Go to Google, type "Holy thorn Glastonbury" and you get 34,200 hits as of the writing of this paper. Many have contradictory information of "dubious" quality. I keep forgetting to look this up in my old Britannica.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06579a.htm
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/joseph.htm
http://hometown.aol.com/stjosarimatheach/stjoseph.html
http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/07/31.html
As to the story about the reporter, I heard it from an Orthodox Priest - I believe it was my brother-in-law.
As to WWI, WWII etc... the fact is that if you follow the law of natural selection to its logical conclusion, you do the sorts of things Hitler did - eliminate competition. The Malthusian doctrine is very evil - and it is a doctrine, a teaching. Hitler, Stalin and those who serve the Anti-Christ, those who do not believe that Life (Y'Shua - Jesus) is annointed (Christos, Christ) and apply the science in cold engineering fashion, arrive at hideous conclusions. The natural thing to do is destroy the competition - or leave poor Lazarus begging at the gate while one eats drinks and makes merry.
As to Darwin, his life is one of contradictions. He was secretly an athiest with a mind to become an Anglican Priest in order to make a living.
One can read Darwin online for free.
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwi ... er-14.html
His recapitulation is not true:
"That many and grave objections may be advanced against the theory of descent with modification through natural selection, I do not deny. I have endeavoured to give to them their full force. Nothing at first can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts should have been perfected not by means superior to, though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor. Nevertheless, this difficulty, though appearing to our imagination insuperably great, cannot be considered real if we admit the following propositions, namely, -- that gradations in the perfection of any organ or instinct, which we may consider, either do now exist or could have existed, each good of its kind, -- that all organs and instincts are, in ever so slight a degree, variable, -- and, lastly, that there is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation of each profitable deviation of structure or instinct. The truth of these propositions cannot, I think, be disputed."
The burden of proof lies with those who propose the theory to prove it. One can easily simulate such systems, and genetic algorithms are in fact possible and very useful. No one has proven that such systems can arise out of nothing, nor can they arise from simple to more complex forms without a super-abundance of logic.
The problem is - genetic algorithms are algorithms. One actually applies logic in order to get a logical result, and if the logic is not present, the result is wanting. Just as there is entropy in energy - there is probably an entropy of logic. One needs a superabundance of logic to stabilize many natural equations, such as those involved with, for example, fluid dynamics (Poincare instability). The whole subject of Chaous theory is worthy of investigation. There was obviously order and intelligence in the beginning.
When Jesus reprimanded the wind and the waves, they obeyed because God Omnipotent spoke them to calm with the compelling Word (Logos) made man.
"Mary had a little lamb" can be reached easily by an algorithmic process, if one introduces "word" and selects on those words which are true. The problem is, nothing is made without the "Word." When men first studied mathematics, language and such - these simple truths were obvious. IMOH they were obfuscated by those who wished to go their own way outside the truth of the living "Word." Guys like Darwin in Ivory towers.
The fact remains, that the first cause, the super-abundance of logic and Word in the genetic code is obvious to modern observers. There are numerous coincidences in Physics that are compelling. Many in the hard sciences reject evolution - not speciation or slow change, but the conclusion that the change is not directed by a very powerful force of logic. This is because, working with mathematics on a daily basis, one realizes that fundamental limitations are far more numerous than powerful solutions - and all solutions in non-trivial multidimensional problems become approximations that rapidly diverge without a superabundance of compelling logic to control them.
Again, the first cause of the Universe is God, and God the Father is the Creator, God the Son the eternal Word, and God the Holy Spirit - the very Spirit of Truth as Holy Scripture - which is literally true in all important ways, makes clear (With Riemann tensor math - you can get a literal 7 day creation - it took Einstein a decade to figure it out to describe General Relativity).
andy - dubious asserter
As a scientific type, I don't say that variation, speciation and gradual change and 'arising out of the dust' (as the Bible puts the Creation of man) do not occur. What is clear as a scientific type is the Darwinists have proven nothing, and the burden of proof is on them. As a mathematical type, there is no logic, machine, construction or simulation of anything remotely as powerful as the genetic code. It took a decade to map it - and mapping is not understanding.