How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

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KathleenGee said:
There are several Catholic responses and clarifications as to what in the world was going on with Galileo and the Catholic Church that are easily accessed on the internet.

Yes, these fellows should read the Woods series…

Some times it is boring seeing these insinuations that the Catholic Church is so dumb, pardoning Copernicus…what was it last year so?
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I am certainly not among those who thinks the Roman Catholic Church is “so dumb.”

Quite the contrary.

But, some believe that the Church was always “so smart.”

And for that, also, I hold quite the contrary. 🙂

👍
 
Stephen168 said:
I think point of the OP is that ALL we know about the history of science is from outside the Church; the public school system in the USA. I know “the Church” has taught me nothing about the history of science and civilization.
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Yes. Think about that.
 
Cavaradossi said:
Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the cosmos stood in opposition to the spheres model, which posited that the motion of the planets was caused by the circular motion of celestial spheres, surrounding the earth, in which the planets and stars were embedded. The idea was that each sphere drove the motion of the sphere within it it, which conveniently made the need for an unmoved mover (equated with God in a Christian context) to drive the motion of the cosmos.

Galileo’s role in all of this was his publication of Sidereus Nuncius, which detailed his observations with the telescope. One observation he made (which we take for granted today), was that the moon had surface features (craters, mountains, etc.). This contradicted the Aristotelian assertion that the heavenly bodies were smooth spheres, being more perfect than Earth. Worse still were his observations of four objects which traveled in a straight line near Jupiter, which Galileo correctly concluded were orbiting Jupiter, an impossibility in the celestial sphere model, since objects should only orbit the Earth. This basically was an indication that the Aristotelian model had some huge problems with it.

The final piece of the puzzle was Kepler’s law of planetary motion, which posits that the planets move in elliptical orbits. This, combined with Copernicus’ heliocentric model, created a much simpler and more accurate system to calculate the movement of the planets, as opposed to the Ptolemeic system of epicycles and deferents, and which when combined with Newtonian mechanics and the Law of Universal Gravitation predicted to just one degree of error the location of the formerly unknown planet Neptune, based on periodic deviations in the orbit of Uranus.

With all of this evidence, I think we can say pretty conclusively that Copernicus’ heliocentric model, combined with Kepler’s Law of Planetary Motion, and Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation is a much better explanation for planetary motion than the Aristotelian geocentric model with celestial spheres.
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Wow !

What a pleasure to read.

Galileo could have used your excellent summation, in 1633. 🙂

👍
 
Curious_Seed said:
I am sorry you don’t know when you are being rude, but it does excuse why you continue to be.
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There is no excuse for the petulance that causes you to tell someone that they are rude for pointing out to you that you gave a ‘non-answer’.
Bluntly, if you believe that the Roman Catholic Church built Western Civilization, please continue to do so. I believe the Greek and Roman Civilizations are the basis of Western Civilization, not the Roman Catholic Church.
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You are very good at reasserting what you’ve already said, with no elaboration. You are also very good at mixing the terms of the argument. You point out I described the Church as as having ‘built’, then your rather shallow rebuttal describes the Greeks and Romans as the “basis”. You are trying to make an argument between apples and oranges. In light of the thread title, you are already wandering.
I
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f you are game to exploring this, I am in;
I’ve already stated my position. I’m just waiting for you to post something of substance.

but, it may prove to be the longest thread in the history of the Forum. 🙂
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Nope. Other threads have already dealt with this issue. It’s a pity you haven’t read them already. Never mind; there’s plenty of time for you to do some serious research. :rolleyes:
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
Having read the various pro-Catholic explanations, I have to say… yours makes a heck of a lot more sense.

I have no intention to disbelieve the Church but I have a real problem understanding their reasoning here… it was a crime to defy geocentrism just because he didn’t have absolute proof? I don’t understand.
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clearly
VeritasLuxMea said:
it wasn’t doctrine, who the flip cares whether he disbelieved it??? It’s as if they were treating geocentrism as doctrine…
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It wasn’t about doctrine.
Stephen168 said:
What dogma?
What truth?
When was that true exposed?
Who exposed that truth?
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Marybeloved said:
I’m not at all knowledgeable at science, so forgive me if what I say is false and correct me, but didn’t Einstein’s theory disprove Newton’s gravitational theory? 🤷

@ Curious Seed
I fail to see how the Galilean story disproves in any way the Church’s building of western Civilization? 🤷

Does former American practice of Slavery and institutional racism; or British colonization of much of the World, or European conquering of the entire Planet disprove their respective influences in Modern Human Civilization? Should we now pretend that Europe did not build virtually the entire modern Global civilization?

Your reasoning in introducing this saga to this particular discussion is really quite puzzling :confused:. I don’t follow how exactly it’s supposed to disprove the assertion put forward. Was it Socrates who was poisoned for his thoughts? Does that therefore make the Civilization that produced him (Greek) non-influential in Western and (by extension) Modern World civilization? 🤷

Peace.
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It is not my intention to disprove the Catholic Church built Western Civilization.

It is not my intention to disprove what I do not believe.

No one, yourself included, however, has shown that the Catholic Church has built Western Civilization.

Galileo is a prime example of miserable failure, on behalf of the Church. An outstanding example of how Western Civilization was built despite that debilitating failure.

