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| Atheists
Posted: 1/24/2008 1:09:23 PM |
The world would still be flat. Correction. The Book of Isaiah tells us it is round, thousands of years before we Forrest Gumped our way to the truth.
Correction. The book of Isaiah reads "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in..." [King James version] This clearly states circle, not sphere, in pretty much every modern translation. A circle is a 2 dimentional shape - ie. flat. It also states that the heavens are spread out "like a tent" over our disc of a world. This description is more like all existance being the inside of a hemisphere... Us on the flat side, and the heavens on the round portion.
The history of science and the Church is so much more than all the drama our local university professors make over Galileo. A further study will reveal just how much the Church has contributed to science in patronage and in her own clergy becoming scientists, the construction of churches as solar observatories, and even her role in the development of the scientific method. Gregor Mendel, Nicholas Copernicus, and Athanasius Kircher are just the first priest-scientists who come to mind. There's not just Galileo. Giordano Bruno was actually burned at the stake. I can list more if you'd like... How about
Joseph Addison
Francis Bacon
Honoré de Balzac
Simone de Beauvoir
Cesare Beccaria
Jeremy Bentham
Henri Bergson
George Berkeley
Thomas Browne
Giordano Bruno
John Calvin
Giacomo Casanova
Auguste Comte
Nicolaus Copernicus
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Erasmus Darwin
Daniel Defoe
René Descartes
Denis Diderot
Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, fils
Desiderius Erasmus
Johannes Scotus Eriugena
Gustave Flaubert
Anatole France
Frederick II of Prussia
Galileo Galilei
Edward Gibbon
André Gide
Vincenzo Gioberti
Graham Greene
Heinrich Heine
Thomas Hobbes
Victor Hugo
David Hume
Cornelius Jansen
Immanuel Kant
Adam F. Kollár
Mary Faustina Kowalska
Nikos Kazantzakis
Hughes Felicité Robert de Lamennais
Pierre Larousse
Gregorio Leti
John Locke
Martin Luther
Niccolò Machiavelli
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maimonides
Nicolas Malebranche
Karl Marx
Jules Michelet
John Stuart Mill
John Milton
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
Patrick O'Brien
Blaise Pascal
François Rabelais
Ernest Renan
Samuel Richardson
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
George Sand
Jean-Paul Sartre
Baruch de Spinoza
Laurence Sterne
Emanuel Swedenborg
Jonathan Swift
Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde
Voltaire
Gerard Walschap
Émile Zola
Huldrych Zwingli All of whom have works listed in the "Index Librum Prohibitorum" (List of Prohibited Books) created and maintained by the Vatican right up until 1966. Yup... Free thinkers! Please note, the beloved Priest-Scientist Nicolaus Copernicus is listed, for the very writings the Church likes to brag about! And since you did mention Galileo... He was convicted of following "the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture." [Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo, June 22, 1633 (translated from the Latin), in Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo, University of Chicago Press, 1955, pp. 306-10] I don't think Copernicus is really a good example for you to use.
To this day, the Catholic Encyclopedia states
When a clearly-defined dogma contradicts a scientific assertion, the latter has to be revised Yup, that certainly promotes free thinking science. | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/24/2008 1:24:25 PM | If an atheist stance needs codification, this may serve:
"The ultimate fates of all humans are the same." | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/24/2008 4:50:25 PM | RE msg 152:
I grow tired of seeing this same argument in countless threads: and I would like to remind everyone that the question of "Theory" vs. "fact" has NO BEARING on the OP, and is thus off-topic spam. Then why do I keep seeing the subject of science keep being brought into discussions of religion and religion? Please note that this issue was engaged due to a poster writing the following, as a fundamental part of his belief:
Please note, science deals in fact and theology deals in opinions So a discussion of whether or not science is fact or not, bears directly on the subject matter, especially since most posts by people calling themselves atheists keep referring to science as "fact". This subject has been discussed before at length, but every time, posters keep ignoring the conclusions, and that is why it keeps being brought up.
No, a scientific theory isn't an explanation- a scientific theory is an observation that is repeatable and testable, where no other observation has discredited it to date (where said observations are also repeatable and testable). "Theory" in the vernacular is taken to mean "something that is accepted as fact, but not proven as such". Both definitions, semantically, are correct- the sticking point is that according to the Scientific Method, nothing is ever considered facts, as there is always the possibility that some new evidence will come to light to disprove it. You can observe the movement of the planets. You cannot observe Gravity, because Gravity is an explanation of why the planets move that way. You can observe the effects of electricity. But you cannot observe electric fields, because electric fields are an explanation of those effects. Theory, in the vernacular, means something that was described as a theory, and is now popularly assumed to be true, by the populace, including those people who've never studied the theory, and even illiterate people, people who can't read, of which there is a significant amount in the UK.
Context. What experiments? Are you referring to the existence of a sentient deity? Such cannot be proven, and any evidence found would have to be verifiable and repeatable- meaning, if two people conduct the same experiment with the same parameters and same method in the same order, the results are so alike that any differences would be infinitesimal, and fall within the scope of human error. I'm talking about science and you are talking about religion, and you expect to understand what I am saying? Second, are you really sure that you understand the notion of an experiment? Nearly all experiments produce measurable error, and we only reject those with a significant level of error, that is just so big as to make the experiment ridiculous. Even Newton's theory of gravitation was 30% in error, and that's a huge margin in anyone's books. The differences are also counted as part of that error, so you are talking about large differences, not small ones. Also, while we're at it, human error is rarely accounted for in these experiments.
Which proves what, exactly? In amateur experiments, endless variations are possible because even the most rigorous armchair scientist cannot eliminate variables: the Scientific Method stipulates that in order to prove a hypothesis, one must design your experiment in such a way that only one variable can be adjusted at a time, and all others remain constant: this would show the effect of that one variable. Nice theory. Try studying reality. Even Boyle's Law could not keep all factors perfectly constant. Anyway, varying one variable and keeping the others constant, only shows a relationship given the exact values of all the other variables. That is why we end up with complex problems based on Laplace's Equation. What you are asking for, is what scientists try to achieve, only because they don't currently have the understanding of how to use mathematics to deduce conclusions based on experiments using multiple variables. The problem is, the real world usually deals with multiple variables all the time.
Misleading. Social "sciences" are not concrete as, say, chemical relationships between periodic elements. A person's age, gender, ethnicity, religion, family situation, marital status, stomach contents, mood, etc. can all affect what answer the same exact person will give from one day- or even hour- to the next. Time of day, geographic region, political affiliation, etc. can also have an effect. In short, studying people is immensely complicated, as there are too many variables to count and no way to establish a Control over all of them. That's not empirical science, that is studying trends. Now you are confusing subjects which have non-rigorous experiments with subjects which have very rigorous experiments. Nevertheless, even in subjects like physics, where we are able to make the experiment very rigorous, there are multiple factors that affect the results, some of which we are very aware of, and some of which we just don't figure on. For instance, it has been shown that temperature affects the law of gravity and the law of electromagnetic attraction. However, this was only shown close to absolute zero. As we can see there is an effect, it would only make sense to conclude that temperature might affect the behaviour of gravity and electromagnetism at other temperatures. But scientists don't seem to be too bothered about that, and just treat it as though it's a one-off anomaly. That would contradict the universality of science.
Misleading, slanderous, and borderline prejudice. What you describe shows how laypersons come to the conclusions they hold about their own lives- a scientist is a person, and so an element of human foibles enters into the results: but the difference is, emotion is not used as the primary motivational factor in coming to a conclusion: a structured and careful set of experimentation is. And even after the experiment is done, Peer Review ensures that other scientists, who do not have the same mental/spiritual/emotional foibles, can themselves pick apart the experiment to see if any details were overlooked or data ignored. Average Joe cannot possibly do this, because life is nowhere near as stable or controlled as a laboratory.
This is a nice theory. Now let's deal with the reality. Science assumes that you can eliminate human foibles by putting people through a university, then putting them in a lab, and then saying it's been peer reviewed. But a lab is intended to be a perfect "clean room", which isn't possible. Further, human foibles remain past university and well into research. Further, the process of peer review just means that the editor of the publication in what a manuscript is sent for publication, CHOOSES to refer it to referees, of which those referees are people who have some standing in that field and are willing to review that material for that editor. Sometimes a noted scientist may not have the time to do this. He might pass it to an graduate, and then skim over the results to see if it looks completely wrong, but he hasn't really read it at all. Many valued scientists don't do peer reviews. Then you've got to consider Cognitive Dissonance of the peer doing the reviewing, and of the scientific community in general. Then you've got to consider if the editor put it up for review in the first place. If it's someone he's never heard of, he probably would. But I've never seen a listing of the peer reviews in any scientific paper. If you can send me links for about 100 scientific papers that have been published by lots of different scientific journals, all listing the peer reviews, I'd love to see it.
I remember when I read in the paper that Fermat's Last Conjecture was true. I later on mentioned it to my Probability lecturer, and mentor in my university. He said that you cannot take such things seriously, because it take so much time to check things out. You have to wait, until everyone has actually read it, and worked it out. Turned out that a flaw was found in it, later on, and it had to be re-submitted again. And that process included peer review.
As to "Joe Collar", John Logie Baird didn't do his experiments in a lab. Nor did Edward Jenner. Nor did many other scientists who produced valuable scientific work.
And I find your likening controlled study of such things as polio and solanum akin to Joe Blue-Collar choosing which route to take to work highly offensive. If you mean the results of the experiments into polio and solanum by experiment, then it was the universe, or nature if you prefer that made that "choice". The "choice" was the revealment of the way in which the world works. But if you refer to the cures involved, then I would caution you as the immense scientific opposition to the finding of a cure for polio. I refer you to the story of Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who found she was able to cure polio, despite doctors of her time saying that polio was incurable, and despite many doctors supporting her claims, was stymied by the medical and scientific community, because if a doctor didn't come up with it, how could a nurse? Please watch the film "Sister Kenny".
Also, I decided to google "polio cures", in order to understand what you were talking about. This is what I came up with: http://www.orthomed.com/polioep.htm
It's another cure for polio, that again was ignored by the medical and scientific community.
I am showing you the tip of the iceberg and you are insulted? Well you should be. You should be ashamed to value the scientific community in such high regard. The only reason I didn't go on to do a masters, despite being asked several times, was because I encountered such politics in what I would be allowed to study, and even conclude as a result.
Of course it's biased: that's why there's peer review. That's why experiments that are so poorly designed as to have multiple variable elements are discarded. This is basic Science, akin to Biology 101 or a high school Chemistry class. Peer review just doesn't work well enough for it to be considered as a definitive method for eliminating bias. Too many things are not even considered for review, to many things are never taken seriously, and too many things are coming through the review method, and later found to be clearly false and erroneous, and in some cases, negligibly so. As to experiments with multiple variables, the world works with multiple variables. The only problem is if the mathematical methods of drawing conclusions from the quantitative results do not support the conclusions. As the main method used tend to be to draw a straight line through the results, and as long as the results are clustered within an inch of the line on the graph, the line is often assumed to be true, scientific experiments often don't go beyond the most basic of linear programming. You cannot expect something to be peer-reviewed if the Maths used is beyond the understanding of the peers. They can't handle it. It's too smart for them. Can you really see a scientist saying to the editor of a famous publication: "I can't review this. It's written by a 22-year-old who can wipe the floor with me."? I can't. Most people I've met in the field of science couldn't having that small an ego. Part of the reason they went into science was to be famous. So ego factors in, in a big way, with peer review. Unless you can show how peer-ego has been quantitatively been taken into account, in a scientific way, then the basis of peer-review is unscientific, and is therefore liable to massive error.
I'm not saying we can afford to let anyone publish anything. We can't. We just a lot better methods of checking things out than we currently have.
Ah, irony.
Are you honestly trying to say that dogma- which by definition never changes, regardless of any new discoveries or ideas or global events, does not have this problem? Religion explains things by stipulating that some sentient consciousness that we cannot observe directs it all. Science explains things by finding out how they work and why they act as they do. God didn't cure polio, Salk did. God created smallpox, Man found the cure for it (at a heavy cost, no less). Why are you so insistent upon discrediting those who do not see as you do? Especially those who have a reason to do so? Seems insecure, if you ask me. You must be talking about some other religion. My religion does not believe in dogma, as you allowed to question everything, and new discoveries are discussed all the time. But as to stipulations, there is no direct stipulation about the existence of G-d. It is discussed as a possibility, with the conclusion of G-d's existence, in a manner that hold similar requirements to science, at least the books I read. But then again, your experiences are probably the reverse. As to science, the ideal of science is to explain things. But the practice is far from that. If you follow the trace of scientific history, you will discover that it goes hand in hand with economic interests, even to our present day. When I was an undergrad, I was looking into Masters and PhDs. Over 90% of the research subjects were in Operation Research, Numerical Analysis, and Statistics, which were all popularly used in business at the time. I did courses in all 3 as part of my degree, so I was also taught the uses. There were 3 other subjects covered, out of over 100, and none were in the fields I wanted to pursue in. If you go back to the Greeks, the most obvious use of Pythagoras' Theorem and Trigonometry in real life, is in architecture, because it allows you to measure tall buildings. It is also used in shipbuilding and navigation. The famous word of Eureka, uttered by Archimedes, was when archimedes figured out how to measure the volume of a non-unform object, because he was hired by the king to somehow determine if the crown-maker had make the king's crown out of pure gold, or was trying to cheat him. Newton's theories on projectiles were round about the time of the cannon. Science follows Business. Not the other way around.
As far as Salk goes, Salk was a Jew, and it's well-known that the main thing that distinguished most Jewish scientists was that they came from families where they had a long tradition of education and curiosity, which stemmed directly from their family's lifelong study of religious law in the Talmud, either by their fathers or grandfathers or a few earlier ancestors. But nothing beyond 6 generations at the most, and all of these people were steeped in Jewish culture, where the ideas of education, analysis and asking questions were paramount.
Second, Salk never cured Polio. He made a vaccine, which eliminates maybe 90% of possible polio victims. But like all dormant-virus based vaccines, some people get infected by the vaccine itself. As I've pointed out, others have found cures for polio.
Third, I pointed out that scientists develop theories as a result of it "occurring" to them that such a theory might be true. Where do these thoughts come from? No-one knows. Who put the idea in Salk's head in the first place, to try using the polio virus itself as a vaccine? Why did he decide to pursue it, when no-one else did? Pure chance? After hundreds of years of science not ever thinking of this? Why didn't anyone else think of this as a vaccine of a different virus?
