Southerly by David Haywood

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Southerly: The Problem With Religion

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  • Andre Alessi,

    The works of the ancient world mostly survived because of the Church rather than in spite of it. Yes, they were hugely influential on science, and they were hugely influential on the Church too.

    Actually, the Dark Ages were called that in very large part because of the almost complete loss of Greek learning within the scholarly circles of western Europe (which was effectively identical with the Roman church.) You have to hunt far and wide for a scholar during the period between Augustine (4th century) to slightly before Aquinas (13th century) who even knew how to read Greek or cared to read the Greek pagans: Boethius is one of the very few. Most of what was understood of the Greeks of that period was from secondary or tertiary sources, and quite frequently mistranslated or misrepresented (e.g. the Roman Plotinus' neoplatonism, which was much more palatable to the church than Plato's actual writing.)

    The reason we know about Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, etc at all is because, while Europe was busy burning witches and blaming plagues on the devil, Arab, Persian and Middle Eastern Jewish scholars were reading these works in their original language and translating, commenting upon, debating with, and improving upon their theories and methods. (See for example Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, who effectively invented algebra in the 9th century.)

    A lineage of scientific theory by no means travels solely through Western culture or the Church, which came very late to the party, and did not stay long.

    Devonport, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 864 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    How did giraffes get their long necks?

    Must ask the Mormons next time they drop by. No point raising it with the Jehovahs though, giraffes don't seem to figure in their cosmology. Does anyone know why paradise always looks like Switzerland in Watchtower magazines?

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Bravo, Andre

    I was pissed off when the US invaded Baghdad and protected the Oil Ministry's filing cabinets while allowing the museums to be looted of all humanity's taonga.

    And try doing science without basic concepts like zero.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Like....what?

    Like the kind that non-western scientists came up with. Can you not even imagine anything different? Is it inconceivable?

    That isn't to say that they're always done perfectly, but the principle (hypothesise, test, record observations, discard/don't discard hypothesis) is sound.

    So sound it's not worth discussing alternatives? Or even being aware of any?

    Or maybe because it's to the advantage of a lot of people for science to be discredited.

    Or both. That's probably a factor, for sure.

    Scientific thinking is really not that peculiar, or even difficult.

    This will turn into a semantic debate fast. How about I say it's uncommon instead?

    Actually, I believe most scientists are strongly in favour of children being taught about religion. All religions. I absolutely am - they're a hugely important part of history, society, and culture.

    I notice you don't acknowledge that they're also a hugely important part of science, at least the history thereof. Why is that?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • chris,

    reading these works in their original language and translating, commenting upon, debating with, and improving upon their theories and methods. (See for example Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, who effectively invented algebra in the 9th century.)

    from the link

    His contributions had a great impact on language. "Algebra" is derived from al-jabr,

    It's curious how we often tend to overlook/denounce the origin of many of these words we use.

    Mawkland • Since Jan 2010 • 1302 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Actually, the Dark Ages were called that in very large part because of the almost complete loss of Greek learning within the scholarly circles of western Europe (which was effectively identical with the Roman church.)

    The emergence from it was also from a rediscovery of this heritage, mostly by the same Church. Western Europeans were also not the only Christians by a long shot, nor was Rome their only center.

    A lineage of scientific theory by no means travels solely through Western culture or the Church, which came very late to the party, and did not stay long.

    I would hardly suggest "Western culture" had much to do with it except in so far as it was devoted to the science of war. I was speaking entirely about Christianity, and its main representatives at the time of the Renaissance, the Catholic Church. But yes, there was plenty going on outside of Christendom, thank goodness.

    I'm not saying I think Christianity is choice, and I'm particularly not saying that it was the one true path to science. Quite the opposite, in fact, I think it's something that gives orthodox science its peculiar flavour. But it's worth remembering that Western science flamed to ascendancy during a time of it's dominance, whenever one feels tempted to say that all this religion has ever done is suppress science. If that was what it was doing, then it did it very poorly.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Really? They've dropped stuff like Thomson's "plum pudding" model of the atom from the syllabus? When I were a lad, we were endlessly learning stuff only to find that it hadn't held up to later scrutiny.

