View Full Version : Are there *really* lightning rods on the Vatican??
I heard this, and I find it hard to believe that the Vatican would ever DREAM of being struck by lighting. It would seem that such a THOUGHT would be a sin. God would NEVER strike the Pope with lighting... or would he/she? So, can anyone say for sure whether this is a rumor, or whether there are REALLY lightning rods on the Vatican?
bruce
Truth is, Kalt, the Catholic Church has understood and accepted the basic principles of science for some time now. Catholics, and indeed 99.99% of Christians (and Jews amd Muslims for that matter) understand that there is lots of stuff that goes on in the natural world. That is not to say that God could not cause a lighting bolt to strike somewhere, or that who could prevent one from striking, but not every action in the natural world is a direct result of God's intervention. So, even if the Vatican DID get struck by lightning, no one (save perhaps ARG220), not even the pope, would think to blame God for it.
BTW, stop trolling. It's going to start to piss everyone off very quickly, and life on this message board will not be very fun for you.
Also, I am a non-Christian, but that does not mean I do not understand a thing or two about how Christianity works.
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Jason R Remy
"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)
Ok, I figured out what trolling is:
"Posting fake or insincere messages"
I don't see where you got this from... I heard that the vatican had lighning rods, and to me, that seems rather ... ironic. Maybe there was some sarcasm in the latter half of my question, but my question is real and sincere. I really want to know if anyone knows for SURE whether there are lightning rods on the vatican.
No offense meant to anyone - I think this is a great discussion board and I'd never want to vandalize it. Oh yeah, my other question is sincere too. I'm genuinely curious about this stuff.
bruce
I would say that the faith of the Pope and other residents of the Vatican City is sufficiently strong that they don't feel the need to deny the existence of physical reality. In other words, it is possible to simultaneously believe that God exists and random events occur. Unfortunately, there are many people with lesser faith (however much they proclaim the contrary). These people apparently feel that if they admit that anything can happen without being directly attributed to God, they have denied God's existence.
No offense meant to anyone - I think this is a great discussion board and I'd never want to vandalize
it. Oh yeah, my other question is sincere too. I'm genuinely curious about this stuff.
The question you asked was perjoritive and shows a general lack of respect for Catholicism specificly and religion in general. You implied (nay, nearly stated) that the Catholic church, due to its strong religious convictions, feels that it is not held to physical laws in the same manner as common citizens. It's not ironic for the Vatican to be struck by lightning; merely natural. And it is not ironic for there to be lightning rods on the Vatican (and we have not determined if there are; but so what) it is practical. People who are religious can be intelligent, educated people just like the non-religious, not the quaint irrational boobs statements like:
I find it hard to believe that the Vatican would ever DREAM of being struck by
lighting. It would seem that such a THOUGHT would be a sin. God would NEVER strike the Pope
with lighting... or would he/she
make them out to be. If this is a matter that genuinely concerns you, do a little research yourself. If you really feel that this is an appropriate, value-neutral question that you have asked, you should grow up a few years before asking another one.
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Jason R Remy
"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)
MAN!! jayron lighten up! i personaly saw no amount of troll in the original post.even if it was intended that way your reaction would simply give a troller exactly what he/she was after (attention). realy man you need to lighten up.
First of all, I think it is a great question. Jayron, it was not meant as a troll.
Second of all, it IS ironic if there are lightning rods on the vatican, or any other church/religious establishment for that matter. And yes, i don't respect religion. If god is worth praying to, then he surely wouldn't strike his number one place of worship with lightning.
And despite what you say, the church, especially the catholic church, does NOT condone science or rationality. Only faith. The idea that the vatican could ever be struck with lighting seems heretical, and i'm sure in ages past they would have burned anyone at the stake who even mentioned the notion of lightning striking the vatican.
Gee, i wonder if you are a catholic - if so, then i think it's YOU who needs to grow up.
In the meantime, you're flaming has done nothing to help me find the answer to the question, which is the ultimate purpose of this message board. I've done some research, and so far i cant find PROOF that there are realy lightning rods up there. But if there are, then i'd say that's a good blow to theopaths everywhere.
bruce
Kalt, you are trolling. At the very least, you are posting in the wrong board. In which case, here's a little tip for future posts.
