Religion and Science

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To be frank, I think you do. Geocentrism was disproved long ago. The Church has recognized the fundamental error of geocentrism. Rome has spoken. And that is enough. The evidence during the patristic period pointed to geocentrism. Advanced technology revealed otherwise later. Augustine and his contemporaries were following the suggestion of the data they had. Truth CANNOT contradict truth. If the physical world shows that the earth is not the center of the universe, as it has (Copernicus, Galileo, et al), then the old things must be swept away.

Who originally proposed the geocentric model? It was not Scripture. It was a Greek philosopher named Plato. Hardly infallible. The Church took Plato’s model because it was the best explanation of the time. A better explanation has been found.
First of all ZD, if geocentrism was proven, this idiot would not be defending the traditional interpretation of Scripture. If this point is not understood as certain we debate in vain. Try to understand relative motion ZD and you will see God created a metaphysical cosmos, one whose order man cannot determine. Why do you think God asked Job if he knew the order of the heavens? So you can have all the ‘advanced technology’ you like, but nobody ever overcame relative motion, only in the mind that is.

Which takes me to your ‘Rome has spoken, And that is enough.’ We see now the heresy at work. In 1616 Cardinal Bellarmine could say ‘Rome has spoken. And that is enough.’ In 1633 Pope Urban VIII declared ‘Rome has spoken. And that is enough.’ In 1664, Pope Alexander VII ruled ’ 'Rome has spoken. And that is enough.’ Now you tell us ‘Rome has spoken. And that is enough.’ but this time rejecting the first three times ‘Rome has spoken, And that is enough.’ Who on earth could take serious any ‘Rome has spoken. And that is enough’ now?
In truth of course Rome can only speak ONCE, 'And that is enough.’ So ZD, which of the four times did Rome speak the official truth? Can you tell us that.

As for your third argument, that Plato proposed a geocentric model, not Scripture, and that was ‘hardly infallible.’ The Church of 1616,1633 and 1664 never proposed any model for the universe, only that the sun moves and the earth, which resides at the centre of the world does not, and that these facts are true because the Bible says they are. That is FAITH not SCIENCE. That is not a cosmic model or system as in the Ptolemaic model, the Tychonian model and the Copernican model, no these are principles, not models.

It is perefectly obvious ZD you have only a superficial knowledge of the matter, like 99.99% of Catholics, the story we have been taught now by Church and State since we were kids. However, scholardhip regarding the Galileo case is now almost complete and the truth will out finally. I have no doubt the LAST people who want the truth are Catholics, for that would show how churchmen fell for the illusion conjured up for them by Satan’s agents.
 
Can we PLEASE get back on topic? Arguing over the placement of the earth is irrelevant!!! It doesn’t matter one iota!!! All that matters is gaining heaven. If the earth went around Venus what possible difference could it make to our salvation? Absolutely none. So, let’s move on, shall we? :rolleyes:
 
Can we PLEASE get back on topic? Arguing over the placement of the earth is irrelevant!!! It doesn’t matter one iota!!! All that matters is gaining heaven. If the earth went around Venus what possible difference could it make to our salvation? Absolutely none. So, let’s move on, shall we? :rolleyes:
Della, we are not off topic, quite the opposite. The whole relationship between religion and Science - if we presume religion refers to Catholicism - is based on that infamous battle between geocentrism (Religion) and heliocentrism (science). Science won hands down and religion, Catholicism and faith lost. Thus the Church’s interpretation of Scripture is now in question. If it could not get it right in 1616 then everything else could be in error too. The controversy of the placement of the earth led directly to Modernism. Modernism in turn can be judged by its fruits, the way the Lord told us we can judge. At Vatican II the Church of 1616 was ridiculed for ‘causing trouble’ showing how the Copernicans had taken over the Church. Today, 250 years after capitulating to the Copernican heresy, the Church’s reputation is in shreds, its influence on world affairs is zero, its teachings and doctrines perverted and ignored, its miracles and sainthood tarnished, what is left of its priesthood and religious decimated and damaged by scandals, its sacraments devalued, its liturgy in chaos, many of its churches now museums or denuded of the sacred are near empty, few seminaries and convents remain due to the dearth of vocations, the Vatican is now in the news more for its search for extraterrestrials than its tradition, World Youth Days of rock and roll prayer jamborees are the highlight of the Catholic year, and the Pope has acquired the status of a travelling pop-star celebrity. In effect, with a few exceptions, much of the institutional Church today is little more than an empty shell of its past.
 