Also, why do you credit G-d with making smallpox, but you credit man with finding out that cowpox can cure smallpox? Who do you think made cowpox? Who do you think made cowpox so similar to smallpox, that one who is immune to one is immune to both, yet cowpox is only a mild infection?
Ah, irony.
I was brought up to love science. I wanted to be a scientist. But as I grew up, I found more and more politics in it. So I cannot be in it. Ironically, the personality, behaviour and talents of my youth were those of the archetypal absent-minded professor, and in many ways I still am. So I have always been regarded as the scientist who couldn't play political games. I am your ideal of science, and I cannot stand to be in modern science. And you ask if I am insecure, because the thing I am built for, I cannot be in, because of game-playing? You might as well ask a woman if she is insecure about dating because she doesn't know how to spot a player, and trusts people.
So we love explanations, because they make the world seem predictable, and therefore a world which we can control. If we know when these events will happen, we can stop them or avoid them. So it makes up happier to have an explanation for things. Again, replace "explanations" with "dogma", and your statement becomes just as true.I quite agree. Dogma is the bane of religion, because it is an attempt to stop the world, and retain the "status quo". It cannot be done. The world turns and changes. We have to change with it. That doesn't necessarily mean that our beliefs have to change. But they have to re-examined.
That is what an explanation is. It is a way of making things seem more palatable, so that we feel less afraid of the uncertainty of life. Same as above. Religious dogma does not change, even when new discoveries or advancements make it completely ridiculous. The Earth being 6,000 years old was perfectly acceptable to a people with no real sense of chronological time or the existence of other cultures elsewhere on the planet. But nowadays, when we can see very clearly that the Earth must have been around longer than that since Sumerians were making glue and beer before then, such dogma falls flat.
Science has no power to explain anything, because the idea of an explanation is not scientifically testable by the Scientific Method. We can test if the facts contradict a hypothesis, but we cannot test if the hypothesis is true, only if it is false. Semantically, yes. Problem is, according to the Scientific Method, nothing can ever been proven correct in every possible application and instance universally... but it can certainly hold true for the realm of probability that is feasible. The odds that I'll choke on a butterfly that falls out of the sky in china are pretty slim- it could happen, but the chances of it are so indescribably remote that in effect, it won't. Same thing: the odds of Gravity no longer applying on Earth are incomprehensibly low, but it could happen- outside the realm of feasibility. Thus, Gravity is accepted as Law, because any instance in which it would not apply are so far out of the realm of feasibility that even thinking about it is impossible for human minds.
1) The area of imagination, in our ability to pick an explanation out of the millions that exist. You mean, like "God did it"? One explanation, out of (you say) millions.
2) The area of persuasion, in our ability to provide documents that other people can read, that will persuade those other people to believe our explanation. You mean like scriptures?
I find it ironic that everything you have stated applies equally to religion, it is only your opinion that points the finger one way or another. I quite agree. I don't hold religion up to any less scrutiny than science. Both have equal possibility of being correct or incorrect. The wise man analyses both, and allows neither to hold him more than the evidence suggests.
1) There cannot be any "facts" in the Scientific Method. Therefore, since nothing can ever be completely proven, saying that "facts" contradict "theory" is an exercise in futility, as they cannot exist. Even using theory in that context is incorrect, as the term "hypothesis" would be better suited. In this scenario, the "facts" ARE the "theory", it is only the Hypothesis that needs to change. You have written that we think in terms of probability, and that is what we do. But what we describe as "theory", is usually the hypothesis, not the facts.
2) The current process of scientists to deliberately pick theories that have Cognitive Consonance, meaning that they support most people's current beliefs, and play on them, making them easy to accept by people who don't make their own minds up about things. You mean like Creationist Science? I agree, it is despicable that they would design a conclusion before designing a hypothesis. In just about every other application, I vehemently disagree. I highly doubt Mendel came up with the basics for Genetic Inheritance because he thought the majority of people would believe it, and Pasteur's humble origin of Germ Theory was wildly antithetical to what "most people" believed in his day. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Cognitive Consonance doesn't apply. Creationist Science is not necessarily making the facts fit your conclusions. But you go on, imagining it is. Some scientists proposed an idea that disagreed with the general POV of most scientists, and they tried to discredit such ideas. One is the cure for smallpox. The scientific community discredited Jenner, because he was a country doctor, and how could a simple country doctor come up with such a brilliant cure for smallpox, when the great and famous scientists could not? Could yourself lucky that the British Government and later the world chose to listen to them. Your life hangs in the balance of that one.
I challenge you to find a single average joe who could even comprehend how HIV viruses work, even if they know what they do and how the disease spreads. That is well-known that even a child of 5 could understand. If I may borrow from Pastuer, who claimed that germs were tiny invaders, and the antibodies were tiny soldiers, who fight the invaders, then one may say that:
1) The body has sentries, called T-cells, who look over the population and look our for dangerous strangers. If they spy out a dangerous stranger, that we would call a germ, they inform the generals and soldiers, and a mass attack is co-ordinated against the invaders, that we call germs. HIV are commandos, who never attack the main body, but only go after the sentries, and kill them silently. Once the sentries have been eliminated, the generals and soldiers are never informed that there is anyone to fight. So any other invaders are free to roam, and wreak havoc with the body.
2) HIV spreads rapidly, like other viruses, in a clever way. These "invaders", carry very, very little. They are like tiny female soldiers. All they have is a knife to carve their way into a cell, and pictures of the types of cells they go after. They just go up to every cell they find, and they compare the pictures to the cell. If it matches one of the pictures, they carve they way through the skin of the cell, and literally climb inside the body of the cell. Once inside, they eat everything inside the cell, dump their waste anywhere they can find, and start breeding. Eventually, there are so many of them, and so little nutrients, and so much waste, that the cell dies on its own. They then burst out of the dead cell, and move on to find other cells. All this is quite easy, for they have been trained on how best to attack the cells that look like the pictures they carry.
3) HIV only enters certain cells, so they never enter the skin cells directly, because they don't match the pictures they carry. They have into the blood, because the T-Cells, which are the cells they invade, only live in the blood. But they can enter the blood anywhere and find all of these cells, because the blood is just a giant system of rivers and canals. So as long as they can enter one canal, they are in to wreak havoc. However, if a set of blood vessels is somehow sealed off from the main body, such as by a set of clots, then if the HIV virus would enter into one of those blood vessels, then they will wreak havoc only in those blood vessels. However, if one of those clots later breaks, letting those blood vessels back into the main system, then the HIV viruses can also get into the main blood system.
So, if you get a blood transfusion from a HIV-infected patient, then the HIV in the blood is put directly into your blood.
If there is nowhere to breed, then HIV viruses can go to sleep, like bears do, for quite a while. So, if a HIV-infected person uses a syringe to inject themselves, then the HIV virus could get attached to the needle of the syringe while it is in the blood. Then if someone else uses that needle to inject himself/herself, the HIV can move again, from the syringe to the needle.
But the HIV virus doesn't stop there. Although they breed in the blood, they look everywhere for new T-cells. So they can flow into the testes through the blood, and can end up in the semen or vaginal fluid. Once there, if that semen or vaginal fluid comes into direct contact with the blood system, the HIV virus can move with the semen or vaginal fluid into the blood. Because the anus is full of lots of tiny blood vessels, and is quite sensitive, when it is pushed, such as in anal sex, some of those blood vessels can break open. It's only a tiny leak in the system, and gets repaired, so the drain of blood leaking out is really tiny compared to the whole 8 pints of blood that we have. But it's still an opening into the blood. When people engage in anal sex, it is quite common for tiny blood vessels, called capillaries to be ruptured. Also, when we are having sex, tiny amounts of semen and vaginal fluid are released, well before ejaculation, sometimes so little that we don't even know it's happening. So when people engage in anal sex, there is a distinct possibility that a small amount of semen is released and the blood vessels in the anus of the other person to be broken, and a tiny bit of semen to enter in. If the person who releases the semen is infected with HIV, then HIV will also enter the blood.
This is all very dangerous, because the HIV virus targets the T-cells, which are our sentries, so even if only ONE HIV virus enters our body, if it can find a T-cell and cut its way in, before another T-cell detects it, it's inside the T-cell, and is protected from detection by its host. Now, it can breed in thousands, and suddenly, in a few days at most, you have thousands of little commandos. So even ONE is dangerous, far more than other viruses.
From what I have read, it appears that because the HIV viruses only work with a picture, and carry so little, they have to go up to every cell they find. So they go everywhere, into all bodily fluids. But they only get to work if they get into the blood. So it would appear that the criteria for possible infection is if the infected person passed bodily fluids which come into contact with your blood.
So if a person infected with HIV drinks from a cup, and you drink from that cup, there might be HIV on that cup, but that's not going to hurt you. The HIV will just go into your stomach, and get killed by the acid. It's never going to meet your blood, so a person with HIV is completely safe. You can share their food, you can kiss them, you can hug them. All sorts.
But if you have a cut on your lip, or a sore inside your mouth, which exposes the blood vessels, and you drink from that cup, then any HIV could jump from the cup to your blood.
People with HIV cannot infect you directly. But if you have a cut, you can infect yourself.
This is no less complex than Pasteur's own idea, and yet it is something so simple I doubt that I would find any Joe Public who could not understand that one, but I probably could find many, many biologists who would find that idea extremely hard to grasp. Probably one reason why there was so much antagonism to the idea of HIV in the first place.
So you see, Science has no power of explanation at all. By your argument, neither would religion.
Science just reports experiments and their results. In this, we agree. It seems the only argument then is in where each of us places the "Conclusion". I would posit that you have stopped one step too soon.
Conclusions are useful. But it is so much more easy to make an erroneous conclusion, based on the evidence, that it is not worth it, at this present time, to make conclusions, until the whole subject of drawing conclusions from evidence is taught as a course in itself.
The power of Science is in people's beliefs, and the persuasive ability of many scientists to play on that. No, that is Religion. The power of Science is in demonstrating that the results achieved can be repeated on a large scale- if they cannot, the science behind them is flawed and either modified or discarded.
That is very true. But that's not the way people think. Tell enough people that the problems in their lives are because of the existence of a minority, and that if you eliminated that minority, whether by mass deportation or oppression or genocide, that their problems would equally well disappear, frequently most people in that country will believe you and will happily send those people to their deaths.
Science, unlike religion, learns from its mistakes. And when a government dictates to the scientists what the conclusion is and tells them to find evidence supporting it, of course the results are going to be flawed. Governments do dictate SOMETIMES. Other times, government don't and the scientists do this for themselves.
A theory that makes people believe their lives will improve, is far more likely to be accepted, even if it is patently false. As evidenced by religion. Christianity became widely accepted only after St. Paul created the concept that everyone can be saved and everyone can get into "a better place" and stay there forever. Scientology works the same way- the idea that you can give up something you have and somehow be happier because of it. The irony just keeps building and building! =D
If there was a hierarchy of such things, theories would probably be ranked higher than facts.
As I explained, theories ARE ranked MUCH higher than facts, in what people are willing to believe. Incorrect.
To prove it, I offer the following: stop believing in Gravity. Stop believing in Germs. See what happens.I already know what will happen if I stop believing in Gravity. Apples will still fall to the ground. The only thing is that I won't know why. I might come to the conclusion that space "warps" around matter, and that the Apple just flows more readily into the space that is warped around the Earth. I believe that is one understanding of Einstein's theory of relativity, that Gravity does not exist in itself, but is merely an expression of how space-time manifolds change with respect to matter. But I don't need to. All I need to know is that "what goes up on the Earth, generally comes down". I don't even need to believe in germs. All I need to believe, is in the fact that when my body gets run-down, I tend to pick up illnesses easily, or that if I hang around people who are sick, a lot of times I will get sick. Or that if I eat where I defacate, I also get sick far more often. All of these things are true. I don't need to believe in germs for me to believe that they are true. Do you?
However, in terms of a search for truth and understanding of the universe, the real goal of science, facts are must more important than theories, because facts are definite, and theories are only a possibility. Either stop using the vernacular definition of "fact" and trying to use the scientific definition of "theory", or vice-versa. The two are not interchangeable.
As I pointed out, understanding 'why' something is happening makes us feel a lot better aobut our lives that understanding 'what' is happening. But understanding 'what' is happening is more meaningful when it comes to the goals of science. And the "goal" of "science" would be what? I was unaware you understood every possible motivation for every branch of science in every scenario and application across the planet.
However, if we eliminate theories, then how can we draw conclusions about the world, given that we only have a small amount of evidence about what is happening, compared to the totality of existence? Well, we can look to the 2 subjects that are devoted to just that: statistics and logic. Statistics is the study of how we can make a generalisation based on a small set of data. Statistics tells us just how far we can afford to push our evidence, and how likely we are to be wrong, in other situations. Logic is the study of relating statements, which include the assertion of facts. So logic tells us what we can conclude by the facts.
Put the 2 together, and we have a method of drawing conclusions from the facts, and an ability of estimate how likely we are to be wrong, and therefore how to perform other experiments that will allow us to confirm those conclusions in the most efficient way possible, that gives us the greatest verification of those conclusions.
Statistics are a variety of evidence. (Since everyone is deadset on misusing the term "theory", I will respond by using the more accurate term, "hypothesis" from now on). Hypotheses rely upon said evidence. If the evidence, or statistics, do not support the hypothesis, it must be discarded- or modified in such a way that the statistics can support it. Evidence is a statistic. We don't have all the evidence of the world. Statistics is about attempting to deduce conclusions about a large set of situations from data that only covers a part of those situations. That includes attempting to deduce conclusions about the entire universe from experiments in a lab, attempting to deduce conclusions about the effects of a drug on millions of people based on studies of a few thousand, and attempting to deduce conclusions about things that happen till the end of time based on what happens now. So all of the evidence that we rely on are ALL statistics. The only way that it would not be so, would be if we had the evidence for every situation, even the situations that we wish to use the evidence for. If we had all the data in the universe, including the situations we are interested in, we would know what would happen and we wouldn't need evidence. Consider gravity. The theory of gravity is used to calculate how much force a spacecraft needs to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, known as "escape velocity". So we are basing our theory of gravity based on the evidence, to predict how fast such a spacecraft needs to go. But we were never there. We developed the theory, based on one set of evidence, in one situation, to predict what would happen in another situation. That is statistics. You cannot get away from it. Everthing we do in science is based on statistics.
