Toto

He will be speaking in LA on Ancient Scientists, not Biblical Criticism, but I figure most of his biggest fans are here.

But then on Monday Oct 29 he will speak in Ventura on "Early Christian Hostility to Scientific Values."

Details

Toto

Here are my notes from Carrier's second lecture. Any mistakes are probably transcription errors.

"Christian Hostility to Scientific Values in Antiquity" will be a chapter in his thesis, and published in a book after a year or so.

His talk concerned Christianity in its first 3 centuries, before Constantine. After that time, innovations in Christianity often consciously incorporated paganism or pagan values; before that, Christianity claimed to offer new values.

Greco-Roman culture was very diverse, from scientific to superstitious and anti-scientific. What mattered for the progress of science was whether wealthy individuals were pursuing science. Carrier described the many ancient scientific and engineering triumphs in his lecture on Sunday. The Romans built factories, had robots, theaters, antiseptics, electroshock therapy, wind pumps, watermills, screws, presses, parabolic lighthouses, beacons, etc. But he said then that he could have given a lecture of equal length on the mistakes and silly superstitions that the Romans believed in.

These two things are required for scientific progress

1. Scientists passionate about studying nature. This requires:
Curiosity (believing that learning secrets of natures is a moral good),
Empiricism (observe nature to learn new things) and
Progressivism (believing that progress is possible and good)

2 Liberty and socioeconomic support for those pursuing science. This requires:
No interference from government, public, or the church
Lucrative careers and pensions for engineers, doctors, astrologers (who actually studied astronomy in those days.)
Scientists need to be middle class, but respected among the powerful.

In contrast, Christians held to these values: bible values only, revelation from God, intuition inspired by god, and the search for God's word in scripture. There were no references to the value of observing nature.

To support this, Carrier quoted from the Bible and from the Church fathers. In particular, 1 Cor 14:6, 2 Tim 2:7; 1 John 2:27 (and more).

This partly had to do with the idea that the end of the world is coming, so the world is not worth it. e.g., Colossians 3:1-2 , 2:8 1 Cor 1:19-27

(In Paul's letters, the "traditions of men" refers to philosophical schools,"the elements" is a reference to systematic philosophy.

Christianity makes villains of those who ask for evidence; doubt is a path to sin: James 1:6-8, 2 Cor 10:5, James 5:14-16

Later Christians build on this anti-scientific epistemology, which was an attraction to early converts - eg Justin Martyr tried to study philosophy but objected to elevating reason over god, and didn't want to pay teachers. He first settled on Platonism because it fit in with his prejudices, and went from there to Christianity.

Athenagoras claimed that only prophets can lead to truth because only god has truth. He "moves the mouth of prophets like musical instruments."

Tatian in his Address to the Greeks 2, praises tradition scripture, god. " I could laugh at those who adhere to Aristotle's teachings."

The first scientifically educated Christian was Clement of Alexandria, who said that people are afraid of science, like children are afraid of masks. But he still didn't like curiosity, and only studied science to be able to refute it. His Christianly only used science as auxiliary to gospels

Tertullian referred to "stupid curiosity on natural objects."

By Tertullian's day, scientists had proven that all mental functions resided in the brain and had even mapped the brain and the nerves - Galen had already done his work. But Tertullian dismisses this in his book on the Soul, saying it is better not to know what god has not revealed.

Lactantius continued Tertullian's work and denied that the earth was round. As evidence he pointed to how ridiculous it would be if there were upside down people on the other side of the earth. (By this time, astronomers had developed empirical proofs that the earth was a sphere and had made reasonable estimates of the size of the earth. They observed how lighthouses disappeared below the horizon, lunar eclipses were observed at different hours of the night in Babylon and Rome; the rising and setting of stars depends on latitude, some are not visible at all; shape of earth's shadow on the moon during an eclipse.)

Lacantius held that natural science is "superfluous useless and vain; only the uneducated masses are wise. Lactantius became the tutor for Constantine's son, and one of the most admired authors - admired by Eusebius.

Christians argued that disagreements among scientists are grounds for dismissing all of them, while pagans used disagreements to get more empirical knowledge or to argue for probable revisable knowledge.

Christians also argued that science leads to atheism; the search for natural causes exclude god, empiricism excludes spiritual higher truth These values halted scientific research for 1000 years

Carrier gave the example of Christian vs. pagan creation science. The Christian Dionysius the Great wrote "On Nature" which involved only armchair reasoning. In contrast, Galen, a pagan who believed in god, did empirical, observational research Both were trying to refute those who said that there had been no designer. Galen anticipated Behe by 2000 years, and wrote the most advanced defense of design until Darwin.

Origen was the only Christian who defended curiosity, which he argues was given by god. But then he argued that our curiosity would only be satisfied after death.

