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There are two issues: one is the veracity of the text, in which case you are clearly correct that the text itself doesn't serve to verify the text (arguing that it does would be circular). The other is the veracity of the exodus, in which case it is arguable whether the text provides evidence for the event (I'd say it does, albeit weak evidence).Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I took Atheist's comment to be more to the former, that he was arguing against the very common believer statement of "it's true because it's in The Bible" even though it's The Bible being true that people are questioning. I think, as you said, it's some kind of evidence for an exodus, but certainly not anything approaching proof, and there is definite need for something external.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Of course it is a metaphor; are you actually suggesting that Dawkins means the gene is selfish in the way, say, someone who plots and schemes to hog all the ice cream for dessert is selfish?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Sheldrake's analysis is total nonsense.Quote:
The idea that Ecurb expressed, and I agree with, is also summarized in Rupert Sheldrake's The Science Delusion, p. 164:
What Dawkins does is to project on to the DNA molecules the purposive vital factors of vitalism, trying to squeeze the soul into chemical genes, which are thereby endowed with instructions, plans, purposes and intentions they cannot possibly have. He admits that these are metaphors, adding, 'Incidentally, there is of course no "architect".' But despite occasional disclaimers, the entire force of his argument depends on anthropocentric metaphors and molecules that have come to life. He is a vitalist in molecular clothing.
Sheldrake prefers a model of "morphic resonance".
Wrong. It is the instrumentalist interpretation; the one that is used to illustrate the science of Qm without bothering asking questions about the philosophy of Qm or what Qm implies for ontology. As Max Tegmark pointed out years ago, a majority of scientists who work with QM physics subscribe to the many worlds.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Nope, that's dead wrong. Copenhagen is a wave-function collapse metaphysics. Nothing in the Schroedinger wave equation produces a wave function collapse. It's just made up. It's completely added on without any explanation. Take away the wave function collapse and you get many worlds, in perfect harmonious accord with the wave equation.Quote:
It is also a positivist interpretation, or one that tries to offer minimal metaphysics.
As has been explained to you, oh, a million times, nonlocality and indeterminism are artifacts of presupposing wave function collapse. Take away the collapse, you take away the nonlocality and indeterminism.Quote:
If it gets nonlocality and uncertainty, it faces the facts. It doesn't rush to save its metaphysics from those facts.
Incorrect. First, as repeatedly explained to you, QM is nondeterministic on a wave-fucntion collapse postulate that arbitrarily divides the world into quantum and classical realms. MW simply says the world is wholly quantum, with no classical realm. Such a world is deterministic.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
You've done nothing but assert that a deterministic universe would be lifeless. In fact I don't believe I've ever even come across such a claim.
Finally, the universe is probably spatially infinite. Assume life is incredibly unlikely, such that it will arise only once in a trillion tries. In a spatially infinite universe, that means there will be an infinite number of inhabited worlds, by pure chance alone.
You are also wrong about the many worlds violating Occham's Razor. The razor does not apply to worlds; it applies to explanatory hypothoses that themselves then cry out for further explanation. MW clearly is preferred by the razor over Copenhagen, since the latter supplies a wave function collapse that is wholly unexplained and nowhere in the maths.
Also--and correct me if I'm wrong since it's been a while since I was reading about this--wasn't the initial postulation that there was some "hidden variable" that would explain the quantum/classic world "split," and then Bell's Theorem pretty much put the death knell in that postulation? In light of that, what grounds, really, do people have for supposing reality is NOT "wholly quantum"?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cioran
Isn't space expanding?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cioran
Yeah, it's painful to try and get people to realize that OR doesn't apply to the worlds, it applies to the underlying hypothesis in which you get the worlds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cioran
Although it has been a while since I read Hitchens "God is Not Great", I was curious last night how Hitchens himself handled the case of the Khmer Rouge. Although I couldn't find the Khmer Rouge in the index, there were plenty of other atheistic states that he discussed.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Just skimming, it seemed he used the "no true Scotsman" argument that you identified. He admitted there were atheistic regimes that acted very badly, but then he seemed to claim that the reason for their bad behavior was that they had become somehow religious. Here's a quick quote, page 250, that I think summarizes that position:
Totalitarian systems, whatever outward form they may take, are fundamentalist and, as we would now say "faith-based."
Is Hitchens any better than the Scotsman? I consider that kind of argument dishonest whether it is done by a theist, an atheist or a Scotsman.
The true Scotsman argument discussed above is a way to take evidence and make it fit one's metaphysics. Note how the metaphysics is primary, not the evidence. Couple that kind of reasoning with the delusion that one is somehow representing "science" against "religion" and you have pseudo-science.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
There is nothing more to pseudo-science than that. All one has to do is present irrational arguments with bogus evidence authoritatively as if it were scientific.
