Bede

What a great big rant. Well, I suppose I should say something as we can’t have Vork thinking that if he shouts loud enough we will all be beaten into submission.

No. The big change in understanding took place in the period from 1543 (Copernicus published) to 1687 (Newton’s Principia published). During this period Christian religious fervour and the depth of Christian culture were as great as they ever were. Also, people were thinking about religion themselves rather than simply taking what the church gave them.

True, but none developed modern science.

No. All these areas have solid Christian bases. They are certainly not exclusive Christian inventions but are found alive and well in medieval society and were encouraged by the church. Freedom of thought (an anachronism, but never mind) was as fully developed in medieval Europe as anywhere else up to then while free exchange of information was institutionalised in the ius ubique docendi (the right to teach anywhere) which linked European intellectual culture together. Peer review was essential and part of the public examinations required for doctorates and other appointments. Methodological naturalism was accepted as far back as William of Conches who won the argument on secondary causes – that we should study natural causes was axiomatic to the scholastics. In short, you are wrong on all fronts.

You are wrong again. While I’d love to believe in these peaceful secular traditions, the French Revolutionary terror onwards suggests they are figments of your imagination. Our liberal societies grew out of places like Victorian England and the US where Christianity remained strong. As for science, I explained <a href="http://www.bede.org.uk/sciencehistory.htm" target="_blank">here</a> how Christianity helped (although you will insult this like you do everything else that disagrees with your narrow world view), and summarised:

“Christianity had an important impact on every step of the road to modern science. Let me now summarise exactly what they were:
The preservation of literacy in the Dark Ages
Because it is a literary religion based on sacred texts and informed by the writings of the early church fathers, Christianity was exclusively responsible for the preservation of literacy and learning after the fall of the Western Empire. This meant not only that the Latin classics were preserved but also that their were sufficient men of learning to take Greek thought forward when it was rediscovered.
The doctrine of the lawfulness of of nature
As they believed in a law abiding creator God, even before the rediscovery of Greek thought, twelfth century Christians felt they could investigate the natural world for secondary causes rather than put everything down to fate (like the ancients) or the will of Allah (like Moslems). Although we see a respect for the powers of reason by Arab scholars they did not seem to make the step of looking for universal laws of nature.
The need to examine the real world rather than rely on pure reason
Christians insisted that God could have created the world any way he like and so Aristotle's insistence that the world was the way it was because it had to be was successfully challenged. This meant that his ideas started to be tested and abandoned if they did not measure up.
The belief that science was a sacred duty
This is not so much covered in this essay, but features again and again in scientific writing. The early modern scientists were inspired by their faith to make their discoveries and saw studying the creation of God as a form of worship. This led to a respect for nature and the attempt to find simple, economical solutions to problems. Hence Copernicus felt he could propose a heliocentric model for no better reason that it seemed more elegant.”

No it wasn’t. It was the newest civilisation (remember the mass barbarian migration had only just ended) but was technologically quite advanced with the heavy plough, three field rotation, wind and water mills, mechanical clocks, eye glasses, double entry book keeping, etc. While they did not invent all these, they certainly best exploited them.

Are you so daft as to believe that the central philosophy and belief system had nothing to do with it?!? Why did it not happen in those stimulating advanced societies? Why did the Chinese think the earth was flat (and theory did, unlike Christian thinkers who are often libelled on this subject)? Why did the Indians never use their maths in the real world (unlike Christians who developed calculus)? Why did the learning of the Arabs and their Greek heritage never lead to modern science (Averroes was far more influential in Christian Europe than he ever was in his native Islamic Spain)?

No much of it was home grown. Of the inventions: eye glasses, windmills, moveable type and mechanical clocks and others were all independently invented in Christian Europe. Hardly any technology came from Arabia (rather than through it).

Byzantium was a great and learned civilisation that produced magnificent art, culture and literature. It did not develop science but might well have if it had not been on the point of irradication from the 13th century. Luckily, its legacy was carried West and came to fruition there. As for Spain and Austria, I fail to see your problem. They were not twentieth first century liberal democracies, but the cultures that produced Velaquez, Mozart, El Graeco, Miguel de Cervantes are those we owe a substantial debt to.