No, geocentricism is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! off topic. It doesn’t matter a hill’s worth of beans. And you’re constant attacks on the Church for not being staid in the mud and hiding from the world will not change that fact. Christ did not ask the Father to take us out of the world. If you want to be out of this world you have to be dead and certainly not a saint in heaven because even they are involved in the lives of the people of earth not some perfect world in which everyone conforms to your ideas about what is acceptable and what isn’t. And why am I wasting my time here? I’ve already alerted the moderator to the fact that this thread has gone off topic so that no one is responding because YOU are waiting to pounce on them. So sad when the forum could have benefited from such a good discussion of the OP’s topic. :mad:
 
No, geocentricism is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! off topic. It doesn’t matter a hill’s worth of beans. And you’re constant attacks on the Church for not being staid in the mud and hiding from the world will not change that fact. Christ did not ask the Father to take us out of the world. If you want to be out of this world you have to be dead and certainly not a saint in heaven because even they are involved in the lives of the people of earth not some perfect world in which everyone conforms to your ideas about what is acceptable and what isn’t. And why am I wasting my time here? I’ve already alerted the moderator to the fact that this thread has gone off topic so that no one is responding because YOU are waiting to pounce on them. So sad when the forum could have benefited from such a good discussion of the OP’s topic. :mad:
Della, what do you mean 'I’ve already alerted the moderator to the fact that this thread has gone off topic so that no one is responding because YOU are waiting to pounce on them.’ Are you sure you are posting on the right thread. This one is ‘Religion and science’. Moreover the CAF is a debating forum where members debate, rebutt, reply, agree, disagree, argue, respond while readers decide for themselves the worth of each or any individual. The idea that a member is waiting to pounce on you is a bit paranoid to say the least. If you make statements that others disagree with, be prepared for the result. If you want a quiet life, give it a break for a week or so like I and other members do. Finally, it is not for you to judge whether the thread has or has not benefited from the discussion that is the hottest debate one could find on religion and science.

Finally, if you read Humani Generis you will see the spirit of these debates set out. Pope Pius XII inferred that BOTH sides of any argument should be granted EQUAL time.
 
cassini

I’m a little confused about your point of view. Could you restate it briefly and simply so that even I can understand it?😃

Do you believe that science and theology can at any point embrace each other as partners in the search for truth?
 
cassini

I’m a little confused about your point of view. Could you restate it briefly and simply so that even I can understand it?😃

Do you believe that science and theology can at any point embrace each other as partners in the search for truth?
Exactly. That’s what the topic is in this thread. I too have no idea why Cassini thinks attacking the Church for not embracing his ideas has anything to do with the topic at hand. I hope the moderator will delete all irrelevant posts, including these in which we are telling Cassini he is violating forum rules by hijacking the thread.
 
cassini

I’m a little confused about your point of view. Could you restate it briefly and simply so that even I can understand it?😃

Do you believe that science and theology can at any point embrace each other as partners in the search for truth?
Not any more Charlemagne. The reason for this is because the discipline called ‘science’ no longer means what it should in the term ‘faith and science’, religion and science’, or ‘faith and reason.’ Brevity is difficult, but try this. First let us define our terms:

True Faith and Science (Wisdom)
Science (scientia) is knowledge. The highest accumulation of knowledge is wisdom as St Thomas Aquinas described it, and this is attained on four levels of knowing, beginning with the lowest value of knowledge and rising to the highest: level (1): knowledge through the sensual building blocks of the world (observation) something even animals can do; level (2): knowledge ascertained by observation and experiment, critically tested, systematised and brought under general principles (empirical science); level (3): knowledge acquired through philosophy, the search for causes, and level (4): Comprehension from theology, our understanding of God from both reason and revelation, and how He relates to the universe and man.

Theology: The Queen of Sciences (4)
Theology is the science of faith. If science is knowledge of things from their causes, theology is the highest grade of science since it traces its knowledge to the ultimate cause of all things. Theology is the study of God in the first place, and in a secondary manner, the relation of His creatures to Him. Scholastic theology, while not the same as scholastic philosophy, uses philosophy as an instrument to prove its own conclusions. Theology is based on the revealed word, and the Church is its mouthpiece. Philosophy is based on the light of reason. Thus one is built up by way of authority, and the other proceeds by scientific investigation, verification and proofs.

As the world knows, after the Galileo affair, when both Church and State ruled the faith based theology (1) (the theological authority of the unanimous opinion of the Fathers and a papal definition (1616) and confirmation (1633) was contradicted by science (1,2 and 3), the co-operation between faith and science was lost.
Now whereas science had purged theology from interfering in its ‘work’, Catholics, in order to regain that truism ‘there cannot be conflict between Catholicism and science’ began to rewrite theology to comply with 1,2, and 3 wherein the QUEEN is now science and theology follows it like a dog on a lead.

Today then Charlemagne, it is ‘Catholic faith in modern science (1, 2, 3)’ not ‘Catholic faith and science (1,2,3,4) .’ Until WISDOM is restored, the two cannot embrace as partners.
 
Exactly. That’s what the topic is in this thread. I too have no idea why Cassini thinks attacking the Church for not embracing his ideas has anything to do with the topic at hand. I hope the moderator will delete all irrelevant posts, including these in which we are telling Cassini he is violating forum rules by hijacking the thread.
Della. It is not **MY IDEAS ** I defend, but those officially defined and declared by the Church. If the Church does not embrace its own teaching then we believe in vain. If you have anything constructive to contribute I would be delighted to reply. If you can rebut the Church’s 1616 and 1633 stance on RELIGION AND SCIENCE do so and show readers how wrong I am. Telling me to go away or asking the moderator to eliminate me for you is in my opinion, contrary to the purpose of CAF. Again I ask, are you posting on the wrong thread, this one is named Religion and Science and that is exactly what I and others are debating.
 
cassini

Now whereas science had purged theology from interfering in its ‘work’, Catholics, in order to regain that truism ‘there cannot be conflict between Catholicism and science’ began to rewrite theology to comply with 1,2, and 3 wherein the QUEEN is now science and theology follows it like a dog on a lead.

Well, I don’t see the Church following science like a dog on a leash. I don’t think the Church has any desire to reign over science, any more than it wants science to reign over the Church.

I think the Church is content to let science go where it will, and so long as it does not violate the wisdom of the Church, it is ready to learn and consent to scientific truths and rejoice in the discovery of them. As you pointed out, the Church, not science, is the ultimate repository of wisdom, and whatever truth science discovers, those truths cannot directly destroy the wisdom of the Church. Yet they can support those truths by agreeing with them. The Big Bang is a case in point. That theory has dealt a devastating blow to atheistic scientists who have been trying ever since to explain the Big Bang away by various unprovable hypotheses approaching rank science fiction. When scientists do this, they do no service to themselves, and they certainly cannot do any damage to religion. When religion accepts the conclusion of legitimate science that the universe was created at a moment in time, this is a great point of intersection between religion and science, and should not be viewed as religion merely following science like a dog on a leash. If anything, it is the other way around, since it was Genesis theology that pointed to the creation of the universe in the first place with an explosion of light.

Genesis, 1000 B.C. : “Let there be light.”

Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”
 
Happy New Year, Ed.

Can you give me the reference for the above?

God bless,
jd
I think jd, Ed was referring to the dogma The world had a beginning in time. (De. fide) 4th Lateran Council 1215 and endorsed at Vatican councils; " *in the beginning, O Lord, thou foundest the earth *(Gen. I,I) No doubt Ed will confirm.

Happy new year to you all.
 
quote from cassini

“Now whereas science had purged theology from interfering in its ‘work’, Catholics, in order to regain that truism ‘there cannot be conflict between Catholicism and science’ began to rewrite theology to comply with 1,2, and 3 wherein the QUEEN is now science and theology follows it like a dog on a lead.”

Well, I don’t see the Church following science like a dog on a leash. I don’t think the Church has any desire to reign over science, any more than it wants science to reign over the Church.
Oh please Charlemagne, are you not aware of the massive capitulation to heliocentrism from 1741 to 1820 when churchmen denied the theological wisdom of biblical geocentrism and followed the heretical science of Newton? When you find churchmen, denying a papal decree ruling on formal heresy and giving truth to the metaphysical assumptions of science, you witness churchmen prefering science to theology when interpretating the Scriptures. That to me shows churchmen willing to follow science rather than theology like a dog follows its master.

’I don’t think the Church has any desire to reign over science, any more than it wants science to reign over the Church.’

I completely agree with you. But it doesn’t end there. Here is the official Church position on the matter:

The Church’s official scope is not to be found in the development of mere human knowledge but in the preservation of divine knowledge.
We know that Jesus Himself, by regularly quoting the Old Testament, even on matters of a physical nature such as the universal flood of Noah, showed this teaching to be the truth of it. Following this we can now note what the Lateran Council V of 1512-17 had to say:

‘And since truth never contradicts truth, we declare every assertion contrary to the truth of illuminated faith to be altogether false; and, that it may not be permitted to dogmatise otherwise, we strictly forbid it, and we decree that all who adhere to errors of this kind are to be shunned and to be punished as detestable and abominable infidels who disseminate most damnable heresies and who weaken the Catholic faith.’ —(Denzinger - 738)

Given the Church’s duty is to preserve truth, and truth is reality, physical, philosophical and spiritual reality that permeates all time, past, present and future, even to its co-relationship with eternity, then all things that threaten truth must be condemned and corrected by the Church. This obligation was dogmatised at Vatican Council I of 1869-70:

‘Further, the Church which, together with the apostolic duty of teaching, has received the command to guard the deposit of faith, has also, from divine providence, the right and duty of proscribing “knowledge falsely so called” (I Tim. 6:20), “lest anyone be cheated by philosophy and vain deceit” (cf. Col. 2:8). Wherefore, all faithful Christians are not only forbidden to defend opinions of this sort, which are known to be contrary to the teaching of the faith, especially if they have been condemned by the Church, as the legitimate conclusions of science, but they shall be altogether bound to hold them rather as errors, which present a false appearance of truth.’ — (Denzinger - 1795-98.)

’I don’t think the Church has any desire to reign over science, any more than it wants science to reign over the Church.’

One more point Charlamagne, unless one distinguishes between THE CHURCH and churchmen, you will never understand the promise of Christ to protect the Church from error. For 20 years I sought the truth, to find if the Church was wrong or right in 1616 and 1633 and if right or wrong was responsible for that infamous U-turn towards heresy. My own Catholic faith was strengthened when I discovered the Church was never wrong in its faith nor science, and moreso when I could not find one official papal move against the decree of 1616. The whole U-turn was done UNOFFICIALLY, leaving the CHURCH’S ruling absolutely untouched in the hands of God’s protection, but totally rejected by the vast majority of churchmen and the flock for centuries.
 
cassini

In any case, I see you have no objection to the main points made in my previous post regarding the Big Bang theory and “Let there be light.”

So I’m puzzled about all the other areas that you find the Churchmen following science like a dog on a leash. Other than heliocentrism, would you include Church recognition of the theory of evolution as heretical?
 
I have always believed that truth cannot contradict truth. If science and religion do not agree, it is either a case of bad science or bad religion. Sometimes, the facts and data do not disagree but interpretations are most frequently in error.
The problem I see is that if the universe is governed by supernatural influences, then science is nonsense because the laws of nature are subject to modification, abridgment and exceptions. If the claims of religion are true, what predictive power does science have in the face of prayer, for example, which is intended to propitiate such influences? Science and religion cannot be compatable. I think it is either one or the other.
 
The Church holds that whatever is true is true no matter who states it. And it has never taught a literal six day creation as the only true interpretation of Genesis, for instance. Most people who attack the Catholic Church by using what they think is science are really setting up strawmen and then knocking them down again and declaring victory. Most scientists know very little about sound theology, but that the Church is willing to understand the theories and discoveries made by scientists tells me who is the more informed side and who is approaching the whole question more intelligently.

Scientists just like anyone else can have some pretty silly ideas about religion, especially the Catholic faith, and they demonstrate it when they air their ignorance in books and other media with attacks any well-informed Catholic child could counter. Most such attacks are based in personal bias or because of a moral failing–just like most people who reject the Church’s teachings without really knowing what they are or because they just don’t want to follow the Church–as if anyone had a gun to their backs making them, for crying out loud. Anyway, science can tell us a good deal about the world and ourselves, but what it cannot tell us it should let alone, such as how do we go to heaven. It’s simply not the kind of question science can answer nor should it even attempt since it is impossible for us to know such things through experimentation and testing.
I disagree. I think science and what I would call a scientific protocol can tell us a great deal about who and what we are and even how we should behave. What I call the scientific protocol is simply the practice of using consistency in logic, exercising parsimony and employing rational judgment. I would, therefore, have to doubt if mysticism, fanciful thinking or invocation of supernatural forces have anything to teach us about these things.

Enhacing our own destinies and the well being of sentient beings, in general, would certainly seem to be a goal worth striving for and one which rationally serves humanity, particularly now as the 7 billion of the earth’s inhabitants struggle for the available resources.
 
Jack

*The problem I see is that if the universe is governed by supernatural influences, then science is nonsense because the laws of nature are subject to modification, abridgment and exceptions. If the claims of religion are true, what predictive power does science have in the face of prayer, for example, which is intended to propitiate such influences? Science and religion cannot be compatable. I think it is either one or the other. *

I don’t follow this logic. Why does one preclude the other? Black and white thinking here?

If prayer can change our lives, or the circumstances around us, I don’t see that as a violation of the natural law, since God created the natural law and therefore even the natural law flows from his supernatural source of love and creativity. Only atheism leads to the deduction you have made. Get rid of God by making it a God-or-Nature choice, when in fact Nature is as much a miracle as any miracle we can pray for.

I disagree. I think science and what I would call a scientific protocol can tell us a great deal about who and what we are and even how we should behave.

You have confused science with wisdom. Science can tell us nothing about wisdom, though wisdom can tell us much about science … for example, whether we should create nuclear weapons sufficient to annihilate the human race. Or whether we should kill children still in the womb. Science has nothing to do with wisdom, except to be its servant or its slave. 😉
 
cassini

In any case, I see you have no objection to the main points made in my previous post regarding the Big Bang theory and “Let there be light.”

So I’m puzzled about all the other areas that you find the Churchmen following science like a dog on a leash. Other than heliocentrism, would you include Church recognition of the theory of evolution as heretical?
There are objections Charlemagne to the use of cosmology (Big Bang) to support theology (the creative act of God.) This one it comes from the essay by Professor Pera:

‘The God of cosmologists and the God of believers are compatible because they are two different entities. But if they are two different entities they cannot support each other. Thus when Pope Pius XII after examining the results of modern cosmology, concluded “Therefore creation in time, thus a Creator; so God” his “therefore” is not scientifically proved, his “thus” is logically invalid, and his “so” is risky and in any case insufficient for the believer.’

