Do Catholics Believe God Follows Laws

[sidbrown]

You don’t have to do anything. Flatland may or may not help you. It was just a suggestion. However, your attempt at a reductio ad absurdum is flawed. By definition, God is beyond our full grasp. Material realities may of may not be. Thus, an analogy that invokes the theory of higher than three or four dimensions seems ideally suited to helping understand higher realities. It doesn’t seem prudent to try to apply it to the visible world - especially not if your main aim is to debunk the concept - as it seems to be.

No. there is no flaw. If the universe that we live in is a black hole contained in a much larger multiverse and this multiverse is only a flat section of a gigantic sphere, then the analogy with flatland holds. So to go to these analogies really does not explain the change that occurred when God became Man. Before the Incarnation, God was not Man. After the Incarnation, things changed and God became Man. This was a change from what the Jews had understood all along and is the reason that today they do not accept the Incarnation.

 

[sidbrown]

“initiated only” = the rise of science came about only through the reason and faith of Catholic doctrine.

This is not true, because other relgions played their part.

 

[adriancombe]

No. there is no flaw. If the universe that we live in is a black hole contained in a much larger multiverse and this multiverse is only a flat section of a gigantic sphere, then the analogy with flatland holds. So to go to these analogies really does not explain the change that occurred when God became Man. Before the Incarnation, God was not Man. After the Incarnation, things changed and God became Man. This was a change from what the Jews had understood all along and is the reason that today they do not accept the Incarnation.

Not sure how you reach this conclusion. Even inside of a black hole there is constant change. And in the analogy, things inside flatland itself change and move. It is only the higher dimensional objects that have a perceived change and do not actually change in the way perceived. So…unless you are arguing that every single subatomic particle of this universe is actually in its own set of dimensions, your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premises. However, even if that is your position, you still haven’t proved God changes. At best, you’ve shown it is possible to imagine that nothing in the material world changes either.

 

[zebbediahdaniel]

“initiated only” = the rise of science came about only through the reason and faith of Catholic doctrine.

That is such an…amazing statement. Taken at face value I would put that up there with Gore claiming to have created the internet when he was in Vietnam as a second lieutenant.

 

[Abu]

the rise of science came about only through the reason and faith of Catholic doctrine.

zebbediahdaniel
That is such an…amazing statement. Taken at face value I would put that up there with Gore claiming to have created the internet when he was in Vietnam as a second lieutenant.

You may care to face reality
No other religion was equipped to initiate science. “**The rise of science **was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles."

**“These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.” **The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 22-23. My emphasis].

These are the reasons that explain the fact that the theology and philosophy of the Catholic Church motivated and enabled the flowering of science. As no other religious society had these crucial ideas, ALL others failed to spark scientific achievement. It is a classic example of cause and effect to produce a watershed in science

 

[sidbrown]

These are the reasons that explain the fact that the theology and philosophy of the Catholic Church motivated and enabled the flowering of science. As no other religious society had these crucial ideas, ALL others failed to spark scientific achievement. It is a classic example of cause and effect to produce a watershed in science
Let’s take a look at the Jewish Nobel Prize winners:
Jewish Laureates of Nobel Prize in Biomedical Sciences
Year Nobel Laureate Country of birth
2006 Fire, Andrew Z. USA
2004 Axel, Richard USA
2002 Brenner, Sydney South Africa
2002 Horvitz, H. Robert USA
2000 Greengard, Paul USA
2000 Kandel, Eric R. Austria
1998 Furchgott, Robert F. USA
1997 Prusiner, Stanley B. USA
1994 Gilman, Alfred G. USA
1994 Rodbell, Martin USA
1989 Varmus, Harold E. USA
1988 Elion, Gertrude B. USA
1986 Cohen, Stanley USA
1986 Levi-Montalcini, Rita Italy
1985 Brown, Michael S. USA
1985 Goldstein, Joseph L. USA
1984 Milstein, Cesar Argentina
1980 Benacerraf, Baruj Venezuela
1978 Nathans, Daniel USA
1977 Schally, Andrew V. Poland
1977 Yalow, Rosalyn USA
1976 Blumberg, Baruch S. USA
1975 Baltimore, David USA
1975 Temin, Howard M. USA
1972 Edelman, Gerald M. USA
1970 Axelrod, Julius USA
1970 Katz, Bernard Germany
1969 Luria, Salvador E. Italy
1968 Nirenberg, Marshall W. USA
1967 Wald, George USA
1965 Jacob, Francois France
1965 Lwoff, Andre France
1964 Bloch, Konrad Germany
1959 Kornberg, Arthur USA
1958 Lederberg, Joshua USA
1953 Krebs, Hans Adolf Germany
1953 Lipmann, Fritz Albert Germany
1952 Waksman, Selman A. Russia
1950 Reichstein, Tadeus Poland
1947 Cori, Gerty Theresa, Radnitz Czech Republic
1946 Muller, Hermann J. USA
1945 Chain, Ernst Boris Germany
1944 Erlanger, Joseph USA
1936 Loewi, Otto Austria
1930 Landsteiner, Karl Austria
1922 Meyerhof, Otto Fritz Germany
1914 Barany, Robert Austria
1908 Ehrlich, Paul Germany
1908 Mechnikov, Elie Russia

Total number of Jewish Laureates: 49
Jewish Laureates of Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Year Nobel Laureate Country of birth
2009 Yonath, Ada E. Israel
2008 Chalfie, Martin USA
2006 Kornberg, Roger. D. USA
2004 Ciechanover, Aaron Israel
2004 Hershko, Avram Hungary
2004 Rose, Irwin USA
2000 Heeger, Alan J. USA
1998 Kohn, Walter Austria
1994 Olah, George A. Hungary
1992 Marcus, Rudolph A. Canada
1989 Altman, Sidney Canada
1985 Hauptman, Herbert A. USA
1985 Karle, Jerome USA
1982 Klug, Aaron Lithuania
1981 Hoffmann, Roald Poland
1980 Berg, Paul USA
1980 Gilbert, Walter USA
1979 Brown, Herbert C. Ukraine
1977 Prigogine, Ilya Russia
1972 Anfinsen, Christian B. USA
1972 Stein, William H. USA
1962 Perutz, Max F. Austria
1961 Calvin, Melvin USA
1943 de Hevesy, George Hungary
1918 Haber, Fritz Germany
1915 Willstatter, Richard M. Germany
1910 Wallach, Otto Germany
1906 Moissan, Henri France
1905 von Baeyer, J. F. W. Adolf Germany

Total number of Jewish Laureates: 29
Jewish Laureates of Nobel Prize in Economics
Year Nobel Laureate Country of birth
2008 Krugman, Paul USA
2007 Hurwicz, Leonid Russia
2007 Maskin, Eric S. USA
2007 Myerson, Roger B. USA
2005 Aumann, Robert J. Germany
2002 Kahneman, Daniel Israel
2001 Akerlof, George A. USA
2001 Stiglitz, Joseph E. USA
1997 Scholes, Myron S. Canada
1994 Harsanyi, John C. Hungary
1993 Fogel, Robert W. USA
1992 Becker, Gary S. USA
1990 Markowitz, Harry M. USA
1990 Miller, Merton H. USA
1987 Solow, Robert M. USA
1985 Modigliani, Franco Italy
1980 Klein, Lawrence R. USA
1978 Simon, Herbert A. USA
1976 Friedman, Milton USA
1975 Kantorovich, Leonid V. Russia
1973 Leontief, Wassily Russia
1972 Arrow, Kenneth J. USA
1971 Kuznets, Simon USA
1970 Samuelson, Paul A. USA

Total number of Jewish Laureates: 24
Jewish Laureates of Nobel Prize in Physics
Year Nobel Laureate Country of birth
2005 Glauber, Roy J. USA
2004 Gross, David J. USA
2004 Politzer, H. David USA
2003 Abrikosov, Alexei A. Russia
2003 Ginzburg, Vitaly L. Russia
2000 Alferov, Zhores I. Russia
1997 Cohen-Tannoudji, Claude Algeria
1996 Lee, David M. USA
1995 Perl, Martin L. Russia
1995 Reines, Frederick USA
1992 Charpak, Georges Poland
1990 Friedman, Jerome I. USA
1988 Lederman, Leon M. USA
1988 Schwartz, Melvin USA
1988 Steinberger, Jack Germany
1979 Glashow, Sheldon L. USA
1979 Weinberg, Steven USA
1978 Penzias, Arno A. Germany
1976 Richter, Burton USA
1975 Mottelson, Ben Roy USA
1973 Josephson, Brian D. UK
1972 Cooper, Leon N. USA
1971 Gabor, Dennis Hungary
1969 Gell-Mann, Murray USA
1967 Bethe, Hans A. Germany
1965 Feynman, Richard P. USA
1965 Schwinger, Julian USA
1963 Wigner, Eugene P. Hungary
1962 Landau, Lev D. Azerbaijan
1961 Hofstadter, Robert USA
1960 Glaser, Donald A. USA
1959 Segre, Emilio Gino Italy
1958 Frank, Il’ja M. Russia
1958 Tamm, Igor Y. Russia
1954 Born, Max Germany
1952 Bloch, Felix Switzerland
1945 Pauli, Wolfgang Austria
1944 Rabi, Isidor Isaac Austria
1943 Stern, Otto Germany
1925 Franck, James Germany
1922 Bohr, Niels Denmark
1921 Einstein, Albert Germany
1908 Lippmann, Gabriel Luxembourg
1907 Michelson, Albert A. Poland

Total number of Jewish Laureates: 44
Since Catholicism is so much more responsible than Judaism for sparking scientific achievement, and Judaism “failed to spark scientific achievement”,could you kindly list the Catholic Laureates of the Nobel prize in these areas?

 

[sidbrown]

the rise of science came about only through the reason and faith of Catholic doctrine.

You may care to face reality
No other religion was equipped to initiate science. “**The rise of science **was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles."

**“These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.” **The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 22-23. My emphasis].

These are the reasons that explain the fact that the theology and philosophy of the Catholic Church motivated and enabled the flowering of science. As no other religious society had these crucial ideas, ALL others failed to spark scientific achievement. It is a classic example of cause and effect to produce a watershed in science

Since you claim that Judaism failed to spark scientific achievement, and since mathematics is the queen of the sciences, how do you explain the fact that 57% of the recipients of the Leroy P. Steele prizes for lifetime achievement in mathematics went to Jewish recipients? And what did you say was the Catholic percentage for that?
Salomon Bochner (1979)
André Weil (1980)
Gerhard Hochschild (1980)
Oscar Zariski (1981)
Fritz John (1982)
Joseph Doob (1984)

Samuel Eilenberg (1987)
Irving Kaplansky (1989)
Raoul Bott (1990)
Eugenio Calabi (1991)
Peter Lax (1993)
Eugene Dynkin (1993)
Louis Nirenberg (1994)
Ralph Phillips (1997)
Nathan Jacobson (1998)
Richard Kadison (1999)
I. M. Singer (2000)
Harry Kesten (2001)
Elias Stein (2002)
Izrail Gelfand (2005)
George Lusztig (2008)

And what about the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra and Number theory, how many Catholics did you say won such a prize? BTW, the percentage of Jewish recipients was 46% of the total:
A. Adrian Albert (1939)
Oscar Zariski (1944)
Henry B. Mann (1946)
Richard Brauer (1949)
Paul Erdös (1951)
Serge Lang (1960)

Maxwell Rosenlicht (1960)
Bernard Dwork (1962)
Walter Feit (1965)
James Ax (1967)

Simon Kochen (1967)
Hyman Bass (1975)
Melvin Hochster (1980)
Barry Mazur (1982)
George Lusztig (1985)
Dorian Goldfeld (1987)
Benedict Gross (1987)
Don Zagier (1987)
Karl Rubin (1992)
David Harbater (1995)
Peter Sarnak (2005

 

[Abu]

Listing some leading 20th century scientists or mathematicians is irrelevant to the truth that science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else because of Catholic philosophy and doctrine, and such irrelevancy is an unfortunate but prevalent attitude in some posters.

The denigration of the Church’s role in the development of science had been prevalent until the early twentieth century when historian Pierre Duhem underlined the Church’s crucial role and more and more historians have recognised this fact. (How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Thomas E Woods Jr., Regnery Publishing, 2005, p 75).

Another Catholic development – the university – played a pivotal role in the rise of modern science, as did several priests.

As for the Arabs, while their translations of ancient Greek classics led to their dissemination in the Western world in the twelfth century, a profound development for Western intellectual history, contributions of Muslim scientists “typically occurred in spite of Islam rather than because of it. Orthodox Islamic scholars absolutely rejected any conception of the universe that involved consistent physical laws, because the absolute autonomy of Allah could not be restricted by natural laws. Apparent natural laws were nothing more than mere habits, so to speak, of Allah, and might be discontinued at any time.” (Woods, op. cit., p 79)

The twin pillars of Faith and Reason (Fides et Ratio, John Paul II) will always result in the best science – directed to the discovery of God’s laws and based on His natural moral law as to ends and means – with which Christ’s Church alone is fully equipped by Him to guide.

In Science and Creation Father Stanley Jaki lists seven great cultures in which science suffered a “stillbirth” – Arabic, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, and Maya – they did not have the Catholic conception of the divine. Fr Jaki emphasises that “nature had to be de-animized” for science to be born. (Creation and Scientific Creativity, Paul Haffner, Christendom Press, 1991, p 41). “During the twelfth century in Latin Europe those aspects of Judeo-Christian thought which emphasized the idea of creation out of nothing and the distance between God and the world, in certain contexts and with certain men, had the effect of eliminating all semi-divine entities from the realm of nature.” (How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Dr Thomas E Woods, Regnery, 2005, p 93).

Even Friedrich Nietzsche (‘God is dead’) wrote: “Strictly speaking there is no such thing as science ‘without any presuppositions’… a philosophy, a ‘faith’, must always be there first, so that science can acquire a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist… It is still a metaphysical faith that underlines our faith in science.” (Genealogy of Morals III, 23-24).

The question then is: in what faith does a scientist believe?

We have seen why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else – because of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Fr Stanley Jaki stresses that we do not see the flowering of formal and sustained scientific inquiry emerging from the other cultures’ sometimes impressive technology. (Woods, p 77). “The earlier technical innovations of Greco-Roman times, of Islam, of imperial China, let alone those of pre-historic times, do not constitute science and are better described as lore, skills, wisdom, techniques, crafts, technologies, engineering, learning, or simply knowledge.” (For the Glory of God, Rodney Stark, Princeton University Press, 2003, p 125).

 

[sidbrown]

Listing some leading 20th century scientists or mathematicians is irrelevant to the truth that science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else because of Catholic philosophy and doctrine, and such irrelevancy is an unfortunate but prevalent attitude in some posters.

The denigration of the Church’s role in the development of science had been prevalent until the early twentieth century when historian Pierre Duhem underlined the Church’s crucial role and more and more historians have recognised this fact. (How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Thomas E Woods Jr., Regnery Publishing, 2005, p 75).

Another Catholic development – the university – played a pivotal role in the rise of modern science, as did several priests.

As for the Arabs, while their translations of ancient Greek classics led to their dissemination in the Western world in the twelfth century, a profound development for Western intellectual history, contributions of Muslim scientists “typically occurred in spite of Islam rather than because of it. Orthodox Islamic scholars absolutely rejected any conception of the universe that involved consistent physical laws, because the absolute autonomy of Allah could not be restricted by natural laws. Apparent natural laws were nothing more than mere habits, so to speak, of Allah, and might be discontinued at any time.” (Woods, op. cit., p 79)

The twin pillars of Faith and Reason (Fides et Ratio, John Paul II) will always result in the best science – directed to the discovery of God’s laws and based on His natural moral law as to ends and means – with which Christ’s Church alone is fully equipped by Him to guide.

In Science and Creation Father Stanley Jaki lists seven great cultures in which science suffered a “stillbirth” – Arabic, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, and Maya – they did not have the Catholic conception of the divine. Fr Jaki emphasises that “nature had to be de-animized” for science to be born. (Creation and Scientific Creativity, Paul Haffner, Christendom Press, 1991, p 41). “During the twelfth century in Latin Europe those aspects of Judeo-Christian thought which emphasized the idea of creation out of nothing and the distance between God and the world, in certain contexts and with certain men, had the effect of eliminating all semi-divine entities from the realm of nature.” (How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Dr Thomas E Woods, Regnery, 2005, p 93).

Even Friedrich Nietzsche (‘God is dead’) wrote: “Strictly speaking there is no such thing as science ‘without any presuppositions’… a philosophy, a ‘faith’, must always be there first, so that science can acquire a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist… It is still a metaphysical faith that underlines our faith in science.” (Genealogy of Morals III, 23-24).

The question then is: in what faith does a scientist believe?

We have seen why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else – because of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Fr Stanley Jaki stresses that we do not see the flowering of formal and sustained scientific inquiry emerging from the other cultures’ sometimes impressive technology. (Woods, p 77). “The earlier technical innovations of Greco-Roman times, of Islam, of imperial China, let alone those of pre-historic times, do not constitute science and are better described as lore, skills, wisdom, techniques, crafts, technologies, engineering, learning, or simply knowledge.” (For the Glory of God, Rodney Stark, Princeton University Press, 2003, p 125).

Oh yeah? I guess that’s why so many Jews excel in science, whereas as Catholics don’t.

 

[sidbrown]

We have seen why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else – because of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. .

This is nonsense. China had a highly developed science and technology way before Europe did in many areas:
The first recorded observations of comets, solar eclipses, and supernovae were made in China. Further, where was Catholicism when China was inventing the compass, papermaking and printing?
Here is a list of a few of Chinese scientific inventions:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions
Here is a list of a few of Chinese scientific discoveries:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_discoveries

 

[Abu]

Sidbrown (“Catholic”)
This is nonsense. China had a highly developed science and technology way before Europe.

Really? Rationalist Bertrand Russell found the lack of Chinese science rather baffling. “Russell failed to see that it was precisely religious obstacles that had prevented Chinese science. Although for centuries the common people of China have worshipped an elaborate array of gods, each of small scope and often rather lacking in character, Chinese intellectuals prided themselves in following ‘godless’ religions, wherein the supernatural is conceived of as an essence or principle governing life – such as the Tao – that is impersonal, remote, and definitely not a being. …As conceived by Chinese philosophers, the universe simply is and always was. There is no reason to suppose that it functions according to rational laws or that it could be comprehended in physical rather than mystical terms….Consequently Chinese intellectuals pursued ‘enlightenment’, not explanations. Joseph Needham, the Oxford historian of science who devoted most of his career and many volumes to the history of Chinese technology….concluded that the failure of the Chinese to develop science was due to their religion, to the inability of Chinese intellectuals to believe in the laws of nature because ‘ the conception of a divine celestial lawgiver imposing ordinances on non-human Nature never developed.’ ”
The Victory of Reason, Stark, Random House, 2005, p16-17].

As shown: Fr Stanley Jaki stresses that we do not see the flowering of formal and sustained scientific inquiry emerging from the other cultures’ sometimes impressive technology. (Woods, p 77). “The earlier technical innovations of Greco-Roman times, of Islam, of imperial China, let alone those of pre-historic times, do not constitute science and are better described as lore, skills, wisdom, techniques, crafts, technologies, engineering, learning, or simply knowledge.” (For the Glory of God, Rodney Stark, Princeton University Press, 2003, p 125).

 

[sidbrown]

Ee have seen why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else – because of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

What did the doctrine of the Catholic Church have to do with the study of astronomy in China?
"The Chinese have been observing the sky for several millennia, making them the oldest civilization with a continuous astronomical record. The Chinese required that their astronomers were correctly able to predict astronomical events, such as eclipses; otherwise, they were executed.

