What do you make of Tim O'Neil's "History for Atheists"?

[Tim ONeill]

Read what I said in its context - I was talking about acceptance of new scientific ideas, not religious ones. You don't need to be a historian to know that they were less than tolerant of religious innovations, and that was what the burnings were all about. Contrary to the myths, the Church never burned anyone over their scientific ideas.

Every pursuit was a religious pursuit because all those pursuits had to be reconciled with religious teaching. The distinction you are making is hair splitting. People were only free to pursue scientific knowledge if they were willing to live under the censorship of the Roman Church. That's not the free pursuit of scientific knowledge.

You seem to have missed the point. Given that the Catholic Church regarded "natural philosophy" as studying and expanding the understanding of the rational product of the mind of God, it was almost impossible for a sixteenth or seventeenth century scientist to come up with anything that conflicted with religious teaching. This is why natural philosophy had been enshrined in medieval universities for centuries already. Theology, on the other hand, was a veritable minefield. This is why Galileo's ideas were celebrated and, even when they were based on a fringe theory like Copernicanism, not a problem to anyone in the Church. It was only when he began dabbling in theology that things turned nasty for him.

 

[skepticalbip]

Read what I said in its context - I was talking about acceptance of new scientific ideas, not religious ones. You don't need to be a historian to know that they were less than tolerant of religious innovations, and that was what the burnings were all about. Contrary to the myths, the Church never burned anyone over their scientific ideas.

Every pursuit was a religious pursuit because all those pursuits had to be reconciled with religious teaching. The distinction you are making is hair splitting. People were only free to pursue scientific knowledge if they were willing to live under the censorship of the Roman Church. That's not the free pursuit of scientific knowledge.

You seem to have missed the point. Given that the Catholic Church regarded "natural philosophy" as studying and expanding the understanding of the rational product of the mind of God, it was almost impossible for a sixteenth or seventeenth century scientist to come up with anything that conflicted with religious teaching. This is why natural philosophy had been enshrined in medieval universities for centuries already. Theology, on the other hand, was a veritable minefield. This is why Galileo's ideas were celebrated and, even when they were based on a fringe theory like Copernicanism, not a problem to anyone in the Church. It was only when he began dabbling in theology that things turned nasty for him.

The 'theology' problem was the claim that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe, that it moved around the sun.

 

[skepticalbip]

Also wrong. What Galileo ran afoul of was what seemed to be a very solid alignment between the Book of Nature (the consensus of astronomers that Copernicanism was not a valid physical model of cosmology) and the Book of God (exegetes' consensus that the astronomers' ideas fitted nicely with traditional interpretations of certain OT texts).

Astronomers at the time were primarily clergy. You seem to be attempting to make a distinction between the church and scientists when, in general, there was no such distinction.

By the sixteenth and seventeenth century, astronomers could be clergy, but many were not. Copernicus wasn't (a canon was an administrative position and he never took holy orders). Neither were Kepler, Brahae, Reinhold, Rothmann, Schöner or any number of other major astronomers of the period. And the arguments presented against Copernicanism were almost entirely scientific - based on physics and mathematics - rather than theological, regardless of whether the astronomer in question was a clergyman or not. So I'm afraid that attempt at imputing bad motives won't work.

I didn't claim bad motives. It was the religious mindset of the 'consensus astronomers' that the Earth was the center of the universe that colored their belief and the conviction of Galileo. The observation and math for a sun centered solar system was stronger than the Earth centered universe but rejected on religious grounds.

 

[Tim ONeill]

The 'theology' problem was the claim that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe, that it moved around the sun.

Really? Okay, so why wasn't this a problem for the Church prior to 1616? Why didn't he get hauled before the Inquisition as soon as he began publicising his Copernicanism? Why did the Inquisition allow his book Letters on Sunspots through their censorship process, despite it arguing for both these things? You don't seem to know the sequence of events at all.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Read what I said in its context - I was talking about acceptance of new scientific ideas, not religious ones. You don't need to be a historian to know that they were less than tolerant of religious innovations, and that was what the burnings were all about. Contrary to the myths, the Church never burned anyone over their scientific ideas.

Every pursuit was a religious pursuit because all those pursuits had to be reconciled with religious teaching. The distinction you are making is hair splitting. People were only free to pursue scientific knowledge if they were willing to live under the censorship of the Roman Church. That's not the free pursuit of scientific knowledge.

