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  • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
    Again, feel free to actually use the BIBLE as your source for what the bible actually says. Go on, I will wait.

    https://www.biblegateway.com/

    Again, O'Niell adds some much needed context to the whole Galileo affair,

    https://historyforatheists.com/2018/...d-publication/
    Source: THE GREAT MYTHS 6: COPERNICUS’ DEATHBED PUBLICATION by Tim O'Niell

    In 1559 Thomas Hill published The School of Skill in which he lays out the accepted scientific objections to Copernicus’ model in detail and then makes reference to objections based on Scripture rather briefly, as something of an afterthought. For scholars before around 1600 the issues with Copernicanism were primarily scientific, not religious. Harvard historian of science Owen Gingerich undertook an 30 year long analysis of the surviving copies of the first two editions of De revolutionibus – 601 copies in all – and discovered something interesting. In The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus (2004) Gingerich analyses the handwritten notes and marginal comments in the editions he had examined and found that while the mathematical sections of the book were usually heavily annotated, the sections where he defends his theory as a physical reality were generally not. This pattern seems to reflect the consensus of the time – that it was useful mathematically but unconvincing as a physical model. (Perhaps The Book that Was Inconsistently Annotated would have been a more accurate title, though it would have been hard to get a publisher to agree to that one).

    And this also fits with the evidence on how few scholars actually accepted Copernicus’ theory prior to the Galileo Affair. Robert S. Westman’s survey of writings from 1514 to 1600 turns up just 11 writers who accepted Copernicanism as something other than a calculating device in this period: Thomas Digges and Thomas Hariot in England; Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei in Italy; Diego de Zuñiga in Spain; Simon Stevin in the Low Countries; and Georg Joachim Rheticus, Michael Maestlin, Christoph Rothmann, and Johannes Kepler in Germany, though it seems Rothmann later changed his mind (see Robert S. Westman, “The Astronomer’s Role in the Sixteenth Century: A Preliminary Study,” History of Science, 18 (1980): 105-147, p. 106). Pietro Daniel Omodeo’s survey of Copernicus’ reception in Copernicus in the Cultural Debates of the Renaissance: Reception, Legacy, Transformation (2014) arrives at much the same conclusion, though he would argue the English scholar John Feild could possibly be added to the total. If we take the date right up to 1616, the eve of Galileo’s first encounter with the Roman Inquisition, we can also add William Lower and Paolo Foscarini. This means that when the Inquisition came to the conclusion that Copernicanism was “absurd in philosophy”, it had the overwhelming majority of European astronomers and physicists on its side. In other words, the Church backed the scientific consensus – contrary to the myth that the Galileo Affair was purely a case of “religion versus science”. Christopher Graney’s superb Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo (2015) shows just how strong the scientific case was against heliocentrism even a generation after Galileo and why the consensus of science did not change until well after Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687). Despite this, many still strenuously resist the fact that the Church’s opposition to Galileo and heliocentrism was primarily based on this clear scientific consensus.

    © Copyright Original Source



    And more directly here,

    https://historyforatheists.com/2019/...rything-wrong/
    Source: “ARON RA” GETS EVERYTHING WRONG by Tim O'Niell

    The Church certainly did try Galileo for heresy, but only after Galileo entangled himself in some complex politics by deciding to branch out into theology and Biblical interpretation and then by embarrassing the Pope – neither of which were wise things to do in the welter of the Counter Reformation. Prior to these gaffes the Church was well aware of Galileo’s heliocentrism and simply did not care. Four years before he came to the attention of the Inquisition, Galileo published his Letters on Sunspots (Istoria e Dimostrazioni intorno alle Macchie Solari – 1612). All published work in Early Modern Europe had to pass some form of official scrutiny and censorship and in Rome this was overseen by the Inquisition. Galileo’s work included detailed discussion of cosmology and made it crystal clear that he championed Copernicus’ model. The Inquisition did not care one bit, and the booklet was published without any comment or correction regarding those passages. . . .

    . . . The crux of the issue was that Galileo could not show heliocentrism was true, and everyone involved knew it. In both of his trials, in 1616 and 1633, his problem was that the theory he championed still had major scientific objections to it and it would not be until several decades after his death that these were considered sufficiently resolved for the scientific consensus to swing around to heliocentrism. Though it was not the flawed and tangled model of Copernicus that Galileo argued which was accepted, but a version of Kepler’s model, which Galileo vigorously rejected. As surveys of the scholarship of the time by Jim Westman (1980) and Pietro Daniel Omodeo (2014) show clearly, only around 10 to 12 scholars in the whole of Europe accepted the Copernican model on the eve of Galileo’s trial – the Church had the overwhelming consensus of science on its side, Galileo was the lonely outlier who had to admit he could not demonstrate what he claimed. . . .

