Balancing Skepticism and Faith

[Thor 2]

So, should I take from this that when you say "the religious", you are specifically referring to white western evangelicals and maybe some of the more conservative Catholics? A bit like the folks who talk about "immigrants" when they really mean terrorists and gang members?

I guess that makes sense of your statement about Trump's appeal, since this.

I am really having trouble putting my finger on exactly what you are trying to say Egg. Terrorists and gang members?

 

[8enotto]

Tromp had stated several times that among the migrants there were criminals and possible ( Muslims ) terrorist types. And for a change he would be right.

Many folks see all immigrants legal or not as they worst among them and treat all equally bad. It is a small portion really but not knowing how to spot the bad guy in a group just condemn them all.

I hear about it from good folks returning home to Mexico how the distrust and fear made them feel unwelcome. Inversely some think of me as being the same mind as the rest .

It cannot be so. Two older Germans and myself are the immigrant population in this town. It would be stupid to think any tiny minority better.

 

[David Mo]

You can't make a claim about what someone is arguing, and then say you don't care what he thinks. Tim O'Neill did NOT deny that there were religious objections to Galileo, only that there were scientific ones as well. You have strawmanned him, and based your responses on that strawman.


"The terms of Bruno's conviction are not known with certainty." But YOU are the one to claim that Bruno was persecuted for promoting heliocentrism. There is no evidence for that. Bruno's idea of infinite worlds does not support heliocentrism. Roman-era philosophers like Plutarch proposed something similar, without the need to invoke heliocentrism.

David, this does seem to be a pattern with you, I'm sorry to say. You throw out something, then say it can't be known with certainty, and then ignore evidence against the idea. Again, read Tim O'Neill's article on Bruno, where he cites scholars to build his conclusion.

If Bruno believed in heliocentrism, and he wasn't charged with heresy for this (and that seems to be the case), then it adds support to the idea that Copernicus's theory wasn't overly controversial until Galileo.


Yes, the problem of parallax. And yet you claimed just earlier 'It is not true that the opposition to Galileo was "scientific"'.
But there were more non-theological reasons than just parallax, including:
(1) Stars would have to be incredibly huge
(2) The model of a rotating earth was disputed due to the lack of then-observable eastward deflections in falling bodies (though this objection came a few years after Galileo)
(3) Galileo proposed that the tides were physical proof that the earth rotated. His contemporary Johannes Kepler believed that it was the moon that caused the tides. Galileo's theory was shown to be wrong because there were two tides a day rather than one (which was implied if a rotating earth was the cause of the tides.)


Then you have conceded the point as far as I can see. I have been arguing against the idea that more scientific knowledge results in more religious conflicts. My argument isn't wrong because you want to argue something else!

It has been very frustrating trying to argue with you, David. Evidence gets ignored and the goal posts moved. You strawmanned Tim O'Neill's points and my "personal argument". I'll make this my last post to you on this topic in this thread.

You can't make a claim about what someone is arguing, and then say you don't care what he thinks. Tim O'Neill did NOT deny that there were religious objections to Galileo, only that there were scientific ones as well. You have strawmanned him, and based your responses on that strawman.

I think I am justified in not wanting a debate with someone who does not behave properly. Not just because he simply insults, but because he does not follow the rules of logic. An example:

MY QUESTION: Now the more general question: do you agree that the Christian churches, in this case, haveplayed a regressive role against science during the centuries of their political dominance in Europe? I am interested in that and not in your task of demystification of what you want.

ANSWER: No. That idea has been rejected by historians of science for about a century.

Do you deny that the churches actively pursued the New Science because it undermined the principles of*your*its*authority over faith and scientific knowledge?

[Not answered].

MQ: What I don't know is how you have the cheek to deny that the papacy and the Holy Office's action against Galileo is one of the most savage attacks against the independence of science

A: Where did I say this? Quote me. This should be funny to watch..​

What is he saying? Yes or no? Can it be said that the church did not attack the independence of science and then attacked it? If you are willing to present O'Neill's ideas and explain them - as seems to be the case - I will gladly discuss them.

"The terms of Bruno's conviction are not known with certainty." But YOU are the one to claim that Bruno was persecuted for promoting heliocentrism. There is no evidence for that. Bruno's idea of infinite worlds does not support heliocentrism. Roman-era philosophers like Plutarch proposed something similar, without the need to invoke heliocentrism.

Just because we don't know something firsthand doesn't mean we don't have other references. Based on the same sources O'Neill cited here and I have consulted, we know that Bruno was condemned for asserting the existence of innumerable worlds and believed firmly in the Copernican system. These are points that no one disputes. Some conclusions can be drawn from this.