Saying that atheistic regimes committed horrific acts is different than saying those horrific acts were motivated by their atheism. As long as Hitchens (and others) aren't saying "they aren't REAL atheists" then they're not committing the Scotsman fallacy, since that's what the fallacy requires. Religious people can't really say that such horrors weren't committed directly in the name of religion, so they resort to the Scotsman fallacy.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
All fine and dandy, but you did not respond to my actual challenge: point to something in Dawkins that's stated with scientific authority that is "pseudo-science;" or are you claiming all scientific claims against religion are pseudo-science?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I think the horrific acts committed by the Khmer Rouge were motivated by their atheism especially as they targeted Buddhists.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I think Hitchens is saying that these atheistic regimes, once the body counts start rolling in and they get bad press, have turned into some "fundamentalist", "faith-based" group regardless what they call themselves. He is effectively saying they are not "real" atheists.
What such an argument does is sets up atheism so that it can do no wrong. This is convenient for Hitchens, because then only religious groups, his targets, can do wrong and he has his intellectual justification for self-righteousness. Is there anything that an atheist can do that would make atheism look bad by this reasoning?
Notice how such an ideology cannot be falsified. Couple that with a claim that one is on the side of science, and one gets pseudo-science.
Now, here's the key point: Also consider that Hitchens is using this me-always-good-you-always-bad argument to target real people and you have a pseudo-intellectual justification for social harassment.
As far as taking up your challenge, I've already done that with the "selfish" gene.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I haven't checked, but I suspect Dawkins is using a similar argument to keep atheists, such as the Khmer Rouge, from being blamed as atheists when they behave badly the same way Hitchens tries to keep his atheism clean. This would promote a non-falsifiable social theory targeting a subset of the population. Since he's a "scientist", one who supposedly does not create such non-falsifiable theories, he along with Hitchens would be pseudo-scientific.
So I guess I just have to check how Dawkins handles the Khmer Rouge.
LOL, no. The outlawing of religion was a means to lead the state into a form of agrarian communism with the regime saw as ideal. This resulted in much more than just persecution of the religious, but also closing schools, hospitals, factories, banks, etc. They pretty much killed/tortured anyone who went against that ideal, including those who picked berries for themselves, were intellectuals, or whom wouldn't evacuate to the communes. They essentially wanted to isolate their state from the rest of the world and abolishing religion was just one aspect of that, not motivated by atheism, but motivated by their agrarian communist ideal state.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Well, I'm not going to speak for a dead man. All I'd say is that if he's saying that, he's wrong. If they disbelieved in God, they were atheists. However, it's abundantly clear that it was their political ideologies that fueled all their actions.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I honestly don't think so. Perhaps you think that's entirely unfair, but it goes back to what I said about atheism not having any tenets, any ideology. Atheism simply means a lack of believe in God. Outside of that, it doesn't tell people how to act or what to think about anything else. People need an ideology in order to do terrible (or, often on the flip-side, amazing) things. Religion, unlike atheism, gives peoples tenets and rules and ideologies that people use to justify their actions. As I said, there's nothing about atheism that an atheist can point to justify, eg, killing witches or committing genocide.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
However, and I've made this argument many times, I don't think it's really an affective argument for either side to point to the horrors that have been committed by atheists or in the name of religion. To me, the issue rests on whether God exists or not. The fact that some believers and unbelievers do great/terrible things really means nothing as to the truth of the proposition itself. I think the only time its relevant is when the religious attempt to take a moral high ground and claim religion is the only way to do that; then noting those horrible acts is an affective rebuttal.
I don't know what you mean by "cannot falsify such an ideology," because a lot of ideologies (or elements in them) can't be falsified because they aren't making claims about reality. Besides, as I said, what should be falsifiable are the claims about God's existence that leads to religion to begin with, not what believers/unbelievers do.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Yes, and you failed miserably as many have pointed out. Describing how something works and using metaphors is not "pseudo-science," it's an attempt to find terms for things we otherwise don't have terms for. It's been long discussed how even in science man can't completely escape metaphor. But this is completely different than "pseudo-science." In order to be pseudo-science Dawkins would have to claim something about DNA that was untrue/unfalsifiable.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
All of this is really completely irrelevant to your claim of pseudo-science. You seem to be off in your own YesNo world again where words don't mean what they actually mean. I suggest you look up "pseudo-science" and get some real-world examples, because someone giving opinions (like Hitchens) or using metaphors to describe scientific observations (like Dawkins) are not "pseudo-science," and even if Dawkins DID try and defend atheism from the Khmer Rouge, that wouldn't automatically make it pseudo-science since he'd have to be actively building up some kind of pseudo-scientific framework around it. A good example would be to look at Tarot Cards; believers have this entire system set up regarding what each card means and further believe that depending on how you deal them they tell the future. THAT is pseudo-science; it's "science" part comes from the the system of rules/claims made about what the cards mean and how they work; It's "pseudo" because it has not been tested in any way resembling the rigors of the scientific method. So even if Dawkins claims something that's not necessarily scientific, that doesn't automatically make it "pseudo-science". All of his statements about how genes behave are, AFAIK, accurate.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Right after the fartvolution of 1917, Henry Ford established a tractor factory in Russia.