The statistics saying that diseases are caused by microscopic organisms are enormous- therefore, the hypothesis that "germs" cause disease is valid, and the "Theory" that combating the germs on a microscopic scale can cure the disease is accepted. That's why one covers their mouth when they cough or sneeze, and why one would do well to wash their hands before dinner. People have been covering their mouth before they sneeze or cough since way before the germ theory was accepted, and same goes for washing their hands before eating. One other conclusion of germ theory, was that toilets are a breeding-ground for germs, and it is vital to wash your hands after going to toilet, every time. But if you ever watch people while you are in the toilet (not their genitals, just if they wash their hands), you will see that they still don't wash their hands that often. Doctors have complained about this before. But people still do it. Anyway, you don't get germs from someone who sneezes or coughs and is healthy. Part of the reason that you sneeze and cough is just to release inanimate particles from your mouth and throat, which cannot infect you. You get germs from someone who sneezes or coughs an infectious disease whose germs are carried through the air. A good example of germ theory is Hepatitis. When I was in college, there was an epidemic of Hepatitis (I don't know which one it was, only that it was very serious). As I lived there, and ate in the main hall, I was a suspected carrier. I contacted a doctor, who told me to take the shot that carried the vaccine, and eat from the same plates, knives and forks, and to carry a hand-towel, and only to wipe my hands from that, as that would ensure that if I had it, I would be extremely unlikely to pass it to anyone else, and would similarly be extremely unlikely to catch it. Coughing and sneezing were not an issue. So as you can see, the method of infection depends on the type of disease and the type of germ we are dealing with. That's the main problem with Germ Theory. The practical applications of it are pretty straightforward, as long as you understand that there is no single "conclusion" to draw. It's different for each infection. But most people seem to think you CAN draw solid conclusions and simple applications based on Germ Theory, and that is why Germ Theory is nowhere near as effective as it ought to be. Because people keep drawing erroneous conclusions without checking the facts. A friend of mine once told me that he went for an interview to study medicine at Oxford. When he came into the interview, the interviewer told him that he was sorry, but he wouldn't shake his hand, because he had a cold. My friend said that you can't catch a cold from shaking hands. The interviewer then told him that was a test, to see if he was a real student of medicine or not. Now if the interviewer had just sneezed on his hands, and had phlegm on it, it would make sense to not touch it, if only to avoid you putting your hand, covered with phlegm that contained the virus, into an orifice where it may enter the system. But that wasn't the case. What would you have done? Would you have shook his hand, or would you have been rejected from one of the top universities in the UK?
In reality, you can remove every theory in science and still draw the same conclusions, merely by using logic to draw them from the evidence, and statistics to tell us just how far we can generalise that evidence. That's what the Scientific Method actually is: using causal logic (this makes this happen) to draw conclusions from the evidence (if A turns into B, and you have lots of A, you'll get lots of B). The correct use of the term "Theory" is just that: the logical conclusion based upon the evidence.
The difference is that such a method is not as popular, because it is far more rigorous and exacting and far more appealing to the intellect, but does not appeal to our feelings, particularly our fears and insecurities, at all. Correct. That's why everyone on Earth isn't a scientist, and why it takes years and years of schooling to get the credentials and even more years in the field to get the credibility. You're catching on!
When I was in University, there was one lecturer who was called "god" by the undergrads, and his book on Real Analysis was considered required reading by the students, but not the faculty. He explained one of the most subjects in Mathematics, Uniform Convergence, in terms of gambling and oranges. He said at the beginning of his course that he wasn't bothered if anyone didn't want to turn up. No-one missed his lectures. I repeat, no-one missed his lectures. I repeat, no-one missed his lectures.
Conversely, the head of the department taught me Vector fields, and he admitted at the beginning of the term, that he was just reading the notes, and didn't really understand it, but politically he was a master. I took a course in Knot Theory in my third year, and the Professor that I had, taught it in such a complicated way, that it took me most of the year to grasp it Once I did, I realised that Knot Theory was really simple. But that the way it was taught made it sound complicated. I found that you can pretty much work out how high up the ladder someone was, by how cleverly they sounded, and how difficult they made the subject sound, even if the subject was simple. But the reality is that the better you can understand it, the easier that person can explain it to others, and the simpler they are able to express their ideas.
Our views of science are built more about propaganda and image, than the search for truth. It's that simple. But you only find that out, if you actually hang around with these people, and I, unlike most undergrads, always hung around the teachers, and sought them out outside of lesson times. So it's not surprising that you haven't grasped this.
A classic example of this is medicine. Many developments have been advanced in medicine, in the name of evolution. More like "in the name of chemical interactions and anatomical similarities between certain organ systems/tissues in humans and very spefici organ systems/tissues in certain animals that correspond only vaguely with human ones and in any case it is far easier to test something on 600 monekys than to test it on humans, because other humans would have an enormous hissy-fit".
But if you check these developments out, you discover that those developments are based on the generalisation that human bodies are homologous to non-human animals, based on the experiments that show just how similar the bodies of those animals are to humans, and based on the experiments that show that human bodies are based on human DNA, which is very close to animal DNA, which is the basis for their bodies too, and this generalisation is called Homology. But Homology can be shown by experiments. Correct in a way, but also incorrect in another. DNA in every living thing- and some nonliving things like viruses- is very similar: but the result of the corresponding entity are not. Humans and pigs have very similar jaw structures, but humans and sharks do not. Humans and cats do not. Carcinogens like nicotine have a specific effect on rat lung tissues, and a nearly identical effect on human lung tissues: but human lungs and rat lungs are not the same.
Nevertheless, the basic premise is correct. A lot of the developments that are based on animal experiments are on the basis of the idea that all animals and humans are composed of cells that function on the basis of DNA, and that human DNA is so similar to animal DNA, leading to the vast majority of biological processes being similar. For instance, sharks are aerobic creatures, just like humans. The only difference is that they breathe with gills, and us with lungs. But because they too function on oxygen, anything that affects the action of oxygen in their internal systems will affect humans equall well, and vice versa. So a poison such as cyanide, which binds onto haemoglobin, and stops oxygen attaching itself, will stop the transport of oxygen through the blood in a shark, just like in a human.
Someone well-versed in logic can point out that fallacy better than I. They could, because I'm not a political person, who is very good at debate. But they would make the same mistakes that others have made, to the detriment of society.
So homology is a fact, not a theory. No, it is a HYPOTHESIS, not a THEORY.
In reality, homology is not a theory, because it is not assumed completely true for all animals or all situations. Each species has to be tested for its parts and functions that are homologous to humans. Even then, some animals have variants which mean that that animal is not the norm. You're understanding the flaws in the argument, but not the argument itself. Let me simplify. "Theory" does not mean "Fact". "Guess" does not mean "Thoery". "Fact" does not mean ANYTHING.
For instance, if I recall correctly, the human digestive system is most similar to pigs, far more than apes. But evolution would declare that pigs are on a very different evolutionary branch than humans or monkeys. So if we resorted to evolution, we would not use pigs for scientific experiements involving digestion. But we don't. We actually use pigs. Because homology is scientific, because it is based on facts, not theories. No, it is based entirely on theories, and you are simply choosing to ignore what the term "Theory" actually means.
One scientific theory present during the Industrial Revolution was the idea of the Carbon Cycle, along with the Oxygen and Nitrogen Cycles. At that time, it was believed that any industrial pollutants would be reabsorbed into the atmosphere and rivers, and therefore the pollution made by industry would not adversely affect the environment. Correct, partially. Methods for gathering data during the early years of the Industrial Revolution were crude at best- and very little attention was paid to the effects of the Revolution, only ways to make MORE stuff FASTER and CHEAPER.
Eventually, it was discovered that in the proximity of the industrial plants making the pollution, there was damage to the environment, particularly to people who lived there, especially children who developed Asthma. Science adjusts accordingly, should a HYPOTHESIS been proven incorrect. There was also a prevalent theory, up until the 1960's, that certain races of humans were genetically inferior to others, based upon observations of their lifestyles, societies, lifespans, etc. Eventually, this Theory was proven to be incorrect. Science can correct its own mistakes.
By the way, there was NEVER a scientific theory that certain races were "inferior", because that was never a theory. It was based on the most appalling science. One theory was that African-Americans were less intelligent because far less of them could read. Of course, the "scientists" who put this idea out, never bothered to consider if they were taught to read or write. Reading all the numerous threads about how much evolution was a "fact", led me to read about Darwin's life history, which says that he heard of this "theory", but he was taught taxidermy by an African-American, and saw just how smart this "inferior" person was, and so saw the "theory" for what it was. Prejudice. It's no different than the people who claim that poor people are poor because they are stupid, and no different than the American scientists of the 1920s, who started a Eugenics program, and to sterilise masses of poor people against their knowledge. Please stop putting scientists with gross and ignorant prejudice in the same category as real scientists. They are worlds apart.
So the industrial plants were moved out of residential areas. However, it was still assumed that the pollutants would be reabsorbed by the atmosphere, and passed back into their relevant cycles. Really? You've never been to the Midwestern US, I take it. Many small towns exist- literally- around some sort of manufacturing facility. And if your statement were true, such concepts as "carbon emissions" and "pollution credits" would not exist. Not to mention, on a long enough timelime- yes, the environment does absorb, and negate, pollutants. The timeline, however, is very very long. The processes exist, and can be observed.I haven't been to the US. But I've been to lots of places, and most industrial plants in most built-up cities are put in an industrial sector, and residential accommodation is not generally built in those sectors. Unfortunately, government legislation doesn't generally say there has to be a massive distance between those sectors, so you sometimes see large residential areas on the borderline, right next to loads of industrial plants. Also, many places don't have any legislation at all, or the legislation doesn't apply to many types of plants, and often doesn't apply to existing plants.Unfortunately, it appears from my reading that in the USA, the legislation is scant, if any. The facts are clear. But it seems that big business still holds more sway than pollution of the population in your country. But there are countries in which the industrial plants are generally kept separate from the population.
The whole idea of "carbon emissions" and "pollution credits" only exists because of the assumption that pollution is reabsorbed into the atmosphere. The problem is that you cannot do an experiment on a monkey, because the monkey in this case, is the whole Earth. So you have to do smart experiments, and as you've pointed out so ably, scientists tend to not bother with those sorts of experiments these days, so they just don't know how to design such an experiment, because they don't have to normally, 'cause we don't see any harm in killing monkeys so scientists don't have to think a little harder, and be more creative in coming up with a better experiment.
So we aren't really in much of a position to do valuable experiments. So we are letting the Earth be the guinea pig.
Obviously there is some level of re-absorption, or no water would be reclaimed, or oxygen, or nitrogen from the air, or carbon from carbon dioxide. The issue is of accuracy. In theory, the Earth might reabsorb it all. Of course, too much toxicity in any body, can kill it. You need iron in your body, or you would die. But you can also die of iron toxicity, from too much iron. The question is the exact effects of how the total proportion of chemicals being output into the Earth would affect it. It might kill it off. It might just kill us off and some animals and plants, and leave the rest of the animals and plants to survive without us. The way I see it, that sort of thing is where science is useful, to determine the exact amounts we can afford to send into the environment and still keep the world on an even keel.
We now know this is not the case. No, we know it IS the case: it simply takes too long to effectively remove the problem in any sort of feasible time frame. Breathe CO2 on a plant, and it'll turn it into oxygen. Breathe 600 million tons of CO@ onto a plant, and it'll turn it into oxygen- it'll just take a very, very, very long time.Actually, it's a little more complicated than that. Plants need oxygen, just like we do. But in addition to normal cellular respiration, they are able to convert CO2 and water and light via photosynthesis into glucose and oxygen. They can hang onto the glucose, but they can only store a limited amount amount of the oxygen, so most is released into the air. During the day, far more oxygen is formed than is needed, so most of it gets expelled into the air. But in the night, there is no light, so no photosynthesis, so plants use the small amounts of oxygen they have reserved and then start drawing oxygen in from the surrounding environment. That's why many people recommend that you never put a plant by your bed, because it draws the oxygen in at night, and can affect your sleep.
So if you breathed 600 million tons of CO2 onto a plant, a few things could happen. You could breathe so much, that by diffusion, a toxic level of CO2 would be absorbed by the plant, far more than it could convert by photosynthesis. CO2 is also held by the plant haemoglobin also by diffusion, but oxygen has a more preferential hold. However, pressure could affect that. With a high level of pressure of CO2, the pressure would cause diffusion by the CO2 in preference to the normally preferential oxygen. That would cause the CO2 to be diffused onto all the plant haemoglobin, thus making no oxygen available to the plant, and it will be starved of oxygen. In the night, there is no photosynthesis, so then it would be breathing in nothing but CO2 anyway. Humans and animals, have a much higher requirement for oxygen than plants, so you would die in minutes. Plants can survive much longer. But it will die, if it is surrounded by that much CO2 for months.
The length of time will be until the CO2 can clear by other methods. Plants make more oxygen from an atmosphere like our own. Put too much CO2 in the plants atmosphere and you'll stop their biological processes too. But not before you and other animals would die in the same environment, because humans and other animals need far more oxygen than plants.
But this was only assumed because of the over-reliance on theories over facts. No, it was ignored because of cost-effectiveness. It is far more cost-effective to simply vent your waste into the surrounding area than to buy specialized equipment to process, store, and/or remove it.
The theories made us feel safe to let industrial manufacture progress at an unprecedented rate, for which we just didn't have the experimental data to confirm that this reabsorbtion would happen. Made who feel safe? The layperson, working insane hours in shitty conditions? Or the factory owners, who didn't give half a shit about anything except making as much money as possible while spending as little as possible? Which "us" do you refer to? O.o
This led us to Acid Rain, Global Warming and the partial destruction of the Ozone Layer. So unfortunately there's a lot of people who try to poison the world with ignorance by insinuating that theory = certainty. No, there's a lot of people who poison the world by insinuating that cost-effectiveness > all other concerns. It was caused, in short, by the short-sightedness of the perpetrators. Or the legions of people that perpetuate ignorance by insisting that every possible explanation (except their own) is the only one that can EVER apply.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. We've shown that we can make changes based on what has happened with the issues of racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, and smoking. What are we doing to ensure that companies are not allowed to pollute indiscriminately?
Theories are nice ways to make us feel better about things. As can religion. The difference is, Science can adjust to oversights, mistakes, or new information that did not previously exist or apply.
But we don't need them, and they are often harmful to us. Agreed. Just look at Scientology.
