Religion One of the all-time great bakes

[Pie eyed]

I'll take that as a concession of defeat.

Seriously mate, why don't you have a quick look on Amazon to see if you can find any books by serious historians on the history of science that say that Christianity or even the Catholic church have historically been hostile to science?

You won't find any because it's not true. You made a claim with no evidence to back you up.

Just admit it and move on.

To be honest you have done nothing but repeat the same opinon since the first post. I don't accept any of it. You cannot tell the difference between evidence, dogma or opinion and have obviously no other response than to parrot what you have been told or read in a fictional best seller.
The OP was about a radio discussion in which several simple answerable questions were put to a Christian about his faith. He could not answer them and you have not attempted to.

You seem to be all consumed with this notion you can achieve some kind of victory?
You posted this claimed "win" several times over the last couple of days.

What do you win and what is this perceived victory over?
Do you think someone else is watching keeping score?

Maybe you should listen again to the questions and then come back to those answers.
Your only input to this thread has been to make a few posts parroting Christian claims about what atheists believe which you can no more explain than inderstand your experience being faith based and to post and repost your own hotch-potch of opinion, dogma and misinformation as afct because you read it somewhere.

It has all been rebutted numerous times by innumerable others in this thread and many others where you've post it ad nauseum so I feel no need let alone onus to rehash. I only bother posting in response to your input because it amuses me. You may think that's less than polite but there you have it.




I'm still waiting for J.Moore to expand on his claim that life is made up of 4 humours.....

He/she has not posted since as far as I can see and hopefully is being consumed availing him or herself of the vast expanse of knowledge that has been acquired since the 4 humours were accepted phenomena.

 

[SergioGeorgini]

The OP was about a radio discussion in which several simple answerable questions were put to a Christian about his faith. He could not answer them and you have not attempted to.

Course I have. The questions asked were essentialy what evidence do you have to support your belief. I've posted extensively on the historical evidence for the Resurrection as well as evidence for God generally.

You seem to be all consumed with this notion you can achieve some kind of victory?
You posted this claimed "win" several times over the last couple of days.

What do you win and what is this perceived victory over?
Do you think someone else is watching keeping score?

Not at all. As a Christian I want other people to come to believe in God and if even 1 person reading this thread says to himself / herself 'What the f*** is this Sergio guy rambling on about? Maybe I should check out this stuff?' and that leads to a consideration of the evidence for God or even a belief in God, then I'd be rapt. Otherwise, I just enjoy discussing these topics.

Maybe you should listen again to the questions and then come back to those answers.

Like I said, done and done.

Your only input to this thread has been to make a few posts parroting Christian claims about what atheists believe which you can no more explain than inderstand your experience being faith based and to post and repost your own hotch-potch of opinion, dogma and misinformation as fact because you read it somewhere.

Well, I'd say that I've made more than a few posts...

But you're entitled to your opinion and you're free to disagree with me. I just think you're completely wrong and I will call you out if you make a false statement about Christianity that is not backed up by any evidence (eg 'Christianity has fought science at every turn').

It has all been rebutted numerous times by innumerable others in this thread and many others where you've post it ad nauseum so I feel no need let alone onus to rehash. I only bother posting in response to your input because it amuses me. You may think that's less than polite but there you have it.

Don't worry, there are atheist posters who are far less polite than you. I'm not fussed by it mate. Personally I enjoy these discussions / debates but if you don't dig what I post you're free to ignore it or not respond.

 

[Sloth]

Not at all. As a Christian I want other people to come to believe in God and if even 1 person reading this thread says to himself / herself 'What the f*** is this Sergio guy rambling on about?

I think more than a few people have thought that, but not in the way you'd like..

 

[Partridge]

Seriously mate, why don't you have a quick look on Amazon to see if you can find any books by serious historians on the history of science that say that Christianity or even the Catholic church have historically been hostile to science?

You won't find any because it's not true. You made a claim with no evidence to back you up.

Just admit it and move on.

No evidence? How are these names for starters:

- Copernicus
- Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake by the Inquisition, I'm sure they meant well)
- Galileo Galilei
- Campanella
- Rene Descartes
- Tycho Brahe
- Johannes Kepler
- Edmond Halley
- Isaac Newton
- Charles Darwin
- Bertrand Russell
- Alan Turing

Good thing they never discovered anything important I guess.

