[The D.S.]

Buffy, would you elaborate further about the Republican Party for me? What is your meaning?

[Buffy]

Well, I'll try to be non-partisan: the Democrats have their sacred cows too.

But in the last couple of weeks, the extreme conservatives in the Repubilcan party (I prefer to call the "reactionaries" actually) have been flailing John McCain for being a "Liberal" and not worthy of the Republican nomination. Ann Coulter even said she'd vote for Hillary if McCain was nominated!

Originally Posted by Ann Coulter on Hannity & Colmes, 2/4/08

ANN COULTER: Hillary is absolutely more conservative. Moreover she lies less than John McCain, she's smarter than John McCain. When she's caught shamelessly lying at least the Clintons know they've been caught lying. McCain is so stupid he doesn't even know he's been caught.

ALAN COLMES: Go! Could you fill in for me next week? Let me get this straight, would you vote for Hillary Clinton?

COULTER: Yes!

COLMES: You would actually go into a voting booth ...

COULTER: If it's close and the candidate is John McCain, because John McCain is not only bad for Republicanism -- which he definitely is -- he's bad for the country.

COLMES: Can I tell you the last thing Hillary Clinton wants is Ann Coulter's endorsement.

And its all because he "betrayed" "conservative principles" by actually working with Democrats in the Senate on compromise legislation and supporting "extreme liberal positions" like outlawing torture.

I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo,
Buffy

[chilehed]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

The Old and New Testaments are full of "miracles" which have no explanation in a rational universe...

First, that’s just a philosophical presupposition on your part, and you have absolutely no way of demonstrating it by means of science. Second, it has absolutely nothing to do with what I said: the important part isn’t whether or not it’s true that a rational god created a rational universe, the important part is that they believed that it’s true.

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

Modern Science had its birth (arguably) with Copernicus, Galileo or Newton.

Perhaps, perhaps not. That has nothing do do with what I said – but notice that all three of them were products of Christendom.

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

None of them invoked their religion as a defense of their scientific ideas.

That also has nothing to do with what I said. I’m not talking about whether or not their religious beliefs formed the content of their discoveries. I’m talking about how the culture of Christendom was uniquely suited to foster scientific investigation, precisely because of the way it viewed the universe as being created by a rational god.

Copernicus studied the Greek language, mathematics, and the writings of Plato in Bologna, and in 1500 gave astronomical lectures in Rome. In 1501 he was installed as a canon of the cathedral of Frouenburg, and immediately was given a leave of absence to study law and medicine. On his return from leave he conducted his astronomical observations from a turret in the cathedral, recalculated the orbits of the sun, moon and major planets, and published 27 observances. In order to do this work in the Cathedral, he would have had to get permission from the Church hierarchy. In 1533 he gave lectures on his theories to Pope Clement VII, who approved of his work. There’s nothing here that sounds like the Church was standing in the way of science, and in fact the Church made it possible for Copernicus to conduct his work.

In fact, the Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest astronomical institutes in the world. Pope Gregory XIII constituted a committee to study the data involved in the reform of the caledar that occurred in 1582. The Papacy founded three early obervatories: the Observatory of the Roman College in 1774, the Observatory of the Capitol in 1827, and the Specula Vaticana in 1789 in the Tower of the Winds within the Vatican. Catholic cathedrals in Bologna, Florence, Paris, and Rome were constructed to function as solar observatories. When Kepler said that planetary orbits were elliptical rather than circular, Catholic astronomer Giovanni Cassini verified Kepler’s position through observations he made in the Basilica of San Petronio. Does any of this constitute an aversion to scientific investigation?

Not only that, the Jesuits have a long history of scientific investigation. 35 of the moon’s crater are named in honor of Jesuits, and there's a good reason for it. The Jesuits contributed to the development of clocks, barometers, geometry, optics, magnetism and electricity, and symbolic logic. They theorized about the human anatomy, the possibility of flight, the effect of the moon on tides, and the wave aspect of light. They were the first western scientists to make contact with India and China, in the 17th and 18th Centuries. And the Jesuits made great contributions to the field of seismology, having installed 38 seismographic stations around the world between the years 1868-1950. Again, hardly the kind of thing that would be the result of a religion that stifled science.

And let’s not forget about the Monks, who were masters of advanced agricultural methods. They conducted breeding programs for cattle and plants, and introdiced cattle rearing, brewing, bee keeping, cheese making, and water storage and irrigation techniques to many areas that knew nothing of them. Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, was an Augustinian monk who did his work in the garden of the monastary. And again, he would have had permission from the Abbot of the monastery to perform his scientific investigations.

