Results of Atheism

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There is no comparison between scientific peer review and the witch hunt your church undertook to silence those who questioned the established "understanding" of the universe from theology. Theological lines are utterly irrelevant. Who decides who is qualified to "cross" them, anyway?? Religious institutions may have been centers of learning at one time, but the knowledge they held is of questionable value, since theology is junk. That there are "theological lines" that should not be crossed is an exemplary example of the church's attempts to *stifle* learning and understanding

@ OP - it sounds like you're referring to the religion of leftism rather than atheism. Not everyone comes out that way.

I think it is actually much more descriptive of fundamentalist Christianity (or other religions) than anything politically "left"

Well right, you're talking strong religion - he's talking strong religion, just that he's confusing atheism with strong secular religion.

As a result of atheism, I have a firmer stool. It could be the fiber but I'll follow my christer friends and attribute it to philosphical choices.

Heh, if you get a real pine cone though and they're anywhere near the door they may start doubting your atheism.

New quote: 'There are no atheists in fantasy football'

Ok, I reread the post and realize you have a couple points that I agree with.

First of all, I am an atheist that does not want to do with religion, so just be careful not to overgeneralize.

If we are talking about "atheist societies," I don't know much about them (I don't pay much attention to history or politics). I will say I would not want to live in a society where atheism was deemed superior to all other religions. This would simply cause the same kind of oppression that we have now from religious groups. At least now it is fairly well balanced between religious and atheist people. What I worry about is if the atheists actually win and manage to make everyone like them... will they have an ounce of guilt?

I am not afraid to appear as a stupid troll. I oppress homophobia and sexism when I see it in religions, I just don't like to attack religion for the sport. These are my genuine thoughts. Let's just be careful not to stereotype. I love some atheists, hate some atheists. I love some religious people, and I hate some religious people. What matters is what lies beneath.

Okay, my spiel is over.

i dont really know any atheists that attack purely for sport, there is a meaning behind the madness, usually misguided, sometimes not.

Some people find that experience to be disheartening.



Seriously, and here i am without even guilt-ridden sex.

That would be the same Church whose clergy and institutions developed the 'hypothesis of the primeval atom' now known as the Big Bang Theory (see Georges Lemaitre) in the last century and also pioneered the science of genetics (see Gregor Mendel). The same institutions who have won a Templeton Prize and a Van Biesbroeck Prize in the last 6 years alone.

I suggest you check out people like the Catholic scientist Antoine Lavoisier; 'the father of modern chemistry', named both oxygen and hydrogen and developed the first extensive list of elements; discovered that sulfur was an element and helped develop the metric system: He was guillotined on trumped up charges by Jean-Paul Marat and Robespierre. The revolution of 'reason' killed more educators than Catholic Church ever did when it demolished the Christian network of education within France and guillotined or deported the teachers. Comparing the reign of terror to the Spanish Inquisition for example: the Inquisition killed between 3 and 5 thousand over a period of 40 years; each one wrong and each one a crime. The reign of terror killed 40,000 in around 12 months. The only conclusion that we can reach from this, is that there is enough intolerance to go around for everyone.

That should tell you that there was no "reason" involved in this stage of the revolution. Revolutions after centuries of oppression tend to be that way. Lavoisier was not executed because his discoveries threatened the control of the Jacobins; he was killed because of his long time antipathy with Marat. Marat wanted him killed. It was petty politics. To compare his unjust execution, or the reign of terror in general, to the actions of the church in stifling science, is erroneous. Additionally, though it is unfortunate that many priests, who were the only educators, for the mostpart, were executed or deported, this was ultimately a good thing. France's modern secular universal education system replaced the clergy controlled system that the Ancien Regime had in time, and also opened higher education to those who are not nobility.

The Church, in any case, cannot take credit for the actions of individuals a part of it who contributed to science. The fact that most clergymen were the only literate demographic with access to large libraries is more to credit than Jesus, I'm afraid.

Tell that to Ghandi... I think he missed that memo.



And what was the basis of his antipathy with Marat: it was because Lavoisier threw out all of Marat's junk science. Marat and his supporters described Jean le Rond d'Alembert (the developer of Fluid Mechanics), the Marquis de Condorcet (a mathematician and rationalist, who died under mysterious circumstances), Joseph Monier (a gardener who developed reinforced concrete), Gaspard Monge (inventor of descriptive geometry) and Lavoisier as charlatan scientists (Joe Jackson, A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen [Penguin, 2007], p. 268). The revolutionaries under Marat were very anti-intellectual. The fact of the matter is that Lavoisier would not have been killed if he had not been a Catholic or a Scientist.



What a truly, disgusting comment. Christian and secular education institutions existed side-by-side everywhere in Europe and in most places still do. Killing the Catholic intellectuals and the teachers was not necessary; as many like Gaspard Monge were secular scientists and the Royalist Academie drew from both. The revolution simply decided to attack one group and it was in no way for the better; nor does it even remotely justify the murder of innocent people. The outcome was a simple cut in the amount of science that was being conducted, because it was not ideologically pure enough for the revolutionaries. Also, FYI, before the revolution the only was a peasant could receive a higher education was in the Catholic Church.



