Echo

What about the ancient Greeks?

Hobbs

Damn, you beat me to it.

But I can add: if that is a Christian idea, why did it take over 1500 years for anyone to do anything with the idea, and why was it shortly after ancient Greek thought was reintroduced to the Christian world (which had lost it during the Dark Ages), and the rather humanistically oriented Renaissance, that this idea took hold?

[ March 06, 2002: Message edited by: Hobbs ]</p>

Mountainbike Racer

The only possible way he could have figured out relativity is by praying to Jesus.

cjr1851

Thanks OutFag, I'd heard as much as I quoted but I didn't know that detail.

cjr

Hobbs

To add further to this point, Christianity itself is to a significant extent an ancient Greek idea. "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the word was with God, and the word was God." The divine Logos. Straight out of 1st century neo-Platonism. The writer of John was at least as much a disciple of Plato as he was a disciple of Jesus.

I've said before that if you take Plato (along with Greek mystery religions and other such stuff) in one hand and Moses in the other and smush them together, you'd get Paul and the New Testament.

Walross

Some of the smartest guys ever have been xians, including Newton, Kepler, Copernicus and Galileo. I may not agree with them about everything, but I sure as hell admire them. Regards,

Walross

DMB

Newton was an extremely heterodox xian and had to hide his beliefs to keep his job at Cambridge.

But surely the point is that pre-Darwin, theism made a lot more sense than it does now.

uhcord

I am quite sure that if those old 'smartest guys' had the knowledge and technology of today, they would not have been xian.

Shoot, it would even be safe to say (though not entirely fact) that they only proclaimed to be xian so that they would not be put to death for their studies.

Anyways, it is not like they had many options in the religion department back then. I think it is better to look at the latest 'smartest guys' and to take a look at there religion (like Einstein).

Walross

My point was that intelligence and rationality don't necessarily go hand in hand. Often, but not always.

Kepler was a devout protestant who had some pretty nutty ideas about the way the universe worked. His 3 laws of planetary motion only came as a result of the other things that he spent his entire life trying (and failing) to prove. Copernicus enjoyed a position with the catholic church, so I don't think he was merely paying lip service to xianity (though I could be wrong).

In any case, even in today's world there are plenty of very intelligent, otherwise rational people who are xian. Simply being mistaken doesn't make a person unworthy of respect IMHO (being willfully blind, however, is another story...).

Regards,

Walross

owlafaye

Einstein was definitely not a Christian.

As to pointing out brillant men in the past as Christian, you might remember; the death penalty was imposed on non-believers or heretics.

As to what was known then and what is known now...any sane, rational, sensible person of the past would certainly not be a Christian in this enlightened age.

religion is a mental illness. This "normative" appelation on widespread behavior taken individually would indicate insanity.

Controlling the insanity of Christians is becoming less of a chore today. Those that fall away from the ignorance of Christanity leave behind those of lesser intellect. The net effect is that Christian intelligence levels sink slowly. This is evidenced in the new crop of idiots, fanatics, zealots, small minded, confused and uneducated "Christians" that have flooded onto the web.

Fortunately, this makes them easier to track. I am glad to see that they are being tracked and look forward to Government doing their part to keep a close eye on these people.

This type lot is exactly where Islamic Terrorists come from.

We are talking looneys here folks.

owl