Talking Science and God With the Pope's New Chief Astronomer 269
sciencehabit writes: On 18 September, Pope Francis appointed Jesuit brother Guy Consolmagno as the new director of the Vatican Observatory, which employs a dozen astronomers to study asteroids, meteorites, extrasolar planets, stellar evolution, and cosmology. The observatory is based at the pope's summer residence south of Rome and operates a 1.8-meter telescope in Arizona, where the skies are clearer. Science Magazine chatted with Consolmagno about a variety of topics, including whether God gets in the way of doing good astronomy. Consolmagno said, "First of all, I want to provide space for other astronomers to do their work. And I also want to show the world that religion supports astronomy. It is often religious people who most need to see that; they need to know that astronomy is wonderful and that they shouldn't be afraid of it. I often quote John Paul II, when he said [of evolution] that "truth cannot contradict truth." If you think you already know everything about the world, you are not a good scientist, and if you think you know all there is to know about God, then your religious faith is at fault."
Brother Guy rocks: (Score:5, Informative)
In addition to now being the director of the Vatican Observatory, he's a scifi fan and a regular speaker at scifi cons on astronomy. Very enjoyable and very informative.
He's a serious scientist who also is a Jesuit Brother. That's not a conflict for him.
Here's more info at Wikipedia: Guy_Consolmagno [wikipedia.org]
The Vatican Observatory also runs the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope on Mount Graham near Tuscon. Vatican_Advanced_Technology_Telescope [wikipedia.org]
It's optimized for photometry so it's a good fit with Brother Guy's research on asteroids and other small objects in the solar system.
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The Vatican Observatory also runs the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope on Mount Graham near Tuscon. Vatican_Advanced_Technology_Telescope
God has been quiet for a while, they're just trying to figure out where he went.
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When the Vatican built its observatory here, it ran smack into the advocates of real superstition: the flat-earth lobby, which used the identical set of arguments (native rights and endangered species) against putting telescopes on Mt. Graham that it is using now in Hawaii. The Arizona location was saved because around here native rights adhere to specific pieces of land, rather than being a claim on the state as a whole. Since Mt Graham is not on a reservation and nobody believed that squirrels - yes, squi
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It doesn't have to be a conflict for ANYBODY.
Don't buy into the lie that Dawkins, et al are selling that science and faith are ideologically opposite and utterly incompatible.
In fact, we could use more people questioning why it's so important that these two things be narratively placed in opposition.
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Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism – it's turning God into a nature god.
Re:Brother Guy rocks: (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry I don't care how cool this guy comes off, being a scientist and believing in fairytales is a conflict of interest for me.
So I suppose you ignore the contributions of all of these Catholic scientists [wikipedia.org], including all of these Catholic clerics [wikipedia.org] who have made prominent scientific contributions (including the founders of many scientific disciplines)?
I'm no defender of the Catholic Church or of overzealous religious idiots in general. But your attitude is a pretty extreme version of the so-called Conflict Thesis [wikipedia.org], which is a product of 19th-century historical revisionism by a few ill-informed historians who wanted to claim that religion has stood in the way of science throughout history. This viewpoint has been widely discredited by modern historians of science, as pretty much the opposite was the case. Many religious people throughout history have actually had very strong urges toward scientific investigation, since they seek to understand and appreciate the workings of "God's creation."
On the specific topic of astronomy, the Jesuit order in particular has a very strong record [wikipedia.org] of making significant contributions. Ever wonder why so many features on the moon were named after Jesuit scientists? It's due to one of the most influential treatises on astronomy from the 17th century, written by Jesuit scientist Giovanni Battista Riccioli [wikipedia.org]. His Algamestum novum (1651) is largely forgotten today, but it made significant contributions to physics, putting much of Galileo's work on the laws of motion on a stronger theoretical footing.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Riccioli's treatise is his exhaustive compilation of arguments for and against the Copernican theory -- 49 for and 77 against. Riccioli's discussion is a model for modern scientific debate: he critiques bad arguments on both sides, though for him he ultimately comes out in favor of the Tychonic theory (proposed by Kepler's mentor, which was a kind of hybrid between geocentrism and heliocentrism). It must be remembered that in 1651 there was no clear empirical evidence in support of heliocentrism -- astronomers had been looking for things like stellar parallax and Coriolis forces in projectiles for decades and hadn't found them. (It wasn't until the mid-1700s, a full century after the Galileo affair, that Bradley's chance observation of stellar aberration [wikipedia.org] finally put Copernicanism on a solid empirical footing. Until then, it was just gradually adopted because the math was easier. And it wasn't until the 1800s that many of Riccioli's arguments against heliocentrism were finally refuted by empirical evidence.)