If you don't believe me, check out the # of women on the forums who have had a significant number of bad experiences in dating and relationships. Most of those experiences are evidence which would be satisfactory in terms of science, and constitute scientific evidence. No, they are not. And no, they would not.
Many of those women explain their evidence by the theory that men are only interested in sex. This hypothesis is supported by their evidence and the evidence of many other women. Correct, in that usage, it would be a hypothesis: a flawed one, gathered by ignoring the enormous body of evidence that can be acquired from the source, rather than from hearsay (i.e., ask the men themselves).
Those women have no other explanation that fits their evidence so accurately, and so their theory is not underdetermined by other theories. But it is not scientific, because it generalises about all dating and relationship experiences between all men and all women, when it only covers the experiences of these women with the men they dated and had relationships with, and only in the context of the specific pairing thereof, and only based on the circumstances they were in. Yes- which means, the Hypothesis was contradicted by the sloppy experimental design and forming a conclusion before gathering evidence.
Or, it would, if the consistent factor you claim (being, THEM) were actually consistent. I've already tried explaining that amateur, sloppy social examinations would not be considered valid science: in the scenario you present there would be far too many variables, even among the consistent THEM women, that no respectable scientist would try to formulate an experimental design based upon it. That's where therapy (which can suggest a trend of behaviors of the women themselves based on other similar behaviors) can help them determine if the problem is on their end, or communication can help "gather evidence" that would contradict their hypothesis. No scientist? There are papers that draw conclusions about people, based on the observations of a couple of hundred college students, and deductions drawn from them. I deliberately pick an example, that people already know the flaw of, so people can understand the problem, and you have the ignorance to ridicule it? Why do you think I picked that example in the first place? You don't know, because you never thought about it. I COULD pick more problems, but given your dismissive attitude, it would not be worth it, for all it would do, would be to keep you flaming. However, if you wish to discuss things in a calm and measured manner, I can look around and find a few more examples.
So even on POF, eliminating the theory and sticking only with facts, increases our chances of gaining truth and understanding, immeasurably far more than theories, and stops us making assumptions that lead to seriously erroneous conclusions. No, eliminating previously held conclusions and erroneous hypotheses and gathering new evidence, and forming new hypotheses around it, can be helpful.
This idea of needing a theory in science is extremely detrimental to both science and our society, because it is the direct source of both generalisations and stereotypes, which both cause untold problems in our current world. I beg to differ: this idea that your use of the word theory is anything like what a theory actually is- and that you can abuse science and the scientific method and declare the conclusions you form from an inherently flawed premise to be correct- is detrimental to society.
Religion in my life told me to never question it, but to question everything else. Science taught me to question everything, at all times, especially itself.
I have learned infinitely more from the latter. It strikes me that you have learned more from learning to question, than from science.
I can quite understand your perspective, trippy_hare, because I grew up with it. Let me give you a history lesson. At the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, people had become very disillusioned with the promises of the Church. The next change came in the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. At this point, people were told that science would solve their problems and that they didn't need religion anymore. As people were very unhappy with the fact that their lives were still unhappy when they were religious, people jumped at this idea. They honestly believed it. They didn't know better. These people were brought up in Christianity. They didn't hear about Greek or Roman culture until they were adults. They had never had 20+ years of studying ancient cultures, like you and me, who were learning about the ancient Babylonians when we were 5. They only learned these things later. They sounded seductive. So they believed it. They believed that science would solve all of their problems. They were told that their injustices were the result of religion and they believed it. So they believed that religion was completely bad, and science was completely good.
This was the start of the rise of what was known as Modernism.
One of the big problems was transportation, because the only way to travel across the seas and oceans was by ship, which was notoriously dangerous. The ship Titanic was built according to science, and it was said that even G-d could not sink her. It was expected that once the Titanic showed that ships could be made that made sea-travel safe, Science would solve the great problem of transportation. But on its maiden voyage, an iceberg showed the flaws in the design. Still, shipwrights relied heavily on science. Science helped many ships. But in the end, ship-transportation was still dangerous, and enough ships still sink today that it is still considered quite dangerous. These days, people prefer to travel by air, because it is more safe than ships. Shipping is left to cargo transportation, and even then, the sinking of ships is so common that it is considered collateral damage, a part of the risk of shipping. Science gave up.
People believed that the twin sources of science and diplomacy would solve the problems of war. They truly believed this. Then along came the Great War, World War I. Nothing like it had been seen before, because there had never been anything like it. It dwarfed even the biggest wars in history by comparison. Great poets wrote about it in such despair, not because it was larger than any war before, for there were wars that decimated a higher proportion of the population, not because it was more evil than any other war, because far worse things had been done before many times. Great poets wrote about it in such despair, because it was believed that science and diplomacy would remove such evils as war, and this war showed that science and diplomacy would not stem the tide of war, but increase it, for diplomacy brought about treaties that created a false sense of security, without which, the Great War would not have been allowed to happen, and for science was the bringer of the Gatling gun, the machine gun, artillery, airborne warfare, mustard gas, concentration camps, and many other evils. Thus science and diplomacy were shown to those who fought in the Great War, that you could not rely on them to save you from war.
As a result, the people despaired and sought solace in just living for today, in the hedonism of the 20s, which caused such overspending that when a run was brought about, it formed a "domino effect". Many factors have been blamed for the Great Depression. But the reality is that before the Great War, banks and lending societies were very careful about who they lent to. This reversal of attitude, which went against the common sense of business practise of previous experience, was partially accounted for by the great lack of desire for people of that era to look back and examine their lives, because people really didn't want to face the disillusionment that the Great War showed.
However, many people stuck fast to their beliefs. They claimed that science and diplomacy was the answer to our problems, and that warfare had been eliminated, but that mankind needed to purge the violence caused by the earlier wars that were blamed on religion. So it was called the Great War, for there would be other. It was the last vestige of humanity's need for violence.
This also was part of the reason for the partying of the 20s. People partied like there was no tomorrow, for Armageddon had come and gone, and humanity had survived.
Then came World War II, and all those who claimed that mankind had purged themselves of war in the Great War were silenced. No more would it be said that science and diplomacy had solved everything.
Thus was sown the seeds of the Post-Modernist Era.
Then in the time of World War II, many people claimed the answer was in nuclear weapons, and that once America had nuclear weapons, then all the other nations would be afraid to fight and could be persuaded to be at peace and use diplomacy to solve their differences. That didn't work either, because the Russians gained nuclear weapons, and formed a deadlock stalemate, that meant that neither side could risk using them.
Then after World War II, many people claimed that the answer would be found in education and social services, and that by making education and social services free for all, that would solve the problems of society. Unfortunately, they are still with us, despite free education and free social services being available in many countries in Europe for over 50 years.
There is one simple observation that we can make, that is an age-old adage:
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. It means to say that no one thing can solve every problem, and that everything has its place to contribute to solving the problems that we have.
Science can help us, but it is not a cure-all.
Religion can help us, but it is not a cure-all.
Diplomacy can help us, but it is not a cure-all.
Education can help us, but it is not a cure-all.
Social services can help us, but it is not a cure-all.
None of the things that we have tried, have solved our problems, because we looked to ONE thing, to solve ALL of our problems, and that is just unrealistic in my POV.
All of the self-help authors that are acclaimed that I have read, have pointed this out. You cannot solve everything with one solution, or one method, or one subject, and it is folly to try.
By all means, have respect and use for science, for it is a great tool in helping our lives improve. It has been so hitherto, and will be again. But it doesn't have all the answers and never will, no matter how much you want to believe it.
You have a choice: believe that science has its place, but only its place and that no one thing can rule us all, or make science your G-d, your answer to everything, and suffer the consequences, when you over-rely on it, and it lets you down, just when you need it the most. | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/24/2008 7:35:15 PM | Here's a list of secular organizations that help those in need, to name a few:)
-Red Cross
I am not intimately familiar with any of these organizations but one. And that one is, in fact, "founded on Christ." ~Christian Colligation of Apologetics Debate Research
Although the United Way and Red Cross are now secular charities, their origins are indisputably Christian.
Both the United Way and The Red Cross symbol's Christian overtones led in part to attacks such as the one on the charity in Baghdad in 2003, motivating a more neutral mission statement in order to help more of those in need, which would have gone neglected due to the hatred of Christ in many nations...sad, that.
Edit: After researching just ONE of your cited "secular" organizations, I found that said citations are incorrect.
Habitat for Humanity: A Christian Ministry
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian organization dedicated to eliminating substandard housing and homelessness worldwide and to making adequate, affordable shelter a matter of conscience and action. Habitat is founded on the conviction that every man, woman and child should have a simple, decent, affordable place to live in dignity and safety.
Habitat has an open-door policy: All who desire to be a part of this work are welcome, regardless of religious preference or background. Habitat for Humanity has always had a policy of building with people in need regardless of race or religion, and we welcome volunteers and supporters from all backgrounds.
A Bible is presented to new Habitat homeowners at their house dedications.
Can I get a Whoo Whoo? LOL
The work of Habitat for Humanity is driven by the desire to give tangible expression to the love of God through the work of eliminating poverty housing. Habitat's mission and methods are predominantly derived from a few key theological concepts: the necessity of putting faith into action, the "economics of Jesus" and the "theology of the hammer."
I have a strong feeling that if I were to research the rest of your cited organizations, I would probably find the same.. sad, that, too.
The world would still be flat.
Correction. The Book of Isaiah tells us it is round, thousands of years before we Forrest Gumped our way to the truth.
Correction. The book of Isaiah reads "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in..." [King James version] This clearly states circle, not sphere, in pretty much every modern translation. The word "sphere" naturally could not have been used by the Prophet, as this word had never been used nor existed during the Biblical times of Isaiah. The word sphere is from the Greek sphaira for a globe or ball shape. The word is little changed in use or application from its earliest usage, much after the date of Biblical writings of Isaiah. Sorry. That dog wont hunt. | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/24/2008 8:16:16 PM | By the way, I only took so long to reply, because it took me so long to write a reply to all of trippy_hare's points.
RE msg 154: Jacobus, you are right. Not all monarchs and leaders chose to court religion. If you would be choose to include all systems of belief that deal with how the people can deal with their lot in life, as being included in the word "religion", then my statement would still be true for the majority of leaders. However, I do concede that some leaders never bothered with any form of belief. But they all relied on something to support their aims.
The French courted a few systems of belief, as you have put it.
The Bolsheviks courted Marxism as a philosophy, then Leninism, then Stalinism, each a variant on the Communist ideal, and ones which they never lived up to, for in all the time of the U.S.S.R., the party members lived so far better than the proletariat, that being a member of the Communist party was just being an aristocrat in the previous era.
I cannot speak for the Governor of Mexico, because I don't know what supported him.
I do know that the main driving force that supported the Roman Emperors was the Roman Legions, which were put under the direct control of the Emperor in the time of Julius Caesar, and who seized control of the senate and disbanded it using the control of the Army, and even though it was re-formed later on, it was always under the subjugation of the Emperor, because the Emperor had control of the Legions and the Legions would kill the senators if the Emperor ordered it so.
By the way, since I've come on POF, I've spent a lot of time looking things up. It turns out that Constantine I ordered that Christianity be tolerated under the Edict of Milan, but it was Theodosius who ordered Christianity to be the only legitimate imperial religion of the Roman Empire, in 391.
Also, Henry VIII was a difficult king, because he wanted a son, to cement his reign. Basically, Katherine was his dead older brother Arthur's wife. Henry was none too keen to marry her, as you can imagine. But he agreed. But then she could not give him a son, only a daughter Mary. So he asked the Pope for a divorce, but the pope couldn't give him one, because the Vatican had been taken over by Charles V, Katherine's nephew, and she didn't want a divorce. Unlike France, Spain and Italy, England was never too big on religion, the people were very unhappy with the way things went with the Catholic Church, and the people needed to see that Henry had a son. Henry asked the English Clergy for permission to divorce Katherine and they refused because the Pope refused. He then charged them with disobeying the country and the King, by obeying the orders of a foreign sovereign power. He said he'd let the matter go easy on them, if they declared him head of the church, and the reigning monarch of England has been head of the Church of England ever since. From there on in, parliament support him with several acts, Henry made a lot of decisions that went well with the people, and everybody in England was happy.
Edward VI was his son, the heir to the throne, a Protestant like his father. But he was a sickly child. He came to the throne at 9 and died at 16. So he was the boy king who never ruled. After Edward, there were no more male heirs to the throne and the next in line was a Scot, and the English hated the Scots. Mary was the daughter of Henry and Katherine, so she was made the next in line. She was a Catholic and returned the country to Catholicism. She burned 300 dissenters on the stake, and as called Bloody Mary as a result. But she died after 5 years. Elizabeth I was next. She was a Protestant like her father, and she restored the country to Protestantism. Because she ruled for 45 years, Protestantism was well-rooted by the time of the next monarch, James I of Scotland, who only brought about toleration of Catholicism, but left the Church as Protestant.
It's true that there were still very many staunch Catholics still in England. But the majority of people didn't care too much about religion. England was always foremost in people's eyes, and Henry and Elizabeth were both very successful monarchs and well-loved by the people. They had the people behind them, and that's all that mattered.
RE msg 156:
What I get out of your post, is a total disregard for science. We can't prove anything, so why bother. It's the same thinking as "Our pitiful human minds cannot possibly comprehend god's workings." Then read again. What I have said, is that science over-relies on theories to its detriment.
Let me translate this idea into religious terms. Suppose that I were to kill someone in the name of my religion. Now imagine that I go to Heaven and G-d says that my religion was not correct according to Him, or that it was, but what I did was not sanctioned by Him. So that makes me a killer. If I say "Sorry, G-d. I thought I was doing the right thing.", do you honestly think that G-d will say: "That's all right. I'm just a lovable teddy bear really. Just a big softy"? Do you really that that G-d will let me off that easily? Get a grip. If He is willing to allow people to die in Tsunamis, do you really think that He's that much of a softy?
On the other hand, if all that happens is that I pass into oblivion, then it doesn't really matter what I do. A serial killer and a paedophile goes to the same place as a saint.
However, if I am practical, then I won't take the chance of relying on any one theory of religion to justify an action that would cause extremely negative consequences for me if a different theory of religion was true.
In other words, if I want to hedge my bets, I'm better off not killing anyone in the name of religion unless I'm damn sure that all religions and beliefs are OK with it, or unless I've got some really amazing signs that pretty much guarantee that I'm on the right road.
Why on Earth would I want to gamble so much on any one theory? It's pointless. So I don't.
