Freethought & Rationalism Archive

RAFH · 02-01-2007, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephen T-B

An impersonal god which is also inexplicable is pointless, isn't it? Except as a device to help explain the Universe, something else which is inexplicable.

So now we have two inexplicable things instead of just one.
Is this progress?

If we don't know the answer to something, why invent something else to "explain" it which only deepens the original mystery?

Well, I can suggest an answer to that: a really deep metaphysical mystery which will for ever defy explanation is more interesting (to some people) than a physical one which is amenable to an explanation, eventually.

It also allows some folks to claim without rebuttal they have the 'hotline' to his holiness and can intercede either for or against whomever. That and such notions as Divine Right of Nobility, justification of pillage and enslavement, taxation, etc, etc. Basically, the kingpin for a lot of very successful scams. "God says I am right and if you don't agree, he says I can burn your ass at the stake. OK, any objections?"

hsweet · 02-01-2007, 09:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RAFH

Dante's Inferno as an example of how close-minded and irrational people were during the middle ages, you have to be kidding. Think about it, Inferno is a part of what opus?
DING! Times up! The correct answer is "Divine Comedy" It was a comment on current politics and culture.

Quote:

According to Wikipedia:

Dante called the poem "Comedy" (the adjective "Divine" added later in the 16th century) because poems in the ancient world were classified as High ("Tragedy") or Low ("Comedy"). Low poems had happy endings and were of everyday or vulgar subjects, while High poems were for more serious matters. Dante was one of the first in the Middle Ages to write of a serious subject, the Redemption of man, in the low and vulgar Italian language and not the Latin language as one might expect for such a serious topic.

So the word 'comedy' had a different meaning then.

Quote:

And yes, Dante himself was a very open-minded man. Most of the elite were. The rest of the populace were illiterate, by design, to keep them subservient with as little effort as possible.

Dante may have been 'open minded' and rational but with a baseline world view based on Christian theology. And that is not a criticism of him or anyone else living in those times. It simply means that we are all prisoners, so to speak, of the common thinking of our times.

We all tend to accept our view as fundamental and project it to all other societies and all other times without even giving any thought to how the views of our own times and our own society came to be and that those views are general societal views and not views that we personally invented.

Quote:

I suppose you are of the notion most of Europe thought the earth was flat during the middle ages, that's a misconception formed mostly during the early 19th century. See: http://www.bede.org.uk/flatearth.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

and plenty others. The dark ages weren't so dark as simply very violent with a lot of illiteracy. It was every man for himself and as such, very little knowledge was gained and a lot of documentation was lost.

Well, considering that the Greeks, at least some of them, had it figured out, I would suspect that the knowledge did linger to some extent. But if I were to take a public opinion pole during the medieval period, I'd expect that the majority to vote for flat. Amongst the few intellectuals, I'd expect more would favor round. But all of this is just a test of what scientific knowledge existed that was independent of church proclamations. Few, back then would likely make any statements that countered church doctrine and few had a basis to make any challenges.

FFT · 02-01-2007, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RAFH

As for 10 dimensional universe, I recommend the following website
http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php
as an excellent description in lay terms about how and why there are 10 dimensions. Then again, I have it on good authority those 10 dimensions are actually 12 if one defines a dimension as a descriptor of positional state. By this thought, we live in 6 dimensions: x (length), y (height), z (depth), t (time), orientation about the z axis in the xy plane and orientation about the x axis in the yz plane.

If one included the expansion of space, that would be 13.

Just as a heads up, tenthdimension.com is pseudoscientific garbage. It doesn't come close to describing "how and why there are 10 dimensions," it's just a new Time Cube without the clearly insane ramblings. It doesn't describe any hows or whys, it's just an imaginitive way of looking at things with absolutely no science supporting it.

Easier way to see it: think "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" only about dimensions instead of quantum physics.

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