If Bruno believed in heliocentrism, and he wasn't charged with heresy for this (and that seems to be the case), then it adds support to the idea that Copernicus's theory wasn't overly controversial until Galileo.

Don't try to draw "logical" conclusions on insufficient data. Astrology was condemned by the fathers of the Church (Augustine), some occasional councils (Toledo) and papal bulls and yet many of the kings, nobles, cardinals and popes came to it. The existence of a rule does not mean that it was always fulfilled to the letter. We know that Bruno was condemned for something others had said before (the theory of the infinitude of the universe), but not why or how. One possible cause is that Bruno, as with Galileo, claimed that what he believed was true and not pure hypothesis. It is a relevant fact, because it was this that unleashed in many cases the repressive fury of the religious tribunals and the Holy Inquisition in particular. This is the reason given by Prof. Alberto A. Martinez of the University of Texas. It seems very plausible to me.

Yes, the problem of parallax. And yet you claimed just earlier 'It is not true that the opposition to Galileo was "scientific"'.
But there were more non-theological reasons than just parallax, including:
(1) Stars would have to be incredibly huge
(2) The model of a rotating earth was disputed due to the lack of then-observable eastward deflections in falling bodies (though this objection came a few years after Galileo)
(3) Galileo proposed that the tides were physical proof that the earth rotated. His contemporary Johannes Kepler believed that it was the moon that caused the tides. Galileo's theory was shown to be wrong because there were two tides a day rather than one (which was implied if a rotating earth was the cause of the tides.)

I said that the opposition to Galileo was scientifically weaker than yourshim and was not exercised by independent scientists.

Indeed. The stars were infinitely farther away --as some like Bruno had supposed. It was not impossible.

The error with tides was solved with another heliocentric theory, not with Aristotle's concepts of natural place.

The objection of free fall within a moving subsystem was solved by Galileo with a simple observation that Mersenne and Gassendi carried out in the form of a a controled experiment shortly after: dropping an object from the mast of a ship and other moving objects.It was very simple, wasn't it? Well, that's what the Church's scientists didn't know how to do: To devise a controlled experiment.

The disadvantages of the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic theory were worse than its objections to Galileo: they had no solution without a change of paradigm. It was becoming unmanageable. And their difficulties were not subject to experiments -as Galileo-, but to Aristotelian and Thomistic dogmas. In other words, they did not defend a science free of religious dogma.

Then you have conceded the point as far as I can see. I have been arguing against the idea that more scientific knowledge results in more religious conflicts. My argument isn't wrong because you want to argue something else!

I'm not arguing anything different. I'm explaining why your argument doesn't work. You have artificially isolated two factors of opposition: more-less and conflict-not conflict. That's not how thing work in history.

This requires a little more explanation. I go by parts:

As I said in a previous post in the subject we are dealing with two different things are mixed: whether there is conflict between religion and science as systems of thought and what manifestations of conflict there has been in history.

I think the answer is "yes" in both cases, but I am going to refer to the second.

The historical development of the science-religion conflict does not follow a linear development. This happens in any historical problem. This development is due to circumstances of the social and cultural environment. In the case of the conflict between Christianity and free science, in the Renaissance the science without ecclesiastical tutelage had all the advantages because it was necessary for the development of emerging commercial and industrial classes. That is what made the science-religion conflict sharpen in countries where the rentier aristocracy held power (Spain and Italy) and religion took steps backwards where it developed flourishing trade and manufacturing (England, Holland and, to a lesser extent, France). This explains why the conflict did not have a uniform result throughout Europe. That is why in countries where science could not flourish, religion maintained the conflict in repressive forms (Inquisition, index of forbidden books, autocratic regimes) well into the 19th century.

I hope that this brief historical analysis will allow you to understand why your example was badly posed.
The conclusion is that with all this the Church has learned to keep its mouth shut when scientists say things that affect the religious beliefs, because if churches speak too much they endanger the foundations of their religion. This is the much praised "tolerance" of the Church today.

To said it in another way: this is why there is not a strong conflict between religion and science nowadays. Because the force of religion has become weaker.

 

[David Mo]

Personally I think the problem wasn't even as much the scriptures or the church as just Galileo.

You should read my previous comment.

A preliminary consideration: it does not seem possible to me that because of Galileo's bad character all the ecclesiastics who were anxious to move to the New Science were repressing it for several centuries. I am referring to the Inquisition and the index of forbidden books, among other things.