    . . . The reason that judgement says the propositions are “absurd” and “false in philosophy” is it is noting these ideas are contrary to the scientific consensus I just mentioned. “Philosophy” here means “natural philosophy” – i.e. what was later to be called “science”. As anyone who has actually bothered to study the Galileo Affair knows, the judgement is saying that his ideas are scientifically wrong (“false in philosophy”) AND, therefore, “formally heretical”. The Inquisition, headed in 1616 by Cardinal Bellarmine, upheld the traditional reading of certain Biblical texts because the science said they should do so. As Bellarmine had explained in a widely circulated letter just a year earlier, if heliocentrism could be demonstrated then “one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than what is demonstrated is false”. But, he observed with dry understatement, “I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown to me” (“Letter to Foscarini” 1615). Galileo’s problem was that in his time there was no such demonstration and both he and Bellarmine knew it. And so the consensus that his preferred model was “absurd in philosophy/[science]” remained. In 1616 and in 1632 the Church had consulted the best science of the time and it had science on its side.

    © Copyright Original Source

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      Feel free to show me where it does. Here is a link to an online bible site:

      https://www.biblegateway.com/

      If I am wrong I will admit it.

      People read verses about the sun setting, rising or standing still and think the bible is a science textbook. It isn't. It doesn't mention orbits or the Earth is in the center of the universe, or the moon and sun go around the earth, or that the earth is flat or round. It just talks about such thing in the vernacular, just as we do today.
      And someone using the inaccurate views expressed in the language common for the time and place is not the same as affirming those mistaken views. The obvious example is like when, for example, an astronomer says "sunrise" or "sundown" that is not meant as some sort of verification for geocentrism but just using a common expression.

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Adrift View Post
        Again, O'Niell adds some much needed context to the whole Galileo affair,

        https://historyforatheists.com/2018/...d-publication/
        Source: THE GREAT MYTHS 6: COPERNICUS’ DEATHBED PUBLICATION by Tim O'Niell

        In 1559 Thomas Hill published The School of Skill in which he lays out the accepted scientific objections to Copernicus’ model in detail and then makes reference to objections based on Scripture rather briefly, as something of an afterthought. For scholars before around 1600 the issues with Copernicanism were primarily scientific, not religious. Harvard historian of science Owen Gingerich undertook an 30 year long analysis of the surviving copies of the first two editions of De revolutionibus – 601 copies in all – and discovered something interesting. In The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus (2004) Gingerich analyses the handwritten notes and marginal comments in the editions he had examined and found that while the mathematical sections of the book were usually heavily annotated, the sections where he defends his theory as a physical reality were generally not. This pattern seems to reflect the consensus of the time – that it was useful mathematically but unconvincing as a physical model. (Perhaps The Book that Was Inconsistently Annotated would have been a more accurate title, though it would have been hard to get a publisher to agree to that one).

        And this also fits with the evidence on how few scholars actually accepted Copernicus’ theory prior to the Galileo Affair. Robert S. Westman’s survey of writings from 1514 to 1600 turns up just 11 writers who accepted Copernicanism as something other than a calculating device in this period: Thomas Digges and Thomas Hariot in England; Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei in Italy; Diego de Zuñiga in Spain; Simon Stevin in the Low Countries; and Georg Joachim Rheticus, Michael Maestlin, Christoph Rothmann, and Johannes Kepler in Germany, though it seems Rothmann later changed his mind (see Robert S. Westman, “The Astronomer’s Role in the Sixteenth Century: A Preliminary Study,” History of Science, 18 (1980): 105-147, p. 106). Pietro Daniel Omodeo’s survey of Copernicus’ reception in Copernicus in the Cultural Debates of the Renaissance: Reception, Legacy, Transformation (2014) arrives at much the same conclusion, though he would argue the English scholar John Feild could possibly be added to the total. If we take the date right up to 1616, the eve of Galileo’s first encounter with the Roman Inquisition, we can also add William Lower and Paolo Foscarini. This means that when the Inquisition came to the conclusion that Copernicanism was “absurd in philosophy”, it had the overwhelming majority of European astronomers and physicists on its side. In other words, the Church backed the scientific consensus – contrary to the myth that the Galileo Affair was purely a case of “religion versus science”. Christopher Graney’s superb Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo (2015) shows just how strong the scientific case was against heliocentrism even a generation after Galileo and why the consensus of science did not change until well after Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687). Despite this, many still strenuously resist the fact that the Church’s opposition to Galileo and heliocentrism was primarily based on this clear scientific consensus.

