Radorth

I recommend you produce a complete quote, before Daggah sees the above and calls you a liar.

Rad

wade-w

In the middle ages, European mathematicians refused to adopt the concept of 0 as a number, because it was used by muslims. I would call that hindrance.

As to Augustine, he also said that mathematicians are in league with the devil.

Opera Nut

"The Church says the Earth is Flat, but I have seen the Shadow on the Moon, and it is Round; and I have more Faith in a Shadow on the Moon than in the Church." --Ferdinand Magellan


The Catholic Church barbecued Giordano Bruno.

They imprisoned Kepler's mother for being a witch, because she told him stories of going to the moon, which motivated him to come up with elliptical orbits for the planets, instead of crystal spheres. (Watch Cosmos Episode 3, where Kepler despairs of finding the secrets of astronomy.)

They condemned Galileo as a heretic. They did not admit that Galileo was right about the Copernican world view until just a few years ago.

The history of Catholicism and science is a very tainted one; silencing, excommunicating, murdering. How dare Kepler say that the earth is not the center of the solar system?

Now, if you want a religion that is full of great scientists and scholars, and overachievers in general, grossly out of proportion to their actual numbers, try Judaism.

I do believe that Christians have been jealous of the Jewish educational emphasis and accomplishments, and have been unable to understand how any community of non-Christians could flourish, be successful in all ways, and be much more educated than the average Christian.

Einstein, Feynman, Sagan, Bohr, Heisenberg, Weisskopf, Salk, Sabin, Rosalind Franklin(discoverer of the Helical DNA structure, whose X-ray crystallography pictures were stolen and given to Watson and Crick), Freud, Marx, etc.etc.......


I almost became a Reform Jew a few years ago, because I am very well educated and am sick of Christians who say "Goddiddit, I believe it, that's it" and think the job of a Christian university is to indoctrinate with dogma, not to teach critical thinking skills.

The goals of a right wing Christian college are totally antithetical to the goals of a real university, which are to stimulate discussion of ideas and debate and critical thinking to equip its students for post college life.

If you're a Christian, you don't want your kids exposed to other ideas that might make them question their faith. My parents would no more have sent me to a narrow-minded Bible-thumpin' college like Baylor than they would have sent the dog to school there. I went to a very good Presbyterian college and thoroughly enjoyed it.

lpetrich

wade-w:
In the middle ages, European mathematicians refused to adopt the concept of 0 as a number, because it was used by muslims. I would call that hindrance.

How was this supposed to the case?

However, I agree that European mathematicians were far behind in appreciating the mathematical meaningfulness of negative numbers -- it took at least a couple of centuries, followed by a few centuries to accept the meaningfulness of imaginary numbers. And the names of both reflect

By comparison, consider the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta, who lived ~600-670 CE -- he was very aware of the properties of negative numbers, which he called "debts" as opposed to "fortunes" or "goods".

One curiosity is why ancient Greek mathematicians never discovered zero or the negative numbers, despite their other mathematical discoveries.

As to Augustine, he also said that mathematicians are in league with the devil.

Where?

But I do know that original Protestant Martin Luther called reason "the Devil's whore". He was evidently a strong believer in Faith with a capital F.

lpetrich

(on Catholics and Radorth considering them fake Xtians...)

Radorth:
I never said they were not Christians. That is not for me to judge.

Except that you have done essentially that in some previous postings. I'm simply pointing out that you've been taking contradictory positions that just happen to be convenient for winning arguments.

Your personal vendetta has never been more apparent than on this thread, nor the irrationality of your thinking.

Except that I've been using one of your pet arguments against you, by pointing out the accomplishments of various Catholics, and you cannot hide your expressed opinions of Catholicism.

How did people who believed in "miracles and magical thinking" manage to outshine the rest of the world in so many ways, including science?

Even great scientists can be superstitious. Consider what religion the scientists of the Greco-Roman world believed in. They were at least nominal believers in Hellenic paganism, which you undoubtedly consider even more absurd than Catholicism.

If they believed in a religion like that, how could they have accomplished anything?

How did Augustine manage to postulate an alternative to literal creation if he was so intellectually burdened?

That guy was a Catholic. Radorthianity did not exist back then.

And allegorical interpretation is a time-honored way of waving away awkward parts of sacred books, so what else is new?

How was it Bacon employed the "scientific method" 300 years before it had a name? Was he a closet atheist or something?

Sir Francis Bacon was apparently a country-club Anglican who had to deny that he was an atheist.

Much like contemporary Thomas Hobbes.

Even if all the world was under some sort of vaguely defined religious hindrance, then it seems Christianity had a liberating effect at least comparatively.

Except that the same could be said about Hellenic paganism and Islam. Furthermore, modern science got started over a millenium after Constantine made Xtianity the official religion of the Empire. And science never advanced beyond pagan levels at any time in the history of the Byzantine Empire. But if Catholics are fake Xtians, then Eastern Orthodoxers are also, I suppose.

Furthemore, science developed in a bottom-up instead of in a top-down way -- it was not commanded by the presumed experts on Xtianity. Were Copernicus and Galileo commissioned by the Pope to try to resolve the puzzle of how the planets move?

And I might argue that since folks were wont to believe something out of ignorance, then Christianity was in perspective the more intellectually liberating thing to believe.