You seem to have missed the point. Given that the Catholic Church regarded "natural philosophy" as studying and expanding the understanding of the rational product of the mind of God, it was almost impossible for a sixteenth or seventeenth century scientist to come up with anything that conflicted with religious teaching. This is why natural philosophy had been enshrined in medieval universities for centuries already. Theology, on the other hand, was a veritable minefield. This is why Galileo's ideas were celebrated and, even when they were based on a fringe theory like Copernicanism, not a problem to anyone in the Church. It was only when he began dabbling in theology that things turned nasty for him.

I understand what you are saying. But "Natural Philosophy" carried out under church censorship is not the free pursuit of science. Is it even science? Was science even a word back then?

Theology on the other hand, yes, I understand. But both occurred under the censoring hand of the Roman Church.

I'm certain we agree that "science" as we perceive it today did not exist in the minds of "Natural Philosophers" of the early 1600s in the Roman Church. Calling it science is I think an example of presentism and anachronism. Natural Philosophy wasn't something separate like actual scientific pursuit but rather a wholly religious affair.

 

[Tim ONeill]

I didn't claim bad motives. It was the religious mindset of the 'consensus astronomers' that the Earth was the center of the universe that colored their belief and the conviction of Galileo. The observation and math for a sun centered solar system was stronger than the Earth centered universe but rejected on religious grounds.

Sorry, but in 1616 and 1632 it was not "stronger" at all. And the objections were scientific not religious. That's why as late as 1651 Riccioli's survey of the various arguments over cosmology in his Almagestum Novum regarded the Ptolemaic model as wholly rejected but still favoured the Tychonic model over the Copernican on the balance of scientific arguments. At this point - nine years after Galileo died - the weight of scientific argument was still against heliocentrism. It was not until later in the century, when Kepler's model came to be seen to solve many of the observational problems that the tide began to turn. And it was only when Newton gave Kepler a foundation in physics that the consensus really swung around. You don't seem to have a grasp of the details of the debate and are imposing assumptions that are not supported by any detailed understanding of the evidence.

 

[skepticalbip]

I didn't claim bad motives. It was the religious mindset of the 'consensus astronomers' that the Earth was the center of the universe that colored their belief and the conviction of Galileo. The observation and math for a sun centered solar system was stronger than the Earth centered universe but rejected on religious grounds.

Sorry, but in 1616 and 1632 it was not "stronger" at all. And the objections were scientific not religious. That's why as late as 1651 Riccioli's survey of the various arguments over cosmology in his Almagestum Novum regarded the Ptolemaic model as wholly rejected but still favoured the Tychonic model over the Copernican on the balance of scientific arguments. At this point - nine years after Galileo died - the weight of scientific argument was still against heliocentrism. It was not until later in the century, when Kepler's model came to be seen to solve many of the observational problems that the tide began to turn. And it was only when Newton gave Kepler a foundation in physics that the consensus really swung around. You don't seem to have a grasp of the details of the debate and are imposing assumptions that are not supported by any detailed understanding of the evidence.

You are still asserting that science, religion and the church were independent of each other. They were not.

 

[Tim ONeill]

I understand what you are saying. But "Natural Philosophy" carried out under church censorship is not the free pursuit of science.

No-one has said it was the free pursuit of science in any modern sense. But the point is that this "censorship" didn't actually inhibit that rational analysis of the physical universe at all. The Church actively encouraged that, in fact.

Is it even science?

By the sixteenth century it was certainly becoming the kind of empirical science we know today, yes.

Was science even a word back then?

Not in the sense we use it. "Scientist" was not coined by Whewell until 1834 and our modern use of the word "science" is derived from that. But by Galileo's time they were doing what we call science when they did "natural philosphy"

I'm certain we agree that "science" as we perceive it today did not exist in the minds of "Natural Philosophers" of the early 1600s in the Roman Church.

Then you're wrong.

Calling it science is I think an example of presentism and anachronism.

Ummm, no.

[Natural Philosophy wasn't something separate like actual scientific pursuit but rather a wholly religious affair.

Also wrong.

 

[Tim ONeill]

You are still asserting that science and the church were independent. They were not.

