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 jasper76 wrote:
an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false

A given assertion is true provided that evidence is present to support it. It remains true until proven false. That's how science works (and in it's basic conception, history holds to this principle like any quantitative science). If someone in their own words professes their faith and we have no contrary reason to believe that to be untrue, we have no basis on which to doubt their faith.

Using your methodology, no one can ever know anything, which sounds more up the alley of certain kinds of Buddhism than science

Frazzled's argument was that the Roman's never made significant advancements because their able supply of labor made things simple for them. He's right. Advancement is driven by the need to solve a problem. The Roman's ample supply of slave labor, means that when confronted with many kinds of problems they could solve it by simply throwing people at it. .

Rome the Original Imperium of Man!

 Frazzled wrote:

Frazzled's argument was that the Roman's never made significant advancements because their able supply of labor made things simple for them. He's right. Advancement is driven by the need to solve a problem. The Roman's ample supply of slave labor, means that when confronted with many kinds of problems they could solve it by simply throwing people at it. .

Rome the Original Imperium of Man!

And there probably were some guys saying "For the Emperor" and executed a few dissidents to improve morale


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 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Not according to Edward Gibbon, who wrote the like 3500 page work on the decline of the Empire to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire.

I'd make a comparison to a monkey, but that's probably insulting to Gibbons Really we shouldn't be taking our history from a book published in the 18th century before the central theories of historical practice had even been invented. There are numerous flaws with Gibbon's work. Though don't get me wrong, the man was important in the historiography of Rome, being the man who basically started it, as well as the Scientific Revolution. Unlike Bruno he could openly insult Christinaity and not get burned for it!

It has often been alleged that Christianity in its political effects was a disintegrating force and tended to weaken the power of Rome to resist her enemies. It is difficult to see that it had any such tendency, so long as the Church itself was united. Theological heresies were indeed to prove a disintegrating force in the East in the seventh century, when differences in doctrine which had alienated the Christians in Egypt and Syria from the government of Constantinople facilitated the conquests of the Saracens. But after the defeat of Arianism, there was no such vital or deep-reaching division in the West, and the effect of Christianity was to unite, not to sever, to check, rather than to emphasise, national or sectional feeling. In the political calculations of Constantine it was probably this ideal of unity, as a counterpoise to the centrifugal tendencies which had been clearly revealed in the third century, that was the great recommendation of the religion which he raised to power. Nor is there the least reason to suppose that Christian teaching had the practical effect of making men less loyal to the Empire or less ready to defend it. The Christians were as pugnacious as the pagans. Some might read Augustine's City of God with edification, but probably very few interpreted its theory with such strict practical logic as to be indifferent to the safety of the Empire. Hardly the author himself, though this has been disputed.

J.B. Bury

The special meaning Gibbon assigns to Christianity in the fall is mostly a farce. A rant from a man who was very angry at religion, and who allowed it to cloud out an otherwise outstanding talent for history. The Byzantines thrived for quite some time despite the regular conflict between the Patriarch and the Emperor (really, it was bad for both of these men to appear to be in conflict with one another because neither could expect sufficient popular support, so they tended to work things out between themselves). Gibbon's entire view of the Byzantine's might as well be fiction for that matter. To his credit, the Byzantine Empire tended to get the short stick well into the Twentieth Century. People ignored it, and dismissed it as a shadow of the past even though objectively, the Byzantines probably achieved just as much as the Romans if not more!

Even today, when many historians have started to wonder if persecution of Christians was really as bad as has been traditionally held, no one really argues that the Romans were religiously tolerant. They persecuted a lot of people. The Edict of Milan, despite often being cited as making Christianity the official religion of the Empire (properly this was the Edict of Thessalonica), it really wasn't about that. Milan was about ending religious persecution in the Empire because the Romans did a lot of religious persecuting. Gnostics, Jews, Christians, pretty much anyone not towing the line of the Imperial Cult (a concept alien to Gibbon's time). Sure a lot of religions and cults flourished in the Empire. You try being that big and actually controlling everything everyone thinks. It's not that easy. Christians and the Catholic Church themselves would find this out first hand very fast. They could hold all the canon councils they wanted and it wasn't going to keep everyone towing the line that it wanted.

