Muamba

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Democratic governments tend to ban far less books than religious authorities. We could do a count, it'd be something like:

 

Democratic governments - 18024

Religious authorities - 1223498721642890761908736189073461203894712384712638476123984712398472134 and counting

 

I don't see how the relative strength of Stalin's armies in the 30s is relevant. It would have been impossible for the UK to launch a successful offensive against Russia in the 30s. Who were we going to team up with on that one? Germany? A certain Adolf had other ideas. Yugoslavia was suffering internal chaos. Italy? Mussolini was a knobhead and they didn't have the resources required to win wars. Spain, internal chaos. Maybe Greece. Oh no wait, they're surrounded by fascist bastards. The whole idea of it is absurd. If Stalin had been defeated in the 30s, Hitler would have crushed those territories and killed up to 50 million Russians. (the Nazis calculated that many would die due to starvation after the occupation of the East).

 

Niall Ferguson reckons the Allies missed a good chance to thwart Hitler in 1938 when he occupied Czechoslovakia. He says he was relatively weak then and would have been fucked if the Allies/Russia had called his bluff.

Edited March 24, 2012 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt

[Renton 21643]

If not, are you merely making a speculative argument that religion (despite popular and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, however you try and appease it) is the driver behind scientific enlightenment?

 

Can you qualify what you mean by scientific enlightenment?

 

My argument is not that Christendom has always been in the right and a steady force for progress through out its history, one would have to be insane to defend such a position. But I am arguing that it also was not always against science (or reason or whatever), and indeed, most of the roots of the empirical sciences can be attributed to the works of Christians and Muslims - either in their preservation of key scientific texts from antiquity or their own research which, commonly, was directly fueled by their faith.

 

It is not as simple as saying "science is progressive and religion is regressive" because history shows this is simply not the case, sometimes indeed, it is the exact opposite, as I noted (again, in a previous post) regarding the astrology of John Philoponus - and this is a widely accepted position within secular, historical scholarship.

 

Do you mean astronomy rather than astrology? That's twice you've made that mistake now.

 

I'll be honest and tell you I haven't got a clue who this John Phioponus guy is. Not going to bother googling him either. For the most part, Galileo Galllie should be regarded as the true father of modern empirical science. I think most scientists would concur with this. And his treatment by the church is well documented, however you choose to dress it up.

 

You might be interested in 'science' before the enlightenment and you can make as many specious arguments that religion was a positive force in driving it, but the dark ages aren't really a time period that interests me, as a scientist. Since Gallileo however religion has only ever hampered scientific progress and that is still blatently apparent today.

 

I'd recommend the History of Western Science by John Gribbins as a factual reference book btw.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

As a scientist, I consider Richard Hammond to be my main influence.

Edited March 24, 2012 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt

[The Fish 10876]

It is not as simple as saying "science is progressive and religion is regressive" because history shows this is simply not the case, sometimes indeed, it is the exact opposite, as I noted (again, in a previous post) regarding the astrology of John Philoponus - and this is a widely accepted position within secular, historical scholarship.

 

I would say science is progressive and that religion is at best conservative. There was a time where the greatest minds gravitated towards the church/temple/stone henge. This could for a stack of reasons; power, resources, legitimacy being just a few. The issue for me, is the speed at which discovery and social changes are occurring now. The established faiths simply can't keep up, by the time they've re-interpreted their 2000yr old texts to find reason for evidence of evolution, they now have to find reason for examples of homosexuality in nature. Some don't bother and insist it's against their holy order or a liberal fabrication, regardless of evidence, some (Creationism) just reinvent the tenets of their faith (Magic Man done it.).

 

Religion isn't solely a source of repression and regressive attitudes and certainly it can point to it's history as evidence of it's support of discovery and science, I don't believe that it's simply a case of the scientists searching for answers because of their faith, for me it's more likely that their enquiring minds gravitated to whatever would allow them the greatest chance of pushing the boundaries of their knowledge.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

You would say that though.

[Kid Dynamite 7034]

He's doing well now. There seems to be more ongoing tributes to him at games around the world than if he had pegged it!

[Meenzer 15561]

Here we go... http://www.totalpolitics.com/blog/314662/mps-plea-to-overturn-and39god-can-healand39-ad-ban.thtml

[Tom 14013]

And worse still...

 

[spongebob toonpants 3997]

This sloopy character sounds like he would be right barrel of laughs on a night out