An appropriate General Questions version of your original question would be more like: "Do the buildings in the Vatican have lightning rods?"
An appropriate Great Debates version of your original question would be: "Are the tenets of Catholicism ultimately at conflict with empicirical science?"
Go to the BBQ Pit if you feel the need to continue spewing forth. You'll be a big hit. Slow-moving targets are very popular over there. As for this thread, I'm ignoring your mindless anti-Catholic ranting. Simply put, your post doesn't belong here.
if i worded it as "do the building in the vatican have lightning rods" i'm sure the same offense would have been taken. sorry - i'll end this thread...
I think Kalt's question was legitimate. It really wasn't much different from the suggested "Does the Vatican have lightning rods." It was just dressed up a bit to make it more interesting.
I also don't think you should use a word like "pejorative" unless you can spell it right. Oh, but I guess now I'm trolling.
And yes, i don't respect religion. If god is worth praying to, then he
surely wouldn't strike his number one place of worship with lightning.
And despite what you say, the church, especially the catholic church, does NOT condone science
or rationality. Only faith. The idea that the vatican could ever be struck with lighting seems heretical,
and i'm sure in ages past they would have burned anyone at the stake who even mentioned the
notion of lightning striking the vatican.
Gee, i wonder if you are a catholic - if so, then i think it's YOU who needs to grow up.
1) I was raised Catholic, but I currently describe myself as either "non-religious" or "not even athiest." Still, I understand a great deal about Catholic theology. I am also well versed in many other world religions, and I have gained my wisdom by conversing and listening to practitioners and clerics of those religions. You, by evidence of your current position, have not.
2) God does not cause everything in the natural world. NO modern monotheistic religion has ever claimed this. Before you go off on this, ask one catholic preist, baptist minister, or Rabbi about this, and you will get the same answer: God CAN use natural phenomena to accomplish His purposes, but not every lightning bolt comes from His hand.
3) Not only does the Catholic church (and many other religions, for that matter) condone science and rationality, they are active participcants in it. Gregor Mendel was a monk, Nicolas Kopernik (Copernicus) was a priest, Sir Isaac Newton was a devout Christian. Lots of our current understanding of the scientific process and of the natural world came from Muslim scientists. Matters of faith and matters of reason are not incompatible. Again, no religion, least of all the Catholic Chuch, claims that God causes everything to happen. They claim that God can cause anything to happen that he wants to, but that is NOT the same thing.
4) Heresy does not center around such banal matters as natural phenomena. It is not, nor has it ever been, heretical to claim that all earthly creations and institutions are bound to obey the laws of nature. Heresies come about because a person has a theological difference with the established church. BTW, the Reformation pretty much eliminated heresy in the Christian world as a recognizable crime, since there is no longer an established religion in most places.
5) Historical religions are in no way indicative of the current state of religion. Merely because practitioners of a religion in the past used their religion to justify atrocities or irrational behavior does not mean that the modern church is atrocious or irrational. Again, before you go off claiming that it is heretical to trust your senses and being a rational thinker while also having a devout faith in God, ask a priest or a minister or something. I hope you will be presently surprised how rational and reasonable they are concerning matters of natural phenomena.
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Jason R Remy
"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)
thank you. my question was in every way meant to be serious. Maybe my use of capital letters on certain words gave it an accidental 'sarcastic flair' - if so re-read my question and ignore the capital letters.
Oh, and Jayron - I do feel this is an appropriate, value-neutral (if there is such a thing) question. I don't feel any growing up would have improved my inquiry. But your goat-fucking quote and unnecessary insults/flaming make me wonder about the level of *your* maturity. I asked a simple yes/no question that i was honestly interested in (and i tried to explain WHY i was interested in it) and you took offense. A "yes" or "no" would have sufficed.
Oh, and Jayron - I do feel this is an appropriate, value-neutral (if there is such a thing) question.
So if I ask:
Are all people named Bruce raging idiots?
I am asking a "value neutral" question? Aren't I inciting a certain kind of response by the very nature of the question? Is this really a question at all, or am I trying to make a statement about people named Bruce? After all, it is just a question that asks for a simple yes or no answer.
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Jason R Remy
"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)
Oh, fercryinoutload! Somebody just tell us if the Vatican has lightning rods and if so, who made the decision to put them there!
