No, they are sufficient as lion food.
How did you get this quote above from this:
If you’re interpreting from something else, could you provide it? If not, I don’t see your quote matching his.
I think the Christian martyr complex is an evolutionary adaptation to heavy lion predation in the first century.
Christianity is, like all religions, irrational. Irrational people tend not to make good scientists. And ITR is a fucking moron for pretending otherwise.
Yes, but the real question regarding lions is whether irrationality affects nutritional value or taste.
This could be tested. Place a atheist next to a christian, and let a lion choose which to eat. Don’t tell the lion which is the christian, do not even let the lion know their names as that might be a clue. 
That isn’t true. There were plenty of scientific and technological advancements during that time…blast furnaces, artesian wells, the heavy plow, alcohol distillation, water mills, mirrors, clocks, soap, windmills, mechanical presses, mechanical hammers, eyeglasses, navigational compasses, etc.
It wasn’t Catholicism and the Holy Roman Empire that slowed down scientific development…you’ve heard of the Carolingian Renaissance, I’m sure, which led to a bunch of improvements in literacy, art, architecture, musical theory. What slowed down development was the breakdown of societal, political, and economic structures that led to a drastic decrease in economic conditions all over western Europe.
And while I wouldn’t say that Christianity is a necessity for science, he’s not wrong when he says:
Copernicus had a doctorate in canon law, Vesalius studied with the Brethren of the Poor Life and died on his way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Newton, when he wasn’t writing about physics or alchemy, was trying to find hidden prophecies in the bible, and so on.
Like Pochacco said, the Scholastic movement helped lead to the idea of modern empiricism.
It’s in the very first line of his that you quoted; that “Christianity is a necessity for science”. The second part of that particular quote, taken alone, could easily be taken to mean “Science came out of Christianity” but does not in and of itself say “Science could only have come out of Christianity”; it’s a statement that it did, but not a statement that it could only have done so. The first line, however,* is *that statement; that for science, Christianity did not simply happen to be the originator when many things could have sparked it off, but that Christianity, specifically, is a necessity for science to exist. IOW, that Christianity created it (second sentence) and could only have created it (first).
OTOH, if you’re asking me whether that’s a direct quote, no, it isn’t.
ITR is just as worthless a poster as lekatt and kanicbird. It’s just that he isn’t always quite so transparent.
I disagree that your interpretation is the only possible one for that post.
No, I wasn’t asking that. But I think you read that one sentence pretty uncharitably in the context of the post. Mind you, I haven’t read the thread from which you pulled the post and don’t intend to. But in just that one post, the rest of the post makes some good points and has some meaning as you and others have pointed out. To create an entire thread about one sentence that might have been clumsily crafted seems a little harsh.
The second part of that paragraph describes that one sentence with a little more definition. If not for the Christians that created some of the early scientific methods, science as we know it today wouldn’t exist. Of course, you could probably insert other scientists of other religions as well because without those scientists (of whatever religion) that did not create the foundations for science, it would not exist in the form it exists today. That’s not to say that science would not exist at all, and it’s just your interpretation to say that’s what the post meant.
Given the nature of the OP of the thread where it came from (yes, I did read that) which was very one-sided saying that many Christians were against science, it did seem fair to balance it with the other side to say that Christians were some of the people who were some of the first scientists.
I respectfully disagree with your view of history. The Byzantine Empire experienced a golden age in the 9th through 11th centuries, and wasn’t exactly a slouch before or immediately after those times. Christians in the Muslim Empires, from Spain to Persia and beyond, contributed greatly to the academic greatness of that region.
Western Europe, on the other hand, did have some severe problems in scientific advancement; after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the gradual loss of Greek learning, constant war, and de-urbanization made scientific advancement quite difficult. I would not assign blame for this turbulent period to any religious tradition. One of the first attempts at renewal occurred after 800, when Charlemagne (The founder of the Holy Roman Empire you seem to dislike) began to encourage education reform in what became known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Many great scientists and naturalists lived during the early Middle Ages, and invented many things. Nevertheless, it was a hard and painful slog back up to strong scientific progress, a slog that was not particularly inhibited by religion and in fact, owed much patronage to religious men and institutions.
After, say, the year 1100 (Sometime around there; too lazy to check), European science began to explode, even in the HRE, putting lie to your theory.
It’s not like it was all roses back then, but to take your absolutist view is not helpful to understanding anything. There is a whole “History of Science” Field that is doing work to understand well what happened in these eras. Here is an example of such research.
Even though it feels like cheating I’ll also quote this wikipedia article because I feel like it makes a point:
“The stereotype of the entire Middle Ages as a “Dark Age” supposedly caused by the Christian Church for allegedly “placing the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity” is called a caricature by the contemporary historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers[46], who say “the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the coercive power of the church and would have regarded himself as free (particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation wherever they led. There was no warfare between science and the church”.[47] Historian Edward Grant writes: “If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason [the 18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities”.[48]”
*
I am not really in the medieval studies department, but I think this paragraph is a much better restatement of history than that which you posted.
I think the anti-science positions taken by some religious leaders today and specifically by government officials are reprehensible, but I think you are extrapolating too much from them. Especially on global warming; I seriously doubt that anyone in the Bush administration or affiliated opposed the science because of religious beliefs; I think that whole industry/money thing played the main role. As for stem cells, that is actually an interesting question to me; how far behind are we as a result of the actions of the last White House? I don’t know the answer to that.
