub-atomic particles , these devices can make images out of the movements. Because different types of atoms - e.g oxygen, nitrogen, etc. has different atomic properties and the sub-particles behave differently from one type to another, different images can be made. But the point is: no one can see atom because it is too small. So simple.

A good comparison is that when a expectant mother when to do an ultra-sound scan, the ultra-sound device can detect the movement of the fetus and can create fetal images. What you see on the ultra-sonic screen are the images and not the actual baby fetus. The only way to really see the fetus is to dissect mother's abdomen and open up the womb. Doctors however only do this when there is something wrong with the fetus and needed to perform surgery by opening up the womb. The ultra-sound photos of the fetus are just images. So simple also don't know.

So, it doesn't matter how good the resolution of the image and whether they are in 2-D, 3-D images, images are images and they are not real things; just like when you see a photo of a person you simply see a phtotographic image of that person. So simple also don't know and call yourself scientist (???). What a joke?

 

[Psalm23]

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/35034

Physicists in the US claim to have used a transmission electron microscope (TEM) to see a single hydrogen atom – the first time that a TEM has been used to image such a light atom......There is nothing new in using TEMs to see individual atoms, but until now such instruments could only be used to image heavy atoms...One reason is that a TEM creates an image by shining an electron beam on a sample .......“A single graphene layer helps to increase imaging sensitivity compared to other substrates,” she said. Stokes cautioned that contamination could be a problem, for which “carbon is notorious”. .....

Scientist (???) Rojak,

You are slapping your own cheeks....what those real scientists see are images.....and not the real physical atom...it's too small to be seen...

Looking at a photo is not the same as looking at the real physical thing. So simple also don't know.

 

[Psalm23]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-american-religion-ARIS_N.htm

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.

The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.

INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC, VIDEOS: Compare states, dates, religious groups and non-religious numbers
FAITH & REASON: What's your religious 'path'?
THE 'NONES': Now 15% of the population

These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

"More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

Among the key findings in the 2008 survey:

• So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.

• Catholic strongholds in New England and the Midwest have faded as immigrants, retirees and young job-seekers have moved to the Sun Belt. While bishops from the Midwest to Massachusetts close down or consolidate historic parishes, those in the South are scrambling to serve increasing numbers of worshipers.

• Baptists, 15.8% of those surveyed, are down from 19.3% in 1990. Mainline Protestant denominations, once socially dominant, have seen sharp declines: The percentage of Methodists, for example, dropped from 8% to 5%.

• The percentage of those who choose a generic label, calling themselves simply Christian, Protestant, non-denominational, evangelical or "born again," was 14.2%, about the same as in 1990.

• Jewish numbers showed a steady decline, from 1.8% in 1990 to 1.2% today. The percentage of Muslims, while still slim, has doubled, from 0.3% to 0.6%. Analysts within both groups suggest those numbers understate the groups' populations.

Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky-Lexington, says that most national telephone surveys such as ARIS undercount Muslims, and that he is conducting a study of mosques' membership sponsored by the Hartford (Conn.) Institute for Religious Research.

Meanwhile, some Jewish surveys that report larger numbers of Jews also include "cultural" Jews — those who connect to Judiasm through its traditions, but not necessarily through actively practicing the religion.

Meanwhile, nearly 2.8 million people now identify with dozens of new religious movements, calling themselves Wiccan, pagan or "Spiritualist," which the survey does not define.

Wicca, a contemporary form of paganism that includes goddess worship and reverence for nature, has even made its way to Arlington National Cemetery, where the Pentagon now allows Wiccans' five-pointed-star symbol to be used on veterans' gravestones.

Religion as a hobby

Since the first ARIS study was released, other major national surveys have offered snapshots of the USA's faith.

The Baylor University Religion Surveys in 2006 and 2008 -- based on 1,721 and 1,700 interviews, respectively -- were distinguished by a look at how people described and understood God. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released its Religious Landscape Survey last year, based on 35,000 interviews, mapping Americans' beliefs state by state. It found that 41% of people had switched their religion at some point in life.