There were Christians who knew enough science to debate, but remained hostile to scientific values. Christians tended to treat scientific texts as gospel, to use the enemy's scriptures against him. So when Christianity became the dominant force in the empire, it was bad news for science.

youngalexander

Put me down for a copy.

Better not tell MM.

An impressive list, and even if
That is a necessary part of the game.
Surely it would be rather startling if there were. Any direct Jesus speak? There are various horticultural examples - mustard seeds, fig trees, etc.

An idea which regretably seems to be still prevalent. Except in the case of GW it is definitely on the cards. Why worry when the Rapture is nigh?

Sounds like modern day fundies on IDC - Carrier isn't retrojecting is he?

What is that splendid quote from Augustine about plunging a sword into the belly of those who demand evidence?

Sounds like very interesting stuff. Do you know the title of his doctoral thesis?

mountainman

I am aware that the planet presently follows Eusebius.
I only hope to suggest that we should question these
fundamental postulates, not against claims over values,
but against the evidence itself.

Toto, do any of these talks routinely make themselves
available as an audio file, and if so, are these available
(at some cost?), and if not, in the future - why not?

I am impressed by much of Carrier's work, and echo
the interest of Young Alexander in checking his
research papers, down the line, when available.


Also, I have used (with attribution) Carriers framework
of the Argument to Ahistoricity at this page.
Hopefully, he has no problems with this.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Toto

Neither talk was recorded, but Carrier is available to speak to any group that will pay for his transportation, and will be publishing his book next year.

If you go to Richard's blog http://www.richardcarrier.blogspot.com/ there are lists of recorded debates that he has been involved in, if you read far enough down.

Antipope Innocent II

Indeed he could. A quick look at the bizarre things that were forbidden to the Roman Flamen Dialis, or High Priest of Jupiter, gives a taste of how weirdly superstitious the ancient Romans and Greeks could be. The Flamen Dialis could not leave his house without wearing his sacred hat (which bore an uncanny resemblance to a rolled up condom), could not wear knots in any part of his clothing, couldn't walk along a path over-hung with vines, couldn't touch flour, bread, a dead body, a she-goat, a dog, beans, raw meat or ivy, couldn't leave Rome for more than a single night and had to sleep in a bed whose legs had been smeared with fine clay (?!). I like giving that list of superstitious nonsense to anyone who tries to tell me that Greco-Roman culture consisted of wise, rational secular humanists until Christianity came along and made everyone superstitious idiots.

And the Flamen Dialis was one of the most senior religious, social and political offices that an aristocratic Roman could hold and was held by, amongst many illustrious others, Julius Caesar.

The Medieval Period fulfilled all those requirements, but I'm getting this funny feeling that Carrier is hinting that the Church hindered scientific progress in the Middle Ages. Do you recall some long and detailed threads on this subject a few months back? Those of us who know about Medieval science and technology detailed how both progressed in the Middle Ages while some others desperately tried to prove it didn't. Tried and utterly failed.

Christians when, exactly? In the Third to the Fifth Centuries there were certainly some (eg Tertullian, Lactantius) who were Biblical literalists and openly hostile to "philosophy" and "pagan learning". Their position is characterised by Tertullian's scornful question "What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" But in the same period there were others (eg Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil of Caesarea, Johan Damascene and, most significantly, Augustine) who rejected this. They upheld the ideas that (i) God and the universe could be apprehended by reason, (ii) this could be (and had been) done as much by pagans as Christians and (iii) reason and science therefore illuminated God's creation and were to be embraced, not rejected.

The key point here is that it's the latter group of Church Fathers who won the debate and who proved influential in the developing intellectual tradition of what was to become "Christendom".

That's certainly all very true of First and Second Century Christianity and still true of the Tertullian-literalist-ignoramus faction later. It's not true of the guys who won the debate. Did Carrier bother to mention that?

Whereas guys like Clement and Augustine embraced Platonism wholeheartedly. Why am I getting the feeling Carrier is only telling part of the story here?


This is garbage and if Carrier said Clement "only studied science to be able to refute it" he should know better. How someone who sought a synthesis between Platonic philosophy (including "natural philosophy" or what we call science) and Christianity can be characterised as only studying science to refute it is beyond me. If your notes accurately reflect what Carrier was saying on this point then I think his ideological biases are beginning to get in the way of his historical objectivity. And that's coming from someone who shares his atheism.

When we let our beliefs get in the way of the honest portrayal of the objective depiction of the facts we've sunk to the level of the fundies.


Lactantius also went on to have virtually zero impact on the intellectual sphere; unlike Clement and Augustine, who argued that science was the handmaiden of theology. That doesn't make them Twenty-First Century rationalist humanists, certainly. But it sure as hell doesn't make them Biblical literalist flat-earthers either. Again, Carrier seems to be being rather selective with his examples and to be ignoring significant chunks of history that don't fit his thesis. Or his "message". Is he being a historian or a preacher? If the latter, is he representing atheism well or poorly?