Really the rise of Christianity was coming into its own on the tail end of the Empire's fall. The coffin was already built, the corpse inside and the nails coming down when Constantine converted and many began to monkey do. The unification of the Empire under Christianity is arguably a major reason why Byzantium survived (though as we move towards the Crusades, Byzantium fractured in no small part due to religious squabbling).

 LordofHats wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false

A given assertion is true provided that evidence is present to support it. It remains true until proven false. That's how science works (and in it's basic conception, history holds to this principle like any quantitative science).

OK. I have never jaywalked.

I can lie about my past as good as the next guy. Do you think there where people in Germany during WWII who wrote down lies in order to avoid the wrath of the regime? Of course there were. Do you think there were people in history who lied to avoid the wrath of religious institutions. Of course there were.

Or do you think it is beyond the scope of reason to assume that there were scientists who espoused religious beliefs solely in order to avoid the wrath of the Church of Rome and its allies?

To look from another perspective at the question first posed, although it is focused on western civilisation, how much of an effect does the product of religion elsewhere effect western civilisation? For example how much of a threat is an ever growing AIDS epidemic in Africa? We have already seen the religious conflict of the Middle East spread to other continents and Islamic extremism is something that western governments must look for in their own population these days.

 jasper76 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false

A given assertion is true provided that evidence is present to support it. It remains true until proven false. That's how science works (and in it's basic conception, history holds to this principle like any quantitative science).

OK. I have never jaywalked.

I can lie about my past as good as the next guy. Do you think there where people in Germany during WWII who wrote down lies in order to avoid the wrath of the regime? Of course there were. Do you think there were people in history who lied to avoid the wrath of religious institutions. Of course there were.

Or do you think it is beyond the scope of reason to assume that there were scientists who espoused religious beliefs solely in order to avoid the wrath of the Church of Rome and its allies?

The argument isn't that people can't or don't lie, but that in the absence of evidence making assumptions beyond what they have said and done is a weak argument. You are saying that we should assume these historical figures could actually be atheists with no evidence beyond the possibility that people can lie. That isn't a very rational or scientific argument.

 Ahtman wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
an assertion that a given propsiotion is true because it has not been proven false

A given assertion is true provided that evidence is present to support it. It remains true until proven false. That's how science works (and in it's basic conception, history holds to this principle like any quantitative science).

OK. I have never jaywalked.

I can lie about my past as good as the next guy. Do you think there where people in Germany during WWII who wrote down lies in order to avoid the wrath of the regime? Of course there were. Do you think there were people in history who lied to avoid the wrath of religious institutions. Of course there were.

Or do you think it is beyond the scope of reason to assume that there were scientists who espoused religious beliefs solely in order to avoid the wrath of the Church of Rome and its allies?

The argument isn't that people can't or don't lie, but that in the absence of evidence making assumptions beyond what they have said and done is a weak argument. You are saying that we should assume these historical figures could actually be atheists with no evidence beyond the possibility that people can lie. That isn't a very rational or scientific argument.

Yep. In light of the well-documented persecution by the Roman Church against its detractors, I think that claims to be religious from this era are by default suspect. Not that you should assume that they aren't true, only that they are suspect. If I saw a guy on the news telling me how awesome and great the current North Korean regime is, I would suspect that they might not be true as well.

In any case, this is well off-topic, so I won't spend anymore time trying to change anyone's mind on this particular subject.

every single one of your examples of negative influences from the church (anti gay, anti sciens, anti everything good)

are examples of the fringe... IE the vast minority of religious people (at least in christianity)

the closest two churches to me (I dont go I just walk around a lot) both have signs on the front, displaying proudly the gay rainbow flag, and welcomeing people of all races, creeds, and sexualitys... these are some of the largest and oldest churches in my city too...

considering that the overwhelming net effect of churches and religious people is positive and helpful to those most in need, yes it is very much a positive influence on western civilization.

you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...

 easysauce wrote:
you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...

To me, that is also an interesting question.

 easysauce wrote:
you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...

Science itself is morally neutral, those are examples of political decisions. I would say that religion as a whole is morally good (although certain religions have certain tenets that aren't), but some of the political decisions that have been made in the name of religion have been very bad, and religion closes peoples minds to questioning authority which can lead to even greater atrocities (not that atrocities need religion to happen, they demonstrably don't).

 dæl wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...