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The initial ARIS report in 1990 set the table for those surveys.

It was based on 113,000 interviews, updated with 50,000 more in 2001 and now 54,000 in 2008. Because the U.S. Census does not ask about religion, the ARIS survey was the first comprehensive study of how people identify their spiritual expression.

Kosmin concluded from the 1990 data that many saw God as a "personal hobby," and that the USA is "a greenhouse for spiritual sprouts."

Today, he says, "religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many."

Kosmin is now director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.; ARIS co-researcher Ariela Keysar is associate director.

The ARIS research also led in quantifying and planting a label on the "Nones" — people who said "None" when asked the survey's basic question: "What is your religious identity?"

The survey itself may have contributed to a higher rate of reporting as sociologists began analyzing the newly identified Nones. "The Nones may have felt more free to step forward, less looked upon as outcasts" after the ARIS results were published, Keysar says.

Oregon once led the nation in Nones (18% in 1990), but in 2008 the leader, with 34%, was Vermont, where Nones significantly outnumber every other group.

Meabh Fitzpatrick, 49, of Rutland, Vt., says she is upfront about becoming an atheist 10 years ago because "it's important for us to be counted. I'm a taxpayer and a law-abiding citizen and an ethical person, and I don't think people assume this about atheists."

Not all Nones have made such a philosophical choice; most just unhook from religious ties.

Diane Mueller, 43, of Austin, who grew up Methodist, says she's simply "totally disengaged from the church and the Bible, too." Sunday mornings for her family mean playing in a park, not praying in a pew.

Ex-Catholic Dylan Rossi, 21, a philosophy student in Boston and a Massachusetts native, is part of the sharp fall in the state's percentage of Catholics — from 54% to 39% in his lifetime.

Rossi says he's typical among his friends: "If religion comes up, everyone at the table will start mocking it. I don't know anyone religious and hardly anyone 'spiritual.' "

Social mobility a factor

Anger and dismay over the clergy sexual abuse scandal, which erupted in Boston in 2002, may be reflected in declining rates of Catholics across New England. But the total percentage of Catholics in the USA declined only slightly from 1990 to 2008, from 26.2% to 25.1%. Analysts say immigration and other demographic shifts account for most of the changes.

"It's not that everyone in New England lost their Catholic faith since 1990. It's not the same people in New England," says sociologist Mary Gautier, senior researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the research arm of the Catholic Church in America.

Membership in New England's Catholic churches is shrinking as older Catholics have died or moved to sunnier climates. Young adults are choosing non-Catholic partners, having civil weddings and skipping baptism for their babies. And those moving in to areas served by the churches are young adults who often find their communities of work and friendship online, not in parish halls.

"I sometimes wish I had a sky hook to take people from dying parishes up North and plunk them down in the parishes around Austin or Atlanta — and bring their beautiful buildings with them," Gautier says.

Bishop Gregory Aymond would be happy to have those resources in Austin. He's spiritually delighted and financially challenged as his Texas diocese has doubled in numbers with retirees, Mexican immigrants, students at five major universities and Californians moving in for high-tech jobs.

"And demographers expect it to double again in the next 10 to 12 years," he says.

In Mount Pleasant, S.C., a suburb of Charleston, "everyone from Ohio is here," says Msgr. James Carter, pastor of Christ Our King Catholic Church. The church has grown so big so fast that it has spun off another parish and a mission church, and it plans outdoor split-shift services for Easter to accommodate about 2,500 families.

South Carolina also exemplifies the Protestant faiths' shrinking share of the national religion "pie." The state has more Catholics (10%, up from 6% in 1990) and the percentage of Nones has more than tripled, from 3% to 10%. The share of Protestants is 73%, down from 88% in 1990.

Like Gautier, the Rev. Kendall Harmon, theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, blames social mobility.