That is a weird caricature of how things developed. I suspect that, as a Classicist who specialises in earlier centuries, Carrier gets a bit more hazy when it comes to the Christian attitudes to science in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. More disturbingly, if your notes are accurate, he's chosen to dwell on the anti-intellectual element in early Christian attitudes to science and ignore the element that favoured the embrace of science and philosophy within the context of Christianity.

Given that it was the latter that won out and became the dominant intellectual tradition, especially in the West, this is either a glaring and highly alarming oversight by someone who wants to present themselves as a scholar or it's a deliberate decision to distort the picture.

If the former, Carrier needs to do much better if he wants to be accurate and objective. If the latter, he needs to decide if he's going to be a scholar or a ideological propagandist.

If your notes are accurate, this talk was not an complete, accurate or objective analysis of the subject. It looks more like selective information presented with a certain agenda in mind. That doesn't do we atheists much good - it makes us as bad as the preachers and apologists.

Is that what we want?

mountainman

”On 28 October 312 the Christians suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves victorious. The victory was - a miracle — though opinions differed as to the nature of the sign vouchsafed to Constantine. The winners became conscious of their victory in a mood of resentment and vengeance. A voice shrill with implacable hatred announced to the world the victory of the Milvian Bridge.”

and then, in the same article,
a few paragraphs later ..

“The revolution of the fourth century, carrying with it a new historiography will not be understood if we underrate the determination, almost the fierceness, with which the Christians appreciated and exploited the miracle that had transformed Constantine into a supporter, a protector, and later a legislator of the Christian church”

--- Arnaldo Momigliano (1908-1987),
Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century A.D; (1960)
(considered in the foremost of Ancient Historians of the 20th century),
continues:

“Christian initiative was such that it did not hesitate to appropriate Jewish goods also. Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum was originally a Jewish handbook of Biblical history. It seems to have been written its Hebrew for Jews in the first century A.D., it was later done into Greek, and, to all appearances, in, the fourth century, it was changed into a Christian handbook and translated into Latin.”


Also see Robert Lane Foxes evaluation of Constantine's
Oration to the Saints, 325 CE ....

Constantine declared that “Socrates’ critical questioning … was a menace to the state” He declared that "Pythagoras had stolen his teaching from Egypt”. He declared that “Plato believed there were many gods ... and strived for the unknowable.” He declared that poets “wrote falsely about the gods" and were worse that philosophers. Fox [2] writes:

Finally we have yet to explore the statistical distribution
of the destruction of the great libraries of antiquity which
all stood intact ”on 28 October 312", but which had
largely been destroyed under Christian regimes by the end
of that century. Enter Codex Theodosius, and Rassias.

Magdlyn

That last phrase~ therein lies the rub, eh? The idea that a whole body was needed for the resurrection led to it being illegal to study anatomy by dissecting corpses. Leonardo and Michelangelo had to do it in secret-- in the 15th century, driven by the rediscovery of long suppressed Greek and Roman thought and art. After the work of these pioneers, the study of human anatomy exploded to great excitement and interest. What held it back for over 1000 yrs? Oh yes, "the context of Christianity."

Antipope Innocent II

It was? I do hope you aren't falling for the totally discredited Nineteenth Century error that the Papal bull De Sepulturis forbade dissection, because we ripped that myth apart here only a couple of months ago. Far from forbidding the dissection of corpses, the Medieval Church overturned the earlier Greek and Roman taboo over human dissection. The surgical analysis of corpses became commonplace in medieval schools of medicine and was compulsory for medical students at Montpellier by the late Thirteenth Century.
"In secret"?! What utter nonsense. Leonardo had a license to dissect cadavers from the Papal hospital - does that sound like "in secret" to you? Please try to check your facts.


Garbage. See above. What brought about the explosion in the knowledge of anatomy was the medieval revival of dissection - with the blessing of and encouragement of the Church. This revolutionised a field that had been stultified by the limited works of Galen - he'd been restricted to dissection of pigs and dogs by the social taboos of pagan Rome.

Sorry if those historical facts don't fit your prejudices.

Magdlyn

I stand corrected. I guess my teachers in art school were misinformed. I will do more research, thanks.

Do you have a link to the prev discussion? I missed that.

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Greek+medicine

Is this accurate? Was dissection made illegal to honor the dead then, and protect those that might still be alive, and to honor the bereaved families' feelings, and not b/c of the need for a whole body for xtian resurrection?

If the study of anatomy was required and dissection made legal by the 13th century, why was this not reflected in the paintings of the human body for 200 more years?

Looking around the web, I find this kind of comment more commonly:

Myth?

From the anatomy dept of the University of Bristol: