The Church Opposes Science: The Myth of Catholic Irrationality

CERC ^ | February 10, 2015 | CHRISTOPHER KACZOR

[NYer]

In its historical roots and traditions the Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest astronomical institutes in the world. For the first foreshadowing of the Observatory can be traced to the constitution by Pope Gregory XIII of a committee to study the scientific data and implications involved in the reform of the calendar which occurred in 1582. The committee included Father Christoph Clavius, a Jesuit mathematician from the Roman College, who expounded and explained the reform. From that time and with some degree of continuity the Papacy has manifested an interest in and support for astronomical research. In fact, three early observatories were founded by the Papacy: the Observatory of the Roman College (1774-1878) (illustrated), the Observatory of the Capitol (1827-1870), and the Specula Vaticana (1789-1821) in the Tower of the Winds within the Vatican. These early traditions of the Observatory reached their climax in the mid-nineteenth century with the researches at the Roman College of the famous Jesuit, Father Angelo Secchi, the first to classify stars according to their spectra. With these rich traditions as a basis and in order to counteract the longstanding accusations of a hostility of the Church towards science, Pope Leo XIII in 1891 formally re-founded the Specola Vaticana (Vatican Observatory) and located it on a hillside behind the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

Several religious orders contributed personnel and directors to the Observatory. These included Barnabites, Oratorians, Augustinians, and Jesuits.

Learn More - VATICAN OBSERVATORY

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[rdcbn]

The Physical Sciences were invented by the Catholic priests who were devoted to the study of nature and the universe as a way of seeking the nature of the Lord.

It was though the study of the divine order was the best way to infer the the divine nature.

The entire Scientific Method was developed by various orders of the Catholic Church as a tool to eliminate human prejudice and error from their quest for the truth in their search for the nature of the Lord.

Many of the most influential early scientists were religious zealots, chief among them Sir Issac Newton.

[sparklite2]

[Slyfox]

Reason and faith were understood as two sides to one coin, as Aquinas pondered it.

Reason is the intellectual understanding of the mind best observed in traditional philosophy, and Faith is the soul's understanding of God who is a mystery.

Reason and faith have their particular strengths and when correctly studied do not oppose each other.

To separate them makes a person's thinking schizophrenic.

Martin Luther believed that you didn't need reason. David Hume believed you didn't need faith.

They were both wrong. We need both Reason and Faith in order to think cohesively.

[FredZarguna]

Erwin Schrödinger was NOT Catholic.

His father was Roman Catholic. His mother was Lutheran. He described himself as an ATHEIST, and wrote one of the most influential atheist popular science texts of the 20^th century, What is Life?

[FredZarguna]

The Physical Sciences were invented by the Catholic priests

That will come as a surprise to the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians and Greeks. One of the greatest physicists of all time, Archimedes, died two and half centuries before anything remotely resembling a Catholic priest.

The entire Scientific Method was developed by various orders of the Catholic Church

Ironic in a post about the Church "not being hostile to science" that you'd say this. There was no really sensible version of the scientific method until Galileo Galilei. He was not a priest. Had he not been a personal friend of the Pope's, he probably would have been burned alive.

More primitive versions predate Christianity, and in other cultures less complete versions than Galileo grew up completely without any Christian influence.

Many of the most influential early scientists were religious zealots, chief among them Sir Issac Newton.

Newton believed in the Arian heresy. He called Trinitarianism: "the greatest of all apostasy."

[Organic Panic]

We all know Mulsims have the monopoly on all things scientific. Liberals and Mulsim apologists say so.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Oh, the Roman church would never oppose science...

The Trial of Galileo

"On the first day of October in 1632, the dreaded Inquisitor of Florence, Italy knocked on the door of the famous astronomer, Galileo Galilei and served him with a summons to appear before the Inquisition in Rome within 30 days. The noted scientist was being forced to answer charges that he had promoted heresy in his latest book. Galileo was 68 years old, and these charges were extremely serious. Anyone found guilty of heresy could be sentenced to death."

What was Galileo's crime, according to the Catholic Church? Galileo had taken a stand against traditional views about the nature of the universe. He presented startling new evidence that our planet is not at the center of the universe. Galileo's own work, plus that of other scholars, had clearly convinced him that Earth and other planets moved around the Sun. These ideas seemed strange at the time. When people looked out from Earth, it certainly seemed that Earth was stationary and at the center of things, as if all bodies in the sky moved around us. The slow and difficult progress of Galileo's ideas shows how science works, sometimes in the face of opposition. Also, this new thinking was part of a famous revolution that affected the way all humans thought about their place in the universe.

After he received the summons to appear before the Inquisition, Galileo surrendered himself in Rome. The trial began in 1633. The surviving transcript shows the dilemma Galileo faced. At the beginning, Galileo was sure he could clear himself. One of the first questions from the Inquisitors was about what had happened during the cardinal's visit in 1616. Galileo described the visit and presented as evidence a 1615 letter from the Cardinal commending him for "speaking [only] hypothetically and not with certainty" about these issues. A second letter from the Cardinal, written in 1616, gave the order that "the Copernican opinion may neither be held nor defended, as it is opposed to Holy Scripture." Based on these letters, Galileo argued that his book debating the sides of the argument was within the spirit of the instructions he had been given.