When it comes to Science, I don't want to gamble either. So I stick to what I can be sure of. I only work with Hypotheses, in areas where I can be damn sure that the conclusions of that Hypothesis have been clearly shown to work, time after time.
This is extremely dangerous thinking!!! You're running scared. I'm saying that Science is imperfect and needs to be constantly attacked to make sure that scientists don't get complacent, and you're saying that's dangerous. Please tell me you're not a scientist or a doctor. If you are, and we ever meet, can you please direct me to somebody else? The last thing I want to do is rely on a complacent person, on something my life depends. We have enough cases of complacent doctors who've ruined people's lives in the UK.
This thinking has been church sponsored on many occassions. It lead to the DARK AGES. This thinking is what lead the Church to brand numerous scientists as heretics when they tried to teach against church doctorine. Your should read more. The Dark Ages ran from about 476-1000 CE and is also known as The Early Middle Ages. If you look at European history of the time, the period begins with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and pretty much all the knowledge and social organisation fell apart. It took about 500 years for things to pull together. During that time, people were more worried about food than literacy of science. The majority of the people who could read and who took much of an science were the clergy. But science was only part of their interests. It wasn't till much later on, that society had rebuilt itself to the extent that people started taking an interest in science again:
Dark Ages?
The stereotype of the Middle Ages as a supposed "Dark Age" is reflected in the popular views regarding the study of nature during the period. The contemporary historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers discuss the widespread popular belief that the Middle Ages was a "time of ignorance and superstition", the blame of which is to be laid on the Christian Church for allegedly "placing the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity", and emphasize that this view is essentially a caricature. Contrary to common belief, Lindberg say that "the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the coercive power of the church and would have regarded himself as free (particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation wherever they led. There was no warfare between science and the church". And Edward Grant, writes: "If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason [the 18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities".
For instance, a claim that was first propagated in the 19th century and is still very common in popular culture is the supposition that the people from the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat. This claim is mistaken, as Lindberg and Numbers write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference." Misconceptions such as: "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages", "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science", and "the medieval Christian church suppressed the growth of the natural sciences", are all reported by Numbers as examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, even though they are not supported by current historical research.
Great names of science in medieval Europe
The Venerable Bede (ca. 672–735), monk of the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow who wrote a work On the Nature of Things, several books on the mathematical / astronomical subject of computus, the most influential entitled On the Reckoning of Time. He made original discoveries concerning the nature of the tides and his works on computus became required elements of the training of clergy, and thus greatly influenced early medieval knowledge of the natural world.
Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253), Bishop of Lincoln, was the central character of the English intellectual movement in the first half of the 13th century and is considered the founder of scientific thought in Oxford. He had a great interest in the natural world and wrote texts on the mathematical sciences of optics, astronomy and geometry. In his commentaries on Aristotle's scientific works, he affirmed that experiments should be used in order to verify a theory, testing its consequences. Roger Bacon was influenced by his work on optics and astronomy.[18]
Albert the Great (1193–1280), Doctor Universalis, was one of the most prominent representatives of the philosophical tradition emerging from the Dominican Order. He is one of the thirty-three Saints of the Catholic Church honored with the title of Doctor of the Church. He became famous for his vast knowledge and for his defence of the pacific coexistence between science and religion. Albert was an essential figure in introducing Greek and Islamic science into the medieval universities, although not without hesitation with regard to particular Aristotelian theses. In one of his most famous sayings he asserted: "Science does not consist in ratifying what others say, but of searching for the causes of phenomena." Thomas Aquinas was his most famous pupil.
Roger Bacon (1214–94), Doctor Admirabilis, joined the Franciscan Order around 1240 where, influenced by Grosseteste, he dedicated himself to studies where he implemented the observation of nature and experimentation as the foundation of natural knowledge. Bacon was responsible for making the concept of "laws of nature" widespread, and contributed in such areas as mechanics, geography and, most of all, optics.
The optical research of Grosseteste and Bacon made possible the beginning of the fabrication of eyeglasses at the end of the 13th century. The same research would also prove invaluable for the later invention of such instruments as the telescope and the microscope.
Thomas Aquinas (1227–74), Doctor Angelicus, was an Italian theologian and friar in the Dominican Order. As his mentor Albert the Great, he is a Catholic Saint and Doctor of the Church. His interests were not only in philosophy; he was also interested in alchemy, having written an important treatise titled Aurora Consurgens. However, his greatest contribution to the scientific development of the period was having been mostly responsible for the incorporation of Aristotelianism into the Scholastic tradition, and in particular his Commentary on Aristotle's Physics was responsible for developing one of the most important innovations in the history of physics, first posited by his mentor Averroes for celestial bodies only, namely the notion of the inertial resistant mass of all bodies universally, subsequently further developed by Kepler and Newton in the 17th century. (See Pierre Duhem's analysis The 12th century birth of the notion of mass which advised modern mechanics. from his Systeme Du Monde at [3])
John Duns Scotus (1266–1308), Doctor Subtilis, was a member of the Franciscan Order, philosopher and theologian. Emerging from the academic environment of the University of Oxford. where the presence of Grosseteste and Bacon was still palpable, he had a different view on the relationship between reason and faith as that of Thomas Aquinas. For Duns Scotus, the truths of faith could not be comprehended through the use of reason. Philosophy, hence, should not be a servant to theology, but act independently. He was the mentor of one of the greatest names of philosophy in the Middle Ages: William of Ockham.
William of Ockham (1285–1350), o Doctor Invincibilis, was an English Franciscan friar, philosopher, logician and theologian. Ockham defended the principle of parsimony, which could already be seen in the works of his mentor Duns Scotus. His principle later became known as Occam's Razor and states that if there are various equally valid explanations for a fact, then the simplest one should be chosen. This became a foundation of what would come to be known as the scientific method and one of the pilars of reductionism in science. Ockham probably died of the Black Plague. Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme were his followers.
Jean Buridan (1300–58) was a French philosopher and priest. Although he was one of the most famous and influent philosophers of the late Middle Ages, his work today is not renowned by people other than philosophers and historians. One of his most significant contributions to science was the development of the theory of Impetus, that explained the movement of projectiles and objects in free-fall. This theory gave way to the dynamics of Galileo Galilei and for Isaac Newton's famous principle of Inertia.
Nicole Oresme (c. 1323–82) was an intellectual genius and perhaps the most original thinker of the 14th century. A theologian and bishop of Lisieux, he was one of the principal propagators of the modern sciences. Notwithstanding his strictly scientific contributions, Oresme strongly opposed astrology and speculated about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He was the last great European intellectual to live before the Black Plague, an event that had a very negative impact in the intellectual life of the ending period of the Middle Ages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_the_Middle_Ages#Dark_Ages.3F
I find it interesting that things like the theory of projectiles, Occam's Razor, and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, were all conducted under the rule of the Church.
Your life would be completely different, as technology would not exist. We would have to wait for god to "didit" again. I think that anyone who has that much distrust for science should stop using all the benefits that science gives them. You shouldn't be able to have it both ways. I have a very high regard for Science, but not for scientists who are not objective. I have many favourites, not the least of which is Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who developed the machine for digging tunnels, which is still in use today, and George Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive The Rocket. However they were not armchair scientists who did things just in the lab. They bore the spirit of Archimedes. They worked in their labs. Then they tested their theories in real life. They put their word, their honour, their reputation and their livelihood on the line by producing their inventions and standing by them. If their inventions failed, they did. If it worked in the lab and failed in the field, they didn't make excuses. They tested their stuff, in the field. They made damn sure that it would work, in real life, before they took it to the public. Why do you think Brunel's bridges and tunnels are still around today, hundreds of years after they were built, as solid as the day they were made? Why is London's sewer system and underground system composed of tunnels made in the Victorian Era, and only very little has been built since by comparison? I put it to you, that these were not scientists in white coats, who wrote books that made lots of money. They were great, because they made sure their stuff worked. Brunel had a workshop. Everything he made, he built. He didn't off to Japan to have it made. What you call the science of today, is the merest fraction of the effort that scientists would routinely put into their work.
The science and technology of today, is mostly the result of things that great minds of earlier eras produced. In our generations, there are far fewer people who stand out. The developer of the first computer, the inventor of the basic principles of computing (Alan Turing), the inventor of the first semiconductor, the inventor of the first pocket calculator, the inventor of the first spreadsheet (not Microsoft), the inventor of the Personal Computer, the Altair, the inventor of the first Operating System, the inventor of the first GUI-based computer (Steve Wozniak), and a few more. I doubt you know anything about these people, and they are the ones of this century who have shaped your lives. I am sure that you can tell everything about Richard Dawkins, that is printed in his books. But what do you know of him that wasn't printed in his books? You probably know more about Dawkins than Wozniak, and yet you owe far more to Wozniak than Dawkins.
I question: who should use this technology?
RE msg 159:
In this article, the Myth of the Flat Earth or Flat Earth mythology refers to the modern belief that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical. Today it is widely recognized among professional medievalists and historians of science that the "medieval flat Earth" is a misconception, and that the few verifiable "flat Earthers" of the period were the exception.
As is expressed by Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of “flat earth darkness” among scholars (regardless of how many uneducated people may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology. David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers also write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."
Origin
The 19th century was a period in which the perception of an antagonism between religion and science was especially strong. The disputes surrounding the Darwinian revolution contributed to the birth of the conflict thesis, a view of history according to which any interaction between religion and science almost inevitably would lead to open hostility, with religion usually taking the part of the aggressor against new scientific ideas. During this time, the conception of a European "Dark Age" gave much more prominence to the Flat Earth model than it ever possessed historically.
The first accounts of the legend were traced to the 1830s. In 1828 Washington Irving wrote the work of historical fiction The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. The book was confused by many as providing an actual historical account of Columbus life. As a recourse to make his romance more compelling, Irving "...invented the indelible picture of the young Columbus, a 'simple mariner,' appearing before a dark crowd of benighted inquisitors and hooded theologians at a council of Salamanca, all of whom believed, according to Irving, that the earth was flat like a plate." There was indeed a meeting in Salamanca, but Irving's account for what happened there was entirely fictional.
A few years latter, in 1834, Antoine-Jean Letronne, a French academic of strong antireligious ideas, misrepresented the church fathers and their medieval successors as believing in a flat earth, in his On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers. Then, In 1837, the English philosopher of science William Whewell first identified, in his History of the Inductive Sciences, two minimally significant characters named Lactantius (245-325, also mocked by Copernicus' in De revolutionibus of 1543, as someone who speaks quite childishly about the Earth's shape, when he mocks those who declared that the Earth has the form of a globe) and Cosmas Indicopleustes, who wrote his "Christian Topography” in 547-549. Whewell pointed to them as evidence of a medieval belief in a Flat Earth, and other historians quickly followed him, even though it was hard to find other examples. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_mythology
You are spot on, Jacobus. Thanks for this enlightening perspective. I always knew that there were other religions that believed in a round Earth, but never knew that Christianity was one of them. Turns out it was all just anti-religious propaganda.
RE msg 161:
Correction. The book of Isaiah reads "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in..." [King James version] This clearly states circle, not sphere, in pretty much every modern translation. A circle is a 2 dimentional shape - ie. flat. It also states that the heavens are spread out "like a tent" over our disc of a world. This description is more like all existance being the inside of a hemisphere... Us on the flat side, and the heavens on the round portion. First, let us be clear. The Jews were the ones who included the book of Isiah in the Bible and we've got a tradition that the Earth was always round. Second, the word in the original is "Chug", and the word for a circle is "Maagal". Unmistakably different."Chug" is related to "Chag", a festival that comes round periodically. It refers to a circumference or rotation of the Earth. You are reading another mistranslation.
I can list more if you'd like... How about Just so you know, it is customary on POF to include the reference to your source, so that your claim may be peer-reviewed according to the principles espoused by science. I had to find it for myself. I will add it for the benefit of everyone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum
As to the list, I can go through each one, but each one has a specific problem with it. But that is quite lengthy. Let me just pick on your example of a "scientist" who was burned at the stake:
Giordano Bruno was actually burned at the stake.
Giordano Bruno (1548, Nola – February 17, 1600, Rome) was an Italian philosopher, priest, cosmologist, and occultist.
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At the age of eleven he traveled to Naples to study the Trivium. At 15, Bruno entered the Dominican Order, taking the name of Giordano from Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies, completing his novitiate, and becoming an ordained priest in 1572.
Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies, completing his novitiate, and becoming an ordained priest in 1572.
He was interested in philosophy, and was an expert on the art of memory; he wrote books on mnemonic technique, which Frances Yates contends may have been disguised Hermetic tracts. The writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus had played an important role in the Renaissance Neoplatonic revival. At that time they were thought to date uniformly to the earliest days of ancient Egypt and to encode a form of "pristine wisdom" ("prisca philosophia"). They are now believed to date mostly from about 300 A.D. and are associated with Neoplatonism.
While the Hermetic Tradition was a major influence on Bruno, he also absorbed and developed the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus, though he claimed that his own mystical understanding of heliocentrism was far more important than Copernicus's understanding, which Bruno considered merely mathematical.
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Bruno developed a pantheistic hylozoistic system, essentially incompatible with orthodox Christian Trinitarian beliefs.
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The year 1591 found him in Frankfurt. Apparently, during the Frankfurt Book Fair, he received an invitation to Venice from the patrician Giovanni Mocenigo, who wished to be instructed in the art of memory, and also heard of a vacant chair in mathematics at the University of Padua. Apparently believing that the Inquisition might have lost some of its impetus, he returned to Italy.
He went first to Padua, where he taught briefly, and applied unsuccessfully for the chair of mathematics, which was assigned instead to Galileo Galilei one year later. Bruno accepted Mocenigo's invitation and moved to Venice in March 1592. For about two months he functioned as an in-house tutor to Mocenigo. When Bruno announced his plan to leave Venice to his host, the latter, who was unhappy with the teachings he had received and had apparently developed a personal rancour towards Bruno, denounced him to the Venetian Inquisition, which had Bruno arrested on May 22, 1592.
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Some authors have characterized Bruno as a "martyr of science", making a parallel to the Galileo affair. They assert that, even though Bruno's theological beliefs were an important factor in his heresy trial, his Copernicanism and cosmological beliefs also played a significant role for the outcome. Others oppose such views, and claim this alleged connection to be exaggerated, or outright false.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "…in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When…Bruno…was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology."[7]
Similarly, the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908) asserts that "Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, who is put forth as a wise sage and Egyptian priest, and who is commonly seen as synonymous with the Egyptian god Thoth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism
The guy was a PRIEST, who taught Egyptian Magic, found in the Book of Thoth, then went around teaching Jesus was a magician, and he decided to hang out in Venice, p*ssed off the guy who was paying him, and landed in trouble because of it. Is it any wonder he was executed?