Then you guys can use those facts to continue your squabble somewhere else.
Greg, I would say that there was a legitimite question buried under crap, too except the topic title implies that the poster already knew the answer was yes and was merely shocked by it. Thus giving said poster an excuse to rant in an inappropriate forum. Seems like our Kalt could care less about the lightning rods.
But anyway, to salvage some justification for this thread's continued existence....
I can't imagine there wouldn't be lightning rods, and I'd guess that it would be hard to find a source that confirmed or denied it. We might as well ponder if the men's rooms in the Vatican have toilet paper. Maybe Kalt should inform us where he heard his original information.
I *heard* from someone that it did have lightning rods, so i was merely asking you people, who usually are quite intelligent and level-headed. I didn't mean to imply that i already knew the answer - if i did i surely woudn't have wasted the space here to ask a question that i know the answer to.
I don't think toilet paper has anything to do w/ the original 'irony' of the topic. Gutters, weatherstripping, and a paved driveway don't either.
If you can't see the irony in the vatican having (if it really does) lighning rods, then you need to be a little more open minded.
There is no such thing as a value-neutral question.. except maybe a qualitative question (what is one plus one?).
Anyone who has ever worked with polling/questionaire design knows that wording a question is the hardest part of the design. For example take these two questions:
Should women have the freedom of choice when it comes to abortions?
and
Should murdering unborn babies be legal?
Both are yes no questions, but will recieve wildly different percentages of answers, simply because of the wording.
Are you calling me a raging idiot? is that the case?
bruce
If you can't see the irony in the vatican having (if it really does) lighning rods,
then you need to be a little more open minded.
OK, let's see which of the following assertions you have made display your phenominal openmindedness.
God would NEVER strike the Pope with lighting... or would he/she?
If god is worth praying to, then he surely wouldn't strike his number
one place of worship with lightning.
the church, especially the catholic church, does
NOT condone science or rationality.
The idea that the vatican could
ever be struck with lighting seems heretical, and i'm sure in ages past they
would have burned anyone at the stake who even mentioned the notion of
lightning striking the vatican.
But your goat-fucking quote and unnecessary insults/flaming make me wonder
about the level of *your* maturity.
Oh, OK... Thanks for showing me the light. I now understand that the path to openmindedness is by berating others for their religious beliefs and by making trite statements and misinformed assertions about religions that I have made no effort to understand.
Oh, and don't give up on goatfucking that easily. When they go "baa" you can imagine that it is really moaning. And if you take them to the edge of a cliff, they push back harder.
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Jason R Remy
"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)
And despite what you say, the church, especially the catholic church, does NOT
condone science or rationality.
You would be hard-pressed to find a person on the SDMB more openly hostile to theism and religion than me, and yet I would never make such a patently idiotic claim.
The Catholic Church is the one mainstream Christian denomination that especially condones science and rationality. They are, to the best of my knowledge, the only denomination whose spiritual leader has specifically, in a written document, recognized the truth of the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. If that isn't condoning science, I don't know what is.
i'm glad you see it my way now.
Gosh, if the presence of a lightning rod on the Vatican strikes you as ironic, I have a BUNCH of ironic facts for you:
1) The Vatican has a roof! What's the matter? Doesn't the Pope have faith that God will keep him dry when it rains?
2) The Pope has lunch every day. DOesn't he have faith God will keep him alive even if he doesn't eat??
3) The Pope wears a coat when it's cold outside- what's wrong? Doesn't he have faith God will keep him warm?
4) The Pope looks both ways before crossing the street- heresy! He lacks faith that God will protect him from speeding cars!
For crying out loud, even the most devoutly religious people on Earth have a modicum of common sense! Lightning, rain, cold and every other natural force affect the just and the unjust alike. Taking reasonable precautions is not an insult to the Lord.
I have heard nothing about any christian sect recognizing Natural Selection (and therefor throwing out creationism). Please show me a web page where it says that the pope has done this. If you can, then you have humbled me.