Wrong (but you are like a stuck record, saying the same thing over and over as if repetition will make it true). Certainly the glorious scientific achievements of Byzantium that include John Philoponus (who developed the most important criticism’s of Aristotle) are noteworthy but the Empire never had a period to develop as it was constantly trying simply to survive.

I am well aware of this, but in a short post here don’t feel it is worth covering everything. And I did not claim to be a professional – merely that I was in training to be one. At least I can read.

Those interested in reading some real history will, alas, not find all they need on the internet. However, they might consider, Edward Grant “Foundations of Modern Science”, ed Lindberg and Numbers “God and Nature”, or Jaki “The Saviour of Science”.

Yours

Bede

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

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: Bede ]</p>

Ron Garrett

Radorth:

Well, at least one of us is reading history, but I don’t think it’s you. Yours is a common misconception about the role Constantine played, one I usually hear from someone who has let their protestant minister or popular Christian author do their homework for them and never engaged the primary sources.

In point of fact Constantine actually had some moderating influence on the otherwise contentious and murderous bishops who were already plotting against and acting against each other and provoking Christian-on-Christian violence in the major cities when he “converted.” He was certainly using the church to reinforce the empire, but the reverse was also true, and the bishops just couldn’t wait to use the emperor against their competitors and did so with zeal thereafter.

While the Christian faith became the standard of the empire under Constantine, you can hardly blame him or the influx of pagans for the failings of the church, which were already apparent in the bishops and patriarchs he inherited. The influence of “pagans” was original to the churches of Asia and is visable in the epistolary literature of the New Testament.

Amongst the leaders of the church is where the problems arose. Not first among the little people. The average pagan convert was not responsible for hundreds of years of argument and violence over Marianism, the nature of God, the Trinity, the incarnation, etc. Pagan converts did not even understand these issues. This was happening at the highest levels of church leadership by the second century as the church competed with Greek philosophies on their own terms and constructed complex and conflicting theologies, soteriologies, pneumatologies and what have you to fill in the gaps.

I offered the Davis title I offered in order to help you correct your view from the actual accounts we have of the period. He uses primary sources in detail. I’m not going to argue with you about a history you clearly have not studied first hand. You are simply in error and hopefully would know this if you read the accounts of the period for yourself.

Well, we agree in part, but you are the one being simplistic. Paul and John’s letters make it plain that all was not well early on with competitions already beginning amongst early would be leaders and teachers. Heck, I’ve seen the same progress take place in the first few years of a church start-up.

The issue is that all humans are closet terrorists, and many crave unquestionable power. I know a local pastor who has gone through more assistant pastors, deacons, elders, music ministers, board members, teachers, and secretaries in the first three years of his congregation than I imagine the entire church went through in it’s first 100 years. He fired his first unpaid assistant pastor when the AP’s sermon tapes began to consistently outsell his own, and it's gone downhill from there. You would say this is human nature in play and not part of Christianity. I would counter that humans created Christianity and its flaws reflect its creator: men.

Monarchical monotheism attracts the power hungry and the absolutist with promises of incontrovertible power over men, earthly or eternal glory and the security of incontrovertible truth, with a little righteousness of the persecuted thrown in. It may have little to do with Jesus personally, but it has a lot to do with the nature of monarchical religions in general. Dead bishops, covered in their own blood and entrails, mobbed, burned alive, on the order of other bishops, is the result, and this clearly is not because of Constantine, nor is there any reason to believe that the converts before Constantine were somehow more theologically tutored and spiritually pure.

You have read the letter to the Galatians? Start at Chapter 1 verse 6 and read the rest of the letter. Paul’s own words reflect the opposition he faced at various points in his career. As for recognition, Paul asserts that his apostleship and gospel did not come from any man, so your recognition or anyone else’s of his apostleship is hardly at issue or relevant. If God conferred his apostleship then Jehovah or Jesus may come and testify on Paul’s behalf. Clearly, the whole Galatian letter is an apologetic for Paul’s apostleship unless every major Christian scholar and commentator is wrong and you’re right. Of course! Silly me. I should have known that.