I am sorry, but a guy who believes in Magic, not Science, and who kept teaching it, and was a priest, is a really good example of the Church's intolerance to nutcases who tried to take the Church apart.
And since you did mention Galileo... He was convicted of following "the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture." [Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo, June 22, 1633 (translated from the Latin), in Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo, University of Chicago Press, 1955, pp. 306-10] I don't think Copernicus is really a good example for you to use. Yet there is a different view:
At this time also, Galileo engaged in a dispute over the reasons that objects float or sink in water, siding with Archimedes against Aristotle, the favorite of the academics. The debate was unfriendly, and Galileo's blunt and sometimes sarcastic style, though not extraordinary in academic debates of the time, made him enemies. Galileo's friends reported to him that a group of professors of philosophy were working quietly to raise opposition to him in the Church, where accusations of heresy were more deadly than anything that could be done to a dissenter in a university; their success is indicated by the sermon of Caccini, described later.
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One of the first suggestions of heresy that Galileo had to deal with came in 1613 from a professor of philosophy, Cosimo Boscaglia, who was neither a theologian nor a priest. In conversation with Galileo's patron, Cosimo II de' Medici, Boscaglia gave the opinion that the telescopic discoveries were valid, but the motion of the Earth was obviously contrary to Scripture. Galileo was defended on the spot by a Benedictine abbot, Benedetto Castelli, who was also a professor of mathematics and a former student of Galileo's.
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Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, one of the most respected Catholic theologians of the time, was called on to adjudicate the dispute between Galileo and his opponents, including both religious zealots and secular university professors.
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He conceded that if there were positive proof, "then it would be necessary to proceed with great caution in explaining the passages of Scripture which seemed contrary, and we would rather have to say that we did not understand them than to say that something was false which has been demonstrated."
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His final argument was that the motion of the Sun could not be a mere appearance, as the shore appears to recede when one sails away from it, because everyone perceives the latter as a mere appearance, while no one so perceives the former.
In sum, he found no problem with heliocentrism so long as it was treated purely as hypothesis and not as an absolute truth, unless there was conclusive proof. This put Galileo in an extremely difficult position, as he had many powerful arguments but no "conclusive" proof for the truth of his position. In fact, his theories had gaps and errors, as is (we now know) the usual condition of all radically new scientific work. The main argument against a movable Earth was well known at the time, and was presented by Aristotle almost two millennia before : If the Earth moves, why are there no observable parallax shifts? It was to take 300 years before there were instruments good enough to observe these, in stars. As Simon Singh shows in his book "The Big Bang", there were other serious related problems with the Copernican model. The model by Ptolemy corresponded better to observed data than the Copernican model. It was not until Kepler suggested ellipses, rather than circles that even better correspondence to observed data could be demonstrated. So despite his theory contradicting both simple theoretical arguments and observed data, he wanted his conviction to be taught as truth. Today, scientists tend to present only those parts of their findings as "truth" that are very clearly shown, such as the results of a particular experiment. Careful suggestions of new theories are rarely considered truth until a consensus is reached. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
It is quite clear that Galileo could not back up his claims to the high standards required by science. It is also clear that if Galileo could have backed up his claims, then the Church would have changed its viewpoint. But he never did. | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/24/2008 8:24:24 PM | ^^^^^^^^
The extraordinarily long postings do...... WHAT.... again? | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/24/2008 8:59:17 PM | Witty fool said:
There's not just Galileo. Giordano Bruno was actually burned at the stake.
True, he was. He wasn't a "martyr for science", though, in that his condemnation had nothing to do with Copernicanism or any of his other scientific writings or teachings. He wasn't even condemned for merely being a theological heretic; as he had spent some time before as a Protestant, although he had been excommunicated from the Calvinist church in geneva, the Church of England, and the Lutheran church. He was condemned for teaching erroneous theology in Venice, in a Church-owned university.
I would also add here that Mr. Bruno was a martyr-maker himself. When he was in England, he posed as a priest-confessor at the French National Embassy in London. Many English Catholic recusants went to make their confessions to him, because Catholicism was an illegal religion in England at the time. Bruno, however, was a double agent for Queen Elizabeth I and turned these people in to the state for prosecution.
All of whom have works listed in the "Index Librum Prohibitorum" (List of Prohibited Books) created and maintained by the Vatican right up until 1966. Yup... Free thinkers!
I have a copy of the Index, but thank you.
I didn't say the Church promoted "freethinkers". I did say that the Church contributed greatly to the advancement of science through patronage, invention, and a legacy of clergymen who were also scientists.
Please note, the beloved Priest-Scientist Nicolaus Copernicus is listed, for the very writings the Church likes to brag about!
No bragging necessary: the book De revolutionibus was dedicated to Pope Paul III.
It was placed on the Index in 1616 during the Galileo controversy to make an edit in the book, stating that heliocentrism was only a hypothesis. And at that time, it was, since heliocentrism had not been proven yet with the crude instruments available at that time, and Galileo could not yet refute Aristotle's argument against heliocentrism. It wasn't banned from reading, but taken from circulation until the edits were made. Four years later, it was approved again. The book is not listed in a "current" edition of the Index. And that is why Copernicanism was not considered an "error" until the Galileo affair, when it was put to the test and failed at that particular time in history.
Finally:
To this day, the Catholic Encyclopedia states
When a clearly-defined dogma contradicts a scientific assertion, the latter has to be revised
The statement is taken completely out of context. Here's the full context, in the article "Science and the Church".
In case of an apparent difference between faith and science, he takes the following logical position: When a religious view is contradicted by a well-established scientific fact, then the sources of revelation have to be re-examined, and they will be found to leave the question open. When a clearly-defined dogma contradicts a scientific assertion, the latter has to be revised, and it will be found premature. When both contradicting assertions, the religious and the scientific, are nothing more than prevailing theories, research will be stimulated in both directions, until one of the theories appears unfounded. The conflict about the heliocentric system belonged, theoretically speaking, to the first case, and Darwinism, in its gross form, to the second; practically, however, disputed questions generally turn up in the third case, and so it was actually with the heliocentric system at the time of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galilei.
The article makes a pretty clear distinction between a scientific fact and a scientific assertion, as well as a religious view and a clearly-defined dogma. It should not be implied that a a scientifically established fact is to be discarded. | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/24/2008 10:36:33 PM | what's the topic again? Its been so long since anyone talked about it I scarcely remember. Oh ya it was
I was wondering, what inspires Atheists to pick on Christians, or other religious groups.
Gosh, I don't know why pots call kettles black I mean that's soooooooo rude.
In the last few days I've learned a lot on these forums. Since I'm an atheist that makes me ignorant, stupid, satanic, immoral, rude, intolerant, arrogant, and close-minded. I've learned that the love I 'think' I feel, such as the love for my daughter, is "fake" love and that I won't experience 'true' love until I worship a certain someone and His dead, tortured kid. I did worship them once though, and when I did I really was guilty of most of those accusations.
In one thread I'm getting slammed right now by someone with some pretty interesting views. He hates healthcare in our province and blames the problems on tax dollars going towards "murdering babies with abortion" and the "high cost of AIDS medicine for homos who brought it upon themselves." He has many ideas about the "fag community" and public education indoctrinating us with "sick and degenerate leftist ideology" and electing "federal liberals, who won't stand up to the fags and feminazis who are destroying this country." This guy is filled with the kind of 'love' that I once had.
So to answer the OP's question, it is thus:
I discovered one day that the more love I had for the central figure of my faith, the less love I had for those who believed differently. The love, and the hate, grew in me with equal measure. My pride was consuming, my beliefs sancrosanct, and any skepticism against my faith was a personal attack. I was a hateful person with pretenses of love, and now I no longer am. Now I can accept that all faiths are equal, my beliefs are no longer sancrosanct and often undergo revision, skepticism is welcomed - and usually comes from me, and I know love like I have never known before. When I left God I made Him a deal, I will live the best life I can and love the best I can, but I will worship no god until I find evidence of one - and if there is a god and He cares about how people live their lives - great! - if He doesn't care, then I'll be content with the knowledge that I lived the best life I could. And if along the way I "pick on christians" I might simply be defending beliefs, or correcting error, I might be standing up for myself, or I might be slaying personal demons from my past. These are footsteps along my journey to own myself. | |
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Posted: 1/24/2008 10:47:24 PM | An incredibly small amount of people in America identify as atheist. I think it's less than ten percent.
I find it less obnoxious when an atheist spreads their "truth", because their brand of truth doesn't punish, exclude, or shame people into believing a certain way. Generally, it's not the children of atheists who grow up and commit suicide because they're ashamed of being gay, for example.
Atheism is a religion if black is a color.
I think it has to do with sensitivity and hurt. I'm an atheist, and you can call me ignorant, and I won't care. I don't devote my life to something I consider a farce, and so it's no skin off my nose. Religious people are often more sensitive because if they're wrong, it's like they've wasted their lives striving for something and devoting themselves to something that turned out to be wrong. If I'm wrong about my atheism, I could care less. I wouldn't want to believe in a god that would damn me to hell for disagreeing with him, anyway. Besides, I doubt Jesus, friend to the misers and the harlots and a mystical Rabbi himself, is particularly gunning for anyone's blood.
For every atheist who has "picked on" a Christian, there have been ten Christians who have happily informed said atheist that they're on the road to damnation if they don't repent. Atheists are a disrespected minority in America. | |
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Posted: 1/25/2008 12:27:56 AM | msg163 has to be the longest post that was not pure cut-n-paste that I have ever seen on PoF.
In the first part, you seem to be saying that nothing can be proven with certainty that relates to real life as we experience it. Experimental evidence an provide strong circumstantial evidence to believe that something is likely to be true, but it can always be questioned. I don't believe there is any such thing as "scientific fact" outside of the human-invented discipline of science itself, so if this is what you are saying, I very much agree.
This caught my eye and I am curious:
My religion does not believe in dogma, as you allowed to question everything, and new discoveries are discussed all the time. But as to stipulations, there is no direct stipulation about the existence of G-d. It is discussed as a possibility, with the conclusion of G-d's existence, in a manner that hold similar requirements to science, at least the books I read. Can a person really be of the Jewish faith and not believe in a deity --- just, like an agnostic, believe in the remote possibility of a deity? I find this interesting. Does it make that religion more of a philosophy than a religion, for those who lean towards the unlikelihood of the existence of a deity?
Our views of science are built more about propaganda and image, than the search for truth. It's that simple. But you only find that out, if you actually hang around with these people, and I, unlike most undergrads, always hung around the teachers, and sought them out outside of lesson times. So it's not surprising that you haven't grasped this. As someone who spent some years in research, mixing with mathematicians, computer scientists and some physicists and engineers, I agree to some extent with this point. I found that different research centres/university departments had different attitudes and there is a bit of a class system whereby the ones at the very top (I'm thinking of a few genuinely brilliant professors) have no need for the image crap, they are not threatened by anyone's questions, are not remotely defensive or competitive but are very open to collaboration with no agenda other than "finding things out". At the grass roots, some young researchers are also passionate and idealistic. But they all exit in a culture which demands that you compete with your peers constantly: for grants, for PhD students, for jobs and the only way you can compete is by publishing papers and giving talks presenting research as your own work. The culture breeds snobbery, cliques, secrecy and obfuscation... I thought it was about the search for truth but in reality most of the time is spent trying to establish your niche/reputation and to prove to people who know nothing about your subject that they should pay you to research it.
Even so, the very fact that people try to discredit and compete with each other does contribute to rigour in the peer review process, for mathematics and computer science, at least. Younger researchers do better getting their supervisor to add his name to their work because of inevitable human factors, but most often, a paper on a new topic will be reviewed by the direct competitors of the author in that field. (If you work between fields, linking areas together, it can happen that your papers are refused because no-one has sufficient expertise in all the different fields to review your work (highly frustrating)). Errors slip through, of course they do, but I do believe that results are normally verified as far as possible by 1-2 human beings -- no-one wants to get it wrong, because getting it wrong means risking being seen to get it wrong.
By all means, have respect and use for science, for it is a great tool in helping our lives improve. It has been so hitherto, and will be again. But it doesn't have all the answers and never will, no matter how much you want to believe it.
You have a choice: believe that science has its place, but only its place and that no one thing can rule us all, or make science your G-d, your answer to everything, and suffer the consequences, when you over-rely on it, and it lets you down, just when you need it the most. There is so much that we don't understand. Someone posted recently that his idea of god was that god was curiosity and the search for understanding. Maybe naming "I don't know" as "god" makes sense to some, but not to me: "I don't know" is simply "I don't know", worship seems like the cessation of questioning and . I do think that as humans we seek to understand and that by the gradual illumination of patterns, science satisfies that same need for answers that "it is god's plan" have also achieved.
I don't identify with many atheists because they frequently seem to believe far too much in terms of science and far too little in terms of possibility. There often are scientific explanations for apparently "mystical" phenomena, but it is also possible that the science we understand fails to explain what we see. I think that science probably does, by definition, have all the answers to how the universe works -- but that the fraction of science that we grasp barely skims the surface of the science of the universe. | |
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Posted: 1/25/2008 11:24:12 AM | @scorpiomover
When it comes to Science, I don't want to gamble either. So I stick to what I can be sure of. I only work with Hypotheses, in areas where I can be damn sure that the conclusions of that Hypothesis have been clearly shown to work, time after time.
That is the point at which a Hypothesis becomes Theory...
In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation.
This is extremely dangerous thinking!!! You're running scared. I'm saying that Science is imperfect and needs to be constantly attacked.
Please tell me you're not a scientist or a doctor. If you are, and we ever meet, can you please direct me to somebody else? I thought you were above thinly veiled insults...