Similar arguments could be used by religious groups to excuse their past behavior. I don't think it works for either the theists or the atheists.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
No one should be interested in some Platonic ideal of atheism nor of any other religion. Real people are being targeted.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Atheism is an ideology or a metaphysics about the world that leads atheists to commit the crimes they have in the past just as any religion might. They are not excused because they are delusional and dogmatically believe they don't have tenets, rules or ideologies.
I think it is legitimate to use past abuses against both theists and atheists. What I don't think is legitimate is to excuse atheism and then go on a rant against religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
It is atheists who are trying to grab some illusory moral high ground by attempting to restrict the argument to cultural expressions of some God. The issue has to do with an overall metaphysics which is about the universe. God is a side issue.
To put this more clearly, Hitchens and Dawkins are presenting rhetoric that is no different from that of your common bigot and they are doing this as "intellectuals" or "scientists".Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Dawkins own metaphysics does not allow genes to have purposive behavior. He knows it is at best a metaphor and yet he still pumps it. Doing that while presenting himself as a "scientist" is to grab the authority associated with science to make his case. That is pseudo-science.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I think it might be more effective to see the intolerance to targeted groups expressed by Hitchens and Dawkins as bigotry. From their bigotry you can get the pseudo-intellectual or pseudo-scientific characteristics.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Considering this intolerance, I don't see the "atheism" they are presenting as any different from that of the Khmer Rouge.
I really see no reason for continuing this conversation. Much like with the QM/MW debate, you seem intent on repeating the same claims ad nauseam even as you ignore arguments that rebut the bases those claims rest on. It gets rather tiring.
Comedy award of the week goes to this quote.
If I didn't already have such an excellent sig line already, I'd use it; this is a work of sheer genius:
Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
What a sad pretence of scholarship, he can't even get the most basic facts right about the subject he is attacking. For instance, the author says "Nor did he [Christopher Hitchens] take the trouble to learn about the secular Buddhism advocated by lay scholars like Stephen Batchelor, author of “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.” Hitchens actually gave this book a rave review, a review which takes up a large chunk of the back of the hardback edition!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
The argument that scientists can't do philosophy, and that they can't make a transition into it, is totally ridiculous. Kant made a transition from science into philosophy, or at least did both at the same time, and his first big idea was scientific - the hypothesis that the milky way reveals that stars form a galactic cluster. Descartes and Pascal are other examples. Pascal's Pensees came late in his career, and he did a lot of his mathematical work early on, so he clearly made a transition from "serious scientist" to "serious philosopher". Bertrand Russell made a transition from mathematician to philosopher, Wittgenstein made a transition from aeronautical engineer to philosopher. Looking at these figures I kind of feel that the best philosophers were initially scientists! (Plato demanded that his pupils became expert mathematicians, because that gives you the kind of critical, exact mindset that is needed to do decent philosophy.) Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus certainly write some stirring stuff but the main arguments that made me more certain of my atheism came initially from Bertrand Russell, and his fellow travellers, backed up more recently, mostly, by Dawkins, and his fellow travellers. Nietzsche and the Hitch write some gutsy stuff, that is well worth reading, but the backbone of atheism comes from more scientific minds.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Mal, I still think my point stands that it's unfair to critique many of the New Atheists whom have spent most of their lives in very specific scientific fields for not being as good as philosophers who studied philosophy their entire life. Of course, any scientist can make this transition, but it's not an easy one, and it's not as if they can take in thousands of years of philosophical thought in no time flat. My impression is also that most of the New Atheists, those that have made that science-to-philosophy transition, are mostly relying on their scientific areas of expertise to form their philosophies, and are often not aware of philosophers that have engaged with those same ideas already elsewhere. When I listen to Dawkins, Krauss, Harris, (though less so Harris) I feel like I'm listening to a scientist much more than a philosopher. On the other hand, I can read Russel, Wittgenstein, et al. and not get that sense at all, so it depends on where they're coming from.
