Clivedurdle

Going back to the what if evolution had been thought of in the eighteenth century, the problem with that is that Darwin was primarily a geologist who recognised his great debt to Lyell, whose book he had with him on the voyage of the Beagle.

So evolution could not have been worked out without uniformitarianism having already demolished the flood and allowing a much longer time span for the age of the earth.

in Voyages, Darwin notes beaches on the tops of cliffs and if I remember correctly, saw this happen to a beach in Chile after an earthquake. He also saw a large fossil skeleton half out of a cliff face on a river bend - a problematic finding, like seashells on mountaintops - noted by Da Vinci as well but explained by him in terms of the earth being like the body and having circulatory systems, which was due to the strong Church support for the humeric system and again resisting open thought about issues because of the underlying belief that Adam had perfect knowledge and the academics' task was to uncover this perfect knowledge, which explains why the monks kept the old books because they thought the older the book the nearer it was to the original truth!!

Now if Steno had not become a priest and had continued his anatomy and geology then maybe someone would have worked it out earlier, but again, this is about pieces of the jigsaw falling into place, not about institutions like the church causing it all. If they did it was not intentional!

I'm sorry, it looks to me as if Steno was threatened or blackmailed by the church.

Bede, I don't appreciate "rubbish" and I think I have said this before, it feels as if you are quoting historians who have not thought through the implications of living in a christian culture for at least a millenia and a half on our thinking. The institution christianity does not feel as if it is being dissected as openly as it might, much like earlier examples of resistance to anatomy...

Bede

Could I see some documentation for this claim? I find it odd that they threaten and blackmail him, then make him a missionary bishop who has to be someone you can rely on to keep the faith in hostile territory.

Clive, I respect your trying to get to grips with this. I'm also sorry if I give some ideas short thrift, but look at what I have to deal with in this thread!

The trouble is the historians I am quoting have a lifetime of experience in this field. I have more than a few years myself. It is all very well 'thinking' or 'feeling' but that has to be backed up with scholarship. For instance, what early resistance to anatomy are you taking about? I've already explained why your example of Leonardo is invalid. Of course, human dissection was a matter for debate and there were people against it. After all, it was banned by pagan Rome and never happened (as far as we can tell) in Islam. If you dig enough, I'm sure you'll be able to find quotations from Christians who disapproved of it. What you cannot do, though, is claim the church tried to prevent human dissection. When dissection started in the 13th century, the Church was still enough of a power in northern Italy to have put a stop to it. It didn't. It never even tried even when it directly ruled the universities of Bologna and Pisa.

Dissection, Vesalius and the inqusition, scientists burnt at the stake, the flat earth, Copernicus fearing the church, the church trying to ban zero, Christians trying to wipe out pagan science, roger Bacon persecuted for his science: all these examples that are trotted out are well documented as false. Can't you see a pattern emerging here? How many trees have to be cut down before you stop seeing a forest? Mr Lawyer is cross that I have suggested that the conflict myth is valuable to atheists which is why they try to hang onto it. Trouble is, the evidence is so clearly against, the consensus of modern historians so clear, that I can only assume it is emotional attachment which prevents people from accepting it. The Church 'must' be against science and so any evidence to the contrary 'must' be wrong.

FWIW, that Christianity didn't hold back science does not mean it is true. Sometimes, I feel the desire the blacken Christianity's name and blame it for everything shows a serious lack of security on the part of atheists. As if, cutting Christianity a little slack would invalidate atheism in some way. Perhaps Voltaire's attitude is the more healthy one!

Best wishes

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

GakuseiDon

PL, how many books on science were ever on the banned list? Any idea which ones they were?

cognac

Bede, I know this topic has been discussed before. But a point of clarification: is your contention that Christianity (however that is defined) is a necessary condition for science (however that is defined) to develop, such that it could never have arisen in any context without it, or that some ideas present in Christian thought are concommitant with some ideas that lead to scientific thinking?

Bede

My own view is the later. You could say that Christianity supplied some ideas that were necessary but it was not necessary for those ideas to come from Christianity. On this thread, though, I am only trying to argue that Christianity did not actually hold back science.

Best wishes

Bede

cognac

Thanks for the clarification. I understand your purpose in this thread. I'm very much sympathetic with getting the facts right and I appreciate your attention to historical scholarship on the subject.

Clivedurdle

Personal comment!

It looks to me that Steno withdrew psychologically from the very real conflicts he saw between what he found in the world and the religious beliefs he took up. He was an eminent candidate for the church, highly intelligent, a real catch - that's why they are talking about making him a saint, but what miracles did he carry out after he was dead?

Is there a way of claiming him for "those dreadful hammers" and keeping him from the benighted priests?

He gave up his scientific work after his conversion to catholicism. Catholicism has always given a complete world for believers, Italy especially, with its baptistries, main church where you lead your life and then campanille where you aspire to heaven, an intellectual and artistic world that is fantastic.

But maybe it is all a dream, where people who ask questions are not respected and strongly controlled.

I note you did not respond to my comments about why the monks kept libraries - from superstitious reasons that the truth may be found in the dusty tomes, oh, and reading glasses were very useful for the scribes to carry out their superstitious duties of copying out the sacred texts, snag is a few of them were heretical because they read and thought about those texts!

Bede

You've lost me.

Clivedurdle

I suppose my main problem with this is this thing "christianity".

I had it drilled into me it is a major error to discuss "the education system" for example, because the reality is that it is people with power doing things, not amorphous systems or "christianity".

Clivedurdle

They kept the books for superstitious reasons that they thought they were seeking out Adam's original knowledge of everything - the ancients were believed to know more than the moderns because they lived nearer to the garden of Eden!

They actively discouraged thinking about the world around them and spent their lives pooring over the dusty books - the ones going out doing things were frowned on. This belief is still around today, in the belief that academics are somehow superior to engineers, that Oxford arty types are better civil servants than red brick science types, that the dusty books with their theories about the brain being a store for semen, the earth having a circulatory system and the sun going around the earth were correct!