        © Copyright Original Source



        And more directly here,

        https://historyforatheists.com/2019/...rything-wrong/
        Source: “ARON RA” GETS EVERYTHING WRONG by Tim O'Niell

        The Church certainly did try Galileo for heresy, but only after Galileo entangled himself in some complex politics by deciding to branch out into theology and Biblical interpretation and then by embarrassing the Pope – neither of which were wise things to do in the welter of the Counter Reformation. Prior to these gaffes the Church was well aware of Galileo’s heliocentrism and simply did not care. Four years before he came to the attention of the Inquisition, Galileo published his Letters on Sunspots (Istoria e Dimostrazioni intorno alle Macchie Solari – 1612). All published work in Early Modern Europe had to pass some form of official scrutiny and censorship and in Rome this was overseen by the Inquisition. Galileo’s work included detailed discussion of cosmology and made it crystal clear that he championed Copernicus’ model. The Inquisition did not care one bit, and the booklet was published without any comment or correction regarding those passages. . . .

        . . . The crux of the issue was that Galileo could not show heliocentrism was true, and everyone involved knew it. In both of his trials, in 1616 and 1633, his problem was that the theory he championed still had major scientific objections to it and it would not be until several decades after his death that these were considered sufficiently resolved for the scientific consensus to swing around to heliocentrism. Though it was not the flawed and tangled model of Copernicus that Galileo argued which was accepted, but a version of Kepler’s model, which Galileo vigorously rejected. As surveys of the scholarship of the time by Jim Westman (1980) and Pietro Daniel Omodeo (2014) show clearly, only around 10 to 12 scholars in the whole of Europe accepted the Copernican model on the eve of Galileo’s trial – the Church had the overwhelming consensus of science on its side, Galileo was the lonely outlier who had to admit he could not demonstrate what he claimed. . . .

        . . . The reason that judgement says the propositions are “absurd” and “false in philosophy” is it is noting these ideas are contrary to the scientific consensus I just mentioned. “Philosophy” here means “natural philosophy” – i.e. what was later to be called “science”. As anyone who has actually bothered to study the Galileo Affair knows, the judgement is saying that his ideas are scientifically wrong (“false in philosophy”) AND, therefore, “formally heretical”. The Inquisition, headed in 1616 by Cardinal Bellarmine, upheld the traditional reading of certain Biblical texts because the science said they should do so. As Bellarmine had explained in a widely circulated letter just a year earlier, if heliocentrism could be demonstrated then “one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than what is demonstrated is false”. But, he observed with dry understatement, “I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown to me” (“Letter to Foscarini” 1615). Galileo’s problem was that in his time there was no such demonstration and both he and Bellarmine knew it. And so the consensus that his preferred model was “absurd in philosophy/[science]” remained. In 1616 and in 1632 the Church had consulted the best science of the time and it had science on its side.

        © Copyright Original Source

        While all of this is true we should not therefore overlook the fact that Galileo was facing charges of heresy -- not because he disagreed with the scientific consensus but because he was contradicting what theologians and church officials declared what the Bible taught.

        I'm always still in trouble again

        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
          What I said was that the bible never says anything about the sun orbiting the earth, or the planets, or any other detail of the Geocentric model. The Geocentric model was a scientific theory, as scientific as Copernicus's theory. Based on observations and math, it gave an accurate prediction of the positions of the planets, stars, sun and moon. None of those details are mentioned in the bible. Feel free to show me wrong FROM THE BIBLE.
          None of those details are mentioned in your intepretation of the Bible. As history clearly shows and as I have made you aware the church was of a different opinion to the extent that they thought what Galileo promoted was heresy.

          Interpretations differ. I did not make the statements the church did back then, nor do I support them. My very simple point was and is that it is interesting to note how interpretations change over time. And your statement that the Bible does not promote geocentrism is one the church back then would disagree with. That does not prove you wrong. And even if you could prove their interpretation wrong, it would not change the fact that they actually had that interpretation. And that is all I have pointed to.
          "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Charles View Post
            None of those details are mentioned in your intepretation of the Bible. As history clearly shows and as I have made you aware the church was of a different opinion to the extent that they thought what Galileo promoted was heresy.

