Ray Moscow

What is so complicated about the subject? Copernicus, despite his carefully cultivated relationships with powerful church officials, did not publish his work until the end of his life, reportedly only receiving the first published copy on the day of his death.

Galileo, apparently lacking such powerful friendships (he had an abbott on his side, as compared to Copernicus' archbishop friend) and tact, published works based on the same theory, backed up by his scientific observations, and got put on trial for heresy. By recanting, he got spared the death sentence but still had to endure house arrest for the rest of his life.

Do you think Copernicus would have fared better if he had acted as Galileo?

Perhaps he was not afraid of persecution by the church -- in which case, IMO, he would have been a fool.

Ray

Roger Pearse

Thanks -- I forgot the bono Christiano (by a good Christian). How are you reading divinantium.

NB 'mathematici' = astrologers, not mathematicians, tho, as the preceding quote shows.

So he is attacking astrologers and diviners here.

Roger Pearse

Ray Moscow

It's not an ad hominem. Many of my RC friends and acquaintances have precisely this approach, and defend "the church" at each and every wrong, real or alleged, no matter how ancient.

If that's the case, I'll bow out of the discussion.

Ray

Lucretius

Told you I was in a rush
Divinatium = divination I suppose
It is after all a perfectly good English word

Roger Pearse

Um, as far as I know an 'ad hominem' is where someone alleges "you only say that because you are a ..." (RC in this case); so in fact this *is* an ad hominem, classically so.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ray Moscow

Yes, you're right.

What I should have asked is whether the other posters were Catholic apologists, since with them I don't expect to find any common ground for discussion.

Ray

Roger Pearse

Looks to me like genitive plural of divinans, the present participle of divino, so perhaps 'divinings'. But I don't have any of my books here, and perhaps there is a late usage here. Anyone?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Antipope Innocent II

Your first piece of evidence is Andrew Dickson White's piece of 1898 polemic. That's the very work that propogated this nonsense about De Sepultris in the first place, as I note above. So you don't want to use Catholic apologist sites (fair enough), but you're happy to use a Nineteenth Century zealot who cites no sources to back his claims and give no evidence to support them? He just says that De Sepultris was interpreted that way and you believe him because you want to. That's not evidence.


Your second attempt at proof is a generalist book (though thankfully one published in the last 100 years this time) that also gives no evidence of De Sepultris being interpreted in this way, the author just says it was. Then he quotes a book from 1668 that also says it was. And that's by Joseph Glanvill - a Seventeenth Century English Protestant clergyman who, apart from being highly eccentric in other ways, was a rabid anti-Catholic and critic of scholasticism. We're meant to take him seriously as an accurate source of information?

That, at least, is a recent book that can he taken seriously. But you seem to have ignored the paragraphs that come before the mention of De Sepultris :

Did you even read that page? It's talking about how dissection was part of the study of anatomy revived in the Middle Ages. All you seem to have noticed is the one line that says that Boniface's bull "had a chilling effect on the spread of dissection in northern Europe" but (i) that's in the context of the revival of dissection in southern Europe after centuries of neglect and (ii) it actually gives no evidence that Boniface's edict was the reason the practice of dissection didn't catch on in northern Europe until later.

So as an attempt to show that the Church stifled anatomy by restricting dissection, your posting of those links failed pretty badly. The first two are plain nonsense and the last one argues precisely the opposite (remember that those universities it mentions were overseen by the Church and made up of churchmen).

Sixteen years after De Sepultris Mondino dei Luzzi wrote his manual on human dissection, Anatomica, which was to be the standard text on the subject for the next two hundred years. It was based on his extensive study of dissected human corpses. Not long after Boniface's bull Guy de Chauliac made attendance at dissections obligatory for all students of medicine at the medical school of Montpellier, and this was while the papacy was resident in Avignon, just down the road.

Yet you're trying to use the links above to argue the Church restricted dissection?!

Sorry, but this is crap. Even one of your own links says it's crap.

I can't speak for anyone else on this thread, but I'm an atheist with no love of the Catholic Church or any religion. But I have a great regard for history. I don't like it when Christians try to warp history to fit their agendas and I have no more love for atheists who do the same. There are plenty real things for which to beat Christianity without having to make crap up.

WishboneDawn

And you imagine this is simply because he was afraid of the church? Could you provide some support for that? The events of a century later are not support.

An example of a (from what I've read) fairly conventional veiw of the matter from Wikipedia...



Yes. Copernicus was writing a century earlier and the church was a different political beast. He also wasn't burdened by the lack of tact that Galileo was. Galileo did have permission to publish afterall. If the issue was simply heliocentrism he shouldn't have had that to begin with. Certainly he was treading on thin ice but it wasn't his theory that tipped the balance.


BTW, I'm not RC either.

Lógos Sokratikós

Ok, even though my idea was disregarded by the OPer, I'm going ahead with it anyway.

Criticisms and/or further additions to the list, folks?