Likewise, it's unfair to compare philosophers of the past (especially the distant past) who made this transition to modern scientists. There's been a profound explosion of knowledge in just the past 100 years. So much that no individual could assimilate it all, hence the need for extremely specialized forms of science and scientists. As I said, you could spend a lifetime studying a single branch of science and not assimilate it all, much less trying to spread your time between studying that branch and then taking on all of philosophy! We'll probably never see another Goethe or those kinds of "universal geniuses" whom seemed to be able to know as much as anyone about a variety of subjects. The age of the generalist is over with; everything is specialized, and expecting specialists whom are making a transition to another specialized area to be as good as those whom have been specialist in that area all their life is a bit unreasonable.
There are so many Christian Thinkers in Science.
As early as Hunayn ibn Ishaq (c.809–873 AD)
to the more recent living John Lennox and Mike Hulme
who both debate Dawkins (atheist).
This list goes from oldest to living. Click on this link
and then scroll all the way down:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ers_in_science
In earlier times scientists had to believe in God, or at least pretend belief, or they risked being burned at the stake by Christians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
The recent scientific believers quoted are insignificant figures. I mean who are John Lennox and Mike Hulme? Anyone heard of them? Having looked at their wikipedia pages, they appear to be worthy workers in intellectual fields, but no more so than millions of other people. The main claim to fame for Lennox seems to be that he managed to engage Dawkins in a debate or two. Dawkins tries to avoid debating minor figures too much as it raises their profile beyond what they deserve. He doesn't consider Lennox a worthy opponent:
"... the onus is on those who espouse 'serious theologians' to nominate at least ONE who is serious enough to be worth bothering to engage. It cannot be ... John Lennox, who masquerades as a scientist while believing Jesus turned water into wine..." - Richard Dawkins, http://old.richarddawkins.net/articl...omments?page=2
I see that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ers_in_science contains Bruno, even though the Catholic Encyclopedia labels his system of beliefs "an incoherent materialistic pantheism." I guess he sneaks on because some Christians think "incoherent materialistic pantheism" is still Christianity, whatever the Catholics say. What I take from this is that Christianity is incoherent claptrap.
Don't you mean being burned by the Catholic Church (a specific institution).Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Are Catholics not Christians? Protestants also persecuted heretics, for similar reasons, so I think it's worth using the general term.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
Wasn't Bruno killed for his unorthodox religious beliefs rather than his science?Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Also, if you want recent Christians who are top level scientists how about the Belgian priest who first hypothesized the Big Bang Theory: Georges Lemaitre. You might also consider Pierre Teilhard de Chardin a Jesuit priest who discovered Peking Man a major figure. Then there is Charles Hard Townes, who won the Nobel Prize for invention of the maser, and Francis Collins project director for the Human Genome Project.
While you can't say that all of the violence of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or the Khmer Rouge in the twentieth century was motivated by atheism, even though the perpetrators were nominally atheists, you could claim that the anti-clerical violence was motivated by atheism. That goes for parts of the reign of terror during the French Revolution too.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Quote:
It is an enormous problem, as the 20th century saw the worst persecution of Christians since Roman times. For instance, millions of Orthodox believers perished in purges by atheists in the former Soviet Union. In the anti-Christian campaign by Stalin and Soviet communism, many churches were closed, and monks were arrested and deported to labor camps. As many as 40,000 Orthodox priests were killed or died from abuse during the first half of 1936 alone, and it is believed that the total number of priests, monks, and nuns killed during the purges of the 1930s are in excess of 200,000 (Foreset, 1997, pp. 134-149; Wynot, 2004). Estimates of the total number all Christian martyrs in the former Societ Union are about 12 million. Estimates from the 20th century of Christians who died from secular antireligious violence worldwide are over 25 million, more than all previous centuries combined (Bergman, 1996).
http://books.google.com/books?id=LBv...page&q&f=false
The French Revolution, particularly in its Jacobin period, initiated one of the most violent episodes of anti-clericalism in modern Europe; the new revolutionary authorities suppressed the church; destroyed, desecrated and expropriated monasteries; exiled 30,000 priests and killed hundreds more.[2] As part of a campaign to de-Christianize France in October 1793 the Christian calendar was outlawed, replaced with one reckoning from the date of the Revolution, and then an atheist Cult of Reason was inaugurated, all churches not devoted to that cult being closed.[3] In 1794, the atheistic cult was replaced with a deistic Cult of the Supreme Being.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-clericalism
Following the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the new Mexican Constitution of 1917 contained further anti-clerical provisions. Article 3 called for secular education in the schools and prohibited the Church from engaging in primary education; Article 5 outlawed monastic orders; Article 24 forbade public worship outside the confines of churches; and Article 27 placed restrictions on the right of religious organizations to hold property. Most offensively to Catholics[citation needed], Article 130 deprived clergy members of basic political rights. Many of these laws were resisted, leading to the Cristero Rebellion of 1927–1929. The suppression of the Church included the closing of many churches and the killing of priests. The persecution was most severe in Tabasco under the atheist"[26] governor Tomás Garrido Canabal.
