Something I was never sceptical about for some reason

ponderingturtle said:
Well didn't the church say the a vacuum could not exist so that lifting mercury in a glass tube can be done to any high in italy.
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Aristotle proposed that a vacuum could not exist, and for a long time just about everyone (whether in Christendom or the Islamic world) believed him. In fact, it was the Church and its medieval natural philosopher-theologians who came to challenge this notion. From Edward Grant's The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge UP 1996):

The Condemnation of 1277 ... encouraged speculation about natural impossibilities in the Aristotelian world system .... The contemplation of hypothetical possibilities that were naturally impossible in the Aristotelian world view was so widespread that speculation about them became an integral feature of late medieval thought.

Of all the themes of natural philosophy influenced by the Condemnation of 1277, none was affected more than the concept of vacuum, the very idea of which Aristotle thought absurd and impossible. None could deny that the possible existence of vacua had powerful implications for theology. As Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358) rightly declared, every Catholic had to concede the possibility that God could create one. Indeed, creation itself raised a fundamental question about the vacuum: did God require an empty space in which to create the world? ... The need for a pre-creation void space was condemned in 1277 by article 201, which proclaimed that "before the generation of the world, there was a place without a thing located in it, which is a vacuum."

The concept of vacuum was also inherent in articles 34 and 49, which dealt, respectively, with the possibility of other worlds and with the rectilinear motion of our own world, both natural impossibilities in Aristotle's cosmos. The two articles generated serious discussion about the possible existence of void space beyond our world. Although no articles of the Condemnation of 1277 were directed at the possibility of vacua within our cosmos, it was obvious that if God could create a vacuum beyond the world, he surely could do so within the world. And so it was that after 1277 God was frequently imagined to annihilate [hypothetically] all or part of the matter that existed in the the material plenum of our world. Within this now empty space, many different situations were imagined for further discussion. Would the surrounding celestial spheres immediately collapse inward as nature sought to prevent formation of a vacuum? Would the empty interval be a vacuum or space? If all bodies within the concave surface of the last sphere where annihilated, so that no matter remained, would it still be meaningful to describe that concave surface as a place, even though it would be a place without body? Would it be possible to measure distances within such a vacuum? If people were somehow located in this vacuum, would they be able to see and hear each other? ...

Thus did the concept of God's absolute power become a convenient vehicle for the introduction of subtle and imaginative questions, which often generated novel answers. Although these speculative responses did not lead to the overthrow of the Aristotelian world view, they did ... challenge some of its fundamental principles and assumptions. They made many aware that things might be quite otherwise than were dreamt of in Aristotle's philosophy.
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(footnotes omitted)
 
KingMerv00 said:
A lot of reasons. Not the least of which is the imposition of slavery and colonialization by "white" people.

What do you think? (Again.)
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I think you've got a good grasp of my "black man/white man" post now.
 
KingMerv00 said:
My grasp of that post was good days ago.

What do YOU think? (Again again.)
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OK, let's have a look at my posts #23 and #45, I highlight some words:

He is not 'telling people' this crap, but Reuters. You didn't see that in the article? What do you know about urban legends in Africa, what?

The article talks about an interview to Reuters, doesn't it? Hence, Reuters, the BBC and yourself are propagating this ridiculousness.
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How does that sound to you?
 
Herzblut said:
OK, let's have a look at my posts #23 and #45, I highlight some words:

How does that sound to you?
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Sounds like "No, I do not believe condoms are being poisoned by white people." would have been the fastest answer.

I do apologize for calling you a racist though. It was mispelled the first time. Maybe that doesn't count?
 
KingMerv00 said:
Sounds like "No, I do not believe condoms are being poisoned by white people." would have been the fastest answer.
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I'm sorry, you're of course right, and I made a short story long. I was curious to find out if you really imagined I was an 'apologist' or whatever for this kind legends just because I tried to present my understanding of why those legends pop up in southern Africa.

KingMerv00 said:
I do apologize for calling you a racist though. It was mispelled the first time. Maybe that doesn't count?
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No problem. Just tell me, please, if that was a part of your mockery or if you really thought so. In the latter case my post must have been more ambiguous than I thought. I personally found it crystal clear, but I'm certainly biased when judging myself.
 
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Herzblut said:
I'm sorry, you're of course right, and I made a short story long. I was curious to find out if you really imagined I was an 'apologist' or whatever for this kind legends just because I tried to present my understanding of why those legends pop up in southern Africa.


No problem. Just tell me, please, if that was a part of your mockery or if you really thought so. In the latter case my post must have been more ambiguous than I thought. I personally found it crystal clear, but I'm certainly biased when judging myself.
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I admit, I lost track of the opinions in the thread. It can be difficult to keep tabs on who thinks what when you browse the forum casually. When you posted that poem and didn't answer my question I jumped to the wrong conclusion.

