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Post by merkavah12 on May 1, 2009 18:04:47 GMT
www.religioustolerance.org/While I am sure they have the best of intentions, the bitter truth is that this website (at least in its information of Christianity), seems to be extremely inaccurate. The Flat Earth Myth makes an appearence. The whole "left handed=evil" fairy tale is even along for the ride. ...and so on and so forth.
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Post by humphreyclarke on May 1, 2009 18:38:04 GMT
Hmm lets have a look: Roger Bacon (13th Century) was imprisoned for 14 years for his experiments in time pieces, optics, chemical extractions, refraction of light, etc.No he wasn't. In fact we are not even sure if he was imprisoned at all. If he was it was because of this support for the Franciscans. Antonio de Dominius (15th Century) was killed by the Inquisition for his experiments into the properties of light.Nope. Natural death in prison for attacking the church. Religious leaders believed for a time that a vacuum was impossible, because a vacuum implies nothing; that would mean that there would be at least a small area of the universe where God was not present. That was believed to be theologically impossible.Hmmm. Any idea if this one is true? In 1846 James Simpson, a Scottish physician promoted the use of chloroform to relieve pain during childbirth. This was opposed by the Church, citing Genesis 3:16 "...I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children". The avoidance of pain was seen as thwarting God's will. Fortunately, Simpson found a competing passage (Genesis 2:21) which describes the first surgical operation; it seems to support the use of anesthetic: "...God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.....he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh.." In time, the Church's opposition dissipated; pain killers have since lost their religious significance.Utter, utter crap. Refuted here bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/deep-sleep-of-adam.html Jenner's development of vaccination was similarly opposed on religious grounds. By preventing the spread of disease, they were "bidding defiance to Heaven itself - even to the will of God." In 1885, a serious epidemic of smallpox broke out in Montreal Canada. Few Protestants died because they had been mostly vaccinated. However the Roman Catholic clergy were generally opposed to the practice; their parishioners died needlessly, and in great numbers.I'm told this is a myth (probably made up by protestants!) but haven't had a chance to check it yet. John Barillon (14th Century) was jailed because he possessed chemical furnaces and apparatus.Anyone ever heard of this guy?. Google isn't coming up with anything. |
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Post by merkavah12 on May 1, 2009 18:57:33 GMT
Mr. Clarke,
When you say Antonio de Dominus attacked the church, did you mean he
criticized it or that he physically assaulted the clergy?
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Post by James Hannam on May 1, 2009 19:04:51 GMT
Religious leaders believed for a time that a vacuum was impossible, because a vacuum implies nothing; that would mean that there would be at least a small area of the universe where God was not present. That was believed to be theologically impossible.Hmmm. Any idea if this one is true? News to me. Objections to the vacuum were firmly based on Aristotle. On the contrary, in 1277 the Church insisted that God could create a vacuum if he wanted to. This guy is mentioned by Andrew Dickson White, IIRC. George Sarton dug around and found not a trace of him and White provides no reference. I think Bjorn had some thoughts on this. Best wishes James |
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Post by noons on May 1, 2009 19:22:19 GMT
They seem to have good intentions, but also hopelessly out of touch with historical and biblical scholarship.
They begin every page with a series of quotes. On their page that deals with the Jesus myth, they have a quote from a biblical scholar against the theory, followed by a quote from Bertrand Russel for the theory. As if they were both equally qualified theories. Then their final section deals with possible sources on the life of Jesus, and its just material copied from Robert Price.
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Post by humphreyclarke on May 1, 2009 19:46:14 GMT
Mr. Clarke, When you say Antonio de Dominus attacked the church, did you mean he criticized it or that he physically assaulted the clergy? Well, you never know. They did get very worked up in those days. He seems to have attacked the Papacy, then fled to the safety of England, then moved to Paris and criticised the Church of England. He then moved to Rome and criticised the Papacy again when they cancelled his pension. In fact he seems to have pissed them off so much that they publically burned him after he died of natural causes. |
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Post by jamierobertson on May 1, 2009 20:08:35 GMT
I've had run-ins with that site before. It is almost aggressively "middle-groundish", trying to pander to as many PC viewpoints by including huge amounts of codswallop. Consequently, in practice it's a fairly intolerant website (ironically enough).
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Post by bjorn on May 1, 2009 22:11:25 GMT
This guy is mentioned by Andrew Dickson White, IIRC. George Sarton dug around and found not a trace of him and White provides no reference. I think Bjorn had some thoughts on this. It may be based on the misinformed notion about the French Parliament, acting on an appeal from Pope John XXII, making all study of Chemistry illegal in 1380, according to the rather ridiculous www.bandoli.no/knowledge.htm: In reality John died in 1334, and the story seems to be about the Bull "Spondent quas non exhibent" (1317) against dishonest alchemists. Any 14th century John (or Jean?) Barillon is unknown in History (except from one living from 1485-1553), AFAIK. In cases like this I just ask the sites to provide contemporary sources or serious researchers - and withdraw allegations if they are not able to. They usually do. All in all it is a marvel how much nonsense sites swallow about Church History, probably because they "know" it must be right... |
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Post by knowingthomas on May 2, 2009 0:18:29 GMT
Isn't this the site that said that the Abrahamic religions stole a lot of their theology from Zoroaster?  |
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Post by bjorn on May 2, 2009 10:22:20 GMT
It's the site I tend to show people who doesn't believe me when I tell how dishonest and faithheady some atheists are.
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Post by thegreypilgrim on May 3, 2009 15:47:07 GMT
I've come across the site from time to time as well. I've been referred there many times by atheists who believe it is some kind of authority on religious studies. I even had my former professor of world religions link us to some of the site's articles as part of our reading material for the course.
I agree it's probably well intentioned, but it's hard to ignore its very obvious partisanship and lack of academic rigor. The assessment of many features of the world's religions by the site are frankly just shallow and out of touch with contemporary scholarship (much like the writings of any random internet neo-atheist).
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Post by bjorn on May 3, 2009 19:05:47 GMT
It is hard to find a site with more errors. If professors link to this, I seriously doubt their seriousness. Or are they trying to be provocative tongue in the cheek?
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Post by thegreypilgrim on May 6, 2009 0:44:31 GMT
It is hard to find a site with more errors. If professors link to this, I seriously doubt their seriousness. Or are they trying to be provocative tongue in the cheek? Hey bjorn, Just to clarify, the assigned material didn't make up the bulk of our reading material at all. She assigned a couple of their articles on Judaism and Islam because our textbook didn't delve into the different denominations of Judaism or explain the differences between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims. So, from what I could gather, she was entirely serious about it; and, I don't think there was anything tongue-in-cheek about it. I think the reason for it lies in how the overwhelming majority of students come from a broadly Christian background (even if they're no longer Christian) so the idea is to expose them to some sort of criticism of it. Though, linking to a site like ReligiousTolerance.org is kind of a cheeky way of doing it. We did have to read J.D. Crossan's book Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography as well when we got to the Christianity section of the course so that's at least more up front about it. |
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Post by bjorn on May 6, 2009 6:28:33 GMT
Ah, I misunderstood, I thought it was the Bandoli site your professor endorsed. ReligiousTolerance.org is of quite another kind;-)
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