Imagine if we examined something like Riccioli's complex scientific debates as part of learning about the history of science, rather than our own scientific "fairytale" about Galileo triumphing over ignorant religion. In fact it was Galileo who was trotting out ignorant and weird arguments, while both mischaracterizing the strength of his own arguments and lampooning his opponents for their valid objections.
(His only empirical "proof" for heliocentrism revolved around the tides [wikipedia.org], which required there to be only one high tide per day, and which would have to occur at noon. Obviously this contradicted empirical evidence... but, well, that was the best he had. He also rejected Kepler's empirically derived elliptical orbits and Kepler's empirically derived theory of tides caused by the moon -- because, well, circles are more cool and lunar tides didn't fit his theory. This certainly doe
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Yes, but you must take into account that at the time, if you were poor, the only way to get and education and learn a lot of things was to become a monk or a priest. Those got to learn to read and write, and had a lot of time to study and discuss with each other.
This may have been true up to the 16th or 17th century or so. But by the late 1600s there were plenty of organizations and networks of scientists who were no longer part of the clergy.
Your observation thus doesn't explain why so many scientists continued to join religious orders (or become scientists, despite being in religious orders) for the past 350 years or so. There are many major scientific disciplines founded in the 1700s or 1800s which came about with major help from Catholic clerics, other Cath
Recommended Reading (Score:2)
James Blish's After Such Knowledge [wikipedia.org] series.
The first volume, A Case Of Conscience, won not just one, but two Hugo awards.
I recently discovered that these are once again in print. Awesome.
Aliens (Score:2)
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I found this with google please learn to internet thank you [christianpost.com]
Re: Aliens (Score:2)
Not only clearer (Score:3)
" Arizona, where the skies are clearer."
Also, the meth is cheaper, to stay awake at night.
"Talking Science and God With the Popes New Chief" (Score:2)
All there is to know about God (Score:2)
God doesn't exist. That's about it.
Now, back to science so I can learn more about the world.
Nobody expects (Score:2)
148 comments, and no "almost fanatical devotion to the Pope"? This place is really going downhill...
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Well, they did say that "nobody expects" it... so what are you doing, going around expecting it for?
Re:"If you think you already know everything... (Score:5, Interesting)
No scientist thinks they know everything. But that doesn't mean that scientists aren't extremely confident about certain things.
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about the world, you are not a good scientist," except when talking about global warming, because that science is settled.
No scientist thinks they know everything. But that doesn't mean that scientists aren't extremely confident about certain things.
If the science is all settled then it's just dogma. Might as well move over to religion, as everything is completely planned and all under control.
----
(At least they have better songs. And vehicles -- when was the last time you saw someone in the official Scientist-mobile?)
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It's not scaremongering if the risk is real and not exaggerated. And if the Democrats are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons (which is not proven) who cares?
Re:"If you think you already know everything... (Score:4, Insightful)
about the world, you are not a good scientist," except when talking about global warming, because that science is settled.
I'll feed the Troll. Not knowing everything is not the same as not knowing anything.
Re: "If you think you already know everything... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the liberals agree with global warming. When the issue is something conservatives believe in, like anti-abortion, despite it being scientifically proven that babies can, after about 4 months, move, have a heartbeat and brain, sense pain, and react to stimuli, the science is ignored and remains unsettled (if not directly ignored in favor of whatever the liberals are pushing at the moment).
Re: "If you think you already know everything... (Score:4, Insightful)
So can a chick fetus, just after a few days, even.