I'll take 75% of the blame. Sound fair? :D
 
ceo_esq said:
Aristotle proposed that a vacuum could not exist, and for a long time just about everyone (whether in Christendom or the Islamic world) believed him. In fact, it was the Church and its medieval natural philosopher-theologians who came to challenge this notion. From Edward Grant's The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge UP 1996):


(footnotes omitted)
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interesting but does not address the creation by man of a vaccuum in a barometer. It was connections by James Burke where I had heard the assertion that the church thought the concept of vaccuum heresy.
 
ponderingturtle said:
interesting but does not address the creation by man of a vaccuum in a barometer. It was connections by James Burke where I had heard the assertion that the church thought the concept of vaccuum heresy.
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James Burke did make that assertion, but as near as I can determine, it has no foundation. Near the beginning of the Connections episode "Something for Nothing", Burke says:

In the middle of the seventeenth century, if you were within earshot of the pope ... you could not talk about nothing ... as in "vacuum". See, the pope said there was no such thing, because God was supposed to be everywhere, filling the whole of existence. So nowhere could be nothing, because that would be somewhere God wasn't. And he couldn't be nowhere ... so talk about the vacuum and air pressure and such was, well, heresy.
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Burke then goes on to assert that the barometer immediately became a "Protestant project" due to the religious climate in Rome.

Now, Mr. Burke would appear not to know (or perhaps care) what he is talking about here. First of all, Catholic intellectuals had hypothesized the possibility of a vacuum for centuries, as my earlier quotation from Professor Grant indicates, and in no way does it appear to have occurred to them that a vacuum in nature would entail the absence of God, or in any way contravene the notion of God's omnipresence. (Not all Catholic scientists believed that a vacuum could occur in nature, but not for theological reasons.) So we ought immediately to be suspicious of what Burke is saying here. Which seventeenth-century pope adhered to such an idea? Where did the Church define or even allude to this supposed heresy? Burke offers no assistance to a skeptical audience, unfortunately.

Burke's next assertion that the barometer immediately became a "Protestant project" is also dubious, and not merely because his explanation for it (that the barometer's connection to vacua was incompatible with Catholic theology) is bogus. The Jesuits in particular, after all, published accounts of and commentaries on scientific experiments involving vacua. Indeed, when Evangelista Torricelli, the Jesuit-trained scientist and mathematician who would invent the barometer, succeeded in experimentally proving the existence of vacua, the first people he entrusted with his results were the Jesuits. When Blaise Pascal later attempted to take credit for Torricelli's research on vacua, it was the Jesuits who stepped in to defend Torricelli and set the scientific record straight. Torricelli generally and justifiably relied on the Church to disseminate his discoveries throughout the scientific community, and his work was generally treated openly and favorably in seventeeth-century Catholic scientific publications.

One is left with the impression that Burke was simply repeating another myth about the historical relationship between Catholicism and the scientific enterprise, either because he genuinely did not know better or because it flattered his personal, religious or national prejudices to take a gratuitous swipe at Rome.
 
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articulett said:
This one is left with the impression that ceo_esq is a Catholic apologist.
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You've suggested in another thread that "When [you] use the term [apologist], [you] mean people who are biased towards faith but against atheism without seemingly [being] aware of their bias." The questionable merits of that definition being beyond the scope of this thread, could you simply explain why it would be even relevant to my previous post if I were "biased towards faith but against atheism"? Does it relieve you of any inclination to address the merits of posts rather than engage in meaningless ad-homs?
 
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I've tried to address this with you before... as have others... but you cannot hear it... you have a need to protect the Catholic church and you hear criticisms as louder than they are and rush to defend them... I don't think you can have a rational discussion on the topic though you have convinced yourself you are being rational. I just feel like every conversation you have is about protecting some faith and not acknowledging the harms that can come from believing that faith is a good way to know things.

It may be a meaningless ad hom to you. But it's a way of letting others know that I understand their frustration with trying to communicate with you... you hear things that are not said and go off on tangents to vilify the people who didn't say what you think they said and to protect any negative conclusions they might have drawn about Catholicism (the religion that was foisted upon me, by the way... so I'm no stranger to your way of thinking...)

