Comment

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on June 4, 2011 at 12:19am

From now on I will be known as the babbler. Not the fine handicapper, nor the mouthpiece for the tower of babble, just plain babbler, not to be confused with babbit. Did you read Babbit? I told them I could not recccommmend what I had not tried. I tried it and I liked it.

Theists capable of science-check

Utilizing scientific method is as widespread as chia pets christmas time-check

Although propensity to use scientific method is in issue by virtue of indoctrination nation.

Misrepresentation of my position on understanding of what constitutes religion.

Religion should properly be seen as impediment to scientific progress. Overwhelming evidence for this position. Read history of science,  and Hirsi Ali and the babbit. Dont take my suggestions for the gospel truth!

Alcohol point-check No qualification from babbler. This does not compute.

I was babbling at the end. Early manifestation of babbler syndrome known as BS.

The point about Hitler is that it is absurd to comment about the good characteristics of the church.

Reason in Babbler out

Comment by John Camilli on June 4, 2011 at 12:03am

I..uuuh...literally did not understand half of that babble.

 

From what I got of it, you are comdemning any contributions made by theists on the basis of their motives for making them. So, basically, I'm hearing that all things made with what you call bad intentions can only ever produce harmful results. I just disagree with that.

 

The printing press was made scientifically, you're right...by a theist. A large part of my examples has been to convey the point that theists are capable of science too, and have contributed quite an impressive number of advances to procedural knowledge. There's nothing about science that precludes theists from doing it. Utilizing the scientific method has literally nothing to do with whether or not you believe in gods. So if you value science as "good" and theists have contributed to science, then clearly not everything that results from the religious mind-set is "bad." I think you are only thinking of religions as sets of rituals and origin stories, but they are whole lifestyles; whole cultures, many of which have resulted in contributions to scientific progress.

 

Just to clarify one thing, alcohol was not necessarily invented by the Arabs. The modern word comes from Arabic, but alcohol was probably one of mankinds earliest inventions. It exists in some of the oldest known records, and probably predates recorded history altogether, which would mean it easily predates the group of people now called Arabs.

 

And I just don't get what you were saying in your last several sentences. Are you refering to me as padre? And are you insinuating that I think Hitler was a cool guy because his torturous experiments produced some useful results? Confusion.

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on June 3, 2011 at 9:17pm

The modern pastor buys a pink cadillac. The papacy would buy all of the great artists, the better to glorify their hegemony over christendom. Christlike humility, you know. You see. In the counter reformation the papacy could not rely on jesuits or any others to quell the tide of reform. So they tried to wow the illiterates with wonderful art from Bernini and others. Pissar architecture also.

Printing press and similar is not product of religion. It is science. SCIENCE do do do do science, science.

And the arabs gave us algebra and alcohol. So, I dont, but do you? You see John Ya never knows when faith based ideologies will metastisize, nor can you predict the exact nature of the disease. Ya just know its going to happen if it is given a chance.

Seen any suicide bombers or burning bushes lately, ha padre?

And I will tell you something else, that guy Hitler was wicked cool was his pooch. Why cant you just say something nice.

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on June 3, 2011 at 9:08pm

John,

I dont know what you speak of. But do you? I dont. Do you? I wont. But, will you? I dont, but do you?

Comment by John Camilli on June 3, 2011 at 6:55pm

Oh, and I forgot calendars. Those have done anybody any good. I don't even know what day it is.

Comment by John Camilli on June 3, 2011 at 6:54pm

Glen, all the things you point out about religion doing harm are valid. I'm just curious why you only see that side of the argument. You mention several of the benefits of religion and then dismiss them completely as if they cannot be used to argue that religion does anything good. Why not? Saying it didnt matter doesn't actually mean it hasn't mattered. I suppose you just don't want to have your mind changed about this issue, so I'm done trying. If you can't see anything but the side you're on, then you've got your dogma and you're sticking to it. I wouldn't try to take your religion from you, man.