Your[sic] should read more. The Dark Ages ran from about 476-1000 CE and is also known as The Early Middle Ages. Again with the insults... Perhaps you should read what you post. Only one of the well known scientists you posted was alive during the middle ages.
the inventor of the first GUI-based computer (Steve Wozniak), and a few more. I doubt you know anything about these people, and they are the ones of this century who have shaped your lives. I am sure that you can tell everything about Richard Dawkins, that is printed in his books. But what do you know of him that wasn't printed in his books? You probably know more about Dawkins than Wozniak, and yet you owe far more to Wozniak than Dawkins. Woz didn't invent the first GUI-based computer. Apple was just the first to mass produce it (BTW, I used the first gen Mac in 1984... I could tell you a lot about it, as well as the Tandy, Apple II, and others pre-PCjr). The first GUI was actually invented by Doug Englebart at the Stanford Research Institute between 1965-1968. Xerox marketed a GUI on their STAR computers in 1981. Woz got the idea of using a GUI when he toured the Xerox Research Center, and implimented it on the Mac in 84.[http://imrl.usu.edu/OSLO/technology_writing/004_003.htm]
And I personally know, and care to know, next to nothing about Dawkins. I see his books as being in violation of my personal belief that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.
Similarly, the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908) asserts that "Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc." The transcripts of Bruno's trial were thought lost up until November 15th, 1940, when a summary of his trial was found. The Catholic Encyclopedia can assert all it wants, but the actual trial summary states that his conviction was changed to capital punishment due to the following phrase:
Firstly, I say that the theories on the movement of the earth and on the immobility of the firmament or sky are by me produced on a reasoned and sure basis, which doesn’t undermine the authority of the Holy Sciptures […]. With regard to the sun, I say that it doesn’t rise or set, nor do we see it rise or set, because, if the earth rotates on his axis, what do we mean by rising and setting [http://asv.vatican.va/en/doc/1597.htm]
As for alternate theories to Galileo Galilei, here is what his Papal Condemnation reads:
Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Sunspots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it, by glossing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning: and whereas there was thereupon produced the copy of a document in the form of a letter, purporting to be written by you to one formerly your disciple, and in this divers propositions are set forth, following the position of Copernicus, which are contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture:
This Holy Tribunal being therefore of intention to proceed against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, by command of His Holiness and of the Most Eminent Lords Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the Sun and the motion of the Earth were by the theological Qualifiers qualified as follows:
The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.
The proposition that the Earth is not the center of the world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least erroneous in faith.
But whereas it was desired at that time to deal leniently with you, it was decreed at the Holy Congregation held before His Holiness on the twenty-fifth of February, 1616, that his Eminence the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine should order you to abandon altogether the said false doctrine and, in the event of your refusal, that an injunction should be imposed upon you by the Commissary of the Holy Office to give up the said doctrine and not to teach it to others, not to defend it, nor even to discuss it; and your failing your acquiescence in this injunction, that you should be imprisoned.
...
We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgment of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely, of having believed and held the doctrine—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probably after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to the Holy Scripture; and that consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. From which we are content that you be absolved, provided that, first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, you abjure, curse, and detest before use the aforesaid errors and heresies and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church in the form to be prescribed by us for you. [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/condemnation.html]
Say whatever alternate theories you want... Those are the transcripts (obviously translated). | |
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Posted: 1/25/2008 1:10:30 PM | @Jacobus101
Giordano Bruno was actually burned at the stake. True, he was. He wasn't a "martyr for science", though, in that his condemnation had nothing to do with Copernicanism or any of his other scientific writings or teachings.
I didn't say the Church promoted "freethinkers". I did say that the Church contributed greatly to the advancement of science through patronage, invention, and a legacy of clergymen who were also scientists. The church only advanced "science in accord with church dogma." There is a big difference between that and advancing science. Yes, there are a handful of scientific discoveries that happened because of the church, but how many were lost forever because those who might have made them were afraid to be treated like Bruno or Galileo?
No bragging necessary: the book De revolutionibus was dedicated to Pope Paul III.
It was placed on the Index in 1616 during the Galileo controversy to make an edit in the book, stating that heliocentrism was only a hypothesis. And at that time, it was, since heliocentrism had not been proven yet with the crude instruments available at that time, and Galileo could not yet refute Aristotle's argument against heliocentrism. It wasn't banned from reading, but taken from circulation until the edits were made. Four years later, it was approved again. If it was approved, then how come all heliocentric works were banned until April 16, 1757? Why were they not allowed to be printed in Rome up until 1822? I see a lot of confusion and double standards in the actions of the church in this regard.
In 1664, Pope Alexander VII published his Index Librorum Prohibitorum Alexandri VII Pontificis Maximi jussu editus which included all previous condemnations of geocentric books. Pope Benedict XIV suspended the ban on heliocentric works on April 16, 1757 based on Isaac Newton's work. Pope Pius VII approved a decree in 1822 by the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition to allow the printing of heliocentric books in Rome. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism] | |
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Posted: 1/26/2008 5:03:19 AM | Now I can accept that all faiths are equal, my beliefs are no longer sancrosanct and often undergo revision, skepticism is welcomed - and usually comes from me, and I know love like I have never known before. When I left God I made Him a deal, I will live the best life I can and love the best I can, but I will worship no god until I find evidence of one - and if there is a god and He cares about how people live their lives - great! - if He doesn't care, then I'll be content with the knowledge that I lived the best life I could. And if along the way I "pick on christians" I might simply be defending beliefs, or correcting error, I might be standing up for myself, or I might be slaying personal demons from my past. These are footsteps along my journey to own myself.
I see that I do stand alone in the total shakedown that has me reorganizing my whole closet that religion hides in.
I came to these forums not too long ago with ignorant beliefs regarding those who didnt share my own. I knew nothing about them and thought I knew all. While foolishly jumping into this fire we call religious/or not forums, I was shown through both the abundance of love showered on me by those who I silently and self righteously referred to as "Pagan" and by the pen of wise scholars who rationally reasoned my ridiculous "the right way" attitude into one of openness and willingness to admit that I had ignorantly judged many of them wrongly.
Take a bow, "minority folks of America."
You've manged to squeeze a rarely heard before "I was wrong" out of me.
Atheists are a disrespected minority in America.
Then you've got work to do. (The rest of them arent as stubborn as I so its down hill from here.) | |
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Posted: 1/26/2008 6:49:31 AM | well i must say there are some obviously intelligent people on this thread, both christian and non. i am sorry i didn't read everything everyone had to say but none the less i am impressed by the comments. let me just add to the op. atheists attack christians not "because" christians attack atheists but they do it "like" christians attack atheists. i believe it is our inherit nature to shun or attack those whose beliefs are opposed to our own no matter which side of the fence we sit. i myself claim to be a christian. i have attended churches and have known some very smart people who believe we should go out and convert as many as we can to christ in order to save their mortal souls. i believe on the other hand that no man or woman can convince me of anything by screaming or demanding that i change my belief. i believe that as a christian i should show you my faith by the way i live and the way i treat other people, not by waving a bible in your face and slapping you upside the head. it is sad when christians do this and they are usually smart and caring people who get caught up in this frenzy to make others believe the same as they do. as far as telling someone they are going to hell...well i have lived over 51 years and not once has God asked me for my vote...too bad because there are a few i would like to condemn (woops did i say that out loud?) so to my fellow christians it might just be easier and less confrontational if you just prayed for a person and asked God to soften their heart instead of telling them they are going to hell or their children will be damned for eternity.
now for the atheists who find it necessary to attack me for what i do believe. basically i choose to believe a story about a god who created the entire world in 6 days. gave life to every living thing or being on this planet. gave noah a vision and then destroyed everthing just because people were not living right. then he gave his only son life born of a virgin, gave his son free will to live his life, yet he chose to be ridiculed, persecuted, beaten, spat upon, have his beard pulled from his face, mocked, whipped until he was too bloody to recognize, and then nailed to a tree ....all because he loves me and doesn't want me to perish. then he was dead, he went to hell and back, he rose from the grave and walked the earth again as a living being. i am supposed to eat his flesh and drink his blood to honor him (this do in remembrance of me). and so on and so on.
surely if this were just a little somthing to believe in until something better comes along, don't hyou think i would have chosen a faith that made a little more sense????? i cannot help what stirs my soul and this is it.
so i will promise to not march down the street and cast you into hells fire if you will just lighten up and not think i am a mindless idiot for believeing in God and Christ. let's try to get past what we believe and who we vote for and what we watch on tv and try to enjoy living on this planet at this time....all together | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 1:21:18 AM | Witty Fool said:
Please refer to the Summary of his Trial. I posted the link in my last posting. This is the Vatican's website that contradicts your assertion...
Which was in reference to this:
The transcripts of Bruno's trial were thought lost up until November 15th, 1940, when a summary of his trial was found. The Catholic Encyclopedia can assert all it wants, but the actual trial summary states that his conviction was changed to capital punishment due to the following phrase:
"Firstly, I say that the theories on the movement of the earth and on the immobility of the firmament or sky are by me produced on a reasoned and sure basis, which doesn’t undermine the authority of the Holy Sciptures […]. With regard to the sun, I say that it doesn’t rise or set, nor do we see it rise or set, because, if the earth rotates on his axis, what do we mean by rising and setting"
[http://asv.vatican.va/en/doc/1597.htm]
In the part that I bolded, that statement simply isn't true. The webpage you linked to doesn't say that Bruno was sentenced to death because of that statement. It cites the reason as:
The humane vicissitudes of Giordano Bruno ended with the Roman trial (1593-1600) and with the sentence of proven heresy, which, due to his resolute and extreme statement of not being guilty, changed into capital punishment, executed at Campo de’ Fiori on the 17th February 1600.
The specific charges against Bruno were all theological, in relation to his position as a priest, theologian, and teacher:
1. Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers.
2. Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ's divinity and Incarnation.
3. Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.
4. Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.
5. Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity.
6. Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes.
7. Dealing in magics and divination.
8. Denying the Virginity of Mary.
He got a reasonable sentence. As a priest and teacher at a Catholic university, Bruno had an obligation to teach "orthodox" theology. He could have just continued what he did earlier by renouncing his priesthood and moving to a Protestant country to teach, if he didn't being a Catholic priest.
As for alternate theories to Galileo Galilei, here is what his Papal Condemnation reads:
Yep. That's what it reads. Looks accurate, for its time.
The Inquisition would have never even been involved with Galileo if Galileo never tried to make theological arguments for the heliocentric theory. He tried to make arguments using his interpretation of Scripture to support Scripture, and he lost. It goes back to the quote you selected from the Catholic Encyclopedia and which I completed:
When a religious view is contradicted by a well-established scientific fact, then the sources of revelation have to be re-examined, and they will be found to leave the question open. When a clearly-defined dogma contradicts a scientific assertion, the latter has to be revised, and it will be found premature.
According to scientific observations of the time, heliocentrism WAS absurd and merely an assertion, as it couldn't be proven and because Aristotle couldn't be refuted. In a way, it still is incorrect. Galileo is still wrong according to today's observations, because he asserted that the sun doesn't move. But it still moves, since the sun isn't the center of the universe.
When the earth's mobility became an established fact, the principle of religious sources being re-examined came into effect. They have been.
The church only advanced "science in accord with church dogma." There is a big difference between that and advancing science. Yes, there are a handful of scientific discoveries that happened because of the church, but how many were lost forever because those who might have made them were afraid to be treated like Bruno or Galileo?
I don't suspect many were. It didn't deter priests such as Father Giambattista Riccioli, the first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body; or Father Nicholas Steno, the father of geology; or Father Athanasius Kircher, the father of Egyptology; or was Father Roger Boscovich, the father of atomic theory.
All they had to do was avoid teaching Egyptian magic like Bruno, or depicting the Pope (especially one who's also a friend) as a caricature in a tract like Galileo.
If it was approved, then how come all heliocentric works were banned until April 16, 1757?
That was when the "uncorrected" copy of De revolutionibus, with nine sentences edited to suggest heliocentrism as only a hypothesis, was removed from the Index. That's a far cry from being "all heliocentric books".
Why were they not allowed to be printed in Rome up until 1822?
I don't have any further info on that and there weren't any citations on the Wikipedia article to lead to more background information, so I don't know. Sorry. | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 8:35:56 AM | Jeremycerebus
These are points I've tried to make time and again to christians on many forums. (God wanting us to kill so many) Christians do not want to answer any of these scriptures either because they just don't have an answer, or they are afraid that they may start to question their own faith.
If we were to truly follow the bible as law,and killed all the innocent people that god demands we should kill, that would leave only about 144,000 left. Hmmmmm.....maybe the jehovah's witnesses are right....
Some christians will say, well, the Old testament doesn't apply because Jesus overturned it in the NEW. Coulodn't be more wrong. Isaiah 40:8--The word of our God stands forever. And psalms 19:7 The law of the lord is perfect.
Few Christians even read the Bible. ^ God's law is perfect PERFECT. Which means it needs not be changed. The Bible also teaches that God is the same Yesterday, today, and FOREVER. And God is supposed to be infallible. So maybe we Should kill people, beat our kids, and own slaves. | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 9:04:32 AM |
Can a person really be of the Jewish faith and not believe in a deity --- just, like an agnostic, believe in the remote possibility of a deity? I find this interesting. Does it make that religion more of a philosophy than a religion, for those who lean towards the unlikelihood of the existence of a deity? Yes. It's preferable to believe in G-d and be Jewish, but it's not essential.
That is the point at which a Hypothesis becomes Theory... In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation.
Science is constantly attacked. It's called Peer-Review - and it's done by people who have a far greater knowledge in the subject than you or I. That's the theory. Too bad Peer Review falls far short of this in practice.
I thought you were above thinly veiled insults... I just don't want to risk a mis-diagnosis.
Again with the insults... Spelling mistake. It was meant to read "You should read more". I do proof-read my posts. That one slipped through.
Perhaps you should read what you post. Only one of the well known scientists you posted was alive during the middle ages. I know. I just thought you might like to see that quite a few scientists flourished under Christian rule.
Woz didn't invent the first GUI-based computer. Apple was just the first to mass produce it (BTW, I used the first gen Mac in 1984... I could tell you a lot about it, as well as the Tandy, Apple II, and others pre-PCjr). The first GUI was actually invented by Doug Englebart at the Stanford Research Institute between 1965-1968. Xerox marketed a GUI on their STAR computers in 1981. Woz got the idea of using a GUI when he toured the Xerox Research Center, and implimented it on the Mac in 84. I didn't know about the Star. My family owned the ZX81 in 1981. Great fun programming it.
And I personally know, and care to know, next to nothing about Dawkins. I see his books as being in violation of my personal belief that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. Glad we agree on something.
The transcripts of Bruno's trial were thought lost up until November 15th, 1940, when a summary of his trial was found. The Catholic Encyclopedia can assert all it wants, but the actual trial summary states that his conviction was changed to capital punishment due to the following: I looked it up. Turns out that the specifics of the trial charges were lost in the annals of history and that his conviction was changed to capital punishment, due to the fact that he refused to recant his position, despite numerous pleadings. Although claiming that Jesus was a magician might have had something to do with it. The Church is kinda of funny about magic, that way.