Charting and Recording

Some of the amazing records that the Chinese hold is the first documented solar eclipse - over 4000 years ago in 2137 B.C. The first recording of any planetary grouping was made by the Chinese in 500 B.C.

In the fifth century B.C., the Chinese made the Book of Silk, the earliest known atlas of comets. It contains 29 comets, which is a collective history of about 300 years. They were referred to as “broom stars.” The book was discovered in a tomb in 1973.

The astronomers noted the date, type, constellation in which it was first observed, motion, color, apparent length, and duration in the sky of the comets. They were the first to discover that comet tails always point away from the sun.

Dating to about the same time as the first recorded solar eclipse is the Jiangjunva rock carving. It has symbolic material, but also it contains Sun images in seasonal aspects, the Milky Way, and the moon.

The Chinese constellations were in the form of Five Palaces; the number five possibly results from the five elements of earth, fire, water, metal, and wood.

•The Palace of Purple Tenuity was the circumpolar area.
•The Palace of the East was the Azure Dragon.
•The Palace of the South was the Vermillion Bird.
•The Palace of the West was the White Tiger.
•The Palace of the North was the Dark Warrior, represented by an intertwined turtle and snake.
The sky was also divided into Nine Fields, which involved the circumpolar region and eight other divisions. The eight other divisions can be related to eight hexagrams which appear in the Yi Jing (The Book of Changes), which dates from the 2nd century B.C.

There were also the Jupiter Stations, which involved dividing the zodiac into 12 areas along the ecliptic. The 12 divisions were not related to the zodiac developed by the Babylonians and used today, but rather to the 12 years it takes Jupiter to return to the same place among the stars.

Yet another type of sky division were the Lunar Mansions, which goes back to at least the 5th century B.C. It involves 28 divisions, based upon the lunar sidereal period being 27.32 days. This was of particular importance in astrology.

The Chinese divided the celestial equator into 365.25° - the daily average motion of the sun. This corresponds to our current charting technique of Right Ascension (RA, α). They used similar degrees north and south of the equator, equivalent to our current Declination (DEC, δ). This is in sharp contrast with western cultures, who didn’t use modern positioning systems until the late 1500s.

As far as cataloguing went, Shi Shen, Gan De, and Wu Xian (370-270 B.C. in sum) recorded 1464 stars in 284 constellations. This is 200 years before the first western catalogue (by Hipparchus). In A.D. 310, Astronomer Royal Qian Luozhi had a bronze celestial globe made with stars that were color-coded as to their source. From the Han Dynasty, there are carvings that show constellations and asterisms with stars linked to delineate the various groups.

For charts, the earliest known dates to around A.D. 700. Though it has no grid lines, it contains over 1350 stars, and is a flat version of the Qian Luozhi globe. Nearly 400 years later, in A.D. 1094, the Song Dynasty created star charts. They show coordinates and were prepared for use with an “armillary sphere” - a sphere that consists of a number of rings arranged so as to model the circles of the celestial sphere. Until the Renaissance, these were the most accurate star charts available.

Observational Instruments and Resulting Measurements

The “gnomon” was a vertical stick in the ground. It could be used to determine the local noon and the seasons via the summer and winter solstices and the spring and fall equinoxes. They were standardized throughout the Chinese empire to be 8 “chi” or 2.4 meters.

The largest gnomon was built by Gui Shou-jing in A.D. 1276. It was 12 m high; its large size was influenced by the Arabs, who demonstrated that a larger instrument is more precise.

Through use of the gnomon, the Chinese determined the circumference of the Earth. Between A.D. 721-725, several sites in Hue, Vietnam to Lingqui, China (near the Great Wall), were selected in a nearly straight North-South line. Their result was that 1° of latitude was 155 km, where the actual value is about 111 km. The Greeks were able to get this to a much more accurate measurement around 300 B.C.

…
One of the most important events to predict were eclipses. In the first century B.C. (the Han dynasty), an eclipse period of 135 months was recognized during which 23 eclipses were known. By the third century A.D., the astronomer Yang Wei was able to specify times of first contact for a solar eclipse.

Precession

Hipparchus is credited with discovering precession around 150 B.C., and it took Chinese astronomers another 400 years to recognize it around A.D. 330. Even then, though, they did not recognize it as a continuous phenomenon, and it was called an “annual difference.”
filer.case.edu/~sjr16/advanced/pre20th_ancients_others.html

 

[I_Fortuna]

My understanding of Catholic Dogma is that God is First Cause, and is not caused. That being true, wouldn’t it seem to lead one to believe that Cause and Effect are God created laws, a subset of the reality that cause and effect does not exist except in the limited existence we call mortality?

My opinion:

First of all, I would like to state that this intellectual(?) effort is an exercise in futility.
What does it matter and why are you people not deep in prayer?

Now, having been a Buddhist for nearly 30 years and a convert to Catholicism for three years, i can assure you that there is substantial belief in cause and effect resulting in Karma. Karma or the total consequences of God’s laws, if you will, are the consequences of all of our actions and total being. It is physical and spiritual. There are no bounds or limits of time and space. We are static and, thus, this law applies to all beings on all planes until God makes the decision to override these laws. Thus, a miracle appears to manifest.