    I was a kid too, seems like a millennium ago. Never heard of your plum pudding, nor do I recall any discussion of the history of science in any science class, other than descriptions of the experiments that "proved" the formulas that we were required to learn. And those were few on the ground. Most classes were "This is how it is. Lets call that our hypothesis. Now here's an experiment to prove it. Make sure you're very careful, because if you prove it wrong, you're wrong, and you will get marked down". When things did go wrong, and the teachers were queried, they asked us to speculate on how to save the hypothesis from this - usually by inventing reasons that would account for the data being incorrect. I don't recall ever once being invited to actually speculate on the laws of the universe. At what level does this happen?

    Science exams were exclusively a set of questions devoted to testing your competency in having mastered the orthodoxy as it was taught. I seem to recall the odd practical, where the task was to follow instructions with equipment.

    Which is, I suspect, why most people choose to base their understanding of science on "what the majority of scientists say". Doing the actual experiments oneself is not practical for anything but a tiny, tiny subset of the simplest science we hold as near-certain today. Our understandings are based on respect and trust rather than proof and demonstration.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    And we didn't get taught general reasoning at school. I suspect a certain Minister of Education's decisions are nostalgically informed.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Roger Pearse,

    <quoteThere are some interesting parallels between a lot of mediterranean/middle-eastern religions and christianity once you start looking.

    Mithras was 'born of a virgin'. And did the whole nailed-to-a-tree-and-coming-back-to-life thing.

    Which also appears in Norse mythology, Odin sacrificing himself by being hung from the world tree.

    And the number 12 crops up an awful lot.</quote>

    I happened to see this thread, and wonder if I can contribute on this? This "Jesus=Mithras" stuff floats around on the web. A few years ago I got tired of seeing it and researched it. The *facts* involved turned out to be wrong.

    For instance Mithras was born from a rock, holding a dagger and a flame. He was a deity, not a man; the idea that he was crucified, or born of a virgin, appear in no ancient text.

    The whole thing seems to derive from a statement by Ernest Renan in the 19th century that "if the world had not gone Christian it would have gone Mithraist". (Although since Renan was writing before Franz Cumont gathered the raw data on Mithras, ca. 1900, he really knew very little about Mithras - this too is bunk). The rest is embroidered on top of it by atheists of limited education who were rather too willing to state as fact whatever would be convenient.

    The standard textbook on Mithras is Manfred Clauss, "The Roman cult of Mithras". Have a look in that.

    The Norse material is genuine, I believe, but I don't know the sources. I hope there is no insinuation that the Greeks ca. 30 AD were borrowing from the old Norse? (!)

    Be very sceptical of material of this kind that appears online. Almost all of it contains gross factual errors, apparently motivated by religious animosity.

    All the best,

    Roger Pearse

    Since Apr 2010 • 6 posts Report Reply

  • Ross Mason,

    Am I your first correspondent from India???

    Am visiting here in the shooting event.

    A poor bastard who runs a ascrap metal yard got radiation blasts from cobalt 60 whcih someone sent to india it looks like. Cobalt 60 for christs sake!!!

    God has not found India. if he had he woudln't have encouraged so many to breed.

    I have the shits.

    Back next week.

    Thoroughly enjoyed the place though.

    Coming back in October!!!

    Upper Hutt • Since Jun 2007 • 1590 posts Report Reply

  • andin,

    religious animosity.

    Yeah, why cant humanity be one big happy family.
    Cause that's all religions want....right?

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    I don't recall ever once being invited to actually speculate on the laws of the universe. At what level does this happen?

    Well beyond undergrad. I've mentioned before that a friend of mine is fond of saying that he got his PhD in physics despite, rather than because of, 13 years of being taught the subject.

    Another friend dropped out of his University physics course after being arbitrarily asked to apply a correction factor of 10 to his calculations (for the mass of the universe, if I recall correctly). When he queried this, and suggested that 'dark matter' (which was a radically new concept at the time) might be responsible, he was effectively told to shut up and stop rocking the boat. He kinda lost interest in being 'taught' after that.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    I happened to see this thread, and wonder if I can contribute on this? This "Jesus=Mithras" stuff floats around on the web. A few years ago I got tired of seeing it and researched it. The *facts* involved turned out to be wrong.