"Mobility means your ideas are more challenged and your family and childhood traditions have less influence, particularly if you are not strongly rooted in them. I see kids today who have no vocabulary of faith, and neither do many of their parents."

Harmon recalls, "A couple came into my office once with a yellow pad of their teenage son's questions. One of them was: 'What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?' "

Kosmin and Keysar also found a "piety gap" in how Americans understand God: While 69% say they believe in a personal God, the Judeo-Christian understanding of the Almighty, an additional 30% made no such connection.

The piety gap defines the primary sides in the culture wars, Kosmin says.

"It's about gay marriage and abortion and stem cells and the family. If a personal God says, 'Thou shalt not' or 'Thou shalt' see these a certain way, you'd take it very seriously. Meanwhile, three in 10 people aren't listening to that God," he says.

"There's more clarity at the two extremes and the mishmash is in the middle," Keysar adds.

Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, sees in the numbers "an emergence of a soft evangelicalism — E-lite — that owes a lot to evangelical styles of worship and basic approach to church.

"But E-lite is more a matter of aesthetic and style and a considerable softening of the edges in doctrine, politics and social values," Silk says.

Additional narrowly focused surveys, with closer looks at Catholics, evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and African-American Christians, will be released later this year by Trinity's Program on Public Values, which sponsored ARIS, Silk says.

Some believers might be alarmed by the ARIS findings, but Tom Haynes isn't. Haynes, 46, a Houston entrepreneur, is the brother of Diane Mueller, the Austin mom who claims no religion. Same Methodist upbringing. Totally different spiritual choices.

Haynes, like 69% of Americans, said in the ARIS survey that he believes there is "definitely a personal God." He calls himself a deeply committed "follower of Christ," rather than aligning with a specific denomination. He attends a non-denominational community church where he likes the rock music, but Bible study is the focus of his faith.

"We just look to Jesus," he says. "That's why I don't pay attention to surveys. Christianity is moving totally under the radar. It's the work of God. It can't be measured. It happens inside of people's souls."

What you mentioned above is not a surprise to true believers. We believe in the Bible all because these things are happening. These are the signs of the Second Coming of Christ. We are already told about this 2,000 years ago: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand, and shows that there will be rebellion as the man of lawlessness appears. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.

These verses warned believers to be steadfast in our faith because the 'party is going to be over" and hard times are going made many Christians lose faith in Christ Jesus.

Thankfully, what you write above truly underscored the very essence of the biblical truth of the 'Great Falling Away' when many believers just gave up their faith because of the deception by the Chief Liar - Satan. Even though Satan is power, he is the prince of this world but he still needs workers, workers to help me spread his lies, and the question you must ask yourself is: Are you one of his workers?

 

[Conqueror]

You Are Greatly Misled

oh now you have to depend on cartoon to illustrate those supernatural act.
and you watch this cartoon with no feelings? the white ghosts went around to kill every single first-born!! and you condone the genocide against the egyptian?
so how can you say you are just?? it is like taking sides with Hitler to exterminate the Jews!

You have a naive view about God. Don't trust those so-called themselves 'Christians' to tell you God is love, God is good, etc. There are times I was so angry that I asked God for a 'launch' to destroy X (a target) which involve many. God told me, "I did not come to take men's lives but ..." Yah, yah, yah ... blah, blah, blah ... Who cares !

I can see through the hypocrisy of God sometimes. I not dumb, in fact, my wisdom surpassed his. Do you think I really trust Him completely. Wait till I show you my conversation with Him then you can judge for yourself. But, at this time, like the Oracle in The Matrix said that the message (prophesy) was strictly for Neo himself only. So, those messages are still strictly for me.

Had you not seen 911 ? Isn't that a spectacle to behold ? I feel like worshiping myself !

 

[vamjok]

Scientist (???) Rojak,

You are slapping your own cheeks....what those real scientists see are images.....and not the real physical atom...it's too small to be seen...