You ignore the travesties committed by the Catholic church or explain them away or negate them while building up the supposed great deeds done by them and you always have as far as I can tell. You believe that the Catholic church has truth or faith or is worth some sort of extra respect and shouldn't be criticized, but you don't see that you are doing that and you deny it... but that is the view you reveal in just about every post I've read of yours. In fact, I can't remember you contributing much else to discussion here... it all seems to be about making Catholicism look as good as you have come to believe it is and to protect the paradigm from critics as though it were something worth protecting--

Maybe I'm wrong... maybe I'm confusing you with someone else... like Herzblut. But I seem to remember several threads where you digress on a defense of the Catholic church while making bad guys out of those who dared to point out some of its' harms. If I'm wrong, I'm sure I shall become aware of my mistake via evidence.
 
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Please remember to be civil toward each other and attack the argument.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LibraryLady
 
articulett said:
I've tried to address this with you before... as have others... but you cannot hear it... you have a need to protect the Catholic church and you hear criticisms as louder than they are and rush to defend them...
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I'm still not clear on why this would be relevant. Let's try to respond to arguments and assertions directly. Speculating about motives is likely to lead you into fallacy here.


articulett said:
I don't think you can have a rational discussion on the topic though you have convinced yourself you are being rational.
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Can you point to a breakdown in reasoning, some error in logic, in my posts (preferably, for the sake of relevance, my posts in this particular thread)? If the answer is yes, that raises the further question of why you aren't doing so. If the answer is no, then doesn't that deprive you of any basis for suggesting that my posts aren't rational (unless you have some unusual definition of "rational")?


articulett said:
I just feel like every conversation you have is about protecting some faith and not acknowledging the harms that can come from believing that faith is a good way to know things.
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Well, that's not what I feel my conversations are about, but so what? Not to sound callous, but why are feelings (yours, mine, or anyone's) relevant to arguments presented in my posts? (That doesn't mean I don't respect your feelings, of course. I would try to avoid hurting them where possible.)


articulett said:
... you hear things that are not said and go off on tangents to vilify the people who didn't say what you think they said ...
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I think my posts are reasonably responsive to statements and assertions made by others. Take my recent posts in this thread as an example: ponderingturtle suggested, in his question, that the Church opposed early experiments with mercury barometers because it was committed to the notion that vacua could not exist. I answered that this was not the case and cited a scholarly work on the history of science to show why I thought so. Then ponderingturtle replied that he'd heard on a television show that the Church thought the concept of a vacuum heretical. I went back to the source he referenced, restated and evaluated the claim by reference to facts, concluding that it was also groundless. So let me ask you: what did I hear that was not said, who are the people who didn't say what I think they said, and how did I vilify ("to make vicious and defamatory statements about") them, as opposed to simply disagreeing with and correcting them? Are you suggesting that I misunderstood what ponderingturtle (or perhaps James Burke on Connections) was saying? Because I thought the claims were fairly straightforward and I took care to stick pretty closely to what was actually claimed).


articulett said:
Maybe I'm wrong... maybe I'm confusing you with someone else... like Herzblut. But I seem to remember several threads where you digress on a defense of the Catholic church while making bad guys out of those who dared to point out some of its' harms. If I'm wrong, I'm sure I shall become aware of my mistake via evidence.
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My view is that such defenses are really just rationally-founded objections to claims made by other posters here. Whether those claims are attacks on the Church or not is of considerably less interest to me - as to all critical thinkers, I daresay - than whether or not they are correct and well-justified. What you're erroneously perceiving as a biased interest on my part is essentially driven by the behavior and claims of other posters - I think it's fairly rare for me even to bring up the Church purely on my own initiative, so I the accusation that I'm responsible for creating digressions in that direction is unfounded. So the tendency you're really perceiving here is not my tendency to want to defend Catholicism, which I have no special desire to do as such, but the tendency of other people to want to attack it. In the presence of a claim that, based on my own rational faculties or my own knowledge, I strongly suspect is false, I'll generally object to it (particularly if it's in an area, such as the history of science, in which I have a particular interest). If the claim happens to be favorable to Catholicism, I'll challenge it; if it happens to be unfavorable to Catholicism, I'll also challenge it. Nine times out of ten (at least) on this forum, it happens to be the latter, but really, what has that got to do with me or my alleged biases? I didn't create that disparity; it's just part of the environment here.

I think you'll find, moreover, that I have never asserted, even in the slightest, the truth of any religious doctrine, Catholic or otherwise.
 
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Sefarst said:
Burning at the stake was a European thing. We Americans wanted to show how enlightened and progressive we were so we hanged our witches.:D
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Except for the one guy they crushed to death with rocks.

As to the OP, I learned in history class in middle school (so early 1980s) that many people in Colombus's time knew the world was round. I had also watched Cosmos so I knew the Greeks had already determined it was round and estimated its circumference. In other words, some of ya'll had some pretty crappy teachers.
 
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