Toto

Hi Nomad, I don't think that "the members" indicated an unwillingness to read the book, and I don't know where you found that. As I said, so many books, so little time. It is often useful to ask around about a book and read reviews before investing the time and money in reading it, and I will be interested in what Bede reports.

For instance, on the above book you can read the Publisher's Weekly review and find out

and you can say, another god of the gaps, I'll pass on this one, if that's how you feel.

joedad

Okay Bede, I understand your position. I do not think it is valid, but I certainly understand it. And so I look forward to reading Stark.

Briefly, in my view, redefining science as you do, meaning it as a secular, modern thing, and then using the word "science" to talk about science in history, to include the Greeks and others, is just inaccurate and misleading. You may as well call automobiles transportation, and say there was no transportation in ancient Greece because chariots were coupled to horses. Sorry folks, no motors, therefore no transportation.

Humans have always been curious. Human curiosity coupled to religious belief doesn't mean there was never curiosity and or the thrill and satisfaction of discovery. What you've done is taken human curiosity, redefined it to be curiosity that is not attended by superstition and ritual, and stated that curiosity did not exist in the ancient world. Not even an argument imho.

And you may be the first genuine syncretologist I've met.

edited for clarity - joe

Bede

[offtopic]My own review of Stephen Barr. They sent me a review copy and I actually thing it's rather good.[/offtopic]

Joedad, I accept I have been very careless about my use of the word science. it is extremely hard not to do, but I will try and be more accurate in future.

Note I am only saying that modern science is not what the Greeks did and not the same subject. I am not saying they didn't study nature but that the way they did it was radically different from the bundle of axioms and ideas we call science today.

Once again, sorry for the confusion.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Layman

I recently received Barr's book and have started reading it. Setting aside substance for a moment, the book is well written. One of the more readable popular books I have read by a scientist, in fact.

I've only begun reading it, but appreciated this insight, which seems relevant to your Bede's thread:

Stephen M. Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, page 5.

gregor

Bede

While I read your posts in the early thread and read them again, here. They are all just a series of either disconnected statements and assertions or special pleading.


By way of example, you state that Xianity had an omnimax god. And "[b]ecause they knew this, Cop and Keplar knew that the world system was more elegant than the one they had inherited."

You'll pardon me if I don't accept that you know what Cop and Keplar knew or believed. You'll pardon me if I think that the astronomer who determined heliocentrism 2,000 years before them thought he had an elegant system. You'll pardon me if I suppose it was these gentlemen were geniuses first, and Xians by luck of birth location, second.

And I think you have acknowledged the indefensibility of your position several times. For example, you state - after your list of justifications, "Chances are that none of them are [unique to Xianity] and Judaism probably has all of them." A fair an honest admission.


Oh, and no true scotsman?

"While Christians populated the work with spirits and demons, they were not running the show. Furthermore, good Christians could not get involved with them."

Are you saying that while the clergy preached spirits and demons, and while the laity believed in spirits and demons, the good (read true) Christians (read jesuits) did not.

joedad

Excellent. And of course I will hold you to that.

gregor

Is this an example of Barr's scholarship?

"It is not an accident that as traditional Christian belief has weakened in Western society in the last few decades there has
been a recrudesence of belief in the 'occult'."


Hmmm, smells of propaganda.

Llyricist

Smells a lot worse than that , or were you just being tactful? I'd be interested in seeing the data he has to back up that assertion.

recrudesence?? who talks like that except to impress people?

Nomad

I understand the issue of time constraints, since I never have the time to read all of the books that interest me either. But my question came about as I read through the thread, and excepting joedad I have seen a general unwillingness to actually read the book. Instead the tactic has been to throw out the standard objections and questions that I would expect the author to attempt to answer, and if he does a poor job of it, then so be it. But to remain confirmed in one's prejudices, and refuse to even entertain the possibility that the history of modern science and Christianity are inextricably linked continues to strike me as close minded.

I elected to get this book based on a review that I read in First Things magazine (which is not entirely positive on some points), as well as Bede's recommendation.

I do not see Barr arguing from God of the Gaps, but my interest is in reading what he has to say, as he is a scientist, and I am not, and with luck I will learn something in the process.

Nomad

Layman

You do not see any correlation between the weakening of Christian influence in the West and the rise of alternatives like Wicca and the New Age movement?

I hardly think its a controversial or extraordinary claim.