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Wowbagger
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Oh! My bad! Here’s the Google Translate link.Is there an English version of your “here”? Or did I do the granny thing of clicking the wrong key?
Not a very good translation, mind you, but it does what it can.
Pope's astronomer dismisses ID and says Church was "spectacularly wrong" in its treatment of Galileo
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Not a very good translation, mind you, but it does what it can.
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scimitar60
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Hmmm, Interesting thread. The reason I’m here is because today I picked up a ‘science’ magazine; which pretty much made it look like the Catholic church are some sort of anti-research organisation. It said that the church tortured him and banned his book JUST because of the reason of it saying that we are not the centre of the universe. I laughed.
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wanstronian
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Ridiculous when people do that, isn’t it…!
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wanstronian
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Intelligent Design has absolutely no scientific basis whatever. It’s merely the repositioning of creationism as a result of Special Creation having been disproved by science.
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wanstronian
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IDvolution isn’t a word other than in your vocabulary. By the definition you provide in your sig line, it has as much scientific validity as vanilla ID - none. You might just as well state that the pixies did it.Looks like he needs to consider IDvolution as the solution.
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grannymh
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Can’t speak for non-human living organisms or the physical positioning of the earth. If you think humans might be special, you can politely discuss that opinion here. Do read the guidelines - links - for posting.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=478146
However, I will be traveling without a laptop for close to two weeks so I may not have easy access to a computer in order to post replies.
Blessings,
granny
Genesis 1: 1
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wanstronian
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Why would I think humans are special? That’s the remit of the religious!
Re: physical position of the earth: Pure chance. Anthropic principle.
Nothing you’ve said changes the fact that ID has no scientific basis, and therefore is not a serious contender for providing an explanation for anything.
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reggieM
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It would be interesting to see how you would prove that claim scientifically.
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wanstronian
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I’m not sure I can prove it “scientifically,” any more than I can “scientifically” prove that unicorns don’t exist.
However, I can prove it by exception; by showing how it fails to conform to the generally-accepted principles of scientific discovery:
- ID posits unverifiable, ad-hoc explanations to fill the gaps
- It posits unnecessary phenomena (unparsimonious)
- It provides no criteria for verification or falsification
- It produces no independently observable results
- It provides no path to the investigation of the supernatural phenomena it invokes
- It has no predictive power
- It suggests no experiments
- It provides no practical value
This is old news, you know - it’s really only wingnuts like Michael Behe that still advocate ID (or its derivatives). And Behe has been exposed and debunked so many times it’s not true. Apparently the news that “ID is dead” hasn’t filtered through to everyone yet.
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grannymh
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My post 46 was not directed to ID. It picked up on the word “special”. A person does not have to be “religious” to think “special.” That is my personal opinion.
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Leela
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The question is not whether the Church could still get away with telling scientists what they can and cannot publish. The question is whether or not it is right for the church to tell a scientist what he can and cannot publish.
There is a moral issue here. The moral issue is not whether the church was right or wrong about cosmology. Clearly it was wrong, but no one still thinks that the church has any special scientific knowledge. But many people think it has special moral knowledge. If the church can be wrong about whether scientists ought to be imprisoned for publicly disagreeing with the church’s cosmology, it can be wrong about other moral issues as well. If the church can be wrong about the morality of telling scientists what they can and cannot write and if it can be wrong about telling Galileo to lie about his beliefs, then it can be wrong about contraceptives and gay marriage.
It sounds like you are bending over backwards to defend the church on an issue where a Vatican astronomer notes the church was “spectacularly wrong.”
In the above you say that the the Church knew Galileo was right but forced him to recant anyway. Why would the church tell him to say he was wrong if it knew he was right? The church knowingly forced him to lie?
No. Not very smart. But shouldn’t the Church be above such politics and retaliation to save face? Don’t we agree that the Muslims who are rioting over cartoons and threatening the lives of cartoonists are dead wrong?
I agree with Bellarmine that “To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin.”
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reggieM
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Let’s revisit your claim:
You admit that your argument has no scientific proof, so therefore is can not be a serious contender as an explanation for anything.
In other words, the only way to explain something (in your view) is scientifically. You now contradict that and make a non-scientific explanation which you claim is a proof.
So, in dismissing ID as “non-scientific” and therefore non-explanatory, you dismiss your own opinions about ID as non-explanatory.