Science itself is morally neutral

Science doesn't happen in a vacuum and isn't some extra-natural process beyond us mere humans. It is something we came up with and something we use to both better understand the world as well as effect and change it. One cannot remove it from politics, religion, or humans any more than the other parts that are fundamental parts of the human experience. A unthinking belief in science, or unerring trust in it, is no better than an unerring trust in religion.

 jasper76 wrote:
Yep. In light of the well-documented persecution by the Roman Church against its detractors

Again, taking the modern and applying it to the past. There were many people who got away with not doing things the Catholic Church's way just not people who lived in Italy. That of course begs the question why the Renaissance flourished first and strongest in Italy, if the Catholic Church was so suffocating. The answer is that it typically wasn't. Only certain things really put someone in the Churches cross hairs and science wasn't typically it in itself.

Not that you should assume that they aren't true, only that they are suspect.

That's an oxymoron.

If I saw a guy on the news telling me how awesome and great the current North Korean regime is, I would suspect that they might not be true as well.

Yes. Because there is ample evidence that states otherwise.

If you are trying to whitewash the historical crimes of the Roman Church, I'm just not willing to go along. Nor is the Catholic Church, incidentally, as they have apologized for many of their historical crimes.

Assuming something isn't true, and suspecting that it might not be true, are two different things, so there is no oxymoron.

There is ample evidence that the Roman Church historically persecuted its detractors, just as there is ample evidence that the North Korean regime currently persecutes its detractors.

 jasper76 wrote:
If you are trying to whitewash the historical crimes of the Roman Church, I'm just not willing to go along.

What laws did they break? Our modern moral inclinations? Damn them for not realizing we would think differently 1000 years later!

My issue in this thread, as it is in many threads I comment in, is that people indulge to much fantasy. If you'd actually raised any valid criticisms of the Church I'd be behind them, but mostly you've just clung to various historical myths and fallacies.

There is ample evidence that the Roman Church historically persecuted its detractors.

Who didn't? Up until recent centuries, speaking out against those in power was a sure fire way to screw yourself, so really what are you upset about? That the Catholic Church was like so many other organizations and powers throughout history in the time periods where they did exactly like everyone else? Singling out the church as a special evil is an act devoid of historical perspective.

The discussion I started on was one where people were advocating the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false. That conflict is recent and shouldn't be retroactively applied to a past where it didn't exist. I even wrote out a very lengthy narrative about Galileo, whose downfall didn't come from his science but from a personal blunder concerning religion.

So no. I'm not jumping up and saying the Church didn't do bad stuff (I've previously stated this). I'm simply jumping up and saying the stuff some people are bringing up in this thread didn't happen.

OK...I was using the word "crime" incorrectly. Burning people for heresy used to be law.

If there was no conflict between church and science, why did the Catholic Church feel compelled to apologize to Darwin, Copernicus, and Galileo?



"An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded."
— Pope John Paul II [7]

Those in power over other humans persecuted their detractors? Or only people with religious power did, and people in all other ideologies not religious performed just fine?

The issue isn't religion, it is man holding power over his fellow man... Power corrupts in any form, be it religious, secular, civil, whatever.

nkelsch wrote:
Those in power over other humans persecuted their detractors? Or only people with religious power did, and people in all other ideologies not religious performed just fine?

The issue isn't religion, it is man holding power over his fellow man... Power corrupts in any form, be it religious, secular, civil, whatever.

Well said. Couldn't have put it better myself.

 jasper76 wrote:


If there was no conflict between church and science, why did the Catholic Church feel compelled to apologize to Darwin, Copernicus, and Galileo?

Because people spouting historical nonsense badgered them endlessly, and besides. Putting a man under permanent house arrest because he unintentionally insulted the Pope? Not cool. To us today, that's not something that flies and the Church naturally wanted to stand up and say "Yes. This was wrong. We no longer believe in this kind of thing." Since they have to live with us, it helps that they show they're not still living in the 17th century.

And nothing happened to Copernicus in his lifetime. Actually the church of his time was more receptive to the theory of heliocentrism. Pope Celment VII personally requested a lecture on the subject and was very curious about Copernicus' ideas. I mentioned earlier that he had a degree in Canon Law, yet he never expressed any specific fears that the Church would come after him for his ideas. Even if it did he was in the best place in Europe to be on the Church's bad side, Prussia. Nothing says come at me bro like having the Holy Roman Emperor ready and willing to pick another fight with his best freinemy, the Pope, between you and Rome.

