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LAGC

(5,330 posts)
Wed Nov 6, 2013, 11:48 PM Nov 2013

I Will Say One Thing About the Catholic Church...

They sure have harbored some incredible minds.

Many Catholics, both clerics and laypersons alike, have made significant contributions to the development of science and mathematics from the Middle Ages to today. These scientists include Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, Nicolas Copernicus, Louis Pasteur, Blaise Pascal, André-Marie Ampère, Gregor Mendel, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, Pierre de Fermat, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, Marin Mersenne, Alessandro Volta, Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Pierre Duhem, Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Roger Boscovich, Pierre Gassendi, and Georgius Agricola, to name a few.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_scientists

For an institution so steeped in tradition, superstition, and folklore, they sure did evolve (even before the Renaissance) to lay the very foundation for modern science itself.

We're covering Gregor Mendel right now in Biology, his insightful contributions to the study of genetics.

I can't help but to think, if it wasn't for the Church back in the day with all their monasteries allowing such "philosopher monks" to be able to focus all their free time on on matters of the mind instead of endless busy-body work, we would have never gotten out of the Dark Ages.

I'm not so sure that the Church is really all that necessary any more, in this era of free-flowing information and esteemed secular institutes of higher learning, but I will give them props for the role they played back in the day, laying down the building blocks of the explosion of human knowledge and scientific discovery over the past 500 years, especially over the past 200 years alone.

It gives me great hope for the future of humanity, that even from the most guarded halls of dogma and ritual that such forward-thinking perspectives could arise, and even thrive.

Maybe even Islam will eventually come around and change its ways. Come back to contributing to the greater human knowledge like it did in its early days, instead of trying to drag us back down to pre-civilized levels of endless sectarian violence and hate.

We can hope, right?
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AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
1. Did you cover Giordano Bruno in Physics yet? The church 'enlightened' him.
Thu Nov 7, 2013, 12:04 AM
Nov 2013

By tying wood around his head, hanging him upside down on a post, and lighting him on fire.

His crime? Openly professed there might be other planets in the universe.


Edit: What do you mean by this?

"Maybe even Islam will eventually come around and change its ways. Come back to contributing to the greater human knowledge like it did in its early days, instead of trying to drag us back down to pre-civilized levels of endless sectarian violence and hate."

Like what did? Like the Arab people, or Islam itself? They are distinct and separate things.

Covered at length herein:

LAGC

(5,330 posts)
2. Oh, don't get me wrong... the Church has certainly been a source of great evil as well.
Thu Nov 7, 2013, 12:21 AM
Nov 2013

Not just Bruno, but Gallileo and others, including several on that list.

I just find it amazing that such forward-looking thinkers (especially of the day) were ever able to arise out of such a stifling environment, able to bust out and break through the paradigm to "think outside of the box", as it were.

I'm not saying the few bright spots justify all the darkness, by any means.

It's just a miracle we ever made it out of the Dark Ages at all.

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
5. I tend to think of them as great humans that also happened to be catholics.
Thu Nov 7, 2013, 12:33 AM
Nov 2013

Or sometimes, at least in some cases, in spite of being catholics.

But yes, the church rightly claims an enormous number of discoveries in science and even philosophy, by people operating under their budget/scholarship/sponsorship.. I cannot quibble with that.

 

skepticscott

(13,029 posts)
11. Exactly...for most of the history of science in the Western world
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 08:52 AM
Nov 2013

it would have been virtually impossible to hold a decent job, get any kind of funding or patronage, or to have your findings taken seriously, (or in some cases, to even stay alive and out of prison), if you had been an atheist. For anyone who wanted to work in science, it was either be religious or else. So everyone played along.

Major Nikon

(36,814 posts)
12. There was no such thing as separation of church and state
Sat Nov 9, 2013, 09:54 AM
Nov 2013

And this was during a time in which the state(church) controlled every aspect of people's lives. While it may be fair to point out what the church accomplished, I tend to think of what would have been accomplished had there been no organized religion. I'm pretty sure we'd be a lot better off. Imagine if the transistor had been discovered 500 or 1,000 years previous to what it was. I'm not saying that would have happened, but it certainly could have. Organized religion is just one form of collectivism, and not a very good one at that.

trotsky

(49,533 posts)
3. A big reason for that is for a very long time, the only learning allowed was thru the church.
Thu Nov 7, 2013, 12:23 AM
Nov 2013
I can't help but to think, if it wasn't for the Church back in the day with all their monasteries allowing such "philosopher monks" to be able to focus all their free time on on matters of the mind instead of endless busy-body work, we would have never gotten out of the Dark Ages.

What if instead the church had worked on providing education for all instead of reinforcing and promoting the status quo - work hard, peasants, we'll be the literate ones who read and interpret the bible for you. Coincidentally, it says you should keep working hard!
 

mr blur

(7,753 posts)
7. Similar reason as to why so many great works of art have religious themes -
Thu Nov 7, 2013, 01:28 PM
Nov 2013

The church was the only organisation with the money to pay for them.

Warpy

(110,907 posts)
4. Islam already had one Golden Age
Thu Nov 7, 2013, 12:28 AM
Nov 2013

when they developed algebra, advanced medicine, invented amenities like indoor plumbing, and were generally far advanced over even the philosopher monks. Most importantly, they were the ones who preserved the writings of the Greeks and Romans, discovered anew by the Church as a result of the Crusades.

Coincidentally, Islam was also the faith with the most freedom for women, who could inherit and control their own property among other things, things their Christian sisters could only dream about for nearly a thousand years.

Then they had their own Dark Ages, women pushed into Purdah and forbidden education or autonomy, forbidden even to leave their homes without a male escort. Their clergy decided that anything worth writing had already been written and turned inward and backward, instead of building on the glory of their own Golden Age. All the tribal stuff that Mohammad thought he'd done away with crept back in and is now codified as Islamic law, even though it appears nowhere in the Quran.

So they not only have the same capacity to advance, they once were one of the most advanced cultures on the planet.

dimbear

(6,271 posts)
6. It's hard not to have some hits when you're such a big chunk of the human race. Compare
Thu Nov 7, 2013, 03:07 AM
Nov 2013

the achievements of Jewish scientists over the same period, with relatively trifling small population numbers in comparison. Naturally it's impossible to judge how many of these folks were actually skeptics through and through, since that was more or less fatal back then.
Still trying to understand exactly what the Torah and particle physics have in common. Is it possible that science is to religion as chemistry is to alchemy or astronomy to astrology? Is it like watching a detective show on TV, which goes wrong explanation, wrong explanation...............right explanation?

Don't know, still curious.

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
8. My opinion of Gregor Mendel's work
Thu Nov 7, 2013, 07:22 PM
Nov 2013

is that it did not, in any way, challenge the church. So he was allowed to tinker with his peas. An interesting little obsession.

He did not challenge God or human's place in the universe. He grew peas. And he was very meticulous about record keeping. No challenge to the church. I am not taking anything away from him or his research, as well as the conclusions that he came up with.

There is also the problem with the education of most of the population during the times you are talking about. Could it be that the Catholics were doing so much in the scientific arena because the church was one of the few places where well educated and literate people were congregated?

Since the Catholic church did so much damage to scientific advancement at the same time it was making a few advances says a lot too. I guess it was only science that did not go against it's dogma that was allowed.

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