            Interpretations differ. I did not make the statements the church did back then, nor do I support them. My very simple point was and is that it is interesting to note how interpretations change over time. And your statement that the Bible does not promote geocentrism is one the church back then would disagree with. That does not prove you wrong. And even if you could prove their interpretation wrong, it would not change the fact that they actually had that interpretation. And that is all I have pointed to.
            Well back to ignoring you, I guess.

            I have explained myself several times, you keep trying to switch tracks, and ignore what I said and what everyone else has said.

            We were talking about whether Geocentric model was scientific or just religious. Tassman claimed the latter. As I and Adrift and others have shown, it was a scientific model, very detailed and was developed by scientists who used math and observations to come up with a working theory that was ultimately proven wrong by another scientific theory. It was not just some religious nonsense.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
              Well back to ignoring you, I guess.

              I have explained myself several times, you keep trying to switch tracks, and ignore what I said and what everyone else has said.

              We were talking about whether Geocentric model was scientific or just religious. Tassman claimed the latter. As I and Adrift and others have shown, it was a scientific model, very detailed and was developed by scientists who used math and observations to come up with a working theory that was ultimately proven wrong by another scientific theory. It was not just some religious nonsense.
              I have not said it was just religious. What I have pointed out is that - obviously - religion played a role in it. Galileo was facing charges of heresy. I have a hard time imagining you even disagree with me on that.
              "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Charles View Post
                I have not said it was just religious. What I have pointed out is that - obviously - religion played a role in it. Galileo was facing charges of heresy. I have a hard time imagining you even disagree with me on that.
                Go back and read what Adrift said.

                And it was Tassman who said that Geocentric was religious and not scientific:

                Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                No, it wasn’t. Geocentrism was the “settled” bible-based theology of the day as reinforced by Aristotelian philosophy. It was the incipient scientific methodology of Galileo and others that resulted in the "settled science" of a heliocentric solar system.
                Originally posted by Tassman
                There was no science as we know it until the work of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). The true scientific method began with them and was formalized by Sir Francis Bacon, often referred to as the father of empiricism. Bacon is credited with establishing and popularizing the “scientific method” of inquiry into natural phenomena. Prior to that the Greco-Roman model to which you refer dominated. This was philosophically based rather than according to the scientific methodology of collecting measurable, empirical evidence to support or contradict a theory
                .



                which is who I responded to
                Originally posted by Sparko
                You are an idiot. The geocentric model was based on observations and a lot of calculations. They even invented epicycles and the math to go with them to explain the retrograde motion of the planets. It was very much "science" - and it worked. The bible said nothing about any of it.

                before you butted in.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                  Go back and read what Adrift said.
                  And read Rogue's comment on it: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...l=1#post666865

                  In your answer to Tassman you forget the role religion played. I don't assume you want to try to ignore that. I pointed to it to balance things a bit. It seems you want to read a lot more into my posts.
                  "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                    While all of this is true we should not therefore overlook the fact that Galileo was facing charges of heresy -- not because he disagreed with the scientific consensus but because he was contradicting what theologians and church officials declared what the Bible taught.
                    The judgement that Galileo's propositions were absurd appear to be first and foremost due to the fact that they contradicted the scientific consensus.

                    Christopher M. Graney, a professor of physics and astronomy, and adjunct Scholar at the Vatican Observatory, requested and received a copy of the original 1616 consultant's report against Galileo from the Vatican Secret Archives. In it, we see that there is a semi-colon between "philosophy" and "and formally" in the sentence, "All said that this proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts many places the sense of Holy Scripture, according to the literal meaning of the words and according to the common interpretation and understanding of the Holy Fathers and the doctors of theology."

                    As Graney explains,

                    https://www.vofoundation.org/blog/in...uation-re-run/

                    Source: The Inquisition on Copernicus, February 24, 1616: A Little Story About Punctuation (re-run)

                    Thus the consultants’ assessment was this: heliocentrism is scientifically untenable; and, since it contradicts the literal sense of scripture, it is theologically heretical (I am borrowing Finocchiaro’s words again).