Looking at a photo is not the same as looking at the real physical thing. So simple also don't know.

playing around with words all you want, facts remain. slap on my own face or simply your face too thick to admit you are wrong. idiots like you will forever never make it in life, for you are simply too stubborn and too old to learn new things.

this is the magnification of it and we indeed are seeing it. you simply refuse to admit how stupid you are.

 

[vamjok]

Welcome back, Scientist (???) Rojak,

Yes...there are devices to detect wind and there are devices to convert electric current for some useful applications like driving a turbine, lighting up a bulb, etc. But the point is: you can't see wind; you can't see electric current. If you say you can see wind, then tell me what is the colour of wind; if you say you can see current, tell me what is the colour of electric colour? So simple also don't know.

Atom - up to now no one can see atom and it will never be seen because atom is just simply too small to be seen. Because the subparticles of each atom is moving, there are electron-microscopes to detect the movement of the sub-atomic particles , these devices can make images out of the movements. Because different types of atoms - e.g oxygen, nitrogen, etc. has different atomic properties and the sub-particles behave differently from one type to another, different images can be made. But the point is: no one can see atom because it is too small. So simple.

A good comparison is that when a expectant mother when to do an ultra-sound scan, the ultra-sound device can detect the movement of the fetus and can create fetal images. What you see on the ultra-sonic screen are the images and not the actual baby fetus. The only way to really see the fetus is to dissect mother's abdomen and open up the womb. Doctors however only do this when there is something wrong with the fetus and needed to perform surgery by opening up the womb. The ultra-sound photos of the fetus are just images. So simple also don't know.

So, it doesn't matter how good the resolution of the image and whether they are in 2-D, 3-D images, images are images and they are not real things; just like when you see a photo of a person you simply see a phtotographic image of that person. So simple also don't know and call yourself scientist (???). What a joke?

obviously your intelligence cannot comprehend that paper. shakehead, no wonder you believe in bible, now twist and turn your words around saying seeing image of it is not counted. HAHAHAHHAHAHA then for fuck you say initially electron microscope cannot view it? you are really a useless religious fool that refuse to admit how ignorance you are. when proven it can be viewed, you refused to admit the fact and twist and turn your argument.

and pls stop bullshitting around. obviously your understanding of this topic is also a joke, sub atomic particle WE CANNOT IMAGE IT TILL TODAY. the more you talk about science the more i want to vomit. the best we can do is use LHC and smash things up to detect. via its collision part and deflection, we can detect its mass and charge. imagining it is not possible currently. sub atomic particle like quartz gluon etc behaviour has nothing got to do with atomic level imaging, who the fuck u trying to kid with. you really one mother fucking chee bye kia trying to act smart, i bet you are used to fooling uneducated people with your fake knowledge as you are a smooth talker. but the problem is people like you like to talk big, the more you talk, the more it shows how much you do not know a shit.

useless chee bye kia

electric current - say already you never see lightning before? kkk i understand now i forgive you. i did not know you so sua ku

wind - during a storm typhoon, the drawing in of dust and cloud enable us to see the exact wind movement formation. wah like this also too difficult for you to understand. ok u really too stupid.

its like water movement, we add dye to enable us to see the fluid motion. we consider that seeing water movement. well, nvm idiots like you will never get it.

hai forget it la, how can i expect an idiot like you understand the meaning of visualisation. you already reach the ultimate limit of believing a stupid god can exist. how can i expect someone of your intelligence to understand and appreciate this.

from these past few weeks i realised one thing, you are an uneducated idiot and you are simply just a smooth talker that wants to talk big with zero substance. you love to talk about science, but your understanding of it is a joke, at most pri sch level.