Meanwhile the pope still preaches against birth control. Didn't they just FINALLY a few years ago admit that the earth goes around the sun?
bruce
bruce:
http://www.zpub.com/un/pope/nc-true.html
http://www.catholic-church.org/phoenix/archives/Pope_and_Evolution.html
and for the text of the original encyclical from 1950:
http://www.sni.net/advent/docs/pi12hg.htm
You're welcome.
astorian:
i get your points, but i think you are missing mine. Being "Struck by Lightning" is the universal 'thing god will do to you if yer bad' - not make you cold, wet, hungry, etc. Lightning has always been the most common, almost default, way that we talk about god punishing us - this stems from mythic legends as well - Thor and his thunderbold, etc. Lightning is very symbolic of god's wrath.
But all the other things you said just prove that praying and being religious is a waste of everyone's time. Hell, why *should* the pope have to look both ways before crossing the street?
bruce
DrF:
Those are very interesting, but the pope is basically saying "evolution deserves some consideration" ... he is saying that maybe the theocrats can twist evolutionary theory around to make it work with the bible. Maybe our bodies came from pre-existing material, but our souls were created by god blah blah blah etc etc etc... Meanwhile they have not "Accepted" natural selection, but the pope has taken a good, but long overdue, step by admitting that it's "more than just a hypothesis"
Meanwhile, I live in texas and there are a whole lotta southern baptists here (yeah, i know sb <> catholic, but they're all christians and they're all very religious) who still scoff at the idea that evolution is taught in schools.
bruce
"Oh, and don't give up on goatfucking that easily. When they go "baa" you can imagine that it is really moaning. And if you take them to the edge of a cliff, they push back harder."
---jayron 32
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Nice.
Peace,
mangeorge
Oh bruce, you really can't judge all theists by the inbred snake-grabbers in your neck of the boondocks.
DrF: my personal philosophy is this:
The MOST religious and MOST outspoken theists represent the beliefs, inclinations, desires, and trends of their respective religion, or religious sect.
In other words, The pope represents catholics, the crazy southern baptists here who spend their days stoning gays and lynching 'the coloreds' represent all southern baptists.
Before you say this is "narrow minded" look at it this way: they all use the same bible, koran, torah, etc - some are just more vocal about their beliefs - and THESE are the people who, in my eyes, represent the beliefs of their respective religion. So, while there might be some christians out there who feel not all gays are going to hell (no i'm not gay), it is the christians who DO believe this (and go around killing gay people) who represent christian beliefs to me.
I hate to pick on just christians - i feel the same way about all religion.
Or, to put it another way, the group highest up on the "everyone *else* is going to hell" echelon represents their religion best.
kalt, you're ignorance of Catholicism has been completely demonstrated in the urls that were cited. The Pope has held international scientific symposiums on the topic of evolution -- not to question whether it happened, but how it happened.
(Arguing about whether the Vatican buys into the mechanics of Darwinian selection as proof that the Vatican doesn't really accept evolution is disingenuous on your part, or perhaps shows up your scientific ignorance -- scientists still argue over the mechanics of selection, the gradualness or discontinuity of change, the 'first man/woman' scenario, branches of the tree, etc....)
The Roman Catholic Church has as part of its heritage that Faith and Reason can not contradict each other (the hallmark of St. Thomas Aquinas' medieval restoration of Aristotelian philosophy into the West). The RCC founded the first universities in Europe.
The story of creation in Genesis (recognized by the RCC to be of the genre of myth) is one of the first portrayals of a natural world in human history (as opposed to a magical, animistic world). The RCC carried that idea of a natural world in the late Middle Ages to bring about the establishment of modern science (as jayron pointed out).
Except for modern pop culture (in which you are so obviously steeped, since you demonstrate no knowledge beyond modern pop), I know of no historical or religious reference to God striking people dead with lightning (Zeus is another story), not even in the bible (and yes, I did a word search).
Every single RCC church building in the U.S. that I've seen (and I've seen a lot) all have lightning rods. To wonder if the Vatican or St. Peter's Cathedral does not have a rod out of religious belief is ridiculous. And I agree with the others who claim your question begs this assumption: Catholics are anti-intelluctual, anti-scientific nut cases who are so blinded by irrational beliefs that they don't have enough sense to put lighting rods on their buildings.
And your self-defense continues to show your overwhelming ignorance of RCC and Christian beliefs.