                    So why would it be so hard to figure out just what was said on February 24, 1616? Because the Inquisition issued no formal condemnation. The consultants’ report got filed away. Then seventeen years later the report was referred to in the Inquisition’s 1633 judgment against Galileo. That judgment was written in Italian. Then Giovanni Battista Riccioli included a Latin translation of the judgment in his 1651 Almagestum Novum. Riccioli’s translation is punctuated in a manner that does convey the impression that biblical contradiction is being given as a reason for ascribing both philosophical-scientific falsehood and theological heresy.

                    Riccioli’s translation was widely referenced for two centuries, but it was a Latin translation of an Italian paraphrase of a Latin original. Translating it into English, for example, added a fourth layer of translation. The original statement itself was not published until the mid-19th century. But according to Finocchiaro Riccioli’s version was still influential even after that. I speculate that after a whole two centuries of Riccioli’s version being the standard, the tendency was to interpret the new information in light of the old.

                    And so, four hundred years after the Inquisition’s consultants made their assessment, you have to look carefully if you want to know exactly what it was that they said.

                    © Copyright Original Source



                    O'Niell goes further and states, "As anyone who has actually bothered to study the Galileo Affair knows, the judgement is saying that his ideas are scientifically wrong ('false in philosophy') AND, therefore, 'formally heretical.'"

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                      There was no science as we know it until the work of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). The true scientific method began with them and was formalized by Sir Francis Bacon, often referred to as the father of empiricism. Bacon is credited with establishing and popularizing the “scientific method” of inquiry into natural phenomena. Prior to that the Greco-Roman model to which you refer dominated. This was philosophically based rather than according to the scientific methodology of collecting measurable, empirical evidence to support or contradict a theory.
                      What about folks like Nicholas Oresme, Albertus Magnus, William of Conches, Robert Grosseteste, Duns Scotus, Thomas Bradwardine, William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead, Walter Burley, Adelard of Bath, John Dumbleton, John Peckham, Bernard Silvestris, Richard of Wallingford and Jean Buridan?

                      Thanks to John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White and to slightly lesser extent Thomas Huxley the myth of the Dark Ages became popular but later scholarship has utterly debunked the concept to the point that the term has been abandoned by scholars today (preferring to use "Early Middle Ages" or just "Middle Ages") because there isn't much evidence that life was any worse than during the periods before or after it.

                      In fact they've come to understand that not only wasn't the Christian church responsible for killing science but rather it was actually largely responsible for preserving it as a succession of one "barbarian" horde after another overran Europe for several hundred years[1] reducing the Roman Empire to nothing but dust and vague memories.

                      What is ironic is that one of the first people to debunk the Dark Ages myth, the French physicist and mathematician Pierre Duhem, faced a great deal of resistance from the anti-clerical elements in the intellectual elite of his time who worked to keep his Systeme de Monde: Histoire des Doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic from being published. It wasn't until a little over 40 years after his death, and largely due to the efforts of his daughter Helene that the entire ten volume work was finally published in 1959.

                      It would do you good to read a bit of what modern scholarship has to say about the scientific achievements during Medieval times and could do worse than checking out David C. Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (1992), Ronald Numbers' Galileo Goes to Jail, and Other Myths about Science and Religion (2009), Edward Grant's The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (1996) and God and Reason in the Middle Ages (2001), and James Hannam's God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science (2009).

                      In fact here is what an atheist reviewer of the last work had to say about the entire "Dark Ages" myth:

                      Source: The Dark Age Myth: An Atheist Reviews “God’s Philosophers”


                      The Christian Dark Age and Other Hysterical Myths

                      One of the occupational hazards of being an atheist and secular humanist who hangs around on discussion boards is to encounter a staggering level of historical illiteracy. I like to console myself that many of the people on such boards have come to their atheism via the study of science and so, even if they are quite learned in things like geology and biology, usually have a grasp of history stunted at about high school level. I generally do this because the alternative is to admit that the average person's grasp of history and how history is studied is so utterly feeble as to be totally depressing.

                      So, alongside the regular airings of the hoary old myth that the Bible was collated at the Council of Nicea, the tedious internet-based "Jesus never existed!" nonsense, or otherwise intelligent people spouting pseudo historical claims that would make even Dan Brown snort in derision, the myth that the Catholic Church caused the Dark Ages and the Medieval Period was a scientific wasteland is regularly wheeled, creaking, into the sunlight for another trundle around the arena.

                      The myth goes that the Greeks and Romans were wise and rational types who loved science and were on the brink of doing all kinds of marvelous things (inventing full-scale steam engines is one example that is usually, rather fancifully, invoked) until Christianity came along. Christianity then banned all learning and rational thought and ushered in the Dark Ages. Then an iron-fisted theocracy, backed by a Gestapo-style Inquisition, prevented any science or questioning inquiry from happening until Leonardo da Vinci invented intelligence and the wondrous Renaissance saved us all from Medieval darkness.

                      The online manifestations of this curiously quaint but seemingly indefatigable idea range from the touchingly clumsy to the utterly shocking, but it remains one of those things that "everybody knows" and permeates modern culture. A recent episode of Family Guy had Stewie and Brian enter a futuristic alternative world where, it was explained, things were so advanced because Christianity didn't destroy learning, usher in the Dark Ages and stifle science. The writers didn't see the need to explain what Stewie meant - they assumed everyone understood.

                      About once every 3-4 months on forums like RichardDawkins.net we get some discussion where someone invokes the old "Conflict Thesis". That evolves into 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 totally untrue. 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 Most Wrong 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.


                      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 up these strange ideas from websites and popular books. The assertions collapse as soon as you hit them with hard evidence. I love to totally stump these propagators 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 usually scratch their heads in puzzlement at what just went wrong.


                      Source

                      [*Emphases in original*]

                      © Copyright Original Source



                      O'Neill says a great deal more concerning the topic which can be seen by following the link provided. And keep in mind, this is an atheist source and not from a Christian apologist.










                      1. First came the Germanic tribes like the various Goths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii, Jutes and Franks, followed by groups like the Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars and Alans and finally the Vikings, Normans, Hungarians and Moors.

                      I'm always still in trouble again

                      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                        Thanks to John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White and to slightly lesser extent Thomas Huxley the myth of the Dark Ages became popular but later scholarship has utterly debunked the concept to the point that the term has been abandoned by scholars today (preferring to use "Early Middle Ages" or just "Middle Ages") because there isn't much evidence that life was any worse than during the periods before or after it.
                        As I understand it, the term "Dark Ages" was originally used by scholars because it was a period of history that we knew so little about, hence it was "dark".
                        Last edited by Mountain Man; 09-04-2019, 05:18 PM.
                        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                        Than a fool in the eyes of God


                        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                          While all of this is true we should not therefore overlook the fact that Galileo was facing charges of heresy -- not because he disagreed with the scientific consensus but because he was contradicting what theologians and church officials declared what the Bible taught.
                          He chose to make it a theological issue when his ideas were rejected by the scientific community. Of course he didn't help his cause when he openly insulted even those in the Church who supported him.
                          Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                          But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                          Than a fool in the eyes of God


                          From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                            What about folks like Nicholas Oresme, Albertus Magnus, William of Conches, Robert Grosseteste, Duns Scotus, Thomas Bradwardine, William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead, Walter Burley, Adelard of Bath, John Dumbleton, John Peckham, Bernard Silvestris, Richard of Wallingford and Jean Buridan?

                            Thanks to John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White and to slightly lesser extent Thomas Huxley the myth of the Dark Ages became popular but later scholarship has utterly debunked the concept to the point that the term has been abandoned by scholars today (preferring to use "Early Middle Ages" or just "Middle Ages") because there isn't much evidence that life was any worse than during the periods before or after it.

                            In fact they've come to understand that not only wasn't the Christian church responsible for killing science but rather it was actually largely responsible for preserving it as a succession of one "barbarian" horde after another overran Europe for several hundred years[1] reducing the Roman Empire to nothing but dust and vague memories.

                            What is ironic is that one of the first people to debunk the Dark Ages myth, the French physicist and mathematician Pierre Duhem, faced a great deal of resistance from the anti-clerical elements in the intellectual elite of his time who worked to keep his Systeme de Monde: Histoire des Doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic from being published. It wasn't until a little over 40 years after his death, and largely due to the efforts of his daughter Helene that the entire ten volume work was finally published in 1959.

                            It would do you good to read a bit of what modern scholarship has to say about the scientific achievements during Medieval times and could do worse than checking out David C. Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (1992), Ronald Numbers' Galileo Goes to Jail, and Other Myths about Science and Religion (2009), Edward Grant's The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (1996) and God and Reason in the Middle Ages (2001), and James Hannam's God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science (2009).