The Church’s influence is monumental, but foundational? I don’t think so. 🙂

👍
 
John21652 said:
There is no excuse for the petulance that causes you to tell someone that they are rude for pointing out to you that you gave a ‘non-answer’.

You are very good at reasserting what you’ve already said, with no elaboration. You are also very good at mixing the terms of the argument. You point out I described the Church as as having ‘built’, then your rather shallow rebuttal describes the Greeks and Romans as the “basis”. You are trying to make an argument between apples and oranges. In light of the thread title, you are already wandering.
I
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Stephen168 said:
Who was the mathematician and when was it proven?
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Depends on what you mean by proven. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion explained the motion of the planets in a heliocentric universe such that all of the planets revolve around the sun with an elliptical orbit. This explanation happened to be more consistent with observable reality than the explanation put forth in the Aristotelian model, which required that all planets have an epicycle in their orbits to explain why the planets would occasionally seem to backtrack in the sky. This we would say proved that the planets orbit the sun, or at the very least that a heliocentric model combined with Kepler’s laws of planetary motion is a better model than a geocentric model.
 
John21652 said:
Fabulous post Pepband Mom. 👍

I just need to add to your knowledge ever so slightly.

With this -
Natural Law > Canon Law > British Legal system > Irish legal System > US legal system> Australian legal system (where God is written into the Constitution) >Canadian legal system > New Zealand legal system >New Guinea legal system. etc, etc, etc.

And Curious, gird your loins and read about Australian John Finnis. It’s all still happening and it aint in Greek!
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And Latin still appears on the U.S. Dollar bill. In fact without the Latin it would be counterfeit. 🙂
 
Cavaradossi said:
Depends on what you mean by proven. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion explained the motion of the planets in a heliocentric universe such that all of the planets revolve around the sun with an elliptical orbit. This explanation happened to be more consistent with observable reality than the explanation put forth in the Aristotelian model, which required that all planets have an epicycle in their orbits to explain why the planets would occasionally seem to backtrack in the sky. This we would say proved that the planets orbit the sun, or at the very least that a heliocentric model combined with Kepler’s laws of planetary motion is a better model than a geocentric model.
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I mean scientifically proven; not another explanation of appearances. Yes, Kepler and the Catholic Church believed that planets move in a elliptic circle; not a perfect circle like Galileo and Aristotle believed. But, they could not prove mathematically that the earth was one of those planets, and I don’t think Kepler ever claimed he proved it.
 
Again, the reason Galileo was disciplined by the Church was that ‘Galileo stopped proposing scientific theory’…crossed over into Church jurisdiction of theology…‘and began proclaiming it as truth, though there was no conclusive truth at that time regarding his findings’.

www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy

Problem with non-Catholics is that they do not understand that those called to administrate the Church are chosen and consecrated by Christ in spirit and truth. Scientists are not called to be administrators and theologians, and that is how Galileo got into trouble.

Reading Cavaradossi’s recent post, one can see the difficulty one has in just understanding the implications of this scientific discovery.

Yes, there is only God, the Unmoved Mover…as science continues to discover…change, discover…movement. Creation is in constant movement but God is the only Truth, the only constant of our lives personified in Christ.

To ignore Catholicism’s contribution to the scientific world, to make the Galileo issue into something it was not, is all part of being a Catholic in America.
 
Curious_Seed said:
It is not my intention to disprove the Catholic Church built Western Civilization.

It is not my intention to disprove what I do not believe.

No one, yourself included, however, has shown that the Catholic Church has built Western Civilization.

Galileo is a prime example of miserable failure, on behalf of the Church. An outstanding example of how Western Civilization was built despite that debilitating failure.

The Church’s influence is monumental, but foundational? I don’t think so. 🙂

👍
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So you admittedly just brought up an irrelevant story to a discussion that you have no actual interest in engaging in? 🤷 Proof of failure regarding Galileo has nothing to do with whether or not the Church built Western civilization, you appear to know this- why bring it up? Didn’t you read the OP?
 
People here are pointing out bias in thinking and judging.

By the way, what about the Catholic composers in music?
 
KathleenGee said:
People here are pointing out bias in thinking and judging.

By the way, what about the Catholic composers in music?
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What about non Catholic composers, and Asian, African, and meso- and South American civilizations.

To me, this whole thread is summed up by two quotes from Gandhi, whatever great good the Church may have done despite all the allegations of what it supposedly stopped from being done.

When after a tour of London Gandhi was asked his opinion of Western civilization he replied “I think it wold be a very good idea!”

He also said “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians; they are so unlike your Christ.”

I have no argument with the sincerity and enthusiasm many rightfully have for their faith, but there is such a thing as perspective. Math. astronomy, and much technology preceded Christendom’s adoption or discovery of them as well as what came from what was necessarily Catholic and Christian in Europe in the same sense the what came from other areas might be Buddhist. Invention is an attribute of being made “in the image and likeness of God”, not of a religion.
 
Well, I am just asking who are Catholic composers…

I met various Catholic African composers of liturgical music.

This is addressed primarily to those who believe the anti-Catholic tracts…catholicism man made, statue idolatry, anti-science, etc.
 
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