But neither case resolves the question of whether the fetus has a right to life. And even if it did, it wouldn't answer the question of whether that right trumps that of the person carrying it. And even of it did, it doesn't answer the question of whether the person carrying the fetus has the power to make a decision to terminate, for example in the case of severe malformations.
But, hey, conservatives live in a world that is much more black & white than the rest of us. So I can't expect you to recognize the legitimacy of those questions. Nor even the legitimacy of whether society has a right to settle those questions instead of deferring to the woman, given how they relate to bodily integrity, how complex the issues are, and how entirely inconsequential (in real terms, not moral) the decision to abort is to society.
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But neither case resolves the question of whether the fetus has a right to life. And even if it did, it wouldn't answer the question of whether that right trumps that of the person carrying it. And even of it did, it doesn't answer the question of whether the person carrying the fetus has the power to make a decision to terminate, for example in the case of severe malformations.
The rights of a person end when they start to impair the rights of others. The legal status of an embryo or fetus is inconsistent. If the mother is murdered, the suspect is charged with double murder. However, the mother can choose to terminate the pregnancy (at least through the first trimester) without any legal ramifications. The moral question has always been when does that embryo or fetus become human enough to enjoy human rights.
I think you would find that many conservatives are against elective abort
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You kind of proved the GP's point with your black and white reasoning, and it's about as far from the truth as possible.
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There's no argument about the science involved in abortion. We can determine all that.
The question is moral, and there's no way to settle that scientifically. There is no scientific way to determine who has what moral rights, or how to reconcile conflicting rights.
My position is that a woman has the right to not endanger herself for another's benefit. If my brother needed a kidney donation, and I was the only match, there's no law that says that I have to give him one. If I agree, I can back out at
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As it is on tons of other things you're not mentioning: classical mechanics, gravity, optics, thermodynamics --> flamebait.
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If you mean actual reasoning debate about whether AGW is happening, yes, that's pretty well over. If you mean how it's going to proceed, what the costs to humanity will be, or what to do about it, there's plenty of debate. If you mean debate as in one side talking science and the other arguing with nitpicks and ad hominems, it's still going on.
The Earth's surface is warming up. That's based on observations, and is not open to question. There's no halfway reasonable way to interpret the data as anythi
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Re:Oh God (Score:5, Funny)
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No worries, I think the debate got supplanted with one about climate change.
Re:Oh God (Score:4, Insightful)
Hate can't exist if an infinite God of love exists.
Well, the Abrahamic God (of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is a hands-off kind of God, giving the human race free will and all that. So, we're free to hate even though He discourages it.
I'm not trying to be churchy, just informative. You have every right to conceive of God's existence or lack thereof in your own way. I'm just saying that the Abrahamic God (as described in the Old Testament) gives the human race free will.
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No way that omniscience precludes free will. Everything at the neural level is governed by classical mechanics, so you could, with enough information, predict the next step that all elements in a brain will take. Just because you CAN discover that, or just because some external entity could theoretically press pause for long enough to calculate ahead of time, doesn't take YOUR free will away.
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A lot of people object that compatibilist free will is an oxymoron. These are philosophical positions though, and difficult to prove or disprove.
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Just because you CAN discover that, or just because some external entity could theoretically press pause for long enough to calculate ahead of time, doesn't take YOUR free will away.
I disagree. If you CAN discover that without changing it then it most certainly does take your free will away. Without something like quantum uncertainty, the ability to observe a thing locks it down for all future eternity.
Mixed up with omnipotent and hands on (Score:2)
Taking a cynical view of religion I can see the message of omniscience as "don't do evil because God can always see you and will punish you later".
So omniscience has nothing at all to do with free will. It just implies an observer at all times.
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Well, an omnipotent God definitely allows the possibility of human free will. And omnipotence trumps omniscience hands down - someone who cannot decide what he wants to know, and what he doesn't want to know, or only wants to know later, definitely isn't omnipotent. It's kind of like root being able to read your email, but he can decide not to.