Such a small cause does not cause a cataclysm whose effects last for centuries.

 

[HansMustermann]

It might, if trying to open the door results in personal attacks on the Pope himself. Remember that it was at a time when the church struggled to stay in control, and was fighting internal fires everywhere. It doesn't take much more than that to give ammo to the conservative blowhards and tip the balance in their favour.

I submit as evidence that Kepler's equally heliocentric view was NOT on the index, but was actually accepted by the Jesuits, even at the same time as Copernicus made that list. But Kepler's work didn't have the misfortune of being put on their battle flag by the likes of Bruno or Galileo.

 

[HansMustermann]

BTW, speaking of Bruno, he's another interesting character. The guy basically rejected pretty much EVERYTHING about the Catholic faith, most of which he had exactly zero scientific base for. Copernican heliocentrism (which, again, in 1610 when the conflict began was not even matching observed data, so its rejection had not that much to do with science vs religion) was just a footnote in his list of charges. MUCH more important were things like rejecting the virginity of Mary (which the Catholics are STILL obsessed with, and were even more so at the time), denying transsubstantiation, denying that Jesus is the messiah, preaching reincarnation, etc.

The even bigger problems in his case were that:

1. He was a priest. The church took a MUCH harder line when policing its own ranks. Which leads us to...

2. The inquisition was not going to leave a priest get away with anything less than a FULL recantation. ESPECIALLY since before even being brought before Bellarmine, Bruno had already trolled the Inquisition in Venice by insisting on keeping his own doubts about actual matters of faith.

He seemed to be under the impression that he can bargain with the inqusition, like in a flea market. You know, I let one thing go, you let another go, and meet each other in the middle. That's not how the inquisition worked. And Bellarmine didn't think it worked like that either.

So I would venture a guess that it didn't even matter which point on the list Bruno chose to stick to. What mattered is that he was still trying to barter with those points, for lack of a better word, even when given an ultimatum to drop them all or else.

 

[David Mo]

It might, if trying to open the door results in personal attacks on the Pope himself.

The condemnation of Copernicanism dates from 1616 and the book of Galileo in which the pope is alluded to, from 1632. The dates do not fit.

Other than that, the condemnation of Copernicanism was an act of transcendental importance to modern history that lasted centuries. It is impossible that such a thing was due to the personal mania of a pope for a person. Individuals don't make history with trivialities.

If you want say that Pope's adversion influenced Galileo's particular case, I agree.

 

[David Mo]

BTW, speaking of Bruno, he's another interesting character. The guy basically rejected pretty much EVERYTHING about the Catholic faith, most of which he had exactly zero scientific base for. Copernican heliocentrism (which, again, in 1610 when the conflict began was not even matching observed data, so its rejection had not that much to do with science vs religion) was just a footnote in his list of charges. MUCH more important were things like rejecting the virginity of Mary (which the Catholics are STILL obsessed with, and were even more so at the time), denying transsubstantiation, denying that Jesus is the messiah, preaching reincarnation, etc.

The even bigger problems in his case were that:

1. He was a priest. The church took a MUCH harder line when policing its own ranks. Which leads us to...

2. The inquisition was not going to leave a priest get away with anything less than a FULL recantation. ESPECIALLY since before even being brought before Bellarmine, Bruno had already trolled the Inquisition in Venice by insisting on keeping his own doubts about actual matters of faith.

He seemed to be under the impression that he can bargain with the inqusition, like in a flea market. You know, I let one thing go, you let another go, and meet each other in the middle. That's not how the inquisition worked. And Bellarmine didn't think it worked like that either.

So I would venture a guess that it didn't even matter which point on the list Bruno chose to stick to. What mattered is that he was still trying to barter with those points, for lack of a better word, even when given an ultimatum to drop them all or else.

A footnote? Bruno was the first philosopher in studying and praise Copernicus in Europe. One chapter of The Ash Wednesday Supper is dedicated to him, among other works. He places Copernicus over the other classical astronomers. Copernicanism is the basis of his theory of infinitude and homogeneity of Cosmos, which led him to the stake.

It was not a footnote.

I don’t know what you mean “bargain with the Inquisition”. Eight years in Inquisition prisons wasn't a joke. An atrocious death was at stake, and he knew it.

 

[HansMustermann]

Actually, the date fits very well with Bruno's championing it among a merry cocktail of wanton heresies, which got him in direct conflict with the church in 1610. Galileo too had been trolling the church with Copernicus since 1609, and his writings were already 'studied' by the Inquisition in 1615.

