NOGO

Wrong! Christians inherited geocentricism from the Bible.

NOGO

NOGO:
I credit the people of Europe for it. The fact that they were Christians was a hinderance rather than a benefit.

Bede:
Then you are a rascist. To suggest these people were so clever by nature that they even managed to out wit their own culture is blatant rascism. Clearly you think non-whites are not bright enough.

NOGO:
I will ignore the personal attack. Every people has it's character and interests. You cannot deny this even Metacrock admits to it when he says that western europeans as compare to eastern europeans were more doers than contemplators.

Are you saying that if Christianity has spread to Africa then science and technology would have developed there first?

This is what you need to demonstrate.
The "mix" is just too easy. You need to show that it was not the people, nor the particular circumstances, etc. but something in Christianity.

You are just assuming or wishing that Christianity contributed to science. Success attracks. I see this at work as well. When a project is a success everybody wants to be seen as contributors, even people who had nothing to do with it.

The basic error that you are making goes something like this. When we talk about witch hunts and persecution of heretics you blame not Christianity but the individuals. For science you want the reverse, it is not the individuals but Christianity itself which is to be credited.

I will read your link.

NOGO

I am glad to see that you can recognize a religious fanatic when you see one. Perhaps one day you will realise that it was religious fanacism which converted europe.

Pythagoras created a sect which believed in the transmigration of souls, and followed moral and dietary practices in order to purify the soul for its next embodiment. They also believed that the earth was spherical and rotated.

I guess in your way of thinking we can credit his religion for his mathematics and influences to Euclidian geometry.

"Eratosthenes fluked a close answer"
Bede, you are outside your field here and it shows. The important thing about Eratosthenes is not the answer but how he got to the answer. His problem is that his instruments were crude.
His approach was totally scientific and correct. We can, even today, estimate the earth's diameter using his method. I say estimate because as you know the earth is not a perfect sphere.

Euclid was probably the first to show how you can prove something with deductive arguements. His work was a major influence on mathematicians of the 19th century. The rest of the world did not have Euclid.

Bede

No, you are wrong NOGO and trying my patience. If they got it from the bible how come they believed the earth was a sphere as the bible implies it is flat? All historians of science (see Lindberg, Beginnings of Western Science and Grant, Foundations) know very well that Ptolemy and Aristotle insisted on geocentrism and this is where Christians got it from. Try to learn something, NOGO.

Wrong again - and I am well inside my field. His method involved walking about a hundred miles and pacing it out. Of course his answer was a fluke and it is remembered for happening to be close. Better methods (like calculating the distance for a tall object to disappear over the horizon) produced poorer results because they were not so lucky. That Erastothenes had a rational method matters little as it was so impractical.

Wrong yet again. Euclid was known by the Arabs, Indians and has even turned up in old chinese libraries so why did none of these people develop science? Perhaps you think they were not as clever as whites.

Actually, not true. Your error (apart from total ignorance) is to not recognise that science was unique to Western Europe while war, oppression and persecution are universals in almost every society. They do not need an explanation above human nature because they happen everywhere - science happened in one place so clearly something special needs to explain it.

As Africans are just as clever as white Europeans, in the same situation, including Christianity, they would probably have discovered the same thing. Do you think black people are not clever enough to develop science because I cannot make sense of your question any other way.

And yes, Pythagoras's religious beliefs certainly contributed to his mathematical advances.

NOGO, you clearly know nothing about this subject at all. I am sorry if I appear overbearing but it is frustatrating when someone with no reading or background in the field whatsoever, who doesn't know even the most basic of facts, pontificates like you are doing. Go away, read some books (not just the net) and get some background so you stop embarrassing yourself and your fellow infidels.

Yours

Bede

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

NOGO

Really! Why is it that I am not surprised. The This reminds me of Ben Laden. In the video when he takes credit for sept 11th he keeps saying "God be thanked" or something like that. Living in that sort of environment you are taught and really forced to think in terms of religion no matter what you do. So how do you justify interest in anything other than religion? ... you automatically atribute to religion what it is that you want to do. Simple!

What is really surprising is that you take this as evidence. So you must believe that Ben Laden is motivated by God himself since this is what he says. The rest of us will see what is really happening.

Bede: "...and think for yourself."

Wow, a Christian tell me to think for myself. I started to think for myself when I abandoned the faith. Had I been living in 1600 I would probably pretend to believe and go on with my life.

That is exactly my point, Bede. Kepler was accused of heresy because he claimed that the earth and other planets revolved around the sun in elliptical paths. He did not allow his religion to influence his science. He was a free-thinker.

Free to think for yourself ... it is so completely opposite to religion.

Just look at communism as an example.
Up unitl the fall of the USSR most people in Russia pretended to be communists. They toed the party line. The system fell apart because of the sheer number of people (including the army) who simply no longer believed. In China people will attribute all the country's successes to communism including any motive for innovation. Only a fool would take any of this seriously.

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

Bede

NOGO, no one accused Keplar of heresy. Can't you get anything right? Since you keep proving you have no idea about what you are talking about, let's leave it there.

B

K

Bede:

Maybe you should be a little more careful before claiming that others don't know anything.

Here's a link for you. Do you want others?

<a href="http://www.timezone.com/WatchForums/Ulysse_Nardin/UN_-_Trilogy_of_Time/UN_-_Trilogy_of_Time_-_Telluri/un_-_trilogy_of_time_-_telluri.shtml" target="_blank">Tellurium - Johannes Kepler</a>

Bede

Hi K,

I have to admit that this is the first I have heard about this. I will check but it looks like a poor quality web site as badly informed as NOGO. As I have repeatedly said, you have to read books and not assume you can find everything out on the net. The confusion is that Keplar was a Protestant and was sacked by various Catholic employers (I have not heard he was actually excommunicated). However, his heliocentric views never led to him being accused of heresy. I think NOGO has just got confused with Galileo.

Yours

Bede

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

Ron Garrett

I'm curious. Keplar was a protestant, trained in the protestant seminary at Adelberg, attended university at the protestant university of Tubingen where he received his MA, and professored at a protestant seminary in Graz. leaving in 1600 when all protestants were ordered to convert to Catholicism or vacate the province. In Linz, as a court official he was exempted from th Counter-Reformation decree banishing protestants from that province who would not convert. So to my knowledge he never was nor ever became a Catholic. So who excommunicated him? The Lutherans?

NOGO

Exactly!
He refused to sign the "Formula of Concord".
A mind like Kepler's would never agree to be boxed in a piece of religious trash such as this.

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