    Roger, thanks for that. I'm by no means well-versed in the subject, although it does appear that when you scratch the surface of many religions that have their origins in Europe and the Middle East, a lot of interesting parallels come up. It does strongly suggest that there was a lot of borrowing and swapping of concepts going on. Which I think does need to be acknowledged, as each of these religions seem to spend an awful lot of time trying to convince people that there particular flavour is The One True Flavour, and anything else is false. Christianity, for example, doesn't appear to be the huge quantum leap we are lead to believe, more of a small step away from a lot of existing ideas.

    I'd point out in relation to Mithras/Christ, that both appear to do a lot of 'washing in the blood of' (bulls or lambs, take your pick). This may have led to the drawing of some of the offhand parallels which you mention. Although the Mithraists did seem to take it somewhat more literally.

    The Norse material is genuine, I believe, but I don't know the sources. I hope there is no insinuation that the Greeks ca. 30 AD were borrowing from the old Norse? (!)

    No, not at all. But the Norse did travel very widely. I'm pretty sure they regualrly travelled and traded as least as far as Constantinople/Turkey, which isn't so far away from Greece.

    The rest is embroidered on top of it by atheists of limited education who were rather too willing to state as fact whatever would be convenient.

    Ouch...

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    Ouch...

    Heh. "All the best" - except to you "atheists of limited education" who may happen to be lurking.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • andin,

    whenever one feels tempted to say that all this religion has ever done is suppress science.

    "Religion" wants to impose a status quo of its own reckoning. Anything that doesn't fit is excluded. I suppose that may be where any suppression may arise. Also its hierarchy targets people, its very personal.
    Anyway enough apologia.

    I read somewhere, Dr Haywood, you have some knowledge of alternative technologies.
    Glass evacuated tube solar water heating, your thoughts?

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    I suspect that worked very well for Christianity until the tail end of the middle ages, when some troublemakers started insisting the Bible be printed in the common language and not Latin.

    And then a few hundred years later mass literacy took a hold and all heck broke loose.

    We should point out that mass literacy hasn't exactly killed Christianity. Indeed, there's plenty of evidence that the attractions of literacy helped Christianity attract mass converts in some places (New Zealand is an example).

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Andre Alessi,

    The emergence from it was also from a rediscovery of this heritage, mostly by the same Church. Western Europeans were also not the only Christians by a long shot, nor was Rome their only center.

    And that rediscovery occurred in the main when Christian scholars read the works of Arab authors, and then followed them to their Greek sources. Constantinople, Moorish Spain and Jerusalem were, once the insanity of the Crusades died down, the vectors for the transmission of this rebirth.

    I would hardly suggest "Western culture" had much to do with it except in so far as it was devoted to the science of war. I was speaking entirely about Christianity, and its main representatives at the time of the Renaissance, the Catholic Church. But yes, there was plenty going on outside of Christendom, thank goodness.

    How many specifically Catholic scientists can you think of during that period, though? Gallileo, Copernicus and so on were scientists precisely because they challenged the existing Christian understanding of the world, and were treated as outsiders and threats as a result. The majority of what we would now call science during the Renaissance was being worked on by people who were not clergymen, and who were only associated with the Church in the same way everyone of that period was-because of their early education, and because of the Church's renewed (although variable) interest in Classical writers. Most people who "did science" during the Renaissance and into the Enlightenment were sponsored by secular authorities or out of their own pocket, and the Church was never terribly relevant to the sanction or validation of their discoveries.

    I'm not arguing that the educational framework that the Church set up doesn't have its place in the history of Western science, but it would be a stretch to go from that to a suggestion that Western science is thus somehow inextricably culturally located within the Church's history, because that early education wasn't by any means the whole story of how individuals developed the theories and methods we now call "scientific".

    Devonport, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 864 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart,

    I notice you don't acknowledge that they're also a hugely important part of science, at least the history thereof. Why is that?

    Because religion *qua religion* is not part of modern science. Which isn't to say that religious people aren't or haven't been scientists or that, historically, science and religion have not intermingled - just that modern science doesn't have a place for faith-based thinking and it shouldn't have to.

    And if you're going to posit that there are "other ways" of doing science which are perhaps better, then posit them. "There are better ways of doing science but you're too blinkered to think of them" is not an argument.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    I believe the statement was that there are other scientific traditions, not that they are "better" or "modern" or include "faith-based thinking".