At this point, I'll just refer anyone who might be following to the Papal Condemnation of Galileo, and let them draw their own conclusions as to whether the Roman Church in this case was "pro-science", so we can just move on.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/condemnation.html

 jasper76 wrote:
At this point, I'll just refe4 anyone who might be following to the Papal Condemnation of Galileo, and let them draw there own conclusions as to whether the Roman Church in this case was "pro-science", so we can just move on.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/condemnation.html

Didn't read my mondo post did you? Who claimed they were pro-science? Calling them pro-science is as inaccurate as calling them anti-science. The Church wasn't a body overtly concerned with the advancement of science or with stopping it, which I've also already mentioned.

 LordofHats wrote:
The discussion I started on was one where people were advocating the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false.

Exhibit A in favor:

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.

emphasis mine

 jasper76 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The discussion I started on was one where people were advocating the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false.

Yeah. That's what I said. Where in that statement is the Church called pro-science?

I would refer you to my long post pages ago where I explained what got Galileo canned, but I can see you don't really care.

OK, maybe I should have spelled it out better. What I was referring to was the quote above regarding "the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false.:

Exhibit A against your assertion:

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.

emphasis mine

And again, if the Church was so anti-science, why was Galileo defended throughout his first trial by Church officials, supported by a Pope, and then only punished after inadvertently insulting said Pope? How was any scientific progress made at all in a Europe suffering under the weight of a terrible anti-science Church, and why was Italy one of the most progressive regions of Europe when the Pope was the de facto ruler?

You can cite that line all you want, but it's never going to say what you want it to and it's never going to explain why things happened the way they did. I've attempted to explain it.

 LordofHats wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The discussion I started on was one where people were advocating the perception that there was some special conflict between the Church and science, which can be historically shown to be false.

Yeah. That's what I said. Where in that statement is the Church called pro-science?

I would refer you to my long post pages ago where I explained what got Galileo canned, but I can see you don't really care.

I read it. No offense, but I don't recognize you as a subject matter expert on this issue as a default (nor should you me). I have no clue where you got your ideas from. If you could refer me to peer-reviewed material, preferably from an independent source, or source material, I'd be open-minded about it.

I don't play the citation game. One can lead the horse to water, but sometimes it looks you in the eye and says the water doesn't exist. At that point I can try and explain the water does exist but once the demands for 'pics or it didn't happen' go up, I tend to sit back and chuckle.

 jasper76 wrote:
I'd be open-minded about it.

Pretty much everything you've posted is the opposite of open minded.

 LordofHats wrote:
And again, if the Church was so anti-science, why was Galileo defended throughout his first trial by Church officials, supported by a Pope, and then only punished after inadvertently insulting said Pope?

Why was there ever justification for a trial to begin with? Why on earth would something as trivial as an idea about the location of planetary bodies merit a trial?

 LordofHats wrote:
How was any scientific progress made at all in a Europe suffering under the weight of a terrible anti-science Church, and why was Italy one of the most progressive regions of Europe when the Pope was the de facto ruler?

I don't understand the first part of your question. As for the second part, my guess would be the huge influx of cash.


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 LordofHats wrote:
I don't play the citation game. One can lead the horse to water, but sometimes it looks you in the eye and says the water doesn't exist. At that point I can try and explain the water does exist but once the demands for 'pics or it didn't happen' go up, I tend to sit back and chuckle.

 jasper76 wrote:
I'd be open-minded about it.

Pretty much everything you've posted is the opposite of open minded.

OK, so you won't provide citations. I have provided the source material of the Papal Condemnation itself. It stands on its own. Lets move on. I'm sorry if I am being closed-minded. I'm not trying to be, I just don't agree with you.

 Ahtman wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
you may as well blame science for the death toll in world war cause science created guns, gas chambers and atom bombs and ask if science is good for us...

Science itself is morally neutral

Science doesn't happen in a vacuum and isn't some extra-natural process beyond us mere humans. It is something we came up with and something we use to both better understand the world as well as effect and change it. One cannot remove it from politics, religion, or humans any more than the other parts that are fundamental parts of the human experience.

Nuclear weapons are neither good nor evil, how they are used is what defines that, be it to murder millions or to prevent a country from engaging in an invasion thus saving millions.

A unthinking belief in science, or unerring trust in it, is no better than an unerring trust in religion.

