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Post by James Hannam on Jul 15, 2008 17:39:16 GMT
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Post by rfmoo on Jul 15, 2008 23:43:04 GMT
Dear James,
You are dealing with hard core fanatics. Good luck.
As for Islamic learning, your opponents neglect the point that the Moslems got their Greco-Roman culture from Syrian Christians, according to David Hart, The Story of Christianity.
Hart also has an excellent account of the Carolingian Renaissance under Charlemagne.
...He gathered scholars and men of letters from all over his realm and beyond. From England he summoned the poet, teacher, and sometime philosopher Alcuin of York (c.732-804) to preside over the Palatine academy for the education of young nobles in Aix-la-Chapelle. He summoned the greatest scholars of Italy and Ireland (where knowledge of Greek and the classical tradition had not entirely faded away). He assembled a library of classical and patristic texts, and acted as a patron of the arts. He instituted a curriculum of Latin studies--literture and rhetoric--in all the cathedral schools and monasteries of his dominions. Charlemagne even undertook to learn to speak Latin himself, plus a smattering of Greek, and made some effort to acquaint himself with the writings of Augustine and other luminaries of the Church.
[Though the empire did not long survive Charlemagne's death], he had created a new social and political order, and had brought to its first fruition the emerging civilization of Western Christendom--neither West nor East Roman, but rather a new Christian order, with its own character, its own genius, and its own destiny. (116-117)
This is a wonderful quick resource for dealing with age old slanders against Christianity (e.g. Hypatia, the Library at Alendria). Hart puts paid to the Galileo case, and he observes that the foundations of modern science were laid by Christian scientists educated in Christian Universities in the 16th and 17th centuries. (210)
The attempt by some of your adversaries to deny the intellectual influence of Christianity in the intellectual quickening of the high Middle Ages and following is historically untenable.
Best,
Richard Moorton
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Post by bjorn on Jul 16, 2008 9:24:42 GMT
For once it seems a knowledgeable atheist may stop the mouth of Dark Age mythers.
Though I am not totally holding my breath.
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Post by James Hannam on Jul 23, 2008 16:57:00 GMT
Looking at the thread now (I dropped out) I fear the knowledgeable atheist (whom I know from off board communication) didn't get very far with the headbangers. I'll try and drop him an email to invite him over here.
Best wishes
James
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Post by bjorn on Jul 23, 2008 22:45:25 GMT
I've been away for some days (Dublin!), thoug a quick check left the impression that "discussion" really ended in a hoot (as Americans are wont to say;-) Durant?!
One can almost hope that he'll never get a sufficient education to understand just how embarrasing it all became.
Regards
Bjorn-Are
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jul 24, 2008 12:05:30 GMT
That Anti-pope guy is my hero
If people "weren't interested in science then" it's amazing that leading current historians of science can write 480+ page books on science in the Middle Ages. They must be masters of padding out the sentence "People weren't interested in science then" over and over again over hundreds of page or, in Crombie's case, two volumes.
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Post by timoneill on Jul 27, 2008 4:53:11 GMT
That Anti-pope guy is my hero Glad you appreciate my stuff. I've noticed a few disparaging remarks about "atheists" here, so I hope my posts there go some way towards dispelling the idea that all atheists are close-minded bigots. As with Christians, we have our noisy/kooky minority who annoy the rest of us as much as they annoy you. I've been away for some days (Dublin!), thoug a quick check left the impression that "discussion" really ended in a hoot (as Americans are wont to say;-) Durant?! One can almost hope that he'll never get a sufficient education to understand just how embarrasing it all became. I've been a bit busy over the last few days to get back to that thread with the level of detail that it requires. I hope to do so this week and to deliever a coup de grace that should kill the dissent there stone dead. Cheers, Tim O'Neill aka "Antipope Innocent II" |
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Post by unkleE on Jul 27, 2008 8:01:57 GMT