1 John 2 also deals with the competitions arising amongst various views and teachings. Perhaps you can read the epistolary literature as projecting one big conflict-free homogenized Christian community, but no one else on earth does.

Your divisions of church history are simplistic.

And Christianity had 1500 years for its reign of terror. Comparatively, Communism has fewer sins to answer for.

That's because unlike you theists we simply don’t feel free to invent another one we like better.

Bede

Actually, Ron, Nogo and Vork are all making up an alternative history because they don't like the real thing.

Ron, while I appreciate that Radorth is looking at matters in a rather one dimensional way, you are doing exactly the same thing. Certainly talking about a fifteen hundred year reign of terror shows profound ignorance of facts.

Yes, there was Christian on Christian mob violence, but it is no different from the rumpuses in Alexandria between Jews and pagans, the frequent civil unrest in pagan Antioch, in fact the mob was so feared by the pagan Roman emporers that they had to buy it off with massive subsidies. The mistake that Ron, with most atheists with a loose grasp of history, is making is to assume that the problems reported after the conversion of the Empire did not exist before hand and hence he blames them on Christianity. Hence we have Nogo's rather comical image of lots of white robed pagans in rational contemplation being chased away by a howling Christian mob.

Christianity became part of politics but politics continued with its merry round conscriptions, exiles and murders, much as it had ever done. Only the language changed. Christianity did not make much difference and to blame it for things that had been happening for centuries in that society is a piece of mental dexterity even the most illogical atheist could hardly be capable of.

Yours

Bede

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

Radcliffe Emerson

I didn't specifically state that you said that. Just about every Christian I know in person has made that comment however.
Unpolluted Gospel, eh? That's funny

NOGO

Very amusing way of putting it. Was it Durant who said that history was 10% fact, 35% guesswork and the rest was prejudice.

All one needs to do is read Paul's epistles to see the mentality behind - faith is all and God will make fools of all rationalists. Add to that the blind and ignorant certainty of many people's faith and one can see why all of europe was converted to Christianity.

Bede, you do not need to believe that it was all wonderful before Christianity came along to see the destruction of NORMAL thinking relaced with Paul's "faith is all" thinking.

One of the big fear in recent history was to see communism take over the world. Let me be clear, I am not comparing communism to Christianity. I am simply saying that they have at least one thing in common. They are both idealist in belief and thus have a need to spread to everyone. How does one defend himself against this kind of thinking.

If one day you realize that nearly half the country are Jehovah's witnesses and pretty soon they will impose they thinking on you, WHAT WOULD YOU DO, Bede?

This is my feeling on Christianity taking over europe.

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

NOGO

Have you ever heard of Euclid and Pythagoras.
Eratosthenes calculated the diameter of the earth.

Are you saying that Christianity is responsible for teh science and technology that we have today?
Is that you claim?

Science and technology are also in response to ecomonic needs. If science and technology appeared in europe rather than elsewhere is it no thanks to Christianity. It is in spite of it.

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

Explain to me how Christian dogma contrinuted to science and technology? Explain how Paul's faith is everything and ratioanlity is nothing contrinuted to science?

Yes, the church had all education in its hands. Did they invest monwy in reseach on whether the earth rotated around the sun. So Kepler was a Christian ... did christianity develop in him his curiosity and determination to discover?

Ron Garrett

I know you personally can appreciate the tendency to argue one-dimensionally against a one-dimensional view. We all tend to lead with contrast in such arguments.

Hyperbole on my part, I admit. But it was raised as an argumentative counter-point to the the broad-brsuh condemnation of communism. I could argue that the excesses Radorth lays at communism's door are Stalinism, not Marxism. Part of the challenge here is understanding a point Radorth makes and alternately negates, that Christianity as originally conceived is not the same thing as Christianity as it would at times become. I certainly grant that, but I can say the same of all human social inventions. Overall I think we have to judge from the results. I think an argue both sides of this issue, but what would have happened without the church using government power to control speculative and scietific inquiry for 15 centuries? Would we be a star-spanning culture by now? Would there have ever been Moslem fundmenatlism or even an Ottoman Empire if not for the Christian Crusades?

