Priest brought up Cosmos today during Mass.

[byco42]

If a priest is not directly addressing Heaven, Hell, Death, Judgement in his homily, then it is mere stand-up entertainment, and I tune out. But then, I don't attend a church with priests who approach a homily the way I approach a college public-speaking assignment. They proclaim the Gospel, not what's on TV.

 

[evolutionkb]

I watch Cosmos every week and I look forward to seeing what ass backwards logic AiG comes up with to justify their belief.

 

[Michchamp]

I finally watched the first episode of this show, and remembered this thread. At least, I thought I remembered Gulo_Blue and I having a more acrimonious debate over Giordano Bruno & the Catholic Church, but maybe that was in a different thread.

Anyway, I don't see what the fuss from some of the people criticising the inclusion of Giordano Bruno in the show, based on his standing as a mystic not a man of science, esp. since Neil DeGrasse Tyson specifically says Bruno wasn't a scientist, didn't collect evidence to back up his views, but was included to show the harm religious authorities did to the freedom of thought and expression & its effect on science.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I finally watched the first episode of this show, and remembered this thread. At least, I thought I remembered Gulo_Blue and I having a more acrimonious debate over Giordano Bruno & the Catholic Church, but maybe that was in a different thread.

Anyway, I don't see what the fuss from some of the people criticising the inclusion of Giordano Bruno in the show, based on his standing as a mystic not a man of science, esp. since Neil DeGrasse Tyson specifically says Bruno wasn't a scientist, didn't collect evidence to back up his views, but was included to show the harm religious authorities did to the freedom of thought and expression & its effect on science.

If I remember correctly, I was able to post links to criticism from sites you often post from. Seems like it was intellectually dishonest in a way similar to Colin Powell's presentation on Iraqi WMD: if you read the transcript, the it's not an actual lie, but if you ask people to summarize what they saw, many were misled. This narrative you love is BS. The Catholic Church was a tremendous force in the advancing of science.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Here it is, page one of this thread:

No, I mean the liberal blogs were dinging Cosmos, not the fundamentalists. No doubt they're also dinging fundamentalists somewhere, but I have a similar take on that as you: stop giving them so much airtime.

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/12/america_stupidly_stuck_between_religion_and_science/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...gles-the-history-of-religion-and-science.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godandthemachine/2014/03/dishonestcosmos/
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/giordano-bruno-cosmos-heretic-scientist

 

[Michchamp]

If I remember correctly, I was able to post links to criticism from sites you often post from. Seems like it was intellectually dishonest in a way similar to Colin Powell's presentation on Iraqi WMD: if you read the transcript, the it's not an actual lie, but if you ask people to summarize what they saw, many were misled. This narrative you love is BS. The Catholic Church was a tremendous force in the advancing of science.

Not intentionally so.

I do think that the idea that the Catholic Church was single-handedly hampering the work of science throughout its history is overblown by church haters these days. It's not like the Church regularly rounded up scientists, academics, and writers and burned them at the stake as a matter of policy.

While the Bruno & Galileo episodes were particularly bad, and undoubtedly had a chilling effect on the publishing of scientific thought that contradicted church dogma at the time & the Bruno episode shows how much literature and written works were at least discouraged, if not outright banned by the church (both of which situations you might be glossing over here), I think those cases were mainly a matter of personal power struggles between a couple of scientists that went out of their way to prick church authorities & the pope and those same church authorities.

but ON THE OTHER HAND, to the extent the Church played a part in advancing science, it was more or less incidental to their primary goal of raking in tithes & selling indulgences by the bucketload.

for much of its history, most of the literate population of Europe was clergy almost by default, so of course you'd expect them to be more involved with scientific development. The first universities weren't founded until 1000 - 1100 CE, and the Renaissance & widespread adoption of the scientific method was still 500-600 years away at that point.

so I don't think the Church deserves much credit for this, or to the extent it does, it's behavior in the 1500's - 1600's when it actively stifled scientific advancement cancels it out. it's a wash.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Not intentionally so.

I do think that the idea that the Catholic Church was single-handedly hampering the work of science throughout its history is overblown by church haters these days. It's not like the Church regularly rounded up scientists, academics, and writers and burned them at the stake as a matter of policy.

While the Bruno & Galileo episodes were particularly bad, and undoubtedly had a chilling effect on the publishing of scientific thought that contradicted church dogma at the time & the Bruno episode shows how much literature and written works were at least discouraged, if not outright banned by the church (both of which situations you might be glossing over here), I think those cases were mainly a matter of personal power struggles between a couple of scientists that went out of their way to prick church authorities & the pope and those same church authorities.

but ON THE OTHER HAND, to the extent the Church played a part in advancing science, it was more or less incidental to their primary goal of raking in tithes & selling indulgences by the bucketload.

for much of its history, most of the literate population of Europe was clergy almost by default, so of course you'd expect them to be more involved with scientific development. The first universities weren't founded until 1000 - 1100 CE, and the Renaissance & widespread adoption of the scientific method was still 500-600 years away at that point.

so I don't think the Church deserves much credit for this, or to the extent it does, it's behavior in the 1500's - 1600's when it actively stifled scientific advancement cancels it out. it's a wash.

That's just like, your opinion, man.

 

[Michchamp]

That's just like, your opinion, man.

Well of course it is. Who else's opinion would it be?

 

[Gulo Blue]

Well of course it is. Who else's opinion would it be?

The 'your' part isn't the significant part of what I labeled your statement. It's the 'opinion' part that matters.

...that's my opinion.

 

[Michchamp]

The 'your' part isn't the significant part of what I labeled your statement. It's the 'opinion' part that matters.

...that's my opinion.

Well that's that then.

 

[Michchamp]

Been watching the rest of this series.

It's gotten better; I'm impressed. I thought it would be a lot of what I already knew, but I've actually learned a lot.

It's great too how he focuses a lot of time on scientists who made huge contributions to their fields, but were ignored at the time, or even now, because they were outside formal academic disciplines (like Faraday), or were female.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Been watching the rest of this series.

It's gotten better; I'm impressed. I thought it would be a lot of what I already knew, but I've actually learned a lot.

It's great too how he focuses a lot of time on scientists who made huge contributions to their fields, but were ignored at the time, or even now, because they were outside formal academic disciplines (like Faraday), or were female.

Maybe I'll give it another shot then.