The Monks were also known for their metalworking skills. Evidence of a 16th Century iron smelter has been found associated with Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire, England, and the slag at the site has a very low iron content, significantly lower than typical for the age and approaching the levels found in the slag from a modern furnace. Not too shabby an accomplishment for people who don't like scientific advancements.

That’s just a small peek at the advancements made by Christians and done with the permission and blessing of the Catholic Church. You can claim that the Church has stood against science if you like, but there is absolutely no credebility to such claims. They are utterly without historical merit.

And again, one of the things that made it possible was the Catholic insistence that a rational god made a rational universe, and that by studying the universe you can learn about God. No religion had EVER had such beliefs, and they were a vital component of the culture from which modern science had its birth.

[Galapagos]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Is religion harmful to society?. There is one social experiment that showed that the opposite was true. The case in point is the old Soviet Union which did away with religion. This experiment gave us a lot of data involving hundreds of millions of people and the affect of religious taboo. Utopia didn't form, rather it became a repressive society with
high rates of alcoholism, little individual liberty, little economic prosperity, high rates of systematic murder and imprisonment, etc. There was a lot of good science.

The experiment changed. "Would religion help this society without religion". In the early 1980's religion was allowed to make a comeback. The autonomy of countries was restored, human rights improved, economic prosperity increased. There was still a lot of good science. So the answer based on that experiment was, lack of religion was harmful. While adding religion to a society without any religion, was very beneficial.

If we tried to analyze the data, without religion man tries to act like God but it too limited to do a good job. He gets paranoid and repressive. When a higher power is assumed in control there is more self restraint and a greater willingness to accept others since one is not the final judge. One can push the limit, but does so more in the constraints of an open society.

Correlation is not causation.
The formation of the Soviet Union resulted in high crime rates and low standard of living foremost because communism is an inherently flawed economic plan.
As ice cream sales rise, violent crime rises. This does not mean ice cream is causing people to be violent, it has to do with ice cream sales rising in the summer and heat making people more prone to violence.
As mentioned above, more than a third of the Soviet Union's population professed religious belief and practiced despite the government's policy. It was also mentioned that what was going on with Stalin was bordering on religiosity anyway. A more accurate way to describe what happened, is that the collectivists tried to play 'the invisible hand' of a free market economy, not the invisible hand of a god. This resulted in poverty and crime, because no one governing body or individual can know enough about the aggregate economy to properly plan it.
In contrast with your "social experiment",

According to Norris and Inglehart (2004), 64% of those in Sweden do not believe in God. According to Bondeson (2003), 74% of Swedes said that they did not believe in “a personal God.” According to Greeley (2003), 46% of Swedes do not believe in God, although only 17% self-identify as “atheist.” According to Froese (2001), 69% of Swedes are either atheist or agnostic. According to Gustafsoon and Pettersson (2000), 82% of Swedes do not believe in a “personal God.” According to Davie (1999), 85% of Swedes do not believe in God.

Yet Sweden is known for having an relatively low crime rate when compared with other developed nations, on the opposite end of the spectrum from the U.K., the U.S., and Australia, which have a majority theist Christian population.


I'm sure many other things contribute to the crime rate in Sweden, and I am personally not qualified or prepared to say what those things are. Take this as you will.


To answer the thread, yes, I'd say religion is in many cases very harmful to society. Turn on the news for a little while, or open a history book if you can't think of a way religion has been used to justify atrocities on a grand scale.
Religion is also helpful to society in some cases, but is it necessary for people to be helpful and good? No, it is not.
Mythology is nice to look back on and understand how we got where we are today, but people asserting it as truth with no evidence, and using it to justify illogical and harmful decrees is something we need to phase out of our society.

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by chilehed

That also has nothing to do with what I said. I’m not talking about whether or not their religious beliefs formed the content of their discoveries.

That's a much better effort than your first reply to Pyro but you aren't effectively defending your points and you are knocking down a strawman or two. I'm not contradicting the interesting facts you cite about history of science, I'm talking about skewed nexus between what you say and what he says, don't blame it only on him as you did above. I do however criticize statements such as:

Originally Posted by chilehed

I’m talking about how the culture of Christendom was uniquely suited to foster scientific investigation, precisely because of the way it viewed the universe as being created by a rational god.

How uniquely? The Greeks weren't Christians and neither were the Muslims that made progress while Europe was wallowing in the earlier Middle Ages, with the amanuenses doing no more than preserving the classic works. you cite late --or even post-- medieval facts which can more properly be called Rennaissance, these were a reprisal of classic investigation with the addition of new things from the Middle East and India (not Christian either). How does all that prove your point?

[chilehed]

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

That's a much better effort than your first reply to Pyro

Yeah, I was in a bad mood at the time, and should have known better than to be posting.

