[__ Science __ ] SCIENCE HATES CHRISTIANITY?

[Barbarian]

For a ' heretic ' he was treated very leniently,

He used something like the same dodge that Copernicus used to stay out of trouble.

"I'm not saying that the Earth actually goes around the Sun; I'm saying that if you assume that it does, for calculation's sake, it's easier and more accurate for predicting the motions of the heavens."

 

[Barbarian]

BTW, the big shift in geology occurred while I was in college. It was a shift in science as great as the shift in physics in the 1930s. Textbooks had to be re-written, geologists had to go back and revise their theories, and it was a wonderful time to be a geologist I suppose. I have a book written just after that revolution, The Way the Earth Works by Peter Wyllie. It is dated, of course, and we've learned a lot more, but anyone interested in how scientific revolutions happen, should find a copy. It's not excessively technical and it's easily undestood by anyone with a high school education in science. I recommend it highly.

 

[Uncle J]

About astronomical understanding of whether the planets orbited the sun or the earth, not about theology.

For a ' heretic ' he was treated very leniently,

How could it be heresy to espouse a scientific conclusion, unless there was a theological component to it?

 

[Barbarian]

How could it be heresy to espouse a scientific conclusion, unless there was a theological component to it?

That's the thing; it was never a tenet of the Catholic Church that the Sun went around the Earth. Just wasn't. Luther and Calvin declared that the Sun went around the Earth, but that also seems to be mere personal opinion; neither Lutheran nor Calvinist denominations have ever made that an essential of their denominations, AFAIK.

 

[Who Me]

How could it be heresy to espouse a scientific conclusion, unless there was a theological component to it?

Read the accounts of his life.
All I've read point out that it was politics brought about by the professors teaching platonic ideas about the planets who brought about the charges of heresy.

 

[Uncle J]

That's the thing; it was never a tenet of the Catholic Church that the Sun went around the Earth.

But they were teaching it, right? It may not have been an official tenet, but there was a reason why they objected to Galileo taking that next step from Copernicus' "the math works but that doesn't mean it's true" to "the math works because it's true", right?

I mean, the Inquisition officially declared heliocentrism itself to be a formal heresy, and after Galileo was convicted and sentenced, they banned all books on heliocentrism.

 

[Barbarian]

But they were teaching it, right?

Can't find it in any official church document. A lot of personal opinion. No offiicial pronouncement. For example, Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope John Paul XIV, asserted that it was likely humans evolved from other organisms. But he did it as a personal opinion. The Church takes no position on things like that.

but there was a reason why they objected to Galileo taking that next step from Copernicus' "the math works but that doesn't mean it's true" to "the math works because it's true", right?

For some of them. I mean, there were bishops who said eating goose was not eating meat, meaning that they could be eaten on days of fasting and abstinence. Never a Church position.

 

[Uncle J]

Can't find it in any official church document. A lot of personal opinion. No offiicial pronouncement. For example, Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope John Paul XIV, asserted that it was likely humans evolved from other organisms. But he did it as a personal opinion. The Church takes no position on things like that.


For some of them. I mean, there were bishops who said eating goose was not eating meat, meaning that they could be eaten on days of fasting and abstinence. Never a Church position.

Then who instituted the bans of heliocentric books and the teaching of heliocentrism? My understanding is that it was the Roman Inquisition, which was established by Pope Paul III and was operating under the Holy See of the Catholic Church.

 

[Barbarian]

Then who instituted the bans of heliocentric books and the teaching of heliocentrism? My understanding is that it was the Roman Inquisition, which was established by Pope Paul III and was operating under the Holy See of the Catholic Church.

Yep. And they eventually exceeded their mandate, becoming a problem that had to be reined in. This is why the Church apologized for the treatment of Galileo. Some of the inquisitors went beyond established doctrine, to enforce their own opinions.

 

[Uncle J]

Yep. And they eventually exceeded their mandate, becoming a problem that had to be reined in. This is why the Church apologized for the treatment of Galileo. Some of the inquisitors went beyond established doctrine, to enforce their own opinions.

They apologized in 1992....some 300+ years after the fact. So I don't exactly see that as the Catholic Church making meaningful amends. The fact remains, the Pope and the Church allowed the Roman Inquisition to do all the things we've covered here. And it was right under their noses in Rome.

Put it all together and one does not get the sense that the Catholic Church was just fine with heliocentrism at the time.

 

[Barbarian]

Put it all together and one does not get the sense that the Catholic Church was just fine with heliocentrism at the time.

In fact, it wasn't a controversy the Pope wanted to deal with. He had earlier discussed this with Galileo and gave him cautious agreement that it was O.K. to continue his work.