The more damning fact is that before that, nobody in the church had a problem with Copernicus. In fact, have you heard that we're now using a 'Gregorian' calendar? Yeah, that's based on Copernicus. Pope Gregory XIII himself used Copernicus's work to reform the calendar in 1582. You can't get more endorsement than that.

That's how uncontroversial it was, until twits like Bruno and Galileo went trololololol with it.

 

[qayak]

Actually, the date fits very well with Bruno's championing it among a merry cocktail of wanton heresies, which got him in direct conflict with the church in 1610. Galileo too had been trolling the church with Copernicus since 1609, and his writings were already 'studied' by the Inquisition in 1615.

The more damning fact is that before that, nobody in the church had a problem with Copernicus. In fact, have you heard that we're now using a 'Gregorian' calendar? Yeah, that's based on Copernicus. Pope Gregory XIII himself used Copernicus's work to reform the calendar in 1582. You can't get more endorsement than that.

That's how uncontroversial it was, until twits like Bruno and Galileo went trololololol with it.

I'm not sure of the point you were trying to make but I do know the point you have succeeded in making: The Inquisition isn't guilty of its own crimes, Galileo, Bruno, and all the other victims are.

 

[HansMustermann]

Actually, my point was simply that heliocentrism is a bad example of science-vs-religion. If you just want to say that the inquisition is bad, sure, it was bad, but that's a different topic.

 

[David Mo]

Actually, my point was simply that heliocentrism is a bad example of science-vs-religion. If you just want to say that the inquisition is bad, sure, it was bad, but that's a different topic.

Sure. It is an example of religion defending itself from trolls and impolite people.
People burning alive and the persecution of heliocentrism during centuries were trivial things.

I beg your pardon, but this is a strange way to defend science.

What the Church was unable to bear was that someone cast doubts on its total power over truth, be a philosopher, a necromancer, a magician or a scientist. Religion clashed with science because science questioned the literal interpretation of the Bible. Heliocentrism or infinitude of the world was tolerated as long they remained simple hypotesis. When people as Bruno or Galileo began to say that it was scientific truth, tolerance ended.

Religion clashed with magic, philosophy, atomism, heliocentrism, Darwinism, etc. by the same reason. And the question continues: are religious people able to endure a superior authority than their sacred books? Can science correct what is written? These are the roots of the conflict.

 

[Thor 2]

Sure. It is an example of the religion defending itself from trolls and impolite people.
People burning alive and the persecution of heliocentrism during centuries were trivial things.

I beg your pardon, but this is a strange way to defend science.

What the Church was unable to bear was that someone cast doubts on its total power over truth, be a philosopher, a necromancer, a magician or a scientist. Religion clashed with science because science questioned the literal interpretation of the Bible. Heliocentrism or infinitude of the world was tolerated as long they remained simple hypotesis. When people as Bruno or Galileo began to say that it was scientific truth, tolerance ended.

Religion clashed with magic, philosophy, atomism, heliocentrism, Darwinism, etc. by the same reason. And the question continues: are religious people able to endure a superior authority than their sacred books? Can science correct what is written? These are the roots of the conflict.

I agree these are the roots of the conflict.

How do modern day, science accepting Christians, blend the two? With great difficulty and scooting over the detail I suggest. "Yes we are cool with evolution as the way God made us" they say. "OK' I say, "How do you blend original sin into this gruel." "Oh well, mumble mumble." shuffling of feet. "next question?"

This is the way it goes on when you examine virtually the entire text of the holy scriptures, till you come to the solution that it is all allegorical, and as it has been suggested by others, you can interpret it as you like.

Those such as Ken Ham have an easier solution to the whole dilemma as they just thumb their nose at science.

 

[HansMustermann]

Sure. It is an example of religion defending itself from trolls and impolite people.
People burning alive and the persecution of heliocentrism during centuries were trivial things.

I beg your pardon, but this is a strange way to defend science.

What the Church was unable to bear was that someone cast doubts on its total power over truth, be a philosopher, a necromancer, a magician or a scientist. Religion clashed with science because science questioned the literal interpretation of the Bible. Heliocentrism or infinitude of the world was tolerated as long they remained simple hypotesis. When people as Bruno or Galileo began to say that it was scientific truth, tolerance ended.

Religion clashed with magic, philosophy, atomism, heliocentrism, Darwinism, etc. by the same reason. And the question continues: are religious people able to endure a superior authority than their sacred books? Can science correct what is written? These are the roots of the conflict.