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Because religion *qua religion* is not part of modern science.

    That's not an answer. It's a "it's not considered important because it's not considered important" position. As is:

    There are better ways of doing science but you're too blinkered to think of them" is not an argument.

    No, it's a challenge. Since you refuse to rise to it, I could make some suggestions. 2 main things that I see in your model that might very well not occur in studies that would possibly pass as scientific are the Hypothesis, and the keeping and discarding of it.

    The Hypothesis is presumably a statement of a possible law. It's quite possible this part is never done at all. Data is simply collected, methodically, categorized by regularities. No guesses are made at all as to the causes of the data. Inductive reasoning is used to make inferences from it. It would seem that a lot of traditional Chinese medicine was done in this manner. The purpose is not to establish causes, but to find effects that are likely and useful.

    The keeping and discarding of hypotheses. Even if you do go for the hypothesis model, there's no reason to apply the ever popular "law of the excluded middle" to it. Hypotheses may well occupy positions that are neither true nor false. This tallies with my memory of the competing hypotheses about whether light is a wave or a particle. As my physics teacher explained it, there was no firm answer either way. Both were still viable, providing different insights into the nature of light.

    Also, even if you do take a strictly two-valued deductive position regarding hypotheses, there is always the recourse to 'save the hypothesis', by searching for data error, or extra causes that tally with the hypothesis, but were not noted during the observation phase (because they were not looked for). I already talked about how this was pretty much what teachers encouraged us to do, to protect received modern scientific wisdom from refutation.

    If none of these are found, the "nature" of the hypothesis can still be preserved by adding refinements to it, so that it's rejection is not total. So with errors in the Ptolemaic astronomical system, it was possible to add new circles into the data model to make it closer to observed reality. This system was what the Catholic church was backing, btw, it was based on centuries of meticulous observation and a lot of calculations. Copernicus had no new maths to work with, so his actual predictions were no more accurate than what the Church had, and he had to do the same thing with epicycles to cover the failures of his system to match reality. I don't think it was "unscientific" for them to stick to their existing system, at that point.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Roger Pearse,

    <quote>I happened to see this thread, and wonder if I can contribute on this? This "Jesus=Mithras" stuff floats around on the web. A few years ago I got tired of seeing it and researched it. The *facts* involved turned out to be wrong.

    ... it does appear that when you scratch the surface of many religions that have their origins in Europe and the Middle East, a lot of interesting parallels come up. It does strongly suggest that there was a lot of borrowing and swapping of concepts going on. Which I think does need to be acknowledged</quote>

    People do say this, don't they? But I don't find any evidence ever offered beyond "this looks like that, therefore this is a copy of that". The same argument is used by people who believe in Atlantis, using pyramids in Mexico and Egypt, so it's a bad type of argument on the face of it.

    I don't have a general view on this. I would only plead for caution, and specifics. You will quickly find that actual evidence -- rather than supposed parallels -- is rather hard to come by.

    as each of these religions seem to spend an awful lot of time trying to convince people that there particular flavour is The One True Flavour, and anything else is false.

    A wicked thought: surely atheism is the most definite advocate of this particular view, in our day?

    Being more specific, tho; most of paganism didn't hold this view, because it didn't work like that. Again, we need to be very careful and seek specifics.

    I'd point out in relation to Mithras/Christ, that both appear to do a lot of 'washing in the blood of' (bulls or lambs, take your pick).

    You're thinking of the taurobolium. Unfortunately this is not part of the cult of Mithras at all! (See what I mean about being sceptical about stuff floating around? Some muppet got that wrong, circulated it, and all of us would naturally presume it was so. But I checked. It's part of the Cybele cult.)

    <quote>The Norse material is genuine, I believe, but I don't know the sources. I hope there is no insinuation that the Greeks ca. 30 AD were borrowing from the old Norse? (!)

    No, not at all. But the Norse did travel very widely. I'm pretty sure they regualrly travelled and traded as least as far as Constantinople/Turkey, which isn't so far away from Greece.

    Indeed so. The Swedish vikings sailing down the rivers of Russia is a phenomenon ca. 1000 AD, not 1AD, tho.

    All the best,

    Roger Pearse

    Since Apr 2010 • 6 posts Report Reply

  • chris,

    I'm mighty glad you showed up Roger, you're doing good work and so polite to boot.