Also, things get a bit fuzzy when you consider the timelessness that is implied by omnipotence. You
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An omniscient God precludes the possibility of human free will. So you're saying that old testament God is not omniscient, and that's something you need to back up.
Where in the Old Testament does it say that God is omniscient regarding future human actions?
Alternatively, one explanation is that God knows humans so well that God can predict their actions with a very high degree of accuracy. Humans also have this ability, since a lot of people know how their spouse or children will react to certain situations.
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So God is Hari Seldon?
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As I was writing it, though, it did occur to me that all of the predictions made in the books of prophets were pretty much just an imprecise version of psychohistory.
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While we're at it, why not prove that black equals white and get killed on a zebra crossing?
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Interestingly, three sects around the time of Jesus debated this topic - the Essenes (Determinism), the Pharisees(somewhere in the middle) and the Sadducees(free will). The evidence was debated even within the ancient context. Paul was a Pharisee, and Pharasaical thought deeply influenced early Christianity, until people removed from that context (Augustine, Calvin,etc) brought in the philosophy of determinism.
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This is a view called open theism and it is gaining traction in the church. It's major opponent is Molinism. A lot of people have problems with the orthodoxy of open theism, and consider it at very least shaky ground. Most fundamentalists have no idea that this conversation is going on, but then I guess they have no idea about much beyond what is in front of them anyway.
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Nice. There's hope then you're one of the pots that will be thrown to the ground and tread upon. What is it you say? That you thought you were one of the glorified ones? My, oh, my, isn't that rich? Having the broken pots believe themselves the ones that'll get into the glory is precisely where all the fun is!
Oh? What? You think that's unfair? Here's some mind rape. Now, now, don't be like that. You're now convinced you deserve eternal torture, don't you? Yes, nod, exactly like that, yes. Good boy! I'll lea
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He forgets that all the pots spoken of in Jeremiah were elect (i.e. part of the Jewish nation). Even his 'election' would not mean that he is not an object of wrath...
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Orthodoxy is not determined by these concepts. Which council determined this? Orange?
Perhaps if you read in the context of the 1st century AD, you would not be so confused.
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"Omniscient" would mean knowing all actual things. Possible things are not things, and an "omniscient" entity need not know them to be "omniscient".
... or even knowing all possible things. Consensus among many monotheist theologians is the concept of God existing outside of time entirely. So theoretically (umm... conceptually?) an omniscient God would have knowledge of all possible freely-made choices and all possible outcomes of each.
Blows your mind if you think about it that way. But religions often deal in paradoxes, and blowing your mind with them is useful, because once your logical mind is blown away, your heart is open to the concept of a hig
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"Hands-off" is difficult to defend. Remember, the ancient Jews considered God to be involved in every aspect of creation. There was no "natural" and "supernatural" in the thought. This does no remove the possibility of free will, but will can only be free in so far as it is permitted by God. When we try to impose modern philosophy on the ancient text, the meaning will distort.
Only recentely (Score:5, Informative)
Do you mean the same good which people believe flooded the world, killing untold number of human ? Which smote Sodom and Gomorrah under the pretense there was absolutely nobody, not even a child, which was innocent ? Which ordered various Israeli tribe to kill all adult , including children, but keep nubile women for themselves ? Killing children by mauling them with bear ? The one which ordered a father to kill its kids as a test of faith ? Or as a result of a bet ruined the life of another ?
The god of the new testament is somewhat kinder if only by its absence. But the god of the old testament is as far as "hand off" as you can be.
Re:Only recentely (Score:4, Insightful)
The god of the new testament is somewhat kinder if only by its absence. But the god of the old testament is as far as "hand off" as you can be.
As much as knew it to be for the best, it was difficult for me to be a hands-off parent for my first daughter. It was easier for me with my second daughter an now with my third child as well. But for new parents, and presumably new gods, it may be difficult to sit back and to let our children make the mistakes that they need to make.
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How does that square with an eternal, omniscient God, one that is not bound by time, nor space? Or is it dangerous to put too much faith (hah!) into a collection of stories written for bronze-age herdsmen?
God may be eternal, but his role as 'parent' obviously started only when Adam was created.