God’s (the Trinity’s) intervention is the primary and only cause of the miracle.

I define miracle as that effect or conseqeunce that occurs as a result of prayer defying any law of physics or what we perceive as reality on an individual basis. Only the individual can determine through faith if the consequence of their prayer is a valid miracle. Also, this can happen independent of faith and prayer as God wills it.

However, with the presentation of documentation or supporting evidence, others may be convinced to believe that the event was indeed a miracle.

Finally, God may and can do whatever He wants as we and our world are part of His creation. He can, in fact, break promises He has made to humans. It is unlikely that He will and He has proven to us and given us signs over the centuries that He is willing to keep His promises even if we do not keep ours.

However,
This is a following from:
spirithome.com/spirwork.html#blasfemy

"After all the talk about how boundless and all-covering God’s forgiving grace is, the Bible throws us a curveball. Matthew 12:31,32 speaks of one sin that will not be forgiven, the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Yet, the verse in Matthew does not say that God cannot forgive it; it says that God will not forgive it. One can sense that there’s more to it than just the bare fact. Let’s start by asking ourselves how it could possibly be that this sin and only this sin will not be forgiven. (The following is, of course, merely informed guesswork about a true mystery.) The Spirit brings us Christ and shapes our lives into His. If I were to choose to oppose the Holy Spirit, or even urge others to oppose the Spirit, I’d be working against God’s work on earth, against the reign of God as it is unfolding right now, and against the Spirit’s bringing Christ into me. That’s worse than merely denying that God is at work among people (mere disbelief). Since the Spirit could only enter my life by way of force, and the Spirit doesn’t work that way, that means the faith would not be created in me, and the saving grace that goes with it could not come in.

Acting and speaking against the Holy Spirit is like the prodigal son deciding that he loves being a swine and thus he doesn’t go home. If he does not go home, his father never rushes to greet him, he never gets to taste the fatted calf, and he never gets to have a restart in life with someone who loves him. Though it is entirely available, forgiveness would never come, because that which makes forgiveness come about does not take place. In that same way, the one sin of evil against the Holy Spirit remains unforgiven."

I think this explains it all.

 

[StrawberryJam]

My answer is, of course Catholics Believe God Follows Laws.

Was this a real question?

If you wanted to know if Catholics believe in God, we could all agree on that.
If you wanted to know what Catholics believe the laws should be, that would help the discussion.
To ask if any God would need to or have to follow any laws (defined for us by the Catholic Church of course) we would get an answer from the book, defining God as just. Just God= Just laws= a God who can not go against his nature type answer.

Does anyone believe that it is this simple?

 

[Abu]

As Rodney Stark explains in Catholicism and Science (from Catalyst 9/2004)
catholicleague.org/research/catholicism_and_science.htm

The abysmal failure to appreciate and acknowledge the uniqueness of Catholic doctrine and emphasis on reason to discover God’s laws is not worthy of anyone today, a fact that many historians today can no longer avoid. The falsehood "that science required the defeat of religion was proclaimed by self-appointed cheerleaders like Voltaire, Diderot, and Gibbon, who themselves played no part in the scientific enterprise—a pattern that continues today.
"So, why does the fable of the Catholic Church’s ignorance and opposition to the truth persist? Because the claim of an inevitable and bitter warfare between religion and science has, for more than three centuries, been the primary polemical device used in the atheist attack on faith. From Thomas Hobbes and Andrew Dickson White through Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins, false claims about religion and science have been used as weapons in the battle to “free” the human mind from the ‘fetters of faith.’ "
Even some who call themselves “Catholic” seem to have blinkers, and cannot see the wood for the trees!

"Christians developed science because they believed it could—and should—be done. Alfred North Whitehead, the great philosopher and mathematician, co-author with Bertrand Russell of the landmark Principia Mathematica, credited “medieval theology” for the rise of science. He pointed to the “insistence on the rationality of God,” which produced the belief that “the search into nature could only result in the vindication of the faith.”

"Why did this effort take root in Europe and nowhere else? Because Christianity depicted God as a rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being, and the universe as his personal creation. The natural world was thus understood to have a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting (indeed, inviting) human comprehension. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork,’ states Psalm 19.

"Recent historical research has debunked the idea of a ‘Dark Ages’ after the ‘fall’ of Rome. In fact, this was an era of profound and rapid technological progress, by the end of which Europe had surpassed the rest of the world. Moreover, the so-called “Scientific Revolution” of the sixteenth century was a result of developments begun by religious scholars starting in the eleventh century.

"It is instructive that China, Islam, India, ancient Greece, and Rome all had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology lead to astronomy. And these transformations took place at a time when folklore has it that a fanatical Christianity was imposing a general ignorance on Europe—the so-called Dark Ages.

"It was the Christian scholastics, not the Greeks, Romans, Muslims, or Chinese, who built up the field of physiology based on human dissections. Once again, hardly anyone knows the truth about dissection and the medieval Church. Human dissection was not permitted in the classical world (“the dignity of the human body” forbade it), which is why Greco-Roman works on anatomy are so faulty. Aristotle’s studies were limited entirely to animal dissections, as were those of Celsius and Galen. Human dissection also was prohibited in Islam.

