That’s COMMUNALISM, not Communism!
That priest had no idea what he was talking about.
If we survive long enough to develop inter-galactic space craft, the last thing we need to be taking with us is religious thinking.
This notion has to be again commented upon with just a few of many examples.
Where would Christianity be without ancient geek science and philosophy?
That is, at least, the best typo of the day.
Once again, those are examples of inventiveness, not true science. Science is not merely the ability to build something, not even something remarkably clever. Rather, it is a systematic approach to investigating physical phenomena and developing models for representing, explaining, and understanding them. That is precisely why the scientific method is so significant – something that even elementary school children are supposed to understand.
You’d better read the links again. Practical application of science that contributes to knowledge is a little more than inventiveness. All the scientific theory in the world means nothing without some real world application.
The last link doesn’t refer to an invention but rather the forst person to correctly map our solar system. Something that wasn’t accepted for another 1800 years
The second one is credited for inventing geography. That’s georaphy, not the cotten jin.
The first one is indeed an amazing machine. Not for removing peach pits but to calculate astronomical positions. that’s an application of science long before Chriatianity. I’d say such a machine fits the definition of science you just gave.
Men sought answers to physical and non physical questions long before Christianity.
A citation composed of opinion and faith based conjecture.
If you’d like a refutation how about you pull the strongest incontrovertible fact from the cite and pin your argument to it.
So, the applied physicists who helped build the LHC are not real scientists? I suspect some of my professors who were in applied physics would strongly disagree with you.
And if I had made such a claim, your objection would have some merit. I did not, though. At no point did I claim that the act of building something disqualifies somebody from being a scientist.
The physicists in question ARE scientists – but not because they built the LHC. Rather, they are physicists because of the experimental and theoretical work that they performed. They built the LHC in order to test some of their theories, but the act of building this device is not what makes them scientists.
Your objection demonstrates that, despite the penchant that Dopers have for congratulating themselves on their intelligence, they are often sloppy when it comes to recognizing basic nuances. This is especially true in matters of religion, where certain people do whatever they can to deny the positive contributions of religion to society while exaggerating the negative.
I fully agree that scientific theory has little practical value without real world application. The point – one that certain dopers are determined to ignore – is that the application of these scientific principles does NOT make someone a scientist.
The devices that you mentioned are very clever indeed, which means that their creators were more than just a little inventive. I wholeheartedly agree on that point. That still doesn’t make them scientists, though.
I once knew (through a “spiritual forum”) a conservative so bound and determined to disagree with me, that she disapproved of my suggestion of giving to and helping others. She said that I was interfering with their karma! When I suggested that by doing good things for them, I might be fulfilling their karma, she was adamant about it.
I don’t think of her as a typical conservative, but there is almost always an exception out there.
Well fine. To get back to the point, then, no one before Galieo or Copernicus or perhaps Bacon was a scientist, all of whom lived a long time after Christianity began. Thus the assertion that Christianity somehow led to science is not supported.
Now, I’d say that the person who built the Antikythera mechanism had a deep understanding of astronomy - at least as deep as the people who designed the mechanisms of the LHC. I think the people who accurately computed the diameter of the earth in Greek Egypt did also. Yes, they used math, but in support of a scientific observation and experiment. Galileo was clever about building telescopes - does that disqualify him?
There’s only one device in those links.
I submit you are nitpicking to a ludicrious degree. History clearly shows men of science long before Chriastianty. What role faith had on later well known scientists who were Christians in another discussion.
Point taken, as you are right about that. The fact remains, however, that none of those examples demonstrate true science – certainly not in the modern sense of the term.
No. What history shows is that certain individuals had great potential for science long before Christianity arrived on the scene. None of that amounts to true science, though.
You mentioned Eratosthenes, who was most well known for measuring the circumference of the earth. As impressive as that feat was, the ability to make precise measurements is NOT the same as science. Admittedly, he did practice astronomy, which is typically considered a science after a fashion; however, his methods did not (and could not) make use of the experimental method, which forms the heart of modern science. (I fully understand that there are several disciplines which do not use experimental techniques, and which are nevertheless loosely lumped under the broad umbrella of “science.” That is precisely why I have taken great pains to emphasize that Christianity helped birth modern science and why I have emphasized the importance of the experimental method. Certain fields are lumped under the broad of science, but they lack the rigor of science in its strictest form.)
Moreover, Jaki did not say that there were no hints of science whatsoever outside of the Christian world. Quite the contrary; he acknowledged the great scientific potential of various cultures. He emphasizes, however, that science in those cultures was stillborn; that is, it never reached the maturity that it did in Western Europe.
Galileo and Copernicus were brilliant intellectuals, but their work necessarily lacked the rigor of the experimental method. They were instrumental in the ultimate development of hard science, but their work, by its very nature, lacked the rigor of experimental techniques which were fostered by the Christian environment of Western Europe. (This is through no fault of their own, especially much of what they investigated would not lend itself to experimentation, even with modern technology.)
Once again, there were some utterly brilliant people back then, and they performed some wonderful feats. What they did not have, however, are the strict experimental techniques that form the core of modern science. One can develop marvelous machines even without strict experimental techniques, and one can even create impressive measurements or models of celestial travel – but without the modern concept of prediction- and control-based experimentation, you don’t have the core of modern science.
I’ll have you remember that Darwin never did experiment one. Science is careful and structured observation also, and the building of theories based on these observations. If you are now going to tell me that Darwin, while smart, was not really a scientist either, I will have to suggest that you are going to absurd lengths to support what seems to be an unsupportable hypothesis.
Lets take another look at Communalism. that is when people share the same residence,eat together, etc. like the Essenes are supposed to have lived, or Monks or Nuns. The first Christians had their own residence and live in families, unless of course you think the Essesenes were Christians.
Debatable, on the basis of Acts 2:42-47, which essentially describes the Jerusalem church as being a voluntary commune. (No kibbutzing about the interpretation! :D)
One needs to consider the reason for Ananias’s lie. it was because he didn’t want to share!
Now you are sounding like those young earthers who say cosmology isn’t a science because you can do reproducible experiments. I know you don’t believe this.
The importance of Eratosthenes was not the measurements, which anyone could have taken, but that the measurements were placed in the context of a hypothesis of a spherical earth. If the earth had been flat, the results would have been different and the hypothesis falsified. Sounds like an experiment to me. Clearly they were finding their way, and there was no formal definition of the scientific method, but he was a proto-scientist at the very least.