Comment by John Camilli on June 3, 2011 at 6:48pm

As for the rennaisance, most of its notable contributors were funded by the church directly, or by members of various churches. But hey, nobody needed the rennaisance anyway.

Comment by John Camilli on June 3, 2011 at 6:44pm

Soooo.... the printing press has held us back, and the translation of the ancient works has held us back, and geometry, trigonometry and algebra have held us back. The libraries of Alexandria and Constantinople were not just useless but harmful. Euclid, Ptolemy and Archimedes were evil and their contributions have held us back. Astronomy (which started as astrology) has been useless. Chemistry (which started as alchemy) hasn't done any good. And religion has done anything useful for architecture, or art, or the spread of language. And the sponsorship of the voyages of Columbus, Vespuci and Vasco da Gama have been particularly useless to us. The conception of the placeholder zero hasn't done any good, nor has the invention of the telescope (not made by Galileo, but by Abu Ishaq ibn Jundub). The establishment of the first medical colleges and hospitals hasn't done anybody any good. Vaccinations, meh, who cares about those? And lets not forget to mention that the inception of the scientific method (pioneered by Islamic Arabs) has only held us back.

 

Is that what you're saying, Glen?

 

Some of histories most celebrated historians, cartographers, botanists, geologists, philosophers and linguists - theists, but fugetaboutit, right? Who needs em? Optics - useless. The pendulum - hurtful. Smallpox - we should bring that back. Right Glen? Tell me you're joking.

Comment by A3Kr0n on June 3, 2011 at 7:39am

I woke up this morning and my inbox was full! I'd better do something about that.

Joseph was talking about evolution, and teaching "both sides". I agree 100%, you don't have to teach "both sides" because there aren't two sides to this. Then I read huge posts of mind numbing something-or-other, and I feel like I'm at Joel's Christian blog. Weeeeee! I'd better clean out my inbox for the next barrage...

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on June 3, 2011 at 3:21am

Yes, without question religion always holds mankind back. It takes the worst of human nature, desire for power and control, fear and superstition, to hights otherwise unobtainable. It is without question the source and the sine qua non of human misery, incalculable and far reaching. Affairs of human civilization improve only to the degree that the power and influence of the religious institutions wane. I am focusing on western religion. Science, literature, medicine, philosophy in Europe came to a stand still for roughly nine centuries. Nine centuries. Creativity and reason stopped in its tracks. The church stole humanity and hid it in some subteranean dreamscape. The fact that Arabs and Jews were translating works of antiquity in Seville and Toledo, Spain, in the twelfth century which ultimately stimulated the renaissance does not advance your argument. It was a result of chance that an entirely ignorant and bankrupt christendom found a new path.

If you see no difference between the secular world and the religious world, how do you explain the middle east today and parts of christian Africa where child sacrifice is practiced by christians.

Yes the Catholic church and Islam dominate most of western civilization for centuries. Competing religious groups simply lack the power to do the damage that the major religions do. Cant you see that it is in the nature of the beast to aggrandize its power and to sacrifice any semblance of humanity. When an ideology is faith based the extent of its harm is limited only by the imagination of the inquisitor?

Religious and inquiry is a contradiction in terms. That is unless it is an inquiry to burn a witch (read lots of estimates about five hundred thousand)or torture some inncocent person. I would love to know what the catholic church produced beyond its exquite instruments of torture. I know there were some advances in art and music mostly inspired during renaissance. Medieval art and music is largely crap. When you look at religious art before the renaissance it is stilted. Architecture also advanced during the renaissance and perhaps counter-reformation. But all of this amounts to nothing. Those troglodytes lacked the germ theory, believed in trepanning and abiogenesis. Cough and your soul is escaping. Did you know that the catholic church opposed washing hands and any kind of antiseptic for delivering babies. A Jewish doctor, I think Semmelweiss, sp changed the practice. Untold thousands of women got sick and died because of their contemptible ignorance and bloodthirsy nature. The harm is endless. Where is my encyclopedia?

I disagre with other stuff but somnambulence is getting the better of me.

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