When people were examining the several competing cosmological models they were doing science. If you want to argue they were actually primarily motivated by religious concerns, then you will need to show that via detailed reference to the evidence, referring to the relevant sources and to the scholarship on the subject by historians of science. I know all that material very, very well. I can tell you now that while your bald assertions and one liners might seem solid arguments to you, they will collapse as soon as you engage with the relevant evidence.

So, are you ready to do this? Let's get down to it.

 

[skepticalbip]

You are still asserting that science and the church were independent. They were not.

When people were examining the several competing cosmological models they were doing science. If you want to argue they were actually primarily motivated by religious concerns, then you will need to show that via detailed reference to the evidence, referring to the relevant sources and to the scholarship on the subject by historians of science. I know all that material very, very well. I can tell you now that while your bald assertions and one liners might seem solid arguments to you, they will collapse as soon as you engage with the relevant evidence.

So, are you ready to do this? Let's get down to it.

If science and the church were independent then Galileo would not have faced execution unless he recanted. The church held final say on the 'validity' of scientific findings.

 

[Tim ONeill]

If science and the church were independent then Galileo would not have faced execution unless he recanted. The church held final say on the 'validity' of scientific findings.

The problem with this latest glib assertion is that the Church almost never concerned itself with "the 'validity' of scientific findings". It didn't care at all when Copernicus first presented his heliocentric model a century before Galileo. In fact, the Pope of time had a lecture on it given to him and his court in the Vatican gardens and found the whole thing fascinating. As I have explained already, it also didn't care when Galileo made his acceptance of heliocentricism perfectly clear in the early 1600s. And they didn't care about Kepler or any number of others continuing their analysis of cosmology and the gradual acceptance of heliocentrism in the decades to the end of the seventeenth century.

The Galileo Affair is not some typical response by the Church to a scientific finding - it was a remarkable exception. And it happened because Galileo decided to start reinterpreting the Bible. And the Church did care about that. If he hadn't done that the Church would have continued to not care about his ideas at all.

Meanwhile the astronomers continued to analyse the science of the SIX competing cosmological models almost entirely on their scientific merits alone, as they had been before Galileo was even born. A small few of the arguments marshalled were religious in nature as well, but that was on all sides, not just by the anti-Copernicans: this was in a religious age after all. But Copernicanism was rejected almost entirely on scientific grounds, just as the Keplerian model (which Galileo rejected on some rather unscientific grounds) was eventually accepted because it made most scientific sense. So I'm afraid his gambit of "science overwhelmingly dominated by religion" isn't going to work for you. That's not how things went. Sorry if that doesn't fit the fairy story version we all learned at high school and via popular culture, but what most people think they "know" is usually wildly wrong.

 

[Lion IRC]

 

[ruby sparks]

Pardon? What do you mean, you "disagree"? You claim he was pro-Nazi? That's the only way you can "disagree" with what I said above.

And in any case..........there may be an element of that which is missing the point.

Okay. How?

I belatedly edited my previous post, possibly while you were writing.

You mean this?: "And where does passivity lie? Somewhere between pro and anti? As an analogy, I'm sure the RCC was, and its popes were, anti-child abuse. But did they actively do much about it? No."

I'm afraid that is not analogous. Any informed reading of the evidence shows that both Pius XI and Pius XII were anti-Nazi. Everyone was very clear on that at the time. The Nazis were also pretty clear on it as well. What the Papacy did about that is another issue, but anyone who looks at what we now know - e.g. Pius XII's active covert assistance to the Allies and involvement in no less than three plots to overthrow and KILL Hitler - and still tries to claim he was "passive" is deluding themselves out of bias. The issues of whether he could have been less outwardly neutral while doing all this, whether he could have done things differently or done more etc are other things to analyse. That's why my article is over 10,000 words. But on the issue of whether he was pro-Nazi, there is only one reasonable, evidence-based conclusion: he was not. The claim he was is a myth.

It would be churlish of me to disagree with you saying that he was not pro-nazi. Saying he was pro-nazi would seem to be generally incorrect, as a bald statement, albeit we cannot historically read his mind, and of course one does not have to be fully pro something to qualify as pro some things about it, at this or that time. Realpolitiks are complicated, and change with changing circumstances.

