No, they both had great accomplishments; political accomplishments. Why? Because greatness is possible in politics, but not possible in religion; no more than you can be a “great Tic-Tac-Toe player”. It is too crude and sterile a medium for greatness.
I admit that this particular site seems a but over the top, but it provides a who’s who of scientists who were perseuted or denounced in one form or another. It also promoted a chilling environment in which sceintists were afraid to pursue certain areas of study, of publish results that might offend the church.
Aside from what the church may or may not have done to individuals, it attacked science itself, or rather the conclusions drawn that were a threat to its belief structure. And it continued to do this in the face of ever-increasing evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps I should rephrase my earlier post to say that it was the church’s attitude toward science which turned so many intellectuals away from it.
Then what did the commentaries and actions of Calvin tell us to do that we all simply need to follow and get to work on? And if you are going to lump several major religious thinkers/prophets together from several different and completely contradictory religions together, it’s going to be difficult to get to work on all of their edicts, philosophies, commandments, and rules at the same time.
An example coming from the early days of the church, one should not ever forget what happened to Hypatia:
So, as a cafeteria Catholic/agnostic, I have to say that I’m glad that we are not using the early Church constructions.
As for when did the church jumped the shark?
I think it was when “the age of the Inquisition and other torture-based persecutions had finally passed.”
Still, as Bertram Russell could tell you if he was alive, organized religion in modern times can still prevent people with heretical thoughts from working in academia.
Uh-huh. When and where, if ever, did such a system of governance? What would it take to set up such a system in say, the United States, and what would have to be sacrificed along the way?
Besides being against evolution, we have guys like Inhofe telling us that his deity will protect us from global warming, so we do not need to do anything about it.
I do think that religion is a huge reason why we have what amounts to a witch hunt against climate scientists.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/29/cuccinelli-michael-mann-university-virigina/
I dunno about “jumping the shark” but evolution was religion’s death-blow. Ever since then religion has been a zombie, eating the brains of the unwary, dead but still dangerous. And what great thinker concerns themselves with zombies?
Agreed. The Church had so much invested in Aristotle and others that they were unwilling to adapt. Further, they insisted on treating the Bible’s creation story literally, rather than as parable. Aside from Galileo, there was Darwin. Outside Christianity you have to look no further than Islam which flourished until the religious authorities put a stop to science in the 11th or 12th century.
I’m going to go ahead and give an unrealistically precise moment for the shift from religion to science: Saturday, November 1, 1755, at about 10 o’clock in the morning.
This was the moment of the great Lisbon earthquake, which was incredibly destructive, killing probably fifty thousand people. The mid-eighteenth century was the time when many great minds were in limbo, as it were, between the power of religion and the power of science. The balance point was the question of theodicy, that is, the question of why God allows evil to exist. Many brilliant minds tried to come to terms with the apparent contradiction between God’s infinite goodness and the existence of evil, of which the best-known response was that somehow, the world we live in is the best of all possible worlds. The Lisbon earthquake pretty much destroyed that possibility.
While the pendulum would have swung toward science eventually, because the earthquake occurred on All Saints’ Day at a time when a large part of the population of the city was at mass, over the next ten years, the theodicy question more or less disappeared from the minds of the “great” thinkers, as they came to conclude that God was simply not as great as He should be.
It turns out, then, that the reason for the shift is, I believe, a moral one. If people question whether God is good, and find Him wanting, there ensues, naturally, an attempt to replace the rules that religion claims are justified in His name with something else. This something else, which in the event turned out to be moral utilitarianism, is disconnected from the divine and necessarily much more prosaic and mundane, and most importantly, not a way to any sense of enlightenment or significant spirituality.
Putting the moment of the shift much before this doesn’t work too well, methinks. While there were many scientific advances in the seventeenth century, and while these advances did significantly affect the thought of the eighteenth, those who made the advances were generally quite religious. Newton’s theory, for example, does not allow for matter to interact at a distance, and it does so, as in gravitation, by a direct act of God. Putting it later doesn’t work either, because in the nineteenth century, the idea that nature has solid, immutable, self-enforcing laws was well established.
I’d argue that they’re still doing it - great minds like Sagan, Dawkins, Dennett. Religionists just don’t like the enlightenment they come up with.
“Great thinker” implies an acute intelligence that can solve complex problems as well as understand and interpret complex systems. There really is nothing difficult to grasp about “compassion” or “equality” - it’s just a perspective we’ve come to consider as noble. What made Gandhi and MLK noteworthy was that they were incessantly stubborn in pursuit of such ideals. They were also great at public speaking & publicity stunts. That doesn’t qualify them as “great thinkers” - just good showmen. I don’t know as much about Gandhi but I doubt MLK had an IQ much higher than average.
So your argument is that it happened at exactly the right moment to make us philosophically opt for a moral shift to more prosaic conclusions? Almost as if – :eek:
Having a basic grasp of the definition of compassion and equality is a far cry from striving for a deeper understanding, working to communicate that to the masses, organizing an effective movement, and intelligently challenging the opposing authorities over a period of years.
MLK studied and included the principles Gandhi taught. You’d be hard pressed to read Gandhi’s writings and dismiss him as a showman rather than great thinker.
You’re creating a disctinction which I don’t think is relevant to the OP, although the OP is a a little unclear.
If the question is , are there great thinkers among the religious and spiritual then the answer is yes. Aren’t thier scientists and scholars who are believers or spiritually inclined? If the question is are thier great thinkers who focus primarily on religion and spirituality I think the answer is also yes but that’s a much smaller pool.
Religion and spirituality have always been involved in the greater philosophical issues that I mentioned before, sometimes on opposing sides as different groups were more dogmatic or less dogmatic
The Greek philosophers provided an earlier example of the phenomenon – they didn’t take their jerkass-gods pantheon seriously as a source of either moral insight or ontological explanation.
We need a Ghandi in the White House. MLK in The House and Buddha in The Senate.
Instead, we have about 300 Jerry Falwells. Not a 300 which will sacrifice themselves for their country, but a 300 that will sacrifice their country for themselves.
Am I the only one who thinks that a Ghandi in the White House would be bad?
We at least need people who are as concerned about the welfare of the country as a whole as much as thier own agenda or the agenda of thier party and financial benifactors.
That would mean a deeper understanding and desire for certain socialogical and philosophical principles.
The parties wouldn’t be as fun