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yeah because flooding the whole of the globe and then putting in contradicting evidence in the earth is totally hands off.
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The Christian god loves you so, so, so much, that he died for your sins!
Now, in the of chance you might, maybe, not love him just as much, over there's the place he prepared for you. You know, just in case.
[/sarcasm]
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No, the basis of "nature", quantum behavior, is non-deterministic.
Deterministic behavior at a macro scale is inferred, though there are currently several companies quite comfortable with investing millions of dollars in the notion that quantum behavior can indeed result in large-scale "macro" effects.
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You are correct. Libertarian free will would requires that there is a component of a person that is not measurable by scientific inquiry, and yet not random internally. In this libertarian free will requires belief in some form of "supernatural". If you reject the possibility of the supernatural, you must either embrace compatibilist free will or conclude that the idea of free will is nonsensical from your point of view.
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So we have free will so long as it's socialist? Mmmm-kay...
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In this context, the word libertarian simply means that the free will is truly free - i.e. no external factors forced the will to do what it did. Nothing to do with socialism, just a bog standard philosophy term. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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But we as humans have the ability to go past our natural instinct and will fight them for will or for woe.
4:30 am the alarm wakes me up. I sense no danger, I am not starving, I do not have to go to the bathroom, I am still tired and could sleep. But I don't I get out of bed put on garments that will not keep me warm or cool or protect me from harm, heck that top button is sometimes a little uncomfortable.
I will then eat eat even though I am not starving. Then I will go to a place where I lift heavy weights
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Even though it does seem that the cat has much more free will then a human, even a cat can be conditioned to take a bunch of actions for an imaginary (actually remembered) reward, it's just harder then with a human or dog.
The difference is that a human can be conditioned over years to take very complex series of actions as you show in your post. I do like how you reference Pavlov by using a bell/alarm to trigger your complex set of conditioned actions.
Re:Oh God (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you for giving us permission to think. Now that I finally have that freedom I have to ask; is there a hands-on kind of god?
Yes, their names are available in the Fortune list of global banks and corporations. You are free to worship in any of their churches and tithe all of your earnings there. These gods are very interested in every single little detail of your life and will stop at nothing to get involved with you as much as possible. They're happy to influence your destiny, they just don't want you to know that they do.
You're free to "think" you are free whether you believe in God or not.
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Now that I finally have that freedom I have to ask; is there a hands-on kind of god?
You should ask the ancient Greeks and Romans that question. They had gods putting body parts in young women all the time.
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I'd take a mosey through the Greek pantheon. You'll probably find a couple that meddled in the affairs of mortals.
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Hate can't exist if an infinite God of love exists.
So basically you are claiming that hate cannot exist if infinite love exists, right? Isn't that a bit like saying negative numbers cannot exist because there are infinite positive numbers?
(Disclaimer, I am an atheist)
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I'm deeply amused by the recent leftist backlash against anti-Islamism among atheists. I mean it's been lumbering over the horizon for a while now but the question was which ideology would better serve the requirements of the left, and of course Islam wins hands down. Schisms ahoy!
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Struck a nerve, did we? :D I'm good, I've got my popcorn a'popping and my feet on the coffee table to watch the show, so carry on.
It's not as though you have any choice in the matter.
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As a person of faith I'm bound by a different covenant than Doctor Arroway. But our goal is one and the same: the pursuit of Truth. I for one believe her.
-- Reverend Palmer Joss, last line from the movie Contact
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Its amazing how, through science and clear thinking philosophy, knowledge has expanded to the point that some religions have hidden/dropped a lot of the nasty rules like apostasy, not eating pork, shellfish etc
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That sums up all human societies ever quite well, apart from lesser punishments in some of the more enlightened ones. If you really don't fit in with the people around you, and you can't hide it, then shit generally happens.