 

[SergioGeorgini]

I think more than a few people have thought that, but not in the way you'd like..

Lol. Not bad.

I don't expect to get through to the ADS sufferers anyway.

 

[SergioGeorgini]

No evidence? How are these names for starters:

- Copernicus
- Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake by the Inquisition, I'm sure they meant well)
- Galileo Galilei
- Campanella
- Rene Descartes
- Tycho Brahe
- Johannes Kepler
- Edmond Halley
- Isaac Newton
- Charles Darwin
- Bertrand Russell
- Alan Turing

Good thing they never discovered anything important I guess.

What has this apparently random list of names got to do with anything?

 

[The rabbi]

I'll take that as a concession of defeat.

Seriously mate, why don't you have a quick look on Amazon to see if you can find any books by serious historians on the history of science that say that Christianity or even the Catholic church have historically been hostile to science?

You won't find any because it's not true. You made a claim with no evidence to back you up.

Just admit it and move on.

You are dead right on that one Serg. The Conflict Thesis (or Draper-White thesis as it has come to be called) is the invention particularly of two 19th century works of anti-clerical polemic.

Ronald Numbers ( Sarton Medalist)

"The greatest myth in the history of science and religion holds that they have been in a state of constant conflict.
John William Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896)."

Introduction to Galileo goes to Jail and other Myths about Science and Religion.

Numbers says

" No one bears more responsibility for promoting this notion than two nineteenth-century polemicists:Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918) and John William Draper (1811-1882)".

And Tim O'Neill the Australian Atheist and Medievalist has this to say:

"About once every 3-4 months on forums like RichardDawkins.net we get some discussion where someone invokes the old "Conflict Thesis" and gets in the usual ritual kicking of the Middle Ages as a benighted intellectual wasteland where humanity was shackled to superstition and oppressed by cackling minions of the Evil Old Catholic Church. The hoary standards are brought out on cue. Giordiano Bruno is presented as a wise and noble martyr for science instead of the irritating mystical New Age kook he actually was. Hypatia is presented as another such martyr and the mythical Christian destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria is spoken of in hushed tones, despite both these ideas being garbage. The Galileo Affair is ushered in as evidence of a brave scientist standing up to the unscientific obscurantism of the Church, despite that case being as much about science as it was about Scripture.

And, almost without fail, someone digs up a graphic (see below), which I have come to dub "THE STUPIDEST THING ON THE INTERNET EVER", and to flourish it triumphantly as though it is proof of something other than the fact that most people are utterly ignorant of history and unable to see that something called "Scientific Advancement" can't be measured, let alone plotted on a graph.

The Stupidest Thing on the Internet Ever
Behold its glorious idiocy!
(Courtesy of an drooling moron called Jim Walker. Take a bow Jim!)

It's not hard to kick this nonsense to pieces, especially since the people presenting it know next to nothing about history and have simply picked this bullshit up from other websites and popular books and collapse as soon as you hit them with some hard evidence. I love to totally stump them by asking them to present me with the name of one - just one - scientist burned, persecuted or oppressed for their science in the Middle Ages. They always fail to come up with any. They usually try to crowbar Galileo back into the Middle Ages, which is amusing considering he was a contemporary of Descartes. When asked why they have failed to produce any such scientists given the Church was apparently so busily oppressing them, they often resort to claiming that the Evil Old Church did such a good job of oppression that everyone was too scared to practice science. By the time I produce a laundry list of Medieval scientists - like Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Peckham, Duns Scotus, Thomas Bradwardine, Walter Burley, William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead, John Dumbleton, Richard of Wallingford, Nicholas Oresme, Jean Buridan and Nicholas of Cusa - and ask why these men were happily pursuing science in the Middle Ages without molestation from the Church, my opponents have usually run away to hide and scratch their heads in puzzlement at what just went wrong."

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/10/gods-philosophers-how-medieval-world.html
​

Frankly I do not know of any Historians of Science (Atheist or otherwise) who believe in the Conflict Thesis. That thesis has gone the way of the Dodo bird in the academy, but it is so entrenched in the mind of popular culture that I doubt that it will ever be removed.

 

[SergioGeorgini]

Great post.

You don't have to search hard to confirm that the Conflict Thesis is a myth. Even the Wikipedia entry largely gets it right. I've seen posters on this board repeatedly post false information based on the Conflict thesis myth.