                            In fact here is what an atheist reviewer of the last work had to say about the entire "Dark Ages" myth:

                            Source: The Dark Age Myth: An Atheist Reviews “God’s Philosophers”


                            The Christian Dark Age and Other Hysterical Myths

                            One of the occupational hazards of being an atheist and secular humanist who hangs around on discussion boards is to encounter a staggering level of historical illiteracy. I like to console myself that many of the people on such boards have come to their atheism via the study of science and so, even if they are quite learned in things like geology and biology, usually have a grasp of history stunted at about high school level. I generally do this because the alternative is to admit that the average person's grasp of history and how history is studied is so utterly feeble as to be totally depressing.

                            So, alongside the regular airings of the hoary old myth that the Bible was collated at the Council of Nicea, the tedious internet-based "Jesus never existed!" nonsense, or otherwise intelligent people spouting pseudo historical claims that would make even Dan Brown snort in derision, the myth that the Catholic Church caused the Dark Ages and the Medieval Period was a scientific wasteland is regularly wheeled, creaking, into the sunlight for another trundle around the arena.

                            The myth goes that the Greeks and Romans were wise and rational types who loved science and were on the brink of doing all kinds of marvelous things (inventing full-scale steam engines is one example that is usually, rather fancifully, invoked) until Christianity came along. Christianity then banned all learning and rational thought and ushered in the Dark Ages. Then an iron-fisted theocracy, backed by a Gestapo-style Inquisition, prevented any science or questioning inquiry from happening until Leonardo da Vinci invented intelligence and the wondrous Renaissance saved us all from Medieval darkness.

                            The online manifestations of this curiously quaint but seemingly indefatigable idea range from the touchingly clumsy to the utterly shocking, but it remains one of those things that "everybody knows" and permeates modern culture. A recent episode of Family Guy had Stewie and Brian enter a futuristic alternative world where, it was explained, things were so advanced because Christianity didn't destroy learning, usher in the Dark Ages and stifle science. The writers didn't see the need to explain what Stewie meant - they assumed everyone understood.

                            About once every 3-4 months on forums like RichardDawkins.net we get some discussion where someone invokes the old "Conflict Thesis". That evolves into 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 totally untrue. 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 Most Wrong 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.

                            [ATTACH=CONFIG]39539[/ATTACH]

                            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 up these strange ideas from websites and popular books. The assertions collapse as soon as you hit them with hard evidence. I love to totally stump these propagators 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 usually scratch their heads in puzzlement at what just went wrong.


                            Source

                            [*Emphases in original*]

                            © Copyright Original Source



                            O'Neill says a great deal more concerning the topic which can be seen by following the link provided. And keep in mind, this is an atheist source and not from a Christian apologist.










                            1. First came the Germanic tribes like the various Goths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii, Jutes and Franks, followed by groups like the Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars and Alans and finally the Vikings, Normans, Hungarians and Moors.
                            My response was to Adrift’s misleading reference to “the settled science of the day”. Whilst there was a lot of scientific/philosophical activity from Aristotle onwards, as you elucidate in your typical Gish Gallop style of attempting to overwhelm your opponent, the fact remains that the scientific method as recognized nowadays began with Copernicus and Galileo. And it was formalized by Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon is credited with establishing and popularizing the “scientific method” of inquiry into natural phenomena regardless of the many disparate excursions of others in the field prior to this. The Baconian method, i.e. the scientific method, is the investigative method developed by Sir Francis Bacon. The method was put forward in Bacon's book Novum Organum, or 'New Method', and replaced the methods put forward in Aristotle's Organon.

                            https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/
                            “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

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                            • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                              My response was to Adrift’s misleading reference to “the settled science of the day”. Whilst there was a lot of scientific/philosophical activity from Aristotle onwards, as you elucidate in your typical Gish Gallop style of attempting to overwhelm your opponent, the fact remains that the scientific method as recognized nowadays began with Copernicus and Galileo. And it was formalized by Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon is credited with establishing and popularizing the “scientific method” of inquiry into natural phenomena regardless of the many disparate excursions of others in the field prior to this. The Baconian method, i.e. the scientific method, is the investigative method developed by Sir Francis Bacon. The method was put forward in Bacon's book Novum Organum, or 'New Method', and replaced the methods put forward in Aristotle's Organon.

                              https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/
                              It would help if you actually knew what a Gish Gallop was rather than just ignorantly slinging it about in the same manner that a 4 year old uses a swear word he overheard and has no idea what it means but is only aware that it is something bad.