My own objection Charlemagne is because the Big Bang has consequences that do not comply with traditional theology. Heliocentrism is the mother of all E theories. You see science extrapolated from the H position once established. If H is true, they believed, then the Nebular theory must be true, that is the formation of the earth and planets from the sun, which gave rise to earth, life and mankind through natural processes. Extrapolating further, where did the sun’s matter come from, we get back to the Big Bang. Thus all the theology built up on the creative act of God is redundant, a new systhesis was necessary thus Modernism. The very idea that the theology of the Church - thanks to scientific theories , for past events are all theoretical - can and must be changed from that considered true for 1800 years so long as it SEEMS to avoid contradicting a dogma set out in words alone, is so unCatholic to me that I want no part of it.

For example, 'All that exists outside of God was, in its whole substance, created out of nothing, in the beginning, by God, the Blessed Trinity.’ is a dogmatic statement that sums up the dogmas: The Three Divine Persons are one single, common Principle of the Creation. (De fide. D 704, 428) - God alone created the world. (De Fide. D 428) - To create signifies to produce from nothing. (D 1805) - The world had a beginning in time. (D 428, 1783). St. Thomas theology arising from it says:** Creation does not mean the building up of a composite thing from pre-existing principles but it means that the composite is created so that it is brought into being at the same time with all its principles**. (ST, I, Q 45, a 4, ad 2). In other words, the theology held that the Big Bang could not have created the sun as it is, and the sun could not have created the earth as it is etc. Big Bang theology gives to nature the credit for creating the sun and the sun for creating the earth etc. Ask any atheist and he will tell you.

As for your puzzlment about churchmen following science like a dog does its master - well that is the history of the matter. After following H -which was condemned - it was uniformitarianism (long ages), which they all followed too, and as a consequent of it out went a literal world-wide Flood with the Ark and its theology. Then came the banned subject of E which Pope Pius XII allowed debate on resulting in Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) are famous for their following of. As for cosmology, well the fact that Rome is now involved in looking for extraterrestrials shows me a churchmen behaving like a dog on a lead following its master. What in God’s name could the search for aliens do to further Catholicism?

As for 'would you include Church recognition of the theory of evolution as heretical?’ Well first of all I must tell you the Church does not recognise the theory of evolution. Pius XII only allowed debate on the matter if that debate allows both sides equal time. The Church has yet to rule on it, dogmatise on it, or forbid it. So it is NOT a heretical subject.

But as has been demonstrated on this forum in recent days, dogmas made by the Church ARE BEING DENIED by at least one evolutionist poster. Pius XII warned that the debate cannot deny dogmas associated with the subject.
 
Jack

The problem I see is that if the universe is governed by supernatural influences, then science is nonsense because the laws of nature are subject to modification, abridgment and exceptions. If the claims of religion are true, what predictive power does science have in the face of prayer, for example, which is intended to propitiate such influences? Science and religion cannot be compatable. I think it is either one or the other.

I don’t follow this logic. Why does one preclude the other? Black and white thinking here?

If prayer can change our lives, or the circumstances around us, I don’t see that as a violation of the natural law, since God created the natural law and therefore even the natural law flows from his supernatural source of love and creativity. Only atheism leads to the deduction you have made. Get rid of God by making it a God-or-Nature choice, when in fact Nature is as much a miracle as any miracle we can pray for.

I disagree. I think science and what I would call a scientific protocol can tell us a great deal about who and what we are and even how we should behave.

You have confused science with wisdom. Science can tell us nothing about wisdom, though wisdom can tell us much about science … for example, whether we should create nuclear weapons sufficient to annihilate the human race. Or whether we should kill children still in the womb. Science has nothing to do with wisdom, except to be its servant or its slave. 😉
Thanks for the reply. My logic is simple, and, I think you will agree that if we live on the prairie and need water for our crops, and, if performing a rain dance will fulfill our needs, then what need do we have to study meteorology?

The study of the various techniques in “rain dancing” may be, in some abstract way, equate to a form of wisdom; but, it does nothing to enhance our understanding of weather patterns. In fact, it is a distraction from the real purpose of obtaining water for our crops.
 
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