    Mawkland • Since Jan 2010 • 1302 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    For one reason and many others, I studied religion for 32 years ( not in an academic sense: in an experiential, wide-ranging reading, and practising sense-)

    I learned a great deal about humans, humaneness, and history: my erratic - but religion-directed studies- early brought me into fields that I had no familiarity with (psychology/mind-brain studies/body-mind equivalences) and very promptly afterwards into archaeology and anthropology....

    -what I have learned to date is that we really are extremely adaptable animals. That our genes & experiences determine a great deal - but individual quirks matter-

    schoolchildren need to be taught reasoning (it is not innate), history, and - please! - __basic scientific principles - biology/physics/chemistry__any instruction in religion/philosophy, in a general sense, could be part of history.

    I am an atheist, one of the quiet but public kind. If people come to my door (they'd have to be pretty bold to go past the notice on my back/road-facing gate) and try and proselytise, I promptly say that I dont believe in any kind of deity, and I really dont want to hear their spiel. Now, kindly go away.

    One, 2 decades ago, made the mistake of asking "Have you a bible?"
    Yes, I said, truthfully: 14 of them, I have read the versions from the Vulgate to the RVKJ, and all these others in between, and the meanings therein change with the language.

    He put his Mormon 'Book of Moroni' away, and left.

    Ben Wilson, it takes very strong people - like the woman you mentioned - to overcome indoctrination. I was lucky- I was never indoctrinated: I was just very bloody puzzled as to why people should believe in something that I had never encountered - did never encounter.

    I have always encountered some good people (but v. few of them strictly 'religious' people.) I think, with my kind of life experience, there are good humans, and there are ratbags, and there are predators, and your religious suasion doesnt have the overwhelming impetus for what kind of human you are.

    Kyle M, you are absolutely right that the attractions of literacy did initially attract Maori to Christianity. It wasnt very long before we were spreading literacy among ourselves - and altering the religion.

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Roger Pearse,

    I'm mighty glad you showed up Roger, you're doing good work and so polite to boot.

    You're very kind. I sort of presume that most of us would rather have the basic facts straight -- the sort of things that can be looked up, if we had the time. Opinions, of course, we can all do for ourselves. There's simply too much muck being dropped in the hive-mind from some quarters; stuff which is not true, regardless of the religious questions. I don't see who benefits from that.

    Nearly everything you can find online about "Mithras and Jesus" is twaddle, unfortunately. Probably other things are too, but that is one I got irritated enough to research.

    I see there is discussion about religion and science at the renaissance, and some old "religion is hostile to science" stuff coming in. Now it isn't a field I pay much attention to -- being a scientist by training -- but I do know that James Hannam would have a definite view on some of the statements being made, since he wrote "God's philosophers" on the subject, and runs a blog about it too. I think he would describe most of them as myth. (Not my subject, as I say). So we need to be careful. We should bear in mind that "do not commit adultery" is not exactly convenient to the Selfish Generation (remember "if it feels good, do it"?), and they are the ones in power and so in control of the media agenda in our day. We should probably all be more sceptical of what the powerful wish us to think, and the presumptions with which they fill our minds (which are amply represented in the "opinions" in this thread).

    All the best,

    Roger Pearse

    Since Apr 2010 • 6 posts Report Reply

  • Roger Pearse,

    Because religion *qua religion* is not part of modern science. Which isn't to say that religious people aren't or haven't been scientists or that, historically, science and religion have not intermingled - just that modern science doesn't have a place for faith-based thinking and it shouldn't have to.

    Indeed not; so long as we remember that the same applies to *all* religious positions, including "secularism" and "atheism", and not merely to ones with which we happen to disagree.

    Religions are part of the humanities, not the sciences. The sciences take no position on the subject. If you can stick it in a testtube and boil it, reproduceably, it can be studied scientifically. If it can't be studied scientifically -- as most things of importance cannot, such a life, love, money, weather, history, politics, religion, and the reason why my car won't start sometimes -- then that does not mean it is not important. It merely means the method of investigation doesn't work for it.

    No treating science as a religion, please.

    All the best,

    Roger Pearse

    Since Apr 2010 • 6 posts Report Reply

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