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Post by davidt on Dec 4, 2011 20:00:31 GMT
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Post by jamierobertson on Dec 5, 2011 16:57:58 GMT
As someone who gets the BMJ through his door regularly, I'm interested in this too! (I'm a BMA member, so I could post a rapid response on the BMJ website if good data were available)
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Post by James Hannam on Dec 5, 2011 17:03:57 GMT
Hi,
Not being a subscriber, I can't access this. What is the gist?
J
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Post by jamierobertson on Dec 5, 2011 17:17:32 GMT
The article is entitled "Secularism needs a distinctive medical voice", and essentially tells of the many horrors dished out by "text worshippers" in their "savage history" when compared to the ideal of secular medicine. It uses Aikenhead and Vanini as examples of people executed for being skeptical and openly questioning theism.
I'm going to put up a response, but will wait until I've got a bit more info on these two characters.
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Post by davidt on Dec 5, 2011 22:40:51 GMT
Here is an excerpt:
Historically, doctors have been prominent sceptics about benevolent, interventionist deities, perhaps because, more than most people, they see the nastier side of life and the randomness of disaster. Medieval scholars quipped, “Ubi tres physici, ibi duo athei” (“Where there are three doctors, there are two atheists”), but from ancient Rome’s adoption of Christianity until fairly recent times, expressing such doubts was dangerous. Leading clerics who complain that so called new atheists like Richard Dawkins are disrespectful about their faith forget monotheism’s savage history. Ordinary British Protestants hanged the Edinburgh student Thomas Aikenhead for atheism in 1697. Ordinary French Catholics burned the physician-philosopher Lucilio Vanini—after tearing out his tongue—for merely questioning theism. Noting Vanini’s fate, the French priest Jean Meslier, modern Europe’s first published atheist, wisely waited until dying in 1729 before revealing his excoriating Testament. Some Victorian atheists, sensing post-Darwinian Britain’s steadily increasing distaste for imprisoning sceptics, felt able to be much ruder than Dawkins.
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Post by fortigurn on Dec 5, 2011 23:19:13 GMT
It's an unimpressive op ed piece, in the fine tradition of Draper and White.
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Post by jamierobertson on Dec 9, 2011 19:09:53 GMT
Bump...
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Post by fortigurn on Dec 10, 2011 1:29:28 GMT
I did look up Thomas Aikenhead a while back for my own research. I'll see if I can find my notes.
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Post by fortigurn on Dec 10, 2011 12:39:36 GMT
There's a useful historical work on Aikenhead here. Looks like the standard modern treatment is this one. |
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Post by davidt on Dec 10, 2011 16:15:24 GMT
Thanks for the links
So it looks like Aitkenhead was executed for blasphemy not atheism as the article had stated...not that this makes his execution acceptable
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Post by fortigurn on Dec 11, 2011 1:25:51 GMT
Yes, that's the idea I get.
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