Tim: Hi and welcome. I too come from Sydney (as if that's any more than trivia!). I too have followed the discussion on Internet Infidels, and admired your persistence. I don't know enough history to know who's correct, but I thought your main opponent seemed to lack evidence at times. I may have given that impression - if so, sorry. I in fact first started on an atheist forum (WWGHA) because a good internet friend, an atheist and determinist who I respect greatly while disagreeing deeply, suggested I take a look. So I know there are thoughtful atheists. It's just that there seems to be a new atheism abroad that doesn't want to concede an inch, even things that historians have generally agreed on, like the discussion you have been having, or another one about Tacitus (in this case the historian was an agnostic who said there was no reason not to accept that Tacitus made a reference to the death of Jesus, a pretty mild claim I would have thought, but one which the other atheists contested fiercely through 15 long pages before the historian was eventually banned!). The concern I have, and have expressed elsewhere, is that if atheists and christians cannot even agree about the historical data, then discussion of metaphysical conclusions becomes futile, reduced to little more than name-calling. For that reason, I will contest one of your statements - "to deliever a coup de grace that should kill the dissent there stone dead" - I am sceptical that anything you say will be able to do that, not because I doubt your knowledge, but because I doubt the openness of other minds. But I will watch with interest and wish you well. I hope you stick around here, your presence will be beneficial I'm sure. Best wishes. PS I note how the discussion on IIDB has morphed into a discussion of church persecution of scientists. I was interested in your account of Galileo - would that be the generally held view of historians, and do you have a readily available reference please? Thanks. |
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Post by bjorn on Jul 27, 2008 10:09:46 GMT
I believe (based on good reasons;-)that all of us in this forum will embrace that greeting! Welcome Tim! PS I note how the discussion on IIDB has morphed into a discussion of church persecution of scientists. I was interested in your account of Galileo - would that be the generally held view of historians, and do you have a readily available reference please? Thanks. To step in, I would say that one good indication of this is how the issue was treated in Skeptical Inquirer September/October 2001 (it is also quite telling that the article was reprinted in the elsewehere rather antireligious (and ill informed) book "Science and Religion" (Prometheus 2003), edited by Paul Kurtz). In his article on "The Gallileo Affair", Timothy Moy makes the following observations: - "However there was one problem: Galileos' new proofs made no sense, it was a convoluted argument about how the motion of the tides proves that Earth orbits the Sun, and it simply did not work. When push come to shove (and it did), Galileo simply did not know how to prove that the Earth moved. Galileo had therefore crossed the line set out sixteen years earlier - he had promoted an idea contrary to Scripture without providing convincing proofs of it's truthfullness". However, that was not in itself very bad. Moy asks "Why did so the Church come down so hard on Galileo". He mentions several reasons: - Bad luck (it was the worst possible political moment) - It was his own fault (he was a "voracious social and political climber" and had gotten many enemies) - It was a personal falling out with the pope Personally Moy thinks it was for a variety of reasons (and he mentions some others), and that Heliocentrism would have won the day in the Church rather soon, if Galileo had not intervened and forced the issue. He concludes by two observations: - "Unfortunately, Galileo's trouble with the Church later became a popular archetype for the historical relationship between science and religion. Nothing could be farther from the truth. For most of the medieval and Renaissance periods, and even stretching into the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the primary supporter for research and teaching in the sciences was the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, one historian of science, John Heilbron, has recently published a book entitled The Sun in the Church that documents how the Churrch, in the aftermath of the Galilao affiar, continued to promote research into evidence for heliocentrism, even to the point of turning entire cathedrals into giant pinhole camaras to measure the apparant diameter of the solar disk at various times of the year" (note: Copernicus's system had slightly different variations in the Sun's apparant diameter than the old system). So I think it is safe to say that the Galileo affair is seen by historians in a rather different light than the more popular prejudices. And that Tim seems right. Regards Bjorn-Are |
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Post by James Hannam on Jul 27, 2008 10:24:20 GMT
Hi Tim,
Welcome to the board and good to hear from you again. I'm sorry I abandonned the field at IIDB but it got a bit too hard not to be rude to them.
I think you'll find this is a pleasant spot. I agree that "Atheist" has become shorthand for "militant and ignorant atheist" and that this is not fair on the many non-believers who are neither ignorant nor extreme. I have tried using the term Dawkinista, as this both excludes the sensible non-believers and annoys the Dawkinistas. Not sure if it is a good answer to the problem though.
Best wishes
James
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Post by jamierobertson on Jul 27, 2008 11:56:49 GMT
I would like to echo Dr H's welcome, reiterate the happy feeling I have that a sensible skeptic has popped over to visit, and say "amen!" to the term "Dawkinista".
That is all.
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Post by Al Moritz on Jul 27, 2008 17:53:14 GMT
Tim,
it is refreshing to see an open-minded atheist, and I commend and respect you for that.
However, I will not apologize for my disparaging comments about atheists, which in my experience hold for most of them. Granted, many (or even most) theists also do not always operate on the highest levels of scientific, historical and philosophical knowledge and of intellectual consistency, honesty and integrity (it is frustrating how even many of those who don't question biological evolution per se are inclined towards some level of "Intelligent Design" -- I don't make cheap apologies for having fallen among those ranks until 2 years ago as well). Yet most theists don't call their opponents "inherently irrational" and pride themselves as being the only "clear thinkers" and "free thinkers". When you carry this level of self-assured condescension you better back it up with a sufficient level of informed intellectuality and open-mindedness. And this where most (no, not all) atheists gravely disappoint -- no, I don't think the sensible ones are the majority. And I'd rather tell them than let it slide under the soft pretense of "Christian forgiveness and charity".
Dawkins's website a "clear-thinking oasis"? Give me a break, please don't make me laugh.
Al
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Post by merkavah12 on Jul 27, 2008 18:10:14 GMT
Bienvenido Tim!,
I am glad that you have honored us with your presence here.
Yours,
M12
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Post by unkleE on Jul 28, 2008 9:08:42 GMT
Al, I wonder if you are being a little harsh here? I seem to be the sort of person who needs to think things through, have reasons for what I believe, based on evidence, etc, as I guess most of us on this forum would be. And such an approach is necessary for a scientist, and for many other aspects of life. But it is obvious that many people are not the same, and live their lives without a great deal of intellectual reflection on metaphysical (or other) issues - but that does not necessarily prevent them living satisfactory lives. We may feel they miss out somewhere, but they may not have the time, interest, education or temperament to approach things in a more knowledgable, reasoning way, and it would be unfair to criticise them for that. Our acceptance of this should be all the more willing if they are believers, because revelation and faith are clearly ways of knowing for believers that are not totally dependent on logic and evidence.
I think the problem comes when (1) such people get out of their depth by joining discussions they are not really up to (but then, sometimes I think the same is true of me when I mix with knowledgable scientists or historians), or (2) those who say they believe only in logic and science, then behave otherwise, as we have seen in the discussion which started this thread off.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jul 28, 2008 10:03:14 GMT
Hi Tim, great to see someone is trying to bring the light of reason to all the ‘Google/Wikipedia geniuses’ and ‘internet forum fundamentalists’ on the web. It’s a thankless task but an important one.
I think there has been an element in my battles on internet forums of ‘atheists are from Mars, theists are from Venus’. An illustration of this was the last discussion I had which covered many topics, including:
a) The belief that Judeo-Christianity has had no discernable impact on the values of Western society, and that these values have instead evolved through some vaguely defined pseudo-scientific process of ‘moral evolution’. I personally place this in the same set of beliefs as phrenology.
b) That Hitler was a devout Catholic
c) That Hitler and the Vatican enjoyed a cosy relationship
d) That Christianity played no part in the development of Western Science.
e) That the Bible supported New World slavery
f) That the Great Library of Alexandria was burned down by the Christians (Cheers James!)
At the end of the argument I was called a ‘religious nut’ and someone remarked ‘It is hard to argue with someone who believes something based on no evidence’.
Firstly all these topics are historical in nature, at no point did the existence of God come up nor my own beliefs which are probably closer to agnosticism than anything else, it was simply assumed because I was arguing on the side of religion I must be some sort of fundamentalist .Secondly I only backed up my conclusions with carefully footnoted evidence from a wide variety of sources, my opponents largely argued from personal incredulity. All the beliefs ‘based on no evidence’ came from the other side.
The central issue with most of these discussions is that you can’t simply take your present day metaphysical narrative and then -‘standing on the summit of history’ as Herbert Butterfield would have put it- begin a wholesale restructuring of the past according to your personal belief system. We need to beyond our present day prejudices, otherwise they will colour our perceptions of the past and turn it into a vast caricature. For some it is inhabited by a lecherous, unenlightened priesthood which crushes all original thought, and heroic freethinkers struggling against the forces of oppression and singlehandedly feeing us from the dark ages, this is a myth that has plagued us since the enlightenment. The past is vastly more complicated, and incalculably more interesting than that.
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