While you are correct that an unthinking trust in anything is unhelpful, there is one very large difference between the two fields, that science will change its view when faced with evidence to the contrary, while religion will attempt to stick doggedly to a document that was written in another time by people of another society.

 jasper76 wrote:
Why was there ever justification for a trial to begin with? Why on earth would something as trivial as an idea about the location of planetary bodies merit a trial?

Because the Dominicans sucked at math, and like bad elementary school students, decided it was stupid. And if you'd really read my post, you'd know the answer to this. I even named the specific chapters of Pslams. Also because the Domincans pretty much ran the Inquisition, so when they came across Galileo's letter which mixed mathematical proofs and theology, they didn't have a hard time getting him put on trial for publishing subversive philosophy. It helps that they always stacked the Jury in their favor.

Now, you could easily argue the Dominicans were anti-science Right after they finished with Galileo they went on to go after Kepler who'd committed a similar blunder (and as a Lutheran, Kepler didn't get any help).

I don't understand the first part of your question.

It's pretty simple. There was steady scientific progress in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. It seems odd that starting with the Italian Renaissance, Europe began jumping ahead scientifically of the rest of the world if the Catholic church were so against science.

As for the second part, my guess would be the huge influx of cash.

Cash was one. Another was proximity to Crusader Kingdoms who had direct contact to the Islamic world which had been steadily advancing mathematics, astronomy, and medicine for some time (Copernicus' model had previously been proposed in the Islamic astronomy community centuries prior). The Italians were the primary financial backers behind the Crusades and controlled the ports and trade routes along the Mediterranean and after the weakening of Byzantium, the Black Sea. A third was the concentration of clergy in Italy, which produced a higher concentration of people capable of reading. The Jesuits were also located in Italy for a time, though I forget where they went after they were thrown out of Venice and the Jesuits were the opposite of the Dominicans. They actually really liked math.


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 jasper76 wrote:
I have provided the source material of the Papal Condemnation itself.

Which doesn't even remotely begin to explain the Galileo Affair, consisting of two trials, a letter, a book, some monks who didn't like math, some monks who did like math, and some bad decision making.

 -Shrike- wrote:
Ever heard of a metaphor?

Yeah. I guess we must be speaking about some goddamn sustained metaphor here :
Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females, and if there be women more than two, then theirs is two-thirds of the inheritance, and if there be one (only) then the half. And to of his parents a sixth of the inheritance, if he have a son; and if he have no son and his parents are his heirs, then to his mother appertaineth the third; and if he have brethren, then to his mother appertaineth the sixth, after any legacy he may have bequeathed, or debt (hath been paid). Your parents or your children: Ye know not which of them is nearer unto you in usefulness. It is an injunction from Allah. Lo! Allah is Knower, Wise. And unto you belongeth a half of that which your wives leave, if they have no child; but if they have a child then unto you the fourth of that which they leave, after any legacy they may have bequeathed, or debt (they may have contracted, hath been paid). And unto them belongeth the fourth of that which ye leave if ye have no child, but if ye have a child then the eighth of that which ye leave, after any legacy ye may have bequeathed, or debt (ye may have contracted, hath been paid). And if a man or a woman have a distant heir (having left neither parent nor child), and he (or she) have a brother or a sister (only on the mother's side) then to each of them twain (the brother and the sister) the sixth, and if they be more than two, then they shall be sharers in the third, after any legacy that may have been bequeathed or debt (contracted) not injuring (the heirs by willing away more than a third of the heritage) hath been paid. A commandment from Allah. Allah is Knower, Indulgent. These are the limits (imposed by) Allah.
Maybe this is a metaphor of how caterpillars turn into butterfly rather than some very specific set of rules about inheritance.

 -Shrike- wrote:
Don't take the Bible (or Quran, I think, but as I have never read it, I'll defer to you for that) too seriously; early Christian scholars certainly didn't.

Not taking it too seriously? Sure, I will not. I think you meant literally, though. So, God is not supposed to actually exist, He is just a metaphor. Is that what I was supposed to understand?
A whole freaking lot of religious people need to be made aware that when the Bible or the Quran says God exists, it is just a metaphor rather than some definite answer.

 -Shrike- wrote:
By "actual truth", I assume you mean empirical truth?

I am talking about genuinely and honestly trying to find the truth, as opposed to looking for a convenient substitute.

 -Shrike- wrote:
Except... science can't answer every question to which there is an empirical answer.

So? What is your point exactly?