But imo, the analogy with child abuse is quite useful. First, asking was a certain Pope pro-child abuse is a somewhat artificially narrow question, of itself (and says nothing much about the RCC as a whole or even just its hierarchy) and second, any answer is nuanced. We could say that he was not. There's a nice, simple answer. This or that pope was not pro-child abuse. And I guess that'd be that and we could all go home happy. But it didn't work that way. There could be (and imo was) some culpability nonetheless.

I do agree that from what I read Pious XII had very limited options when it came, reluctantly, to being a bit of a 'fellow traveller' with the nazis, but to at least some extent, it appears that's what he did. Now you could say that accommodation and acquiescence was the most pragmatic (official) policy, but you can't really call it unaccommodation. It seems he was, amongst other things, concerned about diminuition of papal authority in Germany, and from his point of view the 1933 concordat shored that up. And as a byproduct, the German bishops, many of whom had been outspoken critics of hitler, were effectively silenced, on vatican authority. And I read that they were instructed to do so by Pacelli. I am quoting wiki here, and you may have better or alternative sources.

"Early in March 1933 the bishops recommended that Catholics vote for the Centre Party in the elections scheduled for 5 March 1933. However, two weeks later the Catholic hierarchy reversed its previous policy – the bishops now allowed the Centre Party and the Bavarian Catholic Party to vote for the Enabling Act which gave Hitler dictatorial powers on 23 March. German Catholic theologian Robert Grosche described the Enabling Act in terms of the 1870 decree on the infallibility of the Pope, and stated that the Church had "anticipated on a higher level, that historical decision which is made today on the political level: for the Pope and against the sovereignty of the Council; for the Fuhrer and against the Parliament." On 29 March 1933 Cardinal Pacelli sent word to the German bishops to the effect that they must now change their position with regard to National Socialism."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat#Negotiations

Imo, one thing the RCC did and does above all else, especially at the top, is/was look after its own, centralised (and centralist) institutional interests (authority, power and influence in particular). That is arguably why it did not do enough about child abuse, and it seems possible to me that to a lesser extent that is what it did about the nazis, perhaps especially early on, during their rise to power.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

You are still asserting that science, religion and the church were independent of each other. They were not.

This makes the most sense to me as well, particularly in Tim's agreement that the Roman Church was like modern day ISIS in weilding authority. If one is living under such conditions it is impossible to do anything that is not ultimately measured against the constant fear of terrorist reprisal. It's no big deal to me that Tim does not accept this larger reality with regards to what constitutes scientific pursuit.

 

[Tammuz]

I'm enjoying this discussion as well.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I think we're all enjoying the discussion. Tim certainly knows his facts, gotta give him that. Tim says:

The problem with this latest glib assertion is that the Church almost never concerned itself with "the 'validity' of scientific findings".

"Almost never" and "never" are not the same thing. The above was Tim ONeill's response to skepticalbip's:

If science and the church were independent then Galileo would not have faced execution unless he recanted. The church held final say on the 'validity' of scientific findings.

There is nothing in Tim ONeill's response that counters skeptikalbip's statement because the response is "almost never," not "never." That's how my simple little mind sees the exchange.

It's real simple for me. If you know beyond any doubt whatsoever that you will be tortured and burned alive for misspeaking, that puts a bit of a damper on things generally, wouldn't you agree?

 

[Tim ONeill]

Pardon? What do you mean, you "disagree"? You claim he was pro-Nazi? That's the only way you can "disagree" with what I said above.




Okay. How?



You mean this?: "And where does passivity lie? Somewhere between pro and anti? As an analogy, I'm sure the RCC was, and its popes were, anti-child abuse. But did they actively do much about it? No."

I'm afraid that is not analogous. Any informed reading of the evidence shows that both Pius XI and Pius XII were anti-Nazi. Everyone was very clear on that at the time. The Nazis were also pretty clear on it as well. What the Papacy did about that is another issue, but anyone who looks at what we now know - e.g. Pius XII's active covert assistance to the Allies and involvement in no less than three plots to overthrow and KILL Hitler - and still tries to claim he was "passive" is deluding themselves out of bias. The issues of whether he could have been less outwardly neutral while doing all this, whether he could have done things differently or done more etc are other things to analyse. That's why my article is over 10,000 words. But on the issue of whether he was pro-Nazi, there is only one reasonable, evidence-based conclusion: he was not. The claim he was is a myth.