I must admit this does piss me off a bit...the fact that otherwise educated people in the 21st century are being duped by 2 guys that have been dead for over a hundred years...surely the longest running hoax of all time?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis

Contemporarily, most of the scholarship supporting the Conflict Thesis is considered inaccurate. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould said: "White’s and Draper’s accounts of the actual interaction between science and religion in Western history do not differ greatly. Both tell a tale of bright progress continually sparked by science. And both develop and utilize the same myths to support their narrative, the flat-earth legend prominently among them". [11]

In a summary of the historiography of the Conflict Thesis, Colin Russell said that "Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship”.[12]

Some contemporary historians of science, such as Peter Barker, Bernard R. Goldstein, and Crosbie Smith propose that scientific discoveries, such as Kepler's laws of planetary motion in the 17th century, and the reformulation of physics in terms of energy, in the 19th century, were driven by religion.[17] Religious organizations and clerics figure prominently in the broad histories of science, until the professionalization of the scientific enterprise, in the 19th century, led to tensions between scholars taking religious and secular approaches to nature.[18]

Even the prominent examples of religion’s anti-intellectualism, the Galileo affair (1614) and the Scopes trial (1925), were not pure instances of conflict between science and religion, but included personal and political facts in the development of each conflict.[19]

Popular, scientific, and religious views

The historian of science Ronald Numbers relates that, unlike among science historians, the Conflict Theory of a historical, intrinsic and inevitable anti-intellectual conflict between (Judeo-Christian) religion and science remains popular among the general public, some scientists, and some clerics, and is fanned by current issues like the creation–evolution controversy, stem cell controversy, and birth control.[20] Some scholars, such as Brian Stanley and Denis Alexander, propose that the media are among those responsible for perpetuating the Conflict Theory of hostile relations between religion and science, [21] and the persistence in the popular public mind of "the warfare of science and religion" resulting in such things as medieval people believing that the Earth was flat, was first propagated when the conflict thesis originated.[22] David C. Lindberg and Numbers point out that “there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".[22][23] Statements like "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 cited by Numbers as other examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, even though they are not supported by current historical research.[20]

 

[The rabbi]

No evidence? How are these names for starters:

- Copernicus
- Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake by the Inquisition, I'm sure they meant well)
- Galileo Galilei
- Campanella
- Rene Descartes
- Tycho Brahe
- Johannes Kepler
- Edmond Halley
- Isaac Newton
- Charles Darwin
- Bertrand Russell
- Alan Turing

Good thing they never discovered anything important I guess.

Partridge, I think that you need to crack open a book on the relationship between Science and Religion by serious historians of science.

Can I suggest the works of Ronald Numbers, Edward Grant, David Lindberg and the book Science and Religion edited by Gary Ferngren. The first three mentioned historians are recipients of the George Sarton medal.

Fergrens book has shorter essays. The first two chapters deal with the conflict myth.

1) The Conflict of Science and Religion by Colin Russell.

2) The Historiography of Science and Religion by David B. Wilson

 

[The rabbi]

Great post.

I've seen posters on this board repeatedly post false information based on the Conflict thesis myth.

Yep, I have seen the usual myths trotted out as fact. They don't need to be demonstrated, just repeated.

Columbus proving that the earth was spherical ending medieval superstition, despite the fact that every one in the West of the empire believed that it was spherical. In the East of the empire you find Cosmas Indicopleustes in the 6th c and no one else. A.D. White presents him as if he was characteristic of the times and yet neglects to mention the hundreds of references in the middle ages to a spherical earth. Confirmation bias at its best.

White is not even considered useful as a secondary source now by scholars. He sucks people in because he has lots of impressive footnotes. And I recall Draper's book being described by one historian as an Anti-Roman Catholic screed.

As well I have seen on this board rubbish like: The Pope banned human Dissection. And the Rise of Christianity was Responsible for the Demise of Ancient Science, Giordano Bruno was a martyr for Science etc. I will except that he was a martyr for religious tolerance, but Bruno was a Woo Meister of the highest order.

I must admit this does piss me off a bit...the fact that otherwise educated people in the 21st century are being duped by 2 guys that have been dead for over a hundred years...surely the longest running hoax of all time?

It rubs both ways. Draper and White have been used by Protestants (of which I am one) to bash the Catholics too. Have you ever seen a Jack Chick tract or comic?

