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# I'm not going to stick up for the Catholic church,
but I will point out that the 'shoulders of giants' that Newton spoke of may well have been the mediaeval Muslim scientists who made enormous advances in the field of optics, amongst others, apparently because of a Qur'anic imperative to 'observe nature and learn'. I'd also suggest you read up on 'the Conflict Thesis'.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 17:35, archived)
# and whose shoulders did those muslim scientists stand on?
Aristotle/Plato, anyway if we're going to bring newton into it, i shall refer back to Euclidean Geometry
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 17:40, archived)
# Not denying that,
not saying anything about Euclidean Geometry either, because it's irrelevant. But let's come back to Epicurus again and see how it relates to what we started with here in the first place. If you are going to go by his philosophy and get your theories by observation of the natural world, well, there was no evidence for the spontaneous generation theory of the Greeks, and really quite a lot for the common Hebrew knowledge that animals only ever come from other animals of the same species. This is why I give the Hebrews the points in this particular game.

There were people in the Enlightenment who liked to ascribe Greek primacy to everything, but it was often just Eurocentric prejudice. A lot of good maths and science originated in Babylon, because they needed it to do their astrology. They were also heavily influenced by the Egyptians and the Phoenicians.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 17:54, archived)
# so euclidean geometry is irrelevant, but the stuff originating from babylon is relevant?
obviously the Greeks got things wrong, but they got other things right and they did so by keeping an open mind, one which was shut by the ignorance of religion.
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:20, archived)
# it's not really relevant to religion, no.
It's good to have an open mind, maybe if you had one you'd see that this doctrine of yours (or did you uncritically receive it from that Dawkins chap?) that religion is the same thing as ignorance was, well, ignorant.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:33, archived)
# well if you want to talk about my 'doctrine' i'll tell you
i actually went to sunday school untill the age of 10, basically because it was a free babysitter, my parents have no religious standing, but they never told me what to think. since the age of 10 i gradually discredited the bible and decided that instead of believing that god created the earth in seven days (etc) the earth was created over billions of years from leftover dust from a supernova. instead of beliving that humans come from some ribs and some dust we evolved from apes of millions of years. instead of believing that after death your spirit flies off (somewhere) and your reunited with dead relatives, your constituent atoms are re-distributed in the ground or in the air and continue a cycle of life that's been going for billions of years.
you want to talk about ignorance.
yes i do think preaching a book written by men 2000 years ago as scientific fact is ignorant, when all it is at best is a philosophical document on the human nature and society.
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:22, archived)
# Oh Sunday School what damage you do
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:37, archived)
# yes hours wasted listening about super-jesus when i could of been testing my new rope swing
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:42, archived)
# Actually let's let Euclid have a go afterall.
Then let's bring Einstein's General Theory of Relativity into it and throw Euclidean Geometry out the window.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:00, archived)
# you wouldn't have a window to throw euclid out of without euclidean geometry
i think a theory that explains the three dimensional world, without knowledge of gravitation, that still stands today is pretty good.
and the hebrews, christians or muslims contribution to this field in the intervening 2000 years is what?
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:18, archived)
# I think they had windows long before Euclid.
I've already told you the Muslim contribution, they did loads of good science. As did a lot of Christians, Christianity founded a great deal of research. We also have to thank such people as William of Ockham, the 13th century Franciscan Friar who gave us that Ockham's Razor thing you atheists like to bang on about. The Muslims did so well partly because while they had read the works of Aristotle, they didn't take it as gospel truth. Then Galileo came along and proved it wrong on a few more points. I can hardly emphasize this point enough so I'll even capitalise it: ARISTOTLE'S PHYSICS COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING.

Plato did a little better, to be honest. He came up with the idea, foreign to previous generations of Greeks, of a God created the universe. He also inspired the various Gnostic sects. Unfortunately some people took his story of Atlantis a little seriously, although mostly not until the modern day I must add.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:28, archived)
# what i meant was the computation involved in modern architectural software
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:35, archived)
# oh,
this house was built in the 1950s. I don't think they used a computer.

Euclidean Geometry - yes, great. Consequences for religion and mysticism: NIL.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:37, archived)
# hah, no they used pen and paper, but the same equations
so when a christian, a hebrew or a muslim makes a scientific discovery it's because of their religion and therefore of great importance, but when someone like euclid comes up with something of real significance it's irrelevant.
smacks of apologist sentiment to me.
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:47, archived)
# It's irrelevant to your original assertion
that "the Greeks were making good headway in discrediting religion and mysticism". Quite a lot of the Greek philosophers were very mystical, in fact. Of course Galileo et al didn't discredit Aristotelian physics because he was a Christian, but you speak as if religious people never said anything clever at all, as if religion were opposed in principle to science, or even to thinking, and that the bounties of modernity are all ultimately creditable to the Greeks.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 18:58, archived)
# If a religious person did say something clever it would be in spite of religion not because of it
especially with an administration like the catholic church as the dominant authority
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:05, archived)
# On the contrary.
Religious people have said clever things throughout the ages and not because they were any less religious than their contemporaries. Being clever and being religious are entirely orthogonal properties. And you haven't read up on the Conflict Thesis yet, have you?
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:09, archived)
# so you think setting out on a scientific endeavour with the viewpoint that god made everything
is in no way a hindrance?

I did the conflict thesis at university yes, shall I list a load of literature and you can tell me if you've read up on it?
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:28, archived)
# no I don't think it is,
you pulled an ace out of your sleeve just there though, gaz me the bibliography and I'll look into it.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:37, archived)
# roger penrose - the road to reality
there's a start
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:40, archived)
# wait
that doesn't appear to be about the Conflict Thesis at all.

(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 19:46, archived)