Don't be ridiculous; who pays for their education; built the universities and provides them with their research money?



That was because during the Dark Ages, the only group of people that consistently valued an education beyond agriculture or war was the Church.

for anyone to postulate who valued what most would be arrogant, during the middle ages there were many parralel cultures with many parralel discoveries,
i think the core of the issue vigilans was getting at is that it wasnt faith nor theology that in itself brought science (or else the world would be a lot more advanced than it is)
it was the inquisitive thinking of the particular people, that these were priests might as well be because that is what gave them the access they needed, anything at this point in time is speculation.

I have no problem with this statement. Religion and science are not in my view mutually exclusive or natural combatants. Rather, I think people who believe that religion and science are incompatible, understand neither in any real sense.



I apologize, my statement was euro-centric, I don't apply the term dark-ages to a particular time period, rather to a specific geographic area and a time period: Mostly, those states which were formally the Western Roman Empire. In those states, education became a product of the Church. I did not really mean it to be a 'value' statement, I chose my language poorly.

While Gandhi is an admirable figure in many ways, achieving independence from the British Empire was just the beginning of a whole new set of problems for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka...



Marat considered himself intellectual as did many of these extreme Jacobin. His description of these scientists as charlatans is due to his rivalry with them because they refused to accept any of his work. I really don't see how this situation is in any way equatable with the Church killing important scientists because their discoveries disagreed with their theological jargon. These French intellectuals who were killed or forced to flee were not subjected to this because of their science, but because of the politics of the day, and the petty rivalries of one politician who counted himself a scientist and got his ego bruised by academia. The church killed or tortured scientists and other intellectuals over time because they considered these beliefs to threaten their control over peoples minds. The only thing these two situations have in common is scientists being murdered



I did not mean that it was good that anyone was killed. I meant that the revolution that displaced the disparate in nature and of questionable quality Catholic education system with a more universal and secular one was a positive thing. Most peasants did not receive much in the way of education from the Catholic Church nor were they encouraged to learn much anyways. The Church was a corrupt institution in many ways. Nobody should have been murdered in any case. I should have structured that sentence differently as I did not mean to imply that. Science was not the only thing to suffer under this regime though.



Their minds are what matters. The church happened to be the only institution available that would engage in these sort of practices until the advent of "Royal Societies" and other intellectual colleges and salons that gradually arose over the centuries. When there is only one major organization engaging in research for a long time, chances are... the results will be rather skewed in its favor?



They only valued the teachings of scripture. Hence the burning of much information by Christians. Thankfully the Muslims had been busy translating much of the work of the ancients into Arabic and were able to bear much of the torch of science for most of the Middle Ages

Marat was an intellectual in the same way that the answers in genesis people are biologists. The dispute between Marat and the intelligentsia of France has a very egalitarian tone about it. Marat disliked these people, personally but also hated the insitutions that supported them. Be it, the Royalist Academie or the Catholic Universities. The issue between them were not simply 'petty rivalries' that are incomparable to disputes within the Catholic system. The dispute was in part, ideological. The values that Marat professed allowed him to use the system to kill his enemies; that was the case in many of the reign of terror's injustices. But to stop the issue there would be premature.

The real issue was that Marat and others were able to kill renowned scientists and destroy profoundly important scientific institutions. Marat and his ilk fundamentally reshaped the educational system of the land he was in; reorganizing the system along specifically ideological lines. Other revolutions, like those in China and Russia acted similarly. While republican revolutions in England and the Americas did not. The difference was that while Oliver Cromwell favored republicanism, he did not see the need to destroy Oxford or the Church, they were not placed below his ideological persuasions, capability to destroy or ambitions: the same was true in America; where despite a secular constitution and revolution; Church schools flourished. In revolutionary France, where ideology was pushed to a far greater extend; egalitarianism and anti-clericalism were placed above reason and scientific development: So scientific institutions were destroyed. The problem Marat was able to tap into was the desire of the revolutionaries to have science: but only ideologically pure scientific institutions; that is, secular scientific institutions; and I think that is highly comparable to the situation Galileo found himself in: except that the Church did not kill Galileo but the revolution killed religious scientists.



Hardly, they were not mutually exclusive until the revolution's ideology made them that way. The proof is that in secular states like the USA, religious institutions still fund large amounts of research. In the UK it is the same, as it is in most places in Western Europe. As to the idea that secular education facilities are better; I would disagree. Most of the worlds top universities have direct religious affiliation or were founded as such.



That is a pretty big misrepresentation. The monastic system pretty much saved the documents of ancient history (from Roman Law, pre-Christian Irish history, Greek Philosophy et al) from destruction. The Catholic Church unfortunately did burn books, but focused almost exclusively on the burning of heterodox theological materiel.