As for alternate theories to Galileo Galilei, here is what his Papal Condemnation reads: I read that too. Turns out though, that the Church based it's ideas on Geocentrism on the works of Aristotle, and as we all know, Aristotelian Philosophy was the undisputed master of the Middle Ages, and Aristotle was very dismissive of the Pythagoreans view of Heliocentrism. So it's not surprising that the Church thought it was absurd. It strikes me that had Aristotle been more flexible, then Galileo would have had room for his theory. But he wasn't.
I personally doubt that you would have any problems in science today from the Church. However, I have been told that groups like the Pharmaceutical Industry and OPEC are extremely opposed to anything that contradicts their science, and have much sway with Government. So I believe that things have not changed, just the enemies of science.
God's law is perfect PERFECT. Which means it needs not be changed. The Bible also teaches that God is the same Yesterday, today, and FOREVER. And God is supposed to be infallible. So maybe we Should kill people, beat our kids, and own slaves. I wouldn't advise it. Ancient Biblical law forbids murder, beating up kids just to satisfy your personal desires or enslaving people who are neither already slaves, nor attacking you. But the Romans were for it. Since North American culture comes from European culture which comes from Roman culture, are you sure it's not a Roman thing? | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 10:15:29 AM | (Pardon this “observation”, but could some of you folks be less verbose? To expound this or that for almost a whole page is exhausting… and boring to this reader. Jeez… POF limits the length of an email, maybe they should do the same here? Please, just keep on a single point or two.)
Okay…
Time for me to get into hot water with my “Christian” brothers and sisters… ‘cause I’m that worst sort of Christian… an educated one! (Or to some, an overly educated one.) (Actually, I’m more akin to a Deist.) As part of my graduate studies, I have done quite a bit of research into the early Christian Church. If one keeps an open mind – and I hope that I do – then one might want to reject many of the things written in the “Bible”. In other words, and of course, in my humble opinion, if that book is the basis of your “faith”, then you might be in trouble. (And I’m specifically referring to the New Testament.) Oh sure, it is very, very convenient that the book itself claims its authority and truthfulness, but maybe… just maybe… that was by a 3rd or 4th century design. I mean, would you discount what the first Christians read, heard, believed, and worshiped?? It wasn’t the Bible as we know it today and it was often just a single letter written from another group of believers, to be shared, to edify, and then passed along – and depending upon where one lived, it might have been a different letter(s), or just the passing of word of mouth. AND MY POINT is that your faith should come from your sense of the Divine. Totally impossible to prove scientifically. But so is love. Yes, I believe in God. Yes, I believe that he sent Jesus as a prophet to preach the good news and bring people closer to God. I believe that there is enough written, mostly extra-biblical, enough historical evidence to confirm that there was a man in the Galilee area doing as such 2000 years ago. Was his message unique? Not really. Was it used by later people to influence/control the masses? Maybe so. Should such information affect your faith? Hopefully not! Because I also believe that if, in your heart and in your mind, you can sense God’s presence, then that’s all you truly need. Seems everything else, all the different religions (and damn if people don’t have this inherent need to belong), only serve to divide us with petty bickering of lesser topics. (Meanwhile, I’m still trying to count how many angels can fit on the head of a pin!) But the message should also be clear – in the words of Abe Lincoln in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, “Be excellent to each other”. If you can’t do that, then heaven help you… might as well be a non-believer.
To Atheists… well, I guess that you have exercised your free will and look away. Yes, perhaps “free will” and to “look away” reek of a godly perspective, but there you have it. | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 3:47:19 PM | the original post;
I was wondering, what inspires Atheists to pick on Christians, or other religious groups.
I mean why bother? Do Atheists have a moral obligation to spread their kind of truth?
And something else. Atheists also base their beliefs in some theories. You well know what those theories are, and "theory" is not my choice of word. They are mentioned as such.
Doesn't it take a dose of belief, to base your life on something that probably won't be proven untill the time you are well rotten, 3 feet under the ground?
Wouldn't that make Atheism, a form of religion just as well?
I had several reasons for bringing the original post back to the page. One of those reasons being that I believe that the debate/discussions in this thread have been on topic very much in regard to operating off of the premise in the original post while also addressing possible complexities of the word "theory" in which the word,theory is indeed part of the premise itself in reference to the op's statement written,"Atheists also base their beliefs in some theories".
To begin with, I am aware of for example that there is research put out there by Perry and some college students that suggest thinking progresses from assuming that truth is absolute to understanding that truth is relative. And from one philosophical perspective,one may say all truth is relative and possibly arrive at this conclusion based on that which consist of one's perceptions,beliefs,conceptions.....example,you can use just your belief and perception about something and add "for me" at the end of your statement and I can take just my belief and perception about the same thing and add "for me" at the end of my statement....can one see how both statements,yours and mine may both be considered true and at the same time could also appear to be true and false simply because,imo taking on the the position that truth is relative is very subjective and does not really deal with what many would consider as "objective reality".
So therefore and also,in reference to the opening sentence in the original post;
I was wondering, what inspires Atheists to pick on Christians, or other religious groups.
As I mentioned the concept of "objective reality," this seems to also embrace another philosophical perspective that considers truth as absolute. And when someone takes things like their personal beliefs and perception and starts putting words out there about G_d while presenting their post/position as truth and certainty,imo it is going to inspire another to expose this.
But it's not just 'atheist picking on Christians' as you put it....exactly there is more than just one side to a coin....Someone that is considered religious/spiritual imo, may be 'inspired' to expose any errors and weaknesses as well within a post...example,what if some stated as a fact with that same certainty that there is no G_d ? Kind of works both ways imo/
So here's my take on all this while sharing in these forums.When sharing in the religious/supernatural forums that consist of many religious differences and while sharing from my personal spiritual belief/faith,I try to present my position as belief/opinion unless the premise in the original post for whatever reason would possibly grant/allow me the freedom to do otherwise. Adding words like like believe,possible,many,most,some can be not only somewhat redundant,not to mention that oversimplifying imo,can weaken one's post/position but it can possibly help ya stay out of the hot seat with other posters and the mods.I can't say that it always works for I do believe that we have some that will "pick" on ya(just using the word from original post)regardless of how careful one may choose their words.
Also I wanted to respond to the following quotes;
As to "Joe Collar", John Logie Baird didn't do his experiments in a lab. Nor did Edward Jenner. Nor did many other scientists who produced valuable scientific work.
and this as well;
Too many things are not even considered for review, to many things are never taken seriously, and too many things are coming through the review method, and later found to be clearly false and erroneous, and in some cases, negligibly so.
and also;
If you mean the results of the experiments into polio and solanum by experiment, then it was the universe, or nature if you prefer that made that "choice". The "choice" was the revealment of the way in which the world works. But if you refer to the cures involved, then I would caution you as the immense scientific opposition to the finding of a cure for polio. I refer you to the story of Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who found she was able to cure polio, despite doctors of her time saying that polio was incurable, and despite many doctors supporting her claims, was stymied by the medical and scientific community, because if a doctor didn't come up with it, how could a nurse? Please watch the film "Sister Kenny".
I seem to share your point of view on this. This part of your post got me thinking about someone by the name of Ignaz Semmelweis that imo,didn't really get much of a warm embrace nor quite the recognition he deserved. If I recall correctly,there were mothers dying in the hospital from what was referred to as "child bed fever" later named puerperal fever and no-one could seem to grasp or understand why...and the deaths were increasing and more and more mothers were choosing to to stay home to give birth because of this. I believe that it was Semmelweis that discovered that what was happening was that cadaver particles were carried from the autopsy room to the delivery room by medical students. So he made students wash their hands in lime water and it reduced the deaths of mothers and infants.
And thank you for sharing about Elizabeth Kenny....a nurse came up with this?....wow....but then again of course,why not....something that I also found interesting is when it was first revealed to me that Florence Nightingale introduced antiseptic techniques and disinfection into nursing/
You are right that Science does discard flawed results. But the time lag can be immense, sometimes years, sometime decades, sometimes centuries.
Again,I agree...we'll shucks,while we have indeed come along way from things like Helmont's recipe for mice and frogs from mud,(smilin') but think about this...spontaneous generation/aka abiogenesis was approved by Aristotle and his concept was not challenged for over 1900 years. And then ya got Needham's experiment that approved abiogenesis and ya got Spallanzani's experiment contradicting Needham's experiment .... I'll stop there with that...
Scorpiomover's response;
This idea of needing a theory in science is extremely detrimental to both science and our society, because it is the direct source of both generalisations and stereotypes, which both cause untold problems in our current world.
Trippy's counter response;
I beg to differ: this idea that your use of the word theory is anything like what a theory actually is- and that you can abuse science and the scientific method and declare the conclusions you form from an inherently flawed premise to be correct- is detrimental to society.
then with Scorpiomover's counter response back;
I differ: this idea that your use of the word theory is anything like what a theory actually is- and that you can claim to be defender of science and the scientific method and insult others from an inherently flawed premise, to be correct- is detrimental to society.
Here's my take on this. Imo,we seem to be talking about that which can stand up and needed to meet the criteria and criticism of what is considered scientific method.Well,I believe that scientific method deals with a list of questions answered through observation and controlled experiments and must have a control group(a group that's treated exactly the same as the other group except for the one variable that the experiment is designed to test.And if I broke it down to steps;
1) making an observation about a situation or problem
2)develop a potential answer to the problem(hypothesis) aka as the educated guess
3)design and conduct experiments
4)based on the results from the experiment,either accept,reject or modify the hypothesis
Witty fool, Jacobus101,Scorpiomover,Trippy and ALL you kewl cats ....I'm finding the posts over here to be very thought provoking what I would refer to as off the hook and chain  /I'm enjoying the read | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 6:04:17 PM | hi casheyesblond! Always great to hear from you.
Adding words like like believe,possible,many,most,some can be not only somewhat redundant,not to mention that oversimplifying imo,can weaken one's post/position
No offense but I disagree. If it is something that you believe, and not considered fact, than I feel you should definately say "I believe" or similar because that's the honest thing to do. Nor do I feel that the post is weakened for it - it shows character, humility, and honesty on behalf of the poster. To present opinion as fact, and everyone on this forum we can spot an opinion a mile away, is to bring yourself ridicule, contempt, and to have doubt cast on everything you say.
Well,I believe that scientific method deals with a list of questions answered through observation and controlled experiments...
I agree. Perhaps the most important element is that science deals with things that are testable.
I often see people present untestable things as science, then show dismay that scientists don't consider their position. They often do consider it, but since it isn't testable that's as far as you can go.
Another common argument I see is people talking about subjective data. I know this one [member belonging to opposing belief system] or [scientist who finds error in my beliefs] and he is a really crappy arrogant lying baby-eater and therefore he will represent every member of the group who believes differently than I.
Similar to that is the "I heard about this one time...." to discredit something that is proven reliable, but they will discuss only those few instances where it wasn't reliable. Science is filled with errors, but for each error are innumerable truths. Besides, errors are great - that's how we learn. A common example is radiometric dating - creationists will never discuss how accurate it is, instead they will throw out stories of when it failed. But that doesn't mean its inaccurate - if a dating technique is accurate 99% of the time then for every thousand times you do it there'll be ten stories to tell to cast doubt its reliability.
Then there's "scientists can't do X so don't trust them" or "we don't know X with 100% reliability" to discredit science. This is true, scientists have made mistakes, they aren't perfect, and they haven't achieved godhood. This does not mean that we should throw up our hands in defeat, ignore that which we've accepted with high degrees of certainty, and accept concepts with no evidence to support them.
whoa this is a long post. *steps off his soapbox* | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/27/2008 7:47:43 PM |
No offense but I disagree. If it is something that you believe, and not considered fact, than I feel you should definately say "I believe" or similar because that's the honest thing to do. Nor do I feel that the post is weakened for it - it shows character, humility, and honesty on behalf of the poster. To present opinion as fact, and everyone on this forum we can spot an opinion a mile away, is to bring yourself ridicule, contempt, and to have doubt cast on everything you say.
As I do believe that one of the characteristics of a critical thinker is one being that they don't oversimplify....oh wait....to sound forsooth,it should read, 'do not' oversimplify  /okay,with all my silliness aside,still I want to thank you for the kind words sent my way within your post. As I have had others comment on my overuse of the words like for example,believe,possible,some,and the word,most throughout my post to be ignoring at best,your words have now brought me much comfort and ease in reference to all this and is greatly appreciated.
whoa this is a long post. *steps off his soapbox*
Imo,you for one,alongside others in these forums should never feel the need to apologize for a long post when your words feeds your passion, imagination and creativity as it floods the page in what I would refer to as poetry in motion.Imo,these are the posts that also makes the reader truly pause and think.
edit/oops,it's usually my uncanny wit that gets me my extended vacation from the forums and not my poetic license  /it appears I have swayed off topic and completely understand should my post be deleted/ | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 7:53:10 PM |
(Pardon this “observation”, but could some of you folks be less verbose? To expound this or that for almost a whole page is exhausting… and boring to this reader. Jeez… POF limits the length of an email, maybe they should do the same here? Please, just keep on a single point or two.)
No kidding.
They are the height of self-indulgence.
Are we actually supposed to READ those mega-postings?
If you can't make your point w/ 100 words...it's doubtful 10,000 more will do the trick. | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 8:30:06 PM | casheyesblond, thanks for the post. That was along the lines of what I was trying to say.
I'll cut this down, based on another posters point.
Rocklondon, I get where you are coming from. But please understand, I've read up on the history of science, and the Western Scientific Community looks incredibly inflexible and fixed on what they consider to be science, and what they consider to be "ridiculous" or "untestable". At some point, they are going to have to accept that they are too rigid and not accurate enough. But most people I know, who are rigid in their POV, and inaccurate in their evidence, tend to stay that way, until someone proves them wrong, and then they give up on life. I would rather scientists just learn to be more flexible and more accurate NOW, so that science is not abandoned later on. | |
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Posted: 1/27/2008 8:53:29 PM | | Note- topic of the OP is Atheists, not "science". | |
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| Atheists
Posted: 1/28/2008 7:41:30 AM |
Maybe it’s all about where a person sees themselves in the universe… an insignificant collection of atoms or a being with a god-breathed soul.
...I like this...and of course-- I'll go with the latter. | |
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