Bede

NOGO, you are so full of shit. You had never even heard of the Formula of Concorde until you read <a href="http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov/johannes.html" target="_blank">this site</a> which comes top of a Google search for Kepler.

Kepler is renouned for being highly religious, wanted to be a minister, devoted his life to God, was driven by his religion to do his science and is often held up (by Feyerabend for instance) as an example of the irrationality of science. And no one excommunicated him for any scientific ideas, or as far as I can tell, for any other reason.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

NOGO

Kepler was accused of Heresy because he wrote that planet orbits were helliptical and not circular.

The Formula of Concorde is a anti-science piece of religious trash and Kepler was excomunicated for not agreeing to it. He preferred to remain outside the church rather than submit.

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

NOGO

Geocentricism means that the earth is at the centre.
The Bible does imply that the earth is flat but it also says that the stars were created to shed light upon the earth. It also says that the sun and moon were created so that we can tell the seasons. The earth was the centre of creation, heaven above and hell below etc.
That all sounds like geocentricism to me.

You don't know what you are talking about. His means of measurements were crude but his formulation of the problem was entirely correct. This is from memory ...
His basic premise was that the earth was a sphere. He then proceeded to measure a distance and the angular difference (sun at noon) which this distance gave. He assumed that the sun's rays were parallel. He then used a simple geometrical formula which relates pairs of congruent triangles.

As I said we can reproduce his method even today. The method is sound. the measurements were crude.
The method shows understanding and is what matters here. The method is what science is all about. Got that, Bede.


These people were missing something ... it was faith in a dogmatic religion which teaches that faith is everything and rational thinking can only drive you astray. Riiiight!

Wrong! Oppression is indeed universal and Christianity did not change that. But the Christian chuches not only wanted to control what you did, they also wanted to control what you believed just like communism.

What you need to clarify is what do you mean by "in the same situation"

Africa did not have the Roman empire which gave europe a common language. This is just an example of the differences. Weather has something to do with it as well and the economy of the continent related to that.

You are making a bold claim which I know cannot be substantiated. It is just wishful thinking.

Religion has been a ball and chain to every people in the world and Christianity is no exception.

Bede, no amount of insults will make you right..

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

Ron Garrett

Okay, sorry, but I have to say it...DUH! You're talking about a period when metpahysics and physics were largely identical pursuits. It's like trying to make something remarkable of the fact that medieval barbers also had an interest in medicine.

lpetrich

The reason that Bede does not claim Pythagoras as a hero was because Pythagoras had been a Hellenic pagan and not an Xian. Indeed, all the Greek proto-scientist philosophers had been at least nominal Hellenic pagans. Simply read the Hippocratic Oath for one very clear example.

And Pythagoras had indeed founded an amusing "scientific" religion. But his followers had the honesty to recognize the existence of some Satanic Verses: irrational numbers. I don't recall anyone being executed for revealing this discovery, but someone who revealed it did get shipwrecked -- and this shipwreck was attributed to some deity getting pissed at this revelation.

However, he had used the correct method.

Those who got the "right" answer did NOT get it from studying the Bible, which supports not only geocentrism, but also flat-earthism. If they had any inspiration, it was from those aforementioned Hellenic pagans.

And I think it reasonable to conclude that Aristarchus had come to support heliocentrism -- he had calculated the relative sizes of the Sun, Earth, and Moon, and found that the Sun was much larger than the Earth. Leading to the conclusion that it was more reasonable for the Sun to be stationary than the Earth.

lpetrich

Tell that to our good friend Radorth, who claims that True Christianity died with Constantine and was restored only in the 18th century.

In fact, pagan learning was often considered very suspicious, because it was associated with all those false gods of Mt. Olympus.

Although there was some of that, there was even more preservation of classical texts in the Islamic world.

Seems as if some philosophers were inventing some theological pretext for being independent of theology.

I make that comment because the Christian Church's heroes, Jesus Christ and all those saints, have mainly been celebrated for working miracles, not for recognizing the lawfulness of nature and using it to their advantage. And the cult of saints and relics took on absurd proportions in the Middle Ages. To this day, the Church insists that to be recognized as a saint, one must be able to work miracles -- even though the miracles attributed to recent would-be saints are remarkably lame by the standards of some medieval-saint miracles.

Bede conveniently leaves out the question of revelation as a source of knowledge.

Seems like they were simply inventing some theological pretext for doing science.

Galileo would go further by proposing an early version of Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria; he did not see science is a form of theology.

Radorth

At which time the Christian advances REALLY took off. But that does not mean Bede is wrong, particularly if he can show non-Christians did less. Your only argument is "well yeah but everybody was a Christian- that's why." Rather pathetic I think. And if Christianity is such a ball and chain, how come the Russians lost the arms, political and economic races, and now permit the Gospel to be freely preached? What exactly have we learned from them or any other atheist society?

Radorth

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

NOGO

Russia was a Christian country up to 1917. It was also pretty much a feudal society. The communist ideal was born in Christian europe and probably came from the NT where the apostles expected everyone to bring all their belongings to them for sharing according to need. Two people were in fact killed by God for not sharing ALL that they had.

What have we learned?
We have learned that the ideal society that the apostles tried to created in Acts does not work.

NOGO

Yes and here is the proof.

Matthew 10:5-6
These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

A clear command not to go to the Gentiles.

In acts starting in Acts 10:10 Peter falls in a trance and has a vision. He later concludes that the vision is about going to bring the word to the Gentiles.

In Acts 10:28-29 Peter says that he should not associate with Gentiles but that God told him otherwise, ie a reference to his vision.

Peter concludes in verses 34 and 35
Peter said: "I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.

Note the word "now".

The others who were with Peter were surprized (verse 45)

When still other believers heard that the word of God was given to the Gentiles they complained and ask for an explanation Acts 11:1-3

This is Peter's explanation Acts 11:15-18
"And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning. "And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' "Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?" When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, "Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life."

Acts 14:27
When they had arrived and gathered the church together, they began to report all things that God had done with them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.

Acts 15:7
After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.

God made a choice that by Peter's mouth the Gentiles would receive the word. Note that although in 11:15-18 makes a reference to what Jesus said he makes NO reference that Jesus told him to go to the Gentiles. This happened after Jesus' death and was revealed by God himself to Peter.

So if Jesus saved the whole world his disciples certainly missed the message.

Therefore the answer to your question is that Jesus in GJohn is directed to Jews alone.

Ron Garrett

So is Algebra a function of being Moslem? Geometry a function of being pagan? Nuclear power a function of being Jewish? You really are denser than osmium.

Oh let's see. First orbital satellite - USSR
First man in space - USSR
First Venus probe - USSR
First full employment program - USSR
Health care for all - USSR
Advanced education on merit - USSR

Now that they have come over to your way of thinking they have uncontrolled crime, unemployment, no health care, crubling schools, etc. And keep in mind, it took the most prosperous and wealthy nation in the world, the US, to spend itself into 6 trillion debt, no health care for millions, crumbling infrastructure, crumbling schools, rich getting richer and poor getting poorer, all to cause the Soviets to spend themselves into poverty. Hardly a ringing endorsement of either system of its leaders.

What grade are you in?

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Garrett ]</p>