My personal opinion is that views of history that disparage the Middle Ages come from the influence of Victorian era Protestant Anglo-centric historians, who saw nothing good before the rise of England and nothing culturally valuable between the noble pagans of Greek and Rome and the Protestant Reformation. While their attempts to minimize the contributions of non-European and non-Christian cultures are being well fought, I think, the myths they created about the Middle Ages still have a long way to go.
*On Preview: Congratulations, Captain Amazing is another in the long line of people who say just what I wanted to say only with some actual brevity. *
My Orthodox brother would agree, but SCREW the Byzantines! 
ñañi, you post rarely, but you know your [del]shit[/del] stuff. Would it be too much to ask that you post more often? (hopeful 
)
I’m confident enough in human ingenuity that it would have overcome whatever arbitrary religion happened to arise. I think it’s absurd that one could think that Christianity has some special quality that allowed humanity to advance scientifically and technologically. Given the random resources on earth, it was our destiny to arrive at the point we are. Where we go from now is up to our abilities as a species to save the planet and advance.
As a person who certainly has trouble with clumsily crafted sentences, I can understand that. But I would say that the post is quite simple, and quite clear.
Whereas you’ve classified my interpretation as too harsh, i’d say yours was too charitable. **ITR **doesn’t simply claim some scientific methods, some scientific advances in the name of Christianity; he claims them, as a collective, in their entirety. More indeed that that, he claims that it is in Christianity (and Christian institutions, and Christians) that not just the methods but the very origins of science lie. That there was no such thing as “science” before Christian civilization. It certainly adds more dimension, but in support of the original point, not in supplying exceptions.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say “first”, but yes, most certainly, it would have been very fair to point out the contributions of Christianity to science. Such a post would have been quite reasonable. **ITR Champions’s **post is not it.
Now, that all said, if **ITR **comes in and says he did misstate his points, and that his argument was meant to be different from the way I have interpreted it, then certainly i’ll listen. If anything, i’ll be happy; like I said, i’m more astonished than angry at his claims; i’d much prefer to believe he didn’t say what it appears he has said. But, until that time, all I can go on is his quite clear statements.
spares a thought for the poor, forgotten Chinese in this debate
Oh, and the post that triggered this thread was so stoopid it did not rate a Pit thread, much less anybody (including me) responding to it. Shit like that should be ignored.
Oh thank you dropzone! You made my day ^^ But I think that my posting rarely and my appearing knowledgeable might be related…
You should thank your Orthodox brother. If he wasn’t there to remind you about the Byzantines, you wouldn’t have experienced the wonderful pleasure that comes from dismissing them.
Anyway, while I agree with you that this whole discussion is kinda dumb, the larger issue of the influence of religion on science and vice versa throughout history is very interesting to this formerly engineering and now religious studies major. Obviously, it is more complex then many people give it credit for, as seen in the example of one of my more favorite Popes, Sylvester II.
On the one hand, he was an amazingly accomplished scholar, who was enormously influential in the transmitting of Arabic knowledge to Europe, and who was religious enough and mainstream enough to ascend to the Papacy. He benefited from a European educational system and led educational and social reforms in his relatively brief life.
On the other hand, his scholarly activities did lead to legends and rumors about witchcraft and the like. So you can see this superstitious suspicion of elite knowledge expressed itself in some religious terms, but to what extent did religion engender this attitude, and to what extent did it prevent researchers and students of the cathedral schools and monasteries from innovation and creativity? These questions, I believe, are relevant to today, especially as scientific knowledge becomes increasingly elite and specialized, and consequently gets attacked, misrepresented and misused more.
Unfortunately, as the argument here shows, looking at European history for the answers is a bit problematic because of how polarizing Europe and especially Christianity are in this environment. So I think that we should listen to Risha and look at China, especially the Qing dynasty that in her later period experienced a lot of stagnation in the sciences, and see what was causing that. For a western-oriented board, the Qing dynasty should be a pretty neutral topic, and there is tons of literature from that era. Maybe that way we can more honestly analyze the problem instead of feeling forced to choose sides.
There were guys in that Administration who thought that prayer was the best way of treating AIDS; they were religious loons with no grasp of reality. And the American religious conservatives have a long history of either denying that environmental problems matter, or actively supporting them in order to hasten the Apocalypse. I see no reason to think it unlikely that they had religious reasons for ignoring/promoting global warming.
I also think it’s a mistake to think that there’s much of a divide between business and religion for these people. The Republicans are heavily infested with the sorts that think that free market capitalism is God’s will, and the size of your bank account reflects God’s approval.
Christianity and atheism are not the only two options.
Yes, that seems to be kind of a recurring theme, I mean not acknowledging counter-arguments as soon as there is no more wiggle room, yet still ostensibly keeping the same stance. I wonder if that’s a honest way of debate to him, or if he is actually merely interested in putting his preconceived notions ‘out there’ – that is, whether his arguments are convincing to himself or merely intended to influence others.
There was no before Jesus, Jesus has always been and always will be. God predates science as God and fellowship with God on a personal level came first in the Garden of Eden - before science was needed. The reason God is needed in science is that God exists and it is foolishness to ignore Him.
Without Christ there is no science, no light, no hope, no universe to study.
You got your crazy in my debate!
No, you got your debate in my crazy!