 

[vamjok]

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:oIo::oIo::oIo::oIo::oIo::oIo:

 

[vamjok]

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[vamjok]

again chee bye kia like you will peng like roti prata twist and turn like a snake, just like how in the past when you have lost. USELESS

 

[Psalm23]

obviously your intelligence cannot comprehend that paper. shakehead, no wonder you believe in bible, now twist and turn your words around saying seeing image of it is not counted. HAHAHAHHAHAHA then for fuck you say initially electron microscope cannot view it? you are really a useless religious fool that refuse to admit how ignorance you are. when proven it can be viewed, you refused to admit the fact and twist and turn your argument.

and pls stop bullshitting around. obviously your understanding of this topic is also a joke, sub atomic particle WE CANNOT IMAGE IT TILL TODAY. the more you talk about science the more i want to vomit. the best we can do is use LHC and smash things up to detect. via its collision part and deflection, we can detect its mass and charge. imagining it is not possible currently. sub atomic particle like quartz gluon etc behaviour has nothing got to do with atomic level imaging, who the fuck u trying to kid with. you really one mother fucking chee bye kia trying to act smart, i bet you are used to fooling uneducated people with your fake knowledge as you are a smooth talker. but the problem is people like you like to talk big, the more you talk, the more it shows how much you do not know a shit.

useless chee bye kia

electric current - say already you never see lightning before? kkk i understand now i forgive you. i did not know you so sua ku

wind - during a storm typhoon, the drawing in of dust and cloud enable us to see the exact wind movement formation. wah like this also too difficult for you to understand. ok u really too stupid.

its like water movement, we add dye to enable us to see the fluid motion. we consider that seeing water movement. well, nvm idiots like you will never get it.

hai forget it la, how can i expect an idiot like you understand the meaning of visualisation. you already reach the ultimate limit of believing a stupid god can exist. how can i expect someone of your intelligence to understand and appreciate this.

from these past few weeks i realised one thing, you are an uneducated idiot and you are simply just a smooth talker that wants to talk big with zero substance. you love to talk about science, but your understanding of it is a joke, at most pri sch level.

Dear Scientist (????) Rojak,

May be the following text will help you to understand some basic of sub-atomic particles. You can find these definitions in basic elementary textbooks on the physical properties of atoms.

Particle radiation is the radiation of energy of fast-moving subatomic particles. Particle radiation is referred to as a particle beam if the particles are all moving in the same direction, similar to a light beam. Due to the wave-particle duality, all moving particles also have wave character. Higher energy particles more easily exhibit particle characteristics, while lower energy particles more easily exhibit wave characteristics. An atom is classified according to the number of subatomic particles of protons, neutrons and electrons. In the 1950s, the development of improved particle accelerators and particle detectors allowed scientists to study the physical properties of atom. This has important applications in magnetic resonance imaging.

Dear Scientist (???) Rojak, the key word here is imaging. One cannot see and will never able to see atom but there are very advanced devices that can detect the electron beams and the waves generated by the moving subatomic particles of each atom. From this, the device can make an image. The images created by these imaging devices are just like images created by untra-sonic devices used in scanning baby fetus. So, what you see are just photographs, even they are in 3-D images, they are images. Hope you have learnt something about imaging and atom!

May be the following technical note will help you to understand better.

Technically, you cannot "see" anything smaller than the shortest wavelength of light that you can see it with. The shortest wavelength violet light is 4 x 10-7 meters. An atom is about 10-11 meter. So an atom is 4 x 104 or 40,000 x too small to be seen. But there are ways to "visualize" it by imaging the waves using advance electron microscopes. But these are all just measurements converted to computer images, and are not in any real sense seeing the atom. You can't see atoms in any normal sense of using an optical microscope, not even with today's most advanced electron beam microscopes!

So, now you understand why you can never see atom? Dear Scientist (???) Rojak.

What I said here is more than just physics and science. The invisibility of things (namely atoms) are mentioned in the Bible and all the things that we see that are created by God are created from these invisible things (i.e. atoms). Read Hebrews 11:3, and you will marvel at what the Bible has said (about atoms!) It's a fact that everything that we see are made up of atoms which are invisible and will never able to be seen because the physical law of optics simply disallowed atoms to be seen. The Bible has recorded this scientific fact 2,000 years ago.