I completely agree with you 100% and that is exactly my point. Christianity did not commence in perfection, but in imperfect men who were just as you say no different in their behavior before and after the conversion to yet another culturally imposed theism. I don't make any assumption of the sort. Mob violence for all manner of reasons was as often as not the substitute for rational debate. I think the progress was more like this: Howling Pagan Mob chases Christian evangelists until the numbers begin moving the other way way. Then Howling Christian Mob chases away those few pagan white robes who haven't already changed to Christian teachers in pursuit of better earnings. Then having chased away all the pagans, Howling Christian Trinitarians chase Christian Monists, and Howling Homo-ousiasts chase Christian Homoi-ousiasts, and Howling Theotokans chase everyone, and Holwing Niceans chase each other.

Yep. And that's kind of my point. Everything goes on as it has before. No one has been transformed. Humanity has not been enobled. Society has not been changed for the better. Qualitatively it is no different than it's pagan predecessors, and had its fate not been tied to the Roman imperial power and system, I suspect the cult of Jesus would have been short-lived.

We agree again. Christianity as a system receives no special blame or credit in my mind except as a subset of monarchical monotheism which was from the start an extension of the kingship convenant societies in which it arose.

I was actually hoping to see you join in with a comment of two on this Bede. Perhaps the most unhappy part of these threads is how many one-legged theists come here for kicking matches. They are so embarassingly ignorant of their own religion, their own writers, their own history...well the discussion are never elevating and usually degenerate quickly. I don't have patience for it anymore, which is why I haven't poked my nose in here in months.

Bede

Pythagoras was a religious fanatic who happened to worship numbers and refuse to eat beans. A follower was put to death for proving irrational numbers existed - against the Pythagorian creed. Eratosthenes fluked a close answer - many others tried and got it wrong but we remember the lucky chap who happened to be right.

I am saying that it was an essential part of the mix.

So why didn't it appear elsewhere? Why in a place that the Christian religion, so damaging to science, was dominant?

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.

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk/sciencehistory.htm" target="_blank">Read this</a> please before you dig yourself into an even bigger hole.

No, why should they? Are you investing money in an eternal motion machine? Because that is how much sense heliocentricism made. Aristotle, Ptolemy and all those clever greeks insisted on geocentrism - it was not a Christian doctrine but what they inherited from pagans. Christians eventually got the right answer and unlike Aristarchus (who may not have believed it anyway), they eventually won over their culture.

Well, that is what he says. Read about him and read his works. NOGO, you are way out of your depth here, so please read a bit more and think for yourself.

Yours

Bede

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

Bede

Ron, we are indeed in close agreement on this question. Mind you, I do think that Christianity has improved the lot of man on earth, which was never really the point for the earliest Christians. They thought the world was shitty and worried about the next one. But religions evolve over centuries and who knows where they will go next...

B

Ron Garrett

Bede:

I think one of the factors that also gets lost in the discussion on this and similar sites is that the fundamentalist Christianism dominating the media and public debate today is a forty year cyclical anomaly that is native to the United States, though spreading via pentecostalism elsewhere, even to the North Countries I noticed last year.

Christianity gets a lot of heat here because that fundamentalist mentality is indeed the segment of Christianity dominating the airwaves and a lot of those folk come here to do battle are from that way. (I have noticed that it is a virtual rule of nature that the more a cleric dabbles in the political, the less he or she has a clue as to anything the more introspective and charitable factions of the faith would call "spiritual.")

In fairness, I must say that while I know many Christians of the one-dimensional sort, I also know those that genuinely exert themselves to continually improve their relationships, service to others, and even reach across religious borders.

While living in Tacoma I served on a group that coordinated community services such as food and clothing banks, counseling, etc, between charitable and volunteer agencies. Always present were Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, but never Baptists or Pentecostals, whose lack of charity seems pervasive to their practice of faith and their response to the needs of their communities. Or as one person aptly said, "It's okay with them if you starve to death, as long as it's after you've been baptised." I can't help but think the poor folks at the Methodist church shouldn't get lumped in with the Jerry Falwells.