Galileo faced an impossible moral dilemma. Should he risk death to defend his scientific observations in front of the secret Inquisition court, or should he recite a confession that would satisfy the judges and live to fight another day? He gave his answer. Even under the threat of death, he told them, he would never say that he was not a good Catholic or that he had tried to deceive anyone. However, under duress he would be willing to and say that he did not believe the new Copernican idea. In the end, he trusted that copies of his book would get out and that the scientific evidence would speak for itself. He begged the judges to "take into account my pitiable state of bodily illness, to which, at the age of 70 years, I have been reduced by ten months of constant mental anxiety." The trial came to a climax on June 22, 1633, when Galileo was summoned to kneel before the judges to hear his sentence and to recite a confession of error. The judges read a lengthy condemnation that included the Church's strong opposition to the Copernican revolution. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for life.

The Inquisitors ordered his book banned. He had to repeat his confession in public, saying that he would "abandon the false opinion that the Sun is the center... and that the Earth is not the center and moves," and vowing to "abjure, curse, and detest the aforementioned errors and heresies...."

http://m.teachastronomy.com/astropedia/article/The-Trial-of-Galileo

[Born to Conserve]

Reformation —> Age of Enlightenment, Scientific and Industrial Revolutions.

Cause, effect.

[Tax-chick]

Don’t forget the Crusades! Christians did awful things to Moslems during the Crusades.

[Sacajaweau]

Letters to Father by Dava Sobel

Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo 1623-1633.

Her letters survived. His letters did not survive but she reveals their contents,, in part, in her letters.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Don’t forget the Crusades! Christians did awful things to Moslems during the Crusades.”

They beat back a militaristic Islam.

Giving the death penalty to scientists who publish is another thing...

[maryz]

The Physical Sciences were invented by the Catholic priests
That will come as a surprise to the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians and Greeks. One of the greatest physicists of all time, Archimedes, died two and half centuries before anything remotely resembling a Catholic priest.

It's true in the same sense that it's true that Columbus discovered America (others came earlier, but their discovery didn't "take"!) or that western drama arose from the miracle and mystery plays of the Middle Ages (classical drama had been lost and not rediscovered until the Renaissance The entire Scientific Method was developed by various orders of the Catholic Church. Likewise, the ancient scientists' work had been lost.

The entire Scientific Method was developed by various orders of the Catholic Church
Ironic in a post about the Church "not being hostile to science" that you'd say this. There was no really sensible version of the scientific method until Galileo Galilei. He was not a priest. Had he not been a personal friend of the Pope's, he probably would have been burned alive.

Galileo ran into trouble because he claimed heliocentricity as a fact when the tools necessary for proving it were as yet unavailable. (Sort of the same thing the AGW proponents are doing.) Copernicus a century before had no problems because he put it forth as a theory. Galileo claimed other things as fact, like his belief that the sun was the primary cause of tides on earth.

He also wrote a play portraying the Pope who had supported him in his work as a gibbering fool, biting the hand, so to speak.

[FredZarguna]

You claims are factually untrue.

The work of Archimedes was not lost. It continued to exist in the Eastern Empire and throughout the muslim world; it was simply less well known in the West because of a general deterioration of knowledge there. Just because a few well educated people -- many of them religious -- still knew the knowledge of antiquity that doesn't mean they invented it, any more than the muslims [who've also tried to claim credit for it.]

Heliocentricity was perfectly provable with the observations available to anyone. The Ptolemaic system was untenable; only ignormausses who wanted to believe humans were the center of the universe were determined to hang onto it.

The claim that Galileo got himself into trouble because he mocked the pope is both false and silly. Galileo got himself into trouble because when he was put to the question, he refused to back down. He took the correct position against an ignorant and evil group of men.

Even if his mockery of the pope had been the cause of his troubles, so what? The pope is a man and NOTHING MORE. He isn't entitled to any special respect by anyone, least of all someone who had the truth on his side while the pope and his flunkies were trying to suppress it.

[hlmencken3]

Most of the knowledge for which Islam is given credit for preserving was actually kept alive by the Jews in their midst.

[FredZarguna]

as Galileo rose from kneeling before his inquisitors, he murmured, "e pur, si muove" -- "even so, it does move."

A giant for all times. His "Inquisitors" were pygmies and savages compared to him.

[FredZarguna]

However it was preserved, the point is: Catholic priests no more invented the scientific method than they discovered the theory of relativity.

Isaac Newton was not a Christian in any sense recognized by mainstream Christianity, and Erwin Schroedinger was an atheist. So many objective errors in an article purporting to show the "enlightenment" of Rome.

[hlmencken3]

A lot of that kind of Catholic triumphalism stuff is no longer insisted up by the Church itself. But that doesn’t stop the restorationist pseudointellectuals from chest-thumping.

[virgil]

Copernicus still had problems. Some of his biggest critics of his ideas were protestants. True though, he was brilliant and had close ties to the Church.