The war had a profound effect on the Church. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 40 priests were killed.[27] Between 1926 and 1934, over 3,000 priests were exiled or assassinated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-clericalism
La Violencia refers to an era of civil conflict in various areas of the Colombian countryside between supporters of the Colombian Liberal Party and the Colombian Conservative Party, a conflict which took place roughly from 1948 to 1958.[33][34]
Across the country, militants attacked churches, convents, and monasteries, killing priests and looking for arms, since the conspiracy theory maintained that the religious had guns, and this despite the fact that not a single serviceable weapon was located in the raids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-clericalism
The Civil War in Spain started in 1936, during which thousands of churches were destroyed, thirteen bishops and some 7,000 clergy and religious Spaniards were assassinated.[43] Catholics largely supported Franco and the Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939.
Anti-clerical assaults during what has been termed by the Nationalists Red Terror included sacking and burning monasteries and churches and killing 6,832 priests,[44] including 13 bishops, 4,184 diocesan priests, 2,365 members of male religious orders, among them 259 Claretians, 226 Franciscans, 204 Piarists, 176 Brothers of Mary, 165 Christian Brothers, 155 Augustinians, 132 Dominicans, and 114 Jesuits.
One source records that 283 nuns were killed, some of whom were badly tortured.[45] There are accounts of Catholic faithful being forced to swallow rosary beads, thrown down mine shafts and priests being forced to dig their own graves before being buried alive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-clericalism
You confused the parts with the whole or in this case a specific institution with the general group.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Well, had you brought up many examples that included Protestant's burning scientists at the stake or the average population of Christians doing so without a particular institutions' authority you'd then be able to use the general term. But the specific example you have only demonstrates that the Catholic Church has done such things.
You originally wrote: "In earlier times scientists had to believe in God, or at least pretend belief, or they risked being burned at the stake by Christians:"
Notice that in your response as quoted above at the very top of this post compared to your original words: you switch from "scientists . . . burned at the stake," to any "persecuted heretic." We jump from "burning at the stake" to any kind of persecution.
But really my point is one needs to be careful with confusing an entire group of people with a specific institution that may include certain members of that group. Or to put it more simply not to confuse the parts with the whole.
I don't think you can, the communists destroyed any group that was not controlled by them. For instance, in the communist regimes of Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungry, post WWII, *all* non-communist activities were frowned upon. For instance, even the scouts were banned, and leaders of "the movement" imprisoned. If the social groups were not under direct control of the communist apparatus then they were hounded out of existence. Churches just happened to be part of the non-communist set up that had to be annihilated. I just read the "Iron Curtain : the crushing of Eastern Europe" 1944-56 by Anne Applebaum who shows the extent of totalitarian destruction imposed on these countries. The religious insitutions were thoroughly destroyed, but so was any atheist opposition (from social democrats, chess clubs (!), or anyone else...)Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
I thought it was a well known fact that protestants and catholics were burning all kinds of people for heresy. Do you really doubt that many scientists were amongst them? For instance, white witches, i.e., women with benign non-Christian beliefs, are famous for seeking out herbal cures, an early form of medical science. But its not hard to find examples of "heavyweight" scientists being persecuted. For instance, Michael Servetus, the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, was a polymath versed in many sciences. He was arrested in Geneva and burnt at the stake as a heretic by order of the Protestant Geneva governing council. Calvin himself believed Servetus deserving of death on account of what he termed as his "execrable blasphemies". What were these blasphemies? Questioning the trinitarian nature of God and the necessity of pre-infant baptism (what a devil!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
The crucial ideology informing the decisions of the Roman Catholic church and the Protestant Geneva governing council was Christian - both Bruno and Servetus were burned for heresies against the Christian faith. It's the Christian faith that is the problem, and we don't want it taking "controlling power" again. Do we?
Mortal, I think mal thoroughly covered my answer. In fact, I think I already addressed that issue on a previous page.