"Isn’t the rise of science a normal aspect of cultural progress, of the rise of civilizations? Not at all. Many quite sophisticated societies did not generate communities of scientists, or produce any body of systematic theory and observation that qualifies as science. Although China was quite civilized during many centuries when Europeans were still rude savages, the Chinese failed to develop actual science. Similarly, although in full possession of the whole corpus of Greco-Roman scholarship, and having made some impressive advances in mathematics, Islamic scholars did not become scientists.

"Once they mastered the classic texts, Muslim scholars added little or nothing of their own. Nor did science arise in ancient India or Egypt. And while classical Greece had considerable learning, it did not have science.
As noted, science consists of an organized effort to explain natural phenomena."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_Medieval_Western_Europe
Even here they know that: “Science developed in this golden period of Scholastic philosophy focused on logic and advocated empiricism, perceiving nature as a coherent system of laws that could be explained in the light of reason. With this view the medieval men of science went in search of explanations for the phenomena of the universe and achieved important advances in areas such as scientific methodology and physics, among many others.”

 

[sidbrown]

"It was the Christian scholastics, not the Greeks, Romans, Muslims, or Chinese, who built up the field of physiology based on human dissections. ”

The Chinese developed acupuncture which only now the west is beginning to appreciate. And as far as I know, the Chinese did not use Catholic doctrine to develop acupuncture.

 

[Abu]

oohoi.com/physical_therapy/acupuncture/acupuncture-history.htm
In the tropical rainforest of Amazon, a tribe was reported to use blowpipes to insert tiny arrows into one part of the body to cure a malady in another, many of the points coinciding with the one used by the Chinese. In African Plains, witch doctors also use piercing in one part of body to treat another part of a patient’s anatomy. Apart from that, there were also reports by anthropologists that people who live in the Arctic and Northern Tundra uses sharp stones for similar use.

As Dr Stark reveals in *Catholicism and Science *(from Catalyst 9/2004:
“Whitehead ended with the remark that the images of God found in other religions, especially in Asia, are too impersonal or too irrational to have sustained science. A God who is capricious or unknowable gives no incentive for humans to dig deeply into his essence. Moreover, most non-Christian religions don’t posit a creation. If the universe is without beginning or purpose, has no Creator, is an inconsistent, unpredictable, and arbitrary mystery, there is little reason to explore it. Under those religious premises, the path to wisdom is through meditation and mystical insights, and there is no occasion to celebrate reason.”
“There is not the same confidence as in the intelligible rationality of a personal being.” (Whitehead, [1925] 1967, Science and the Modern World, New York: Free Press, p 13).

"In contrast, Tertullian, one of the earliest Christian theologians (c. 160-225), instructed that God has willed that the world he has provided ‘should be handled and understood by reason.’ The weight of opinion in the early and medieval church was that there is a duty to understand, in order to better marvel at God’s handiwork. Saint Augustine (354-430) held that reason was indispensable to faith: ‘Heaven forbid that God should hate in us that by which he made us superior to the animals! Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls.’ Of course, Christian theologians accepted that God’s word must be believed even if the reasons were not apparent. In matters ‘that we cannot yet grasp by reason—though one day we shall be able to do so—faith must precede reason,’ stated Augustine.

"Note the optimism that reason will reveal more and more truth as time accumulates. Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) attempted in his monumental Summa Theologiae to fulfill Augustine’s optimism that some of these ‘matters of great importance’ could be grasped by reason. Though humans lack sufficient intellect to see directly into the essence of things, he argued they may reason their way to knowledge step-by-step, using principles of logic. This is the methodology of science.

“The great figures of the heyday of scientific discovery—including Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Kepler—actively professed their absolute faith in a Creator God, whose work incorporated rational rules awaiting their discovery. Far from being a rejection of religion, the Scientific Revolution’ was led mostly by deeply religious men acting on religious motivations.”
**As noted, science consists of an organized effort to explain natural phenomena. **

 

[sidbrown]

oohoi.com/physical_therapy/acupuncture/acupuncture-history.htm
In the tropical rainforest of Amazon, a tribe was reported to use blowpipes to insert tiny arrows into one part of the body to cure a malady in another, many of the points coinciding with the one used by the Chinese. In African Plains, witch doctors also use piercing in one part of body to treat another part of a patient’s anatomy. Apart from that, there were also reports by anthropologists that people who live in the Arctic and Northern Tundra uses sharp stones for similar use.

As Dr Stark reveals in *Catholicism and Science *(from Catalyst 9/2004:
“Whitehead ended with the remark that the images of God found in other religions, especially in Asia, are too impersonal or too irrational to have sustained science. A God who is capricious or unknowable gives no incentive for humans to dig deeply into his essence. Moreover, most non-Christian religions don’t posit a creation. If the universe is without beginning or purpose, has no Creator, is an inconsistent, unpredictable, and arbitrary mystery, there is little reason to explore it. Under those religious premises, the path to wisdom is through meditation and mystical insights, and there is no occasion to celebrate reason.”
“There is not the same confidence as in the intelligible rationality of a personal being.” (Whitehead, [1925] 1967, Science and the Modern World, New York: Free Press, p 13).