Before you continue to embarrass yourself, how about learning a bit about the RCC, and not just take for granted that the 'common knowledge' you hold is correct. It ain't.
bruce:
Amazing. I feel that the most intolerant and hate-mongering are the ones who do the greatest disservice to their faith and their god. In regards to a person who professes a Christian faith, the major instruction given by Yeshua himself was to "love your neighbors." Not to hate and attack any of your neighbors with whom you disagree, so the folks you feel exemplify any given faith are the worst variety of hypocrite. I think that says something about your mindset, and makes you dangerously similar to those you loathe.
Could I hazard a wild-assed guess? You are about twenty years old, at most. Am I right?
Oh, for Ghod's sake.
Yes, there are 2 lightning rods on the Vatican proper, and a total of 12 in the whole area.
The Vatican DOES have a website, you know!
Thank you slythe. Now our friend Kalt can go back to formulating questions designed to reinforce his ill-informed opinions of what religion is. Or back to fucking goats.
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Jason R Remy
"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)
Kalt:. Didn't they just FINALLY a few years ago admit that the earth goes around the sun?Along with refusing to accept that the RC church has no problem with the technical aspects of Natural Selection, you have, unfortunately, chosen to quote ancient anti-Catholic propaganda regarding Galileo, as well. The RC church has never issued a statement that the sun circled the earth. The RC church never condemned Galileo for claiming that the earth moved around the sun.
When Galileo first put forth his astonomical observations, he was supported by the pope and many of the leaders of the curia. When he went beyond the astronomical observations and began to attempt to draw theological conclusions, he was hauled up before the Inquisition and questioned. That first inquisition resulted in Galileo being turned loose with no action taken against him. A few years later, under a different pope, Galileo pushed that pope to issue a proclamation that Galileo's theological speculations were valid. When the pope chose not to humor him in that way, Galileo wrote a satire blasting the pope and several other members of the hierarchy for not going along with him. At that point, he was hauled up before the Inquisition again. When the original file was re-opened, a letter was found abjuring him not to raise the issue again. There was no reference to that letter in the first trial and it is quite probable that the letter was a forgery placed in the file by one of the many enemies Galileo had made. His conviction in his second trial was based on his "disobedience" to this (probably forged) letter. In the written judgement, some idiot added a statement that Galileo had published heresy--but that (like the forged letter) was a lie since the RC church had never held that the heliocentric theory was false--only that the theological issues that Galileo raised based on a heliocentric theory were not valid.
The RC church has always recognized the accuracy of the heliocentric theory since the time of Galileo. It may have screwed up in letting personality feuds and politics interfere with its version of justice, but it has never opposed the heliocentric theory.
If you choose to dismiss the Catholic Church, or religion in general, for any number of reasons, you will find many people on this board who share your views. However, the Straight Dope is dedicated to factual correctness and it is simply not correct to claim that the Catholic Church has opposed the heliocentric theory or (more recently) Darwin's theories of Natural Selection.
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Tom~
Out of curiousity, what were the theological conclusions that Galileo drew for the the heliocentric theory that upset the church?
tom - i've never heard this and i'm extremely interested in this story ... i intend to do some reasearch on it.
Slythe - thank you. I didnt see this info on their website. That's where you found it?
Jayron - you seem to be the goatfucking expert here, not I.
Morian - yes, i'll admit that my question begs the assumtion that you stated. No way around that i suppose. Didn't mean to offend any catholics.
DrF - why is it that when people dont like someone else's arguement, they always insult their age? It's my FIRM belief not to believe in that which is simply the most convenient thing to believe in. So, while you might not like my philosophy in determining WHO represents said religion, i look at it this way:
If x theologian says y theologian is going to hell because they don't believe in z, and y theologian says "it is not practical to believe in z so therefore I don't" then i can only assume that x theologian is more schooled in his own religion than y theologian is. After all, why would x believe in something if it was not in the bible? X has more faith than Y, X understand his/her religious text (bible, torah, koran, etc) moreso than Y does, therefore X represents their own religion best.
The most violent, hateful, outspoken southern baptists are the most "religous, devout" southern baptists. You can call this narrowmindedness on my part as much as you want, but as far as I'm concerned, it is the way religion/belief systems work. Without this mentality, religions would fall apart. Jerry Falwell is more "christian" than ANY of you guys. Unless one of you is Pat Robertson :) even then - it's pretty close.
