We’ve Been Lied To: Christianity and the Rise of Science

BreakPoint ^ | 4 Dec 03 | Chuck Colson

[Mr. Silverback]

Perhaps Seven Spanish Angels pushed the planets around.)

Was this before they went to The Altar of the Sun?

[Mr. Silverback]

See post 100.

[js1138]

Benefit is anything that confers a reproductive advantage. Take a look at this and tell me whether this individual, or its "normal" littermates is more likely to reproduce.

[Mr. Silverback]

What does a cat intentionally bred by humans to be hairless have to do with evolution?

[Lady Eileen]

bump...thanks for the post.

[Pahuanui]

What a ridiculous, unproveable statement.

No more "unproveable" than the statement: American High School graduates know what the First Amendment is." What's your point?

Since it's unproveable, it's foolish for the author to attempt to, at least in part, predicate an argument on it.

[Mr. Silverback]

You are applying a uselessly high standard to the argument. If I said...

"The reason McCain Feingold is a stupid bill is that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. Every high school graduate knows that, so why can't Congress figure it out?"

...would you then say my argument was invalid because I can't prove every single high school grad knows what the 1st Amendment guarantees?

There's a certain point where such nitpicking no longer serves the cause of reason, and I believe you passed that point a few miles back.

[js1138]

It wasn't deliberately bred. It's a mutation.

[Mr. Silverback]

OK...by definition the selection to reproduce is artificial if a human does it. If the cat is more likely to freeze to death or have other problems due to a lack of fur, than in a natural environment it would make it less likely to reproduce.

[Mr. Silverback]

Oops, pressed send before I was finished: If a human comes along and says, "Cool, hairless cat! I'm gonna breed me some of these" then it has no real relevance to what would happen in nature.

[Doctor Stochastic]

All eclipses of the Moon are circular, no matter what the angles betwixt the Sun, Earth, and Moon are. Only a sphere casts a circular shadow when illuminated from any angle.

[PatrickHenry]

I'd need a model of the earth-moon-sun system to play with in order to be certain of this, but I think all lunar eclipses are pretty much straight lineups. Total eclipses, anyway. More telling, perhaps, is that when there's no eclipse, but just the moon's own shadow making it go through its phases, the shadow of the moon is always circular. So the moon is observably a sphere.

[PatrickHenry]

Scratch my last post. I don't like it.

[Doctor Stochastic]

In response to your scratching post: you're right about the alignment of the Sun-Earth-Moon being in a straight line. The point is that while the Earth may be in different orientations during different eclipses, its shadow is indifferent to orientation.

[tinacart]

Ping... Weigh in?

[Virginia-American]

The partial phase of a lunar eclipse is always delimited by a circular arc on the Moon; this is true whether the shadow is on the N, E, S, or W portion of the Moon, and is true no matter where the Moon is in the sky - rising, south, or setting.

Therefore, if we assume that the shadow on the Moon is actually the Earth's shadow, the Earth must be round in all directions, ie a sphere.

This logic is traditionally ascribed to Pythagoras ca 580 BC. Reference

[Virginia-American]

Said Martin Luther: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."

...snip...

While Lutheranism was thus condemning the theory of the earth's movement, other branches of the Protestant Church did not remain behind. Calvin took the lead, in his _Commentary on Genesis_, by condemning all who asserted that the earth is not at the centre of the universe. He clinched the matter by the usual reference to the first verse of the ninety-third Psalm, and asked, "Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?"

Turretin, Calvin's famous successor, even after Kepler and Newton had virtually completed the theory of Copernicus and Galileo, put forth his compendium of theology, in which he proved, from a multitude of scriptural texts, that the heavens, sun, and moon move about the earth, which stands still in the centre. In England we see similar theological efforts, even after they had become evidently futile. Hutchinson's _Moses's Principia_, Dr. Samuel Pike's _Sacred Philosophy_, the writings of Horne, Bishop Horsley, and President Forbes contain most earnest attacks upon the ideas of Newton, such attacks being based upon Scripture. Dr. John Owen, so famous in the annals of Puritanism, declared the Copernican system a "delusive and arbitrary hypothesis, contrary to Scripture"; and even John Wesley declared the new ideas to "tend toward infidelity."

...snip...

Why the people at large took this view is easily understood when we note the attitude of the guardians of learning, both Catholic and Protestant, in that age. It throws great light upon sundry claims by modern theologians to take charge of public instruction and of the evolution of science. So important was it thought to have "sound learning" guarded and "safe science" taught, that in many of the universities, as late as the end of the seventeenth century, professors were forced to take an oath not to hold the "Pythagorean"--that is, the Copernican--idea as to the movement of the heavenly bodies.

Source

[Doctor Stochastic]

Nevertheless, the shadow is yet round. (Who observes the shadow knows.)

[BibChr]

Thanks! Not a lot to say except... right! Science rests on Biblical premises, and must use them even to deny them. Like the girl who has to climb on her father's lap to slap him in the face.

Dan
Biblical Christianity web site