Your definition of scientist is impractically inclusive to the point of being useless. You could define anyone as a scientist with that broad a rubric.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Again, it seems that Michael Servetus, like Bruno, was killed for his heresies as a theologian, not for his scientific discoveries. When a scientist dies in an earthquake, we don't say that the earthquake targeted him for being a scientist. And when modern states execute scientists who've committed murder we don't claim they are persecuting scientists either. You have a case for institutional violence if you cite the Inquisition, but you don't have a case for the Church being anti-science. Besides, in the famous cases where a scientist was persecuted like say Galileo, we have many examples of church officials taking his side in the dispute or being his benefactors; so it's untrue to claim that the event was more than a localized incident perpetrated by the actions of a few politically motivated individuals. All of the available evidence points the other way, since the Catholic Church was the single greatest benefactor of science and education through the middle ages and the Renaissance. They are the ones responsible for all the universities in Europe after all.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
I'm for a separation of Church and state, but not because I think that churches are more violent than states. I view the violence of the world as a natural part of human nature and competition for resources. The Christian faith is actually with a few exceptions fairly benign and mostly occupies itself setting up hospitals, feeding and sheltering the poor.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
The Inquisition made sure to get Bruno every way they could; his scientific notions were part of Luigi Firpo's list of charges made against Bruno. From Bruno's wikipedia page, one such charge was 'claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity'. Others charges may have also have scientific aspects, but that one is sufficient to disprove your claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
They held science and education back. Their period of greatest power was called "the dark ages" for a good reason.Quote:
...the Catholic Church was the single greatest benefactor of science and education through the middle ages and the Renaissance.
More than a few, and certainly not benign, for instance:Quote:
The Christian faith is actually with a few exceptions fairly benign...
The Crusades
European wars of religion
Expulsion of the Jews from Spain
The Salem Witch trials
... the list goes on and on...
The Inquisition made sure to get Bruno every way they could; his scientific notions were part of Luigi Firpo's list of charges against Bruno. From Bruno's wikipedia page, one such charge was 'claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity'. Others charges may have also have scientific aspects, but that one is sufficient to disprove your claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
They held science and education back. Their period of greatest power was called "the dark ages" for a good reason.Quote:
...the Catholic Church was the single greatest benefactor of science and education through the middle ages and the Renaissance.
More than a few, and certainly not benign, for instance:Quote:
The Christian faith is actually with a few exceptions fairly benign...
The Crusades
European wars of religion
Expulsion of the Jews from Spain
The Salem Witch trials
... the list goes on and on...
Not necessarily. The complete charges were:Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
And you are assuming that the charge of "claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity" was based on an objection to his science and not his theology, or that his belief in a plurality of worlds was even based in science and not mysticism. Either way, it looks like a tacked on charge he could have easily walked away from, when the real meat of the prosecution was concerned with the divinity of Christ, the status of the trinity, and other religious concerns.Quote:
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers;
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation;
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ;
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus;
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and Mass;
claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity;
believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes;
dealing in magics and divination.
Actually, that is a popular misconception.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Actually, many of the best scientists of the period were Catholic clergy who studied natural theology as a way to understand God's universe.Quote:
The relationship between religion and science has been a subject of study since Classical antiquity, addressed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and other commentators. Perspectives from different geographical regions, cultures and historical epochs are diverse. Recent commentators have characterized the relationship in varying categories. Discussions of what is science and what is not science, the demarcation problem in the philosophy of science, have intersected with discourse on religion in some instances and both have had complex relations in their historical interactions.
The conflict thesis, which states that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science, remains generally popular for the public; most historians of science no longer support it.[1][2][3][4] Some contemporary scientists such as Stephen Jay Gould, Francisco J. Ayala, Kenneth R. Miller and Francis Collins have held that religion and science are non-overlapping magisteria, addressing fundamentally separate forms of knowledge and aspects of life. Some theologians or historians of science, including John Lennox, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme and Ken Wilber have proposed an interconnection between them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relatio...on_and_science
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Isidore of Seville (c.560–c.636) Catholic Archbishop who preserved many scientific selections from the ancient worlds. His most popular work was Etymologiae which contained information on medicine, mathematics, astronomy, atomic theory, geography, agriculture, zoology, minerology, physiology, and other topics. His work was widely used throughout the medieval ages for its extent of research topics.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rable_Bede.jpg
Bede, the Venerable (c.672–735) Catholic monk, venerated as a saint and Doctor of the Church. He was an influence for early medieval knowledge of nature. He wrote two works on "Time and its Reckoning." This primarily concerned how to date Easter, but contained a new recognition of the "progress wave-like" nature of tides.
Leo the Mathematician (c.790–a.869) Archbishop of Thessalonica, he later became the head of the Magnaura School of philosophy in Constantinople, where he taught Aristotelian logic. Leo also composed his own medical encyclopaedia. He has been called a "true Renaissance man" and "the cleverest man in Byzantium in the 9th century".