One issue is that Galileo was kind of a jerk. He was fond of telling everyone how much smarter he was than anyone else. And there were some political issues with this. For one thing, his dialogues of world systems made it pretty obvious that Sagredo was actually Galileo and Simplicio was the pope. It's telling that neither the Pope nor the Curia asserted geocentrism. The fact that Kepler (in Protestant lands) was working on revising astronomy to fit heliocentrism didn't help any.

It's not as simple a thing as we might look at it today.

 

[PeterJens]

I've been considering why there is this big debate between science and Christianity.
One seems to explain HOW things happen, and one seems to explain WHY things happen.
It seems to me there is no conflict.
So why create one?

Why are persons such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, devoting much of their life to degrading Christianity and trying to convince others to hate religion as much as they do?

Why do they feel so threatened?

Why is Intelligent Design such a distasteful idea to these persons, who are scientists and should be looking for the truth - whatever it may be.

I'd like to ask one of our members how the eye can be explained by evolution,
and how the cell can be explained by evolution. Macro evolution.

It would be nice if our resident scientist joined in too.

Barbarian
Uncle J

I think the answer is formulism, and a non-critical way of looking at life.
Within Christian thought there was little flexibility, it was the truth with a singular authority and interpretation.
So complex family and social situations were resolved with dictates of courts and clergy as if their conclusions were more than just interpretations of theology and the bible.

When scientists discovered actually things are much more complex and involved, and the subject matter covered by religion though helpful was often just a legalistic interpretation without the ability of investigate discuss and explore, there arose a power struggle of what is authority, what is true, what is a good summary.

Cynicism of everything other than a repeated enclosed experiment to demonstrate a theory seemed to unlock the question of the possible. Medicine has demonstrated often the causes of our suffering was less Gods judgement and more our lack of understanding of what healthy living actually is.

When looking out at the stars, rather than it being 6,000 years old it appears to be billions of years old. When looking at life, it appears to be a war of survival and use of food and populations rather than love working its way through in harmony. And those representing large Christian religious groups often came across as totally presumptious and pompous rather than with coherent responses. And large parts of the church are literally corrupt and self interested exploiters of simple believers.

We are now in an interesting time, because science is beginning to ask what is consciousness, self awareness, love and group behaviour verses individual survival. And now Jesus starts to speak, and people are listening. Worse still though we get light which we say is billions of years old, it is our models, which maybe wrong, but they are useful to categorise what we are seeing. Worse still it could be a simulation, ie reality is something created and perceived but not real as we regard everyday objects as being real. So what we care about actually matters more than what we say is real or not real. So again we come back to Jesus.

God bless you

 

[Christ_empowered]

I think it’s worse in social sciences and psychology. These fields are affected by social shifts funding and ideology to an extent that can be frightening…

 

[JT4444]

I agree.
Which is my whole point.
Why are they so against God today?
Darwin seems to have begun a whole wave of scientists that no longer needed God to
explain anything. Evolution has become the new God.

So is evolution true or not?
And what does it all matter?
Why do scientists make such an issue of it if it can't really be accepted by all of them?

Why is Intelligent Design so frightening?

Could it be for only scientific reasons?
Or is there more involved...

"A little knowledge drives man away from God, but deeper knowledge brings him back." (attributed to Francis Bacon)

 

[Uncle J]

In fact, it wasn't a controversy the Pope wanted to deal with. He had earlier discussed this with Galileo and gave him cautious agreement that it was O.K. to continue his work.

One issue is that Galileo was kind of a jerk. He was fond of telling everyone how much smarter he was than anyone else. And there were some political issues with this. For one thing, his dialogues of world systems made it pretty obvious that Sagredo was actually Galileo and Simplicio was the pope. It's telling that neither the Pope nor the Curia asserted geocentrism. The fact that Kepler (in Protestant lands) was working on revising astronomy to fit heliocentrism didn't help any.

It's not as simple a thing as we might look at it today.

It's a little difficult for me to believe that the Pope was okay with heliocentrism, while he was allowing the Roman Inquisition to ban teaching it, ban books that included it, and persecute (i.e., torture and kill) anyone who taught it.....all right under his nose.

 

[Barbarian]

In fact, Cardinal Bellarmine, a highly-respected theologian, called in specifically to consider the question, wrote:
Third, I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary; and say rather that we do not understand them than that what is demonstrated is false.

Letter to Paolo A. Foscarini, on Galileo’s Claim in favor of Heliocentrism | Inters.org

inters.org

Which is pretty much what St. Augustine wrote in De Genesi ad Litteram.