Also Rodney Stark's For the Glory of God (2003) has come under attention of the historians, and for all the wrong reasons. Stark makes statements like..

Theological assumptions unique to Christianity explain why science was born only in Christian Europe. Contrary to received wisdom, religion and science not only were compatible; they were inseparable... Christian theology was essential for the rise of science.

Which is bollocks. The Greeks saw the world as rational and therefore it could be understood and investigated long before Christianity hit the scene.

The history of the relationship between Religion or Christianity and Science is a lot more interesting than the rants of the Apologists and Polemicists. Stick with real historians.

I have just finished reading James Hannam's God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World laid the Foundations of Modern Science. Tomorrow I will start on David Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science 2nd Ed.

My apologies to all for the conversation.

 

[Sloth]

...surely the longest running hoax of all time?

I can think of one that's been going over 2000 years, and is still being perpetrated by gulible people like yourself.

 

[The rabbi]

I knew that one was coming Slothy.

 

[JavaBlue]

I must admit this does piss me off a bit...the fact that otherwise educated people in the 21st century are being duped by 2 guys that have been dead for over a hundred years...surely the longest running hoax of all time?

This caused a little chuckle....How does it feel to be duped by someone who may have never existed and if he did, he's been dead for 2,000 years. Your still playing your part in the longest running hoax ever (in the West at least).

If the conflict books were hoaxes, it should give an insight how false ideas can gain a life of their own. Imagine how easy it would be to dupe a group of superstitious first century fishfcukers.

At any rate, the conflict was not between science and religion but between world views. God used to reside in the heavens and the stars were his angels - now you've had to declare him invisible and place him outside time and space to protect his sorry arrse.

You would have to be the greatest bullshiter to ever post on BF.

 

[Monniehawk]

I can think of one that's been going over 2000 years, and is still being perpetrated by gulible people like yourself.

Hmmmm.. Gullible?
You're capable of much better.
Maybe (just on this topic) it's best to quit while your behind?

 

[Impunity!]

Nope. Mainly because it doesn't exist. Nothing to fear whatsoever.

Strike me down if I'm wrong.

waiting...

waiting...

I'm still here. (God must be resting again. Funny that, he's all-powerful, but he needed to rest.)

Arrogance. You'll keep.

 

[Max zero]

know Him.

But to answer your question, which is essentially, 'Why doesn't God make himself more apparent'? The answer is that God created man with a free will. He does not want to force himself onto man, only those who freely accept him. If God wrote his name in the stars or put a code into DNA that said 'Made by Yahweh' or appeared as a column of fire on Mount Everest, you wouldn't have much of a choice in the matter would you? You'd have to confess that God exists and worship him.

That is totally inconsistent with the Christian idea that man was created with free will and only those who voluntarily choose to seek Him out and know Him will be with him.

Those who choose not to will be cut off from God by their own choice. My conception of hell isn't fire and brimstone and torture and all that stuff; it's simply a void or another dimension in which those who choose to reject God get exactly what they want.

I would have no choice in the matter if he made himself evident? No, what I would have is some concrete data to compare.

Revealing himself would be forcing nothing it would simply put him on the same level as science.

Since he won't he isn't.

God can't be proven unless he is able to be disproven.

 

[SergioGeorgini]

I knew that one was coming Slothy.

I left myself open there didn't I?

 

[Partridge]

Arrogance. You'll keep.

Really? Got something special planned for me have you?

Strange. I don't knock on stranger's doors, thrust a copy of an ancient book in their face and insist they believe it or they'll suffer eternal damnation. I also don't avoid the tales of mass murder, rape, slavery, incest and other atrocities perpetrated by the deity referred to in this book, just in case the converted will start thinking for themselves.

What I actually think is that I'm entitled to make up my own mind whether to believe in it or not. As by the way, are you.

But I'm the one who's arrogant?. Yeah, that makes sense.

 

[The rabbi]

I left myself open there didn't I?

You know what they say. "If you stick your chin out...."

 

[CharacterFirst]

SergioGeorgini - well done on a marathon effort. I have just read 90% of this thread and you have done a pretty darn good job.

I have certainly enjoyed reading the conversation. Good to see you come in on the end there to Rabbi. Go cats - thats for you Rabbi. And go Jesus - Thats for you Sergio (shudder when i think you are a Hawthorn man).