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Pope Sylvester II (c.950–1003) Benedictine monk, scientist, teacher, and later Pope; he promoted such knowledge as mathematics and astronomy in Europe. As professor of the cathedral school at Rheims, he raised it to the height of prosperity. He also reintroduced the abacus and armillary sphere to Europe, which had been lost to the continent since the end of the Greco-Roman era.
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Hugh of Saint Victor (c.1096–1141) Influential mystic and philosopher who embraced science as a tool for approaching God. He was master of the monastic school of Saint Victor. His work presents knowledge of reality as redemptive of fallen man; and technology as source of physical relief and able to help reunite man with divine wisdom. "Learn everything," he urged; "later you will see that nothing is superfluous."
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Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, polymath and Germany's first female physician. She conducted and published comprehensive studies of natural science and medicine. Hildegard was well known in her own century as "the female prophet" and is venerated as a Catholic saint.
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Robert Grosseteste (c.1175–1253) Bishop of Lincoln, he was the central character of the English intellectual movement in the first half of the 13th century and is considered the founder of scientific thought in Oxford. He had a great interest in the natural world and wrote texts on the mathematical sciences of optics, astronomy and geometry. He affirmed that experiments should be used in order to verify a theory, testing its consequences.
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Roger Bacon (c.1214–1294) He was an English philosopher who emphasized empiricism and has been presented as one of the earliest advocates of the modern scientific method. He joined the Franciscan Order around 1240, where he was influenced by Grosseteste. Bacon was responsible for making the concept of "laws of nature" widespread, and contributed in such areas as mechanics, geography and, most of all, optics.
Thomas Bradwardine (c.1290–1349) He was an English archbishop, often called "the Profound Doctor". He developed studies as one of the Oxford Calculators of Merton College, Oxford University. These studies would lead to important developments in mechanics.
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William of Ockham (c.1285–c.1350) He was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher. He is a major figure of medieval thought and was at the center of the major intellectual and political controversies of his time. Commonly known for Occam's razor, the scientific/methodological principle that bears his name, he also produced significant works on logic, physics, and theology.
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Nicole Oresme (c.1323–1382) Theologian and bishop of Lisieux, he was one of the early founders and popularizers of modern sciences. One of his many scientific contributions is the discovery of the curvature of light through atmospheric refraction.
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Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) Catholic cardinal and theologian who made contributions to the field of mathematics by developing the concepts of the infinitesimal and of relative motion. His philosophical speculations also anticipated Copernicus’ heliocentric world-view.
For the most part historians no longer use that term since they deem it inaccurate, and there was actually a great deal of progress and scholarship that occurred in the middle ages.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
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The Dark Ages is a historical periodization used originally for the Middle Ages, which emphasizes the cultural and economic deterioration that supposedly occurred in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire.[1][2] The label employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the "darkness" of the period with earlier and later periods of "light".[3] The period is characterized by a relative scarcity of historical and other written records at least for some areas of Europe, rendering it obscure to historians. The term "Dark Age" derives from the Latin saeculum obscurum, originally applied by Caesar Baronius in 1602 to a tumultuous period in the 10th and 11th centuries.[4]
Originally the term characterized the bulk of the Middle Ages, or roughly the 6th to 13th centuries, as a period of intellectual darkness between extinguishing the "light of Rome" after the end of Late Antiquity, and the rise of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.[5] [3] This definition is still found in popular use,[1][2][6] but increased recognition of the accomplishments of the Middle Ages has led to the label being restricted in application. Since the 20th century, it is frequently applied to the earlier part of the era, the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th century).[7][8] However, many modern scholars who study the era tend to avoid the term altogether for its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate for any part of the Middle Ages.
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While Petrarch's concept of a Dark Age corresponded to a mostly Christian period following pre-Christian Rome, the use of the term today applies mainly to those cultures and periods in Europe least Christianized and thus most sparsely covered by chronicles and other contemporary sources, nearly all written by Catholic clergy at this date.[citation needed]
However, from the mid-20th century onwards, other historians became critical of even this nonjudgmental use of the term for two main reasons.[10] First, it is questionable whether it is possible to use the term "Dark Ages" effectively in a neutral way; scholars may intend this, but it does not mean that ordinary readers will so understand it. Second, the explosion of new knowledge and insight into the history and culture of the Early Middle Ages, which 20th-century scholarship has achieved,[39] means that these centuries are no longer dark even in the sense of "unknown to us". To avoid the value judgment implied by the expression, many historians avoid it altogether. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ag...n_academic_use
If you take the whole of history, then every civilization and institution has some marks against it. But I was largely thinking of current events, the state of religion today and their attitudes toward charity.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Those studies have shown that just on a person to person basis, religious people tend to be more charitable than non-religious people. The actual number of religious organizations set up to help the needy is mind boggling, so I'm having trouble tracking down aggregate numbers on how much they give collectively.Quote:
Q. We often hear that religious people give more to charity than secularists. Is this true?
A. In the year 2000, “religious” people (the 33 percent of the population who attend their houses of worship at least once per week) were 25 percentage points more likely to give charitably than “secularists” (the 27 percent who attend less than a few times per year, or have no religion). They were also 23 percentage points more likely to volunteer. When considering the average dollar amounts of money donated and time volunteered, the gap between the groups increases even further: religious people gave nearly four times more dollars per year, on average, than secularists ($2,210 versus $642). They also volunteered more than twice as often (12 times per year, versus 5.8 times).
Very little of this gap is due to personal differences between religious and secular people with respect to income, age, family, or anything else. For instance, imagine two people who are identical in income, education, age, race, and marital status. The one difference between them is that, while one goes to church every week, the other never does. Knowing this, we can predict that the churchgoer will be 21 percentage points more likely to make a charitable gift of money during the year than the nonchurchgoer, and will also be 26 points more likely to volunteer.
Q. But aren’t they just giving to religious charities and houses of worship?
A. These enormous differences are not a simple artifact of religious people giving to their churches. Religious people are more charitable with secular causes, too. For example, in 2000, religious people were 10 percentage points more likely than secularists to give money to explicitly nonreligious charities, and 21 points more likely to volunteer. The value of the average religious household’s gifts to nonreligious charities was 14 percent higher than that of the average secular household, even after correcting for income differences.
Religious people were also far more likely than secularists to give in informal, nonreligious ways. For example, in 2000, people belonging to religious congregations gave 46 percent more money to family and friends than people who did not belong. In 2002, religious people were far more likely to donate blood than secularists, to give food or money to a homeless person, and even to return change mistakenly given them by a cashier. http://www.american.com/archive/2008...tion-of-givers
I find that quite amusing in the face of armed forces in the western world being overwhelmingly staffed by christians, allegedly led by a bloke who didn't think killing other humans was a good thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
How many politicians - like Blair & Bush - do you need to see claiming guidance from their sky-daddy to realise that they are not so dissimilar from a man in a cave promising virgins as a reward for self-sacrifice?
Maybe the majority of the armed forces are Christian because the majority of the population is Christian.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
I do see a difference between a Democracy or a Republic who's head of state happens to hold religious beliefs and a Theocracy where the head of state is the head of a religion. Considering that every U.S. president has held Christian beliefs, I am not concerned with this development in regards to George W. Bush or Obama, and I do not consider their manner of leadership to be akin to that of either the Ayatolla Khomeini or Taliban era Afghanistan. I feel that their economic policies, social policies, and international policies are more important factors in how they lead than their religious beliefs. I don't know that much about Blair, but my impression was that he was rather popular during his term, liberal, intelligent, well spoken, and socially progressive; sort of the opposite of Bush. If you are trying to make a case that their motivation in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was the result of religious conviction, I would suggest that the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and 7/7 had more to do with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
My point is that in spite of Augustine's* "just war", the words of Jesus himself are explicit that violence is not ok. On that basis, I would expect to see exactly zero people in any armed forces who professed to live by the WWJD principle.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
A difference that makes no difference is no difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Given the invasion of Iraq is known to have taken place on spurious grounds and evidence, the fact that both US and UK leaders sought their god's approval makes it no different to the suicide bombers & pilots of the two terrorist attacks.
What do you think Bush & Blair would have done if their god had screamed out "No!"?
OK here's something right up to date from the Richard Dawkins twitter feed:Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamna...om-of-thought/
It's not quite the crusades, but still an example of Christian oppression. Banned from wearing a t shirt at the fresher's fair! We're a long way from the 1960s! They'll all be forced to wear ties next...
Have you read Jesus & Mo. Laugh out loud funny:
http://www.jesusandmo.net/archives/
actually I was just pondering.
what is god's real name? he must have a name like Jesus has one.
god is just a reference like diety is or spirit.
It depends on which religion you're addressing. But since you brought up Christ, I would tell you that Christians tend to just call him God, with a capital G, or God the Father. Jesus Christ is God the Son, and then there's God, the Holy Spirit--one God in three Divine Persons.
Christians may call it "God" but according to their own scriptures, its name is Yahweh, usually amended to Jehovah in English.
Good golly I miss you!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Don't remember much except you had a good sense of humor I think.