“Darwin of the Gaps”. For example, when evidence shows that similar body plans do not share a recent common ancestor, there’s a gap. This gap is then filled with an unverifiable, ad-hoc explanation called “convergent evolution”.
So, we can see that that particular theory is proven false by your own reasoning.
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Betterave
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Anybody heard of the very well-known long-time atheist philosopher Antony Flew (recently deceased, I believe)? Anybody know why he gave up on atheism? (You might want to look this one up, wanstronian.)
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Leela
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I’ve heard of him. He’s the author of the 2001 article in response to a bunch of internet rumors “Sorry to Disappoint, but I’m Still an Atheist!”
As far as I know, he died disbelieving in the Christian God and any afterlife.
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grannymh
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The key point is that Bellarmine is referring to two, yes two, different, yes different realms of authority and two different levels or categories of issues. Any conclusion in science does not automatically change a Catholic theological truth. Nor does any progress in science change the Catholic authority regarding moral teaching.
Now when one refers back to the beginning of the article “The Swan’s Song of Galileo’s Myth” posted by Buffalo, there will be an overlooked point regarding the imprecision of terms in the time of Galileo. This is obvious in some of the surrounding documents such as personal letters and statements, etc. One also needs to factor in the development of science and the influence of philosophy during the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Therefore, there is a serious problem with any out-of context quote. This is especially true of Bellarmine when one ventures into his many, many writings.
Blessings,
granny
The quest for knowledge is worthy of the adventures of the journey.
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Scoobyshme
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Well, he’s no longer an atheist, I assure you. Right after he died, he received absolute proof of God and the afterlife. Unfortunately, by his choice, he’s about as regretful as a person can be of his choice not to believe, but it’s too late to do anything about it.
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Leela
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I understand that today Catholics see these as different sorts of claims and find it important to make the distinction you want to make. I think that is progress, but Bellarmine explicitly equated these sorts of claims in this quote:
“To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin.”
One is as wrong as the other and in the same way. Both defy the teaching of the Church.
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Leela
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So you think he is in hell?Well, he’s no longer an atheist, I assure you. Right after he died, he received absolute proof of God and the afterlife. Unfortunately, by his choice, he’s about as regretful as a person can be of his choice not to believe, but it’s too late to do anything about it.
He didn’t choose not to believe. This is a guy who sincerely pursued the question and like the rest of us had no ability to simply will himself to believe what he found unconvincing.God knew exactly what sort of evidence Flew would have needed to be convinced but decided not to provide it for him. Why?
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Betterave
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Interesting to note, perhaps, that this issue just slightly predates Galileo. Probably the Vatican astronomer has concerns like this in mind when he apparently made his rather strongly worded claim:
St. Augustine (b.354-d.430), DE GENESI AD LITTERAM, Bk. 1, 19, n.39:
Often it happens that there is something about the earth, or the sky, or the other elements of this world, about the motion and revolution, or even the size and periods of the stars, about eclipses of the sun and moon, about the cycles of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, fruits, stones, and other things of this kind, and a non-Christian knows about it such that it is held by the most certain reasons or experience. It is extremely pernicious and shameful and most highly to be warned against, that any infidel should hear a Christian rave about these things as if he were speaking in accordance with the Christian writings, in such a way that, observing, as it is said, that his margin of error is “toto caelo”, the whole of the heavens, it is hardly possible to refrain from laughing. * “The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo#De_Genesi_ad_Litteram*
St. Augustine (b.354-d.430), DE GENESI AD LITTERAM, Bk. 1, 19, n.39:
Often it happens that there is something about the earth, or the sky, or the other elements of this world, about the motion and revolution, or even the size and periods of the stars, about eclipses of the sun and moon, about the cycles of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, fruits, stones, and other things of this kind, and a non-Christian knows about it such that it is held by the most certain reasons or experience. It is extremely pernicious and shameful and most highly to be warned against, that any infidel should hear a Christian rave about these things as if he were speaking in accordance with the Christian writings, in such a way that, observing, as it is said, that his margin of error is “toto caelo”, the whole of the heavens, it is hardly possible to refrain from laughing. * “The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo#De_Genesi_ad_Litteram*
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Betterave
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LOL! You might want to update your research, Leela! Try this link:
existence-of-god.com/flew-abandons-atheism.html
Apparently God (with some help from “science”) did provide the evidence Flew needed (although, N.B., that’s obviously a very simplistic way of looking at it).
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