 

[Max zero]

Really? Got something special planned for me have you?

Strange. I don't knock on stranger's doors, thrust a copy of an ancient book in their face and insist they believe it or they'll suffer eternal damnation. I also don't avoid the tales of mass murder, rape, slavery, incest and other atrocities perpetrated by the deity referred to in this book, just in case the converted will start thinking for themselves.

What I actually think is that I'm entitled to make up my own mind whether to believe in it or not. As by the way, are you.

But I'm the one who's arrogant?. Yeah, that makes sense.

It's Reep he meant it as a joke.

 

[ManInTheArena]

But to answer your question, which is essentially, 'Why doesn't God make himself more apparent'? The answer is that God created man with a free will. He does not want to force himself onto man, only those who freely accept him. If God wrote his name in the stars or put a code into DNA that said 'Made by Yahweh' or appeared as a column of fire on Mount Everest, you wouldn't have much of a choice in the matter would you? You'd have to confess that God exists and worship him.

So god leaves us no objective evidence, we need faith in him without evidence, we put faith in the wrong religion or choose no religion because there is no evidence, and then god punishes us for eternity for doing the wrong thing? On top of that god leaves evidence (evolution) that looks like he isn't real just to throw us off a bit, what a champ

By the way, objective evidence doesn't mean no free will, why can't I still choose to disobey even though it's evidential? I chose to disobey my parents numerous times. Moreover, in that book of your's Adam and Eve disobeyed when they "walked with God", and when Jesus returns all will have objective evidence but many will still walk away.

 

[CharacterFirst]

I would have no choice in the matter if he made himself evident? No, what I would have is some concrete data to compare.

Revealing himself would be forcing nothing it would simply put him on the same level as science.

Since he won't he isn't.

God can't be proven unless he is able to be disproven.

This won't help you much I suspect Max, but you do realize Xians believe God has revealed himself don't you?

Now I can't explain how he has done that, or why Xians believe it without referring to their sources or authority. But if people won't accept the creation around them as some evidence, the records of scripture - yep the bible - and the man/God Jesus as "evidence" to at least give God a go, then they won't be convinced unless he appears directly in front of them; which many people claim has happened to them of course.

I suspect if an all powerful, all knowing, everywhere present creator God revealed himself to you directly, you would have no problem knowing it was in fact God. BUT, that still may not mean you would believe in him. As James 2:19 says, even the demons believe in God, and shudder.

 

[Max zero]

This won't help you much I suspect Max, but you do realize Xians believe God has revealed himself don't you?

Now I can't explain how he has done that, or why Xians believe it without referring to their sources or authority. But if people won't accept the creation around them as some evidence, the records of scripture - yep the bible - and the man/God Jesus as "evidence" to at least give God a go, then they won't be convinced unless he appears directly in front of them; which many people claim has happened to them of course.

I suspect if an all powerful, all knowing, everywhere present creator God revealed himself to you directly, you would have no problem knowing it was in fact God. BUT, that still may not mean you would believe in him. As James 2:19 says, even the demons believe in God, and shudder.

But that is exactly my point. Just because he appeared does not mean I would follow him.

I was responding to Sergio's post which claimed he does not reveal himself because of free will. All of which was to justify why God does not provide concrete evidence for his deeds despite it apparently being critically important as Claymonk has explained so much better.

The very best evidence for God consists of hearsay and circumstantial evidence (at best). That's not a lot to gamble eternity on.

Divine answers only work if you agree to the assumption that God exists in the first place. Obviously God cannot create the universe if he does not exist can he? Yet it's impossible to prove God exists directly since he is a supernatural being beyond space and time.

The only way you can debate religious answers is if you accept their base claim (God exists) without any direct evidence to support said claim.

 

[Sloth]

Now I can't explain how he has done that, or why Xians believe it without referring to their sources or authority. But if people won't accept the creation around them as some evidence, the records of scripture - yep the bible - and the man/God Jesus as "evidence" to at least give God a go, then they won't be convinced unless he appears directly in front of them; which many people claim has happened to them of course.

You see a mountain as evidence of god, all I see is a random pile of dirt and rocks. You see trees as evidence of god, and I see a highly evolved organism.
You see lightning as evidence of god, I see a static discharge in the upper atmosphere. Just where is this evidence in creation?
Do You see cholera as evidence of god?