From: *Bruno Marchal* <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
On 16 Oct 2018, at 03:50, Brent Meeker <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
The "separation" of science from religion was the invention of science
Quite. What follows from Bruno is just Humpty Dumpty history and philosophy.
Bruce
Not at all. Science is born with Plato, who understood that for having
a fundamental science, we must believe in a reality, and that this
need an act of faith. That reality is GOD, the object of religion.
Of course, the popular religion did have all sort of Gods, from
turtles all the way down, to very personalised sort of reality. Now,
when religion is done with the scientific attitude, which is what
Plato did, it is named theology, and for one millenium it was a
science. The Reality was mainly either Nature, or something else which
would be deeper and non natural (“supernatural”). Plato called it the
“world of ideas” (the Noùs). Plato’s world of idea was inspired by
Pythagorus who taught it as being “only number”.
That theology has progressed and gave birth to Mathematics, which was
seen as the alternative of physics.
The (Neo)pythagorean and the (Neo)platonist will pursue that line
where the doubt was about the fundamental nature of reality was
immaterial/mathematical. You might read Plotinus' ennead “On number”,
to see how Plotinus foresaw Cantor, and the machine’s discourse. The
term “mathematician” was used at that time to mean “rationalist
sceptics about the fundamental nature of the physical reality”/ The
original doubt was between mathematics and physics as fundamental
science. Aristotle will side with Plato on this, but his interest in
Nature will make him to influence people to opt the idea that physics
might be directly about reality.
For example, in the year 400 Hypatia was teaching both the Mathematics
of Diophantus, and the theology of Plotinus. That was very common.
But, the christians will separated into intellectual, disputing if
Plato or Aristotle were right, and integrist or radicals which will
use religion to get power, and the history is that, despite Constantin
(Roman emperor converted to Christianity) was rather close to the
platonist intellectual, eventually the radicals will get the power.
After 529, when the emperor Justinian did close Plato’s Academy, the
Church will, by its action separate theology (the fundamental science
of the greek /per/ /definition/) from science.The result is that
science will be associated more and more with Aristotle: that is: the
belief in physical primary universe. Science itself became a
psedo-religion, with a sort of dogma: Matter, and this up to the point
that today, most people have completely forget that the original
debate was never on the existence of the ONE (god) but on the
existence of a primary (“physicalist”) Nature.
By separating religion-theology from science, religion will keep the
popular superstition, and buried a millenium of science.
Theology/religion will become more and more an instrument of politics
(of the non democratic kind, of course).
The first attempt to separate religion from the state and politics,
cale from religious people wanting to save religion/theology from
politics (not for saving politics from religion!: that will come later).
Superstition was just popular, in all sciences before the greeks. A
religion is only a conception of reality, and Plato understood that
the belief in a reality cannot be rational (exactly what the universal
machine explain all by themselves, by <>t -> ~[]<>t (<>t = consistency
= a reality exist, by Gödel’s COMPLETENESS theorem).
The first superstition were on the ONE thing responsible for all the
others, and it became, with Plato, the thing which we need to unify
all sciences. Theology gave quickly birth to mathematics and physics,
seen as alternative. In the 19th century, mathematical logic will born
from a dispute between unionists (mostly mathematicians) and
trinitarians (mostly clergyman, but still intellectual knowing well
Plato, to attack his immaterial and non personal conception of the
fundamental reality).
Todays science is superstitious or dogmatic (or both) in making
physics into the fundamental science, despite there has never been a
shadow of evidence for primary matter. Indeed, we don’t even try to
seek such evidences, contrary to the ancient who tried at least to
find one. After 529, all those doubting the materialist dogma were
banished or killed. Neoplatonism (scientific theology will still
continue up to 1258, where, unfortunately Islam will decide to submit
Reason to the Text (the Quran, then) against Averroes, who defended
the idea that the TEXT must be submitted (interpreted) to Reason
(which will influence the Renaissance).
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