And while "love thy neighbor" is a commonly quoted religious principle, you are forgetting the 'understood' second half of that -
"love thy neighbor - unless he is of a different faith"
Anyway, I dont wanna keep arguing with you guys on here. That's really not what I had originally intended. If anyone feels like continuing this conversation, my email is kalt@austin.rr.com.... feel free.
bruce
I used to have a link to a site that provided the very specific point that Galileo was snagged on, but that link was blown and I can't find it now. The following site gives a pretty good overview of the actual events. It agrees with the the site I've lost, but in slightly less detail. According to this site, the primary complaint was that Galileo insisted that the Copernican heliocentic theory be accepted as a replacement for any Scriptural references to the relative positions of the sun and earth. (This sounds as though the Church was, indeed, backing the terracentric theory against science, but that is not what was going on. Galileo insisted that all the planets circled the sun in perfect circles when a group of Jesuits--using information that Galileo had provided--had already realized that the planetary orbits were not perfect circles. Galileo was also told that he could not expect the Church to put forth the heliocentric theory as True in the way that Scripture was True unless he could absolutely prove the theory. It was pointed out that the only way to do this was to provide evidence of a stellar parallax (where a star could be seen to have a different position in the sky because it would be viewed from different positions in the orbit of the earth). The first such parallax was not discovered until 1839, but Galileo insisted that his theory be put on a level with the authority of Scripture without his having to provide this proof, despite several people having found errors in his pronouncements.)
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/GalileoAffair.html
If you bother going to this site, please note that the forces of ignorance were rebuffed by the Church in their attempts to get Galileo condemned on four separate occasions before his first trial and on a couple of more occasions before his second trial.
From the site:In April 1615, he {Robert Cardinal Bellarmine} wrote a letter which amounted to an unofficial statement of the Church's position. He pointed out that:
1. it was perfectly acceptable to maintain Copernicanism as a working hypothesis; and
2. if there were "real proof" that the earth circles around the sun, "then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary......"
Bellarmine, in effect, challenged Galileo to prove his theory or stop pestering the Church. Galileo's response was to produce his theory of the tides, which purported to show that the tides are caused by the rotation of the earth. Even some of Galileo's supporters could see that this was patent nonsense. Determined to have a showdown, however, Galileo came to Rome to confront Pope Paul V. The Pope, exasperated by all this fuss about the planets, referred the matter to the Holy Office. The Qualifiers (i.e., theological experts) of the Holy Office soon issued an opinion that the Copernican doctrine is "foolish and absurd, philosophically and formally heretical inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the doctrine of Holy Scripture in many passages......
This verdict was fortunately overruled under pressure of more cautious Cardinals and was not published until 1633, when Galileo forced a second showdown. A milder decree, which did not include the word "heresy", was issued and Galileo was summoned before the Holy Office. For that day, February 26, 1616, a report was put into the files of the Holy Office which states that Galileo was told to relinquish Copernicanism and commanded "to abstain altogether from teaching or defending this opinion and doctrine, and even from discussing it."
There is a still unresolved controversy over whether this document is genuine, or was forged and slipped into the files by some unscrupulous curial official. At Galileo's request, Bellarmine gave him a certificate which simply forbade him to "hold or defend" the theory. When, sixteen years later, Galileo wrote his famous Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems, he technically did not violate Bellarmine's injunction. But he did violate the command recorded in the controversial minute, of which he was completely unaware and which was used against him at the second trial in 1633.
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Tom~
Sorry, I was responding to UndeadDude and thought I'd get it in right behind his, this late in the evening.
Kalt, you may call Falwell the "most Christian," but that doesn't follow any definition I would use. If you called him the "most rabidly self-professed Christian" we could come closer to agreement. Is Pat Buchanan "more Republican" than anyone else? I usually consider someone the "most" something when they are nearest the middle, not nearest the fringe.
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Tom~
Gentle Readers - please refrain from personal attacks and needlessly profane language in GQ. Take it to the pit if you must.
------
Nickrz
GQ Mod for The Straight Dope
Wow, so Kalt claims to revere reason and science, yet doesn't know what "more than just a hypothesis" means in scientific parlance, and doesn't know what happened between Galileo and the Church.
Interesting.
Regarding Galileo and the Catholic Church - There's a good web site about this matter at:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/galileo.html
It discusses what happened between BB and the RCC. This is a christian site, and my disclaimer: I'm an atheist, and don't condone christianity in any way whatsoever, but the above site seems fairly well researched, if a bit sympathetic to the Catholic Church, and is also fairly candid about the mistakes made by the Catholic Church, including clinging to outdated ideas in the face of new evidence. It urges that these mistakes not be repeated.
I've seen other, also well researhed accounts of this matter which were not published by christian sources and were somewhat less sympathetic to the Catholic Church on the whole issue.
As for lightning strikes, I figure the best way to avoid them is to stay on Thor's good side. :-) (Or is Thor just for thunder? I'm not sure now... seems like the two would go hand in hand though).
--
peas on earth
Err, make that GG (Galilio), not BB (King?? :-)
--
peas on earth
I wish I could be more specific as to the source, but in one of Pratchett's Discworld novels he described a character as the type of person who would stand on a hilltop during a thunderstorm wearing copper armor and shout "All gods are bastards!" Interesting image...
--Let me see if I've got this straight. Galileo got into trouble with the RCC not for his scientific work, but for expressing personal theological opinions in public? Sure makes me feel better!
--Alan Q
If I understand correctly, he got in trouble, not for simply expressing his beliefs, but for repeatedly trying to get the Pope to issue a proclamation (or whatever it is that Popes issue) stating that Galileo had the truth of it, and everyone else had been wrong all this time.
Galileo was essentially trying to use the Pope to force his own newfound theology on every Catholic in the world.
tomndebb:
What you quoted seems in line with what I have been taught. It seems tho that the only "theological conclusion" Galileo made was that heliocentricity was fact and not just theory. I guess I was expecting something more. That doesn't seem like much of a theological speculation. The quotes you gave suggest that Galileo was a political jerk about the whole issue. I hadn't heard Galileo described in this way before, but it is certainly believable. It is generally recognized that Newton was a colossal a-hole, but that hasn't diminished the reverance for him in physics.
The RC church has always recognized the accuracy of the heliocentric theory since the time of Galileo. -- tomndebb
While you probably mean this in the sense that the church recognized the heliocentric theory as being mathematically accurate in making predictions of planetary motions, it sounded to me like you were saying that the church regarded the heliocentric theory as true. It seems that they regarded it as a valid theory, but didn't really want to deal with the issue of the physical truth of it yet.
It seems that the micro-summary I heard many years ago by James Burke from the show The Day the Universe Changed is essentially correct. James Burke described the church as saying "Look, we know that what you are saying is right, but you need to give us time to feed it out to the masses slowly." And Galileo got in trouble for not going along with this.
Going off on a tangent here, but I have a question. Why would anyone expect that a religious authority should make a statement concerning science? I mean, whatever the Pope has to say about theology is by definition true and accurate (at least to members of the Catholic Church) but why should he make any kind of statement about the natural world? Science is constantly refining its models of objective reality, so any theory the Pope might give sanction to might very well be overturned in the next issue of _Nature_.
I wouldn't expect Hawkins to have an authoritative answer on morality, why expect the Pontiff to have an authoritative answer for physics or biology?
DrFidelus:
BTW, that's Hawking ;)
It certainly seems that perporting scientific truth based on religious faith is dangerous. In this day and age, when the frontiers of science are rather esoteric and mostly focused on areas far removed from the everyday human experience, it seems that the theologian would have plenty of room to manuver without getting in the face of science.
Sorry UDD, my cyber secretary is on vacation so I have to make all my typos myself.
Personally, I think it is quite enough for a religious leader to officially state that his flock can investigate natural causes for natural phenomena. I don't expect anything further, as "Science" and "Faith" are non-overlapping magisteriums. Its those superstitious folk who don't realize this who scare me...
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Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
"You cannot reason a man out of a position that he did not reach through reason."
But the ultimate point is, one I have been trying to make since the second post of this thread, that science and religion operate in seperate spheres of influence. It has never been the object of science to disprove theological matters, and no religion denies scientific principles based on empirical evidence. As was so throughly displayed in the Galileo issue, the only time the church gets involved is when a person ATTEMPTS to use science to disprove religion, but since this is both unfaithful to science and religion, it is far from the norm.
So you see, even IF there are scientists who are faithful to their religion, or even if the Vatican uses lightning rods (which apparently it does) there is no apparent heresy or irony since a) Lightning bolts are not a sign of God's fury and b) there is no contradiction involved in being a devoutly religious scientist (of which I have known dozens)
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Jason R Remy
"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)
UDD,
I'm going to retract my statement about Galileo's theological point. I'm probably suffering from olds-heimers or something. I not only cannot find the site where I thought it had been explained, I can't find any reference to anything more specific than the site that I did provide. While my memory continues to insist that there was another point, I don't want anyone actually thinking that there was more to the issue, simply because I once claimed there was.
I think your summary is basically correct. As to the Truth of the heliocentric theory, it should be noted that Galileo was basically in a position of a person who advocated a theory of continental drift in 1950. The concept was out there, but there was no understanding of a mechanism to make it work (plate tectonics being almost 20 years in the future) and no genuine need to accept it. A person, in 1950, who called opponents to the idea of continental drift fools might have been justified in his theories by later developments, but he would have been totally unjustified in scorning his opponents, since he had no real proof for his theories. Galileo, lacking a stellar parallax and depending on his silly "revolving earth causes tides" argument may have been ultimately proven right, but there was no reason why his contemporaries had to accept his pronouncements.
Jayron32,
While I appreciate what you are trying to say, I think thatno religion denies scientific principles based on empirical evidence may be a bit of an overstatement (otherwise why do we have to keep going to court to keep Creationism out of our schools?).
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Tom~
kalt posted:
The most violent, hateful, outspoken southern baptists are the most "religous, devout" southern baptists. You can call this narrowmindedness on my part as much as you want, but as far as I'm concerned, it is the way religion/belief systems work. Without this mentality, religions would fall apart. Jerry Falwell is more "christian" than ANY of you guys. Unless one of you is Pat Robertson even then - it's pretty close.
And while "love thy neighbor" is a commonly quoted religious principle, you are forgetting the 'understood' second half of that - "love thy neighbor - unless he [sic] is of a different faith"
<sigh>
It seems you're not going to leave this thread until you're able to get in an insult about people of faith.
Sure, there are Christians who are hypocrites and jerks. But there are agnostics and atheists who are also hyporcrites and jerks. What's your point?
So, you've taken some public jerks, notice that they are Christians/Baptists, and make the claim that religion must include hatred of other denominations or religions in order to work.
Well, you probably know the fallacy you're making -- overgeneralization. You know what that is, it's the heart of stereotypes and prejudice. Take the characteristic of a few members of a group, and assume it's a characteristic of all the members. And to make your point, you try to find the most extreme and offensive samples in order to stir up people's ire and wrath and to blind them to the bigotry you're trying to sell.
So, let me educate you. I know some loving Baptists who don't condemn non-Baptists to hell.
The RCC, which is the largest Christian denomination, has as part of its documents from Vatican Council II a declaration on how it views other denominations and religions. And guess what, no blanket condemnation. Other Christians are called "brothers [sic] in Christ." The Jews are still God's chosen people and their covenant is still valid. The Muslims are fellow monotheists who worship the same God. Pagans of good will are seeking God in nature and human experience and depend on the mercy of God for salvation (which all people do, even Christians).
And so, here is an example of a religion which is not anti-intellectual, not anti-science, and not full of hatred or condemnation for non-Catholics. The RCC is hardly falling apart as you have presumed it should.
The rest of "Love your neighbors" is not "unless he [sic] is of a different faith", it is "and love your enemies and pray for your persecutors and do good for those who can not pay you back." And there are Christians of all denomination who live by this.
Peace.
[And before anyone suggests that Christian love means silent suffering, Jesus OK'd speaking up -- loudly and forcefully if necessary -- he did it himself. Just as long it's done non-violently and with love.]
Dang! That was fun. As an apolitical,apathetic, agnostic,ex-Catholic,ex-biology major I could just stand outside and watch.
Just one thing bothered me,Kalt seems to have dropped out, but in case he reads this;
you judge all of a group by its most fanatical,outspoken, even fringe members. Well i am a Texan too and I sure don't think you represent me or my way of thinking. I don't just mean WHAT I think but the WAY I think.
Let's do this again some time,but over in some other forum.
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Signitorily yours, Mr John
" Pardon me while I have a strange interlude."-Marx
ARROW? Officer, I didn't even see any Indians
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