Well, see, I even agree with your last two paragraphs. I just think that heliocentrism -- or rather, mis-representing it as THE problem the RCC had with Bruno or Galileo -- is a bad example. And much as I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about religion, I have a whole plank on the shoulder about rewriting history to make some ideological point, even when that point is against religion.

 

[qayak]

Well, see, I even agree with your last two paragraphs. I just think that heliocentrism -- or rather, mis-representing it as THE problem the RCC had with Bruno or Galileo -- is a bad example. And much as I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about religion, I have a whole plank on the shoulder about rewriting history to make some ideological point, even when that point is against religion.

Except that heliocentrism was one of the charges.There were many others, and the Pope wanted more added, but it was one and he did not repent and was burned alive.

So he was burned alive by the RCC for heliocentrism, believing there were other planets like ours, believing in reincarnation, believing the Earth and other planets have souls, etc . . .

There were few charges that reflect modern science but heliocentrism is one of them. Right around the time of his birth the RCC started cracking down on anything that countered the bible. Heliicentrism was counter to the bible. It doesn't matter that others who believed it were tolerated before Bruno. The RCC chose to make an example of him.

History isn't being rewritten. The RCC was, and is, a murderous organization. Bruno's death is merely another example of that fact.

 

[HansMustermann]

AGAIN, the calculations of Copernicus were used by the frikken pope himself, and are still in effect as part of the Gregorian Calendar corrections. Funnily, it stayed in effect even WHILE Copernicus's book was later on the index. You have to love the Catholic schizophrenia... err... I mean "compartmentalizing".

And actually, in the case of Bruno, heliocentrism was NOT on the list of charges. The charge was his claim about the existence of multiple earth-like planets. That was NOT a part of Copernicus's claims, nor had it any bearing on it being true or not.

Edit: While the STARS being big and distant was a possible solution to the Copernican paralax problem, exo-PLANETS were not part of the equation in any form or shape. Also not supported by any data at that time, so Bruno's claiming them as a fact had nothing science-like about it. At that point it was just a lucky guess at best.

And in fact, the idea was at least as old as Aristotle. Also had been banned for a couple of centuries by the Church. See, when people came back from the Crusades with all these old crazy old texts that had been preserved and transcribed by the Arabs, and got ideas like making universities to teach that stuff, the RCC already put some brakes on. Namely what parts of Aristotle you can't teach. Multiple worlds was one of them.

Yep. Even while Aristotle was made the official science system, there were parts of the same Aristotle that you can't teach without risking a talk with some *ahem* very inquisitive bishops. Like, you could teach Aristotle's idea of elements, but you couldn't mention the logical conclusion that Aristotle took it to, namely that there could be worlds made only of Fire and Air. (That's how they stayed up there, see? Earth and Water were heavy, so if planets were made of those, they'd fall down. )

Did I mention how I love Catholic schizophrenia?

So there you go, you already have a better example of some science that the RCC tried to suppress all along. You don't have to mis-construe heliocentrism as being it.

 

[Thor 2]

Just to interrupt this squabble a moment, I find it interesting and irritating, the way the religious talk about TRUTH so much. It's as if they think by saying it loud and assertively, they will drum out any opposition.

On the outskirts of Melbourne there is a small church my brother used to belong to. The church was named the TLC ........ so "Tender Loving Care" I naively deduced. Wrong! TRUTH and LEARNING CENTRE!

 

[qayak]

And actually, in the case of Bruno, heliocentrism was NOT on the list of charges. The charge was his claim about the existence of multiple earth-like planets. That was NOT a part of Copernicus's claims, nor had it any bearing on it being true or not.

Actually, no one knows what was on the list of charges, there is only guessing.

Bruno did something that Copernicus didn't do, he used heliocentrism to argue that the universe was natural, man could understand everything that was in the universe, and there was no need, or place, for gods.

 

[HansMustermann]

You realize, I hope, that that doesn't exactly make your case either. If you take the position that we don't know, then you don't know either. It doesn't mean that you get to pull out of the ass that he was a martyr of heliocentrism either.

 

[qayak]

You realize, I hope, that that doesn't exactly make your case either. If you take the position that we don't know, then you don't know either. It doesn't mean that you get to pull out of the ass that he was a martyr of heliocentrism either.

Agree 100%. Combined with the shenanigans of the Inquisition we can't really be sure of anything except that he was tried and executed.

Stranger yet was that high up church officials stated in 1952 that the Inquisition was justified in murdering him and then later a Pope apologized for the violence against him. The only violence being his execution because he was not tortured.