[MD] Galileo and the church

[118]

On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 1:37 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
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> "... What eventually drew the Church into conflict with Galileo were its lay academic advisors, who insisted that Rome had a duty to stop Galileo, for if he were left unchecked, he would destroy the entire university system by undermining the Aristotelian beliefs on which it was based.  These scholastic philosophers refused to even look through a telescope, for they adamantly insisted that whatever was seen through the lenses that contradicted their beliefs, had to be optical illusions." B. Alan Wallace, Mind in Balance, pg 18, hardcover edition.
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> Arlo said:
> To suggest that were it not for "academics", the Church would have otherwise embraced Galileo is nonsense. However, were it not for fundamentalists and literalists, it very well may have.
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> John replied:
> Well then, you should probably take up that with Wallace, for he plainly is making a different case from yours. ... blame it on the lawyers, in the interest of peace,  but lets face it, it was the academics who trained the lawyers... so ...
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> dmb says:
> I think John is misreading Wallace. You have to realize that there was no such thing as academia or science in the sense that we think of them today, as separate from government and religion. In the pre-Modern age of scholasticism - wherein Aristotle was fused with Christian theology - art, science, religion and politics were not yet differentiated. They were all one thing. The basic definition of modernity is the differentiation of these domains. In those days, for example, astronomers could be branded as heretics. If Copernicus is right, then Aristotle is wrong and that's unacceptable because that means Christian theology is wrong. The whole thing was so interconnected that a telescope could just about kill God himself. Thus the panic. If the earth moves and isn't the center of the universe... Try to imagine their horror. Back in those, people got killed for saying the earth moves. Now Carol King can sing about it - erotically, no less.
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>  Arlo:
> ...The exact same divide that has fundamentalists claiming the earth is only 6000 years old, dinosaurs rode on a big boat to survive a flood, and everyone who does not call god by a certain name is going to hell. THESE are the people threatened by advances in understanding made through observation. ..This whole "big bad academics" nonsense is really getting sad.
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> dmb says:
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> I agree. It seems to me that academia is still fighting for independence. One hundred years ago a person could not graduate from Harvard without studying a whole bunch of theology. It could even be that you HAD to get a degree in Divinity along with whatever else you studied. Religious and political conservatives don't have much power to interfere directly anymore, thank God, but they sure do make a full time job out of hating academia. Of all the things in the world to complain about, Universities are what bugs you?
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> The Inquisitors were not inquisitive so much as they were torturous. Torturous also happens to describe John's version of history.
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[Mark says]
Well this is interesting history according to dmb.  Perhaps a better
approach would be to ask why do some think that what the academicians
teach is not a religion in itself?  For the longest time, man's
thinking has been wrapped up in a variety of concepts.  Of course the
theological have always been at the forefront due to impending death,
but beyond that were other fundamental questions.  Everybody knew that
a rock was hard (science), the question was, why did it exist in the
first place?  It was common knowledge that people died (science), the
question was, what happened afterwards?

Science is an extension of common sense.  Try something and learn, and
then move on.  The creation of fire was science at work.  The
spiritual realm took abstract thought, and was not relegated to simple
common sense.  This is where the deep thinkers went.  Science has now
got very complicated and requires specialization to continue
advancement.  Perhaps what happened it that man's limited ability
could not do both; learn all the names and causes and effects
(scientific method), and have spiritual thoughts.  There was a notion
that one replaced the other, but this is nonsense.  We still do not
know ultimate reality any more than we used to.  I suppose there was
more time to think in the past, not so many gadgets and distractions.
The great thinkers had plenty of time, and were not on eTrade all day
long.  What seems to have happened is man got lazy in his quest.  It
is much easier to stick to science.  The fact that science changes all
the time does not seem to bother anyone.  If theories of God changed,
we would think there was something wrong with it.

Interestingly, now that we are at an impasse in the realms of ultimate
nature of matter, and the ultimate nature of the cosmos, we are once
again turning back to spirituality.  Concepts in modern physics are no
different from philosophical ones over 2000 years ago.  So, back to
the question.  What is different from obtaining a world view through
science?  It is certainly much simpler and immediate.  However it is
certainly lacking in some fundamental provisions.  There have always
been athiests and agnostics for as long as there have been religions.
Nothing has changed in that regard.  There has been a shift in power
away from the Church (thank God), but it is now in the hands of others
with their own problems.

What seems to have occurred is a shift from a meaningful guided world,
to a meaningless random world.  Why would man choose to go this route?
 I don't think it will last.  Certainly it does give rise to
metaphysics such as MOQ where we feel we are guided by Quality, in a
meaningful world.  So we have the same underlying need as always, but
couch it in some kind of rational thought that subscribes to
mysticism.  As far as I can tell, nothing has changed; there is
nothing new under the sun.

Cheers,
Mark
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