Which sect of it?

Oh wait. "If Pat Robertson had his way, Stephan Hawking would not be allowed to do his work."

Radorth feels oh so sorry for Pat Robertson.

Except that Pat Robertson considers natural explanations for the origin of of the Universe to be un-Xtian, and he would not allow Stephen Hawking to do what he considers un-Xtian research.

lpetrich

Opera Nut:
They condemned Galileo as a heretic. They did not admit that Galileo was right about the Copernican world view until just a few years ago.

That's an interesting question -- why did the Church get worked up over Galileo? The Church had been content to allow the presentation of heliocentrism as "only a theory" -- and early Protestants like Martin Luther and John Calvin were, if anything, worse.

In fact, I wonder why those theologians simply did not laugh away heliocentrism as too silly to be worth discussing.

The theory I like best was that Galileo somehow got the goats of certain high Church officials -- he had had a prickly personality. Which ought to be very embarrassing.

But the Church seems to have gotten a big enough bloody nose over heliocentrism to make it unwilling to fight other discoveries in the centuries to come.

(Opera Nut on Jews being educated out of proportion to their numbers...)

I almost became a Reform Jew a few years ago, because I am very well educated and am sick of Christians who say "Goddiddit, I believe it, that's it" and think the job of a Christian university is to indoctrinate with dogma, not to teach critical thinking skills.

This makes me wonder where all the non-fundie Xtians go -- why are they so unwilling to challenge the more fundie ones of them?

Willian Edelen in Sin of Silence claims that many modernist/liberal clergypeople refuse to preach much of what they learn in seminary -- because that would alienate their flocks.

There are some exceptions, like Bishop Spong, but they are exceptions, pure and simple.

hezekiah jones

[derailleur]

Radorth
I recommend you produce a complete quote, before Daggah sees the above and calls you a liar.

Certainly.

Pardon me, you weren't referring to the Constitution itself, but rather to some Radorth-defined adversary's interpretation of the establishment clause. Pretty damn close however, under the circumstances.

Since the establishment clause contains the expression "no law," one wonders what else but a "pedantically legalistic" analysis one might apply to interpret the expression "no law."

"Hey look here - it says 'no law'!"

"Yeah, but you're a pedantic legalist. What it really means is some laws. Only a pedantic legalist would suggest 'no law' was the intent of the Framers."

Of course accusations of pedantic legalism might have been levelled by ancient wandering holy men against contemporary Levitic anal retentives, but it is beyond silly to transfer such an application to a reader of the term "no law" in the context of the First Amendment.

[/derailleur]

Bede

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Opera Nut

"The Church says the Earth is Flat, but I have seen the Shadow on the Moon, and it is Round; and I have more Faith in a Shadow on the Moon than in the Church." --Ferdinand Magellan

This quote is a fake. The church never at any time said the earth was flat.

"The Catholic Church barbecued Giordano Bruno."

Not for his scientific views but for trying to start a new religion.

"They imprisoned Kepler's mother for being a witch, because she told him stories of going to the moon, which motivated him to come up with elliptical orbits for the planets, instead of crystal spheres. (Watch Cosmos Episode 3, where Kepler despairs of finding the secrets of astronomy.)"

Cosmos is largely fiction. Kepler's mother was not a scentific influence on him although she was accuswed of witchcraft. Kepler's inspiration was his Christianity as he states over and over again in his writings.

"They condemned Galileo as a heretic. They did not admit that Galileo was right about the Copernican world view until just a few years ago."

At the time of his trial, Galileo lost the scientific argument. Ipetrich has learnt something from his time here so have a look at his post.

"The history of Catholicism and science is a very tainted one; silencing, excommunicating, murdering. How dare Kepler say that the earth is not the center of the solar system?"

Kepler never got into any trouble for saying the earth was the centre of the universe.

Opera Nut, be careful of spouting off about what you know nothing whatsoever about. You end up looking rather foolish.

Wade-w, same for you. There was no reuctance to accept zero on account of its Arab origins. Augustine condemned magicians not mathematicians as anyone with the slightest knowledge of Latin would tell you.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

keyser_soze

So bede;
Basically you are telling us that the church has never been against free and scientific thought or pursuits? Is this what you are saying?

My second question is, if you were encouraged, strongly, to learn and accept greek mythology and it's belief system which relies on you basing your belief on something by FAITH vs. critical reasoning, would you consider it a hindrance to science or critical thinking(a component of science)?

Are you really saying that religion has not oppressed the pursuit of knowledge?

Tyler Durden

The greeks held a different notion of fate. They called it "moira" which means destiny, the cosmic determinism that has no ultimate meanting or purpose, the inexplicable. Ancient Greeks saw fate blind, inscrutable, and inescapable. Since the manifestations of fate in greek mythology, Klotho, Lakhesis, and Atropos, the Moirai, was superior to the Greek gods, fate was not beholden to any rational order or a divine will. Ergo, the tragedic plays of the ancient Greeks reflected their concept of meaninglessness of existence and of the nature of fate.

However, the people of the book, the jewish culture, had the obverse notion of fate, which was subservient to the will of their God, YHVH. Christians codified the Judaic concept further, into "divine providence." To this day, we think Fate is something purposeful, teleological because it serves a greater end.