                              A Gish Gallop is when a debater throws out a myriad of unrelated or at best loosely connected claims in an attempt to swamp his opponent. It is usually used in oral debates where there is a limited amount of time and it is impossible to address each charge leaving the usually false impression that the person was incapable of answering some of the claims and hence they might be valid.

                              In sharp contrast I'm making a single claim -- namely that the notion of a Dark Ages has been discredited and offered something like four examples to substantiate my claim.

                              I understand that someone actually offering corroboration for what they say rather than merely mindlessly repeating the initial claim over and over ad nauseam without bothering to substantiate it may be an alien concept for you but it isn't for the vast majority of those who post here.


                              ETA: And while Bacon typically gets the credit, others were advocating for or using similar methods starting with groups like the Stoics and the Greek philosopher Epicurus and later by such figures as Ibn al-Haytham (a.k.a., Alhazen)[1], Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, William of Ockham and Robert Grosseteste (the latter of whom inspired Bacon)



                              1. He introduced experimental method and combines observations, experiments and rational arguments in his 7 volume Kitāb al-Manāẓir ("Book of Optics") nearly two centuries before Bacon.
                              Last edited by rogue06; 09-05-2019, 04:20 AM.

                              I'm always still in trouble again

                              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

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                              • FWIU Copernicus' ideas about heliocentrism received support from more than a few respected and influential figures in the Church such as Tiedemann Giese (Bishop of Kulm and later Prince-Bishop of Warmia), Nikolaus von Schönberg (Archbishop of Capua) and Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter (secretary to popes Clement VII and Paul III). Many of them were either scientists themselves or patrons of the sciences and various scientists.

                                And Galileo also had support both in the church hierarchy as well as other scientists although many of them weren't fully convinced that he was right (IIRC he received some support from the Dominicans but would later alienate them).

                                But Galileo himself, due to his own insolence and arrogance, brought the issue to a boil when he put the views of Pope Urban VIII (who had been largely friendly to Galileo) into the mouth of a none-too-bright character called "Simplicio" ("simpleton") and then lambasted them in his Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo ("Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems")

                                Not the brightest move to stick your thumb into the eye of the man who had been a friend and chiefly responsible for protecting you from those who thought that your work and conclusions were blasphemous.

                                The fact is that Galileo wasn't brought up on charges of heresy because he upset the scientific community (academic Aristotelians) with his support for heliocentrism. Galileo had been upending conventional wisdom for years like when he refuted Aristotle’s assumptions regarding the rate of fall being in direct proportion to weight. The same goes for his observations of the moon being mountainous and full of craters rather than being a perfect sphere. But these were never brought up when he faced the Inquisition which would be strange if his opposition from the Church were based on disagreeing with Aristotle or the scientific establishment.

                                Further, even before the time of Galileo the observations made by Tycho Brahe, Maestlin and John Dee concerning the comets of 1578 and 1580 being further away from the Earth than the Moon contradicted Aristotelian theory yet never was there a question of it being heresy. And half a century after Galileo's trial when Boyle wrote his "Sceptical Chymist" (1661: the cornerstone of modern chemistry) where he disproved the Aristotelian assumption that there were four basic elements, there was no question of an Inquisition or even accusations of heresy.

                                Simply reading what those who investigated Galileo for the Inquisition and that group's findings make it clear that he wasn't in trouble for overturning scientific apple carts but rather for heresy (what he was charged with).

                                Melchior Inchofer, who appears to have been a member of the Preliminary Commission appointed by Urban VIII to examine Galileo’s "Dialogue" and heavily involved in his later trial, was particularly damning in his condemnation:

                                The opinion of the earth’s motion is of all heresies the most abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous; the immovability of the earth is thrice sacred; argument against the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and the incarnation, should be tolerated sooner than an argument to prove that the earth moves.


                                And from the unanimous opinion of the Inquisition at Rome:

                                The first proposition, that the sun is the center and does not revolve about the earth is foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture ... the second proposition, that the earth is not the center but revolves about the sun, is absurd, false in philosophy, and, from a theological point of view at least, opposed to the true faith.


                                Others like Father Lecazre, the eminent theological authority and rector of the College of Dijon, described Galileo's research as "cast[ing] suspicion on the doctrine of the incarnation"

                                It was his insistence that his discoveries needed to be taken into account when interpreting Scripture that got him in trouble especially since he wasn't able to provide truly convincing evidence to support them (that would come from Kepler and some others).

                                I'm always still in trouble again

                                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

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