On 07 May 2012, at 20:01, meekerdb wrote:
On 5/7/2012 10:35 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
On 06.05.2012 22:06 meekerdb said the following:
On 5/6/2012 10:51 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
On 05.05.2012 23:34 meekerdb said the following:
...
I would agree with that. Rome fell for other, more material
reasons. But
its fall created a power vacuum which was filled by organized
Christianity and Christianity like any dogmatic religion is in
conflict
with the skeptical, inquiring, testing nature of science. When the
reformation broke the intellectual monopoly of the Church, science
flowered and for a time it was regarded as an adjunct to theology:
discovering the creator through nature. But that only lasted up
till
Darwin.
I am afraid that the conflict between Christianity and science that
you describe is not consistent with historical facts. According to
Prof Hoenen, who is an expert on Middle Age, science and theology
has
been developed rather like a brother and a sister.
More like a master and slave - until the slaves revolted. Honen is a
professor of philosophy and theology who specializes in commenting
on
theologians of the middle ages: Marilius, Boethius, and Albert
Magnus.
Although Bruno (not Marchal) was burned at the stake and Galileo
was put
under house arrest, science was allowed as a servant of the church
up
until the Victorian era. Newton, Boyle, Tyndall, Descarte, Laplace,
Kepler,...none of them were from the universities, which were
dominated
by theology. And the real break came with Darwin. To say they
developed
like brother and sister is to suppose theology developed. While
science
has advance enormously in scope and accuracy, theologians now do no
better than in the 13th century.
For science to be started in a sense that you have mentioned, the
society should reach a certain limit of development. I am afraid
that you forget about this simple fact. Science in the middle ages
has started from logic, grammatic, etc. Without this there would be
no science that you mean.
Logic, grammar, mathematics were developed for a long time before
science. They are necessary for science, but what marks science as a
distinct intellectual enterprise is skeptical observation and
empirical testing. The scholastics inbred study of logic, grammar,
etc was sterile - as theology has continued to be.
Theology has been kept out from science for political reason. But the
initial theology of the greek has given science, and "modern science"
exists as a refutation of Aristotle theology. To bad this trends is
still blocked for the same fear of losing control.
Once science is separate from theology, science itself becomes a
pseudo-theology, as the many books by atheists shows.
You criticize theology, but by doing so you just defend a particular
theology which is made taken for granted.
Bruno
Again, the science has developed in the Christian Europe. This
could be coincidence but one cannot exclude that this was destiny.
It must have had its causes, but I note that it coincided with the
reformation and the fragmentation of the Church's power. Science
developed most in England where Henry VIII had divorced the Church
from Rome and made it much weaker.
You are talking about skeptical inquiry but you do not want to
apply it for all questions. I am afraid that you take some answers
just from ideological considerations, not from historical research.
The favorite authors of Prof Hoenen are Anselm of Canterbury and
Thomas von Aquin.
It's not my field to research - nor yours. You rely a few experts
two of whom I note are noted Catholic apologists - hardly skeptical
thinkers, but promoters of faith.
Brent
“There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger.
This is the disease of curiosity…. It is this which draws us to try
and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond
our understanding, which can avail us nothing, and which man should
not wish to learn.”
-- St. Augustine
I like a lot On Truth by Anselm of Canterbury. Prof Hoenen has
demonstrated nicely that his work influenced many thinkers in the
West a lot that pondered on what is truth.
Right now I listen to Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. The
book is not bad but the style is just terrible: "I know the truth
because this truth (that I know) is objective." Anselm and Thomas
in this respect were more clever.
Evgenii
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