"In contrast, Tertullian, one of the earliest Christian theologians (c. 160-225), instructed that God has willed that the world he has provided ‘should be handled and understood by reason.’ The weight of opinion in the early and medieval church was that there is a duty to understand, in order to better marvel at God’s handiwork. Saint Augustine (354-430) held that reason was indispensable to faith: ‘Heaven forbid that God should hate in us that by which he made us superior to the animals! Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls.’ Of course, Christian theologians accepted that God’s word must be believed even if the reasons were not apparent. In matters ‘that we cannot yet grasp by reason—though one day we shall be able to do so—faith must precede reason,’ stated Augustine.

"Note the optimism that reason will reveal more and more truth as time accumulates. Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) attempted in his monumental Summa Theologiae to fulfill Augustine’s optimism that some of these ‘matters of great importance’ could be grasped by reason. Though humans lack sufficient intellect to see directly into the essence of things, he argued they may reason their way to knowledge step-by-step, using principles of logic. This is the methodology of science.

“The great figures of the heyday of scientific discovery—including Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Kepler—actively professed their absolute faith in a Creator God, whose work incorporated rational rules awaiting their discovery. Far from being a rejection of religion, the Scientific Revolution’ was led mostly by deeply religious men acting on religious motivations.”
**As noted, science consists of an organized effort to explain natural phenomena. **

the world Health Organisation has reported favorably on the effectiveness of Acutpuncture as is supported by controlled clinical trials.
apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js4926e/
They list a series of diseases for which acupuncture has proven to be effective:
Acute bacillary dysentery
Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy
Allergic rhinitis
Biliary colic
Depression
Essential hypertension
Headache
Induction of childbirth and correction of the malposition of fetus
Inflammation of the tissues surrounding the shoulder
Leukopenia
Nausea and vomiting including morning sickness
Pain in the epigastrium, face, neck, tennis elbow, lower back, knee, during dentistry and after operations
Primary dysmenorrhea
Primary hypotension
Renal colic
Rheumatoid arthritis
Sciatica
Sprains
Strokes

And notice that in western medicine, all of the medications and prescription drugs recommended for these diseases have unwanted and harmful side effects. Acupuncture does not have these side effects.
How did knowledge of Catholic doctrine help to develop this scientific theory of acupuncture?

 

[sidbrown]

As Dr Stark reveals in *Catholicism and Science *(from Catalyst 9/2004:
"Whitehead ended with the remark that the images of God found in other religions, especially in Asia, are too impersonal or too irrational to have sustained science. ]

Since this is true, how do you explain the fact that the number of Jews overachieving in science is way out of proportion to their relative population in the worls? Since Catholic doctrine is responsible for such an explosion of scientific knowledge, how come there are so few Catholics who are winning the Nobel prizes in scientific fields?

 

[Abu]

**Science consists of an organized effort to explain natural phenomena. **
Why did this effort take root in Europe and nowhere else? Because Christianity depicted God as a rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being, and the universe as his personal creation. The natural world was thus understood to have a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting (indeed, inviting) human comprehension.

Although China was quite civilized during many centuries when Europeans were still rude savages, the Chinese failed to develop actual science. Marxist Joseph Needham, the Oxford historian of science who devoted most of his career and many volumes to the history of Chinese technology….concluded that the failure of the Chinese to develop science was due to their religion, to the inability of Chinese intellectuals to believe in the laws of nature because ‘ the conception of a divine celestial lawgiver imposing ordinances on non-human Nature never developed.’ ”

“It was not that there was no order in Nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime. The Taoists, indeed, would have scorned such an idea as being too naïve for the subtlety and complexity of the universe as they intuited it.” (Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, 1954-84. 6 vols. Cambridge Univ Press, p 581).

“As conceived by Chinese philosophers, the universe simply is and always was. There is no reason to suppose that it functions according to rational laws or that it could be comprehended in physical rather than mystical terms. Consequently, through the millennia Chinese intellectuals pursued ‘enlightenment’, not explanations.

“Why didn’t Chinese scholars want to do science? Because, as Whitehead, Needham, and many others have recognised, it didn’t occur to the Chinese that science was possible….Western science was born of the enthusiastic conviction that the human intellect can penetrate nature’s secrets.” The Victory of Reason, Stark, Random House, 2005, p16-17].

The Greeks came closest but also failed to develop modern science – like all other cultures, hampered by the belief that the universe and its motions were eternal, with neither a beginning nor and end. Once the Catholic idea of creation *ex nihilo *became widely accepted intellectuals were keen to develop explanations based on natural causation. (Cf. David C Lindbergh, The Beginnings of Western Science, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1992, p 200).

Even in the patristic period of saints such as Augustine, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, and John Damascene their writings show the idea of rejecting any suggestion that the celestial bodies were alive or had intelligences in their own right, or were able to operate without some kind of spiritual mover. (Thomas E Woods, How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, 2005, p 93).