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science and religion simply do not conflict. they examine entirely different realms that do not interact. if you think the realms do interact, you are simply announcing you don't understand what you are talking about
Well, up to a point. Science has no opinion to offer about whether there is a god or God, but science can and must offer input on any testable claims made by any religion. So far all statements saying that God does something real have tested false. Now, as a very open minded scientist, you still have to say "we don't know if God exists", but I think it is a very reasonable position to take, as a scientist, that since all positive statements about God's reality have been disproven, then he probably doesn't e
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yup, thank you
i have 8 replies to an obviously nontroll comment. so my comment provokes thought, but the 0 rating reflects the lack of intellectual honesty
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yup, thank you
i have 8 replies to an obviously nontroll comment. so my comment provokes thought, but the 0 rating reflects the lack of intellectual honesty
Indeed. Two separate bodies of knowledge, an idea too big for such small minds.
Science vs. Religion (Score:2)
Scientific truth is not the same thing as religious truth. There can be true statements in each system which contradict each other. Whether or not it is meaningful to compare truths arrived at by different methods is debatable.
Science is rooted in empiricism; truth is determined by observation. It's well suited to producing truths about things which can be isolated in an experiment. Things like economies, law/morality, and mathematics are more or less intractable for science, and it cannot make many stateme
Religion is not rational (Score:2)
Things like economies, law/morality, and mathematics are more or less intractable for science, and it cannot make many statements about supernatural beliefs.
Economics is very amenable to scientific inquiry. Don't know where you got the idea that it isn't. Economics is studied using the scientific method very effectively. It is a difficult field of study because of its complexity but that is no different from any number of other scientific fields such as meteorology, ecology, geology and others.
Science frequently informs and underpins laws and morals. It also can study their effects.
Mathematics is really a language used by scientists to describe the world.
Religion tries to combat science constantly (Score:2)
science tells you how the world works. religion tells you how to live in the world
I don't follow a religion and don't need one to tell me how to live in the world. Billions of people around the world do not utilize or require religion to tell them how to conduct their lives. QED your argument is bogus.
of course there will be people who will insist religion and science do conflict.
They frequently do because the religious zealots continue to try to push their unsubstantiated beliefs into science. They keep trying to push creationism into science classrooms. They keep trying to interfere with genetic research and reproductive science. They try to deny the evidence
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Why do you think you're a member of "people"?
Very specifically. Clear, non-arbitrary, scientific DNA-based justifications for what biological structures are in the realm of "ethics" and which are not, will be fine.
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Optimal double-down theistic exchange:
"Don't you know the bible accepts slavery?"
"Yes. And you should probably give that some more thought."
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Today, there's a lot of choice for someone shopping for a moral compass. A tolerant person will agree: Slavery is cool.
It's unfortunate that we don't teach the fundamentals of ethics in the US.
Admittedly there are nuanced and corner cases, schools of thought and arguable principles, but a handful of things are clear cut and we don't teach those.
We should teach that slavery is immoral, and that many religions get this wrong. It's OK to worship what you want in way that you want, but that part is settled *regardless* of what your religion says.
Another one: You can't force other people to conform to your religious views. No ki
Umm last I checked (Score:2)
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As opposed to Science which is amoral by definition !?!?
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Don't confuse amoral with immoral.
And evolution is what has given us moral. Individuals who do not commit murder, torture and other disruptive actions have a greater chance of survival and their offspring surviving. With the exceptionally long time period from birth until the offspring can survive on their own, cooperation and herd rules have been selected for.
We don't need any religion to tell us what's moral and not.
Science doesn't tell us, but it sure explains it.
Re: Enlightenment (Score:2, Informative)
No. Catholic theology has always been tolerant and accepting of science. Largely because of the Greek philosophical methods it adopted, which allows for postulating and expressing alternative views, and has a sophisticated view of epistemology. The church, however, has persecuted scientists many times, and surpressed scientific inquiry.
Just ask the Jesuits. Nobody could ever seriously question their faith. But their penchant for intense study and examination of the world has caused many to doubt their faith
Church doctrine's uneasy relationship with science (Score:2)
Catholic theology has always been tolerant and accepting of science. ... The church, however, has persecuted scientists many times, and surpressed scientific inquiry.
