A twist on "Science versus Religion"

pupdog

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While searching the Chalcedon Foundation web page for the article by Einwechter calling for the "just, merciful, and preventive" death by stoning of disobedient children , I learned (...99jan/dumont.shtml> that "...it is belief in God and Jesus Christ that has lead to the incredible scientific breakthroughs we enjoy in our country. christianity has been pivotal in lifting men and women--indeed, entire nations--out of the pit of superstition and fear to provide the foundation for scientific advancement and human progress."

Farther along, the article talked about Creation.....

So how come we keep hearing the Fundies crying out against those wicked athesistic scientists who are trying to bring America to the devil?
http://www.chalcedon.edu/report/99jan/einwechter.shtml
 
Sounds like revisionist history to me. What about Galileo or Copernicus, to name two well known counter examples? How do they explain the success of Muslim astronomers and mathemeticians? IMHO the church kept Europe mired in superstition and fear, and blocked scientific advance, for centuries...
 
Yeah, apologetics. Nothing more.

And, don't forget the Aztecs and Mayans who, although somewhat barbaric in their religious practices compared to Western civilization, also made great advances in the fields of astronomy well before they were "discovered" by Europeans.

-TT
 
patnray,
I may have missed your point, but Galileo and Copernicus were Christians.

Galileo may have been a non believer privately but I hadn't heard anything like that about Copernicus.

In fact with regards to Copernicus one comment I have heard is that he was fixated on the incorrect notion that the orbits of the planets were perfect circles because they were created by God and he only did perfect things, or something like that.
 
They were christians, but they, and their ideas, were attacked because they did not conform to the teachings of the church.

Your point about circular orbits illustrates how even those willing to challenge the othodox view struggled to reconcile their ideas with the prevailing mythology.
 
ThirdTwin said:
Yeah, apologetics. Nothing more.
Click to expand...

TT,

Is it just that? Or is it part of a re-positioning of the fight? Much headway was originally made with the "atheistic science" claptrap, but with the rise of "Creation Research", we have fundies trying to play from inside. It would seem logical, then, to beg off the "atheistic science" harangue and shift to more of a "look, we're legit scientists here and legitimately disagreeing with these other scientists there."

Cheers,
 
BillHoyt said:
Is it just that? Or is it part of a re-positioning of the fight? Much headway was originally made with the "atheistic science" claptrap, but with the rise of "Creation Research", we have fundies trying to play from inside. It would seem logical, then, to beg off the "atheistic science" harangue and shift to more of a "look, we're legit scientists here and legitimately disagreeing with these other scientists there."
Click to expand...
I think it is indeed the latter. Since they know people today are less inclined to accept something as truth "just because we (the church) say so", they are now trying to find that illusive (and most likely non-existant) proof of god, creation and any other bit of woo-woo in the bible.

While most scientists will search for theories to explain the evidence they find, they will search for evidence to support the claims they make.
 
I prefer the term "scolastics".

There´s a very nice scene about them in "the life of Galilei" by Berthold Brecht.
Galilei just discovered the moons of Jupiter and wants to show them (and his new telescope) to the duke of Florence(? - I read this a long time ago); the Duke also brings two scolastics along, a matemathician(? - correct term?) and a philosopher).
These two doubt that those moons exist, since there is no reference to them in the bible. Galilei urges then to look through the telescope to see them.

(quoted from memory and translated rather freely)

Mathemathician: "And there´s also the question wether or not we need these moons for our faith."
Philosopher: "Excellent point. I see no reason for such objects to exist."
Galilei: "Now would you please take a look at these impossible, unnecessary moons?"
Philosopher: "I´d rather prefer we have a discussion on the question my colleague just brought up."

And so on...the most annoying pair of pseudoscientists I ever had the mispleasure to read about.
 
Chaos said:
... snip

And so on...the most annoying pair of pseudoscientists I ever had the mispleasure to read about.
Click to expand...
Not really fair. Science, such as we know it, was just then being invented by Galileo and others like him. They are pre-science, not pseudoscience. They couldn't even conceptualize things like inductive reasoning.
 
hgc said:
Not really fair. Science, such as we know it, was just then being invented by Galileo and others like him. They are pre-science, not pseudoscience. They couldn't even conceptualize things like inductive reasoning.
Click to expand...

If I remember correctly, the theoretical part of science was around since Ancient Greece.
 
From BillHoyt:
It would seem logical, then, to beg off the "atheistic science" harangue and shift to more of a "look, we're legit scientists here and legitimately disagreeing with these other scientists there."
Click to expand...
yet in the rest of their materials, this group (writing in the Chalcedon Report) is extremely literalist, (6)24-hour-day Creationist. They even hate Creationists who accept an old Earth, condemming them as 'traitors." (This from the Chalcedon Report, September 1998, an entire issue devoted [just the right word!] to creationism, especially 24/6.

No, there's no way these clowns can join with the more intelligent (relatively speaking, of course) recent crop of ID-style Creationists (whom they would no doubt condemn).
 
patnray: Sounds like revisionist history to me. ... How do they explain the success of Muslim astronomers and <span style="background-color: #ffa">mathemeticians</span>? IMHO the church kept Europe mired in superstition and fear, and blocked scientific advance, for centuries...
Click to expand...
Agreed. The invention of the number zero was not a Christian thing. Lack of a number zero held back western mathematics for centuries. Also consider that one of the most popular ways of writing numbers, like these: 1, 2, 3, 4, is not a Christian invention either.
 
pupdog

If you are interested in the role of Religion in the promotion of Sciences you can find some very informatory posts in this thread.

Of course, you might find yourself in disagreement with the way some posters approach the whole matter ( for example I do have some problems with the way ceo_esq describes the role of the Catholic Church in the promotion of the scientific knowledge--he seems to overlook the way the Catholic Church used the knowledge it inherited from the Orient in general and from the Arabs in particular) but the point is that this thread remains an excellent reference source.
 
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