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

I do however criticize statements such as:How uniquely? The Greeks weren't Christians and neither were the Muslims that made progress while Europe was wallowing in the earlier Middle Ages, with the amanuenses doing no more than preserving the classic works. you cite late --or even post-- medieval facts which can more properly be called Rennaissance, these were a reprisal of classic investigation with the addition of new things from the Middle East and India (not Christian either). How does all that prove your point?

Certainly they took advantage of the discoveries of those around and before them. But the question was "is religion harmful to society?", and Pyro made the claim that science and Christianity have always been at war. The fact is that Christianity has never been at war with science; its presuppositions about the nature of God and the meaning of the universe created an environment that fostered scientific investigation, and its religious hierarchy took an active role in supporting such investigations. So the answer is no, religion is not necessarily harmful to society and in fact Christianity has proven to be a great societal good.

How unique? What other religions conciously understood that a rational god made a rational universe, that because of this the universe must work accoding to laws that can be understood by human reason, and that something of the nature of God is manifest in creation such that learning about the universe can serve to illuminate what can be known about the nature of God? It can't be denied that that combination of beliefs would be a powerful incentive to scientific investigation.

[REASON]

Originally Posted by chilehed

The fact is that Christianity has never been at war with science; its presuppositions about the nature of God and the meaning of the universe created an environment that fostered scientific investigation, and its religious hierarchy took an active role in supporting such investigations.

How unique? What other religions conciously understood that a rational god made a rational universe, that because of this the universe must work accoding to laws that can be understood by human reason, and that something of the nature of God is manifest in creation such that learning about the universe can serve to illuminate what can be known about the nature of God? It can't be denied that that combination of beliefs would be a powerful incentive to scientific investigation.

While I'm not going to sit here and suggest that you are completely wrong in your understanding of the relationship between religion and science throughout history, I do believe you are sugar-coating it to say the least.

For example, in your explanations of historical scientific contributor's relationships with religion above, you failed to mention Galileo. If Chritianity has always been positive and supportive of scientific research, why did the church force Galileo to recant his findings that were in support of the Copernican Heliocentric model of the solar system, in favor of the Geocentric model that was approved by the church at the time, and spend the last days of his life under house arrest?

Why was it necessary for the Catholic Church to prohibit the advocasy of heliocentricism? Could it have been that Christianity, during the inquisition, had too much state power, and used it to stifle Galileo's assertions because they were contrary to the long accepted Geocentric model that remained consistent with the literal, biblical understanding of the universe? Absolutely!

Why was the Library of Alexandria repeatedly burned by conquerors with religious interests? Was it because it contained scientific research and information that was considered paganistic, or inconsistant with the Qur'an?

Or how about in our society today? Why is there such an outward and open resistance by Christians to the science of evolutionary theory, or Darwinism, if Christianity is so supportive of rational explanations consistant with a rational god? Or how about stem cell research, cloning, the biological nature of homosexuality, birth control, or even global climate change? All of these issues are deemed morally inconsistent with religious teachings, and there is a concerted effort by the religious hierarchy to demonize these concepts as heresy. This is not unlike the attitude during the time of Galileo.

I tend to believe that throughout history, religion has only been tolerant of science when the information and products it generates are not in conflict with interpretations of the scripture. The scriptures have always been seen by religious leadership as superior to any scientific notions. And when religions have been in positions of power, it was not uncommon for scientific ideas to be rejected and condemned if they were considered threatening. Some, such as Giordano Bruno, were even burned at the stake as heretics for their ideas.

To me, it is when religious institutions are in positions of power that they become harmful to society because they will attemt to subvert scientific advancement they deem inappropriate in favor of their form of dogmatism. I fear this has become more prevalent in our government today.

In my personal experience, their hasn't been this loving symbiosis between science and religion as you seem to imply.

[ughaibu]

Originally Posted by chilehed

religions conciously understood that a rational god made a rational universe, that because of this the universe must work accoding to laws

It's not clear that the universe does work under the rule of laws, various prominent philosophers of science, such as Cartwright and van Fraassen, reject the notion.

[chilehed]

Originally Posted by ughaibu

It's not clear that the universe does work under the rule of laws, various prominent philosophers of science, such as Cartwright and van Fraassen, reject the notion.

That may be true, but it's not revlevant to this discussion. What's relevant is that they believed it to be true.

Still working on a reply to REASON's post.

[ughaibu]

It was also believed true by Anaxagoras, Democritus, Epicurus, etc, without the requirement for any gods. Religion, christian or otherwise, isn't required for the view that the universe behaves according to the dictates of assumed natural laws.