This probably wouldn't have been a problem at all, if Galileo hadn't been such a jerk in debating other scientists:
At this time, Galileo also engaged in a dispute over the reasons that objects float or sink in water, siding with Archimedes against Aristotle. The debate was unfriendly, and Galileo's blunt and sometimes sarcastic style, though not extraordinary in academic debates of the time, made him enemies. During this controversy one of Galileo's friends, the painter Lodovico Cardi da Cigoli, informed him that a group of malicious opponents, which Cigoli subsequently referred to derisively as "the Pigeon league", was plotting to cause him trouble over the motion of the Earth, or anything else that would serve the purpose. According to Cigoli, one of the plotters asked a priest to denounce Galileo's views from the pulpit, but the latter refused. Nevertheless, three years later another priest, Tommaso Caccini, did in fact do precisely that.

Galileo affair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It didn't help that Galileo's theory was not as precise as it might have been in predicting planetary motion. Kepler did a much better job, which was much more effective in changing minds.

I had to teach the history of science for some years, so I had to wade through this dreck more than once. Suffice to say, it's not what atheists or Catholics would probably like it to be.

 

[Uncle J]

Well, like I said, I find it hard to believe the Roman Inquisition was some sort of rogue outfit, going around banning books on heliocentrism and persecuting anyone who advocated it....in Rome mind you....when in reality the Catholic Church at the time was actually just fine with heliocentrism.

Was there some sort of gulf between the Vatican and the Roman Inquisition? Pope Paul III set it up, specifically to enforce decrees from the Pope and I've never seen any indication that he was angry at them for how they treated heliocentrism. One of their acts was to retroactively edit Copernicus' books and place unedited versions on the banned books list.

I mean, I get how Galileo seemed to go out of his way to deliberately poke at the Catholic Church, thereby sealing his fate (give the Catholic culture at the time), but it seems rather odd for an institution to do all it did at the time regarding heliocentrism, when they were really okay with it.

Anyways....interesting topic!

 

[GodsGrace]

I think the answer is formulism, and a non-critical way of looking at life.
Within Christian thought there was little flexibility, it was the truth with a singular authority and interpretation.
So complex family and social situations were resolved with dictates of courts and clergy as if their conclusions were more than just interpretations of theology and the bible.

When scientists discovered actually things are much more complex and involved, and the subject matter covered by religion though helpful was often just a legalistic interpretation without the ability of investigate discuss and explore, there arose a power struggle of what is authority, what is true, what is a good summary.

Cynicism of everything other than a repeated enclosed experiment to demonstrate a theory seemed to unlock the question of the possible. Medicine has demonstrated often the causes of our suffering was less Gods judgement and more our lack of understanding of what healthy living actually is.

When looking out at the stars, rather than it being 6,000 years old it appears to be billions of years old. When looking at life, it appears to be a war of survival and use of food and populations rather than love working its way through in harmony. And those representing large Christian religious groups often came across as totally presumptious and pompous rather than with coherent responses. And large parts of the church are literally corrupt and self interested exploiters of simple believers.

We are now in an interesting time, because science is beginning to ask what is consciousness, self awareness, love and group behaviour verses individual survival. And now Jesus starts to speak, and people are listening. Worse still though we get light which we say is billions of years old, it is our models, which maybe wrong, but they are useful to categorise what we are seeing. Worse still it could be a simulation, ie reality is something created and perceived but not real as we regard everyday objects as being real. So what we care about actually matters more than what we say is real or not real. So again we come back to Jesus.

God bless you

Yes. It surely does seem to be a power struggle.

Athesim was high on the list of good things to believe back in the early 2,000s.
People like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and others were extolling the virtues of atheism and proclaiming that we could get along without God.
How?
Because man is intelligent enough and modern enough to be able to be moral just by using logic and doing what's good for the survival of the species. Us.

Well, lo and behold, look at the conundrum we're in.
The US seems to have lost its bearing, its Christianity and its logic and common sense - resorting to the weirdest laws I've ever imagined could be possible.

So, yes, maybe some persons are figuring out that:

1. The social laws Sam Harris would like us to adhere to COME FROM THE LAWS OF GOD.
2. They don't seem to work UNLESS GOD IS INVOLVED.

And even if they did, they would not last for more than 2 or 3 generations because the news people would have, by then, forgotten the Laws of God.

BTW, I'm not a young earth believer.
But who can know for sure!

Blessings

 

[GodsGrace]

"A little knowledge drives man away from God, but deeper knowledge brings him back." (attributed to Francis Bacon)

Yes!
Read my post no. 78.

 

[Barbarian]

So, yes, maybe some persons are figuring out that:

1. The social laws Sam Harris would like us to adhere to COME FROM THE LAWS OF GOD.

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature those things which are of the law, such persons, not having the law, are a law unto themselves.

Hence, the Church's observation that there is a natural law that comes from God. It's wired in to human nature, according to Paul. This seems to where the "front-loaded creation" idea of IDers makes the most sense.