It would be churlish of me to disagree with you saying that he was not pro-nazi. Saying he was pro-nazi would seem to be generally incorrect, as a bald statement, albeit we cannot historically read his mind, and of course one does not have to be fully pro something to qualify as pro some things about it, at this or that time. Realpolitiks are complicated, and change with changing circumstances.

But imo, the analogy with child abuse is quite useful. First, asking was a certain Pope pro-child abuse is a somewhat artificially narrow question, of itself (and says nothing much about the RCC as a whole or even just its hierarchy) and second, any answer is nuanced. We could say that he was not. There's a nice, simple answer. This or that pope was not pro-child abuse. And I guess that'd be that and we could all go home happy. But it didn't work that way. There could be (and imo was) some culpability nonetheless.

I do agree that from what I read Pious XII had very limited options when it came, reluctantly, to being a bit of a 'fellow traveller' with the nazis, but to at least some extent, it appears that's what he did. Now you could say that accommodation and acquiescence was the most pragmatic (official) policy, but you can't really call it unaccommodation. It seems he was, amongst other things, concerned about diminuition of papal authority in Germany, and from his point of view the 1933 concordat shored that up. And as a byproduct, the German bishops, many of whom had been outspoken critics of hitler, were effectively silenced, on vatican authority. And I read that they were instructed to do so by Pacelli. I am quoting wiki here, and you may have better or alternative sources.

"Early in March 1933 the bishops recommended that Catholics vote for the Centre Party in the elections scheduled for 5 March 1933. However, two weeks later the Catholic hierarchy reversed its previous policy – the bishops now allowed the Centre Party and the Bavarian Catholic Party to vote for the Enabling Act which gave Hitler dictatorial powers on 23 March. German Catholic theologian Robert Grosche described the Enabling Act in terms of the 1870 decree on the infallibility of the Pope, and stated that the Church had "anticipated on a higher level, that historical decision which is made today on the political level: for the Pope and against the sovereignty of the Council; for the Fuhrer and against the Parliament." On 29 March 1933 Cardinal Pacelli sent word to the German bishops to the effect that they must now change their position with regard to National Socialism."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat#Negotiations

Imo, one thing the RCC did and does above all else, especially at the top, is/was look after its own, centralised (and centralist) institutional interests (authority, power and influence in particular). That is arguably why it did not do enough about child abuse, and it seems possible to me that to a lesser extent that is what it did about the nazis, perhaps especially early on, during their rise to power.

Ummm, did you actually read my article on Pius XII? You can find it here.

 

[Tim ONeill]

I think we're all enjoying the discussion. Tim certainly knows his facts, gotta give him that. Tim says:

The problem with this latest glib assertion is that the Church almost never concerned itself with "the 'validity' of scientific findings".

"Almost never" and "never" are not the same thing.

I said "almost never" because there is one exception - the Galileo Affair. And that was about his forays into theology, not some fundamental objection to his science. They didn't care about his science until he began entangling it with his ventures into theology.

If you know beyond any doubt whatsoever that you will be tortured and burned alive for misspeaking, that puts a bit of a damper on things generally, wouldn't you agree?

Again, for about the tenth time, they didn't care about science. They did care about theology. All the scientists who didn't venture into theology (i.e. all of them except Galileo) were left alone. The Church did not care about science. How may more times do I have to explain this?

 

[Lion IRC]

New study in Science: Medieval Catholicism explains the differences between cultures to this day. https://www.washingtonpost.com/reli...tures-this-day/#click=https://t.co/GMZdzxTd0b

A sweeping theory published Thursday in the journal Science posits a new explanation for the divergent course of Western civilization from the rest of the world: The early Catholic Church reshaped family structures and, by doing so, changed human psychology forever after.

A great smackdown and learning opportunity for historically ignorant anti-theists

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

New study in Science: Medieval Catholicism explains the differences between cultures to this day. https://www.washingtonpost.com/reli...tures-this-day/#click=https://t.co/GMZdzxTd0b

A sweeping theory published Thursday in the journal Science posits a new explanation for the divergent course of Western civilization from the rest of the world: The early Catholic Church reshaped family structures and, by doing so, changed human psychology forever after.

A great smackdown and learning opportunity for historically ignorant anti-theists

If you haven't read any of Jared Diamond's work I can see how such a silly conclusion could be reached.