That is a distinction without a difference. Theology is not independent of the church, particularly in a hierarchical organization like the catholic church. Some may wander into other forms of theology but that is a different issue. And no, they have demonstrably not always been tolerant of science. Even today the catholic church has an uneasy relationship with science despite their occasional claims to the contrary. Church doctrine routinely contradicts scientific evidence and interferes with scientif
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Considering that priests defined what modern science is I'd say you're incredibly wrong.
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> No. Catholic theology has always been tolerant and accepting of science.
Galileo would like to have a word with you.
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Also, that certain scientist was persecuted by his academic peers who helped push for the Church to punish him.
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"always" is a bit too absolute. Support varied quite a lot depending on historical period and research subject.
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Someone should probably tell Servetus, Copernicus, Galileo, and Bruno that.
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Servetus was burned as a heretic by Protestants. Someone else already touched on Galileo.
Bruno was not persecuted for his scientific research either.
From http://www.theguardian.com/sci... [theguardian.com] :
The answer, it seems, is yes (a bit) and (mostly) no. In the first episode, a rather hefty portion of airtime (11 out of 43 minutes) is devoted to an animation on the life of Giordano Bruno. Burnt at the stake by the Roman Inquisition in 1600, he was there to play the role of scientific hero and martyr. It is an ill-fitting part for this idiosyncratic Dominican monk.
Laudably avoiding any temptation to snark, Meg Rosenburg took the sudden interest in this reasonably obscure figure as an opportunity to help those who might Want to Know More About Giordano Bruno. While Bruno’s cosmological poetry and mystical thought included heliocentrism, he was not, of course, a scientist, nor was he sentenced to death for “scientific” ideas or anything like “the nice-mannered, doe-eyed dissenter” that appears on the screen.
From http://motherboard.vice.com/bl... [vice.com] :
But the truth is that Bruno's scientific theories weren't what got him killed. Sure, his refusal to recant his belief in a plurality of worlds contributed to his sentence. But it's important to note that the Catholic Church didn't even have an official position on the heliocentric universe in 1600, and support for it was not considered heresy during Bruno's trial.
On top of that, his support for Copernican cosmology was the least heretical position he propagated. His opinions on theology were far more pyrotechnic. For example, Bruno had the balls to suggest that Satan was destined to be saved and redeemed by God. He didn't think Jesus was the son of God, but rather “an unusually skilled magician.” He even publicly disputed Mary's virginity. The Church could let astronomical theories slide, but calling the Mother of God out on her sex life? There's no doubt that these were the ideas that landed Bruno on the stake.
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Also see number four in this: http://thefederalist.com/2014/... [thefederalist.com]
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what if all attributes of object world.person(n="anonymous coward") are simply reassigned to a newly created object nirvana.person(n="anonymous coward")? or in your case samsara.person(n="anonymous coward")
class world is still left with unused object (to be garbage collected) and a new object gets created in class heaven. your supremo is the software itself.
does the different nomenclature make it more believable?
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does the different nomenclature make it more believable?
It's an interesting thought. I would be passing a DAO between world and nirvana though. Imagine the constructor for person.consciousness.
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I'm not sure why you think pointing to religious observances in a religious organisation might somehow be damaging. There are many different viewpoints one could take, from potential psychological benefits that (usually religious) people who believe themselves to be possessed might gain to aspects of the universe that science doesn't yet understand. The latter in particular would emphasise the limits of our own current knowledge and that science isn't a closed book, which is more pro-science than otherwise.
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I wasn't originally planning on going into detail about bad behavior by the Church, but you had to go and wave the red flag. So suck this up.
The number of people executed by the Spanish Inquisition is estimated to be between 3000 and 5000 [wikipedia.org].
Was that supposed to rock me back on my heels or something? Have you any idea about the period under discussion? Genghis Khan put 40 million people to the sword by one means or another not long beforehand, double Stalin's total. The Black Death put between a quarter and a third of the population of Europe in the ground. It was a very nasty period with very nasty people doing very nasty things. Which brings us neatly to the next point.
Your argument that it's OK because of other good works is completely morally corrupt.
Good thing that's not the argument I was making then, isn't it. I said in